013 I'm not teaching any regular classes this semester, but am advising three students. Two are my own, and one I've inherited from a faculty member on leave this year. So my diary is about my interactions with them, as a graduate teacher. L.N. is doing really well. She's doing a qualitative thesis, where she's collected a TON of data, and is working backwards through it. She knows her bottomline, and is trying to show now how the end result occurred. She's not making as much progress as I'd like, but she's distracted by her GRA responsibilities. (Her dissertation and Graduate Research Assistantship overlap by about 80%.) M.H. is getting ready to propose. Our meetings are mostly about helping him get his story straight and speaking to his audience. We not only discuss the research story, but also how Faculty Member X would respond, and how Potential Future Employer Y would think about things. Framing a dissertation is a challenging proposition. C.G. is my inherited student. She has a draft of most chapters, so she's in good shape to end this semester. What I find is challenging, though, is making sure that SHE'S clear on her story. I find myself reviewing her chapters then asking her, "What does this have to do with your title, your thesis, your research questions?" Usually, the chapter *does* relate, but she's not doing a good job of drawing the connecting lines. My advisor used to say that the challenge of the dissertation was staying on-message for 100-200 pages. 013 This was an unusual day. Because we had Fall Break the following Monday and Tuesday, I had no meetings, and I'm not teaching this semester. So I had the day to work. From a Share Practice standpoint, it wasn't a particularly useful day. After getting kids off to school, I went to the gym and got to the office around 10 am. What I worked on today: - As usual, it took about 2 hours to get through all my email. I ate lunch at my desk to get through everything. - I made up two quick blog posts -- just commentary on news items. Took me about 20 minutes. - I'm being nominated by my department for an award -- which I'm quite pleased about, but creates additional work for me. I spent about an hour updating the cover letter and nomination statement. - I had an article that had been returned for revisions. I spent about 90 minutes on those revisions. - I am an ACM Distinguished Lecturer, a program which is being updated by ACM. I was asked to update my biography, lectures, abstracts, and picture. That was another 90 minutes. I think I saw two other people on my floor of the building all day. I still had some big to-do's left on my list (e.g., an NSF report which is drop-dead due by 10/31), but left around 4:30. A shorter, quieter day. 013 I started out the day sitting in on parts of two colleague's classes. I'm teaching an elective CS2 for non-CS majors, so I made a pitch in each of the CS1 sections for non-majors, to encourage them to take the second class. It was fun to sit in on another teacher's class for a bit (until my pitch-time was up). It was interesting to see what techniques he used for encouraging student discussions, and I enjoyed discussing with the second teacher what she had planned for the day. We do that very little, discussing our teaching plans and strategies. I got back to my office in time to do a little email before a faculty meeting. Government funding is decreasing (again), and research centers are being coalesced to deal with it. Another 30 minute email break, then a conference call to discuss CSed Week. I'm on the Steering Committee, so we discussed the website and the "pledge" system. I tried the pledge system, and broke it. I spent some time in the afternoon helping the technical staff figure out what went wrong. I met with an undergraduate who wanted to work with me. She's a first semester Computational Media students who wants to do Web design -- but she's never designed a website, so had no portfolio to review. I told her I might call her later. Never finished the email load before I had to head home to feed and transport children. I got another 40 email done that night before bed. 013 This was a particularly odd 15th. (Perhaps all of my days are odd, and I'm simply more aware of it on the 15th of each month this year!) I have a group of collaborators at another campus two+ hours away by car. Today, I visited them. So, I left at 0800, and I got lost. Rather, my GPS sent me to a new extension campus of the university, 36 minutes away from where I needed to be. So I arrived at 1045, rather than the 1030 I expected. We had several matters to discuss, related to both research and teaching. - We have a joint project around outreach to younger students about trying out CS. Their outreach activity hasn't yet started, so we discussed how to get it started. - They have a high school CS teacher certificate program, the only one in the state, which is not currently succeeding. They had one student in the program, who dropped out in the first third of the first class. Only one other student has applied to the program. We spent much of the time talking about how to improve those classes, how to better communicate with the classes entail, and how to help students succeed in them. - One of my students conducted a study of students in their online classes, and she's still not comfortable sharing the draft. I discussed the findings with them. - Finally, there is a new call for proposals for next April. We discussed what we might do jointly. Two hours later (by 12:45), I was back on the road. I stopped for a salad for lunch, and got back to campus by 3 pm. I did some email and worked on some travel reimbursements until I went home. 013 May I cheat? I spent my day Saturday taking my daughter to the Urgent Care clinic (third day of a severe sore throat, and we'd just learned she'd been exposed to strep the previous weekend), and then going to play practice all day. I did, however, have a teaching-related insight that day, on which I blogged. May I just paste in my blog post? Other than these two events, I danced, I sang, I made dinner, and I watched "Doctor Who" with my kids in the evening while answering email. Boring Saturday. ---- paste after this ---- I've been taking a piece of advice from Seymour Papert over the last couple weeks (and for the next couple months). While I was never a student at MIT nor part of any of their Logo programs, I got some time with Seymour when we were both at the all-weekend design meetings for Logo Microworlds, back when I was a graduate student. (One of my all-time most scary and intellectually challenging dinners was sitting next to Seymour and defending my thesis to him.) One of his in-passing pieces of advice was that education researchers should regularly learn something new, to continually be reminded of what it's like to be a learner. I'm "Baron Elberfeld" in our church's production of "Sound of Music." My wife ("Frau Schmidt") and daughter ("Brigitta") are also in the production. All of the rest of my family have been in plays, and my wife and son have been in many. This is my first play ever. Not even in high school was I ever even working on the set. This is totally new for me. One of my first observations: I don't know the severity of my mistakes. I'm the eager-to-please newbie, and I make mistakes. Are they "okay" mistakes? Did I just make a serious faux pas? I make some of each, but I can't tell at the time. I figure it out 5, 10, 15 minutes later, judged in terms of later response to me. Yesterday, we were at rehearsal all day long. Since I only have two lines and am in only one scene (but have to dance two dances, and sing the final "Goodbye" with all the other party guests), I spent much of the time yesterday trying to help out with the set. One of the people in charge gave me a task to do, which I worked at diligently. Someone else came along and thanked me for doing it -- it needed doing, and he was worried that nobody was doing it. I went out to get more supplies. When I came back, somebody else more senior (everybody is more senior to me) was doing my job. As I walked up and he saw the supplies in my hand (more of what I'd already been using), he told me, "No, those are completely wrong. You should never be using those." He explained why. Then he pointed out the tools I was using, and told me how his tools were much more appropriate for the task. He then turned away from me and went back to work, on the job that had been mine. I felt humiliated. I felt like I must have screwed things up, working for over an hour with the wrong supplies and wrong tools. I strongly suspect that he felt that he reached out to me in a "teachable moment" -- he explained to me how I was mistaken, and how his approach was much better. He probably felt that he did me a favor. I felt like quitting. I packed up all the stuff I was using and put it away, then went and sat down until it was time for my scene. Back when OOPLSA was in Atlanta, in 1997, I got to have lunch with Adele Goldberg. At that time, she was working on a Smalltalk programming environment to be used in the UK Open University's introductory course. She told me that the greatest benefit of distance education was for supporting working professionals in learning something new. The issue wasn't finding time in a day. It was humiliation. "You work in a field for 10, 20 years, and you get recognized for your expertise. Now go into a classroom, and raise your hand to admit that you don't know something. It's really hard!" On the Internet, nobody can see you blush. Seymour's right -- it is a good thing to be in these situations, to be reminded of what it's like for our students. I'm sure that our students may also feel that they're losing face when met with a "teachable moment." It's a real challenge for us to teach it in a way that avoid humiliation, that allows the student to see the lesson but feel encouraged to keep going, to keep engaged. 013 Today started with office hours. A student was waiting for me before I arrived. He is a student in my Senior Design class, and wanted feedback on the grades I had just provided for their first Sprint. (We are using a Scrum development process.) Turns out that he hadn't found the detailed grade sheets that I had already posted to their project page, so we simply reviewed those. Soon after he left, one of my Data Structures students arrived to take her midterm. She's an athlete who will be at a track meet on Friday, and she opted to take it before she left (rather than after.) While she worked, another Senior Design team arrived. They'd found the grading sheets, but disagreed with them. They explained that, since their project is very complex (controlling a Unity-3D scene through an Android app), they felt that they should jump immediately into programming--without planning their sprints or designing their system. I tried to explain why I'd fire them if they were working for me. I hope I explained to them why it's important for them to do planning and design first--a lesson I didn't think I'd have to explain to a team of four seniors. At 11, I had an HCI faculty meeting. I'm the HCI area coordinator this year, so it was my meeting to run. First, we planned for the qualifying examinations for the semester. Next, we talked through a teaching issue that has arisen because one of our faculty is taking medical leave next year. Finally (saving for last, since it could go on forever), we discussed yesterday's announcement that we are launching a search for a new School Chair, and we generated a list of possible candidates. I had an hour for email over lunch. One of my PhD students is ill, so during her slot, I had another of my data structures students stop by. She had pneumonia two weeks ago (serious enough to warrant an ambulance trip to the hospital), and is still behind on homework. I helped her finish her homework assignment, talked a bit about "Dr. Who" (a fellow fan), and discussed which classes she should drop from her schedule after her illness. I then met with my other PhD student. We talked through his latest analyses, details on his transcription costs and processes, and about some job search plans. I had to leave early, because I'm in the last week of a play and had rehearsal. I picked up kids, fed everyone, then headed to rehearsal. During rehearsal, I finished my slides for tomorrow's data structures lecture. I had the lecture slides already, but I'm using Beth Simon's Ubiquitous Presenter and peer instruction, so I needed to generate the questions for students to respond to. And now it's 2120, and I'm writing up my diary for you. 013 The day started early with taking my daughter in to school for a makeup Chemistry test before 7:30. Traffic was horrible, so I didn't get in until almost 9 (typically, it's about 25-35 minutes to drive in). Nobody came to office hours 9-11, so I worked on grading midterms in my data structures class. I realized that the programming task I assigned was far too difficult, so I began grading using a rubric that addressed the key issues, rather than asking if the code would work. The task involved making a copy of a doubly-linked list. Only two students (out of 30) wrote correct code. Most students stumbled on traversing both the source list and the returned list, so I gave credit for *recognizing* all the issues and including code for addressing each issue, even if the code was incorrect. At 11, we had a visting speaker in CS Education! Chris Hundhausen gave an interesting talk about the use of studio-based learning in CS1 and HCI classes. I met briefly with my data structures TA at noon. It was disappointing that *her* understanding of data structures is weak, so I am having to review her grading often. I continued to grade during my normal 1-2 meeting with one of my PhD students. She had a doctor's appointment. I met with my second PhD student at 2. We discussed his job search, as well as his most recent interviews. I graded until 4 pm, then went home. I ended up doing my email load that night when I finished grading. 013 Woke up especially early (6 am) to get youngest to her school for a field trip out-of-state. Got in to work by 8:30 am, and just wrote until 10 am. I have an NSF "Computing Education for the 21st Century (CE21)" due on Monday the 25th. At 10 am, I met for 30 minutes with a visitor from another University campus. We're collaborating on a workshop at his campus in May. I worked for 30 minutes until 11 am, then met with students for my Senior Design class. Back to writing, and a brief lunch, before teaching at noon. I taught the end of a chapter on circular linked lists and graphs. I am using peer instruction with Ubiquitous Presenter to get a sense of student ability. They're still having trouble dealing with object references. I headed home to do some shopping, then pick up my wife, and head back by 3pm to a graduate student's engagement party. 013 It was bad luck for my participation in the Share project--15 May was my first day completely off in weeks. So I did nothing related to work at all. A week before Easter, my teaching assistant contacts me, distraught. Her brother had just died. She's dropping out of school for the rest of the term. I offer my condolences and hang up. That's the last I hear from her. Two weeks later, as the semester ends, I have all the grading to do that she didn't finish, plus the final exam to handle myself, plus my 40-person Senior Design to grade (all the final project documentation, project designs, personal reflections, etc.). I then had the most intense 10 day grading session I've had in my 18 years at the university. I finished on May 9, at 11 am (grades were due at noon). May 12-14, I had a three day meeting, working on the new Advanced Placement Exam. So, when the 15th rolled around, I was ready for a day off. Went to church in the morning, then did the weekly grocery shopping. We then took the whole family to the Renaissance Festival. We (my whole family) used to go annually, so we have costumes. We had a fun time, watching juggling and hypnosis demonstrations. In the evening, we watched the latest Doctor Who episode. Great fun! But no work. 013 Wednesday June 15 was a really dull day to Share on the Day Survey. Our semester ended in May, so it's Summer break now. My family and I visited family for a wedding in Michigan on June 18. We packed the morning of June 15, and left that afternoon. We drove until 11 pm. During the drive (when I wasn't driving), I did work on Powerpoint slides for my textbook and finally finished the User Interface chapter. 013 July 15, I was visiting the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. I direct a project called "Georgia Computes!" whose goal it is to improve computing education across the state of Georgia, and in so doing, broaden participation in computing. It's funded by the National Science Foundation's program "Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC)." There is a similar effort in Massachusetts called CAITE for "Commonwealth Alliance for IT Education." As BPC has changed in the last year, we have been told that regional alliances will have to go away. Several of us from GaComputes were meeting in Massachusetts about forming a merged project to serve as a national resource, whose goal it would be to help other states to conduct state-wide computing education reform. I got up at 6:15 am in order to go running with our external evaluator on "Georgia Computes!" who was at the meeting with us. We ran five miles on a beautiful path around farmland and hundred year old farmhouses. I had breakfast at 8, and we left the hotel for the University at 8:30. We started at 9 am. The first part of the meeting was to work out criteria for when we should partner with a state. We identified measures of potential (e.g., are there students *not* studying CS in that state? were there interested teachers who might teach CS if they had training?) and measures of commitment and buy-in (e.g., will the state help fund some of the efforts?). We took a break at 10:30, then started talking about next steps. I got the job of producing the one-page summary of the new project idea, that we might float by potential new state partners. We want to have a couple of states lined up in the proposal, so that we can show that there's interest. Finally, we talked through who was going to be involved in the project to start. We had a bag lunch at noon, with some small discussions about details (e.g., how do we get the evaluation plan started?). We left Amherst at 1 for the drive back to Boston for our flight. We hit lots of traffic jams due to construction, but did find time to stop at Walden Pond where Henry David Thoreau spent two years and wrote his book. We got to the rental car facility at 3:45, and to the airport by 4 for our 5:15 flight. On the flight home, I started reading a PhD thesis in Physics -- a first for me! I'm on the committee of a student who is evaluating a new approach to teaching introductory physics, one in which programming is a necessary part of the physics laboratory experiences. We landed just after 8, got baggage, and made it home by 9:30 pm. Long day! 013 Busy day! Especially for a Monday! I got up at 6:30 am and went for a five mile run. My kids and I are running a half marathon in October, and I'm working on my mileage. After walking the dog, breakfasting, and showering, I was at work by 8 am. It took me about an hour to clear out the email pile and do a blog post. My first important task of the day was preparing my slides for 3 minute madness. This week is graduate student orientation. On Thursday, all the faculty who wish can introduce them to the students in 3 minute segments. Three hours are set aside for this, which isn't enough for the 100+ faculty in the College, but not everyone wants to participate. Everyone has to prepare Powerpoint slides (if they want any visuals to go with the talk), and we all had to be submitting on the 15th. I updated my slides from last year, and sent them on. Much of the day (probably 3 hours) was spent editing a SIGCSE submission. I had an MS student conduct a study over the last year to understand why Atlanta area African-American students were not taking CS in any greater numbers than when we started with "Georgia Computes!" five years ago. We've made gains with women and Hispanic students, but no change (even decreases in the last two years) with A-A students. However, this student can't write. Her analysis of the transcripts is reasonable, but she can't make the argument. So, I cut her 10 page paper down to six, and tried to improve the text. Next, I had to get my invites out to Deans and School chairs for an event we're hosting Sept. 8. Richard Ladner, an expert on helping disabled students to study computing, is coming to my school, and we're organizing his schedule. While it's still plenty of time to invite most people, it's already past time to get Chairs and Deans to come to an executive session with him. I had my list to invite, to match my partner's in Electrical Engineering, so I sent out about 20 personalized emails. By that time it was dinner time, and the girls got home. We helped them with their homework (reviewing a book report on Malcolm Gladwell's "Blink," and helping find information on "The Golden Age of Broadway," like "What year was 'Guys and Dolls' set in?"). Then, Australia started waking up. My wife and I are visiting Melbourne, Adelaide, and Sydney to give three sets of talks in November, and we're working out schedule, costs, and plans. We sent a half dozen planning emails between 7 and 10, and checked out several itineraries. Just before bed, we booked flights for California. A PhD student I work with (I'm on her committee) is getting married in October. This student has also worked for us as a babysitter for our children when we've gone on trips. Our daughters *desperately* wanted to go to the wedding. By combining frequent flier miles and free companion certificates, we got the price down to something that would fit in our budget, so we booked the flights, room, and rental car last night. 10:20 pm -- I headed to bed. 014 6:00am Awakened by screaming baby. Lovely spouse handled it. Tried to sleep for a while. 6:30am Out of bed, to the computer to process email, read and "liked" Mark Guzdial's blog post in Google Reader, on the topic of test banks. 7:30am Read Jesse Heines' post on SIGCSE mailing list re: philosophy of technology. Looked at my unviersity's philosophy department's offerings, noticed Philosophy of Science, emailed chair for more info. 7:55am Arrived on campus. Looked over to-do list, started some menial paperwork. 8:00am Service curriculum committee meeting. Discussed security minor, what other programs require our service courses, potential revisions to these courses, implications of staffing and budgets on these changes. 9:00am Office hours start. 9:10am Processed email; deleted unwanted messages from both AAUP and ACM's junk mail filter 9:10am Started paperwork to request funding from Student Curricular Activities Fund to support three students who are coming to regional conference for programming competition. 30 minutes meeting with contract faculty to discuss assessment of service courses w.r.t. the new core curriculum. Also discussed other philosophy of teaching issues, rubrics, grading, and clickers. 9:45am Typed and distributed the minutes from the morning's meeting. 9:55am Finished travel funding paperwork, started revising syllabi based on assessment needs and compliance with CS2008 and ABET accreditation criteria (we are not accredited but seek to be at last accreditable). 10:30am Responded to student emails about JHM project (25 students in 300-level course working via Scrum to collaborate on one big project, which project was designed last Spring and Summer), specifically about communication across student teams of which there are four. 10:55-11:05am Talked to sysadmin about a request the JHM students sent him regarding lab machines and departmental servers. Discussed how I was intentionally making the students owners of the project, so they have to solve the problems, rather than asking me to do these thigns (though I did /a ton/ of work setting up the experience over the Summer). Main problem is that students are not being clear enough in what the problems are, and we concur that giving a good bug report is actually hard. I add that I think students tend towards ambiguity because specificity leads to accountability, and students (people?) like to avoid that. We decide that I will talk to the students a bit about professional communication and the need for specificity in such situations. I consider doing this during the afternoon's meeting but decide against spending time on that, since it's a "pure" project-based course, and I opt to talk to students when I have the chance or send a message through the mailing list. 11:12am Emailed colleagues from other departments about getting lunch, since I didn't have time to pack mine. 11:12-11:22 Emailed JHM students about problems with the Sprint 2 backlogs. Include instructions on what needs to be fixed, point out that I also sent instructions over the weekend that were either unread or misunderstood. 11:45ish Revised syllabus for a Web programming course. 11:54am Called hotel to change my travel plans for upcoming conference. Staying one less day than originally planned. 11:57am Started designing a 1-credit "social and professional issues" course, again with an eye towards satisfying CS2008 and ABET. The syllabus, once finished, references CS2008 explicitly and cherry-picks from the learning objectives of the SP knowledge domain. 12:20pm No word from colleagues, so I go home for lunch. 1:00pm At home, check email on smartphone, see that an alumna posted a link to my blog post about being frustrated with students' tardiness and specific individuals' rude behaviors in class. 1:10ish Back on campus, read the link shared by the alumna on my blog. 1:15 Open google reader, check out Alan Kay's guest post on Guzdial's blog, a retort of assumptions in Moti's ACM article. Much love for Kay. 1:25 Watched Zero Punctuation review of Mafia II. Contemplated sandbox vs story in games briefly. 1:55 Just before class, a student tells me that his unit has finally released the campus map application for Android. It was released for iTunes ages ago and has been in development for Android since start of Summer. I download it and check it out, razz him a bit about HCI since he took my HCI class. It's actually pretty good, though with some bad design decisions that he was forced by others (non-Android folks) to include. 2:00-2:55. Class. This is the project-oriented course. I sit quietly at the front of the room while teams have their daily stand-ups, then they take some time to fix their backlogs in accordance with my email from earlier. I stay in the room, about 50% of the time answering questions, for 20 mins or so, then head up to the lab, where many students have relocated. Talk to students here and help them with their tasks for about 90% of the time I'm in there. 3:00-3:20. Review 1-credit Social and Professional Issues course design with the chair. He has some recommendations but generally likes it. 3:20-3:30. Sysadmin comes back up to ask what I know about mindmapping software. I tell him that I prefer paper mindmapping and, generally, have loved mindmapping since reading Pragmatic Thinking and Learning by Andy Hunt. Recommend book to him, send him the link, briefly discuss how I'm younger than he thought I was --- made me a little self-conscious. He always very deliberately calls me "Dr. MyNameHere", but I think of him as more of a friend than anything. I appreciate the formality in one sense, but it is also weird in another. But I digress. 3:30-3:45. Students show up to demonstrate their task from the JHM project. It's quite good, and they put a little humor in that gave us a good laugh. 3:45-3:53. Discussed with our contract faculty member who manages our dual-degree program with China. He fills me in on some of the things going on there. I used to do his job before this semester. He's doing it much better since he actually has the administrative release time to do it, and an understanding of Chinese culture and language that I lack. 4:00. Responded affirmatively to a request from the VP of Technology to be on a task force on the future of higher education. It was sent only to me, so I don't know who else was invited. The mission for the task force is basically impossible: full SWOT analysis of all the pressures on my institution w.r.t. teaching and a vision of what education will look like in ten years. The administration's plan --- according to the mission statement --- is that this will lead into the next strategic plan in 2013. 4:00 Came home. Talked to family. Played some games on the computer, processed some emails, bought a hard drive from newegg, felt really guilty about not being able to think of something good for my spouse's birthday. Current plan: take some time off during the day tomorrow to bike downtown and get something at the fancy kitchen shop or some pottery at the art shop. I can get a good espresso while I'm downtown, and I can bring my laptop to do some work offcampus where no one can find me. Today had even more interruptions than a usual day, I think... but I'm not sure since I don't log all this every day. 5:00-5:20 or so. Type up this day log from the notes in my pocket notebook. Some good down time. Around 9:15, processed email and set up two appointments as requested by students Around 9:45, did my nightly Ignatian examen and considered my own behavior with students as well as with colleagues in the committee meeting. 014 Woke up at 7am, listened to NPR for about 15 minutes in bed. Felt guilty about the fact that my spouse had been up for over an hour with our 9-month-old, so I got up. Played with the kid for 30 mins to give her reprieve. 7:45 or so, read my morning comics and blogs. Enjoyed xkcd, posted on Facebook, got some comments on it from friends and friended alumni during the day. Played a little Civ V. Stopped Alexander's encroachment on the British empire. 8:30 Got to work on a proposal for a seminar next academic year. I've had a hard time focusing in on this. I know I want it to be on game development, but I feel pressure to make it about serious games, even though I don't exactly toe the party line on their value. After putting this off for several days, though, it felt good to make some progress. 8:50 Discovered an error with sound in Linux. Spent about ten minutes fixing it. 9:00-ish, fielded a question about lab usage policies for our undergraduate computer lab, then back to the seminar proposal. 9:30 Via facebook, saw a CNN report about Software Architect being #1 job in america. Put it on the department's Facebook page. Flipped through about 35 of their 100 pages, immediately became dubious of their reporting and ranking methods. Still, good press, and lots of IT and CS. 10--10:30. Wrote up materials for my sophomore-level class' final project, which will be a six-week project in two three-week deliverables. 10:30. Made coffee, made lunch, biked to campus. 11--11:20. Met with research team consisting of two undergraduates (supported internally through our Honors College). Discussed some frustrations with student groups for the game programming class they are both in, and I also vented about some family problems. Everyone felt a little better after this. 11:20-1:00. Worked with the research team in a quiet corner room. One of the guys seems to have finished OAuth integration. I am working more closely with the other, and what we thought we could do weeks ago, it turns out we can't. Frustrated with the third-party API we're using, which is woefully underdocumented. In fact, it's a good example of a deep OO hierarchy: lots of inherited and incorrect or vague docs, lots of methods that are overridden to throw not-implemented-for-this-class exceptions, despite the lack of documentation thereof. In the end, I give him some things to look for on the Web over the weekend, and we'll meet again 11 on Monday. 1:10. A quick lunch in the office. 1:25. Two articles on Guzdial's Computing Education blog. Enjoy reading about them. 1:35. A student from my 2pm class comes to my office to tell me some guys in the lab could use my help, so I mix up my horchata and go down to help. This is my game programming class, officially scheduled 2-3 MWF, but I mostly consult during these times. It's great to work with the students in this project-oriented course. I linger around until about 2:45, occasionally being called in for consultation, occasionally overhearing dangerous decisions being made and intervening. 3:00. Student shows up for an appointment to look at code for my other class. He and his partner are supposed to be there, but his partner had "a family issue." This student is one of the best of his generation. He shows me some code and I help him with some design suggestions, the most interesting one being to break the dependency on a File by instead making his Analyzer class take an InputStream, since this allows more seamless unit testing. I am also his advisor, and he tells me what he plans to take next semester, which is a good plan. We send an email to the advising coordinator to officially declare his math minor. 3:40. Meet with the chair and administrative coordinator to go over the curriculum change paperwork due Monday. I had it mostly complete on Wednesday and asked the administrative coordinator to clean it up, but when she got it, she started comparing it to the print catalog and making changes. Unfortunately, we don't use print catalogs anymore, so she was looking at the program from two years ago; part of this meeting was for me to make sure that everything she changed, we changed back to what I had. 4:10-4:30. Ghost-wrote letters of support from my chair for two grant proposals. Assembled these in an email that explains the two projects. They are both three-PI projects, and the other two PIs really did the design. I am coming in as a tech expert, to help students with technology and hopefully bring in some CS students to the team. Both are strictly Summer projects, getting me Summer funding to team-teach with the others. With no solid plans for Summer just yet, this would be a good opportunity to do something a little different, make a few bucks, and potentially generate something scholarly, or at least an opportunity to write a light article about interdisciplinary collaboration with historians and archaeologists. 4:40. Tired of being in the office and knowing it's the last full day that my parents-in-law and brother-in-law are visiting, I go home. Turns out they are not home and there's no indication of when they will be back, so I crack open a Saranac Caramel Porter and beat down Alexander's Grecian army in Civ V. The rest of the night is spent enjoying food and drink, chatting, trying to get the two boys to bed, playing Carcassonne, and not really thinking about work too much. 014 Awakened a few minutes before my 6:45 alarm by my 3-year-old. Reminded him that he's not supposed to get out of his room until 7. Alarm went off, snooze once, then up. Regular morning routine: email, Google Reader, Facebook, and my daily Web comics. 7:20: My 10-month-old awakes, but my wife is still in bed. I pick him up out of his crib and find that he is warm and moist through a diaper and two layers of pajamas. At least it's warm, so it's fresh. I take him to the bathroom and set him on the training toilet and send my 3-year-old to ask my wife it putting the smaller one right in the tub is the right idea. He returns with positive confirmation and tells me he wants to join in, so rather than getting myself physically and mentally ready for work, I'm watching two boys in the tub. It is fun, though. On campus at 8:00am. Ran into a colleague from Maths in the stairwell, give him some ribbing about lack of a winter jacket and a full beard. (It was the first seasonably cold morning here after a warm spell.) We discuss the "preview day" we both attended on Saturday---an event for prospective students---and the new format that Admissions adopted for this one. We agreed that having 8-10 professors in one room with a group of students in an open-format Q&A was probably a mistake. He didn't seem to see it as quite the waste of time that I did, however, but by that point we had gotten to our floor and parted ways. 8:30-10:00 College Curriculum Committee, of which I am the chair. We look at my department's revisions as well as two others. Everything passes, with just some minor edits required. I don't mind this committee: I feel like curricular structures are something I understand, and the associate dean hand-picks the membership, so we all get along. I give an update about the university-wide task force I am on, and one of the faculty on the curriculum committee tells me that she feels better about any committee knowing that I am on it. I deflect this a little, as I generally don't take well to public praise. I think I said, "I really just focus on two things: drinking my coffee and approving things by acclimation." She repeated what she said again, and emphasized that she really meant it, so I thanked her. I'm a junior faculty member, and it makes me a little nervous to think that I might be doomed to administration. I posted this on Facebook, and one of my graduates from last year commented that it was "the curse of competence." 10-11. Work on a flier for a regional conference for which I am publicity chair. This is another thing I don't really mind doing, but it feels like busy work. *Someone* has to do it, though, and it's for the good of the community. I did it last year too, so this year is mostly just editing --- not redesign, like last year. However, as I type this now, I am reflecting on how this is significantly different from the college curriculum committee. On that committee, I feel like I am applying my scholarly knowledge for the betterment of the university. As publicity chair for a regional conference, I'm just a guy trying to help the event happen, but it has nothing to do with my particular expertise. 11:00. Research meeting starts. The team comprises an English faculty member, two CS undergraduates, and me. We spend about 35 minutes discussing the project, intermixed with my colleague's adventure at a very nice restaurant that my wife and I happen to like, as well as a little discussion about what "digital humanities" means. 11:35. I did not pack a lunch and we have research meetings until 2, so I ask the guys if they want to order out or go get a quick lunch. Neither has brought a lunch, and one says, "I always enjoy our lunch adventures, so let's go out." This is nice, because it shows that we have a real camaraderie, that they are comfortable working with me --- which I knew anyway, but it is still good to hear. We get a quick lunch on campus, where we talk some work and some play. A little bit of complaining about things outside our control, too: one of the guys is really disappointed with his on-campus job, mostly because of the co-workers, and he's considering going back to his other position, which is completely unrelated to his major but where he likes the people and doesn't feel like he's leeching unearned money. 12:10, back in the research meeting room, and we get to work. Collaboratively we find a Javascript error in a JSP page that should have been obvious, but wasn't. Worse, the way way found it should have been the first thing we checked, but we all acknowledged the oversight. We break into working on individual tasks after some more collaboration. I need a little break so I jump onto Reader to see what's new, and I find Matt Welsh's blog post (volatile and decentralized) about how he's leaving Harvard for a fulltime position at Google. I don't know Welsh from Adam, but I got hooked on his blog many months ago, and I had gotten too look at him as a kindred spirit: a young faculty member, excited to do research and work with students, and to build systems. He observes, in his post, that working fulltime at Google allows him to follow his primary passion---building systems---well beyond what he could do in the confines of academia. This chews at the back of my brain all day. I keep asking myself if I would be happier in industry, where I don't have to deal with some of the stupidity of higher education, where I could really hone my system-building skills, and I could still potentially give conference talks, training sessions, work with new hires, etc.? I try not to think about it too much, but that almost just makes it worse. 2:00 Game Programming Class. I love this 2-3pm block. My students show up in one of two rooms, and I alternate where I show up. Regardless of where I am, they have their Scrum-style "daily" stand-up meetings. I listen in but don't intervene. Then they get back to work on the project, and usually someone comes and gets me because he or she needs some advice. Today, it was a mundane Eclipse problem. This is a great project-oriented experience, and we're doing a project that should see statewide release when it's done. I feel like a real "guide on the side," and I think most of the students really dig it. My only doubt about the class came from my very recent reading of "How People Learn," and I do wonder about how much doing-with-understanding is happening. I am not quite done with the book yet, but I look forward to reading my past writings about the class in the context of the book's ideas and seeing where it falls. I may ask the students to write essays after the end of the semester about what they learned, as an assessment of the class, but I won't ask them to do it for credit. One of the agreements we all had at the start of the semester was what they would get graded on, and it's all project performance and team commitment. 2:50-3:12. A little down time. Catch up on mail, reader, facebook, buzz. Find the "growing changing learning creating" blog from my colleague in English via either Reader or Buzz, I don't remember which. It's right in line with the work I'm doing now for the Task Force on the Future of Education, so I leave it unread for later exploration. I send the link to the other Task Force members, too. 3:12-4. Polish up the flier and send it to the conference planning committee for their review. Design handouts for a workshop on learning that I'm giving for Student Affairs tomorrow. 4pm. Watch Unskippable as a break, then go back to Welsh's blog post again, reading the comments on his post. They were interesting, and they made me acknowledge to myself that I need to define for myself what makes me happy. I think I am happy here. I do like working with my students, but I don't like working with many of my colleagues, and I do wish I could trade a lot of the wasted time for time to practice building things. Even as I am thinking this, I wonder if I am deluding myself. 4:10 or so. I try to print the handouts for tomorrow, but the printer is out of toner. Administrative coordinator is gone for the day, and student worker doesn't have a clue what to do. I go down to the undergraduate lab to print it there, then realize I don't have the PDF accessible there. Back to my office, upload the file to google docs. Back to the lab, and when I open Google Docs, it's just not there. Frustrated, I remember that there's an ssh client on these windows boxes, so I ssh to my Linux workstation and copy the file here. Open it up with Acrobat Reader, and it turns out I cannot send the job to the printer. When they configured the room originally, faculty could not even log in due to oversight. I bet they forgot to give faculty print permissions when they updated the configuration. I email a request to the chair and sysadmin that this be remedied someday, then send the PDF to Student Affairs, asking them to print it for me. 4:35. Back in the office, hoping to come home. Contract faculty member comes by, kvetches about another faculty member. This person is also chair of a curriculum committee on which I serve, and we discuss recent events along these lines. The committee hasn't met face-to-face, but we're slowly getting our work done. 4:50. Back to trying to wrap things up and go home. Department chair comes in to talk, mostly business. I am surprised to hear him acknowledge that his GA is using better teaching methods than he is, and that he is now, in a sense, shamed into having to adopt some better practices. The GA had been tracking performance due to his own sense of inadequacy, but he found students in his section were doing significantly better than the chair's. The chair is going to incorporate more small-group discussion and active learning methods as a result. Win! I hope that my influence on this GA's undergraduate years is at least partially a factor, because this would imply that I can have cultural impact just by doing an honest good job --- something I hope is true both for my professional and my spiritual life, for what that's worth. 5:10. The chair leaves and I'm hoping to head out, but I remember --- seeing a note I left for myself this afternoon --- that I need to email my Tuesday class and design an assignment for them. I decide to ask them to write a reflection, due Thursday, on the code reviews we're going to do tomorrow. This will be something new for all of us, and I write the assignment to be explicitly metacognitive with respect to students' evaluating the aspects in which they were confident and in which they felt nervous or ignorant. This is influenced by my reading of "How People Learn" and considering how I will reorganize this class next semester. (New class, never offered before, rather open-ended syllabus.) 