Our class is under way

As of yesterday our class is under way! I realize that this is the first online course many of you have taken, and I expect a certain amount of confusion and anxiety. I will try to address a few issues I have heard about here.

It appears some of you received the wrong edition of our textbook, and have the first edition rather than the second edition of the Longman Anthology of British Literature, Compact Edition, Volume B. If you can return the first edition, I encourage you to do so and get the second edition. The page numbers are different, and there are some different authors and selections. It will certainly be easier to follow the passages I read in the podcasts if you have the correct edition. On the other hand, if you cannot return the version you bought I think you can probably make do, and I would hate to put you out for the money you paid for the textbook.

I have now received addresses form about half of you for your blogs, and I have been adding them to the class blog page on our website. If you have not set up your blog and emailed me your URL, please do so as soon as possible. I encourage you to visit some of the blogs of your classmates. I also encourage you to do what some of your classmates and I have already done, and put a picture of yourself on your blogsite (unless you feel uncomfortable doing so). I think it important in an online course to do what we can to establish the sorts of human contact and interaction taken for granted in a face to face course. With enough pictures we can get an approximation of a class, rather than a group of isolated individuals sitting at different times in front of computer screens and keyboards.

I also would like you to listen to the first podcast for the course. Note that I recorded this introduction to the course and to myself last year. While the information on the course will tend to correct, the personal information for me and my family is a year out of date. You can either subscribe to the podcasts via the Apple iTunes Store, or download them from our website.