More Forum Tweaking
I spent time today tweaking the settings on the new Discourse install for my teaching. It’s great software, obviously designed by UI experts, rather than engineers. Or engineers who also happen to be UI experts. It’s a far cry from the ghost-town forum on D2L, as if I even need to say that. Unlike D2L—seemingly designed by several groups of engineers who don’t talk to one another—Discourse is a joy to use. And really, isn’t that a good way to judge software: is it painful, or elegant? Do I dread logging in, or do I look forward to it? I choose the latter every time.
I guess the most consequential change I made was making the forum itself public, but keeping categories for student classwork private. I assigned individual groups to each category, WritDM and World Lit, so only members can read, post, and see other members of their cohort. This allows me to post some general content without worrying about student privacy. I updated all of the About pages, including the FAQ, and added a post about best writing practices.
I also worked on this site a bit, consolidating different posts on similar topics, and archiving some. I’m still composing the syllabus for NMAC 5108, and wrote the forum-journal requirement. I have more to do, of course, but I am making progress.