Dear Randy,
I’m glad you are enjoying the course so far. As we say in our field, museums are not just for dinosaurs!
Some of the problems you mention are part and parcel of a distance learning experience with class colleagues in distant time zones. That being said, you’re right and I will try to make the course more flexible to meet people’s time constraints by making our guest lectures available asynchronously after they have been held live, along with the text of questions and answers that come up during these lectures. As for meeting with your colleagues in groups, I would encourage New Zealanders to make their own groups, and our South African and Finnish students to work together in another group since they are in the same time zone, unless one’s schedule is such that they would rather work at say, 7 AM than 7 PM (since N.Z. is 11 to 12 hours behind S.A. and Finland), in which case you might want to join a group from the opposite time zone. This should make it easier to meet synchronously with group members.
Lastly, because I’ve had several similar queries from other students, I hope you won’t mind me copying and pasting this response to the Q & A discussion board so others can see it? I would prefer that all such queries be posted there from now on, unless you would rather keep it private, in which case you can email me at trinh@uuu.edu. If you would rather meet in real time, please do email me and we can make an appointment via Skype or Google Hangouts. If you see a question from your peers that you can answer on the Q & A discussion board, please do so.
Thank you for your patience as we work out some of the inconsistencies in the course.
Sincerely,
Trinh