My Thoughts on Course Connect

Well with how excited I was to hear about this app goes to show how much would help students.  I think the app Course Connect would be largely beneficial to the Christian Brothers University community.  Having an app that would allow quick and easy access to grades and syllabi would improve the quality of a student’s life tremendously. 

I recall having many problems last semester where the teacher would not announce assignments in class and they would not be on the syllabus.  The teacher posted them to a website and assumed we would check it religiously.  Well, as a first semester freshmen student, I had so much going on that the thought to check it did not always cross my mind.  This same problem occurred with several of my classmates as well.  This led to problems of missing assignments, which led to my lesser understanding of the material, and a lower grade in the class.  If the teacher could post them an app where students have quicker access, and could receive notifications about it then students could perform better in that class.  Aside from that it would help students to keep track of assignments and allow them to plan their schedules more appropriately to not fall behind in classes. 

I know that some teachers do not avidly keep up with grades so this may not help students who have classes with those teachers.  But if a student were to have a central point to check their grades, other than flipping through pages in Moodle, they could be more moved to either improve their grades or keep them where they are.  Otherwise in some cases students are in limbo and have no idea where they stand in the class.  This can be very frustrating to students to students.  However, even though this app will help with seeing the grades for the classes with teachers that post them, it will not fix the problem of the teachers who do not post them. 

Over all I think this app would help students greatly.  The idea is well thought out and directly improves the lives of students.  While they did have some issues with where the funding would come from, the discussion in class helped guide where it could come from, saying CBU would most likely pay for such an app.  I would be excited to see something like this actually created, and I hope that one day it may be real.