Instructional Fun

by ComputerBob

February 14, 2002

I've been told that, every once in awhile a student, faculty member, or other visitor to this Web site misunderstands its purpose and wonders if:

I created this Web site to sell things
I created this Web site just for fun
I created this Web site to promote myself

The fact of the matter is, I'm not selling anything at all. On the contrary, I have happily spent thousands of hours of my own time, and hundreds of dollars of my own money, creating, updating, and maintaining this Web site, without ever receiving any financial, technical, or other support for it from any of the colleges where I've taught or from any other sources. I've done all of that for one main purpose:

TO TEACH PEOPLE ABOUT COMPUTERS

Why? Because I love using computers, and because I love teaching people and making a difference in their lives. I get a kick out of "seeing the little lightbulb go on over people's heads" when I explain complicated concepts to them in language that they can understand. I call that "Making Geek-Speak Chic," and that's why that phrase appears in the ComputerBob logo at the top of each of my Web pages. The time and effort that I've spent creating and then using this Web site in all of my courses has honed my thinking, writing, teaching, and computer skills, while making me much more accessible to my students, both logistically and psychologically.

One thing I've learned, both through my own years as a student, and from my corporate training and college teaching experiences, is that students learn more when they're involved, interested, and (yes!) entertained.

To that end, I've included many different fun "hooks" in this Web site to make it more "sticky" and interesting. The more "sticky" it is, the more students will want to return to it to participate in its forums, support each other in their learning experiences, and build a sense of community. As I write this, that sense of community includes all of my new students while still including students whom I haven't seen in years and people from all over the world who have never met me or taken any of my courses. Yes, it's true -- strangers from all over the world and former students whom I haven't seen in months or years still visit ComputerBob.com and leave messages in ComputerBob's Forums that interact with my current students. On Christmas Day, 2001, I switched my Web site to use new, more powerful forum software, and in the past 2 months, over 50 people have already registered for my new forums and have posted over 225 messages in them -- in the nearly 3 years prior to that, more than 500 people registered for my old forum and posted over 2,500 messages in it. As of this writing, ComputerBob.com has had over 56,000 visitors from all over the world. (See the counter at the bottom of the ComputerBob.com home page for the current visitor count.)

Of course, all of my course syllabi, assignments, schedules, policies, review questions, required readings, etc. are on my Web site. In addition, I've also spent a lot of time testing over 200 pieces of software, finding links to other valuable Web sites, writing articles that answer many of the questions that students have asked me about computers, and answering computer questions in thousands of email messages from students, former students, other faculty members, and other computer users from all over the world. On top of that, anyone who visits my Web site can read a funny or thought-provoking quote that changes every time they reload my home page, see the titles of the newest messages in ComputerBob's Forums, read the latest Internet news, updated automatically every 15 minutes, look at funny photographs that my brother-in-law created, send free email greeting cards to their friends, and much more. What do any of my site's fun things and free services have to do with teaching people about computers? Simple -- they teach (often computer-phobic) students the important lesson that computers are simply tools that can be used for work or for fun -- they're nothing to be afraid of.

Why did I bother to find, install and configure forum software on my Web site? Because I want my students and other visitors to know that I care about what they think, so I ask them what they think and I give them opportunities to share their feelings with me and with each other, as well as to ask me for help and to help each other.

So, when you see all of the fun stuff at ComputerBob.com, don't forget that I have real pedagogical reasons for including all of that fun stuff on an instructional Web site.

Why is this whole Web site named "ComputerBob.com?" Is it because I have a huge ego? I hope not. The main reason was because, when I first created this Web site, I thought that the name, "ComputerBob.com" would be a lot easier for students to remember than the www.xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx/computerbob Web address it would have had if I had stored it on my first college's servers. Within a few months, the name had stuck, and since then, nearly everyone knows me as ComputerBob.

Why does my "CB" logo appear on every page of my Web site? Is it some sort of ego trip? Of course not. It's there because it helps maintain the visual theme that ties my whole site together (a branding issue).

So the bottom line is, ComputerBob.com is supposed to be fun. But don't forget -- it's instructional fun.