LinguaForum Language hagwon has a website. It's trying to create internet-based curriculum support, including a means for providing teachers an ability to assign web-based homework and evaluation tools that students can use. This is an admirable goal – but jeez, are they falling short.
They want me to use the web-based tool to assign writing assignments to my "comprehensive" classes. I had been under the impression that there was some web-based pre-built curriculum-compatible questions, but in actuality what I was given was a blank form where I had to fill in what the assignment was, give it a title, explain it, etc. I was reduced to a time-consuming effort to copy an assignment onto the website from the paper materials I already had.
Further, I was then unable to edit or delete mistakes. How is this any kind of improvement over a piece of paper from a photocopy machine? Further, the LFA (RingGuAPoReom EoHagWon) website uses technology that is apparently quite fragile – the site crashes when I try to access it using either Firefox or IE 7.0 under Vista – it only works when I log on using IE 6 under XP.
So, argh.
It was snowing beautifully this morning, but by this afternoon it was blustery but above freezing and the air was damp, and the sky was gorgeous, full of scudding clouds. I had a flashback to an October morning in Hornopirén, Chile, and Spring snowstorm-turning-to-rain. Same hint of woodsmoke in the air, but the setting there was ends-of-the-earth, and here in Ilsan, it feels closer to the center-of-the-world, with high rises all around and taxis and buses bustling by on broad boulevards.