I’m starting this up early so that I can get a quicker start on this for next week. I’m hoping that this allows me to spend more time reflecting.

I spent alot of time on Monday getting back into the revision game. There is alot of juggling going on, and I’m a bit wary of all that is up in the air.

IST 220 is concerning me. There isn’t a faculty champion, and there always seems to be a problem that no one is willing to take responsibility for. I’m wondering if we need to give up on labs in the class if this trend continues.  It’s Tuesday, and I got another reminder of how this course is running without a leader. I’m seriously considering how we can do this course without labs.

It was a rough day today. Micah is sick, so I came in late (half day). But the most difficult thing is that I’m working with instructors who refuse to take ownership over their work. It’s easier to rely on others than to actually take responsibility. I’m not going to take responsibility for others anymore.

I’m hoping for a better day tomorrow.

It’s Wednesday, and I’m working through all the things that seemed to be a problem yesterday. We may be to a solution point in 220, but I’m going to communicate out to everyone teaching in Spring ’15 and will see the result.

I had a chance to go the Penn State forum today. I would call it more of a motivational speech. Susan Russell talked about dignity. I think what she is doing and saying is important. We need to connect. It is easy for humans to separate by nature. Mobile devices are only promoting this separation. One point that she made regarded looking people in the eye. I did a test when I came back on campus. I encountered 11 people. Three looked me in the eye. Of those three, two of them looked down immediately after noticing that I was looking at them. I was also thinking about cultural differences.

All in all, it was a good day with some resolution. I’m hoping that tomorrow the momentum keeps moving forward.

Thursday started off with items from EA. I worked with Shawn Clark in the AM on Blackboard Collaborate. It was a bit disappointing to him that pdf’s, word docs, and excel couldn’t be placed on the whiteboard. It is possible to share the file which is like Adobe Connect. The bottom line is that we can share screens if necessary.

The other issue was that there was a reading that was missing from a course, but simply adding the reading to the course caused a copyright violation. Luckily, I was able to navigate and explain the situation properly. Ultimately, we have a problem with the course in that there are too many readings and activities are not tied to the readings. I’m hoping that a switch to Canvas or whatever LMS allows for a conversation to change the design of this course.

I was also able to get 220 labs fixed. But I’m afraid that we may always have items to fix every semester. I also had a chance to look over the preliminary Master plan for the team project. I was able to go through a few things and am looking forward to the discussion with the team about it for more feedback.

I had a lengthy discussion with Rob Lipton about 220, 402 Cloud Computing, and 402 Digital Forensics. It is good to have someone with so much experience to get feedback and perspective from.

All in all a good day. I’m hoping for more of the same on a busy Friday tomorrow.

I had meetings straight from 9A-1P.

I started with a productive meeting with Mike about 220. We are on a good path to get this project done on time. I’m going to try to get feedback from ID’s and instructors to make the best product. The next deliverables due are rubrics for next Thursday.

We had a succinct and well run meeting for the LDI group next. We even finished early.

Next, we met with Mahir Akgun about 402 SMO revision. I’m hopeful that we can revise the course to make it good and finish by the end of July.

Lastly, we had a Faculty Online Luncheon. We had lower attendance than usual, but I think that is because BB Collaborate worked only in Chrome without issue. It was a good discussion about teams.

All in all a good week I hope for more of the same next week.