It’s the end of the day on Monday, and I am starting this up. It’s been a busy day of grading my 230 course in Canvas and communicating with students. I also have been working with Ronda and Tisha to get the undergrad courses set.
We had lunch and talked about MLK Day. It’s cool that there was a viewing of his speech when here at PSU 50 years ago. I didn’t get to go but here is the script from the speech: http://news.psu.edu/story/142989/2013/01/21/martin-luther-king-jr-rec-hall-jan-21-1965.
The continuation on work with assessments is going on. We have been working on 210 b/c of an error by the publisher with regard to questions in the ANGEL bank of questions. Yesterday, there was an error with an assessment in 402CC. Both of these errors were outside of ANGEL. But the process of fixing the errors is so difficult in ANGEL. It involves knowing the system well and takes so many clicks. I’m hoping that we can move from this LMS soon and have something that works better.
I planned to work at home on Wednesday in the morning only, but some snow made me think that it was better to work from home all day. I was able to get to quite a few things today. First, I’ve been able to keep pace with prepping for my live online session. I also had the chance to work on 140. It has been good to work with Steve Haynes to put the course together.
Moving to the world of sports, there has been alot said the past few days about the Patriots in the NFL and the fact that they played with deflated balls. It’s amazing to me that this type of thing has been allowed by a league that is quickly showing a lack of integrity. It’s becoming a joke that they could be called a dynasty. This playoffs has been so bad. First, there was the terrible officiating that led to Dallas making the 2nd round of the playoffs. Next, we have the deflated balls by the Patriots that may have lead to them to make the Super Bowl. As a youth coach and parent, I’m scared at how easily this league is manipulated by money. You can make an argument that the Super Bowl could have been Detroit v. Baltimore. Is Big Data running the show? Are those in power in the league looking at what match ups are going to maximize return? It may seem outlandish or too far on the side of conspiracy theory, but I’m not so sure. Either way, there will be an asterisk behind the champion this year since the league has not allowed the players to determine the winner.
It’s Thursday, and I’m moving along. We had a nice discussion among the undergrad IST team about how to move forward with IST 140. I’m liking the developing team dynamic.
I sent a student project along to Chris and Anil to put together a digital graphic for John Bagby regarding Big Data.
It’s Friday, and I won’t be in the office until Feb 2. I’m looking forward to a long vacation with my family. I’m planning to come back refreshed and ready to go.