College ain't what it used to be

As some of you may have heard, some poor, misguided souls have put me in charge of a classroom. So now I'm what passes for an adjunct professor around here.
Yeah, it's that bad.

I'd thought that, since I'd been away from campus for so long, I would be amazed at the utility of teaching technology. Well, I am. But not in a good way.

Between the grading unit crashing and the entire data system needing to be purged once a day, I had no choice but to give up on (AU's implementation of) the Blackboard™ classroom management system.

Among the suite of tools I'm using to replace BB is Google Groups. When I explained to the class that I wanted to have the ability to instantly email them announcements and so on, one student actually protested that her inbox was too full already.

She had a point, and this hints at a larger problem, the real reason for tonight's post. You see, I'm also a Inbox Abuser. But I am now recovering, with a little help from my friends.

For my money, no one frames the evils of Inbox Abuse better than Merlin Mann. Here you go, video junkies: