Technology Issues

Well, I am starting to feel some frustration with technology. I found the time to sit down and work on my assignments today, but I can't get into Moodle. It won't load from the Mariemont page. This experience taught me a lesson, though. As I continue to assign more activities online, my students have more and more issues accessing websites, remembering passwords, etc. I feel their pain today. I am proud of myself, though, because I realized that I could still access the list of blogs by logging into Google Docs. So, here I am. I won't be able to check out the Scriblink and Etherpad assignment (which is what I planned to do), but I will be able to spend some time checking out other blogs. Anyhow, this experience raises some questions. How can we hold students responsible for completing online assignments when problems may be beyond their control? Is this fair to students without Internet access? What is the best way for students to keep track of all of their passwords? This last point has been particularly frustrating for me lately. I asked my students to create a Voki (speaking avatar) and post it to my wiki space. This required two separate passwords, which I do not have access to, for each student. I spent three bells troubleshooting on Wednesday, which doesn't seem like an effective use of classroom time. I want to use technology, but half of the students couldn't complete this assignment. I am off to see if I can access Moodle.