5:25 or so. Heading home. Bump into ex-neighbor and chair of a communications department on the way out. We share stories about being overwhelmed with service work. He suggests a single assessment method for everything on campus --- I quip that it should just be, "In your opinion, did it work?" Around 6:30. Check email on mobile device, see question from a student that I cannot answer without a real workstation, so I boot up and handle it. 8:00. The boys are in bed. I forward an email to the speaker chair for the regional conference planning committee regarding an speaking invitation sent to a colleague. Colleague? Maybe --- we've talked a few times. It's a funny word. Read the "growing changing learning creating" in a bit more detail. It makes me think that I should get to work prototyping ideas for my Future of Education Task Force, but I'm just too tired to commit to that now. I get an email from a student with several questions whose answers should be perfectly clear. I answer somewhat snarkily. I'm tired, but moreso, I'm peeved at this student group. This is all about material they were supposed to turn in last Thursday. Their previous request for clarification was answered by sending them a link to the forum where the question had been answered last Tuesday. This new email starts by telling me that they had not checked their email so did not see that. I guess it's possible, but this is the same group that ignores direct commands. Making the matter worse, their a team of all foreign students, non-native English speakers. I'm tired of cutting them any slack for that, though. Yes, we need to be culturally sensitive, and I know I talk fast, but not checking email or the class forum at least once a day when you know assignments and clarifications are sent that way? Not knowing the difference between a repository and Google Docs when we spent a week on distributed version control, had past assignments on it, and they were supposed to have set it up for their projects four weeks ago? This is the kind of crap that gets me riled up and makes me think I should follow Welsh out to Google. Watch some awful TV for about an hour. I wish comedies were funnier. Some shows I feel like I have an obligation to watch since I've watched them for so long, and some episodes are absolutely hilarious. However, more often than not, when I watch TV, I just feel like I wasted time. At the same time, I'm too tired at the end of the day to do anything significant. I make so many mistakes it feels like it's not worth trying. But, as I said on Facebook earlier today, if the worst thing that happens is that I'm inconvenienced by printer configurations, then my life is pretty good. 014 Woke up 30 mins early to make sure I had time to take a shower and have my hair dry before walking to campus for an 8:30 meeting. This is Wednesday of finals week, which is significant because I had three service-oriented meetings scheduled for today. Some at these meetings complained about having one meeting during finals week. I was not unsympathetic, but I also made sure to mention my trio of meetings. In my morning routine, the first thing I did was triage my email. Four new messages. One was a notification from a nearby graduate school that one of my students had applied, a message I had been expecting. Another was a personal email from the student, letting me know he had just submitted his message and "reminding me" that the letter of recommendation had to be in TODAY. I barely know this student to begin with, though I was instrumental in his getting a scholarship. Suffice it to say his letter of recommendation was submitted later in the day, but it was not strong. Yesterday, our administrative coordinator said she was going to bring a crock of potato soup to share for lunch, so I asked my wife if she had the time to make some bread. She's been making a lot of bread lately, as she and her friends have gotten into the artisan bread movement, and she was kind enough to make a loaf for me to bring. It was hot out of the oven as I walked to campus. I was running a bit late, so I just briefly came into the main office and delivered the bread to the administrative coordinator, apologizing that it was probably not the best loaf. She was very excited, saying she hoped someone would bring something like this, and it made me happy to bring her some happiness, since she has been quite grumpy lately. (For good reason, incidentally, due to problems at home, but she has a hard time leaving the problems at home.) I will come back to this point in my day's chronology. The first meeting this morning was an 8:30 one with my colleague M (history education professor), his colleague G (archaeology professor whom I don't know), coordinator of a service-learning unit on campus H (whom I had met due to previous work with M), and professional staff of a student-centered digital media support group on campus S (whom I didn't remember having met, but he assured me we had). This meeting was about a grant proposal that was primarily written by M, with some input by G. M asked me a few days before it was due if I wanted to be involved: the project is to create an interactive software experience (perhaps a game, perhaps not) that shows 4th grade students that there is more to archaeology than just digging. It sounded fun, and going for internal funds, had a high chance of getting funding. I provided just a paragraph or two, and it was indeed funded --- but this was our first face-to-face meeting about it. M ran the meeting quite well. The most interesting thing to me is that G kept saying that he didn't think we would need any of his students for the project, and I kept telling him that we did: it's true that a team of all Computer Science or media production students could create something in 5 weeks in the Summer, but without the involvement of domain experts (or budding domain experts), it was likely to miss the point. Despite my saying this several times, I got the feeling that G didn't understand what I meant. It would not have been useful to explain the agile ideas of client-on-site, so I left well enough alone. We'll have some loose planning during Spring, and I will be able to help guide the recruitment process, so I'm sure it will all work out. Next meeting was College Curriculum Committee, of which I am chair. The meeting was projected to take 30 minutes, but it took 1 hour 45 minutes. Only one thing on the agenda: approving the curriculum of the interdisciplinary Ph.D. in Environmental Science. I could write many essays on this experience, but suffice it to say that this effort represents everything that's wrong about higher education. The president got this idea in her head and has allocated an enormous amount of money to it, despite the fact that no faculty are really invested in it, and it is directly contrary to our mission for excellence in undergraduate education---which is why I came here in the first place. It's a top-down political push, with money attached, so no one is saying "no" to it, despite the fact that a $6M budget cut for the next biennium was just announced. I am especially sympathetic to a committee member who is from one of the departments involved, since it is clear that he has been unhappy with the lack of transparency involved. The whole thing stinks of politics, but there was nothing in the curriculum that we could really turn down, despite the fact that none of us thought it was a good idea. We ended up approving the curriculum, but we are going to submit a statement of our concerns for the record. On the positive side, this same upset committee member congratulated me after the meeting for my "dance": how I had run the meeting effectively, ensuring that our concerns were brought up without identifying the person who anonymously voiced them, and how I was able to handle vastly different perspectives. Honestly, I didn't feel like I had done anything that great, but I'm glad this colleague felt that I did. One of my alumni on Facebook referred to my having "the curse of competence" recently, and I fear he may be right. I was back to my building around noon, and after a quick processing of email, I went to the main department office for some soup. I was really looking forward to some social time with my colleagues, since we have practically none of that. It's fair to say that my department is dysfunctional, with at least two warring factions. Food being the social lubricant, I was happy for this excuse to share bread and soup. I came into the office, and none but the administrative coordinator was there. I asked what the plan was for soup, and her response was, "Just eat some." It was in the mail room, so I got some and went sadly back to my office to eat by myself. I watched Zero Punctuation, processed some emails, and wrote the students letter of recommendation and submitted it. Then, I worked out a survey for my game programming students on which they could indicate if they give permission for their contributions to the semester project to be open-sourced. My main concern was with FERPA, that the contributions have students names on them, so I put an explicit element on the form where students could indicate if we can use their names and email addresses in the source release. I am hopeful that they will all agree. If they don't, I will likely have to replace their modules so that we can do an open source release. I think that it is worthwhile, since there would be a lot of value in others' seeing this code, especially since it uses an experimental software architecture that at least one blogger has put out a call for open source examples of. Quick meeting with the chair to talk about end-of-semester business and my frustrations with our Chinese students. We have a program where they come here to study for their sophomore and junior years, but their language skills are just not up to snuff, even after a whole academic year of intensive English courses. No one at the university wants to hear this, because they are a cash cow. (Maybe I'm jaded, but I do think this is a major incentive for my university's participation, and I've heard similar stories from peer institutions.) Next meeting is with the two co-chairs of the Future of Education Task Force. This is a great task force to be on, and in my own inimitable fashion, I have challenged some of the decisions that the co-chairs have made. I think they interpreted these in the manner they were intended, since they invited me to run our major meeting in early January. The meeting with them today was to discuss our upcoming meeting at the end of December and the following meeting in January. (Note that both are during Winter break, a time during which I have to complete an externally funded project and write a book chapter, both of which I obligated to before being put on the task force at all.) This was a positive meeting in which we made a plan to share subcommittee ideas in December in hopes of some convergence, and then in January to try to assemble ideas into a framework, which itself would go through at least one more prototyping iteration. It pleases me that this task force has adopted some of the vocabulary of design thinking, but I'm afraid most still haven't really seen the value of sketching and "proper" prototyping, by which I mean, designing explicitly to throw it away. I was supposed to go to a holiday party with a unit on campus with which I am affiliated, but that was at 4, and by 3:30, I was done. My wife had mentioned that she wanted to go to an event downtown in the 4-7 window, so I came home to watch the kids while she did that. The rest of the night was spent being Dad and Husband, and a little bit of Mr Fixit with the mythtv box. As I type this, my kids are in bed, and my wife is now hosting the Women's Club Cookie Exchange. I will stay here and either grade, play games, or get on Netflix. At this point, I have a headache and am tired, so I think it will be the latter. 014 Slept in until around 7:30. This is odd, since the recently-turned-on-year-old is almost always up at 6:30. In a sense it was nice to sleep in, but I would have rather been up early to enjoy not having to rush off to work. Had breakfast with the family. Nothing fancy, just cereal, but it was still nice to not have to think about rushing off. Played computer games for bit to relax. Still have a big backlog of purchases from the Steam Holiday Sale. It's fun, and it's a good discussion topic for bonding with students. The family went to the Winter Market, an indoor version of the Farmer's Market. I bought freshly-roasted coffee beans from my supplier, and it was good to see him and his wife. Ended up picking up a limequat, which I didn't know existed, and Jerusalem artichokes, which I vaguely remember having as a 10-year-old and hadn't seen since. Turns out they're not really exciting, except that their starch is held in a form that is not turned into sugar by the digestive system. Neat! The afternoon was spent relaxing with the family, playing Kinder Bunnies with my wife and nearly-four-year-old, and tinkering on the computer. Several times during the day I think that I probably should be getting work done, but I decide against it. The world did not stop, which is good. However, I also did not make progress on course planning or my book chapter, and that stress still looms. In the evening, my wife and I watched the PBS American Masters on The Doors and were sorely disappointed. It was yet another personality study / hero worship of Jim Morrison, who I just can't take very seriously as an artist. The real disappointment, though, was the indifference with which they treated the rest of the band, who were amazing musicians, especially the keyboardist. The documentary ends with Morrison's death, as if nothing happened to The Doors after that, as if they all ceased to be. It's a whole different level of tragic. 014 Woke up at 6:30, normal for this semester due to teaching 8am T/Th. Around 7, I emailed the Advanced Curriculum Committee about changing the prerequisite for our 300-level networking class. We implemented a curriculum change this year which included an alteration to the course's prerequisite, and now students can get into networking without having studied graph algorithms at all. The instructor noted that this caused students trouble with routing algorithms. The instructor is not on the committee, which I chair, so he sent the request to me. There are only four faculty on the committee---three of whom have administrative release time---and yet there are no times this semester we are all free. (At least, according to Exchange.) So I sent the message about this over email and got reasonable responses during the day, though of course not consensus. 7:15 I go downstairs and wolf down some cheerios. My 4yo son asks me to get him some breakfast, but I tell him to wait for his mother to awaken and to ask her, since I am in a rush to get to campus for my 8am class. He takes it well, and it's true, but I feel bad. 8:00 Advanced Programming class. This is only the second time the course has been offered, and it's a curricular experiment. It's a 200-level course on techniques of professional practice, a sort of "software engineering light" that is also peppered with tools and principles. The students had an assignment due to create an immutable vector implementation, and so I picked two students randomly to display their solutions. Neither was very good, and so one more student volunteered his work for demonstration. Looking at these three was a good experience for the students, I think, and I got the feeling that they saw some different ways they could have gone. I had only budgeted about 15 minutes for the exercise, but by the time all was done---including several interesting and pertinent questions from the class---we had used 55 of our 75 minutes. Then I introduced our next case study. I had been thinking about an example that would incorporate model-view separation, immutable objects, and a modicum of artificial intelligence. (It turns out that our curriculum does not include the ACM/IEEE CS2008 minimum recommendation for AI, which I know since I did the study last Summer. We have not yet determined how to ameliorate this, so I am experimenting with covering it in this course.) I explained the situation and goals to the students and told them we would use tic-tac-toe. Many students exchanged knowing glances with each other, and so I asked if in fact they had used tic-tac-toe as an example in the previous class, our CS2 class, which in fact they had. This gave me the opportunity to explain why I chose tic-tac-toe, and I quickly ran through some alternatives, including oware, a personal favorite. However, the students said they preferred to do tic-tac-toe again, saying they didn't do it well last year, and they would like to see how to do it "right." (Meaning, with intentional design, reflection, and validation, I assume.) This was surprising but interesting, and I'm still not sure exactly what it means about student perspectives. We then went through some user stories, prioritization, and division into tasks before time ran out. Back to my office and I grade their vector implementations. Very few are perfect, but most have reasonable mistakes. Unfortunately many have build path errors due to students failing to include dependent libraries within projects and instead referencing files on their own machines. This is frustrating, but I suspect it's second-order ignorance: students think of their machine as the computing world and have yet to experience the need for and beauty of version control systems and intelligent file organization systems. 10:50 finished grading, so I do my chair evaluation before heading home to focus on my book chapter. I make a stop at the university library to drop off Road to Oz and pick up Emerald City of Oz, as I've been reading these books with my son and he was eager for the next one. I am home by 11:20 and head towards the stairs. I mention to my wife that I'm ready for lunch any time, and I immediately feel guilty for the implicit demand for food preparation. I process a few emails in my home office then come downstairs to make lunch. Tuna melts and tomato soup. I feel good about preparing the meal for my wife and sons, even though it takes much more time than I generally allocate for lunch (which approximates zero). 12:21 and I'm back in the home office to work on my book chapter. We've had one formal extension, and my coauthor and I asked for another week as well, which we got. I had been very excited to document some of this work, but I have found it to be very hard to articulate what I want to say. I think this is because the writing has been put off and low priority, and the thinking hasn't happened at all. That is, I'm thinking as I write, but I want to be more deliberate. I don't have the time or energy to be deliberate, so I feel like this is not the work it should be. It satisfices, but I wanted it to be glorious. At the beginning of Fall, I had an idea of how the year would go, and it looked good. In Fall I would teach Advanced Programming and Game Programming, serve as undergraduate program director, departmental assessment coordinator, and chair of the college curriculum committee. In Spring, just Advanced Programming due to a research buyout and, along with the three standing service obligations, I would be productive. A few weeks into Fall, I was appointed to the Future of Education Task Force, who are literally defining the future structure of undergraduate education at my institution. Long story short, it's a big deal. This task force is producing a document that will provide guidance to the Strategic Planning Task Force, the granddaddy of all task forces. A few weeks ago, I was appointed to that task force too. These are /really important things/ that cannot afford to be low priority. As a result, all the things that actually wanted to do for my personal and professional growth are now low priority, as I look instead at how to build a community in which I want to spend, potentially, the next 35 years of my career. I want to be clear that I am honored to be on these task forces and I believe that I can do a good job --- and many of my colleagues have said explicitly that they are glad I am there to represent the interests of learning. However, these are both *extra* things into an already full semester, and that just reeks of mismanagement and disrespect. I take a break at 1:50 to make another cup of coffee. I try to only have one a day, but these 8am classes make it worse than usual. I also had no tea today, which sometimes I use to keep me going. I sometimes have trouble sleeping, which I attribute in part to caffeine intake and part to stress. It hasn't been quite so bad this academic year as I have tried explicitly to work no more than 9 hours a day: eight in the office and one doing email processing. I've had time to spend with my family and to pursue some old interests, and it's good knowing that my department sent out my positive tenure review letter---decision is made by administration end of this year. Of course, that's on the back of a much less reasonable preceding five years. Recently, though, I read on a blog that if you're working more than 50 hours per week, your boss thinks you're a sucker, and that really struck home with me. 3:11 I'm beat and my younger boy is napping. Elder boy's birthday was Sunday and we got him some new games that he's been dying to play. I decide to take a break and try out Flea Circus, which is not as fun as I had hoped but still a good distraction, and it's good to have a little time with Elder Boy and Wife. 4:20 Back to work on the book chapter, on this until 5:10 or so when we go out for dinner with expired gift certificates. 6:30 Back home, play Lego Star Wars (another birthday gift) with my son, then we get him ready for bed and read the first chapter of Emerald City of Oz. He goes to sleep, and I believe the rest of the evening goes on without incident. Play a little Fallout New Vegas alone and Dominion with the wife, have a glass of Krupnik. My wife watches Watson trounce humans on Jeopardy and invites me to join, but I am doing my own thing---which now that I think about it, includes reading the report from the Online Education Task Force. She is astounded at how amazing Watson is and mystified by how it works and how I didn't care to watch it. I briefly explain that I think about these issues all the time, and that I understand fundamentally how they did it. Knowing that they had it going up against people, I expected it to win. She mentions being inspired and perhaps scared by the IBMers statement that there is more information now than people can internalize, e.g. in medicine, and that expert systems (my term not hers) will become more and more necessary. I smile and nod and explain that I've been teaching this idea for years. Oh well---I suppose you can be married for years and try to talk about what you do, and the other person may not really get it until it's on TV. Or something. 014 Woke up at 6:30, which is extra difficulty with the change to DST. Did the morning routine of shower, cheerios, Web comics, news, and blogroll. At campus by 7:40 for my 8am class. Good class today. On Thursday, the students will pitch their six-week projects, which they will start next week and will take them to the end of the semester. First I gave them some time to form their teams, which happened predictably since students do not seem to like standing up and moving. I gave them an exercise to design a remote control as implemented on a smartphone, with no other constraints, and let them go at this for 10 minutes or so. After a brief discussion of our ideas, I introduced "Human-Computer Interaction" as a field of Computer Science and talked about User-Centered Design. (The course is supposed to include 1 contact hour of HCI as an intro to later in the curriculum. I do more.) I introduced a five-step iterative Design Thinking process, as formulated by George Kembel (Stanford d-School). Then they did the smartphone remote exercise again, this time explicitly addressing the steps of the process. After another debriefing we were out of time. One student, a senior taking this sophomore-level class as an elective, stayed after to talk about the university's IP policy, since his team's 6-week project is something he'd like to continue after the semester is over. It was a good discussion, and I think he was glad with what I told him and that I was on his side. 9:30, after class, grading. The students had to do an evaluation of other teams' submissions to the last project, and this proved to be useful. The results were good, partially because I gave a minimum word count and told them that both the idea and articulation would be graded. I will definitely use this exercise again. At some point while grading, I get a call that there's a prospective student on campus who would like to meet someone from my department, so I schedule a 1pm appointment with him. Finished grading around 10:10, giving me an awkward amount of time until my 10:45 meeting. Spring Break was last week, and I started up an Android project just to keep my chops. I am immediately tempted in this window to go back to that project despite the backlog of "real work" to be done. I am saved from almost certain temptation by a surprise visit by an alumnus, returning a book be borrowed over a year ago. He has 17 minutes on the meter, so we run over for a coffee and a chat. Great to see him, and that gets me right to my 10:45 meeting. Which, of course, is postponed. The guest, a high roller from the West coast, is missing, and no one knows where he is. One of my old students is working in the office where the meeting is to be held, so I chat with him a bit, then find out that the guest is missing, and then go to my office to catch up on some work. Of course, 5 minutes later, he shows up and I head back across campus. This meeting is really to impress upon the guest that my institution is interesting and doing good things in the mobile space. I show some work I did 1.5 years ago, which to me is stale, but he seems to like it. The folks organizing the meeting are happy to have me give a good presentation, I think. I try to be brief and punchy, emphasizing what parts have lasting value. After me, a student talks about a project she was involved with. I think I can safely say here that the results are embarassing. Five faculty were given load to team-teach a course of about 12 students, in which they worked with the city to develop a mobile application portal. "Amatuerish" doesn't even begin to describe it. It's painful not only to see the results, which are completely disconnected from the state of industry or best practice, and also the student's presentation, which is merciless in length and dwelling on insignificant details. In her defense, I can only assume that the five faculty involved really knew nothing about mobile experience design or app development, because there were problems galore. The visitor was amazingly accepting of the results, even praising parts of it, and I honestly could not tell if he was secretly as ashamed as I was that anyone calls this "applied research." (Many folks at my institution say that this is our strength. Today it hit me why this bothers me: applied research is industry. That's where that happens. The folks that make this claim are just looking for an excuse to not know what they're doing without the repercussions of dealing with the market, so the institution eats their failure costs.) I head back to my office at 12:10 or so to eat lunch, leftovers from Sunday night. I catch up on some emails and send a few to recruit students for a project taking place next Spring, and the prospective student comes by. Nice kid, there with his dad, very to-the-point: they are considering my school (mid-size university, primarily undergraduate) or the Big 10 school on the other side of the state. I talk about class sizes, grad school, interaction with professors, and undergraduate research, and I think they appreciate my candor. 1:30 they're gone, I do a few emails and head across campus to my 2:00pm meeting of my Future of Education Task Force. There are about a dozen on this task force, and by 2:10, there are four of us there. (Naturally, including the two people who I think are least qualified to be there.) The chair asks if we should postpone, and I suggest moving some of the work asynchronously to Google Docs. One more shows up and we start a discussion, and it turns out quite well. I'm happy my somewhat-selfish advice wasn't taken. Honestly, I was just tired---between the clock change and starting the work day so early, I just did not want to sit in that room for three hours, but I did, and it was fruitful. The end of this task force's mission is in sight, and I think we will have a powerful set of recommendations for the university's strategic planning commmitee... which I am also on. I get home at 5:20 or so, and my wife and visiting in-laws have just returned. I find out that my son was in trouble for misbehaving, so he's in his room for the night. So, they're all as beat as I am. I retreat to my home office to catch up on emails from the 2-5 window while they get dinner together, then I come down to pour beers and eat. Good conversation, some work-related some not. After cleaning the table I check my messages and see a quuestion from a student about the project pitches they're working on, so I make sure to send him a quick and appropriate response. I'm dying to play a new board game, but my wife is beat from the day, so we watch some fun sketch comedy on NetFlix, and then I come upstairs to work on this. Next: bed. EDIT: Nope, forgot that I have to evaluate a core course proposal since we're having a college curriculum committee meeting tomorrow. C'est la vie. 014 April 15 started very early. My 15-month-old threw a fit around 4:30, and because I was traveling, I was essentially up since then. It was the day of the Butler University Undergraduate Research Conference, an annual event in the midwest (USA) to which I like to bring my students. This is not so much because it is a well-attended or prestigious conference; the reason if far more natural. It is Spring, and Butler has a beautiful campus, ideal for throwing a frisbee and enjoying the company of professors and students. Usually, my students do the poster session, which I prefer for engaging interested parties---whether scholars or curious students from other institutions. This year I had students also give a formal presentation for the first time. At 6:30, one of my undergraduate researchers picked me up at my house to go get the university vehicle we had reserved. My family has but one car, and the alternative would have been to rouse my wife and kids (who are too young to be left alone) for them to take me to get the university van. I would have biked if not for the heavy rain in the forecast. We picked up the other five students at 7:00 and were on the road to the conference. The group traveling with me consisted of six students who are working with me in the development of a history education game, two of whom are also working on a separate project on the role of collaborative writing in STEM education. The six were a subset of the game development team, three opting not to travel with us. These six happen to be some of the funniest students I've ever met. Maybe it's because I have fairly integrated myself into the social group that I feel so comfortable with them. I consider them as friends and coworkers, where I am the experienced team leader who tries to help them along the way. (See note at the end.) We got there in just enough time to get registered and discover the morning coffee gone, and we found the room for our 9am presentation with 30 seconds to spare. The ten-minute presentation was pretty raw: they rambled about several ideas, all of which were good but none of which were clear. I had flashbacks to being a straight-A undergraduate and my advisor setting me up with speaking opportunities. I deluded myself into thinking I was prepared, and folks told me it went well, but I'm sure the lack of practice showed. I wrote a note to myself in my pocket notebook that I really need to get my students to do practice presentations, because the practice is an important part of the process. The second and only other presentation in the session was poor: a student doing a presentation on what seemed to be an intro sociology project, attempting to draw conclusions from a poorly-designed instrument without reliability or validity, with way too small a sample size and way too many pie charts. It was a poor presentation, but not that much worse than my own students'. Yet, as we walked to the poster session, my students were laughing at how this other presenter basically had nothing important to say. I kept my mouth shut but kept a mental note to consider how to help teach humility as a virtue. During the poster session, the second poster (beside my students') that I came across was for another project at my university. It happened to be based on a technology of which I am more than dubious---in fact, I feel that it's snakeoil, and that the upper administration's push to commercialize it shows not only how poorly they understand technology, but how poorly they manage resources due to the hope for the next Gatorade or Vitamin D. The premise of the research was that one could make an objective measure of the quality of any teaching material, and I'm not sure that this is even a sound hypothesis. I may have been a bit rude to the student at the poster, but I was trying to get him to see my side---purely hopeless given his cockiness. The positive side of the story is that he brought over his advisor, someone I have been told many times to meet during my six years at my university. He and I got along smashingly, sharing some common interests in cognitive psychology, learning, and mind maps. We talked for about 1.5 hours, which included demoing the latest version of our educational game to him. He and I will get together in about three weeks for lunch or coffee to talk more about our respective interests. After getting a lame box lunch at the conference, the team got back in the car for a meeting with TR, an independent game developer from Indianapolis. This is the third semester of the game development project: the first semester was an interdisciplinary colloquium on game design, which honestly did not go as well as I had hoped. I ended up patching together the ideas from the colloq over the summer to feed them to the next stage, a one-semester game programming class. This is the third semester, in which I took eight of the best students from the previous semester and brought them aboard to finish the project. This is significant since the last time we met with TR, it was about three-fourths of the way through the design colloquium, when we had hit bottom. It was great to be able to meet with him again and show him an actual playable artifact. His feedback was generous, but his insights cut me to the bone. He pointed out that what we had was good for our timeframe and that it should serve its purpose, but he was right to also point out some serious problems. At this point, we have to have this done by the end of the semester, and barring herculean volunteer efforts in the four weeks between the end of semester and the ship date, we are pretty much stuck with our core design. This worries me, because my co-PI and I talk a lot about making the learning come from the fun, and how this is is supposed to represent an enlightened approach to educational game development, but it's possible that we've missed our mark. This especially hurts because I know how critical I am of projects (like the one mentioned above) where professors drastically oversell the value of their efforts. I need to allocate serious time to reflecting on this, if for no other reason than to find some inner peace regarding it. We drove back from the meeting, briefly going over TR's comments on the road. I dropped students off, dropped off the van, was picked up by my family, and went out to a church fish fry, which was great. My friend BB came in as we were finishing up and set next to us, and she and I got into a discussion about teaching. She is a math education professor, and she had spent the day at the national math teacher's association conference. She was clearly excited about the conference but also concerned about some quality issues and, mostly, the claims of silver bullets that everyone with a product wanted to make. I told her about my recent reading of Thomas and Seely Brown's "A New Culture of Learning," and she seemed really interested. She and I really should get together more often. When I think about more progressive and avant garde modes of teaching, I often wonder about the role of pure mathematics. We came home and I played with the boys a little, then lie down on the couch. When I awoke, my wife was already putting them to bed---I had intended to get up and help, but she knew I was pretty tired. At 8pm, three of my undergraduate researchers who had been with me all day came over for some board games. In fact, we sat in my living room talking for about 70 minutes before we even got out a game. We played a round of Betrayal at House on the Hill, which only a bum die roll kept me from winning, and then they headed out around 10. Of all my day surveys, even the weekend ones, today's might have been the least overtly professorial. However, it was also one of the best days I've had all year. No committee meetings, no marketing, no grading: just spending the day with students whose company I enjoy and whom I inspire to work on what they all call their greatest undergraduate experience. Based on my working with this group, I have spent a lot of time this semester considering the role of the professor in the "new culture of learning." (Note---I haven't finished the book yet!) As I was thinking this over today, I found my mind moving towards Alistair Cockburn's model of software development as a cooperative game. Cockburn states that the game has two goals: the first is the production of working software that has value to the customer, and the second is setting up for the next game. This second goal is really about learning, especially learning through reflective practice. I state it to my students in no uncertain terms: scholars like Cockburn and practitioners like Fowler both frame software as a learning activity in which the team is learning how to solve the problem. So, if learning is already the real goal of software development, where does this leave CS education? Why not just have all of our students just go into the workforce and learn in situ? A thought passed through my mind today: what if at the undergraduate university level, Cockburn's two goals were inverted, so that the primary goal was setting up for the next game, and the secondary one was working software with value? The next game is the rest of their lives. I still need to spend some time thinking about this and kicking it around, probably going next to my blog. 014 Writing this two days later, it's hard to remember some of the details. I'll do my best. In the morning, I remembered it was the 15th and that I should be keeping a log, but that slipped away for days afterward. Ironically, the next day I forgot it was the 16th too, so I suppose I'm on Summer mode. Woke up around 7 to do the morning routine: get 16-month-old out of bed, set him on the toilet, sit uncomfortably on the floor, diaper him up. The two boys must have eaten something, but we did go to 9am church service, so it must not have been a grand breakfast. I am particularly irked at the music after having traveled with a research colleague who attends the same church, who himself is irked with the music, as he told me on the drive home. Now the things that bother him also bother me. Donuts and coffee after the service. I run into a friend who I know socially and who works at a local IT company. Aside from some theological discussions, I mention to him that I have a meeting in the next two weeks with the upper management of his company and my university president, provost, and others to discuss how the company and the university can leverage each other. I have been stressing about this meeting (which was scheduled earlier in the year and then postponed) for two main reasons: my administration has made it patently clear that they do not understand technology or entrepreneurship (despite having a "ranked" entrepreneurship program, the bureaucracy kills all ideas), and the company has laid off almost all their engineers and now outsources everything to India. I joked with my friend that I was going to go in "guns blazing" and challenge the CEO, saying that if he wanted to work together he had to hire some of my students instead of some idiots in India, and my friend suggested I not bring that up. His suggestion was an interesting one, though. He suggested that quality is the biggest problem in the company---quality control overall, a process and administrative problem. Of course, one cannot walk into a meeting of executives and say "you are the problem," but it sounds like that's the case. I've heard it from multiple sources. It's the old problem of trying to apply industrial metrics to knowledge work. I have to think of some disposition I can have for this meeting that can be potentially fruitful, and that's going to be challenging. This is especially true since one of my colleagues has been working with this company for ages, through a third party, and I have zero respect for the technical or managerial skill of this colleague...or for that matter, of most of the other people in my department. To cut to the chase, if there's going to be any help for them, it's pretty much going to have to come from me, and I'm just not sure if I care that much when there's other scholarship to do. Got home and made experimental eggs, which turned out really good: a fritatta with orange peppers, onions, chorizo, cheddar cheese, and cumin. Played some board games with my wife and older son while the younger one napped. Played some computer games. Read the paper. Made Turkish coffee. In the afternoon, I spent some time thinking about a poster I needed to design for the coming week, a research poster that also serves as pitch for a grant. I stared at it for a while and tried coming back to it several times, but mostly ended up processing email, checking Facebook, playing games, or otherwise no working on it. I have been working like mad through the intersession, and there's a break in sight after the coming week, and I'm just tired. This meeting later in the week is a regular one and it can be soulcrushing, especially knowing how much my wife thinks it's a waste of my time. After dinner, I make some actual progress on the poster and send drafts to my three colleagues. Then, my wife and I watch Deadwood and turn in. 014 Yet again, I forgot about this until days later, so I hope that my recollections are accurate. It is "Summer 1" semester here, during which I am not teaching any formal classes, though I am supervising an independent study. Several months ago, I got a Facebook message from an alumnus---a good friend---who was trying to link me up with another friend of his in town who enjoys board games. Nothing ever came of that, but then a few days ago, I received an invitation from this friend-of-a-friend to meet up for coffee to discuss the job opening in my department. We had a tenure track faculty member retire, but he announced too late for us to do a search, so we have a one-year contract faculty position open. It turns out this guy who I met for coffee at 9, whose name is Bob, is also an alumnus, holding an MS from my department and a bachelors from another department in my university. He works in industry and is generally happy, but he has been considering a transition into teaching, something he can do to share his passion and not spend all day behind a monitor (ha ha!). I laid everything out on the table for him: that it's a one year position; that we really need young people in the department, especially folks who understand and can teach the practice as opposed to the theory; that the pay is meager for contract faculty; that a doctorate is necessary for a full-time position; that I would rather hire someone who loves the community than not. We talked about the system, and after the meeting, I wonder if I was /too/ honest with him, regarding departmental politics and the directions of the university. After about an hour together, I walked to the office and did some work on my computer. I had downloaded vmware and was hoping (beyond reason and expectation) that I might be able to run some game engines with reasonable responsiveness on Win 7 using my Linux desktop as a host. The installation was flawless, but the technology did not work well, as I expected. As I was wrapping this up, around 11, there was a knock on my door and in came VT, one of our contract faculty members. A few days earlier, the chair had forwarded a message from the dean about the need for all departments to audit their master syllabi due to impending legislation regarding a mapping from credit hours to expected workload. The chair's message asked each faculty member to submit their course description to the appropriate committee for review and potential change. The contract faculty member's question was about the timeframe: when would we submit these, how soon would we have to review them and take the review into account? A good question it is, and not one I had thought about. I serve as undergraduate program coordinator and am given a "release" for this service. However, I am not paid over the Summer, and so I don't work for free. Sure, I'll help from time to time, but by and large I try to avoid sinking my attention into that quagmire. Summer keeps me sane. As I was talking with the contract faculty member, the chair came around the corner and butted in, as he is wont to do. They were both in the doorway of my office, and their conversation transitioned to matters of no import to me, so I tried to tune them out and work on my own stuff. At this point, one would hope that they would notice that they were speaking---loudly---in my doorway, and they would take this down the hall or to one of their offices. No such luck, which is again par for the course in my department. So, I wrapped up what I was doing and pushed myself into the hallway, closing the door behind me. I wished them both a good day, and neither one acknowledged my presence. Lunch at home with the family was nice. In the afternoon, I finished playing Splinter Cell: Conviction, which had a nice non-twist ending after some foreshadowing of a twist. I probably played about 1.5 hours. After this, I started working on an experimental integration of Ruby with Java. There's a specific kind of Java class I keep having to write for a project, and I thought a Ruby DSL would work well. I worked this up, with a break for dinner, and mostly completed a blog post about it before I was interrupted by our evening guests. It was a good experience to try writing something real in Ruby, and I can see why people like it. However, using the libraries to do things like file I/O was clunky because so much of that is just a matter of remembering function names. I am so much more productive in Java just because I remember all the libraries I use regularly. In fact, that was my grand conclusion at the end of the experiment: an internal Ruby DSL didn't implicitly have any greater expressiveness than an internal Java DSL, considering I am the target audience and I can write idiosyncratic Java at blazing-fast speeds. The guests were two students, one to be a senior in Fall and one who was graduating at the end of the week. They are two who have come over before frequently in larger groups to play board games, and this was the excuse for our gathering. We ended up sitting in the living room from 8 until 12:30---much later than I've been up in ages---just enjoying each others' company. On one hand, it's sad we didn't have a good game together, but it was a great way to spend an evening, especially with Maker's Mark old fashioneds and my wife's mulberry cobbler. For what it's worth, I finished the blog post and published it in about 15 minutes Thursday. 014 Awoke for the usual routine: processing email, reading the news and comics online until my 18-month-old awoke, then to take care of him. Scarfed down some cereal, baked three dozen cookies (frozen batter, nothing special), and headed up to campus for my Summer class meeting. The "class" is an internally-funded project, the creation of a digital archaeology simulation to teach kids (approx. 