Argh! More morons: 1st year Java assignment deadline 2 weeks away (worth 45%) and still people have either not started (indicated by them asking questions on our discussion boards like "What do I need to know to do the assignment?") or cannot comprehend how to go about logically constructing a program (questions like "The substring method returns 2 parameters [wrong!] how do I use it?" -- RTFT), despite the assignment having step-by-step instructions in words of 2 syllables or less.

Ah well, at least we can fail them and force them to retake the module ... Whoops! I forgot, Government targets and QAA reviews mean we can't fail them .. it's not their fault they can't program, it's our fault (even if they have a poorer attendance record than Lord Lucan, don't complete assignments and refuse to work through the course exercises!)

For a brief laugh, why not try typing 'French Military Victories' into Google and then selecting the "I'm Feeling Lucky" button <grin>

"Educational Technology Unit" EMWIDL -- people responsible for the use (and misuse) of educational technology, such as a Virtual Learning Environment which has an online surveying/testing capability. So why, when these people want to survey students do they revert to good old-fashioned paper-based forms?!

It's Easter vacation, final year students are writing-up their dissertations (1/4 of a year's work) which are due in 2 weeks! You might think it would already be done, but that would be lacking the proper level of cynicism: Time-management is not learned, it is absorbed by a painful process of failure, resolve, failure, renewal of faith, failure, despair, failure, resignation leading to more realistic expectations, success, foolish development of optimism followed soon by yet another failure, and so-on...