I just logged in to my 'course page'. This is a web-page that is supposed to allow a class to communicate with the professor so well that we can all keep at least a 3.5 GPA, or else. This is a page at pretty nice state university, one that has a beautiful stadium and a rec center that will knock your socks off. But the course page is about one step down from a listserv.
Thanks to my experience on E2, I am the only one in the course, including the professor, who knows how to add fancy things like paragraph breaks into our posts. To view a post, you click on the thread, and then click on the title of the specific post. You cannot see a whole discussion at once, even if it's just two posts. Viewing a reply to the original post does not show you the original post. Would could all sign up for free Gmail accounts and have a better 'bulletin board'.
And the worst part is, the professor is impressed with the level of technology being used in this Internet based course.
Okay, don't panic, it's not a computer science course or anything ironic like that. It's one of those humanity courses. (Oh, the humanity!) But this isn't something the professor thought up himself. This is a page recommended for internet classes by the university. They would never suggest that their football team could practice in a vacant lot, but academic students are welcome to slum it in the eighties. (Hey, it was the golden age of the internet. Things just went downhill from there.)
I will stop now, because you've heard these complaints before. I bet you've written a few yourself. And my children will be writing them too. But today it's my turn to say it.
Information is more important than sports! Fund me for once, you morons!