10-year-olds) that historical archaeology is more than digging in the ground. It's a five-week project, and we have eight students and three faculty involved. Half the students are my CS students, students whom I trust from a big project they did with me over the last academic year. They are the "technology team." Three are anthropology/archaeology students, and one is history": they are the "content team". I would have said that everyone is doing a great job, but the previous night I got an email from one of my CS students, a student who I have no reason to disbelieve, telling me that he is upset with a member of the other team for failure to deliver, badmouthing the technology team, and generally not doing anything interesting. This colors my perception of the student, fairly or unfairly, but I decide to keep an eye on him. He is definitely the weakest link, and we have one more week for me to observe the nature of his contributions. He definitely comes across as arrogant, and I got that sense the moment I met him, but I assumed it was just personality conflict. The frustrating thing is that this one student---who, when you look at skills required to do the project, is the least qualified but whose essays show he can throw the most bull---was given a $1000 "leadership grant" by outside forces for his participation in the project. The profs had no input as to who got this, and the whole thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Anyway, we're using Scrum with one-week sprints (which is a breakneck pace, but in a five-week summer session, I don't see another option). This was end of sprint, and so we started with the Sprint Review meeting, and ate the cookies. You /need/ to have treats at the end-of-sprint meetings. Last week, we had no treats but had a picnic afterwards, and that was just not the same. The students presented their accomplishments for the sprint. About half the user stories were not completely done. The tech team was quick to present their work, and I was ready to move on. Slowly, the content team started showing what they had done, which was all quite good. I tried to encourage them that their artifacts (things like probate inventories and pictures of sherds) are as important as the digital prototypes and that they should be eager to show them at the Sprint Review. Next was the Sprint Review, when we listed what went well and what could use improvement. I was impressed by the reflections of the students, very honest about the process. These are a good group, no one is putting on airs. After this, we talked about what to do with the rest of our time, since we meet 9-1 and it was about 10. I moderated a discussion of what things we can clean up before Monday. At one point, it was suggested that we make a data flow diagram (my words, not theirs). I pointed out that we had done this weeks ago as part of the design. A specific member of the tech team rebutted that she thought it would be useful. I said that it would only be useful if it helped us make working software, and that I felt they should just make working software, since we had plenty of sketches. I also told her that I had faith in her abilities, that I knew she could sit with the content team and sort it out and move forward. I think part of the problem is that she developed the implementation of the domain model, and she saw that it was likely flawed, and was upset about this: I don't think she was in a prototyping / design thinking frame of mind. Change is the only constant, I reminded her, but I think it was not consoling. After some time, she did in fact have a great discussion with the content team and sort out what had to happen. I thought about emailing her a note to say that my faith in her was well-placed, but I was afraid it would have come across as "I told you so," instead of "I knew you could do it." After class, I went to my office to straighten up in preparation for a new desk's arrival from excess. Also, a professional staff member was supposed to meet me at 1:30 or 2, so my door was ajar. As tends to happen, my chair came in and talked at me for about an hour about things I didn't really care about. Specifically, some hardware stuff they've been doing over the summer. I do not get a regular salary over the Summer, which makes it even harder for me to rationalize listening to him. He left around 2, and I realized I was stood up by the staffer for the second time in as many days. I hopped on Google+ and had a conversation with one of my students about a polite way to say that someone is a dick, since I didn't want to use that particular term online (I only write it here for research purposes), and after a fun discussion involving my learning the word "clodpate", I settled on "jackass." Posted this on Google+ and got several +1's from recent alumni and campus staff: "I have been stood up twice by a member of the "professional staff" at [snip]. If he were a student, I'd send an admonition against this behavior. Let's make this a teaching moment, so students, take note. You can actually have this kind of behavior in the workplace. The person on the other end may even be polite over email, but he really thinks you're a jackass." I returned home and split my time between work communication (including a discussion of unit testing in Unity and VisualStudio among the tech team facilitated by Google+) and playing games. We went out for dinner with friends who are leaving town tomorrow due to a new job. They have been here three years and we became quite close. M is a good friend, and I'm glad for his new opportunity that brings him closer to his extended family, but it's a big loss for my family and for the university. Every time I think of it, I am forced again to ask whether I am in the right place or not, what my connection is with this university, so far from my extended family, and even whether a university life is the honest and right place for me. They are uncomfortable thoughts that I am not sure I can act on, so I try to ignore them, leaving them as constant lowgrade stress, made especially worse by the fact that I don't think my wife will seriously entertain the notion of leaving because she does not want to move, I think because of both logistics and the need to regrow social networks as a stay-at-home mom. Dinner was great. Thai place in town that we should really go to more often if we want it to stay open. Came home and put the boys to bed. Interesting challenges there but nothing related to my profession. We got a movie last night that I've really wanted to watch due to a colleague's recommendation, but my wife has started a big craft project for a friend who is moving out of town. (Another one, yes. She has been very sad lately.) Rather than just start the movie, she needed time to work on that, so I came up to the home office and played games for a while. By the time she was ready, it was too late, so I put the movie off again and we watched two TV episodes instead, which were good. She went to bed at 10ish, a little early for me, and I knew I was at the end of the game I was playing, so I went back to that, got to the end of the story, and was in bed around midnight. There are still a few hidden things in the game I'd like to explore, but soon I will uninstall it and then, hopefully, be able to use some of that leisure time more creatively. But that's the subject for another post. 014 August 15th was one week from the first day of classes and so was my first day back on the job. I decided to celebrate by taking the day off and spending it with my family. It seemed only fair after how much work I did while I was /not/ getting paid instead of spending that time with my family. I did some business email in the morning, wrote a blog post reviewing Academically Adrift, and tweaked an invited blog post about a recently-completed project. When my wife and kids came back from a doctor's appointment, we piled in the car and went to the city. We lunched at a Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant that was on the way that the GPS found, spent all afternoon at the Children's Museum, and dined at one of our favorite locally-owned restaurants which we had not visited in over a year. The boys stayed up, the elder one engaging us in conversation for the hour's drive. They went to bed, I played some games and did some work emails, and then my wife and I enjoyed watching The Venture Brothers before bed. The trip to the Children's Museum was not entirely work-free. It was on my list of "things to do this Summer," mostly because I found out that an acquaintance of mine got a contract to do some educational games for a new exhibit there. I have been doing educational games for the last few years and was planning on approaching the Museum about a collaboration, but now I needed to see what they currently had in order to contrast it with what my students and I can offer. Turns out the interactives were not actually installed in the Museum: they are all online and I could have checked them from home. I did take many pictures on my phone of the kinds of digital interactive kiosks present in the museum so that I can reference them as I think about how I might position similar work. 017 Daily Activity Log Wednesday 15 September 2010 BACKGROUND On the assumption that someone will be reading these diaries longitudinally, let me set a little bit of context. I teach at a newer campus of a large, multi-campus public research university. My campus has about 25,000 students. Our computer science unit has about 65 faculty including five non-permanent teaching faculty (two of whom are half-time) and two permanent teaching faculty, of which I am one. At my university, permanent teaching faculty have full faculty rights: We vote on everything, including the promotion cases of full professors; on attaining senior status, we're paid at the same rate as (at least the lowest-paid) full professors; we serve on Faculty Senate committees, both on campus and systemwide. Most of the teaching in my 30-year career has been at the introductory level, for majors and non-majors, but I also teach upper-level courses (in programming languages, HCI, and technical writing), train teaching assistants (in a graduate-level course), and occasionally teach a graduate course in my somewhat esoteric interdisciplinary specialty area. As time has passed, I've been more and more involved in administration. I currently serve as vice chair for student affairs in my division of our computer science unit; those duties include leading some orientations, advising the occasional student (to supplement our professional advising staff and PhD students' individual graduate advisors), conducting the annual graduate student review, coordinating applications for extramural fellowships, assisting with forming the teaching assignments (for faculty and TAs), and coordinating curriculum changes, especially at the undergraduate level. I am also just beginning a year-long term as chair of the universitywide Faculty Senate committee on educational policy. This committee provides faculty input into university governance, which will be particularly important this year as our university deals with severe continuing budget shortfalls and considers proposals for various potentially radical changes in how the university operates. This term I am teaching one 60-student section of one version of CS 1, a seminar for new graduate teaching assistants (which will probably have 20 students in it), and, with a colleague, an orientation seminar for students new to the university (which may only have 15-20 students; it's optional). I live at some distance from my campus, so I telecommute when possible and I rely on my carpool so I don't have to be behind the wheel for the hour-long commute more than about once a week. WEDNESDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2010 I read some Email in the morning (see below) and go off to the dentist for a check-up. TODAY'S MAIN PROJECT My term starts next week, so I'm preparing for my classes. This term I'm teaching a variant of CS 1 to about 60 students. I've decided to use a different, new textbook, which requires that I rearrange all my assignments and the order of topics on my syllabus. The latter is my main project for the day, and it's complicated by the fact that my teaching is unscripted (by PowerPoint or otherwise); I react to students' questions, I do live coding in class, I try to be spontaneously engaging. This makes formulating a lecture schedule in advance more difficult, because I don't really have a precise record of what I covered day by day in the past (even though I know pretty precisely what I covered over the whole course) and I don't really know in advance how long it will take to cover a given topic this time (especially since different topics have different levels of coverage in the new textbook than they did in the old). In any case, I made a start on this today. I gathered the previous syllabus, my lecture notes for the old text, my synopses of the code I wrote in class last time, and the table of contents of the new text, and started trying to boil down each class day into a handful of words. E-MAIL EXCHANGES A large portion of most days is devoted to interacting with my colleagues (and my students), often by electronic mail. Email is one of my favorite modes of communication, striking what's for me an excellent balance between rapid response and the ability to formulate and consider that response. I keep my Email reader open most of the time, and except for bursts of very focused activity, I check my Email frequently and, where possible, I respond quickly. I recognize that this is contrary to conventional productivity advice, and that I'd probably get more done if I just checked my mail twice a day (or even just hourly). But usually responding to Email is easier than the serious work I'd otherwise be doing, so it makes a welcome break. Over the course of the day, I read or responded to messages on the following substantive topics. (I also get a ton of spam, since I don't use filters because I don't trust them not to delete legitimate messages from people I've never corresponded with before, especially students. But I find it very easy to dispose of the spam quickly.) -- The colleague with whom I'm teaching the new student orientation sent a message to the associate dean comparing our first-year courses to the first-year courses at his previous institution. He typed the wrong course number at one point in the message, which made the associate dean think my colleague was teaching the wrong things in his courses. I thought the typo was obviously a typo; I wrote to the associate dean to explain this and to reassure him that my colleague is scrupulous about which topics belong in which courses (which the associate dean should have known). I think it's important both to defend my colleague and to educate my associate dean. -- A member of my systemwide committee responded to my call for subcommittee volunteers, and I replied thanking her (and noting that more than one person had spoken up for that position). -- I plan to attend Parents' Weekend at my daughter's college in a couple of weeks, so I sent a message to a CS professor there (whom I know), volunteering to give a talk when I'm on campus. That will enable me to use some of my small supply of university funds to pay for the trip. -- I accepted an invitation to an out-of-town meeting at university headquarters to discuss the development of on-line courses. My university plans to launch an externally-funded pilot program to explore the effectiveness of various forms of on-line education. -- My CS 1 course is authorized to hire lab tutors to work with the TA in the lab, giving students "first aid" advice to keep them productive. I asked a few good students from last year if they were available for this job; I received some expressions of interest. -- A colleague who is newly responsible for our weekly speaker series (and the one-credit course associated with it that new grad students must take) asked me for suggestions on how to run the course---whether there should be readings or writing assignments, what kind and how many. I gave her some suggestions (including an idea right off the top of my head that I was pretty proud of: instead of requiring a busy-work "reaction piece" from each student each week, appoint one student to interview the others and prepare a synopsis of their reactions). -- My dean sent around a message soliciting interest in planning activities for CS Education Week. It turns out that it coincides with our examination week, which I and other message recipients pointed out. Even though that limits the range of activities, I did suggest some things that could be cast as "study breaks." -- A retreat of systemwide faculty senate committee chairs is planned for Tuesday of the first week of classes. I can't make it---I need the class time, especially because I'll be away on the Thursday of that week---and I had arranged that my committee vice chair attend in my place. (I thought this was not a sensitive time to have scheduled this meeting, but most committee chairs are research faculty with a lower teaching commitment than mine and, perhaps, a more cavalier attitude towards blowing off a class.) Today another message came around for a second meeting later that same day, between the Senate leadership and the university administration. I had to send my regrets for that one, too, and inquire whether my vice chair could attend in my place. OTHER READING I read a thread on the SIGCSE mailing list about ethics courses, and a separate thread about policies on academic dishonesty. 017 Daily Activity Log Friday 15 October 2010 [In my September 15 diary, I included a background section giving my institutional context and summarizing my current major activities. I expect that will be helpful to the reader of this diary.] I was up at 5:30 this morning, which is actually later than I prefer to get up. I find that having quiet, uninterrupted time in the morning is a good time to get work done (or at least to read the paper and have a cup of tea). There wasn't any milk, though, so rather than having tea at home I left a little early and stopped at Starbuck's for a latte. I met my carpool as scheduled at 7:45. We all live about 50 miles from campus, so the carpool is essential for us, not primarily for economy or environmentalism but just to avoid having to be behind the wheel so often. Our carpool has been in operation for nearly 20 years. One colleague in my department and I started it; we were joined about 15 years ago by two other regulars (both administrators of writing programs, from whom I learned quite a bit over the years), but one of them retired two years ago and the other just took another job. The carpool has been augmented over the years by a variety of people who have worked at our campus for shorter periods. At present there are two, one a post-doc in Physics and the other a part-time lecturer who has taught at our campus on and off over many years. We all operate on academics' schedules, with occasional travel and other constraints such as child care, so we arrange each week's schedule separately, the weekend before. I'm the clearinghouse and coordinator, which isn't a huge burden and which does ensure that scheduling screw-ups are rare. Maybe in a later diary I'll describe the scheduling process and the very clever algorithm we have for determining whose turn it is to drive (a decision that's complicated by the fact that not every carpool member goes to campus every day). Today the Physics postdoc drove. She has a ratty old two-door Acura---at nearly 30 years younger than the rest of us, she doesn't yet have a car that's comfortable for middle-aged commuters. It requires a fair bit of contortion to get into the back seat of her car, but I was gratified when she told me that some of her friends had driven with her over the weekend and complained about the back seat far more bitterly than I ever do. On the drive down, I used my laptop. My colleague has a cellular modem, which provides internet access on the freeway. I'm not willing to pay the monthly charge to get one myself, but it really is wonderful to be able to use the commuting time to catch up on things. It's kind of the same as a long plane flight; there are so few things possible to do that being able to work uninterrupted seems like a pleasure. On this morning's commute I'm finishing up making subcommittee assignments for the universitywide educational policy committee that I chair. I needed to identify seven committee members to represent our committee on various subcommittees and task forces. I collected the preferences of the members at our first in-person meeting earlier in the month, but of course the preferences didn't distribute evenly across the available slots so there was a certain amount of cajoling and following-up to do. By assigning my vice chair to something, I'd managed to fit the last puzzle piece together, so on the commute I drafted Email messages informing the members (and the committee's staff support person at university HQ) of their assignments. My first class, at 9:00, is an orientation seminar for new undergrads. I co-teach this with a colleague who came to my school about three years ago; he taught a course like this at his former institution. We meet for two hours each week, typically devoting one hour to the transition from high school (or community college) to the university---how to manage time, how to approach faculty, how to get involved with research---and one hour to a talk by a faculty member. At today's class, I was surprised (and a bit concerned) when my colleague didn't show up. But the scheduled speaker did, so he gave his talk (about fractal arithmetic, clearly and accessibly explained but not related that well to mainstream computer science). Then, after the break, I addressed issues, comments, and concerns of the class. The one I recall was how to find out in advance which classes have the highest workloads; my impression was that the student wanted to know this for good motives---avoiding two project-intensive classes at once, for example---rather than for base work-avoidance. My best answer was to talk to other students who have taken the class with the same instructor; I also suggested more formal approaches like consulting previous syllabi on the web. Later on I got in touch with my colleague by Email. He said he just "spaced on the class." It wasn't a big deal---the class hardly needs both of us to be present---but at our age, late 50s, there's a tinge of morbid concern when episodes like this occur. I returned to my office at 11:00 and ate lunch at my desk: a tomato, a piece of last night's leftover tilapia, a bell pepper. I'm trying to eat more healthy food and lose some weight, another middle-age issue. At 11:30 I met with four students in our relatively new Business Information Management major. They wanted advice on forming a student organization centered around this major. I said what I always tell student organization leaders: The hardest thing is building a set of potential successors so the organization continues, and keep a log of everything you do (getting money, scheduling events, whatever), so your successors have a handbook and don't have to reinvent the wheel. Three of the four had been my students in the past, though I knew only one well. Nonetheless, it was a very enjoyable meeting. I hate to engage in stereotypes, but these business-oriented students were more personable that similar groups of more technically-oriented students. Right after that meeting, I signed a timesheet for one of my lab tutors. I don't enjoy that particular bureaucratic task; I don't have the appropriate supervisory mindset, of needing to verify that people worked when they were supposed to work. But last year one of my lab tutors was confused about how to fill out the forms and put down so many hours she broke the bank and had to write them back a refund check. So now I have to check more carefully. Come to think of it, that lab tutor was one of the people at the BIM-student organization meeting! After that I worked on my subcommittee assignment Emails until I remembered to make some notes for this diary. From 1 to 3 I teach my seminar for new computer science teaching assistants. They're all required to attend this once, although the follow-up and enforcement is lax. This course (and the Advanced TA Seminar, whose theme is teaching and organizing one's own course) is probably my very favorite. I've taught it every year I've been teaching, sometimes more than once. After all these decades, I feel as if I've amassed enough experience that it's verging on wisdom. I have the students give presentations, do mock grading, and discuss issues like presentation media and academic honesty. But every class starts with my asking them for issues that have come up in their week's teaching, and I just love being able to analyze their situations and come up with a range of possible responses. In recent years I've been saying that teaching is a design activity: There are multiple approaches and techniques, and a good teacher should know the advantages and disadvantages of each so that he or she can use the one that fits best in a particular situation. Today the leadoff question was from the guy who's the reader for my first-year course. He was frustrated that the same students kept asking him the same questions (about where to find their grades), the answers to which were available on the web and in Email messages to the class; he wanted to know at what point he could express his annoyance. I let the other participants (there are about 20) have their say, and they touched on most of the issues: It's likelier that the students are legitimately confused than lazy or deliberately obtuse. Students do need to be encouraged to use the resources at their disposal rather than always depending on the human expert. And in fact, in this course, there had been a few missteps in the posting of scores for the class (formatting issues, score scaling issues, all things that might get a student confused). So I ended by suggesting a graduated approach: The first time, just answer the question (and maybe say where the information could be found). The second time, answer it straight again. The third time, maybe just give the link to the answer. The fourth time, ask gently, "Didn't we correspond about this same issue before?" And I noted that in my experience, it almost never goes past the second time, and that some students are extremely sensitive to the slightest correction, so it's probably best to be more patient so that nobody gets scared away from asking questions. There were a few more questions, and then six or eight people gave their (required) five-minute micro-teaching talks. The topics covered were: Statistical fault localization for software testing, formalizing a puzzle for AI solution, the algorithm for finding the convex hull, a review of Bayes' Theorem in the Monty Hall problem, ideology embodied in digital media, large-scale data management, assembly language programming, and visualizing social networks. As I may have mentioned, our school covers computing very broadly. Most of the TAs did quite well; only one had any trouble communicating. At 3:00 was the weekly departmental colloquium. This week, one of our own assistant professors (up for tenure this year, probably no cause to worry) spoke about his recent work. He attempts to recognize cerebral palsy in premature infants by attaching sensors (tiny accelerometers) to the infant's limbs and recording its movements. Apparently there are movement patterns characteristic of cerebral palsy that human observers can recognize reliably, and my colleague's work produced comparable results automatically. The work was interesting, but I also had my laptop in the session to follow up on those subcommittee assignments, so I wasn't perfectly attentive. It's very common in our unit to use laptops in talks and meetings, and what happens is just what I tell my students: The computer is a seductive distraction and studies show that people who think they're good at multitasking are really about as effective as they'd be under the influence of alcohol or drugs. I'm usually the only one at faculty meetings who doesn't bring a computer (and more and more often, we need to refer to documents on line during the meetings, so I have to bring my machine). At 4:10 the carpool left for home. I spent most of the evening watching TV on my computer. For the longest time, I didn't even have a TV, and even when I did, weeks would go by between times I watched anything. But now that shows are available over the web, I find my previous resistance weakened, and TV taking up more of my time than I'd really like. 017 Daily Activity Log Monday 15 November 2010 Our programs are only now beginning to recover from the decade-long enrollment slump since the dot-com bust. We have been scrambling in various ways for the last decade to build up our enrollments. We have created non-major courses and new majors, we have had outreach events, we have done most every conceivable thing to address students at every point in the pipeline. This is particularly important to us because our campus allocation of TAships (and also faculty positions) depends on our enrollment levels, and at present the Provost thinks we're not pulling our weight. Our campus has a well-developed program for undecided/undeclared majors. While we're not like smaller schools where students are forbidden to declare a major for a year or two, we do encourage students to participate in our undecided/undeclared program, which provides them with glimpses into the many disciplines and programs on campus. One event is a "major fair," at which students can chat in very small groups with faculty representing programs from across campus in a format rather like speed dating. This event is tonight, from 5:15 to 6:45. That's later than any of my carpool partners wish to stay, so I had to drive by myself; this means that I got up at 4:30 a.m. to leave around 5:00 so I could avoid heavy traffic. As a morning person, I enjoy doing this on occasion. It makes me feel virtuous and it gives me the chance to get some work done in my office when it's quiet and nobody's around. I stopped for a medium-sized nonfat latte (my coffee-house drink, when I don't make my own tea at home); I stopped by my carpool partner's house to drop off the parking permit for her to use later in the day (we're provided with a handful of one-day permits to use on days that carpooling doesn't work out). Then I drove to campus. (I've gone back to listening to books on tape, because the news has gotten depressing again.) At the office, I worked through my recent Email and my RSS feeds on technical and political/news subjects. I also started writing out a detailed solution to a lab problem that my class had difficulty with. My intention was to pass it out in class the next day, so they could study how it was done. As it worked out, I also used it as the basis for a quiz question. Talk about code reuse! Since I had to be on campus today, a day when I don't have recurring scheduled events because I need to keep it free for my systemwide committee meetings, I decided to offer my students an all-day office hour. They rarely show up to my scheduled hours (which I attribute neither to their comfort with the course material nor to my appearing unwelcoming; I think it's because they see me in class on Tuesday/Thursday and they see the TA and lab tutors on Monday/Wednesday/Friday, so they're never more than a few hours from contact with the course). But still, I have the sense that some people in the class are struggling, so I thought it would be helpful to make myself available, 9:00 to 5:00. About a dozen people (out of 45 enrolled) showed up. They wanted to hear about binary search trees, machine-level programming, how to navigate multipage programs, local definitions, and high-order functions. One group of two overlapped with another group of three; otherwise people came individually. They seemed to leave satisfied. At 5:15, a colleague and I drove across campus to the student center, the venue of the major fair. In about four 15-minute sessions, we talked one-on-one or two-on-two about our six different computing majors with a total of five students (and, in one session, just to each other). We weren't the worst wallflowers---faculty from other disciplines were alone for even more sessions. Again, it was good to talk individually to students, although I wouldn't say this was the most effective use of faculty time. I spoke with one student who could barely articulate any questions; we spoke with another who said major was English, she wasn't feeling challenged, and she looked forward enthusiastically to taking CS 1 next quarter. That was a delightful surprise. After the event, I drove my colleague home. Like many of my colleagues, he lives in the faculty enclave across the street from campus. (Real estate prices are so high near campus that the university bought acres of land for this purpose. The deal is that faculty can buy houses there at an affordable price, but they must sell back to the university when they leave---though not when they retire---for a price determined by the change in consumer price index. It provides convenient, affordable housing at the cost of losing out on the appreciation in value of one's real estate. That used to be a more serious consideration than it is today.) He gave me a slice of chocolate pecan pie he had baked. Then I drove home and started to write the weekly quiz for my class the next morning. I got it planned out, but I decided to go to sleep and finish writing it out in the morning. 017 Daily Activity Log Wednesday 15 December 2010 As I've described before, this year I am chair of the educational policy committee of my university system's faculty senate. As chair, I also sit on a variety of other committees and task forces, in particular the systemwide Senate Cabinet, whose membership consists of the president and vice president of the systemwide senate, the chairs of the standing systemwide senate committees, and the senate chairs from each of the individual campuses of the university. The Senate Cabinet meets once a month at university headquarters, an hour's flight up the state from where I live. Today is the December meeting. So far I've been averaging about three trips a month for these various committee meetings, plus two or three web- or teleconferences. It's great for my frequent flyer miles and, given my long drive to work, it's not that much worse to fly up to headquarters. But I do find that it's harder than usual to schedule meetings on campus and the burden of paperwork---agendas, meeting minutes, memos for comment---has been daunting. To make it to the 10:00 meeting, I have to catch a 7:15 a.m. flight, so I get up at 5:00 to shower and make it to the airport by 6:30. I go through security---I haven't quite gotten to the point my predecessor described, where the security personnel all knew his name, but I'm very efficient with the shoes and the laptop and the metal detector. One of the pleasures of serving on this particular body has been renewing my acquaintance with the current chair of the faculty senate at the largest of our campuses. She and I first met about 25 years ago, when I taught at that campus; I gave a two-week short-course introduction for computing sponsored by the engineering dean to bring selected non-CS faculty up to speed on modern computing (on the occasion of the opening of a new computer lab, which she attended as a young faculty member in engineering. We hadn't seen each other from then until the first cabinet meeting this year. Most of the issues discussed at this faculty meeting derived from our state's financial crisis and our university's budget problems, which were already difficult before the last couple of years' decline. One issue was how to bring faculty salaries up to competitive rates; apparently our total remuneration is about 10% below that of comparable institutions, and now the gap is widening. The university had budgeted some money for salary increases this year, but it's likely that some of that budget will decrease due to unexpected shortfalls and anticipated mid-year cuts. Still, the faculty define the quality of the university, and a mass exodus is something we wouldn't recover from for decades. The complexity of the issue stems partly from the political difficulty of contemplating any kind of salary increase in this economic climate and partly from the byzantine complexity of the existing faculty salary system, which does an excellent job of recognizing faculty productivity (though not at competitively remunerative rates). A second issue was trying to inform academic program reviews (the province of the faculty senate) with actual budget information (the province of the administration) so the faculty's decisions can be informed by the relative costs of the alternatives. A task force will be formed (on which I expect I will sit) to consider how to implement this. A third issue was how one campus may have reduced costs by inviting major programs to consider the number of courses they require, and reduce that number (consistent with academic quality). Some programs apparently exceeded even the maximum recommended number of courses; many others were at the high end of the allowable range and, as a result of this effort, many majors did reduce the required courses. A fourth issue was a redirection of endowment money on one campus without faculty senate consultation. A fifth issue was how to deal with drastically increasing subscription rates to academic journals; the research and libraries committee is in the process of negotiating with one publisher about this, with a view towards shifting to an authors-pay model. As it happens, I had another senate-related meeting the following day. In situations like these, the university will spring for a hotel room. So after today's meeting, I arranged to get together with a colleague who teaches locally. He picked me up, we picked up his son from school, and we had an informal dinner at his house where he and I could talk about teaching, institutional politics, and our respective kids. Mine's in college; his is five years old, already reading quite proficiently and studying Chinese. When he dropped me back at my hotel, I went out briefly for a glass of port and a cheese tray before retiring. 017 Daily Activity Log Saturday 15 January 2011 Today is a Saturday. While it's not a traditional work day (in the sense that no work obligations are scheduled), a teacher's work is never done. I do get to follow my preferred morning routine, however: Read the newspaper with a cup of tea and some light breakfast, in this case pickled herring. Before the rest of the household wakes up, I process through some Email: -- One of my duties as chair of the systemwide faculty senate undergraduate education committee is to recruit, from the membership of my committee, volunteers to sit on various subcommittees. We have one such subcommittee that provides the governance for our university residential/academic program in Washington, DC. I'd recruited a volunteer for this, but the post requires a two-year commitment and the volunteer is going on sabbatical next year. Personally, I think he should have stuck it out for a year, but I was asked to find a replacement. Happily I did get a volunteer who's not due for a leave and who doesn't have another subcommittee post. I think I've been much more effective than my predecessors in finding subcommittee volunteers; I hope it's appreciated. -- I communicate with my TA about her scheduling some lab hours for the next week's assignment. -- I complete and submit my two-page CV for our upcoming accreditation review. -- Since everyone in my carpool is an academic, our schedules are irregular; we all have travel obligations, early or late metings, and child-care commitments (although at present half of us are childless and the other half are empty-nesters). Thus we work out a custom schedule each week. I have taken on the role of the scheduler, collecting everyone's timing preferences and working out the best fit I can. This morning, as usual each Friday or Saturday, I send a request to my carpool partners for their next week's commuting schedules. -- I check in with a grad student I'm mentoring as he teaches his first full course (he was nominated at the last minute when the scheduled instructor resigned). -- I'm acting as the client for a team in our one-term software project course; their project is to build a visualization of the process for assigning instructors to courses (which is now done rather clumsily on spreadsheets). This morning I respond to a request to schedule a team meeting. Tonight we plan to have my local family (father, his wife, sister, and two old family friends) over for dinner. My sister is having surgery on Monday [late update: it was successful]. My daughter, who is still home from college on winter break, and I are in charge of the menu planning and preparation. She and I go shopping: to the local farmer's market for vegetables (kale, onions, and garlic, plus berries for a pie) and to the Asian market for large fish fillets (labeled in the case as "turbot/halibut") to grill. We run various other errands and return home to cook. 017 Daily Activity Log Tuesday 15 February 2011 Today at 9:30 I teach my class for non-majors, a broad introduction to computers and computing. I go over the midterm they took last week, emphasizing that nobody's grade in the class is doomed by a low midterm score. (According to the syllabus, the midterm is worth 20% of the grade and the final exam, 35%. The way I put it to the class, since I don't want to make hard-and-fast numeric commitments, is that we'll look at their score on the final, and if they do better than they did on the midterm, we'll pay more attention to their final exam score. In practice, I may just have a column on my spreadsheet that flags people in that situation, so if they're on a borderline I can give them the higher grade; a more systematic alternative would be to take the students who did better on the final and split the difference, using for their midterm score a number halfway between their original midterm score and their score on the final.) After going over the midterm, I talk about redundancy: How it exists in the physical world, how it exists in natural language, and how it exists in digital data. Of course this is a lead-in to a discussion of data compression. After class, I dealt with a variety of tasks: -- I submitted my expenses for yesterday's distinguished visitor, someone I had invited to inform the department's upcoming deliberations about how to reorganize the first-year curriculum. I also submitted expenses for my travel to university headquarters for systemwide committee meetings. -- I met with a senior grad student who's teaching our CS 2 this term; he was a last-minute stand-in for a much-beloved instructor who left to seek his fortune. (Even after taking on full-time employment in addition to his full-time teaching assignment---both of which he performed excellently---he decided that he wasn't going to become financially secure teaching in the university.) This grad student is a talented teacher. He has decided that he wants an academic career with a greater emphasis on teaching than on research; it will be rewarding to mentor him through this job search. He told yesterday's visitor that he didn't like doing research, and got embarrassed when the visitor fed that back to his advisor. Both of them should have kept their mouths shut; the student was impolitic in revealing so much of himself to someone he didn't know, and the visitor should have respected the confidence. The visitor tried to convince the student to change his dissertation topic to something related to CS education, but the student felt he was far enough along that he should just grit his teeth and finish with his straight-CS topic. -- I edited a web blurb for our new minor called "Digital Information Systems," which is aimed at students who want some technology background but don't want to do programming. We expect it to be popular, and we hope it will increase enrollment in some of our courses. This is critical for us, because our "student-credit-hours," the number of students we teach, are low compared to the rest of the campus; this means the provost doesn't give us as many TAs or new faculty slots as we want. -- I corresponded with the staff support person for the systemwide faculty senate committee I chair, setting agenda items for our March meeting: * How different funding models will affect the number of students each campus will enroll * How we can streamline the transfer path for community college students * A policy for the public sharing of assessment data, which may include samples of student work, while preserving the privacy of the students who did the work -- I arranged to participate in evaluating proposals for a new web-based system for advising community college transfer students. I got tagged for this as the only computer scientist on the committee of Faculty Senate leaders from the various segments of the state higher education system (community colleges, state colleges, and state university). I don't mind doing it, but I worry that there will be time conflicts with my other commitments. -- I corresponded with one of our graduate counselors about finalizing a memo to allow a PhD student to complete some courses and leave with a master's degree. Originally the student had his course requirements waived, but when he decided the PhD wasn't for him, he needed actually to take those courses to qualify for the MS degree, and that required permission from the graduate dean's office. -- I made plane reservations for next week's two back-to-back meetings at university headquarters. -- I corresponded with the people who support the audio and screen capture system available in our classrooms. I've had a hell of a time getting this system to work reliably; there's a long sequence of steps to set it up and shut it down, and apparently if you miss one, your recording disappears. -- I sent a reference letter for one of our new PhD students, whom I've known since he was a freshman; he's applying for faculty jobs. -- I corresponded with a computer science teacher at an independent (private) high school. He visited yesterday to see our distinguished visitor, whose curriculum he follows. This high school teacher does impressive things with his young students. We talked about my visiting his school to do some outreach. -- I took a nap. When I moved into this office four or five years ago, I got to specify my furniture, and I specified an eight-foot couch. Primarily I did that so I could accommodate six or seven people in my office for meetings, but it's also handy for naps. After returning home, I corresponded with another grad student who's teaching another one of my departed colleague's classes next quarter. I arranged to meet with him on Thursday to help him set up his course. 017 Daily Activity Log Tuesday 15 March 2011 This the examination week for the winter term, so there aren't classes scheduled. My class's exam is on Thursday, and getting it written is high on my to-do list. I'd be perfectly happy if I never had to write another exam in my life. I could happily go on teaching in the classroom, long into my dotage. But I find writing exams to be a lot of hard work. I mentioned in last month's report that a colleague of mine, someone who caught the teaching bug by being my "head TA" as an undergraduate and went on to become arguably the best teacher in our department, decided to leave the university in pursuit of greater financial security. The department has somehow found the money to hire a replacement (though they're only certain they can fund it for a year). At SIGCSE, I saw or met four people who would be fine candidates for this job, people who already have some successful experience teaching at the university level. I had been dubious about our finding anybody who could hold a candle to my departed colleague, but now I'm quite hopeful. The most senior of these potential replacement candidates, a mid-career guy at the main state research university of another state, has indicated interest in our position because it's closer to his family. I wrote him a lengthy message about our job and our program. I also dealt with a mountain of paperwork for travel reimbursements, four different trips in the last month (including SIGCSE). Early in the afternoon, there was a meeting of the task force to explore alternatives to our current lineup of first-year classes. Of the eight people on this task force, only I and one colleague have ever taught introductory CS courses; between us we have some 60 years of experience (70, depending on how you count); the rest barely have two years among them. I'm finding these meetings an extraordinarily frustrating experience; my colleagues are all smart, and they think that qualifies them to make decisions about first-year education. They have so little clue about what intro students are like that I'm finding it impossible even to bring them up to speed in the context of a committee meeting, where people speak for just a minute or two at a time. How does one distill the understanding gained from 30 years' experience into a sound bite? I think that the portion of the curriculum that I've developed over the past seven years or so is definitely along the right lines; I worry that any decision made by this committee will be a move in the wrong direction, and that I'll finish out my career teaching courses that are worse than what I'm teaching now. In preparation for this meeting, each of us is to gather information about the first-year curriculum at some other institutions. I gather the info for my assigned campus---a sister campus in our system, one whose curriculum is along the same lines as the portion of ours that I favor. Later, I meet with my department chair and someone from the fundraising office on our campus. The issue was determining the schedule and amount for disbursement of a scholarship in the name of a departed colleague (in both senses; he left us for a different job, and subsequently he passed away). Apparently our campus central fundraising office keeps the funds for these awards, skimming some of the interest off the top. Towards the end of the day, I looked at my schedule for the next couple of weeks. My daughter, who's away at college, will be back home for one week of her spring break, and unfortunately that coincides with the first week of our spring term. I have scheduled obligations on every day of that week, which makes me incredibly resentful of my job. This is about the only week I'll see her between January and next December, and it will have to be just the occasional stolen hour. At home in the evening, I continue work on my final exam for Thursday. 022 06:00 Breakfast. Check emails and slowly realizes that I've got an external course for a company to prepare, a paper to review, a lot of assignments to check as well a paper to write. Sigh. 06:45 Starts the day by answering emails from my sofa about the external course. 07:35 The kids off to school, car to work - tired. That 523 km drive yesterday wasn't that fun, although I managed to listen to some audiobooks. 08:22 Figuring out what to do first, checking the news, starting to work on the external course, answering emails, trying to help new students that are lost and can't find the person they are looking for. 12:10 Lunch in front of the computer. Continue working on the course 15:00 Severe concentration problems, I better do something else. 15:45 Started to review paper 16:18 Time to walk downtown and take the bus home. 18:00 Making dinner 19:30 Back to reviewing article, I don't like it - I think that there are huge holes in the methodology. 20:35 Submitted my review. Suggested a rejection. Now I should start planning for the martial arts class tomorrow - I also need to write a "lecture plan" for the class this autumn. 20:45 Too tired, I need some sleep. 022 06:00 Woke up, still sick 06:30 Ohh, nice, the neighbors lawn is white - the snow is still here 07:01 Checking email 07:05 Reporting a bug in a program 08:26 At the office, sick, worse than yesterday, I should have stayed at home today. I should write on a paper today, don't think I will succeed :( 09:23 As I suspected, can't do any writing today. Let's try reading some papers instead. 11:21 This is bad, I get dizzy when I get up from my chair 12:24 Lunch with advisor and colleague 13:16 Back at the office. Strange, but I haven't this motived to do research for the last 6-10 months. But right now I just want to lay down in the sofa, a blanket and a good movie. 15:26 Searching for more papers about concurrency 16:00 Sigh, lost my concentration again. Sneezing and coughing isn't really good for concentrating. 