Groan ... Gave my first in-class CBT today for 200 students over 5 rooms. Organisational headache, plagued by slow system responses & I definitely need more helpers -- when a problem arises in a room (a) they need to look for me and (b) I need to be able to leave my room to help! Overall we had 2 system errors leading to failed submission, 6 failed logins doing their test on paper and a dozen students showing-up at the last minute claiming they didn't know their allocated time slot and these had to be squeezed-in at the end. This amounts (in my reckoning) to a technological success! Then (afterwards) I discover that I have accidentally flipped a true/false answer so have to manualy correct the tests :-( Now that's a costly error!

See the first post on my "Stupid questions not to ask a lecturer!" blog: As it turns out the Chair of the Faculty's committee responsible for student progression will allow a failing 1^st year student to take 9 modules instead of the normal 8 in their second year to "catch up" with the failed module ... does anyone else think this is suspect? Certainly it's the thin end of the wedge when we come to assessing student progression next year.

Daylight Saving Time

Now I need never forget again! (This year we had a party on Saturday and hang-overs were not improved by getting up an hour earlier than necessary!)

Professional discourtesy

Telling students that a couple of colleagues who are loosely involved in a module will be marking their assignments without even asking said colleagues first! The first I found out was when I noticed my name on the assignment sheet as being down to mark (I guess) 1/3 of a 300-student module's computing assignment :-(

Yurg ... excellent Chris Brasher Memorial Lecture today on "Is Science Dangerous" (Prof Lewis Wolpert CBE) -- good value for money! Unfortunately due to the usual "unjoined-up thinking" in my Faculty it clashed heinously with "my" seminar (the School's seminars are arranged by me) even though mine was booked first (the CB arranger is notoriously egocentric). So my invited speaker sat through the CB (turns out they knew each-other) and then gave his talk to a much reduced audience (bummer ... all lectured-out!) My Faculty needs better internal communication!

<groan> Started tonight's lecture with an argument with a student who was not even supposed to be in the class (transpired he was waiting for a lift from a friend who is supposed to be there) ... I chose (in my usual fashion) not to be aggressive & persuaded him to wait for his friend outside. Is that too "non-confrontational"? I don't think so. At least one member of the class [1/180!] agreed & she's an ex-schoolteacher. Are we moving ever-towards the "school teacher" mode and away from being lecturers, pure'n'simple? (It's the new mode of promoting/facilitating learning as opposed to simply teaching.)

Woo hoo! The School got its first MSc by Research student through today <GRIN> ... shame his supervisor left us for pastures greener (Reading University) it's great to know there is research/supervision that can be done in an ex-Poly "New University" -- well done Andy & Mike (and thanks to Steve, the External Examiner!)

Hmmm ... suspiciously from the back of the class last night a laser pointer was being misused in the class ... is it a sign of weakness to persuade the offender to stop using it rather than attempting to confiscate it? Definitely a judgement-call!

Last night a student in my class duped me briefly by pretending to work for a security firm investigating email porn ;-} Moral: Don't take everything they say at face value ... methinks that's the lesson I'm learning the most slowly! (Naïve?)

Woohoo! My feed is back <grin> ... http://king-maths.kingston.ac.uk/seminars/rss.php

Doom, gloom -- I'm lacking inspiration today! I've read three journal papers and accidentally seem to have deleted a PHP file that took 3 hours to create on Friday [setting-up an RSS feed from the programme of seminars I manage] Definitely an Eeyore-moment :-(

Bloody hell! Why do we have prerequisites for modules if course directors don't insist on applying them? My 2^nd/3^rd year "Web Technologies" module (glorified title for "Dynamic HTML and a brief XML introduction") requires 1^st year HTML (Obv: You need to know HTML as a basis for many web technologies!) Yet I have a dozen students who have no HTML prior knowledge for whom (poor suckers!) I have to arrange extra tuition for them to have a hope of getting anything out of the module :-(

Note I'm not complaining about the other dozen who have expressed an interest in extra HTML because they've "forgotten" it in the 6-18 months since finishing the module -- AFAIC you revise your prerequisite modules before embarking on new and interesting stuff that builds on prior modules. If you can't be bothered to do-so then so much the worse for you...

This Higher Education thing should involve effort on both sides of the lectern -- I put in the effort to "teach", students should put in the effort to "learn". If I don't do my job then fine! Complain -- you've every right to. If students don't do their job, to whom can we complain? No-one! Bring-on "learning contracts" and student accountability, I say!

Some never-to-be-sufficiently cursed, expletive-deleted student stole my laser pointer during my first lecture! Moral: When dishing-out course documents don't leave anything lying around that's small enough to stick in a pocket! (I'd probably have noticed if they nicked my textbook...)

Fri Oct 10: Lo! and Behold! Don't judge all students by the scummy minority!! A generous student has replaced my pointer (his dad apparently gets loads of freebies from company rep's...)