Aire Foxy Fun Time

Ah yes, the Blackboard overlords have struck again adding yet another reason to my list of hating this course management system.

In v9.1, BB has eliminated the dropbox, helpfully suggesting that if you want to exchange files with students, use the "assignment manager."

Only, did anyone think that not every file exchange involves an assignment?

Dropbox, for instance, was perfect for sending a large audio editing review file privately to a student that was too large for email and then deleting it. Since the original story was not a traditional "assignment," it would be cumbersome at best to do it that way.

(For instance, the "assignment" here involves multiple versions of multiple items that are part of a story package - much better done through a server. The problem with returning the audio review file back through the server is the lack of FERPA privacy.)

And if a student needed to quick send me a large file back privately, it was easy enough to run it through Dropbox and then delete it.

(Yes, I can probably set up something through one of the online exchange services; it's just one more site and one more password and one more thing to complicate matters when this was a perfectly elegant solution, elegant being a word you don't hear associated much with BB.)

So instead of improving Dropbox with things like batch download and batch delete - after all, that would be soooooo 2005 - BB just does away with it.

Nice going. Let's see if we can find more to expand the list.