16:45 Time to get home 17:20 Making dinner 19:00 Celebrating sons birthday 20:00 Have managed to find an instructor replacement for sundays session, just need to find someone for the second session also. I'm not going to in shape to do anything on sunday 20:15 Watching a science program about how the universe is going to end 21:00 Watching some Sci-Fi: Stargate Universe 21:49 Coughing, sneezing - I'm not feeling well !! Must go to bed soon 022 - Woke up several times during the night, the coughing isn't as bad as before but it still wakes me up 3-4 times during the night 6:00 Alarm went off, celebrating my 5th week of being sick today. Hopefully I'm getting better now - stopped taking that medicine that prevented me from driving the car 6:30 Time for the kids to get up 7:10 Actually managed to make lunch for myself and take it with me 7:39 Off we go 7:57 Unusually long queues today, took perhaps 10 minutes to pass something that usually takes less than a minute 8:20 At the office 8:25 First cup of tea, checking the email. Father-in-law happy for the pictures of the grandkids otherwise just boring emails 8:46 Fiddled around with a script 9:07 Time to prepare tomorrows lecture - Programming Languages 9:37 Slightly depressed, I have a ju-jutsu session tonight but I can't participate ... once again ... it has now been 5 weeks since the last time and this is getting really depressing - my normal "dose" is 3-4 times/week. 11:15 Set up syncing of text documents between my Mac and my iPhone 11:30 Lunch 11:50 More preparations 14:07 Asked former teacher of the course for some info 16:05 Drove down to the Dojo to give daughter her Gi 16:15 Was asked to manipulate a picture I've taken to get better colors and a cleaner background, will be used for ads for our club 17:45 On my way home with daughter and wife 18:25 Helping out in preparing dinner 18:45 Dinner 19:30 Watching the news 20:45 Preparing lecture 21:00 Watching the news and preparing lecture 22:15 Played with a new program for my iPhone 23:30 Sigh, tomorrows lecture isn't going to be as good as I would like (are they ever) but I need some sleep 022 6:00 - Time to wake up 7:30 - Away we go, lovely winter weather today and only -15 degrees outside, yesterday it was -25 8:03 - Arrived at work 8:30 - Started to fix some non-work related stuff. My fiber connection at home is so slow that I can't upload anything from home ... probably need to change the fiber converter tonight - I can't stand it anymore 9:10 - Started to select papers for my dissertation 9:30 - Started a long discussion about a course 10:05 - Back to the papers, first select resulted in 6 papers - need to read and remind myself what they were about 10:16 - Need to update my "study plan", hopefully this will be the last time I ever do this. 10:40 - Right now it feel like the major motivation for finishing my degree is to get rid of these #()/"&[euro]) forms that I need to fill in 10:45 - Back to transcribing interviews 11:45 - The planning of spring teaching is on it's way and it's changing by the hour. Right now it looks like I'm teaching two python courses and is to develop/teach a distance learning course in HTML5 CSS JavaScript etc etc. None of which I really know, just dabbled with. 16:12 - Spend most of the afternoon transcribing interviews, will soon go and celebrate my advisors 50th birthday, then quick drive home to get my camera and then off to my wife's choir concert - she politely suggested that I come and bring my camera with me so I better do that. Then home again and try to fix the fiber converter and then set up my camera again for tomorrows big event. Looks like it's going to be a busy evening. 19:30 - Choir photography done. I really dislike that place, the lighting is really horrible and the windows in the background make flash photography really difficult 19:49 - Started changing the fiber converter ... 20:35 - After some really exciting minutes it turned out that I've managed to successfully change the converter, Working with fiber isn't fun, they are way too sensitive. 21:30 - Washing done 22:07 - Time to pack the photo gear for tomorrow and go to bed. The worrying thing is that I've now been sick for 65 days and lately things have started to become better in the last two weeks but today it feel like I'm getting sicker again. No fun. 022 Not much did happen today ... for which I'm grateful. I slept in and didn't get up until 9am. Then I had a very slow day, washed some clothes, fiddled around at home, took a photo of a tomato :D, made dinner for the family ... in short a relaxing saturday. 022 06:00 - Time to get up 06:15 - Time to wake up 06:30 - Finally getting up, -31* outside 06:35 - Breakfast 08:00 - At work 08:05 - Starts the day by filing some bug reports for a yet to be released version of very nice program 08:30 - Reading news and emails that have come in during the night 08:37 - Looks like father in law needs some computer support again, adding to todo-list 08:41 - Considering switching to multimarkdown for my writing, waiting for the release of v3 08:42 - Quick stat, email the last 24 hours approx 150 real emails and 300 spam. Very grateful for SpamSieve who catches approx 99.9% of all spam without false hits. 09:02 - Answered email about thesis work 09:05 - Shutting down email 09:07 - Shutting down twitter, facebook 09:14 - Starting to read papers 09:32 - Reading papers by the author "Pancake" makes me hungry 09:49 - My new, very very very expensive, glasses can be picked up. Sigh, I hadn't expected that getting old would cost me money in this way. 10:40 - Launched email, now answering email again 10:50 - Shutting down email again 12:17 - Checking email again 12:28 - Shutting down email again 13:41 - Starting to think that I might possible have misunderstood how the word "visualize" is used in research papers. Checking with some native English speakers. 16:35 - Time to go home 17:10 - Home 17:20 - Away I go again, this time I need to drive the daughter and her friend for their music lesson. That was 10 minutes at home 18:00 - Sitting at the music school, time for some work on my photos 19:30 - Nice, 1.5 hours of uninterrupted photo work, needed that. 20:20 - Leaving music school with daughter and her friend, now I need to pick up my son from his jutsu session and then back home 20:50 - Home again 21:00 - House on TV 22:10 - Bed 022 06:00 Ouch, horrible stiff in my back today. It's probably due to the heave exercising I've been doing lately. I need to be doing stretching exercises often today. At least once per hour. Look, it's a^'17A* today 06:30 Breakfast 07:18 Leaving for work 07:50 At work, checking email - I still don't agree with the angle of this paper, need to convince the other person that I'm right :D 09:00 Time to start working on the material for my online course in Python. Unfortunately the system the university has decided to use for these online courses is really bad - example: you can't have two windows open at the same time. Come on, it's not 1995!!! Avoiding the system and instead using a wiki installed on my private domain - in 15 minutes I'm able to do about the same amount of work that I'm able to produce in 90 minutes using the university system. 14:37:25 I like writing material for an online course using a wiki, it's really nice to be able to simply refer to a page that discuss a subject in detail and not have to try to make sequential story about the whole thing. So for me as the author it works nicely \0x00 but I'm uncertain that it works for the students. I know that I have some problems learning/reading from a wiki so I'm pretty sure that I need to provide a sequential "baseline" with links into the wiki. Well, it's the first time I'm doing anything like this so I better be flexible and check with the students during the course to see how it work for them. 14:43:20 Opps, looks like I need to do some rescheduling of my time this evening. I hope the logistics work out for the whole family. Not that I'm complaining, I need to write something tonight and this would get me some more time to do that. Actually it's kind of interesting, I did some interviews last year and one of the persons I interviewed recently sent me an email asking me to write something about what impressions I got from her etc. Kind of fun but also difficult. 17:55:48 Back home again. Dinner done, relaxing in the sofa while waiting for the washing machine to finish. Watching/listening to the news from Japan, it doesn't look good at all. Spent the rest of the evening washing clothes and trying to write down my impressions of this interview - doesn't sound that difficult but it is. Son came home and announced that he was going to a Brazilian Ju-Jutsu camp this weekend \0x00 which means that I miss my Iaido and Jutsu sessions this weekend, perhaps even the exercise session on sunday, in worst case my 5-6 sessions this week turn out to be 2 " not happy about that. Continued to think about how to use the wiki for teaching, the natural thing is to add a lot of facts about programming, how to do this, how to do that, how an if-statement look like etc. But that wouldn't work, they would never learn from that - so I'm currently thinking of having two types of pages, the reference pages that describe the "facts" and "tutorial pages" that takes you through the learning with links to the reference pages. I go with that for a while and see what happens. Watched an episode of House and then to bed. 022 Up and away early, we needed to go the train station and meet my wife(TM)s brother and his family at the train station. My wife(TM)s family is coming to town to celebrate her birthday so it(TM)s going to be a busy weekend. Despite this detour I was at work before they had opened the doors. Todays schedule includes learning Javascript, HTML5 and a Python lecture. Javascript is kind of interesting ... I don(TM)t know if I mean it in a good way or in a bad way. I need to get a proper book on Javascript to get the details on why it behaves the way it does. Spent most of the day looking at Javascript. Then it was time to buy some food and start to prepare for tomorrows party - a large part of our relatives are going to descend on our house on saturday. Pfjuuuu. 022 Yet another sunday that didn't follow my plans. I took my daughter early to the dojo so I could help her and her friend with their techniques. They soon have a graduation and need to improve a bit. But unfortunately I also needed to write on a grant application so I brought with me some papers and the iPad hoping to get some work done. So first 1.5 hour of helping the girls, then 1h being the instructor for a group of kids, then a quick drive home with daughter and directly back again, followed by the supervision of two younger instructors (which did their work very well), then pizza in the microwave at the dojo, followed by few hours of grant application, then it was time for my workout but it turned out that my leg hurt so I had to stop at once (I don't want to get some inflammation in my leg due to exercising when I should get the leg the chance to heal). Then waiting for my son to complete the workout (which means more grant application stuff), and finally back home again. This means that I left home at 10 and got home at 20:30. Then some more writing on the application. Then to bed. 022 Strange sleep - was sweating one moment, freezing the other. Yep, I got a cold. Today, big "end-of-school" day today. Daughter finished 6th grade which means a new school next year and one of the sons 9th grade which mean high-school for him. Of course the schools had managed to organize the celebrations at the same time and since it's 20 km between the schools ... Anyway, one of the parents was there ... in wheelchair. He got a some kind blood-cloth in a nerve center a few months ago which means that he now can't walk and have problems using his arms and his fingers. Must be pretty hard to go to bed as usual one evening and wake up partly paralyzed. Makes you think. Well, trying to work at home for the rest of the day ... which turns out to be pretty difficult since daughter and friend apparently must be "talking" constantly to know where their heads are <DEEP sigh> Tried a learn more about JavaScript until it was time to go into town and have dinner to celebrate. Became dead tired at the restaurant and almost fell asleep. When I come home I fell asleep in the sofa. 022 Vacation - I finished a large part of my garden work yesterday and now I have to wait until I can do the next part. Sooooo ... I'm spending this lovely summer day sitting at the kitchen table, writing on my thesis - how bored I am with this stuff. And if it ever get accepted I can only hope that nobody reads it because if that happens I'll probably never be able to show my face at a conference again ... since I'm pretty critical to much of the work done in this area. Anyway, managed to send a new version to my advisor. Tomorrow, I'm off for a visit to a fair and my parents-in-law. 022 First day at the office after vacation and a 15 day trip to the US. And I had of course arranged for a checkup of the car at 7:15 in the morning (sometimes I wonder why I do these things, I should know better). So I had to get up at 5:30, drive the wife to the university and then take car to the garage. Sat there waiting until they had checked the car and actually got some work done thanks to my iPad. When I bought the iPad I considered it to be a toy but in these few months it has become a VERY useful tool, both privately and at work. Back to work and did some emails, then I had to read a master thesis and comment on it. Horrible english, I mean I'm not that good at english but this was not good - I don't understand why some students want to write in english when it's obvious that they don't master the language. Sometimes it was kind of funny because the student used words that he must have looked up in some online dictionary, unfortunately they didn't mean what he thought they meant so the end result was kind of confusing :D Then back to reading a paper that I need to comment on in my thesis. At 16:30 my wife said she needed to go downtown since she need to get some Koruna for her trip to Czech Republic tomorrow. Then back home and dinner, went to sleep in front of the TV but woke up and saw that I got some emails from the ICER people ... which means that I can spend some time tomorrow editing photos at work. Bedtime 024 Wednesday, September 15, 2010 --- A day in the life of a CS faculty (Sigh. I had typed it all here, but when I clicked "update survey" something went wrong, and I lost it all. I'll need to re-write tomorrow. I will write it in a separate file and upload next time. Here is the re-constructed entry:) Wednesday, September 15, 2010 --- A day in the life of a CS faculty I woke up this morning, feeling a little better than the past few days. It is only the third week of the semester but I am already getting over my first cold. I slept a little later than usual, getting up just before 7:00 so I could say bye to my older daughter before she got on the schoolbus. After dropping off my younger daughter at school at 8:25, I head in to campus, find parking, and drop my lunch box off in the office before heading off to my 9:00 AM CS1 class; my morning section has about 120 students. Today we introduced variables, and discussed the need for type information in a variable declaration. Overall the class was fairly interactive - I did get some good questions. I also got a frustrating question at the end: do you post your lecture slides on-line? We're in the third week of classes, the students have the URL to the course website, I've shown the class where on the website the lecture slides are, and I've answered this question several times already. Sigh. After class (9:50) I headed back to my office - a swift walk of about 6 or 7 minutes. I have a meeting with some of my teaching assistants at 10:00. I meet with two of my graduate teaching assistants first, and we make sure they can be present to help administer next weeks' exam in CS1, and also arrange a time for us all to grade the exam. After that I meet with one of my "old timer" undergraduate teaching assistants (UTAs), who is helping train the graduate TAs with writing unit tests and grading student submissions with Web-CAT. We have a discussion about what to do with Web-CAT once it is back up and running - is has been out of commission for a little while after an upgrade gone bad (we think). We also discussed the UTA appointment paperwork with our department's financial officer. At 11:00 I should have held office hours as usual (my office hours are 11:00-11:50 Monday through Friday) but I had cancelled office hours today to be prepared to cover class for a colleague who was attending his son's wedding in California, in case he returned late and couldn't make it to class. It turns out he did make it, and I used this "found" time to catch up on e-mail. At noon, when I typically eat lunch, I prepped more test cases for the live coding example we are working on in my 1:00 CS2 class, while eating a quick lunch. At 12:45 I headed off to class; this semester both of my CS1 classes and my CS2 class are in the same building, so I will get a little over 30 minutes of walking "for free" MWF this semester :-) At 1:00 I did my CS2 class. Today the class very interactive. We are developing an implementation of a Bag ADT in a test-driven way. CS2 is usually taken in the spring, so the fall CS2 class is relatively small (50 students), and they typically have a more diverse CS1 background than the spring group. This said, I was very impressed today with how engaged the students were; they had some very good questions both during class, and also after class (about team term project). Once back in my office at 2:00 I post lecture slides from CS2 to the course website. I also took tiem to review my slides from the morning CS1 in preparation for the afternoon CS1. 3:00 This section of CS1 has about 115 students. We covered the same material as in the morning section. I did have to temporarily confiscate three cell phones (two from one student) - these students were texting during lecture, and clearly distracting other students. After class a student asked where the course website was. Sigh. Again. At 4:00 I was able to follow-up on some CSTA chapter issues that came up at our meeting, which was held last night. At 5:00 I had a meeting software project meeting, for an ongoing project that currently has three active undergraduates involved. The students had not been able to get work done during the week, so we did an interactive code exploration to focus their attention on what to look at this coming week. At 6:10 I left to meet with wife at our daughter's high school for its open house. We got to experience her schoolday in compressed format. By 9:00 we are back home - and I get to re-heat dinner, and eat while writing these notes! By 11:30 I head off to bed. 024 Today is atypical. I am attending our second annual local CSTA conference. It has almost 30 attendees, fewer than last year but still respectable. We have several presentations lined up for the morning, and two workshops for the afternoon. The conference runs 8:30-4:30. 024 Monday, November 15, 2010 --- A day in the life of a CS faculty It's Monday, but I was still up too late last night getting things ready for the week. I got to bed at 12:40 AM, and had a hard time falling asleep - too many thoughts were still whirling around my head. Nonetheless, I woke up this morning around 6:50 feeling OK. I shaved and showered, and after a quick breakfast I settled in to have my first cup of coffee while reviewing peer evaluations for a group project. I was happy to finish that before needing to head out at around 8:20. My 9:00 AM CS1 lecture went OK, but not quite as smoothly as I had planned it out. Throughout this week we're discussing primitive types (just int and boolean to start), operators on those types, and control structures. Once I got back to our building I chatted a bit with a colleague who just lost his elderly mother. He was doing well. She had been ill for some time, so her passing was not unexpected. My 11:00-noon office hour lasted until 12:45, when I scarfed down a quick lunch before running off to teach by CS2 class. The CS2 class was fairly lively today - how fun! We were discussing removal from a binary search tree, and they were answering questions readily and, for the most part, correctly. They were a little stumped when I asked them how they could prove that the node that contains the smallest value in a BST has an empty left child. With a little prompting they suggested that this could be proved by contradiction; we then together constructed (informally) a proof. That made my day :-) After class I met with a student who had some questions about the current CS1 lab. We reviewed (again) parameters and arguments, and the role of a Proxy in the lab. By the end of the session I think we made progress, but I don't know that she will retain it all in the long term. I expect she will return with more questions - which is fine: that's how learning works! I felt the presentation in my 3:00 PM CS1 ran a bit more smoothly than in the 9:00 AM CS1, but my morning class was more interactive and lively (odd, given that it was at 9:00 on a Monday morning). After class I met with some students from our local ACM chapter to help with an outreach project. We are taking robots into a local middle school, and we had to finalize what we were going to have the kids do. They are learning how to program the robots (in Java) to navigate an obstacle course. This week they learn how to use some infrared range sensors. We had been planning on using sonar sensors, but one of them appears to be broken, so we did some quick reprogramming. The outreach meeting ran 45 minutes late, but I made it home to eat with the family. We shifted piano lessons for everyone to Monday, because I have a local CSTA chapter meeting to attend tomorrow night. After practicing a bit more, I took my youngest daughter for our two lessons at 8:00 PM. While she had her lesson I worked on finalizing the description of the next lab for CS1 - my TAs had given me some good feedback on an earlier draft. After getting home at 9:45 PM, I continued working on the lab description. For some reason when saving it as HTML not all the images appeared. After trying to figure that glitch out, I posted the lab as PDF and went to sleep at 12:45 AM, having already falled asleep at the keyboard once. 024 Dec 18, 2010 On the 13th I spilled coffee on my laptop :-( As luck would have it, it survived :-) and now that I have my machine back I can contribute my entry. On the 15th I had a leisurely work-session at home in the morning, grading practical coding exams. I went in for the afternoon, when I gave a 3 hour final exam. There were 209 students writing the exam; I had a few nervous moments when one of my invigilators didn't show up. Thanks to texting (SMS) we were able to get her to the exam within 15 minutes - pretty impressive use of technology. It turns out she had thought the end-time of the exam was the start-time. After the exam I was very happy to head home! 024 Saturday the 15th started early - I got up at 5:50 to get my daughter to school for 6:30, so she could catch the school bus to a track meet. Then I went home and crawled back into bed. I spent time finishing up my syllabi and web sites for my courses this semester (classes start on the 18th; my first class is the 19th). I am teaching CS2 and compilers, the latter for the first time. I also spent some time cleaning the house. Around 5:00 I picked my daughter up. She's having fun with track, which is cool. The whole family ran a 5K this past fall, and she in particular seems to have gotten the running bug - she loves to keep fit. I need to get back to exercising too - I stubbed my toe quite badly during the holiday, and my doctor told me no running for 6 to 8 weeks :-( 024 The main things on my to-do list are: - Prepare for final outreach/afterschool visit to a local public school. - Finish preparing CS2 lecture for tomorrow. - Finish preparing Compiler course lecture for tomorrow. - Finish JUnit testing for CS2 HW3. - Start putting together CS2 HW4. - Start putting together first CS2 in-class exam. - Write recommendation letters (currently need letters for one student going to graduate school, and for two students applying to several summer REUs). - Do background reading for conference workshop. - Review four conference papers. - Get back to writing chapters for CS1 textbook. - Watch Watson on Jeopardy tonight! So far this morning I have gotten through e-mail, though I still have 40-odd mails sitting that I need to respond to. Finished up early at the after-school outreach program. Robots are finnicky! Motors, sensors, batteries...ick. Am going to do up a stir-fry for dinner. Will watch the 2nd day of the Watson Jeopary match with the girls tonight. 024 March 15, 2011 The day starts like many others, with my wife getting up first since she needs to leave first. For me this is spring break (yeah!) but there is still work to be done. I got the news this morning that my cousin has three blot clots, one in each lung and one is the leg. He's expected to be OK, but that was bit of a shock. He is 23 years my senior, could always fix anything, and was strong as on ox. Age and life affect everyone, it seems. Next thing to do: get my youngest off to school. Then I head in for a training session on our new registration/advising system. I spend quite a bit of time interacting with a student who is proving to be difficult, difficult to the point where I have involved the institution's office responsible for student conduct. I thought a little about the project I will be giving my one class when they come back from spring break, communicated with my grader on his grading of homework, and still start grading midterm exams tomorrow. There were several other personal things to take care of, which are probably not so interesting for anyone else, except that we had a gas leak at 23.00 and had to call the gas company to come a fix it. That was a unexpected pleasure (!) 024 April 15, 2011 A typical day. I taught CS2 at 9:00, then had a chunk of time to prepare for my 1:00 compilers course. I was supposed to get a call from an HR person regarding a former student, but my phone remained silent all morning. After my 1:00 class I met with a student who is struggling a bit - we have regular meetings set up to try to get them back on track. Then I met with a fellow faculty member who had questions about serving as the faculty advisor for a student group. After that, yet another student meeting, with another student who's fallen behind. Then it's off to my 4:00 CS2. In CS2 we finished up defining an iterator for a BST. Students seemed to understand the use of a stack in the implementation - a promising sign. In compilers we finished up a discussion of back-patching jumps during intermediate code generation. On a personal note, got the good news that my spouse's biopsy results were negative. That's what we expected, but we had been anxious nonetheless. In the evening we took the kids out for Sushi and then went for a movie (Rio). A good time was had by all. 024 May 15, 2011 Sunday. Went to 8:00 AM mass - out the door at 7:30. After we came home one of my wife's guitar ensemble friends came over to practice. Great for me - I graded exams to live music :-) Spent most of the day grading, helped my older daughter with some math homework, and picked up my younger from her friend's house. Overall, not a bad day at all. 024 I am creating my entry for June 15th a day early, as I will be traveling overseas for a short visit to my mother and sister. I will be in airports or in airplanes all day long. While I don't relish the airports/airplanes, perhaps I can catch up a little on my pleasure reading! 024 July 15, 2011 Summertime I get to spent lots of time with my two girls, 11 and 16. This morning I them up early, even though it is summer vacation for them too, because we had planned to go cherry picking. Our usual orchard advertised, on their web-site's picking schedule, that they still had sweet yellow cherries. When we got to the orchard we found out that all the sweet cherries were gone, and that they only had sour cherries left. We picked sour cherries, mulberries, and raspberries. Talking to the staff it turns out that they have step-by-step instructions that they follow to the letter whenever they need to update the web-site. To change the picking schedule takes them about half an hour, they say. However, they have a young college student who typically maintains the site, and she can apparently update the site in about a minute from her phone (!) I am sure there is a lesson about computational thinking somewhere in there. (Actually, it gets me thinking about my father-in-law, who was just over at our house and seemed uncomfortable with the difference between the address bar and the Google search bar in our browser, even though at home he has the same computer with the same browser. How contextualized is our knowledge?) After getting back from berry picking I left the kids at home for a bit and headed in to my office to catch up on some course articulations and recommendation letters, and to continue with my office clean-out. Not only did I not get around to the cleaning last summer, in the fall we are moving into a new building and we need to start packing. I don't want to pack things I really need to discard! In the end I only managed to work on cleaning - I never did get to the articulations and letters. Perhaps on Monday. After getting back from the office, stopping by the grocery store on the way home, my darling wife and I made cous-couse, roasted lamb chops with a mulberry sauce. Then, to cap off a full day, we set off to see Harry Potter VII part 2, in 3D! It was enjoyed by all :-) 026 Today I arrived on campus at 8 am (actually 8:05) for my 8 am class due to traffic woes. I went immediately to the office to drop off my personal belongings and pick up the graded papers to be returned and markers for the white board. I then headed off to my Introduction to Programming Class (taught in C#, with a games flavor). Class begins with the "puzzle of the day" which are either logic puzzles or a review question from the previous lecture. I started this technique this semester to encourage "prompt" attendance at 8 am at to get the brains started. While they are working on the puzzles I handed out graded papers (previous puzzles of the day and homework 1). I then reminded them of the class calendar...homework 2 and assignment 2 were posted. Homework 2 is on arithmetic operators, assignment 2 is small code manipulation to teach operators, assignment, and sequential control flow. I then lectured for 45 minutes on data types, variables, and constants. Oh, and of the 37 students registered for class, approximately 25 attended. We're calling it "Halo fever" as the latest release of the Halo game came out on Tuesday. At the conclusion of class I returned to my office and answered various emails until 10 am when I had an appointment with a perspective student to discuss possible majors. Student is from a technical college and wants to pursue a software engineering or gaming degree. Nevermind that the IT degree is the fastest way out, this guy wants to go for 3.5 more years and success is doubtful at best. How do you explain to a student that you don't think what they want to do is feasible and will land them in so much student loan debt that it isn't worth it? At the completion of that meeting, two more students stopped in during office hours. One for a change of major form to CS, one for a change of major form from CS. Other major in both cases was IT. Student who wants to leave CS is because of math...they don't want to take Calc II and another higher level math. The one transferring to CS is because he wants to purse AI and possibly masters and figures that CS is more appropriate than IT. Then it was time for lunch. Ate lunch in the office catching up on reading. After lunch I was responsible for updating the assessment page for the department. We held our assessment retreat last Friday which I organized and today was spent updating course descriptions, pre-reqs, and documenting the course outcomes measured in each class. This involves coordinating outcomes among 4 programs: CS, IT, SWE, and Computer Game Design & Development. Lots of tedious double checking among multiple checklists. Another round of answering emails concerning grant submissions due on Friday, course scheduling for next semester, and student questions concerning the capstone class (other class I'm teaching this semester). Left work at 4:45. Logged back into email at 9 pm to answer more emails and write my survey. Logging off at 10:45. 026 Ahhhhhh, Friday. No classes, usually not an office day, a catch up at home day. Actually got to sleep in late until 8:15 as I didn't have to drive my son to school...he's off on a Boy Scout camping trip. Got up had coffee and then headed to the computer. Read / handled emails for about 2 hours, lots of cleaning up of the inbox and doing all those little things that don't take much time but never seem to get done at the office...responding to requests for information, catching up on the listserv posts, etc. Then I read a couple of journal articles that I'd been carrying around for a couple of weeks. I thought about grading some student programs, but as it was now lunch time, decided to go to lunch with the husband (who was also working from home) instead. Returned from lunch around 1:30 and glanced at email again to see if anything new and urgent had arrived. Yes, the course proposals from IT department had finally been sent. Once again, they are proposing courses that already exist within our department, but they want their "own" version. Such silliness! I don't understand the need for the turf wars when there are only so many students to begin with...why separate them even further? As undergraduate coordinator of two programs, just another battle in the war to be waged on Monday. Had a look at the open house recruitment powerpoint that I'll be presenting tomorrow morning at school, seems old and dated, but I'm currently not inspired to rework it. Perhaps I'll find some time before the next Open House in January. It's now 3 pm and it's a beautiful autumn day so I'm quitting all work related efforts for the day and I'm going for a walk with the dog to enjoy the sunshine. 026 Monday, November 15th Diary Awoke at 6 am to a sick child. Quickly shuffle the schedule with the husband, then it's off to work at 6:45. Unfortunately the weather is awful, so traffic is dreadful. What is normally a 45 minute drive took 1 hour and 45 minutes today. Which means I missed my 8 o'clock class...the students have long since departed by the time I arrive on campus. And this class, beginning programming, cannot afford another missed class. They took the second test which covers selection, repetition, and simple class writing and the class average was a 58. So I went over the test and gave them a retest. Average on the retest was a 53. These are students who cannot trace or write a very simplified if statement or loop. I obviously cannot pass them on to programming 2, but I don't think I can fail 2/3 of the class either. Now what? And why is this class so different than the rest? The answer may lie with the closed labs...this semester to make workload hours workout, the chair gave me the lecture section but assigned the labs to another instructor. I gave a "schedule" of labs to be taught to the other instructor, but according to the students that's not what he's been doing, he chose a different set of labs that are not well coordinated with what I'm teaching. The students are not getting the reinforcement of the basics in this other set of labs and I believe it's showing up in their test grades. But the real question is what to do now? Do I just ignore the rest of the topics in this course (advanced class writing and arrays) to get them to the basics or just blindly continue forward knowing that 2/3 of the class will fail? And what about the 1/3 of the class who is mastering the material? Don't they deserve the remaining material? If I were someone who didn't care about the students I'd just march forward, but I can't bring myself to do that. Well, I have a couple of days to figure it out... Of course, the bright side is I have an extra hour of time to accomplish some other things... So now it's 10:35. I've spent the last 2 hours answer emails and processing change of major forms. Now it's on to grading assignments... Finished grading one set. Lunch from 12 -1 in my office reading papers. 1 pm assessment meeting. Need to figure out how to tell faculty the granularity needed for assessing course and program outcomes at the next department meeting. 2 pm - meeting with student for advisement. 2:15 - back to grading papers. 4:15 - now sort the papers into piles to return on Wednesday 4:30 - time to leave and pick up carpool 9:00 - log in to process emails and read a paper. Done for the day. 026 Today is the end of a very long week. This week was to be the start of classes. However, 7+ inches of snow fell in my decidedly Southern city (5 million people and 10 snow plows for the city) to be followed by freezing temperatures for the entire week. Campus was closed until 11 am on Friday. So today I have been scrambling to rework the syllabi for my two courses to recover from a lost week. We have received word from the VPAA that we are "to make up the lost time" by extending the class period a few minutes each day or by assigning extra out of class work. I'm wondering how that works for intro programming. Besides that, my children have been home all week (no school for them either) and everyone has a touch of cabin fever and we need to separate. So son is off with a friend, daughter is hiding downstairs with the xbox, husband is out shoveling the driveway, and I spent the rest of the day working on a jigsaw puzzle and grocery shopping. We'll see how the rest of the semester goes now... 026 Ohhhh. Today was the first day back after spring break. Break was very productive as I worked several days on a grant project and spent the rest at my favorite conference. (Great to see you Sally!) However the big news of today was that I had to tell my department chair that I had been accepted into a PhD program and would be going half-time as of fall. I had already worked out the deal with the Dean, but chair knew nothing. Had to tell the chair today as he was getting ready to release the fall teaching schedule, and my plans disrupt the schedule completely. Considering that he's losing one of his best teachers and the coordinator of two programs, he took it pretty well. Although "stunned" is the first reaction, which lasted about 2 minutes. He still hasn't quite figured out what's going to happen to me in the fall (he wants me to continue on as coordinator, dean doesn't), but it will eventually be sorted out. Other than that, it was a pretty typical hectic day. Taught intro programming class at 8:30 where I returned a test where the average was 60.5. And I really thought the test was quite easy... Then we had lab, where, naturally, the undergrad assistant hadn't run through it yet so we were discovering errors during lab which I had to correct on the fly. Then lunch followed by prepping the rest of my teaching materials for the week (and meeting with chair). Also had an accreditation preparation meeting with the administrative assistants for gathering materials for display. Late afternoon was time for meeting with capstone class students. Groups came by to talk about issues, problems, progress. Running this course is like being a project manager for 6+ mini-projects. Not something I signed up for when I decided to switch careers into academia. Left work (30 minutes early!) and went to my Mom's house for dinner with the family. Quite nice to see everyone after my 10 day trip and catch up on all the goings on within the family. Plus it was good home-cooking, that I didn't have to cook. Then it was home to check email and plan the schedule for the next day. Talk to you next month... 026 Fridays. I usually like Fridays, but not this one. Today was one of those "combining work with being a supermom" kind of days... Woke up late and ran around the house in the morning trying to get everyone out the door on time. Took son to school and then helped with the flower sale for an hour, it was a fund raiser for son's drama program at school. Left from there and went to pick up a jacket for the dance concert at daughter's school. (I'm on the Fine Arts Board and agreed to run the errand as it was "in my neighborhood.") Then went to find a place for brunch that had free wifi...had to log in and answer emails and prep for noon conference call for grant proposal. Ate lunch while typing. Then drove to daughter's school as I was chaperoning the chorus for their competition. As I drove to the festival I was on the conference call...glad I can muti-task. Finished the conference call and went into the festival. Handled coats and bags while the group sang (they were wonderful). Upon conclusion of competition, left and had to pick up son from school. Drove home and arrived just in time for second conference call, introductions for a new project I've been assigned to. Not very interesting, will have to find a way to bail after the initial meeting. It's now 5 pm and the "real" work begins. I have a research meeting tomorrow and a conference that I'm co-chair of. Must print off agendas for the meeting and sign-in sheet. Make a list of what to buy for breakfast food tomorrow. (Thank heaven that lunch is pre-ordered.) Send out reminders to all participants about room numbers and times. Now I must work on two more sections of the grant proposal before bed. Oh yes, time to think about dinner...must feed the family, then back to work. Called it quits around 9 pm. Had a nice glass of wine and then went to bed. Tomorrow is another day... 026 Sunday...a good day. Slept in (a real treat) and then went to church with my daughter. Then we went out to lunch (delightful). Returned home and did some housework. Finally logged in to check emails around 4 pm. Online classes for summer term start tomorrow and I still don't have everything set up. Working on some of the learning modules and discussion groups. Spent most of the evening dividing classes into discussion groups and entering topics for them to discuss. Went to bed around 11 pm. 028 My day had a false start at 3am - term hasn't started yet and I'm already waking up in the night, worrying about how I'm going to cope. Luckily, I managed to fall asleep again and the next time I wake it is to a clear blue sky. There was a definite autumnal nip in the air on my cycle to work and I made a mental note to look out a warmer coat and check my bike lights in readiness for the dark nights ahead. The first meeting of the day was called to discuss the new academic regulations resulting from ending the modular schemes. In the past, everything has been tightly and centrally controlled. Suddenly, this control has all been removed and although there are some general regulations, many of the decisions are now devolved to departments, or is that to the faculty - no-one knows. It isn't clear how we should replace the old structure yet and we are still working out which processes are covered by new regulations and which are open to departmental / faculty control. The meeting also introduced a new addition to our Student Records system to manage tracking the submission of assignments. This auditing is something recommended by HEFCE, so seen as a priority. However, the system has not yet been implemented and previous experience at using hastily adopted systems means that users will probably waste a lot of time for little gain. This meeting lasted nearly three hours, so I was ready for lunch and a drink. I managed to answer a few emails and phone calls while eating sandwiches at my desk. In the light of the information from the last meeting, I prepared for the next meeting to review the module guides and assessments for the coming semester. This was attended by course leaders and (briefly) the head of department. As with the previous meeting, there was a problem with the room booking and we had to move to another room before getting down to concentrated work, checking that module guides and assessments were clear, appropriate and contained all the required information. This was punctuated by discussion of implications of the morning's meeting and the coming year's balance of duties which have not yet been received by many of the lecturers a week before the start of term; those that had received them were worried that they were well over the maximum allocation of hours. Back to the office to prepare for next week's induction activity and discuss personal tutoring with a new member of staff. Then on to more admin to do with MSc students at various stages of their course. Many of them are overseas students with visa problems. I still hadn't managed to complete all the tasks I wanted to do but by 6.30pm I was ready for home. We have a glut of fruit and vegetables from our garden. I've already made as much chutney and jam as we can eat and give away in a year, so after dinner, I tried out our new steamer/ juicer with half a bag of the windfall apples. This is steaming away producing a lovely sweet, pink juice and apple aroma while I am writing this and watching the TV. 028 Friday of Week 3 of term seems like an achievement. We have survived the induction week, delivered the two weeks of intensive introductory lectures for the MSc students, negotiated an MSc exam Board and all the students, undergraduate and postgraduate seem keen and eager to learn. This is going to be a good year! After an intensive week of lectures, preparation and admin, culminating in lecturing until 8.30pm last night, I decided to do just the bare minimum today and leave before lunch. Friends from Scotland had arrived the previous evening and we had tickets for an afternoon event 'Building for the Future' considering climate change and sustainability with Tom Dyckoff, Leo Hickman, Chris Goodall and Kevin McCloud.. I arrived at work to find 15 missed calls and the telephone rang non-stop all morning. I had forgotten that this was the day MSc students could see their results on-line. Some were disappointed that they had failed or referred. We were still waiting for marks from some of the markers and students were alarmed by the way our system records this, thinking they had been given a mark of 0. In between calming anxious students and liaising with the admin staff, I gathered together materials I needed to prepare the first couple of next week's lectures over the week-end. I reasoned that there would be no time to do this on Monday if this morning was any indication. My Head of Department burst in, incandescent about the outcome of a meeting to discuss visa lengths for overseas Masters Students. The rest of the University did not appear to realise the importance of choosing a realistic course length and had decided on a visa time much shorter than our competitors. This could be the death-knell for our recruitment of overseas students, a major income for the department. He then described his plan for that afternoon's Research Methods workshop which assumed my input, though he hadn't though to ask me. I had to let him down as I was attending the climate change event. It seemed more important. I felt very guilty as I cycled out of the University gates at 1pm that afternoon, even though I had worked more than 50 hours that week. I had time to make a soup for the evening meal with home-grown beans and vegetables (though with little contribution from me) before heading into town to meet up with partner and friends. The 'Building for the Future' panel were knowledgeable about their subject and had interesting ideas. We left clutching books by Chris Goodall on green living as he seemed to have based his book on extensive research. He gave such burning questions as 'Is it better to use a tumble dryer or hang damp clothes about the house?' due consideration. Back home for soup via the pub to continue the discussion. 