Hybrid Courses at UW and LIS 201

With the LIS course terms so fresh in mind after the exam, I think this is the perfect time to reflect upon my experience in the "hybrid" course that was both online and offline, its comparison to another hybrid course I have taken, future ICT use at UW, and finally the substantive material taught in this course, as well.

General Business 303 is a statistics course that UW offers in a hybrid fashion. It consists of online lectures and in-person discussions. I took this course last fall and it turned out to be my worst class experience in college: the worst grade I received and the least I have learned. In terms of ICT's, the professor claimed to be able to monitor lecture attendance online and threatened a .5 point grade decrease for lectures watched late. To this day I cannot confirm the validity of this threat, but I can say that I watched several lectures late. I strongly prefer the hybrid LIS course experience as the lectures were in-person and the online experience was encompassed in blogging and course material.

In terms of my learning, I find the offline portion of LIS to still champion the online. My favorite part of the course was Wednesday afternoons when we came together for discussion. I found it to be most fun and most helpful for brainstorming interpretations of the readings.

When I consider all I have learned about ICT systems, I believe UW should strive to maintain as much offline coursework and in-person discussion in its curriculum. I find online courses to water down both my participation and what I have learned. I believe the prestige of UW-Madison degree relies on the success of its students in the workforce and the offline discussion to be most helpful for me in my experience as an intern.

Having said that, the material that LIS 201 covered pertaining to ICT systems was, in my opinion, tremendously insightful. I found it a mix between a history class of the frameworks followed by modern day application within the information society. I imagine the content we learned this semester will be taught in future history classes. For this reason, I almost feel like I grasp a better understanding of today's society than many of my peers. I would recommend this class to a friend (and already have).