The computer conference, "Postcolonial," will add a rich discussion forum to our course.
To use this conference you need to have your WMU computer account username and password. Enter the confer name as "postcolonial." On your first visit to the confer you must "join" as a "participant." Afterwards you will find it easy to access all items by using the "Describe Items" button--it will remember which items and responses you have read..
Confer entries should be thoughtful and respond to the ideas of other students. Reading student entries is as important as entering your own responses. You can make any web page an automatic hyperlink to the confer by typing in the web address preceeded by "http://". When you want to respond to an item, you can do so by hitting "respond" at the bottom of the item. "Creating a New Item" should be reserved for starting a new discussion on a new topic.
The confer can be accessed at http://vms.cc.wmich.edu/www/confer.
It is important to start early with the confer, in the first weeks of the course, and keep up with it. Use professional manners, while being informal at the same time. Don't "flame" other people's responses -- it is often a good idea to reread an entire item before reacting too quickly to an upsetting comment from another student.
The confer measures the number of characters entered, to check your confer
usage use command "Participant Response Statistics." All students
who have entered 30,000 characters in thoughtful and interactive responses will
receive an "A" for their confer portion of their participation grade.
(This is approx. 2000 characters per week, or an average of 30 minutes/week
reading and writing--focus text assignments are turned in on the confer and
count toward your total characters.)
Created by: careywebb@wmich.edu
Revised Date: 1/02