028 Share project diary for December 15th 2010 In the heat of the middle term, I always imagine the last week of the semester will be relaxed as many of the lectures are consolidation and assignment workshops. I forget about the demands of stressed students who are working to the wire and need support immediately if it is to feed into their assignment. So far this week, there has been little time for relaxation. My plan for today was to finish reading through the 8 PhD proposals for a faculty research meeting this afternoon and prepare a consolidation lecture for my MSc students tomorrow. I had a nice idea for this which involved developing three different version of the same software to illustrate different approaches and give examples that could be built upon for the assignment. Unfortunately, such examples do take a long time to prepare and the 50 minutes we are allocated for each hour of lecture preparation does not begin to cover this. As usual, my first task of the day was to answer my emails. Although I try to keep on top of my inbox and file appropriately, I now have well over 1000 emails in my Inbox and deal with about 50 a day. Sometimes I can take a whole morning to sort these out. Today's cases are dominated with MSc business as usual. I had to * deal with a student appeal from someone who had failed their MSc and then decided he had not had adequate support, but had not complained about this earlier; * explain to a desperate student that we could not hold a special exam board to consider his mark even though this means he will lose his job offer and his visa will expire; * reply to a satisfied MSc graduate who had enjoyed the degree ceremony and wanted me to act as a referee I was pleased to have a lift to my research committee meeting as I was still recovering from a virus and not feeling up to cycling up hill in the cold to one of the other campuses. This was the first faculty research committee meeting I had attended now we were in a new faculty with Arts and Humanities. I was interested to see how my new colleagues would react to Computing PhD proposals and how my comments on proposals in disciplines such as Creative Writing and Sculpture would be received. As it turned out, the meeting was quite an ordeal. The first part ran over by an hour due to input from the student rep and my colleague from Computing (who had been dozing due to jet lag) suddenly waking up and being very animated on the subject of research students being allowed to do some teaching. He wasn't alone in his condemnation of our very centralized University system which does not allow for this. Supervisors of the students submitting research proposals had been invited to the second part of the meeting in 10 minute intervals. By the time we began to address the proposals, there was already a queue of incensed supervisors waiting outside the door. Some were fuming by the time they were finally invited in to the discussion of the merits of their student's proposal. Three Computing supervisors had been waiting for over an hour and then realised they could wait no longer as they had evening teaching and a class test to administer. I was able to defend these proposals but realised that criticism from others on the committee boiled down to the proposal forms not being filled in the way that was required in this faculty. Three out of the four Computing proposals were rejected for this reason. My questions about how criteria would be arrived at in a proposal relating to sculpture were met with deep disdain by the supervisor as I was informed they would "emerge". I had to leave before the discussion of the final proposal as I also had evening teaching and it took all our local knowledge of back streets to negotiate the rush-hour traffic to get back just in time to pick up the key to the lecture room before the campus staff locked up and went home. The number of students attending my assignment workshop was well below those attending the normal lecture session. I realised this was because they were busy finishing off assignments due earlier in the week, so my essay (due in on the Friday) had not even been started by many. I was able to spend time with each of the students there and hope this will help them improve their essay writing and analytical skills. With one student, whose essay draft I had already commented on earlier in the week and seemed not to have improved with his second attempt, I was not optimistic. One of the students there is deaf, so had an interpreter and note-taker in attendance. Even so, I am conscious that there are things that he often misses because of his disability and am pleased that he has managed to do so well on the course. However, I know that he finds the format and approach of an essay quite difficult and is much happier when the task is more constrained, such as when writing a computer program. Once the workshop was over, I staggered back to the office feeling completely drained. I had been off work 10 days previously but was still not right. I knew this was because I should have convalesced for longer but was aware that there was no one else to cover and the students would miss their lectures. I now only had one more lecture to do (tomorrow from 5.15pm - 8.15pm) but it still needed preparing. As I was quickly dealing with my afternoon's emails before going home, a student from my MSc module called in for some help with his assignment. I had to tell him that I was too tired to think and he would have to come back another time. Luckily, his assignment is not due in until January. I dragged myself home, glad that the roads weren't too icy, as I still have the bruises from falling off my bike the previous week. I ate my dinner and crawled into bed to gather energy for my last day of teaching in the semester. 028 January 15th 2011 I had a leisurely start to the day as it was Saturday but I still had to go into work for an Open Day. It was mainly aimed at undergraduates but I did have a postgraduate student booked in. My plan was to do some lecture preparation in my office if it was quiet and ask one of my colleagues to bring any interested people up to my office. When I arrived, the prospective students were in a talk and other lecturers were sitting around the main hall chatting. It is quite a good time to catch up with people as there can be a lot of hanging around. Today I had a chat with people in my department who were playing with the latest iPad technology and discussing how they were incorporating it into their multimedia lectures. I then headed off to my room and checked my emails. I had an email from a student who was not happy with the form of an assessment. This was an ongoing saga and the lecturer concerned did not appear to think there was an issue. No one else had complained but it did not stop this student being very persistent. There was a request for input to a grant proposal that I am involved with, so I spent a couple of hours working on that. I also decided that I would brush the dust off my regrading application - I have been meaning to submit this for three years but something more pressing always intervenes. I got a bit carried away with all this and it was mid-afternoon before I remembered the Open Day. It had all but finished so I headed for home without having spoken to a single prospective student but having done some useful work. The house was a bit like the Marie Celeste when I arrived home with evidence of half-complete bread-making and everything left out in the kitchen. My husband got home shortly after me, looking very windswept, and explained everything. It turned out he had run out of time before going to a lunch connected with our transition town movement. We now had to get a move on because our friends were coming round for an early evening drink and we wanted to prepare snacks as well as make the bread. This process was slowed down by calls from our children who both live away. My son is in the US and we communicate by Skype. My daughter is in Edinburgh and she always phones on her mobile when she is travelling somewhere - time and motion. They have both completed their studies but are in quite precarious jobs and are looking for new ones. If it's not bad enough looking for a job in today's economic climate, they have the added complication of having partners in similar situations to consider too. Life is not easy for young people! We had the pizza, pitta and hummus ready in time (just). I discovered that orange juice is not a suitable substitute for lemon juice when making hummus - use something sharper. We had an inspiring evening. Our friends are very community minded and are looking for a new community related project. My husband is very committed to combating climate change, so there was much discussion about setting up a local community transition group and how to do this effectively. I was very conscious that the demands of working in my university at the moment mean there is very little spare energy for such activities, vitally important though they are. I reflected again that perhaps I should go and do something else, or, with changes in funding and the precarious financial state of the university, the decision may be taken out of my hands. 028 February 15th Share Project diary My working day began by peeling off all my waterproofs after a very wet cycle ride. Luckily, after a change of shoes, there were no soggy after effects. My plan for the day was to catch up on my emails as I did not need to teach until mid-afternoon. My first email was to do with monitoring an international postgraduate student. Our University is very nervous about the possibility of bogus students being here under our licence and we have stringent monitoring procedures that take up a lot of administrative time and energy. The consequences of losing our licence and ability to recruit international students could be devastating for the University. However, I resent acting as an unpaid police force for the UKBA and abhor the way that international students are treated with such suspicion. I made an appointment to see a new PhD student and answered a query from a deaf final year student. He is one of the best students of his year, despite his disability. He is hard work because he questions everything he does not understand. However, I don't mind this at all. Sometimes in class it can help other students who did not understand the point but were too shy to say so. I sent the feedback from a rejected JISC grant bid to the others involved in our proposal. It is disappointing to get rejected after all the hard work that goes into preparing a bid. However, the feedback was clear and showed us where we had not explained ourselves well enough. We still want to do the research so must now find time without any support. I hope we will be able to build up some momentum once teaching has finished. I finally got round to organising a seminar session for the research students in our department. It is difficult to foster a research atmosphere here because many of the students are not based on campus and only travel here occasionally. I hope they will make the effort to come here for the seminar; otherwise we will have more supervisors than students, which has happened in the past. I felt that I made quite a bit of progress today. I managed to secure two student representatives for the MSc taught course - which I have been trying to do since the start of the course in September. I sorted out some application queries. I met with the Associate Dean to tidy up some loose ends concerning students' MSc awards. The students had been emailing and phoning daily as they wanted to apply for a post study work visa. It was gratifying to be able to give them some good news that their awards would go through the current award board and they would not have to wait until June (which would mean their visas would expire and they would have to go home, a costly undertaking, especially if they are here with their families). I was a little late for my programming lab after my appointment with the Associate Dean but the students were getting on with their work and were welcoming when I arrived. They have weekly exercises and most seem to understand the concepts and complete the exercises. One or two students do not attend at all, despite several emails. Given the cost of higher education it is surprising that they have this attitude. It will be interesting to see whether things change when the fees rise (if I'm still in a job and we still have a university then). 028 This is the 9th week of the semester - it has all passed very quickly. Cycling into work was something of an ordeal this morning as my legs had stiffened up from hill-walking in Wales at the weekend. Climbing the stairs to my office was even more painful but it was all worth it for the wonderful, exhilarating scenery and meeting up with old friends. Jobs for today were sorting out an external examiner for a PhD; seeing an MSc student to discuss their dissertation; preparing and delivering a 1st year programming lecture; moderating some exam papers for the third time (sigh) and updating marketing material for the existing MSc courses. I delivered the programming lecture - festival week in town meant that attendance was poor. Those that were there worked on the weekly exercises. It has become more and more prevalent that some students can't work for more than 10 minutes without checking their Facebook account. So far, I've not commented on this as it's their choice. However, I'm starting think I ought to intervene. Concerns at the moment are introducing a new MSc course for international students, so we need to think of the staffing and marketing of this. We are also undergoing a programme revalidation - balancing efficiency of delivery and shortage of staff with the desire to introduce new and exciting modules and give students more choice. There is an ongoing debate about whether we should reduce the length of the final year dissertation to a single semester module, halving its current length. The University is trying to introduce efficiencies and recognises that supervising dissertations is expensive. On the other hand, students develop academically from completing a full dissertation. None of this will be settled without more debate, so I shut down my computer and carefully negotiated the stairs (going down is worse than climbing up with my stiff legs) to go home. 028 Teaching is over, so the more relaxed atmosphere means my early morning swim lasts longer than usual. I have only recently learned to swim the crawl and discuss the finer points of the leg action with fellow (faster) swimmers. We are looking forward to when the Open Air pool opens at the end of the month. Arriving at work, I realise that I shouldn't have been as relaxed as I have quite a few tasks to get through. I send out some MSc marketing material to colleagues for comment. The material took nearly two days of concentrated work to prepare and I make a note to feed this back to the marketing department who send out requests for copy with deadlines of a week, without realising other commitments of academic staff. I have a pile of assessments to mark and am interrupted in sorting these out by the arrival of a colleague who has retired but still does some part-time work for us. It is lovely to see him as his enthusiasm for the subject is undimmed and he has an unquenchable interest in new technology. When he hears that our third year project students are presenting their bid for a technical merit prize, he is genuinely pleased to come along. The students are characteristically late but once they get started, they do a very professional presentation of their product and the technology involved in it. We listen to four presentations that are all good in their different ways and there is much discussion over who will receive the prize. There are the usual tensions between the more creative multimedia and games development staff and the more technical software development staff of the relative merits of creativity and software engineering. I would like us to work more closely together as I can see that there is a need for both but each sees the others' discipline as being of lesser importance, somehow. My colleague had asked me to sit in on a meeting with one of his tutees who needed advice about her module choices for next year. It was a delicate matter as the student was signed up to a course consisting mainly of software development and she was struggling with our first year programming module. Although she had put in a great effort, she did not seem to understand the basics. We wanted to advise her to change her course without undermining her achievements. She left us saying she would look at other options so we shall see what she decides. After she has left we discuss how we are going to plan a new three month funded project. We are concerned that with such a short time-scale and so many other pressures intruding, it could easily get side-lined and we could end up not completing it. As I got back in my office the phone was ringing. It was an almost daily call from one of my 3rd year project students. He is feeling very stressed and constantly needs advice and reinforcement. This time the call was about a forthcoming job interview which he felt ill-prepared for and was too much pressure when he was trying to finish assignments. He then went on to complain about the lack of involvement of one of his fellow students in his group. Pressure mounts at this time of year in final year group work and I try to keep my distance as they have to learn to sort problems out themselves. However, occasionally I intervene when there is extreme behaviour. In this case, the student concerned was retaking the module and exhibiting the same behaviour of not making any contribution. This year, he made a token effort at the start but it has degenerated. Understandably, his fellow group members don't want him to get any of the credit for their product. I liaise with ICT services about getting some old computers for one of the project groups to demonstrate their product at our annual public exhibition of group work. They have developed a mobile application for systems administrators to be able to remotely monitor computer systems. They want to show that if you pull the plug out of the computer, the application will detect it. We used to have a very poor relationship with ICT services but we have both tried to work together on various projects and we have a much better relationship now and they are very helpful. I forward an email to all MSc teaching staff from a student who wants a supervisor for his research area. Many members of staff took voluntary redundancy a couple of years ago and we have further loss this year. As I enter the remaining lecturers involved in postgraduate teaching in the To: list of the email, I realise how depleted our staff base is and wonder how we are going to service all the teaching we are committed to for next year, let alone the research supervision. I arrange a workshop on small group teaching with the same staff. The general compulsory modules have healthy cohorts but some of the specialist modules have small numbers and it is often difficult to cope with such small classes when students have widely different backgrounds. These range from overseas students who have English as a second language and no professional experience to part-time UK students who might work in the specialist area that they are studying. My original target for today was to finish reviewing a paper for the IET. As I settle down to this task I get a call from my husband to remind me that we are meeting friends in the pub at 6pm to celebrate his birthday. As the deadline for the review is not for another week, I convince myself I need to approach the review with a fresh mind and head off home. I stuff my bag with a couple of books looking at small group teaching methods but am aware that the garden needs a lot of attention and I might not open them... 028 Marking; pub; dinner; bed. 028 My morning meetings were both held in a different campus to my usual workplace. The journey there ends with a long hill to cycle up that always leaves me breathless when I arrive. I kid myself that it is getting easier but I think I just know what to expect now. The first meeting is to discuss recruitment of Indian students to post-graduate taught courses. We have an hour or so of discussion, centring on the provision of summer schools providing bridging modules (which my colleague from another department seems confident of staffing, though I wonder how we are going to support this extra workload in our stretched department, denuded by voluntary redundancies). The international recruitment officer then informs us that Indian students will not come to the UK after the suspension of the Post-Study Work Visa. We decide to strategically suspend our recruitment activities for a year and attention turns to possibilities of recruitment in other parts of the world. I am invited to a further recruitment meeting focussing on a different country but am now losing the will to live and luckily have a different meeting to attend. This is to finalise a presentation at a conference the following day about Flood Heritage. Our collaboration is multi-disciplinary, where I and a colleague provide the technical perspective while others are more interested in the conceptual underpinnings. We have an outline presentation but some of the graphics are very clunky and I volunteer to improve these. The ride back to my own campus is through a park and along a cycle path which is normally full of dog-walkers, parents and toddlers but the threat of rain and promise of lunch keeps them indoors and I have a clear run. I have been out of the office on external examining duties for the previous two days and have a back-log of emails to catch up with. Masters students are worried about producing their dissertation proposals and call in to discuss them; I catch up with colleagues about the latest proposed restructuring plan (do more work for less money) and our indignant response and counter-suggestion (senior management should show a lead by taking less money themselves, first). There is also discussion about some research and development work - now that teaching has finished we are starting to have time to think about such matters. It is late afternoon by the time I start on the presentation and as usual it takes longer than I expect. I arrive home at about 7.30pm to an empty house. My husband is on a visit to the local sewage works - fascinating. I hear over dinner that the publicity officer does not feed her children corn-based snacks as she noticed they survive the journey to the sewage works intact. What do they put in them? 028 I love summer and especially being able to have an early swim in an outdoor swimming pool, with the sun shining. The pool was filling up with wet-suited triathlon trainees as I left for breakfast this morning, feeling invigorated and energetic. This is a real change from term-time when there is little energy left over for anything outside of work. At work I signed the identification section on a Student Loan Form for a deaf student who is coming back next year to finish a final taught module and his dissertation. I like the fact that my University is flexible when students need extra time to complete their studies, as in this case. The student was very stressed trying to cope with the last academic year and would have gone under if we hadn't made these arrangements for him. He looked much more relaxed today. I had a tutorial with one of my MSc dissertation students. He seems to be a natural researcher and very enthusiastic about his topic of research. We have recently reduced the length of time students are allowed to complete their dissertations and, strangely, it has helped our completion rates. Students now have to be very focussed and diligent in order to finish in time. Previously, they delayed getting down to real work and some never got round to it. I'm hopeful that this student will finish in plenty of time. I was pleased to receive an email from an ex-student who is on a short-list for a job and needed a reference. It is so rewarding to see our students going on to get good jobs and confirms we are teaching them useful skills and knowledge. My afternoon was spent working on a joint project we have with a small business concerned with mobile phone applications. Again, it is so good to spend time on practical research and learning rather than racing to meet the next deadline for teaching or some admin task. Doing research is how I got into lecturing but is the one thing I have the least time for. I realise it is because it needs such a long, uninterrupted time to get into - something I only get in the summer. I have made the decision to work for 4 days a week from September to give myself time to do things I want to do, which may include research. I am rather concerned that I could end up doing 5 days' work for 4 days' pay but at the moment I get exhausted and ill half way through every term because there is so much to do. I head for home at a reasonable time, with energy to make a meal - summer is good! 030 Based on a week-old memory: September 15, 2010 6:30 in Seymour, WI: rise, shower and dress, check and answer e-mail, breakfast 7:45 leave for hour-long commute to Ripon College 8:50 arrive at office; check and answer e-mail; review material for 10:10 class 10:10 Artificial Intelligence class: lecture 11:00 student missed appointment; used time to prep for Friday AI class noon lunch at commons with colleagues from English, Biology, Psychology, and Religion 1:05 CS 2 lecture; helped students with programming problems 1:50 in office, prep for Intro to Programming class 2:30 Intro to Programming lecture for 45 minutes; allowed in-class work time for the other 25 minutes 3:45 back in office; prep for CS 2 and Intro Friday classes 4:15 packed bag with Intro labs, CS 2 labs to grade on Thursday at home; AI materials so can write quiz for Friday on Thursday at home 4:30 left for hour-long commute home 5:30 home! dinner, recreational reading, and the 2-hour finale of America's Got Talent! 10:00 bedtime 030 8 AM Today is Spring primary day in Wisconsin: voted on local officials and the State Supreme Court before commuting an hour to work. 9:15 AM Our weekly department meeting centered around determining the schedule for the Fall 2011 semester. 10:10 AM and 1:05 PM Taught CS1 and Data Structures and Algorithms. 2:15 PM Listened to senior seminar practice talks by two of my senior majors. In the past, our department has learned that the quality of the final talks really do improve! In between those duties, I prepped for classes for the next day. On the personal side, I attended our college's weekly soup lunch provided by other faculty; attended a piano lesson at 5 PM and a yoga class at 6:30 PM. Around 8 PM At home, dinner, watched day 2 of the Jeopardy IBM challenge. Today was half IBM commercial, half Jeopardy game. Some other recreational TV and reading, then bed around 10:30 PM 030 Spring Break is this week! No more pencils, no more books, etc. However, I did finish up a paper and submitted it today. There's grading yet to be done sometime this week. Husband could not get away this week, so I'm relaxing around the house, reading fluffy books. Graduation is a mere 8.5 weeks away! On a political note, here in Wisconsin, there's been an uproar recently about the Republican-majority state senate and assembly abolishing collective bargaining rights for public employees, including teachers and nurses, but not firefighters or police officers. What I have found surprising is the number of people who quiz me about the impact of all this on me and my college when I work for a private institution! They honestly thought all the private colleges and universities in Wisconsin were part of the "state system". With such ignorance as this, it's no wonder we have the government we have! 031 6:15 a.m. Wake up just before alarm. Groom, dress, eat breakfast while reading newspaper. 7:15 a.m. Grab lunch box and book bag; 5-minute walk from home to office. Stop to check mail (Sept. CACM arrived), chat with administrative assistant. 7:30 a.m. Start writing this. Review notes I prepared last night for today's Operating Systems class on synchronization patterns. Take a quick peek at email: file away students' homework and some spam; glance over SIGCSE-members discussion of ethics. 7:45 a.m. Visit restroom, down long corridor. 7:50 a.m. Gather belongings from office to teach OS class at 8:00. 8:55 a.m. Return from class; gather thoughts and check syllabus for upcoming topics. 9:00 a.m. Prepare for 10 a.m. intro class: Documentation, and a discussion of the format for the take-home exam that goes out today. 9:15 a.m. Check email; discovered that colleague has finished revising exam; post to course web site. 9:30 a.m. Reply to note from colleague who wants to observe 8 a.m. class; note from student who is ill. 9:35 a.m. Review calendar for next few weeks, call doctor for appt about hay fever that has been plaguing me since classes started three weeks ago. Get voicemail from dad. 9:50 a.m. Walk across hall to teach intro class. 10:50 a.m. End class; walk back to my office with an entourage of students who have quick questions or want to meet with me later. 11:00 a.m. Office hours. Meet with a first-year student who is feeling she is missing important ideas and getting stuck, but wants to major in the subject. Work through a homework problem with her and talk about strategies for solving problems. Discuss her goals, the major, and the challenges of double-majoring. 11:50 a.m. Done talking with student. Deep breath. Write this and then relax for a few minutes; chat with colleagues passing by my office. noon Take lunch to meeting of Science Teaching and Learning Group, where we are discussing "the first exam." 1:05 p.m. Return to office after a fascinating and useful discussion. Drop into inbox the handout from my colleague in cognitive psychology about how students learn more from testing than from studying. Check email. 1:10 p.m. Go for a walk with a student I know who wans to tell me about his environmental student initiative drive. 1:50 p.m. Appointment with doctor. Stop by pharmacy and home on my way back to the office. 3:05 p.m. Revel in luxury of not having classes to teach on Thursday morning. Take shoes off. Read email and contemplate getting a flu shot this year. Check Facebook and college's homegrown social network site for updates. 3:25 p.m. Back to email. Reply to colleague about quiz for Friday and reading group student about meeting tomorrow. Ignore summer research student's reply to an email I sent two weeks ago. Draft quiz. 3:40 p.m. Meet with colleague and student. Student is finding colleague's class too easy; I give him an assignment to see if he should take my OS class instead. 3:55 p.m. Argue with colleague about quiz via email. Look for different problems we've used in the past. 4:15 p.m. Where did the afternoon go? I'm tired and I haven't even started grading like I wanted to. Meet with intro student who was not able to come to my office hours earlier. 4:45 p.m. Write new quiz problem. Send to colleague. 5:15 p.m. Leave for home, without having started grading the last OS assignment like I meant to. Get home, start tidying up for event I am hosting for a group of first-year students tomorrow evening. No help since hubby is away on a business trip.` 5:45 p.m. Unwind by cooking dinner, eating, reading local newspaper. 7:15 p.m. Continue tidying, vacuum, rearrange living room furniture. 7:45 p.m. Short break to work on this, read online comics and blogs. 7:50 p.m. Finish vacuuming and tidying. Lay out clothes for tomorrow. 8:10 p.m. Review slides for a departmental seminar I am giving tomorrow afternoon to see how much work I have left to do. Do some tweaking and write some notes. 8:55 p.m. Finish up some things in the kitchen. Eat ice cream. Watch TV shows on laptop. Have a small drink. 9:30 p.m. Take laptop upstairs to watch TV in bed. 9:55 p.m. Lights out. 031 6:20 a.m. Up and at 'em. Groom, dress, breakfast, newspaper. 7:25 a.m. To the office to review lecture notes before 8 a.m. class. I am nervous that I planned too much material and will end up lecturing, but I really want to wrap this topic up before fall break. Also nervous about handing out mid-term course evaluations. I have been worried about how the class has been going, with a new textbook and a more diverse range of backgrounds than past offerings of the course. I am hoping that the course evaluations will be helpful for making mid-course corrections, but I'm also hoping they aren't too brutal on things I really can't change. 7:55 a.m. To class. 8:45 a.m. Return to my desk to wait for the course eval forms. I got through the material, but I lectured too much and didn't engage the students as much as I would like. Worried I skimmed over worthwhile material. I also only gave students five minutes for the course evaluation and feel guilty about that. Update my calendar: I thought I would not have any meetings over fall break, but I do. Bummer. Read and respond to email; vigorously defend my day off on Thursday, the only day during fall break that my husband is home from his business travels. 8:58 a.m. The student has not brought me the mid-term course evals yet. Uh-oh. What are they writing? 9:02 a.m. JR brings course evals. There is a lot of writing. Uh-oh. I'll look at them carefully later. Another student wants to get his exam back; we discuss arrangements for a redo of the problems he missed. Deal with email from Intro students about missing classes for various reasons. 9:25 a.m. I need to prepare for my 10 a.m. intro class. 9:45 a.m. Obsessing on the top course eval which I accidentally looked at. Decided to take a quick peek at all of them. Conclusion: you can't please everyone. Disappointed that one student is "really disappointed", since I know all these students fairly well. What did they expect? The plan was to set these aside until next week, but I probably won't be able to resist. 9:50 a.m. Deep breaths. Read post on Tomorrow's Professor mailing list on women in science. Go across the hall to teach the intro class. 10:50 a.m. It was a fine class. Generously decide to let two students who came to class late make up the quiz. 11:05 a.m. Make photocopies and do reading for lunchtime seminar on "Socio-Technical Issues in Computer Networks." Most weeks, I picked the readings (so already read them) and a pair of students presents. This week, no student presentation was planned because of the break. A colleague has been following the news on Internet voting trials in D.C. and I drafted him to lead a discussion. The midterm course evals are like a sore tooth; I can't help poking at them. Students want more lecture??? Aargh. 11:43 a.m. Finish reading, check email, work on this, check Facebook, go early to seminar to beat the long lines for lunch. 1:15 p.m. It was a good discussion. I got edible food on the second try. Students are signed up to lead discussions; but I need to check on students who were absent. A student brings me job & grad school ads from a conference she was at; ask department chair if we currently have a student assistant who maintains this kind of stuff. 1:27 p.m. Call my husband about going for a walk, since he leaves on another business trip tomorrow morning. He's free. We walk. 2:14 p.m. Get back to my office just in time to meet with an intro student who signed up for office hours and wants to talk about how he is doing in the class. 2:27 p.m. A student in my 200-level class wants to discuss his exam. 2:38 p.m. Email departmental assistant about posting/filing materials. Delete some spam. Send out email about seminar presentation sign-ups. Thank colleague for leading discussion today. Feel depressed that I have no advisees graduating this year who want to talk about their life plans. 3:00 p.m. Meet with intro student who signed up for office hours and wants to work through some problems and talk about how she is doing in the class. 3:30 p.m. Answer an email from an alum who wants to take CS classes at my graduate institution. 3:42 p.m. Start weekly review. Go over to-dos for fall break; clear out paper inbox; review/delete/answer/file accumulated emails; look at calendar for the week after break. 4:37 p.m. Decide my work is sufficiently in order. Leave work early to spend the evening with my husband before he disappears again tomorrow morning. Take work home with me---a quiz to grade, notes from visiting a colleague's class to report on, and those mid-term course evaluations---but I won't look at any of it tonight. 031 5:10 a.m. Wake up thinking about research projects for next summer. Get up, use the bathroom, get back into bed and snuggle with my husband to try to go back to sleep. 5:40 a.m. Husband's alarm clock goes off. He is leaving on his fifth business trip in 6 weeks. Pick up my bedtime reading (a light novel) and read while he is in the bathroom. Chat while he dresses. He remembers to get the snow shovels down out of the garage rafters, but forgets to kiss me goodbye. 6:00 a.m. Breakfast, newspaper. 6:45 a.m. Start preparing for 8 a.m. class. I normally prepare the night before, but put it off today so I could spend more of the evening with my husband before he left. 7:50 a.m. Walk to campus. 7:57 a.m. Arrive in the classroom and teach class. Almost, but not quite, make it to the end of the material I had planned. 8:52 a.m. While I am erasing the chalkboard, reflect that if I had cut off some discussion earlier, I would have had a bit more time at the end and could have better engaged students with this last bit of important material. Notice that a student who had posted a question about this later material is still packing up; talk with her about the answer to her question, noting that I will also post a response on the discussion board for others who might be interested. 8:57 a.m. Return to my office to check email and prepare for the next class. Delete spam. Pencil in appointments on my public calendar. Start writing this document. 9:34 a.m. Finish class prep and decide to spend 15 minutes grading an assignment I hope to hand back in my 1:15 lab section. 9:55 a.m. To intro class. 10:55 a.m. Return from intro class. Quickly look at email; print an article; resume grading. 11:38 a.m. Papers to hand back at 1:15 are graded. Make some notes for revising the assignment next time I give it---it was a brand new assignment, and could have been a bit more challenging. Enter the grades online using Blackboard. 11:45 a.m. Walk home for lunch. 1:05 p.m. Back in time for 1:15 lab session. Decide to chat with groups one-on-one rather than having a whole-class discussion. 2:10 p.m. Back from lab. Read email and leave for afternoon walk. 3:10 p.m. Arrive back in time for office hours. 3:15 student is early. Discuss his independent study proposal, which is due today---I am excited about the independent study, but the proposal is lousy. Give him feedback for improvements, though my hopes are not too high. He left this too close to the last minute. 3:25 p.m. Meet with a pair of 2nd-year women who are taking my TEC 154 class in the spring and want to know more about the Technology Studies concentration. 3:40 p.m. A colleague drops by to discuss an agenda item for this afternoon's faculty meeting. 3:55 p.m. Former advisee, who is working full-time at the college since he hasn't been able to find a job in computing, comes by my office. We chat for about 15 minutes about his prospects for applying to teaching certification programs with his low GPA, and discussing this with an education professor. I try to be encouraging without being unrealistically so; point out my ignorance re: K-12 teaching certification. 4:12 p.m. Independent study student needs his paperwork signed. Feel bad about rushing former advisee off. Sigh inwardly as I suggest a few further changes to the special topic proposal, and sign it anyway. 4:17 p.m. Arrive late to faculty meeting. Make tea anyway. 5:20 p.m. Faculty meeting adjourned. Run into education prof in the hall; ask him to invite my former advisee to office hours. Discuss advisee's situation. Run into another colleague who teaches in Gender, Women's, and Sexuality Studies; discuss advising loads and students we've had in common. Discuss points from faculty meeting with her and a few others passing by. 5:45 p.m. Decide to go back to office to get stuff and go home. 6:00 p.m. Home. Cook dinner for myself. 7:15 p.m. Done with dinner. Decide to clean up thoroughly and go to bed early, leaving remainder of grading to early tomorrow morning. 9:10 p.m. Lights out. 031 6:45 Up and at 'em. Wake up thinking about my context statement due for my tenure review this October. While folding yesterday's clothes, ponder how to frame a change in research direction and realize I have made significant progress in teaching several if not all of my classes. 7:57 Decide to drink a second cup of tea and do the Sudoku. 8:30 Arrive at the office. Feel guilty about the tea and Sudoku. Ponder next steps. Realize that in the rush of Monday (I barely had time to breathe) I left a lot of things undone that need to be done either before our department meeting at noon, or ASAP. I probably should have worked yesterday evening to catch up on all this despite already having worked 11 hours straight, or else gotten up earlier and skipped the Sudoku. So much for scholarship time this morning. So what do I need to do? * Ponder a colleague's suggested departmental response to a nasty email I received yesterday morning, right before class, from the parent of a student in my intro class * Ponder class times for next year and the difficulty of accomodating my preferences, students' likely preferences, and conflicts with other courses * Print out a special topic course proposal for departmental review * Review a colleague's draft learning goals for our upper-level Algorithms course, to be reviewed at the department meeting * Answer a knock on the door from my department chair, who wants to ask my permission to share the nasty email from a with other members of the department (fine) and apologizes for obliterating my scholarship time * Field half a question from a colleague (on leave) who is working through a lab exercise from my Operating Systems class last fall * Start writing this - which is rather cathartic * Prepare for my intro class - finally something routine! * Enter scores received from my grader. I am having students grade for my intro class for the first time this semester, and it is a wonderful time saver (plus, I hope, a good experience for the grader) 9:54 Across the hall to teach my intro class. 10:55 I manage to talk for only about ten minutes and give students 40 minutes to work on the lab exercises. Some students nearly finish; it was a challenge to keep an eye on the students who barely got started. The student from my 8 a.m. class arrives for his office hours appointment. He brought his small child to class both Friday and Monday. It's unusual for students at my institution to have children; they are all traditional-age college students. He explains that he and his partner had planned to trade off days of child care, but his partner's employer has been assigning her to work on his class days. Of course, a day care center is too expensive for them to afford. So this is not an emergency but a systemic problem. He's very concerned about disturbing the other students - I'm more concerned that he is missing too much class when his son gets fussy. He explains that he is meeting with the head of Student Affairs later this week, and also with the staff in Financial Aid. I ask him to let me know what happens, and also send me a quick email in advance if he knows he is going to need to bring his son to class. I'm not sure concretely how that will help, but it would be nice not to be surprised. 11:15 A student from my intro class arrives to discuss the take home exam she has due tomorrow. We work through one problem together and briefly discuss another. From this meeting and her performance on the last two weekly quizzes, it's clear she's missed some important ideas - we agree that she would benefit from individual tutoring, before she gets too much more lost. 11:45 Another student from my class arrives to ask a clarification question and to discuss the same problem I worked through with the other student. That problem is harder than I thought. This student is not so lost, though. noon Department meeting over lunch. Reheat mystery leftovers from the freezer - turns out they are dal over rice, yum. Review upcoming events. Work through next year's course schedule - difficult since three faculty are going on leave. Discuss special topic proposal. Discuss response to angry parent, which my chair will revise and send. We are all exhausted by the end. 12:45 Answer colleague's question about the lab exercise. 12:50 Go home to play Wii games rather than walk outside in the puddles. My husband has a cold and plans to quit work for the day after one last meeting. I rescue his lunch from burning in the oven while he is on the phone. Before I leave, we touch base on dinner. He might be up to cooking after an afternoon of napping - if not, I'll make soup or get takeout. 2:25 Back to the office. Read some email - the letter to the angry parent has been sent. Update this report. 2:40 Get to work on the recommendation letter that is due today for a student's summer research application. 3:55 Finish the letter. Feel really good about it. The advice I got from our Director of Social Commitment last fall, to tell stories about the student, is spot on. Main task for this afternoon: done. 4:10 After a short break and a bit of thought about what else I need to do today, revise the special topic course form for next year and send it to my department chair. 4:30 Student visits my office to tell me she decided to take an on-campus research position and I didn't need to write her a letter. She apologizes for not letting me know earlier. I smile and wait until after she has left my office to roll my eyes. 4:45 Meet with three more intro students who have questions about the take-home exam. One thought her code had a bug, but it worked fine when I was watching. That seems to happen on a fairly regular basis. I try not to think about her father's bad behavior---it's not her fault. 5:10 Remembered a minor committee assignment and hastened to add it to my annual Faculty Activity Report, due in July, before I forgot again. Also added a conference presentation which was recently accepted. 5:25 Meet with a student who was confused about the time for his appointment. More take-home exam questions. 5:30 Review the work done by my grader for the intro class, and enter the grades, making one adjustment. It is my first semester having a grader for the intro class, and I love it so far! 5:40 Realize I need to deal with my colleague's plea to figure out the next homework assignment for the intro class. Look over the possibities he suggests; rule out two of the three possibilities and develop a new one. 6:08 Do I finally get to go home? Yes, but I'm taking work with me. Realize I am probably going to have to take care of my sick husband even though, in my heart of hearts, what I really want right now is to be taken care of. 7:30 Just finished dinner, which I planned and cooked in less than an hour. Feel proud of my mad menu-planning skillz, but also exhausted. Grateful that my husband saw that I am also not feeling great. He is cleaning up. Also grateful that I have a guest lecturer in my 8 a.m. tomorrow. I heat up the warm packs in the microwave for my shoulders, pour a cool drink, and settle down to read my light fluffy scifi novel for half an hour. 8:11 OK, I'd better read for tomorrow's classes. 8:37 That was quick. Maybe I can do a little easy grading. 9:01 Enough. I don't trust myself to comment on research paper topics right now. 9:19 Done reviewing my email. Expressed profound gratitude to the colleague who I am teaching the intro class with for writing up the next homework assignment. Agreed(?) to be interviewed for my alma mater's alumni magazine - an article on innovative approaches to teaching. Chocolate, bath, and bed, then back at it tomorrow. 10:58 ... Actually read 100 pages of damnyouautocorrect.com. Oh well, laughter is the best medicine, right? To bed now, really. 