A hearty welcome to all who have signed up for Geog 101, World Regional Geography, in this, the Second Summer session of 2011. I hope that you will find the course enjoyable, informative, and useful, and that by the end of the course you will feel that you know a little more about the world and about the fascinating discipline of geography.
A word about this website. This is the place where you should be able to find out just about everything you need to know about the administrative and logistical aspects of the course. There are eleven parts to the site, all listed below the photograph at the top of this page. I highly recommend that you look through each of these sections as soon as possible to familiarize yourself with both this site and also the way the course is organized.
Although all sections of this site are important, I want to draw your attention to several in particular. The first is the Course Calendar. Click on the calendar link above, and you will be taken to a Google Calendar listing all class periods for the semester. Click on any day’s class, and a pop-up box will open, listing the readings that you need to complete in preparation for that day’s class. (Click on the “Details” link the the box and you will see a more legible version of this information.) Please be sure to complete all required readings before class (and that includes our first meeting on Monday June 20.) Note also that one of the main reasons for having the readings on a website rather than a printed syllabus is that I can (and will) change them as the course progresses (for example, if I come across a news story related to a region we are discussing in class, I may well add it to the reading list.) So please check the Course Calendar regularly.
Another particularly important components of the site deal with quizzes and assignments. Please be sure to read over them carefully at the beginning of the course, so that you don’t encounter any surprises later.
There is one other very important online component of the course that is not on this site, and that is the Blackboard site. We will make use of it mainly for online assignments (you will complete eight of these,) and I will also use Blackboard to record your grades. Please check your grades regularly to make sure that they have been entered correctly.
A Special Word about the Summer Session
Summer session classes are tough. Each day’s class is roughly the equivalent of a week’s worth of classes during the regular semester. This means that you will have to budget at least 2-3 hours per day to keep with the readings and assignments in this course (and most other summer courses.) It also means that if you fall behind in your work, even by a day, you will find it very difficult indeed to catch up.
To make it easier for you to plan your schedule, I have posted the dates of all map quizzes assignments, and readings on the Course Calendar. I strongly encourage you to look over the details of the calendar before the course starts so that you have an idea what you will need to do, and plan accordingly.
Finally, I encourage you to make use of the contact information listed on this site to ask questions and raise any issues related to the course. I hope that you will always feel free to ask questions in class, but I also encourage you to post questions or issues for discussion on this site (This page of the site serves primarily as a blog; I will post information and ideas here, and I hope you will do the same.)
If you prefer to contact me personally or privately, you may do so by stopping by my office during my office hours, or by sending me an e-mail. Please bear in mind that I get a lot of email. So always be sure to include a subject in the subject line of the e-mail, and also your course number (Geog 101)
I look forward to exploring the world with you over the next few weeks!
Best,
Donald N. Rallis
June 3, 2011
Recent interesting stuff