031 Morning includes a shower (dr appt today) and coffee out before my husband leaves on his trip to Japan. Realize I have service work (ranking award candidates) due by noon today, which I should have done last night instead of shopping online for a case for my new Kindle. Time management fail. I walk home from the coffee shop to put up my hair and grab a can of soup for lunch. I don't make it to the office until 8:45. But I prep for my intro class in less than 15 minutes and try not to feel guilty about spending some of my "spare" time looking at Facebook. Decide to get the service work done with during my nominal research time, since I would just worry about it while attempting to write anyway. Hope no one comes to my office hours at 11 so that I can do some writing then. Ugh, 32 pages of faculty and staff comments to read. At least they are about how awesome these five students are.... OK, that wasn't too bad. It was pretty easy to rank them. In sending my ranking to the committee coordinator, realize I have double-booked my office hours against the committee meeting. Another time management fail. I will let my students know in class and leave them a note of apology. Receive email from a student who wants to meet with me during office hours later this morning. Darn. Do a bit of paperwork for the concentration I am chairing. Just as I am about to go to the bathroom before teaching class at 10, a student traps me in my office asking "just a quick question". At 9:55, I ask me to email me her final question (of three questions). Run off to set up in my classroom, go to the bathroom, and teach class. After class, a student grabs me and I go to the lab to look at his code. This is a student who has been struggling. I ask him to explain his algorithm to me. Remarkably, his algorithm is perfectly correct! I tell him this and then start asking questions about syntax. Back to my desk and writing this at 11:05. Respond to the first student's question by email. Read an article from Tomorrow's Professor about the challenges of first-gen college students. Forward it to a colleague who is leading a local effort to better support first-gen students. I know I should be doing something else, but I read it anyway. It's pretty consistent with my experiences with first-gen students, but I'm not sure how it will help me teach and advise them better. Meet with student from Technology Studies class who is having a hard time finding sources for his chosen research topic. Demonstrate that we can find some popular/news/book sources; encourage him to seek help from a librarian in finding scholarly sources. (I would be shocked if there aren't any.) Finish reading the Tomorrow's Professor article. Find the book it is excerpted from and add it to my Amazon shopping cart. Maybe sometime I'll have time to read it. Department meeting concerns major issues: chair election for next year, institutional discussions of the time schedule and assessment. I eat my lunch. The meeting is over by 1:15. My 4:15 meeting is cancelled; we came to a consensus without even talking to each other. So, I email students who signed up for office hours to let them know I will be on time after all. I regret not writing in the morning. It is so hard to focus once that first hour has gone by. I clear my desk enough to stop worrying about loose ends and try to spend 20 minutes or so at least thinking about what I'm supposed to be writing. I succeed at sketching a rough outline of the section I am rewriting, and emailing my co-authors. That wasn't quite as hard as I thought it would be. Maybe I needed some time away from it. I'm looking forward to spending a long morning on it two days hence. It's now 1:50 p.m. I have a doctor's appointment at 2:30. My birth control prescription is about to run out (while I am abroad for spring break, of course), and it's time for a pap test. Also, I need to talk with my doctor about stopping taking birth control pills. Now that I am coming up for tenure, my husband and I have finally agreed that it's time to start trying to get pregnant (or at least, stop trying *not* to get pregnant). I see a lot of friends and colleagues who've had babies pre-tenure - but somehow, we just weren't there yet. It's going to mean a lot of big adjustments in our travel and work schedules. Multitask for ten minutes - email with a student who will cat sit for me during an upcoming spring break vacation to Japan, and respond to an email from a co-author saying something else we should add to our paper. I ask him if he has a good source rather than trying to find one myself. Leave at 2:00 to walk over for my dr. visit. Run into the photographer who took my picture in the classroom recently for an article in the alumni magazine of my alma mater; have to break this off so I am not late to my appointment. Arrive barely on time. Wait. Start reading the book chapters I assigned for my 8 a.m. class tomorrow. Eventually get called in. Read more while I'm waiting. Talk to the doctor. Turns out I do not need a pap test this year. He is happy to talk to me about birth control and pregnancy. He tells me there is now an ob/gyn in town as of this December. It's a small town, which has never had a full-time ob/gyn before, so this is very exciting. Go to the drugstore to fill my prescriptions and also the grocery store to restock my fridge, which is empty since I returned from a conference over the weekend. Stop by home to put groceries away. Arrive back at my office at 4:20, five minutes late. Meet with a steady stream of intro students who have questions about the take home exam until nearly 6:15. Then I finally achieve escape velocity and go home. I take a break for dinner until 7:30. Then I finish reviewing the reading for my 8 a.m. class, go online to read students' reading responses, and make up a lesson plan based on students' responses and my lesson plan from the last time I taught the class. I update the lesson plan to include current events -- not the 2007 bridge collapse in Minnesota, but the nuclear power plant failures in Japan. I finish a bit before 9 and spend a few more minutes responding to work-related email. I putter around for a little bit and take my computer up to bed with me at about 9:30, watching tv on YouTube until I go to sleep around 10. 031 It's Friday. Admitted students are visiting, so things are more crazy than usual. It's also been a service-heavy week for me, as two of my ad-hoc committees have had visitors to campus this week, and I've needed to meet with them. Last night I was too tired to prepare for class, so I do it first thing in the morning (before 7 a.m.) I read the paper over breakfast. En route to school, I rethink one section of the lesson plan. I have students answer questions based on the reading on a discussion board the night before class; students didn't really seem to "get" one part of the reading, so I decide to lead a more structured discussion rather than just turning the students loose to discuss it. I rewrite my notes quickly in the ten minutes before class. The first half of class goes reasonably well, but there isn't enough time to walk through this new topic. I also discover that there has been a correction to the book since the last time I taught it - one of the graphs in my copy was incorrect. Oh no! Chaos ensues, as half the students have one version of the graph and half have the other. At least it is easy to tell which one is correct. This discussion takes longer than expected and we don't quite finish - I tell students that we will finish on Monday. Not one of my greatest triumphs, but that's life. I make a note to find the corrected version of the graph (on the web, I hope) and paste it into my book. In the time between my two morning classes, I * Call to schedule a meeting about fixing a broken window at my house * Prepare for my second class at 10 a.m. * Post next week's assignments for my 8 a.m. course - more challenging than I expected since I had a visitor guest lecturing the last time I taught this course, so I have to reapportion the readings. I teach my 10 a.m. class. Students ask great questions. They take a quiz. We don't have enough time for the lab, so I assign it as homework. At 11 a.m. I have a meeting - a pitch from one of the consulting firms that put in a proposal to audit our college web site. (Committee work.) It is surprisingly insensitive to our particular situation. In my view, they are not likely to win the contract. At noon, the dining hall is packed with prospective students. I find something to eat and take it upstairs for CS Table - a weekly meeting of students and faculty interested in computer science. I haven't watched the video we are discussing, so I mostly listen, but I contribute a few points. I stop by my office to get rid of my notebook and raincoat, then go down to a first floor science classroom to co-host an event to recruit students to our science pre-orientation program. I persuade one of my colleagues to give the presentation and then spend five minutes finding the powerpoint file on our network. Something like twenty prospective students come, versus the four that came last week. My colleague gives a great presentation. The prospies ask lots of good questions. I show a parent over to talk with someone about medical school admissions, and reward myself with a second popsicle. I start writing this diary in the 15 minutes between the end of that event and my office hours. One of my advisees shows up to talk about registering for classes next semester. Last fall was rough, and as a result we had a lot of re-planning to do at the start of this spring. Things are going a lot better now. I take care of some email correspondence about guest lecturers and observers visiting my 8 a.m. class. I just realized that next week is the last week that I don't have a guest lecturer in this class. So if a colleague is going to observe my teaching in this class before I come up for tenure, it had better be next week. I also email my scholarship accountability group and explain why I didn't get anything done this week... too many committee meetings.... I have a couple of visitors to talk about a grant program they are applying for at the end of my office hours. I address them quickly and walk with my colleague over to the gymnasium for the "Faculty Fair" for admitted students. We have about four students talk to us about computer science in a 45 minute period, which isn't bad. No one wants to talk about Technology Studies or the General Science major, which I am there to represent. Thanks to my careful planning, I'm able to dash in and out of my office to head home, feed the cats, and meet my taxi. My husband is returning from a business trip, and I'm meeting him in "the city" for dinner out and an evening at the theater. After an hour's conversation with our small town's only (and highly educated) taxi driver, I meet my husband at our hotel and spend the rest of Friday and all day Saturday blissfully free of work. 031 I'm writing this after the fact since I forgot about the survey on Sunday! On Sunday, I slept in a bit, until 8:30 or so. I had taken a red-eye back from a conference on Wednesday night in order to see my students' presentation, and only on Sunday did I really start to feel caught up on sleep. I cooked breakfast and did some things around the house (dishes, laundry) that needed to get done before my husband returned from his conference trip. (I would feel bad if he came home to a mess in the kitchen and couldn't put his dirty clothes in the washing machine.) I didn't get to work quite as early as I would have liked - not until 10 or so, I think. I had some email to catch up on, including last-minute extra credit work from students that needed to be entered in my grade book. I had committee-related email piled up in my Inbox in the aftermath of the conference, but decided to ignore it in favor of more urgent work for the upcoming finals week. I had started writing a take-home final exam for my HCI students on Saturday. I like to leave myself some time to come back to the questions later and see if they still make sense. So I reviewed the exam and revised a few questions, though overall it seemed fairly good. I created a PDF and posted it on the web for students to download, then sent them an email to let them know it was there, as I had promised. Take-home exams are pretty common at my institution, though I've never posted one on the web before. I trust my students to follow the rules laid out for the exam, and I set up the web site so they would have to read the rules before downloading the exam problems. I'll take it off the web as soon as all the students have turned their work in. I made lunch for myself and read a novel while I was eating. I also figured out what to make for a potluck on Monday night. I gathered up the ingredients that were already in the house and also made a shopping list. I got back to work around two. I had an exam to grade for my intro class, which I had meant to start a lot earlier. Students in my introductory course had completed the exam before my conference trip more than a week ago. I felt bad - usually I get exams back to my intro class within a week. I had taken it on my trip, but it was foolish to think I would have time to work on it while traveling and going to the conference. (I had graded some essays for my other class, which I was also behind on - but that is another story.) The syllabus also offered an optional final exam on Wednesday morning, so I needed to get students' last exam back to them so they could decide whether to take the optional final. Since the weather had gotten nice, I took the exam outside to grade, though I soon discovered I needed some impromptu paperweights to keep the exam from blowing away. I pretty much just plowed through the problems, going through all the papers one or two problems at a time. My colleague and I have a lot of experience writing exams for this class, so it was pretty straightforward to grade (though there was one problem that nobody got). When I checked my phone at about 4:30 I discovered I had gotten a text message from my husband, whose plane had just landed, asking if we needed anything from the grocery store. Grocery problem solved! A few texts later, he was done shopping and on his way back home. I managed to grade all but the last problem when I looked up and he was home, so I took a break to talk with him and put the groceries away. By the time we were done unpacking and putting things away, and he had started a load of laundry, we decided it was time to make dinner. I made a quick pasta dish with sausage my husband had just bought and broccoli raab from our CSA share, a favorite recipe we hadn't made in a long time. We had a bottle of wine with dinner and praised our CSA farmer for growing the broccoli raab (which we had specifically asked for). The evening was nice and both of us had been sitting most of the day, so we took a walk afterward. By the time we got back, I decided it was too late for grading. I figured no student would want their exam back before 10 a.m. or so on Monday morning [embarrassingly, I was wrong] so I decided to grade the last problem in my office in the morning. We read in the living room for a while and went to bed at about 11. 031 Today is a Wednesday. It's summer. I wake up when the alarm goes off at 6:30 a.m. At the beginning of the summer, when classes ended, my husband and I decided to keep our alarm clocks set for 6:30 a.m. so we would still put in a full day's work even though I no longer have 8 a.m. classes to teach. (He works at home; his schedule is flexible all year.) However, our mornings are decidedly more relaxed during the summer. He dozes while I am in the bathroom, and doesn't get up until I'm done. I pick out my clothes when I get dressed in the morning, instead of laying them out the night before. We dawdle over breakfast and the newspaper (and my husband, his iPad) and fold a load of laundry together before my husband walks me over to my office. I arrive a little after 8:30, which has been my usual this summer, and wave hello to a colleague at the other end of the building before kissing my husband goodbye and heading upstairs. I spend the morning working on a journal article that probably should have been written a year ago...but I needed some distance from the work to see that there was, indeed, something interesting to say about it. And furthermore, conference publication is the norm in my field; I've never written a journal article before. I'm feeling some pressure as I want to submit it before I come up for tenure in the fall. Miraculously, last week's article on the Tomorrow's Professor mailing list was a week by week plan for how to write a journal article in 12 weeks. I decided to follow it and I'm feeling much more confident about how to approach it. I spent last week choosing a paper to revise. I had thought I had known what I was going to write, but surprised myself with the realization that that idea was not ready yet and a different conference paper was begging for revision. So I jotted down ideas last week. Yesterday I wrote the first half of the abstract for the paper - I've never written the abstract of a paper first before. Today I wrote the second half of the abstract and I feel really good about it. I also started putting new section headers into the paper since I am significantly shifting its focus. Tomorrow I'll start fleshing out notes on what will go in each section. I got a little distracted by a problem with my revision control system---I keep all my papers and my bibliography under revision control---but stayed on task for the most part. I rewarded myself by leaving a bit early for lunch, at 11:30. I also put a star on my calendar to record that I put in my writing time for today. I had lunch at home with my husband. I cooked up a quick dish---corn fritters---and left my husband to clean up while I went for a walk, watching the time carefully so I could get back to work by 1:30. I know...that was a two hour lunch...but I never seem to exercise except by taking longer lunch breaks. I probably should go to lunch at 11:30 more often. I love having the flexibility to take long lunches, and I love living so close to my office (a five-minute walk). I returned at 1:30 for the Daily Scrum with my summer research students. This is a short meeting, part of our agile software development process, where we each answer three questions: 1) What have you done since the last Daily Scrum? 2) What do you plan to do between now and the next Daily Scrum? 3) What is blocking you? I report out along with my students. As usual, my students are blocked on some tasks. One is a question about scheduling an evening meeting with our project client. Another concerns coding standards - naming files and variables. A third is a small technical problem. I sit down with one student after the Scrum and we debug the problem in about five minutes. Finally, they need me to play the participant in their pilot usability study, which I had earlier promised to do. But they aren't quite ready yet. So, I catch up on my email---I hadn't looked at it in the morning while I was busy writing---while they are preparing. I see that there is finally an agenda for the faculty development workshop I am participating in next week, so I print it out, look over the materials, and make sure it's all on my calendar. My students come to get me in the middle of composing an email to a committee I chair for my professional organization, but that is okay. The pilot usability study is fun. I really enjoy doing these things. I role play the chatty participant, ignorant of design and just focused on doing the task my way, while occasionally breaking character to suggest tips from my experience to make the study run more smoothly. (It is their first study of the summer---so I expect there were more of these today than there will be in the future.) I have some further suggestions after the study is over. But overall the study went very well, and I tell my students so. Their first "real" participant is coming tomorrow at noon. I go back to my desk to finish composing the committee email. But soon a herd of students stampedes past my office. I see it is 3 p.m. - time for the weekly Science Tea. Indeed, my students have left the research lab. I follow them with $10 in my pocket in the hopes of making change for participant compensation from the donation jar. Indeed, I get the $8 I needed (leaving $2 in donations). I spend the half-hour talking with a peer in math; we end up deciding to go out to lunch next Monday and I write it on the palm of my hand so I don't forget between there and my office. I also had a conversation on the way there with another colleague. I've served on a committee with her before, and I'm interested in her research, so I asked her what her summer students are doing. We talked again about collaborating in the future; maybe trying to go to a relevant conference together in a couple years. On the way back, I go to the college bookstore to buy envelopes for participant compensation. Once I get back to my office, I take the envelopes and cash over to the lab and count it out, asking my students to keep the envelopes in a safe place for tomorrow. Finally, I return to my office to the committee email I started composing more than an hour ago. I finish that and add some faculty development workshops I had forgotten about to my annual Faculty Activity Report, which is due at the end of the month. And I start writing this diary, spending far longer than I probably should. By this time it is 4:30 p.m. I take a break by going to my institution's homegrown social networking site, where I keep in touch with alumni and students away for the summer. In posting my own news about writing a journal article, I discover a group for academics. I waste far too much time adding some of my favorite resources---including, ironically, one on productivity---spending more than 45 minutes in all. I need to figure out how to be more productive in the afternoons. I decide to work on a project I am hoping to finish up this week - migrating a research-related web server off my desktop computer so the sysadmin can finally update the OS. I'm still testing the site on the new server, where it seems to have acquired various bugs. Fix some problems, choose content to hide, start slogging through security updates. I should hire a student to do this. It gets a little out of hand with module dependencies and I end up staying until 7:00 - an hour later than I meant to. Oof. And oops. When I get home, my husband is making dinner and fixing one of the kitchen cabinets. He is the complete package. I change from work clothes into "play" clothes and we have dinner on the back patio. Afterwards, I pick strawberries---throwing away more than I keep since it has been raining, and aquiring one serious mosquito bite before putting on bug spray---and clean them at the kitchen sink while my husband tidies up the dinner dishes and then reads on the patio. I waste an hour or so reading web comics and blogs on my laptop, then pick up my Kindle and start the next novel in the series I am reading, and finally take a shower to wash off the bug spray before bed. Lights out a bit after 11 p.m. 031 Friday is Sprint Planning day with my students. We have adopted the Scrum method, which involves working in short (in our case 1-week) sprints during which no new goals can be set - work is planned at the beginning and only that work can be done during the sprint. I was set to meet with my students at 8:30, but my husband and I both had a pokey morning. I arrive at 8:45 and immediately put $5 in the kitty for being five minutes late. (We'll buy the CS summer students ice cream or something during the last week of summer research.) We immediately get to work. I wrote up a to-do checklist on the whiteboard a few weeks ago, which we have since been using to guide our sprint planning. We start checking items off - updating the product backlog (our list of possible future tasks), photographing the task board (as a form of documentation), and clearing the board for the next sprint's work. The next step is the Sprint Retrospective - a discussion of practices to sustain and improve. I sit back while one of my two students writes on the board and the other transcribes notes. All three of us contribute, though I have to ask the student who is transcribing to speak up. The "improve" list is expanded first - but as we think more, we come up with several things to sustain as well (and this continues throughout the morning). We also review our sustain/improve list from last week, to see how we did. I point out that these lists will be an important source of best practices, lessons learned, and open challenges for their report on the summer. We move into planning proper. It is the end of week 8 (out of 10 weeks of summer research), so we need to start thinking about the end of the semester. We determine how many working hours are available for each day of the sprint and decide how to split them up between programming, UX evaluation, and writing. This leads into a discussion about what kind of paper they will write; I outline the type of paper I am envisioning. This leads to the identification of a few writing tasks - not writing per se, but finding examples of similar papers and brainstorming possible content. Now that we know how many hours are available, we choose items from the product backlog and negotiate the specific tasks that need to be accomplished for those items to be implemented. We also estimate the amount of time required for each task. Each task and estimate is written on an index card; once an item is fully "tasked-out" we put the cards on the task board and subtract the hours required from the total hours available in the sprint. This is a somewhat tedious process---it is hard to keep everyone focused, and we all take several breaks---but it seems to pay off in students' ability to actually accomplish the tasks that we agree on. We run out of hours allocated for the sprint before we run out of items we want to complete---unfortunately, rather typical, but the product backlog means those items won't be forgotten. We also write task cards for work on the students' final paper. By this time, it is after noon and therefore time for lunch. I've been taking my students out to lunch on Fridays. Despite the heat, we decide to get sandwiches and take them out to eat in Central Park---as the forecast predicts the next two weeks are only going to be hotter. We have a pleasant lunch and walk back to campus. A colleague catches me for a brief conversation - letting me know he has been appointed to an administrative position (related to an institutional service project we have been working on together), and that as a result he will likely be stepping down from the Personnel Committee. I'm disappointed - he hired me as Dean five years ago, and I had been looking forward to having a "friendly face" on the committee - but that's life. I'm grateful that he told me. At 1:30 I check in with my students for our Daily Scrum: A brief daily progress report meeting. Since we've been working together nearly continuously since yesterday's Scrum, we have nothing new to report to each other. But I ask my students which of the tasks they plan to tackle first and I'm relieved that they are all things they shouldn't need my help with. I'm looking forward to some time away from my students. I catch up on my email. At 2 p.m. I go downstairs to participate in a psychology experiment that I had signed up to do earlier in the week. It's weird but kind of fun. It's nice to have some time to do things like this and support our students during the summer. The study takes about an hour. The rest of the day is weekly review time. I sort out my email, empty my paper inbox, look at my calendar, and review projects and tasks that need to get done. Things can get pretty out of control if I don't make time to do this. There are some tasks on my list that should have been done a long time ago, which I resolve to do next week. I leave at 5:30 and hope my husband has a plan for dinner. He does - he's grilling burgers - but before that we have a meeting with a contractor who is testing our basement for radon. Fun stuff. We speculate on what kind of work our house might need. After dinner, we spend some time thinking about projects for the weekend (too many of them!), read books, and relax. 031 Monday was the third day of Grinnell Science Project (GSP) - a pre-orientation program designed to help students from underrepresented minorities and first-generation college students feel at home in the sciences. I am one of the co-directors. Planning for this year's program started in the spring; our student assistants (SAs) arrived on Thursday to start preparing for the program; and students (and some of their families) arrived on Saturday. So although it's Monday, I've worked for the last seven days straight. The workday begins with a breakfast meeting in the dining hall at 8 with the SAs and the other co-directors. I find myself wishing I'd stayed home and finished reading the newspaper, as my colleagues spend 20 minutes in the waffle line. Once we get started at 8:20, we talk about how things are going, concerns about particular students, and the game plan for today. At 9 a.m., I'm with the Puzzles and Problems group down in the workshop physics lab. I have some errands to run related to today's scavenger hunt, but otherwise things are pretty uneventful. I get a few questions from students, but not many. We realize at the end of the session that one student never arrived. Fortunately, another student has her phone number and learns that she went to the other morning session by mistake. We all trek over to the athletic center for a session about social justice. This turns out to be remarkable - I have a good conversation with one of our SAs who has been a bit of an enigma, and I learn some things about myself and our group. I hope that this will become a permanent addition to our program, because it seems very relevant to what we are trying to accomplish with GSP. Next is lunch. I should sit with GSP students. But I run into a couple of returning students I really want to talk with - a senior who I've known since he was a first-year, and a rising second-year who I just taught in my intro class and is likely to declare the major. Both work at the information technology help desk -- the older mentored the younger. So I succomb to temptation and have a good conversation with the two of them. After lunch I am with the librarian and half the students for the session on "Starting Your Independent Project". I'm not quite sure why I am here. I wish I'd brought some work to do (since I have no unscheduled time today.) I get to the break afterwards at 2:30 and panic when I realize I haven't made photocopies for the scavenger hunt at 3 yet. I run to do that, then run to the room where the scavenger hunt ends. When no one but an SA comes, I check the schedule and realize we are starting in a different room. I run there and feel very embarrassed, but no one but the two of us seems to have realized we wer in the wrong place. I get the students started on the scavenger hunt and then head back downstairs. Students gradually return and the usual chaos ensues. At the end of my day, I have "individual interviews" with three of the students. I have a preset list of questions to ask, but some freedom to rearrange them or ask them in different ways. Each of the students is enthusiastic and enjoyable to talk with, but I hear about some tough situations. I can't solve their problems, but I can remind them that they are not alone and support is available. I close my office door feeling exhausted, but pretty positive. I make the mistake of saying goodbye to my colleague with the office next to mine and end up talking with him for another 15 minutes before going home. I am exhausted and starving at 6 p.m., and so grateful my husband is cooking dinner. I get to finish reading the paper from this morning and read my online comics and blogs while he cooks. We go for a walk after dinner, and that is pretty much the day. 032 Wednesdays are busy days this semester. The days starts out at 4:30AM, when I get up and go exercise. That usually takes two hours or so, but starting the day with that sort of a boost is the only way to get thru the rest of it. After the normal "at home" stuff (eating, finding all the materials needed for the day, reading the newspapers, and so on), it's time to head for the office. From 9:00AM until 9:45AM, I respond to emails. Today, these were requests for updates to the department web site (my responsibility) and several discussions on curriculum changes and program review for the following academic year. At 9:45, I head off to class. This class is one I am taking. I need to learn something having nothing to do with what I teach simply to clear my head. Otherwise, work becomes far too all-consuming. At noon, I head to lunch. At lunch, I meet up with a fellow faculty member where we discuss curriculum changes. It seems to never end. It's now 1:30PM. I spend 1 hour preparing for the course that I must teach at 4:00pm. This involves reading the material, doing some additional research online to find more material, and writing up an outline of information (and the order) to present. At 3:00, I grade student work until 3:45. I only get thru one of the five sections (4 classes) that I have this term. The rest will have to wait. At 4:00PM, I teach my class. The first 30 minutes, I talk about the material prepped earlier. The remaining hour and a half (we went over by 30 minutes. The students don't seem to mind), the students present their lab assignments to the class. Lively discussion ensues after each one. I really hope that there is learning occuring here - it certainly seems like there must be as the conversations are mostly on point. It's now 6pm. I head back to my office and grade student work until 8pm. 3 of the remaining 4 sections are now complete. At 8:00pm, I head home. I grab some supper and read the mail that arrived. I pointedly do not turn on my computer, but rather watch mindless tv and read news magazines. At 10pm, I can no longer stay awake enough to read and go to bed. The alarm goes off early tomorrow. 032 Today, I left my house at 8:30AM for a 4-hour drive to my Alma Mater for Homecoming. I got to seriously reflect on what we, as educators, give to our students. From my professors, I got the ability to think on my feet, to creatively solve problems (or to creatively explain why I thought the problem couldn't be solved!), and how to act around people in different roles than myself. Nothing to do with what they taught. Sure, I learned that -- I was pretty good at what I did when I finished my undergraduate graduate. But those skills did not completely make me who I am today. Those other things my professors taught me made me who I am. Lots to ponder over. Finally, we finished the drive and wandered around the campus. Plenty of alums and current students - the former trying to find their way around (again!!) and the later trying to be too cool. In evening we had a big event where the alumni re-create their job tasks from the days they spend on campus. It was a bit rocky at first, but by the time the event started, it was like riding a bike - no problem remembering all the tasks we learned those many years ago, and relearned at the hands of some great students who were more than willing to teach the old people how to do their jobs. What great young people! They were very patient and explained the tasks with the precision of so-to-be-graduates and the training tasks they will need to take on. They had the same great training we did -- you learn the task well enough to teach someone else. Don't we aspire to do that with our students? We teach them, and then - hopefully - we watch them train someone else. I've tried that in my classes (with some formality, rather than letting it come together however it comes together) for the first time this semester. What fun! The students have to tell others what they are doing, and then teach them some specific skill they learned (no limit in either direction on size). This has made my job so much easier - I no longer have to teach each individual skill - the students teach each other what they consider important, and I fill in the gaps and help guide the ship. Later in the evening, I tape an interview with the alumni association... what is important to you? What did you come back? I came back because this school is my Alma Mater in the truest sense of the word -- it is my nurturing mother. I grew up here. So, the task is then.. what do we do to give our students the feeling of being nurtured at our institutions? At a commuter school like mind, we don't have the students on our campus 24/7. How do we build up our students in a limited amount of time - and only in the classroom - each term? Something to think about. Maybe on the drive home on Sunday. For me, now, it is late and time to end this missive. 032 It's Monday. The day starts at 4:30AM. All of the emails that collected over the weekend need to be answered. Why is it that an email sent at 5:00 on Saturday afternoon demands an immediate answer whereas an assignment due at noon Wednesday can be submitted at 11:59:59 and that's OK? Ah well. The email awaits. We start with the first. An assignment is 4 weeks late, can it be submitted now without penalty? Sorry, no. The next - a family emergency may affect work that is not due for 2 days. Excellent. That one is easy, too. Sorry to hear about the emergency, let me know when things calm down and you are ready to submit.. no penalty if turned in in the next 5 days. Student is thrilled. The rest, happily, are listserv emails and can wait. All the other things that have piled up while I enjoyed the weekend now call.... 2 letters of recommendation (at the end of the day, still not done. maybe tomorrow.. the deadline looms... they are due Weds AM!!), an exam to write (almost done.. and another Weds deadline)... So what did I do? The summer schedule was finished. Honchoing that many faculty with that many classes and sections and trying to get everyone finished and happy and done on time.. whew! I'm glad I only have my department. After printing out the schedule, I head over to the dean's office to drop it off. Why don't we do this electronically? It could save days of processing time! Not my concern - I wasn't asked and "because we've always done it that way" gets old... A chat with the dean... .. leads to a grade dispute being handed over. Sigh. A quick read shows the students wants a higher grade, but didn't really say to what. No, you can't go from a "D" to an "A". Too big a leap. The student admits to having mis-read the assignment page and not bothering to do some of the work. This is now my fault. Again. Time to find a happy medium so it appears the vent has been read without sacrificing any classroom mojo. I need to get some facts together, so that can wait until Thursday. We also talk about some on-campus ceremonies and arts on campus. I'm involved in both, and it's nice to hear that someone is paying attention. I'm trying to make my programs more cross-disciplinary so getting involved with the arts serves two masters.. my right brain and my dean. Both good things. The advantage to working at a college is I can take classes. I head off to my next class... fortunate in that I can observe a colleague deal with difficult students and a difficult topic. I'm trying hard to be a student in this class, so any reflection on dealing with students like me while only come after the class ends. For now, we soak it in, learn, and try and get better. Off to grab some lunch. I meet up with my faculty mentor where we talk for an hour or so on the vagaries of college committees. I'm happy to hear that my feelings on the workings of one of the committees is not "newness" speaking.. but my senior mentor feels the same way. Whew! I might be getting a handle on this stuff. Having a mentor outside my department has helped so much.. I learn incredible amounts just sitting and talking with him an hour or two each week.. how to deal with certain types of students, what else can be learned that it isn't just what technical stuff I am working on that day, how to deal with administration & staff and other faculty, etc. Such a blessing. I wish I had this years ago, but it does work so much better having found and nurtured it on my own, without intervention. After lunch, we work on grading for several hours. It's not very exciting.. the students seem to be getting almost everything. The ones that don't haven't asked any questions (yet) so I need to spend some time on deciding how to reach the quiet ones. What is the best way to get a student to ask questions if they don't yet know they don't understand? Finally, it's dinner time. I head off to meet with a large group of professionals in my field. We talk a little bit about reaching students earlier (say ... middle school or sooner!) but mostly we simply enjoy each others company and the food. Time to call it a night. 032 Dec 15th. The middle of final exam week - the second busiest day of the term (second only to the first day of the term!). We start the day at 4:15am. There are lots of emails to answer - all variations on a theme: "my grade is not where I want it be, how can I recover?" Wow. I wish I could answer this question at the beginning of the term more forcefully - there is no way to improve your grade during finals week. It might change a little (in either direction), but certainly not 2 or more letter grades. I craft one good, heartfelt email along the lines of "Perhaps now that you have a grasp on the vocabulary of the topic, you can join us next term and really shine" and send it to all the supplicants. I never hear back, so who knows if that works. After the emails are answered, it's time to grade. 40 essays, written by math students. We are trying to encourage critical thinking across the board - students need to synthesize their thoughts, the concepts, ideas, and vocabulary of the course. The results are hit or miss. As I am grading, I am keeping notes. What can be done to improve writing in this course? There is no writing prerequisite, so everything has to be done here. There is no assumed knowledge here - many of these students simply cannot read, write, or do math much above the middle school level. How do get the message out? I have no answer. Small steps, one more change for next year. Time for lunch. As is normal, today is my lunch meeting with my faculty mentor. We talk about funny things students write on evals and exams. Buried in the discussion is how to avoid some of those oddly worded criticisms, how to get around being the worst. teacher. ever. period. Always excellent words of wisdom. Constant communication seems to be the key. Off now to administer my last exam of 2010. Only half the class shows. How very odd. No way to pass if you don't make an attempt. They take the exam, while I finish my grading. An hour after the last student leaves, I am done with everything except this last exam. The actual grading can wait, but a quick look-see shows that they really didn't study. They depended on remembering everything we discussed (it was a comprehensive exam). They didn't. Oh well. We'll see how this affects their grades. I set all the papers in my office, turn off the computer and the lights and head out. We are supposed to have bad weather (again), so off to the grocery store. I get home about 9pm, check the mail, and go to bed. Tomorrow is another day. 032 It's Saturday. The last "free" weekend before classes start. I say free in quotes because we all know that is not really true. Today had three major projects, none of them very interesting to the rest of my family. I started writing lecture notes for a new class. This class forms the completion of the arch of the student's education at my school. Therefore, the class discussions need to fill in all the gaps. Yesterday's project was to go through the students' plan of study and see what the gaps are. Wow. Quite a few. I think we as a department need to talk about filling some of these holes at an at least introductory level before they get to the final course. Not sure how that will fly, but it needs to be addressed. I have collected the stack of books that will form the knowledge base and started to write. The second big project is to look at all our partner schools in the region and see who we can form articulation agreements with. It turns out that everyone has programs we can dovetail into, the big question will be - do they want us as partners? The discussion with a local partner took years, I hope that doesn't happen again. Look folks - we want our students to go to your school. I know you think you will lose 2 years tuition if they transfer in, but how much will you lose if they don't come at all? Think of it as gaining two years tuition - they will come in as juniors and stay. They are good kids and want to study - why won't you let them? The third project took the rest of the day. I was developing an application to demo as a class project. It was just so much fun to be coding again that I missed dinner. It's doing this that leaves me puzzled when my advanced students tell me how much they hate doing the lab assignments. Why are you here? If you hate it, change majors. Really. It's ok. This profession is too all-encompassing to have that large of a chunk of your life be something you hate. Relish the creative forces and go play. Well. for a Saturday we did a lot. I am hoping that there is a Saturday in the very near future where I can curl up on the couch and read a for-fun book. Someday :) 032 Thanks for keeping this open. What a week. Even while it was happening, I couldn't tell you one discrete event that occurred. This week is exam number one week for 2 of my classes. The first exam I think is the most stressful day of any student's semester - what is the exam like? how does the professor write exams? How do they grade exams? How many questions? What kind of questions? Much of today was fielding these questions. The exam is like the homeworks. I grade like I graded the homeworks. The exam is some mix of question types. There will be enough questions to insure I know you know the material. But if you don't know the concepts, none of this matters. Oh well. What do you do? 032 Woohoo! Spring Break.. well, for the students anyway. OK, so I didn't go on campus today, I guess that was *my* break. I am using the break to get a jump start on the fall term. Today, I evaluated textbooks. For each book I needed to decide - is the technology more or less current? Is it written in such a way that it both makes sense and doesn't feel silly? Is the index / table of contents meaningful? Are there ancillaries? I can write my own labs and exams, so that isn't a deal breaker - but well written ancillaries mean that someone took the time to proof the book. Is there an errata web site? No book is perfect - admit it and post the typos! Is the book inexpensive enough that my low socio-economic students without financial aid can afford it? That is the deal breaker! I've gone with a less than ideal book simply because it was $75 cheaper than the "better" book. I looked through a half-dozen or so books and found the one I think I am happy with. Next step - plan out the schedule of chapters. The book is pretty good - this fell into place pretty quickly, an hour or so. Another hour of planning out some in-class discussions... what sort of things should we talk about? What is simple to me may be impossible to others - where is the line? After 90 minutes of this, I've had enough. I need to give myself a break. I have a stack of 'professional development' reading I should do. Instead, I read the 'for-fun' book that has been sitting on my table since the start of the term. The work will be there tomorrow. 032 Well. The semester has caught up with me. I have been fighting the "crud" all week and today.. *bam*. Down for the count. One of the things I did do today was to begin to cobble together a budget for a subcontract on a grant. Part of this may be my fault for not asking every time I think of it.. but... if you want to sub out a part of your project, please ... give us all the details and not just the main story arc. I'm knew at this whole grant thing and I don't want to mess it up. But I'm fairly certain someone will tell me I did it wrong. Sigh. I am also working on an adult learning / non credit course for this summer. That is just fun -- I get to teach a discrete topic in a short time with no assessments or the pressure that goes with them. My goal is to spread the fun out a bit. I hope the students have as much fun as I do. I spent today digging around online and in my library for source materials. I really enjoy going "down the rabbit hole" looking for information and putting together talks on interesting topics. But for now, exhaustion has kicked in. I need this weekend to do nothing - it will be the first one in many weeks. I'll watch a ball game and read a for-fun book (yes, the one that is still on my table from the last time we talked). 032 Wheee!! On holiday. I did no <my field> related thinking. I did explore some different cultures, some art, some political science, and some history. Can I use it in my job? Perhaps not directly, but I'm sure I can - if I wrap my brain around the concept - find a way to apply some of this somehow. We have, in the college, have long talks about internationalizing the curriculum. Today (and the past weeks, actually) can be used somewhere. But for now - I'm on holiday. The past few months have been so busy (no time to even create these entries!) that the time for me is absolutely critical. Recharging the batteries, re-examining ideas and beliefs, learning new (and seemingly unrelated, until I can think about how to make them related) things (history, art, political science, food, ...) are so important to being ready to start a new year. So on that note, time for figuring out tomorrow and get ready for bed. 032 Last entry in this project. I hope you are finding these useful, although I am amused that the newsletter entries all seem to come from the UK. There are non-UK folk participating, right? Or we are all boring over here? :) The 15th has seemed to fall in to 3 separate patterns: a pretty mundane grading/teaching/admin day, too exhausted to write anything even remotely interesting (or even at all!), or on holiday. Finally, today, a break in the pattern. I am taking a class. It is for fun, for me, for enjoyment. There is no pressure as it is an adult learning course ( I did take the graduate credit option, but still a pretty low pressure situation). Lasts all week.. and zero relationship to what I teach during the year. It's such a pleasant thing to be the student again. I can sit back and watch someone else take on the administrative headaches. There were several occasions where work intervened and I had to check my emails and complete some task. Much of it was yes/no/perhaps answers to emails, or forwarding on an email that I couldn't answer, or "Wow that was harsh. Next time start with thank you for starting the project and then offer constructive advice. Telling me it stinks is not how to win friends." Being a student took most of the day. I got home around supper time, caught up on the reading the newspaper and the mail, answered a family phone call, and ate supper. No work here! Time to get brave. We flip on the computer and... only 2 email messages. Hooray!! Those are quickly dispatched. Now to think about prepping one particularly challenging course. It is an intro course, but there are no texts for the material. (The texts that are out there are 3 to 5 grade levels above my students) So..... I need to spend time searching for readings. I have previously divided the class in to subtopic, now to divide each subtopic in to some assessable unit (something I can quiz and give homework on). Doing all the reading, coming up with my own study guides, quizzes, homeworks.. eek. This may take longer than I thought. The administrative part is complete: syllabus, schedule (of sorts), the "hello how are you ?" quiz, policies, procedures, etcetc. The reading list for topic one is collected. I feel pretty happy about that. I have finished a general sketch of the assignment, but now will need to spend a day or two making it less hard. This is, after all, an intro class. Need to think about what I have read.. can't do that tonight. It is getting late. I will be interested to see what comes of this project. I hope you will let everyone know where/when the papers are published. I guess I wasn't all that detailed for you.. but so much of what i do is that constant chatter between items.. a little here, and some other stuff over there. Over the course of a day, the peaks & valleys even out and sometime it even appears to the gentle reader that nothing occurred here. But, dear reader, plenty did. But much of it was started on the 15th and completed on some other day., this week or later the next. it all gets done, eventually... 033 15th September 2010 Pretty tired this am, worrying about the meeting with the dean all night. He has just taken away the PG Common Room, giving it to another department? For CPD work apparently? Not good news the week before we were going to use it in. Today spent the first couple of hours dealing with email, whilst having breakfast, first meeting in the University was 11am (still vacation after all), so I cycled in. Email from the librarian identifying that we can cut some journals to help relief the Faculty library deficit, but we have to do it before Friday. Oh good. Nice sunny day, plenty of cycles, about 20% of the vehicles here are cycles, even out of term time. Student was waiting outside my room as I wheeled my bike in. We talked about his project report as I folded the bike up. He should have handed it in 12 days ago, but he has decided to wait until the final day that he can hand in and get a late penalty of a cap to 40%. Actually he is a repeating student, so I'm worried that he won't actually have that window for late handing. Problem is that he just won't get on with his work. I looked at his literature review. Its still only two pages, he is so confident that after three months he can just finish his work in two days, and yet he just won't get on with it. He knows if he fails this time he probably won't get a second chance. I like him, he is a nice chap, I can just cross my fingers that he'll do what is needed and we can get him through. Took about an hour. Read a stupid email from the office. They have decided that students must tell us their second semester options at the beginning of October. Students arrive are immediately asked to decide what they want to do in S2. Did I think it was a good idea? I replied that no I did not think it was a good idea. Another email from a colleague, looks like 7 students on a DL MSc that isn't running next year are coming to induction? Maybe not, I just looked in the wrong column on the spreadsheet that I was sent. Its got 13 columns with headings that are (at best) cryptic. Chatted to a colleague on the phone about 'admin tails wagging dogs' and the like. She was charmingly cynical about it all and equally exhausted. Actually felt better after I talked to her. So much of the 'support' part of the university seems to have no idea that students are not just an irrelevant annoyance... Off to see the Dean, put my jacket on so hopefully not as messy as usual. I have not met him before, actually he is very smooth and charming, I actually felt quite humbled (pygmy beside a giant) with the effortless way he handled what could have been quite an awkward interview. Was able to find out quite a lot about why he'd made the decision, by reading between the lines. We also talked about the library deficit, again he has got a pretty good grasp of that. Went away with no real solution, but at least feeling I had a better grasp of why he had done what he had. Probably don't have to worry about it until Easter anyway, which is good news. Reported back to my post graduate course team colleague. Yes, I confirmed to her I'd used all the obvious arguments, and no they had had no impact. We discovered another timetabling problem emerging from the timetabler the dreaded subject line 'clash in work sessions'. We could not understand this. We solved all that months ago. Maybe we didn't tell the timetabler, oh well, easy solution. Tell her. Got given several redundant bits of kit for students to pull apart. My room is becoming a scrap yard. ...and I like it that way. Later in my room thought about what the Dean said and realised that actually we could run some commercial courses and earn money quite easily too, with the lab next to the PG common room. Actually a pretty flexible config as both rooms are outside central timetabling, so we can use them flexibly and efficiently. (Would not wish to imply that the University's central timetabling is not flexible and efficient of course). Hmmm, several of my colleagues are quite keen on getting back into commercial short courses, so we'll have a chat with the marketing. A plan at last after a rather stressful day, and maybe we can bring in some money to buy some more equipment for the teaching lab. My boss sent me an email, she wants to see me urgently, probably to find out what the Dean said. Remembered to phone the guy I'm working with tomorrow, on interviews for the educational developer. Eventually left its already nearly 7pm. Back home and I'm doing this blessed diary. A coursework assessment to moderate this evening. I better read through the job description again ready for the 8.30 start tomorrow. Good thing it was a quiet day today, and at least I did help one student (I hope!). I also hope my next '15th' will be a bit more student/teaching centred! This has been a day when the seemly endless tasks involved in getting everything set up, and keeping control of the resources needed to teach have predominated. 10pm, now where is that coursework that needs moderating? 033 Saturday 15th January Extremely tired after an industrial visit to a student yesterday in Reading. However a good visit to a successful student. Rather a wet day, but I managed to avoid the worst of the rain. Saturday is a day that I do sometimes spend in the office, mainly because its quiet without the frequent disturbances that occur during Mon-Fri. But this Saturday I caught up with my sleep, since I'd had a few disturbed nights with my mind racing over all the things that could go wrong with the previous weeks activities. Last week was a little stressful, was off campus doing Industrial Placement visits twice during the week (the first one to Slough, another successful student), and a large scale teaching/assessment simulation running on Thursday. Technically this was the first exam week, but my department decided to schedule all the exams in the last two weeks of the assessment period, for which I'm very grateful. Probably about half a days prep for the simulation, finding a last minute replacement for one of the key roles, finding out from the Business School Technicians how the built in video recording kit works, and packing everything to take over to the court room. The simulation, for digital forensics students, involves using the mock court room that belongs to the School of Law, and getting each student to present their findings from the digital evidence we provided them for their assessment (it took about 4 hours). They will be providing a court report. Unfortunately the simulation was originally set for the second assessment week, and yet was booked for the first assessment week, so I had to ask students to provide a draft version of their assessment (court report) earlier so we could use it in reference during the presentation of evidence. This caused some problems as the VLE couldn't handle changes in the handin process, so the final coursework handin on Friday was not as elegant as it could have been. VLEs often don't seem to have been designed to operate in the same universe as other 'human' systems. The two unit lecturers acted as defense and prosecution council, and as the students could opt for giving evidence for either side, both lecturers got a chance to cross-exam (which is probably the most enjoyable part - for the staff if not the students!). Another member of staff played the judge, and I drafted in my wife to act as usher. These are the main roles we need, the Jury is 'virtual' and the accused merely a two dimensional stereotype :-) All went well, all students found the experience appropriately intense, but also 'safe', and I was generally happy with all the performances by all students (although some much better than others). ...all the staff involved seemed to enjoy the experience too. Its all been videoed, and we shall endeavor to use parts of the video for feedback and (with students permission) to illustrate approaches to giving evidence as an expert witness. This is the third time we have run the simulation, each time using a higher level of fidelity. Strangest experience was seeing all the staff wearing suits, and even more seeing all the students dressed 'respectably' :-) ...and then on thursday afternoon to the dentist, as I have finally found an NHS dentist in my city, and one that is a short walk from the University campus (and one that seems to actually do a reasonable job). I was pretty exhausted by the end of the day. A busy week. Next week another big event, on Thursday as the University decided it would be helpful if we change the size of our units and revalidate all our courses. We have a lot of work to do to get all the stuff that worked in one format into another format, and of course to try and make the usual annual improvements as well. The event on Thursday is an internal meeting where I hope we'll all be able to get the framework for the PG courses worked out, and some of the many forms completed. 033 Tuesday 15th February. Yesterday I went to visit a placement student working in a company south of Bedford. Quite a pleasant day travelling by train and bike, nice weather. Good to see a successful student, and an interesting placement company. Industrial placement visits are just so good at reminding me what its like in the working world. Its also good that most employers seem to be very pleased with our students, and most students enjoy the experience too. I managed to do a good few hours work on the train, but was extremely tired by the time I got home. I was away from home for about 10 hours. Had breathing problems again cycling (quite hard work cycling into the wind), and so today I visited my Doctor in the morning. A 10 minute appointment turned into a two hour visit with an ECG test (fortunately I was able to phone/email from the surgery and re-arrange my appointments), and a hospital appointment tomorrow in the early morning. Back to work for a lecture in this afternoon. Wednesday will be a bit busier, chairing a Boards of Studies in the afternoon, however I should have time for a visit to the hospital in the morning, with a bit of meeting rescheduling... (As it turned out, the following day I was admitted to hospital and had to undergo angioplasty, I must have had a mild silent heart attack the previous week... Off work for a fortnight, and lots of nice emails from students.) 034 15-9-2010 00:00-00:30 Misc e-mails, especially to research students 07:50-08:20 e-mails to Canadian co-authors of a paper about follow-up 08:53-09:00 Computing Service - staffing issues 09:00-09:53 e-Learning team discussing 2010-11 and future use of EVS 09:53-10:07 Arranging next year's tutors for my big course 10:07-10:37 Misc. admin & fetching the morning coffee (had to try twice:queues) 10:37-11:07 Formatting poster with Canadian co-authors 11:07-11:22 Planning research trip to Birmingham 11:22-11:30 Bibliography (for my father's book) 11:30-11:37 Details for a Visiting Fellow needed by admin. 11:37-13:07 Preparing for research student A's visit (admin., reading draft) 13:07-14:15 Chair campus meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous (pick up printed poster on way back) 14:15-16:07 Research student A visits 16:07-16:45 Coffee (+sandwich) with Research student B 16:45-17:53 Programme administrator, then data entry for 2009/10 resits (detour to witness the University Seal being applied) 17:53-18:00 E-mail exchange with Research student B 18:00-18:45 Computing Reviews 21:45-22:07 E-mail and chasing up contacts 23:37-23:45 Requesting referee's reports for a conference 23:45-23:53 Moodle work following 09:00 23:53-00:00 e-mail with Research student A following 14:15 034 06:45-07:30 Breakfast and read e-mail: catch up daily e-mail Bulletin from ArXiV 07:30-08:00 The three S's (s**t, shave, shampoo) 08:00-08:15 Bus into University 08:15-08:30 Discussion with Asst Dir. Computing Services 08:30-08:45 Discussion with Assoc. Dean (R), and Dir. Research in Dept. (separately) about Doctoral Taught Course Centre 08:45-08:50 Grab lunchtime sandwiches (the queue will be far too long by then) from the shop. Queue is far too long for coffee, though 08:50-09:15 Refereeing for Royal Society 09:15-09:45 Supervise computing Lab: 5 tutors and 70+ students, but (it being Week 2) all is going well once the teething problems (students forgotten groups etc.) are sorted. Grab coffee on way back. 09:45-10:00 E-mail, including soliciting a paper for a journal I founded. 10:00-11:30 Work on two High-Performance Computing EPSRC bids, with administrator and Computing Services colleague. Interrupted briefly to meet new tutor (see 09:15) 11:30-11:35 Check e-mail and say goodbye to office staff 11:35-16:55 Bristol to advise local Govermnent Department on computing needs (approved consultancy). Do some more grant-writing on the train. 16:55-17:15 Walk home from station while trying (on mobile) to calm down colleague who is being bullied by her Head of Department 17:15-17:45 E-mail; try to catch up on national training consortium that's being formed 17:45-19:53 Alcoholics Anonymous meeting followed by shopping for supper 19:53-20:37 E-mail, mostly national training consortium 20:37-20:50 Try to calm down (same) colleague who is being bullied by her Head of Department 20:50-22:10 Dinner and Sudoku (simultaneously) 22:10-23:00 Refereeing for Royal Society 034 07:05-08:00 Breakfast and read e-mail: catch up NYT article about Alexandria University in Egypt's rise in THES rankings (basicaly citation rings), and collaborative EPSRC proposal. 08:00-08:20 The three S's (s**t, shave, shampoo) 08:20-08:35 Bus into University 08:35-09:30 Misc admin: post, e-mail tutees etc. 09:30-09:40 Personal Tutee (needed a sense of reality after he'd trashed his own file store - he's only a first year) 09:40-10:30 Preparing first-year lecture course (260) - answers to problems and coursework. 10:30-11:23 Acting HoD work - HoD recruiting in China 11:23-11:30 Final year students' queries 11:30-12:45 First year course - discussion with other lecturer 12:45-13:45 Lunch with MSc external examiner 13:45-14:00 E-mail to potential new lecturer 14:00-14:15 First year course 14:15-14:30 Admin (Equality complaint, UCU Pensions' officer business) 14:30-15:15 Chair MSc Board of Examiners 15:15-16:07 Coffee with colleagues, follow up MSc Board, write note to real HoD 16:07-17:07 Final year lecture 17:17-18:22 First year lecture 18:22-18:30 Acting HoD work - negotiating start dates for a new lecturer round the disastrous changes proposed to USS - he's slowly realising how bad they are 18:30-18:45 Adminstration 18:45-19:00 Arranging tours of campus facilities for another lecturer's course 19:00-22:15 Visit colleague's house, cook & eat dinner, pack computer for repair etc. 22:15-23:15 UCU business as Pensions Officer for the LA 034 15 December 2010 =============== 07:40-08:00 Breakfast 08:00-08:15 E-mail 08:15-08:45 The three S's (s**t, shave, shampoo) 08:45-09:00 Bus into University 09:00-09:10 Look for presentations by candidates for a chair in an intellectually adjacent department, which is in my dairy for today: then check original mail: it's tomorrow. 09:10-09:30 Admin, including buying stamps for Xmas cards 09:30-09:45 Discussions with Dept's Director of Research on how to motivate staff to apply for research grants. Many people quote the University's costing system as the obstacle, but we conclude it's a proxy for the general bureaucracy. 09:45-10:30 More admin, chasing up personal tutees etc. Long debate about ontologies: I am tempted to ask how many ontologists can dance on the head of a pin. 10:30-11:30 Sort out Programme Committee etc. for a conference I'm chairing next July. 11:30-11:45 Discussions with computer support on why my e-mail system mistags PDF attachments: turns out it's MY Firefox on MY laptop that's to blame, but we still don't know why. 11:45-11:50 Remember it's SHARE day and complete the diary above from my usual TRAC return. 11:50-12:00 I'm standing in tomorrow for a colleague on our jointly taught course, as he's on the interview panel for this chair: check on what I'm meant to do. 12:00-13:00 Lunch with one of the chair candidates: wants to discuss the University's High Performance Computing with me (I manage it). 13:00-13:15 Admin 13:15-14:10 UCU Local Association AGM: I present an update on the USS "reforms"/robbery of our deferred pay/ 14:10-16:35 Graduation and walk Hon. Grad. (Marcus du Sautoy) down to station. He reminds me, which I had completely forgotten, that we examined a thesis together 12 years previously. 16:35-16:50 Bus to colleague's house. 16:50-19:15 E-mail, worried students (no, I don't know what I covered in week 6, but if you tell me what the things in your notes are either side of the gap, I'll'll be able to tell you what's missing); reference for an MSc student of 2007/8 (fortunately I've done one before for him, and it's on my laptop); conference admin; more ontologies. All interspersed with cooking dinner for colleague and eating it. TRAC records 1 hour of 'pleasure', the rest admin of various kinds. 19:15-21:45 Walk to Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, attend, bus and walk home. Meet chair candidate (see lunch) again by accident. 21:45-21:50 Post from Nectar, and check on-line account to see if I qualify. 21:50-22:20 Finish and e-mail reference for MSc Student. 22:20-22:30 More misc e-mail. 22:30-23:00 Work on updating lecture I'm giving to school children in Dundee on Friday, to persuade themof the benefits of studying computing. 23:00-23:15 International Mathematical Union is looking to dispensing advice on mathematical software, which MIGHT be a very tricky area. The Committee I'm on is being asked to look into this, and we have some useful e-mails flowing. I've worked a 37.5 hours week, and it's only Wednesday. 23:15-23:45 Sudoku on an Australian site. 034 15 January 2011 =============== 00:00-01:15 Skype call and editing with London (Ontario) discussing joint paper, due 23:59 PST Sunday. 08:30-09:10 Wake up (late), call hospital can I call back later? Breakfast & E-mail 09:10-09:30 The three S's (s**t, shave, shampoo) 09:30-11:45 The hospital do want a recovering alcoholic to talk to a patient in A&E Obervation. An 18-year old girl, so I definitely need a female colleague, but my assigned one isn't answering. Find a colleague, go to hospital, and talk to (very sick) patient. It's her fourth visit to A&E that week! 11:45-13:15 Lunchtime AA meeting 13:15-13:45 go to University 13:45-17:00 work on paper, including salad lunch in campus parade bar, with laptop & wifi. 17:00-18:00 Skype with London (Ontario) about paper 18:00-18:15 E-mails with new lecturer at Kent discussing workshop 18:15-18:30 More paper 18:30-19:00 Go down to town by bus with Reader in AI, discusing conferences and attribution of papers joint with students. Continue discussions in pub (lime & lemonade for me!) 19:00-21:22 Speaker for Saturday evening's AA has turn up: meet him (also text from Treasurer, who wants to resign), chair meeting. 21:22-22:00 Dinner at home 22:00-23:00 Edit paper 23:00-24:00 Skype call and editing with London (Ontario). Next call 13:00 Sunday 034 15 February 2011 =============== 07:45-08:55 Breakfast and e-mail. A fascinating mathematics archive preprint is "completing an investigation begun by Vi\`ete in 1591." Various e-mails about the moves of two AA groups, which I seem to have ended up coordinating. 08:55-09:15 The three S: s**t, shave, shampoo 09:15-09:30 Bus to University, buy paper (at student price!) and sandwiches 09:30-10:05 prepare e-learning materials for large Maths course, and discuss issues of the e-learning system with the Maths e-learning officer. 10:05-10:15 Get coffee and go to Exam Board 10:15-11:10 Exam Board, and discussions with newly-appointed adminstrator of the new Graduate School, who was sitting in as these are the first exam boards under the new system. 11:10-11:20 Discussion with Director of Teaching about undergraduate courses. 11:20-11:40 Fill in form from Centre about what grants I've applied for. Of course, different parts of the Centre already know all this information, but it's much easier to make academics fill in the information again. 11:40-11:50 Misc admin, including correcting the minutes of previous Dept. meeting item "approval of minutes of previous meeting" to record that I had been present at the previous meeting, and had had the minutes corrected! 11:50-12:15 Review automated marking scripts with senior TA on my Maths course. 12:15-13:10 Omnibus - the University staff society committeee 13:10-13:45 Supervise the first programming lab of the new semester. My instructions on "what to do this week" aren't visibleon the projector, so download to Word (hate) and blow up to 16pt). 13:45-14:05 Misc. admin. including proof sheets of new business cards: since I have a cross-department appointment, I need them to read "Departments of Mathematical Sciences and Computer Science", not "Department". 14:05-14:20 Maths student with perverse, but ALMOST working solution to last coursework came to explain it to me. Zero marks for commenting! 14:20-14:45 Misc. admin, including arranging taxis for external examiner for a thesis next month. 14:45-15:10 Conference referee management and organising. 16:10-16:40 Security seminar - fascinating guest speaker 16:40-17:10 Misc. admin. 17:10-17:30 Supervise the first programming lab of the new semester (again, but differnet students and different tutors) 17:30-17:50 Bus into town 17:50-18:05 Work on exercises for the Maths class to be handed out on Thursday, and therefore to be given to my colleague for checking on Wednesday. 18:05-19:20 AA Meeting 19:20-21:30 Shop & cook dinner for a colleague, interspersed with Programme Committee duties, looking up picttures on the web for her lectures on Russian literature and updating last year's version of the next Maths exercise 21:30-23:20 Return home, via shopping, and do some personal adminstration. 23:20-00:12 More e-mail: tutors for the Maths course, more Programme Committee duties 034 15 March 2011 (all timings Zurich time: GMT+1) ============= 07:00-08:00 Wake up in hotel in Zurich, where I am attending the Workship on Cryptography and Security in Clouds. The hotel is an ETAP: part of the same chai as IBIS, but without the distinctive personality :-). Shave,shower, breakfast. 08:00-08:20 Bus to the IBM Forum. Actually free, since I board at a temporary bus stop that doesn't have a ticket machine, and the driver isn't equipped to sell me one. The look of frustration on the driver's face as she realises she is forced to let me on free is amusing (to me). 08:20-09:00 Registration (painless), and find one of the few power sockets in the room. Over the two-day workshop I will take 25 pages of typseset lecture notes (my habit these days). 09:00-18:30 Basically the workshop. A lot of interesting talks. One entitled "A Small Latte or a PetaCycle? You Decide" takes a refreshingly hype-free look at the economics of cloud computing. 12:30-14:00 (Buffet) lunch break. Information for the wireless LAN has arrived, so I also catch up on the comments from my 262 studets who have a assignment due in two days. 18:30-19:00 Walk to the TurbinenBrau, an old power station converted into a (not-so-micro) brewery and restaurant. 19:00-21:40 As one might expect, the Swiss organisers ARE capable of organising a piss-up in a brewery. Lots of useful chat. 21:40-22:15 Walk back to hotel, not getting very lost, even though this part of Zurich is new to me. All this discussion is actually very tiring, ad I go to bed almost immediately. Still unable to plug laptop into power in hotel bedroom: the sockets only accept very skinny plugs. 034 15 April 2011 (all timings Paris time: GMT+2) ============= I am currently (month of April) working at the joint INRIA/Microsoft research centre at Orsay, south of Paris. I the French Government chooses to fund its half of the centre by paying for me to work in Paris for a month, I am not going to complain. 06:20 Wake up in a friend's flat in central Paris, where I've spent the last two nights while she's away. 06:20-07:05 The 3 S's (s**t, shave, shampoo), pack, tidy up, write "thank you" note, and leave the house. 07:05-07:50 Metro to the Etoile, then get lost. 07:50-09:00 (English-speaking) Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I'm lucky, in that I can go to either English or French ones, but only the anglophones are up at 8. 09:00-10:00 RER (suburban railway) and bus to the Lab. I get in some programming on the laptop once the train empties slightly. 10:00-11:45 At lab. Other than the actual research, I am nominating a team of Canadian colleagues for a major software prize, and orchestrating letters of support. 11:45-12:30 Lunch (a serious event in French labs, self-service - two starters, main course, salad and dessert). Coffee in the Lab afterwards. They have an excellent self-service machine, but no milk (we feeble anglo-saxons don't understand REAL coffee). Make another note to myself to drink more water. 12:30-13:30 My UK e-mail, and various other tasks, are taking longer that expected, which I track down to a problem with the Domain Name Service entries by computers are seeing for my home university. Some discussions with technical staff at home, but it ends up looking like a problem at this end. 13:30-13:45 The Royal Society have sent me some things to referee, so I download them, and print the relevant instructions. I'll actually DO it over the weekend (or possibly this evening), but I should be prepared. 13:45-15:30 More work on Canadian case. It's due in today but not until midnight New York time. 6 extra hours! 15:30-16:00 Discussion with staff back home as to how I can continue this research with its mass of interlinked software. They suggest a private Linux build, which seems appropriate. 16:00-17:00 More work on software nomination. 17:00-17:50 Discussions with my host. Lucky, as he's not here much of next week. I explain my plans for my next phase, and he points me to some useful software tools for my project, which should make the programming of the interface somewhat easier. The actual graphics will still be tricky though. We also agree that there's a piece of the mathematics neither of us understand but he lends me a suitable book. 17:50-18:05 Walk to bus stop, bus to RER, and wait for train. I wonder whether to nip back to the hotel and drop my overnight bag, but there's not time. 18:05-18:45 Write up these notes, and my TRAC return, then continue the Canadian write-up. 18:45-22:00 Coffee/coke at Place St. Michel, then dinner, with a professor from another U.K. University, who's an external assessor for the centre I am working at, but a different project. The restaurant is near enough the Pantheon to get EduRoam from the Sorbonne (in the loose sense). The talk is partly of comparative university politics, partly of subject politics, partly of France and partly of mathematics. Very enjoyable. I walk her to her RER platform, then find mine. 22:00-22:30 (On the train) writing up these notes, then continue the Canadian write-up. 22:30-22:57 Re-find my hotel, and do a bit of unpacking. 22:57-00:15 Canadian write-up - finished (I hope) and mail it to co-sponsors. 00:15-00:40 read and tidy up general e-mail: rather neglected today. 00:40-01:10 Personal admin, sudoku and e-mail. 01:10-01:20 Submit nomination; go to bed. 034 15 May 2011 ============= 00:01 - 00:50 Am editing a volume of conference proceedings. EasyChair (thanks, Andrei) does make much of the legwork easier, but of course does little for the intellectual difficulties: has this author REALLY revised his paper sufficiently? 00:50 Bed calls: further decisions would not be wise. However, I get diverted via a Sudoku, and don't make it until 01:30 08:00 Alarm. Daily routine and breakfast. 09:15 25 minutes on the conference proceedings 09:40 Leave house for morning AA meeting, after which I get a lift from a friend who lives very close to the University. 12:00 On campus: decide to have a working lunch with WiFi in the Parade Bar on campus, having just beaten the students to the rush. This also means I get to pick the rarest roast beef. #5.95. 12:45 Finish working lunch, having got the preface out to all members of the Programme Committees (it's a multi-track conference) to check affiliations etc. Walk over to new open-plan office. 13:00 Back in the new office. We've been moved to Siberia (Our new open-plan office is cold and in the Far East), with the Deputy VC playing Lavrenti Pavlovitch [Beria] to the VC's Josef Vissarionovich [Dzhugashvili/Stalin]. By the time I get there, I've been sent the first correction to the list. 13:30 Now I'm down to preparing the table of contents, rearranging papers into tracs (some got moved to the 'conflict of interest' track) and ensuring that they are in alphabetical order (EasyChair produces a list in rank order!). It's hard to make things fool-proof because fools are so ingenious! Some people have complicated macros in the titles of their paprs, which confuse the table-of-contents processor. Also Claudio Sacerdoti Coen has surname Sacerdoti Coen and first name Claudio, whereas Maria Emilia Maietti has surname Maietti and first names Maria Emilia, and so on. 19:00 Finished the first draft, and off to the evening AA meeting (where I am Treasurer). This is followed by a business meeting, and a discussion on Higher Education with another recovering alcoholic. 22:00 Home for dinner, and another session on the proceedings. Get the draft ToC and author index out to all the authors. 23:59 Still at it. Net balance for a day on which the University doesn't pay me (they deduct 1/260th of annual salary for every strike day) is 8 hours conference proceedings and 3/4 general admin. Of course, in a science subject edited books of this sort don't count for the REF, but are still part of "research environment". 034 15 June 2011 ============= 00:01 - 01:00 Work on a script to process automatic marking results from MatLab into a format capable of being uploaded into Excel and hence into Moodle. If only students would obey the instructions on what to call their coursework! 01:00-01:30 Write reference for a colleague in the Computing Service 07:00-08:40 Wake up, breakfast (do an e-mail task for a colleague while it's cooking), shave, shower etc. Kitchen sink is blocked. 08:40-09:00 To bus stop via Waitrose to buy "Mr Muscle". Meet former Medical centre receptionist, and discuss my visit to a mutual friend last weekend in San Jose last week/weekend: first time I'd been in a four-robot household. 09:00-09:10 Bus to University 09:10-09:45 Buy coffee, answer e-mail etc. 09:45-10:45 Discussion with research student and other supervisor, interrupted by having to lend spare house key to a colleague who has locked herself out. 10:45-11:00 Confidential discussion 11:00-11:40 Briefing from PVC(T) on the Open Day next week. There is still a lot of "current plans are ..." and "unless Government policy changes ..." 11:40-12:10 See colleague with bullying problems (but she's not there), book train tickets for tomorrow (seminar in Canterbury) and buy lunch. 12:10-13:10 UCU Local Association meeting (I'm pensions rep., and the USS changes have been formally announced) 13:10-14:10 Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting. 14:10-14:30 Walk back to my office via buying a cup of coffee 14:30-15:00 Check exam scripts 15:00-15:10 Brief HoD on Open Day meeting 15:10-15:45 Weekly progress meeting with part-time research student & colleagues 15:45-16:00 Query from morning's research student 16:00-16:15 E-mail US expert introducing afternoon's research stduent and her query: hope they meet at the conference in a couple of week's time. 16:15-16:45 Discuss marking scripts (see 00:01) 16:45-17:30 E-mail reading, mail trains times to Canterbury etc. 17:30-17:45 Research student (morning) 17:45-18:15 Trip to Canterbury - find campus map etc. 18:15-18:30 Discuss marking scripts (see 00:01) 18:30-18:37 Administration - Department Review Report. 18:37-22:45 Bus to town (meeting Professor of German & discuss student recruitment), then Alcoholics Anonymous Meeting, and home via station to collect tickets (see 11:40); start dinner. 22:45-23:15 e-mail: mostly catching up with a redundancy case I've been advising on. irregularities admitted, but case dismissed. 23:15-23:22 work on dinner 23:22-23:37 paperwork related to consultancy, and more e-mail. 23:37- Dinner! TRAC return: 11.5 hours work; also 3.5 hours AA and 10 minutes consultancy. 034 15 September 2011 06:30 up, breakfast, make sandwiches for lunch etc. 07:20 start reading e-mail. Exchange with a Belgian friend on the subject of "Nauseating Notation" (we both collect it). Also with a research student who is desperate to submit. 07:35 finish getting dressed. 07:50 to station. I'm doing some off-site consultancy (with university approval). One side-effect is the 45 minutes of "brisk walking" I get every day, rather than the usual "amble to bus stop". 08:08-08:30 referee a paper on the train. 08:45 in the office until 18:30, less 1.5 hours going to/from (more brisk walking) /at an AA meeting. 18:30 Walk back to station 18:50-19:07 more refereeing. 19:07-21:50 by bus to a colleague's house, where I cook dinner and we make final preparations for our holiday tomorrow. Confirm rental car, install her vacation message, and check on state of the Department's UCAS. Then home (bus and more walking!) 21:50-22:30 Fill in more of this, 3/8 hour being on a Conference PC (disagreements among referees), and (1/8) chasing potential research students' references. 22:30-23:10 packing 23:10-23:25 memo to Dean about an admissons task force I am chairing. 23:25-23:45 Research student e-mail (see 07:20) 23:45-00:00 despatch the refereeing etc. 035 8:00 met my Finite Math class, went over homework problems due today, went over solving word problems involving the math they had just learned. 9:00 Took care of plumbing business, talked to coordinator for student disability services about a problem student and promised to send her an email documenting the distracting behaviors of the problem student, prepared for the next two days of finite math, prepared the next assignment for the computer simulation class 10:10 met the second section of the Finite Math class, same as 8:00 class. 11:00 Met with student from simulation class who had problems with the assignment due today. Took a call from someone I may be riding with this evening to a church-related meeting. Worked on filling out this survey. Ate my banana for lunch. 12:00 Played racquetball 2:00 Met my simulation class. Continued work on the emergency room example, including how to handle interpolation with a table lookup for the mean time between arrivals. Assigned the Car and Goat problem to be done by Monday. 3:00 met with my research group working on AIs for their Circle the Cat project. 4:00 Took care of plates for my new car at the license bureau. Started arranging for repairing my relatively new lawnmower. 5:00 left for church-related meeting and dinner. 8:45 Gave testimony at Honor Council trial for student I accused of violating the Honor Code last semester. 9:30 Continued working at home in preparation for people coming this weekend for my son's wedding. 035 Met my 8:00 finite math class to teach them about combinations. They were particularly dead this morning. Friday mornings do not seem to be particularly good for them. Of course, neither are Thursdays and, increasingly, Wednesdays. Today is a relatively easy day -- just my regular classes (another finite math at 10 and computer simulation at 2), racquetball at noon, and this evening I'm to M.C. at a church function. I hope to get 8 hours of sleep tonight for the first time in weeks. Still haven't made it to 6 hours for the last week. The big thing on my mind has been the very serious illnesses of two friends, one of them our best friend. He has liver cancer, and is not expected to live long. The other has ALS and is no longer able to talk or move much more than one hand. Makes it difficult for me to concentrate on things for long. In my simulation class I'm teaching NetLogo. This is a short unit in which I intended to cover simulation using cellular automata using NetLogo. I had no experience with NetLogo, but figured I could learn it quickly enough. So into the wee hours of this morning was the big push to learn enough about NetLogo to be able to teach it and give an assignment. And I did all that, but I was not impressed with the tutorials and especially not with the user manual. It seems that writing user manuals has become a lost art. It's almost impossible to get information about things that are available to use with cells (called "patches" in NetLogo). Even finding out something as simple as how to get the color of the cell to the right of this one was extremely difficult for me. My guess is that the writers of the manual were more interested in the turtles than in the patches. But at least I did succeed in figuring out how to do what I want to ask the students to do. They will at least have the advantage of having me explain how to use all the features that they'll need without having to figure out what those features are. And I now know enough about the language to be able to say that I know one more computer language. Woo hoo. 035 I did not want to get up this morning. I've had almost enough sleep since Friday. But the situation with Bill is really draining me. Bill is my best friend, apart from my wife. And he is dying of cancer. It was only diagnosed about a month ago, and it's all through his body. There's not much hope. The local hospital has not helped; in fact, I'm convinced they have contributed in killing him due to their lack of treatment for the bowel problem he came in to the emergency room for, and their failure to provide him with nourishment for at least two days. A doctor only came to see him once a day, late at night, after seeing about 100 other patients. He hadn't even looked at Bill's chart. I can't believe care is so bad. I taught my first class at 8. During class I got a call from the wife of a retired colleague. She wanted me to put in a good word for her husband with our department chair. Her husband is volunteering to cover Bill's classes for the remainder of the year. I'm delighted. This retired colleague is a fantastic teacher. And it would do him good to get back in the classroom. He's kind of bored now in his retirement. I have the second section of my class in a few minutes, and then a meeting with a student who has stopped attending. I hope, for her sake, she is dropping. I hope she is not expecting me to teach her several weeks of material in an hour. I'm planning to head to the hospital to visit Bill as soon as I can. Well, it's now the future, relative to the previous 2 paragraphs. That student is not dropping, but wasn't quite expecting me to teach her everything in an hour. But then I learned that Bill was going into hospice that afternoon. That pretty much finished the day for me. I rode with him in the ambulance, and spent a lot of time with him and his wife. 035 This is the day I have no classes. Amazing how I can have several hours pass and accomplish so little. I have an exam to grade, and each time I grade one student's single page, I want to stop and do something else. They are not doing well. Department meeting in a few minutes. We're trying to hire a few people (math positions; we are a combined department), and we've had a few turn down our offers already. But the big "fun" item is the self-study that was dumped on us a few weeks ago that has to be finished by the end of February. So we're working in teams of two on different parts of it. I'm lucky -- I got "Curriculum", which is relatively easy, I think. I'm supposed to be spending time working on major revisions to the CS offerings, and coordinating with Engineering and many other departments on campus. But that hasn't really started rolling yet because of all this writing we're doing. I'm doing "Scholarship Day Interviews" in a few days. This is where faculty interview admitted students. I have about half a dozen to do. Just found out the only CS student I had canceled; the remaining interviewees are all Actuarial Science. 035 Tuesday, March 15. Well, it's now officially Thursday March 17, and the last two days have been a blur. I had no classes on Tuesday. But I did have meetings with students and a talk by a candidate we're interviewing that I had to listen to. Then I had a major presentation to make at church, followed by another long meeting and some people to visit in the hospital. Then I had to hurry to get home to pick up my wife and meet the kids (grown, and with a grandson) at a restaurant where we meet weekly and take them for a meal out. On the way home, I stopped at my office to finish making up a quiz for the next morning. Even though I'm supposed to talk about the 15, I can't resist talking about what happened in one moment on the morning of the 16th. So I was giving the quiz I'd made up the night before. One of the students in the class looked at the quiz and then told me he hadn't been in class the last day before spring break when we talked about this stuff. I told him we reviewed it Monday. He said he wasn't in class on Monday either. Somehow it must have been my responsibility to find him and teach him what he needed to know. Oh, need to mention it was a "homework quiz" -- the problems on the quiz are a subset of the ones assigned and posted online. Over break I attended SIGCSE and learned about Piazzza, a website that enables students in a class to talk to each other, ask and answer questions, etc. I've been trying all week long to get them to use the site. So far NO ONE has even tried. Sigh. I am really looking forward to my full year sabbatical starting next year. 038 This is the first week of the new session, a bit earlier than usual as senior management have decided to change from a session based on semesters to one based on trimesters. It is not clear yet what the third trimester will be used for... One result of this change is that there is no time for student induction/freshers week, so it's straight into classes and plenty of confused students. Oh, and apparently nobody told continuing students to come back a week earlier than normal. Meanwhile, management have strived to ensure that the IT systems and support are organised early to deal with the change - oh, wait a minute, they haven't! Many students still don't have access to Blackboard, software for computer labs which was requested by academic staff months ago is still being installed for labs which have already started, and so on. So, a large part of my day has been spent planning how to make resources available online for students with no Blackboard access, and putting extra work into creating versions of code for lab exercises which will work with old software, when I had already created the code for new versions. This is not exactly productive work!. I didn't have any teaching today, but I have a lecture at 9am Thursday. Apart from that, I met with two final year students who are interested in my honours project topics, with another one contacting me by email, so it looks like I may have some keen students to supervise this year. I'm programme leader for and teaching on a new part-time PG course, which runs in the evenings and started last night, and there have been a number of admin issues to deal with following on from the first night. I've also been having a first look at my SIGCSE reviewing assignments. I've got three papers, all of which at first glance seem quite interesting, but I'll need to spend time over the next week to read them properly and do the reviews. 038 No classes today, so a chance to get on with writing exam papers for my second year programming module. Pretty much managed to get one paper done and start on the resit paper. I'm not sure that exams are the best way to assess programming, as students often struggle to write even small code segments in a written exam. Borrowed the idea of the "Parsons' Problem" from a paper by Paul Denny to help with one question. Not particularly easy to concentrate at the moment as there is a lot of uncertainty because of imminent reorganisation and 'portfolio review' as cost-cutting measures for obvious reasons, a picture which I suspect is pretty similar in most universities at the moment. Had a break away from the exam paper to have a Skype call with a company about some possible consultancy work, which tool about an hour (and wasn't very successful in terms of efficient communication due to poor call quality). Also took a look at some material on ASP.NET MVC as I'm due to teach this to postgrads soon and I'd better know something about it by then! Finally, a colleague is taking part in the next Disciplinary Commons, and asked to talk to me about my recent experience - I'm meeting him on Monday to warn him of what's ahead! 038 Met with an Erasmus exchange visitor from Finland who is here for a week and will be doing a guest lecture for my programming class while he is here. We corresponded previously by email to find a topic which would fit in with the teaching plan for the module, and spent some time today finalising the details and discussing the Finnish manager and star midfielder at Kilmarnock football club. Teaching today consisted of tutorials for my intro to databases module. I've done this module several times, so most of the activities are tried and tested, but this is a new one aimed at scaffolding the use of Peerwise witin the module. This is part of an HE Academy project and I gathered some datat which will be evaluated later. It seemed to go pretty well on the day. My late afternoon tutorial with one of the groups which do this module was a repeat of last week's - no-one turned up at all last week, and the content of this tutorial is pretty important for an assessment this week. I'm probably too soft and should have just let them do the assessment without this preparation since they chose not to attend! Spent the time in between and most of the evening at home preparing demo material on ASP.NET for a MSc evening class tomorrow. This is not part of my normal workload model, and I get paid per hour for delivering the class in the evening. The amount of preparation which is involved means the real hourly rate is probably not worth the bother. It's at quite a high level and is interesting stuff to teach, though, so it probably is worth it. Too busy today to think about the implications of the pending reorganisation of the university's structure... 038 Marking!!!!! Apart from that, I had a meeting with a representative of a local SME to discuss some possible consultancy work funded by a grant from an external body. There's a lot of pressure to bring in new money, for obvious reasons. This contact seemed quite promising, but it's too early to tell. I volunteered to invigilate an exam for evening class students which, because it takes place in the evening, has to be organised and staffed from within the department rather than by the Exams Office. Fortunately, the weather is a bit kinder than it was last week, so all the students managed to get to the exam, and just as importantly, they and I managed to get home afterward! The university decided a while back to bring in external invigilators for centrally organised exams, rather than using academic staff, so I haven't done this for a while - forgot just how mind-numbing it is. Meanwhile, the outlook for the next while is marking, marking, and then some more marking... 038 Saturday, and football takes priority over any thoughts of work today. Took my son to his football training session in the morning, and then we went to see Kilmarnock vs St Johnstone in the afternoon. It was, as they say, a "game of two halves". Kilmarnock scored early on through a clinical finish from Conor "The Fish" Sammon from a clever free kick from on-loan Finnish international Alexei Eremenko (you are probably thinking "too much detail", but these were the main events of my day, so that's what you're getting), and should have had the game wrapped up before half-time by taking any of a number of good chances. However, the usual slick passing game failed to click in the second half and St Johnstone's pressure paid off with an equaliser four minutes from time - we were, as they say, "gutted". Presumably The Fish was also "gutted", although not literally. I will need to think about work on Sunday, though, as trimester 2 teaching starts on Monday... 038 A brief postscript to my previous entry - still getting over the shock of "The Fish" being poached by Wigan Athletic. And what is my son going to do now with that "Torres" Liverpool shirt? This was a very different day from the previous diary day, with work and commuting leaving no time at all for anything else. The first class of the day started at 9am (some gentle first year programming), the last finished at 9pm (a not-so gentle MSc lecture on advanced C# programming to some very motivated and knowledgeable part-time students who are already employed as programmers and studying for an advanced qualification). Got home after 11 due to the peculiarities of the evening bus timetable. Several meetings were arranged with students for today. A group of 3rd year (pre-honours year in Scotland) students working on their software development project appeared to have forgotten everything they had ever been taught about requirements capture, or perhaps didn't think that it might be relevant to developing a web application. Another group of 3rd year students are working on a collaborative project with students at a university in Finland, and they seem to be a bit more switched on. Finally, a final year project student who seemed to have forgotten everything he had been reminded of about requirements capture during his 3rd year project the year before. No time at all today to think about the issues floating around the university - restructuring, newly appointed deans, "rationalisation" of programmes and modules, the REF, etc. Probably just as well... 038 The last thing you want to see when you open the newspaper before leaving for work is a picture of the university Principal looking sternly out of the page, especially when she is being interviewed on the subject of redundancies... Anyway, off to work, and quite an international flavour to the day. Had a meeting with representatives of a community college in the US who are sending some students over in the summer to do internships. Later on, had an online meeting with students from here and a university in Finland who are collaborating on an undergraduate group project. This is the first time we've tried this, and here are some pitfalls with the idea, largely due to different timescales for project completion in the two institutions, but it's an interesting exercise for the students. Unfortunately we've not been able to find funding for either set of students to visit the other campus and meet their colleagues in person. Share project day is on a Tuesday again, thanks to February, so there's a bit of Groundhog Day about this entry. So, I get another chance to moan about a long day as I do an evening class on a Tuesday. Actually, I really enjoy the class because it's interesting stuff (advanced .NET programming) and the students are very motivated. Most of them are working in industry and some have a lot of real software development experience - they learn a lot from each other (I learn from them too!). 038 On holiday! Tried not to think about work all week, but I must admit I did check email on my Blackberry at the summit of a Lake District Fell... 038 It's 'Helicopter Sunday' in the Scottish football league - unfortunately that means the maurauding hordes descending on Rugby Park... The 15th falls on a Sunday this time, and today is so busy (going to football with son, taking daughter to swimming lesson, etc, etc) that I don't get any work started until about 10pm. Have to do some, though, as there is too much marking to be done and not enough time to do it. A slight complication is that the EIS is directing members not to submit marks as part of industrial action short of a strike. I'll get the marking done and then see what happens. If I ever have to read another excruciating individual evaluation report of a group project I will be forced to scream - unfortunately I will be doing a lot of group project marking over the next few days, so I'd better scream quietly so I don't disturb my office colleague. It's almost enough to make exam marking seem like fun. I do have some very good PG students, though, who actually do work very well on group projects. One of these students said to me the other day "I'm not that interested in the marks - I'm here for the learning", which struck me as the complete opposite of the attitude of the majority of UG students. Better get on with the marking - the deadline is looming... 038 This is the time of year when people say to me "Are your students finished now? So you're on holiday until September". Well, no actually, I'm as busy as any other time, if not more so - hence the fact that I'm submitting my diary entry even later than I usually do. Diary day is the third day of a Microsoft .NET CPD course I'm delivering to other members of staff. This is a pilot run for a new course which I'm committed to deliver to real clients soon. Delivering training courses is a very different process from teaching students - easier in some ways, no exam papers and no marking, for example, but harder in others. The material can be very concentrated and "techie", and the audience can be very demanding. It's useful to be seen to be generating income - we have a new Dean and so far I haven't heard him utter a sentence without the word "money" in it. Traing was cut short today, though, by the need to attend a program leaders' meeting to discuss induction arrangements for next session, and a department meeting. This may be the last meeting of this particular department, as we are Reorganising - we don't yet know what department we are going to be in or who is going to be the HoD. Finally, the evening was spent running the usual taxi service for kids, and then getting round late on to preparing for the next day of the training course. On holiday until September, indeed... 040 Frosty start with November low sun on the cycle in. Arrive 9.07 Dropped off the lecturership application forms with the hod.. There were over 90 and I regret volunteering to help shortlist. After a vain attempt to buy rugby tickets, decided to resist temptation to catch up on email and focus on sketching out the argument for my invited journal paper. It is an area close to my heart and a prestigious opportunity - I want to get it right. After coffee a change of scene and an hour I think I've cracked it. I have no teaching this semester,cramming it all in Jan- March, so got to make the most of the time. Had a good hour of writing but now juices are drying up, so time for a coffee and a change of activity. Scheduled a couple of meetings the afternoon to sort out our group's admin/finance structure and to discuss data for a talk I'll be giving in Munich next week. Feeling a little tired. Not completely over the jetlag and late nights yet. Sorted out the odds and end from the PC meeting last week and had a quick meeting with one of the PhDs. Looks like we're in the end game with writing up at last. Could not resist a couple of emails to move our EU bid along. Went to the gym and after 30 mins rowing my heart rate and watt output was fine. 5 mins for a sandwich and then a meeting to sort out admin allocation that went surprisingly well. Started on the expense claim for my latest trip. Determined not to rack up credit card interest due to lack of time. Had a short meeting with another PhD talking over the data for a new paper. He tells me I have to write yet another letter to go through the hoops of hiring him as a postdoc. It's crazy the amount of effort we have to expend to hire overseas people. This guy is outstanding yet he's treated with suspicion at every step. Winding down for the day and hope to get things moving on the finance side tomorrow. We seem to swing between feast and famine and I want a more long-term view from our finance manager. As always a feeling I could have squeezed more out of the day balanced by the fact that there's always tomorrow. 040 Written in retrospect on a busy Tuesday. Got up around 9.30, had a long shower and then spent ages getting the kids ready for a swimming lesson. Tuesday is a big deadline for 3 EU grants I'm involved in and I'm actively not trying to think about anything work related as I need some downtime. Read a chapter on ancient Rome - dense stuff but interesting I'm cramming in all my teaching into this semester so there's little margin for error at the moment. Last week went well but I have some of the hardest material to get across next week. We ran out of seats in the lecture theatre so the delivery must be ok. After swimming the boys were still restless so we took them on a long walk despite the pouring ran. After half an hour madness in a field they seemed to calm and after the museum cafe they were positively chilled. Managed to wangle a baby-sitter so we're out tonight. After the first beer hit, feeling pretty good. Really great to spend even just a short time with my wife away from the little darlings. Retired home and mission accomplished - almost no time spent thinking about work. However. tomorrow I'll be back in working on the proposals.... 041 Arrived at work bright and early, emptied pigeon-hole and unpacked climbing ropes that arrived yesterday. Chatted for a while with PhD student about formal verification of device drivers and abstraction. Updated internal Wiki-page for open-day organization (only a few weeks away now). Mailed out to staff and postgrads about open-day demonstrations. Talked with colleague about room usage for the open-day and furniture logistics. Tidied up BMC membership stuffs for the coming year. Sent out some more open-day emails and requests for demonstrations, got a few replies and updated Wiki pages. Put in some expenses claims before they get too old. Sorted out some more things for open-day. Popped into town to visit Nationwide and hand in a form (sorting out WoTUG treasury stuffs), will wait to hear back on that. Made a start on sorting out the FIRST LEGO League challenge booklet for this year's Kent and Medway regional finals; launch event next Wednesday. Read up about dismantling and altering LEGO 9v train bogies. Did a reference for a recently finished MSc student. Prepared paperwork for a PhD panel meeting, then had the panel meeting for an hour or so. Filled in some more PhD student related paperwork and returned forms to administration. Popped back home then headed off to teach WingTsun Kung-Fu classes for most of the evening. Back home, some food and started packing for holiday tomorrow. 041 Wake up, coffee, feed cats and empty their poop box, then off to work by 8am — early start needed to guarantee a vaguely sensible parking space, else I'll spend 15 minutes or more driving round the campus.. Officially on sabbatical, but covering lectures for a retiring colleague, so print out and read through those, not forgetting to print out an attendance sheet [yes, we take registers at lectures -- if the students don't want to turn up, that's their problem in my opinion; given that they all have RFID student cards, there really should be a more efficient (and environmentally friendly) solution to taking attendance]. Started filling in the annual module monitoring report for a large-ish shared cohort module. For another year, trying to provide some justification for why our students fail this module -- yes, it's technically hard, but should be well within the reach of most of them. Ground teeth a bit explaining some of the explosive student outburst on facebook at one of my exam questions. They moaned about having a question in the exam which contained material which wasn't taught in the lectures, despite all the necessary information being given to them in the [one hour] question. Just reinforces that our students expect to pass by learning things parrot-style, which makes my cry inside a little bit. Unfortunately the concept of understanding is beyond some of them I think, including understanding their own learning and what is expected of them at degree level. Sad. Got temporarily depressed with module monitoring report, turn to today's post, which consisted of a canvas/plastic US airmail bag from ACM with two conference proceedings that I'd never asked for but which are a fun read. Thanks ACM :-). Did lecture for colleague, all happy. Got back from lecture, finished module report and sent round to other lecturers for comment; no changes required, good-o. Visited some old departmental rooms, which we gave back to the centre, in another part of the building. They've managed to smash down some walls and turn some of the rooms into another lecture theatre (just as well given the problems timetabling seem to have..). New appearances include a "postgraduate common room" full of fresh furniture and completely devoid of postgrads; grad-school probably forgot to tell them about it. Off for lunch with research project colleagues. Ended up visiting a nice Chinese restaurant in town and not too pricey; beef in black-bean sauce good :-). Ended up talking about the impending doom of the Government's university [un-]financing plan and why the hell anyone would want to become an academic at the end of it (when they have tens of thousands of pounds of debts). Head home after lunch to do some "research" (or whatever it was I said to the University that I'd do on my sabbatical). Managed to write a couple of hundred lines of code at least, so wasn't a completely dry afternoon. Sat by the phone for 20 minutes waiting to join a conference call. That didn't happen -- colleagues at other institution have recently changed building; the new conference phone there seems to limit the size of the conference to three. Get mail with apologies and promises of a new higher-arity conference phone for next week :). 041 A largely uneventful day, writing off as holiday. Got up (late), went food shopping, unpacked and put away, did some hoovering and other boring housework things before having a nice fry-up to celebrate. Finished the day off with tea, some DVDs and an early night. 041 Got up, ignoring the whole breakfast thing, and straight to reviewing a journal article I promised a colleague I'd have done the Friday before. Got another 5 pages through it before brain started to go weary; moved onto doing some housework to avert disappointment from my better half when she gets home. Off to kung-fu in the evening to grade the students; came home without any significant bruising! Spent the last couple of hours writing some code (in PHP, yuk!) to deal with module evaluation, avoiding the centralized system provided by the University which, frankly, sucks as far as analysis of results and customization is concerned. Settled down to sleep with a nice mindless action film (can't remember which one, fell asleep!). 041 Started the day early, picking drunk other half up from the train station at quarter past midnight (and spending some hours in the morning supplying cups of tea and toast to aid recovery). Sifted through email accumulated overnight then off to tesco for the weekly shop. Bought "Resident Evil: Afterlife" blu-ray, which, compared to the appalling earlier sequels, wasn't too bad! Back from shopping, couple of hours doing the housework (and making the shower cubicle windows transparent once again!) before settling down to some proper work -- mostly preparing lecture slides for the coming term, tidying up after a project meeting in York the previous week and generating taught masters programme project suggestions. They're after 8 person's worth of suggestions from each academic this time around; trying hard to avoid numb projects such as a better organization strategy for my DVD collection (classic bin-packing problem). Finished off the day watching some snooker highlights before tucking into bed. 041 Another typically busy Tuesday. Up early and drive to work before all sensible parking spaces are taken. Aside from a research group meeting and a lecture spent most of the day working on a pretty departmental history poster to occupy some wall in our new entrance space (extended efforts to make a 1968 concrete ugly into something more aesthetic). Also put some hardware time in to make some old MEiKO Transputer boards flash their lights (although it required unsoldering the existing lights, putting in new ones, cutting tracks and extensive wire-wrap reconstructive surgery). Now sitting prettily in the display-case we got (also to improve the appearance). Seems to be having the right impact though, our students seem to like it, plus evokes entertaining stories from those who were around when it was (and long before I was!). Finished off the day with food, couple of hours of bell-ringing and assembling the hutch for our imminent guinea-pigs. 041 A pretty full day, up early, pets fed and into work to guarantee a sensible parking space. One of my module's resit exams in the morning, so popped in there to leave contact details (thankfully no one did). Spent the middle of the day marking resit coursework, having lunch and chatting with colleagues. Why we allow the current system of resits is beyond me -- people who fail multiple choice quiz coursework really didn't try, bother or even care; why we should then waste time preparing resit coursework and marking schemes, only to have them (in the majority) just fail again, is a joke. Worst still, they have weeks to do the coursework and whatever resources they can get hold of, so those that do fail again must either not care whatsoever about their degrees (and therefore don't deserve one), or are so stupid that we shouldn't have accepted them in the first place. And I see in recent news that UK A-level results are "up" again for the Nth year in a row -- like the stock-market and .com bubble, is a crash inevitable? (hoping so, and back to normality). After lunch, pick up the morning's exam scripts and sort; at least all the resit exam candidates knew their exam numbers and could distinguish the exam ingredients in sections, questions and parts thereof (apparently a challenge for some in the main exam). Sort scripts into piles and start looking through them -- once again, most don't know or care anything about the subject (with the exception of one candidate who must have missed the main exam due to some legitimate reason, as their answers weren't complete garbage). Gave up on resit coursework and exams and went back to upgrading Linux on the desktop PC, replacing crappy new ATI card for a decent old NVidia card (ATI drivers had a problem that when one of the screens went to sleep it never woke up again..), went 'ooh' at Linux making it to kernel version 3.x, realised I needed a different power cable to drive the GPU in graphics modes (new desktop has no Molex/LP4 PSU connectors; all SATA newness), went home. Did some washing up, fed animals, went to visit a potential wedding reception venue (generally positive, however the place we really wanted was already taken for the target weekend -- booking over a year in advance seems excessive but hey-ho) then off bell-ringing for an hour or so, home, tea and bed. 045 My college is in Dickinson, a small town in North Dakota. We also teach some classes at a college in Bismarck, 100 miles away. Most of the time, it is via interactive video network, but sometimes we must drive to Bismarck. Today was one of my days. Rise at 6 am, leave the house at 7:15, drive 100 miles, then deliver a lecture. The video network did not let me see my Dickinson students because of some technical difficulty, but otherwise it went well. Then, drive back 100 miles, grab some lunch, teach a class here, then grade papers much of the afternoon. Also, I created and posted flyers about the computer club meeting this Friday, and signed a form for a student. On one of the papers I was grading, a student wrote "POOP" by one of the answers. I wonder why? It is a math course, and the answer was the unremarkable 1/49. I found out yesterday that a faculty member where I used to work suddenly fell over dead. We never know what day will be our last, do we? 045 Three classes today, which were fairly routine. Then a department meeting. More stuff that the administration thinks is important, which has nothing to do with actually teaching students. Someone decided that a statewide committe had to be formed about general education at the various colleges, then it was decided that the committee had to have a constituion, and the constitution had to be approved, and blah, blah. No actual work done yet. No consensus among the state faculty that the work is even worth doing. What's wrong with different approaches to general education? Lots of noise and money and heat and little light. 045 Three classes today, and a student coming in to make up a test. Today, I must decide how the student evaluations will be done for my classes. Before, it was always an on-line survey that the students might or might not do (usually did not) but this term we are given the option of a human-administered survey which every student in attendance that day will fill out. This will obviously be a better instrument. But, do I really want that much information funnelled up the ladder to my bosses? I didn't have to work yesterday (Sunday) as I am caught up with my grading! Yesterday was the first day I actually did not work in the last 3 weeks! I felt positively slothful. Four more weeks of class before Christmas break. Not that I'm counting (hah!) 045 I have been grading finals all day and my back is killing me from hunching over a table or desk or wherever I am. I took my grading to the Chinese restaurant last night, and to the coffee bar later. I am determined to get them all done and everying turned in before I quit for tonight. I am in my office with the door closed and paper taped over the windows so I don't get students wondering when the tests will be done. I do see a light at the end of the tunnel! Or, is it an approaching train? 045 This is a Saturday, but I'm in the office anyway, as I am every Saturday. It's the best time to prepare for Monday morning. We have had one week of class in the new term, and I am still in the "eager, early stage" of the semester. This Monday is a school holiday; however, I am conducting training sessions for high school teachers on Monday, so it's not a holiday for me. And next Tuesday is a training day for me for something else. So today, I am preparing for next Wednesday! I am applying for tenure this year. At this school, tenure applications must pass 6 levels of approval. I found out my application has passed the first 3 so far. I should find out the final decision in April. 045 Only one class today, so most of the day will be grading, grading, grading, and preparing tests for two of my classes this Friday. A treat later tonight, as I am taking a short course in water color art techniques, and it meets on Tuesday evenings. Our school is busy discussing the new faculty sick leave policy, as we never had one before! There is much argument back and forth, but I am trying to keep out of it as much as possible. There seem to be more than enough people engaged in this discussion already. I have enough to think about. 045 This week is "spring break" here, meaning no classes, meaning I can get caught up on my grading. So here I am in the office. Last Saturday was spent napping off and on all day, and it was great! There is more to do than just grade papers this week. There are forms to fill out for the department chair, reporting nearly everything I have done for the last year. I keep a file all year of my significant activities so I can refresh my memory. It includes all campus events, all seminars, publications, presentations, "extra" or unusual classroom activities, and anything else. So, that is turned in today. Another faculty member and I are busy planning a trip to take 15 students to the other side of the state for an industrial field trip. It should be good experience for them. That will be next week, but this week includes making the final arrangements. Personal activities this week also, that I usually don't have time for. Had to get a new toilet, get new tires, have my garage door fixed, do my tax returns, and other misc. items. 045 It will be a very busy day. Three classes, plus a student club meeting. The club is planning a big event 2 weeks from today, and there is a lot to do. The semester is supposed to be winding down but there seems to be more to do, not less. Graduation is one month away. Must go to class now. 045 Yesterday was graduation day. We had a good speaker, but we were packed in like sardines in a can in uncomfortable chairs. For more than 2 hours I was trying to find a position that would relieve the pain in my back and shoulders, to no avail. I just kept on telling myself "they pay me to do this, they pay me to do this..." Grades are almost all calculated and turned in. Will finish that on Monday. Today, no obligations!!! 045 Some faculty don't darken the door in the summer, but I have so much to do! Reports about the student computer club must be submitted by August 1. I must prepare for a fall course that I haven't taught in many years. Working on a textbook that might be finished someday. Must work on some other publications, also, before fall arrives. Signing forms for students. No teaching this summer, but when would I have the time? 045 A slow day today. I should work on my textbook, but I probably won't. Other small jobs have priority. I am pleased I have done as much as I have so far this summer, as far as catching up on small jobs, but the text has languished. Can I get an additional 3 months of summer vacation? 045 This is my last day of summer "vacation". Meetings and semi-required social events start tomorrow. I have completed much of my summer "to do" list, but not all of it. Our campus is currently undergoing something of a scandal, and that has people edgy. But, the students I have talked to seem oblivious to it, and that's good. The scandal will probably result in some administrative shake-up, but that may be a good thing, and should not affect ordinary faculty (like me) directly. I teach computer science. Today will be spent trying to learn a programming language that I may be called on to teach in the future. Won't spend a lot of time on it, but I should get started. A few months ago, I started wondering just how many programming languages I have used, or at least studied in my 40 years in the field. It was 14. After 14 languages, number 15 won't be hard, I think. 046 1. Jogged 3 miles before going to work 2. led 1-hour strategic meeting to discuss postgraduate taught issues; attempting to transform PGT provision in the department in line with university goals 3. attended presentation by candidate for 3-year independent fellow post 4. interviewed candidate for said post 5. spent 3 hours preparing for EPSRC project meeting on the 16th and 17th 6. started preparing slides for fall semester course 7. numerous interruptions (email, telephone, knock on door) to address head of department issues 7. had my hair cut (finally, was looking pretty shaggy) 046 Jogged 1 mile before going to work. Finished the 5 reviews for the Integrated Management conference. All but one of the papers were dreadful, but since I did not have enough time to register interest in particular papers, I got what I deserved. Heads of School coffee meeting this morning. More grousing about the complete lack of administrative support from the college admin staff. Nice to know it's not just my School that is forced to go it alone, but we are concerned at how to rectify the problem. Lecture this morning, decided that I needed to go over C basics again rather than introduce more material. There were even questions from the students, which is extremely surprising. Meeting to determine the readiness of the School with regards to our safety and well-being requirements. I am grateful to the individuals involved that we are in good shape here, and it is one less thing for me to worry about. Had a meeting with Computing Services, along with rest of the IT working group in the College. As expected, our measured approach is not enough to make them happy, they want us to sign up for all of their mythical services, regardless of the affect on teaching and research. Fortunately, the college secretary held his nerve. We need to come up with a definitive IT policy for the college this week. Attended talk about student use of peer review. Looks like an interesting approach, but the talk did not give me much information on the start up costs incurred by an academic that chooses to use such an approach. Convened the Friday afternoon meeting at the pub. The discussion, as always, was lively and varied. Collapsed when I got home, went to bed early, slept until 9:00 on Saturday morning. It was a very hard week. Being head of school, especially when there is no support from the bloated college admin structure, is a thankless task. There are seldom, if ever, any wins, plenty of losses, and an endless pile of things to do. Oh well, 11 weeks down, 198 to go. 046 Up at 4:30 this morning, as I have to complete the first draft of the School's 4-year corporate plan for delivery today. Thought I would get to it over the weekend, but the entire weekend was spent marking the 1st assessed exercise of the course I am teaching. Brisk morning, about 0C (a little frost on the autos parked in front of my house). Walked the 2 miles to work in the clear, clean air, great way to start what will most likely be a very busy day. After the usual 60 minutes spent looking over the email that arrived over the weekend and handling the one or two minor letter bombs that arrived via that channel, I turned off my email client and set to work on the Corporate Plan. As usual, insufficient information provided by my minders above with regards to semantics of the material requested, the centrally held data from which we are to set our key performance indicator targets is woefully incorrect, etc. Spent 4 solid hours attempting to construct a logically-sound Corporate Plan. Monday afternoons are devoted to supervisory meetings with final year project students and PhD students. 1. M's project to install sensors throughout our building, collect the readings, and provide sophisticated web access capabilities is making good progress; he is not only doing the appropriate reading of related work, but also prototyping bits of code on the sensors and the collectors to form an existence proof that the lowest level can be done. We spent most of the meeting discussing how to achieve time synchronization amongst the collector nodes, and I pointed him at some software that could be easily exploited for pushing the data from the collectors to the system with a RAID array upon which the web server will run. 2. Y's project to design and implement a complex event processing system suitable for the H Project is making slow progress; she seems to have difficulty abstracting from the papers that she has read to an actual implementation. I encouraged her to begin to prototype an extremely simple language (I don't care which one) to start to feel some confidence in her work. 3. S's project, again to design and implement a complex event processing systems suitable for the H Project, is also making slow progress, but for different reasons. Since S did a summer internship with me working on the H Project, he is having difficulty abstracting the CEP system away from the details of the H Project. He, too, has not started prototyping any code, so the same encouragement here. 4. Had my first meeting with M as his 2nd PhD supervisor. The work he did as an undergraduate in the US was outstanding, and I am excited about his prospects here. He is currently spending all of his time reading related literature, and attempting to choose between to general themes for his PhD research. I provided him some literature pointers for one of the themes, and gave him the opportunity to articulate the good/bad points of each theme, at least as he currently understands them. My weekly meeting with the School Administrator was next. Since we had received a substantial increase in our non-pay budget this year (the Head of College used a very transparent formula based upon research and overall contribution; it makes me wonder why we received so little before the restructuring, when we generated even more contribution; it appears that the faculty dean was forcing us to prop up the rest of the faculty without telling us.), these meetings are substantially easier, since I have money to throw at problems. We are currently attempting to expedite the hiring of two admins, as we are very understaffed in that category. Packaged the Corporate Plan, as it is, together with a plea to discuss some of the semantic-free concepts to which it refers, and sent it to the Head of College before walking home. Poured myself a large glass of Lirac, sat down to a meal with my wife and shared the events of the day, matched my wits with the students on University Challenge, and turned in early to make up for the early start. 046 Extremely busy week, attempting to clear my desk before holidays in the US with family. Highlights of the day: 1. Meetings with all of my 4th/5th year students regarding their projects; lasts meeting before the holiday break; all making good progress except Y, who is experiencing health problems; after consultation with class head, have put Y in touch with appropriate support people in the university 2. Met with Head of College to discuss P&DR ratings for professoriate in School 3. Met with PhD student that the University disciplinary committee had expelled; bad situation, cannot do anything with or for him, indicated that his only recourse is to appeal the decision (unlikely to have any positive effect) 4. Met with two PhD students for which I am 1st supervisor, M is doing well, R is still a problem. Once again emphasized to R that he simply must write substantial portions of his dissertation over the Xmas holidays, and that I expect to see large PDF files to review when I return. 5. Met with problem PhD student (has successfully appealed two decisions to terminate studies) and his supervisory team to lay out exactly what he has to do in order to continue to pursue his PhD. We have set an achievable, but aggressive, set of quarterly milestones, with termination as one possible outcome at the end of each quarter. 6. 2-hour programme committee meeting by Skype this afternoon (5-7); managed to resolve all borderline accepts/rejects except one. 7. I am well and truly beat, collapse with a glass of Paiullac this evening. Full day of meetings tomorrow and Friday, so I can fly to the US on Saturday. I intend to sleep on the plane all the way to San Francisco ... 046 Saturdays belong to my wife. The long hours spent during the week, and the inevitable "catch up" on Sunday, means that I simply have to reserve Saturdays for home things. We just returned from visiting our family in the US over the holidays. Such a return usually entails substantial "nesting" on the part of my wife to make up for missing family, especially our younger son and his wife. Spent most of the day moving portable bookshelves (how did we ever live without IKEA?) between rooms. Also finished emptying suitcases from the trip, sorting clothes, taking our cleaning to the cleaners. Spent over 6 hours in this type of domestic effort. Spent the afternoon cooking a Provencal chicken fricasee with green olives, capers, and fresh tomatoes. Settled down to watch a couple of movies that we have recorded, then turned in early. Spent a couple of hours reading "Innocents Abroad"; need to finish this over the next couple of days so that my wife can read it during the week. The book group meets on the 21st to discuss. 046 Tuesdays are wonderful, as my PA and I manage to keep the day unbooked so that real work can be done. Other than one rescheduled 1-1 meeting with a PhD student, it was clear. Spent a couple of hours focused on preparations for the two Postdoctoral Fellow positions for which we are accepting applications. Completed the formation of the interview committees, booking the interview dates (how did we ever survive without Doodle?), and finalizing the short listing dates and procedures. Now let's just hope that there are a sufficient number of good applicants for each post to make the process enjoyable. I finally had a chance to rework the model solution for the virtual memory lab exercise in the OS course. The code I inherited, while it works, was not the epitome of good design and implementation. With a couple of hours of effort, I was able to specify a cleaner design, and implement several versions (1 physical frame, max number of physical frames, with physical cache, virtual cache, TLB). The students should now be in a much better position to learn from the model solutions when they are presented to them. My new laptop has been delivered, and I started the long process of installing essential software. A full Cygwin installation was done, as without this I cannot do anything of use, while still maintaining my umbilical linkage to Outlook. I started installing a few other packages. I hope to be able to move over to the new Windows 7 system from my current Vista system within a couple of weeks. 046 Another Tuesday, lots of unbooked time to catch up on accumulated requests and focus on "real work". As I have supervised two final year projects devoted to complex event processing engines, it is clear that neither project will result in usable code within our EPSRC project. I have, therefore, over the past couple of weeks, designed, constructed, and thoroughly tested a PThread-based infrastructure for the system, and designed the CEP language for specifying state machines that are invoked when subscribed events are raised. I tweaked the language grammar this morning to support construction of sophisticated state machines that support time-interval logic in the behaviour clause. Now onto the action routines for compiling programs in the language for a stack machine interpreter. That will have to wait for another "free day". Spent ~1 hour completing the methodology section of an EPSRC proposal case for support. A colleague has finished the 1st draft of the impact statement, now the draft proposal goes out for internal critique. Spent supervision time with one of the CEP final year students and with my MSci student. The MSci student's project is coming along nicely, and will certainly lead to a decent paper targeted at the confluence of language runtime and OS support. Spent the usual 2+ hours trying to keep one step ahead of a Head of School's email deluge, then had to spend 2.5 hours in a meeting in which the consultants presented their findings with respect to "Research process" within the university. As is becoming more and more common, they then demanded audience participation to augment their findings. I am continually frustrated by two aspects of the University: 1) the leadership refuse to lead, instead foisting this responsibility off onto Heads of School; in particular, they allow each special interest to dump more work onto the Schools, leaving the HoS to prioritize; and 2) the support services refuse to take responsibility for their part in any process. In the end, it is always the academic that suffers from both, as they inevitably end up with more administrative load, and workflows that support their needs inevitably stall due to someone in the service groups dropping the ball. The open loop nature of the workflows then requires the academic to poll to find out the cause of the stall. I want to make a difference as Head of School. I work tirelessly to shield my colleagues from the continual barrage of additional work fired at us by the unthinking special interests at the centre. I spend all of my time firefighting. How do they expect to attract qualified individuals within schools to take on the HoS mantle? I am counting the (many) days until my sentence is completed. 046 Spent Monday-Wednesday of this week at the premier European conference in my area. Did triage of email while at the conference, spent all of yesterday attempting to catch up. Inevitably, some of that catchup spilled over into a couple of hours this morning. Despite having been involved in its invention and promotion, it is exactly at these times that I wish email had never appeared to constantly plague us. Or at least, University management had never been introduced to email, so that it was strictly a channel for technical and learned exchange. This afternoon we have a 3-hour meeting scheduled to review the ~40 promotion requests for the College. I spent approximately 4 hours reviewing the promotion requests so as to contribute positively to the meeting. As usual, I had to eat my lunch while performing this review, and then spent the remainder of the day at the promotion meeting. Fortunately, all of the promotion requests from my School that I had endorsed were successful. Today is the closing date for a lecturer post in the School. The last time I looked, we had 15 applications, of which ~7 look interesting. I expect that a few more will trickle in today, so we will have to review ~20 applications to produce a short list next week. Looking forward to gardening this weekend. Spring is finally here, and it is time to replace the casualties from the extended freezing period we experienced in December. Having built all of the wooden planters last weekend, there will be plenty of structural work to redo the north border to accommodate the planters. 046 I try to keep weekends clear of work, but as we all know, this time of year is hectic with marking exams, marking project reports, working on papers and grant applications for summer submission, ... I am behind on marking exam scripts for my two courses, so devoted 0900-1800 today to marking the 75 scripts in the Advanced Programming course. Of course, since this is not one of the sample weeks for me to complete a time sheet, the powers that be will never know ... Performed blind marking, as per requirement, but having had this cohort for courses in both the Autumn and the Spring, was able to make educated guesses as to who did well and who did poorly. This is a pretty competent cohort in programming and systems, so the average score was quite good; ~20% are A's. It's nice to see that after the effort that I put into lecturing and assisting during labs that some of the material actually is committed to at least medium term memory in the students' heads. 047 6:00 - 7:00 Insert that Good Morning song from Singing in the Rain here. I used to wake up to that playing on the kitchen radio when I was very young (once I became a 4th grader I was coming in from the barn at about the time it came on). This is a quiet time around the house, letting me get a shower in peace, until I trip over my son, another early riser, as I walk into my bedroom afterwards. In the shower you get to think about the day ahead. Things get a bit intimidating from 12:30 to 19:30. I have to remember to grab something to eat before class at 12:30 and during office hours at 16:00. 7:30 A good start, dishes are now washed and there are no lunches to pack today. My son is practicing piano, my daughter just rolled out of bed, their mother is finishing her shower and the dog is getting his breakfast. While working on the dishes I found myself thinking about the now-common statement that most learning occurs outside of the classroom. Someone said that yesterday and from nowhere I emphatically disagreed. I pointed out our low-level math course and said they mostly learn by making mistakes in front of me, that's why I have them work problems during class. They *practice* when they leave, but most of them will not learn. In our upper-level classes the expectation is perhaps different. I'm thinking about all that because the department chairs get to meet with the president today and he's a big learn-out-of-the-classroom and community-engagement guy, to the point that we're not sure how the students will have time to actually study. 8:25 Kids are now dropped off at school and I'm in my office. Should not have discussed the learn-outside-the-classroom thoughts with my wife. 9:52 Relatively typical Wednesday morning so far. I started by looking at two department laptops that were brought in needing repair so I could take them over to our service people before the warranties were off. One turns out to be working, good news, the other I let charge a bit before taking it over. Graded five more papers while that was happening -- interrupted by a faculty member talking about a talk on student centered learning earlier this week (the same talk that prompted my discussion with the faculty member yesterday and led to my doubts on how much learning the early students do outside of class). This faculty member, let's call him Ron, was concerned that all of these hands-on activities in class leave him little time to cover content. I asked what the point of the content is if they aren't really learning it anyway. He seems a bit stressed by the workload of prepping his courses this semester. It's a new prep and he's amazed by how many in-class activities and examples are used to teach statistics. After discussing those topics, Ron slid into his real reason for dropping by, the hope we'll hire this year. Since we failed in our search last year and it seemed like part of the problem was that the department wasn't really agreeing on what it wanted, I had hoped to do our self-study this year (which we must do) as a way to determine which mathematical areas we need to concentrate on. We know it needs to be applied, but the sub area is not as clear as it could be. I decided to let him make his pitch to hire this year to the department at our next meeting. I hope we decide not to do it, but we'll see. Then I took the broken laptop over to the service guys, which led to a discussion of some other computer issues in the department and I wound up bringing back an external drive and an LCD monitor. Fun for everyone. 10:28 Finished grading! Rushed a quick prep of data structures (fortunately I've taught it a million times). Ready for my 10:30 meeting with time to check the online comics first. 11:30 The 10:30 student showed up at 11:20. Fortunately the 11:30 student is also running late. The extra time was used to edit a calculator cheat sheet for my math students and write half of their quiz. The student at 11:20 is trying to figure out if computer science is a good major for her. She wants to go into Corporate Law but doesn't want to be a pre-law student. So we talked about our program and also other options in the university that are good for people with math and science skills. We'll follow-up when we schedule her for spring. Also in this hour, had a discussion about grading rubrics for math/cs papers. Sent a link to one I use for Programming Languages to my colleague and also handed her Walvoord's book on creating rubrics. 11:45 11:30 student rescheduled to Friday. Maybe enough time before class to finish writing that quiz 14:45 Finished teaching back to back classes. First was data structures which is frustrating because software issues obstruct actual learning. Seems like we should be beyond that by now. Second class was the lower level math course. Around 30 students and though the course is considered the most difficult of our non-major courses to teach, I am thoroughly enjoying myself. There's a lot of energy in the room and students throw out questions and ideas without hesitation making it easy to discuss the material. Now off to a meeting with the President 20:30 This is a long day. The president's idea of a meeting appears to be him talking and the rest of us listening. I left early but still 15 minutes late for office hours. On the way to my office I ran into an alum who was looking for me. She filled the remainder of my office hour time (plus some) with tales of work. Most relevant, she realized she really can program. Despite our telling her that while she was in the program she never really believed it. But here she is a year later and despite not being a student who demonstrated really strong programming skills, she sits before me saying, "I love programming" and providing indications that her employers are very very happy with her, not just for those skills but the communication skills she also brings to the table. (There really is a reason we make them give all those presentations in our classes) My time with her ended with the phone call at 17:30 indicating it was time to run out and get my son to our sport karate class. Whoops, never ate. Plenty of sweat later, we arrived home at 20:00, ate a quick supper and now I'm ready to start prepping for tomorrow -- after I take out the garbage. 23:25 Answered student emails and started prepping my Thursday morning class. Prep is incomplete but I'm falling asleep while working at this point. (The course I'm prepping is a new elective I'm building as we go so 75 minutes of class time takes quite a bit of behind-the-scenes work.) 047 6:00 Students are on midterm break today so I make the executive decision to sleep until 7. 7:00 - 8:00 I pay for sleeping late with a clogged kitchen sink drain. Better have some breakfast while I wait on the magic drain liquid. 12:30: busy morning of blood giving and training on a data analytics tool that should make it easier for my department to find information ourselves rather than asking our support staff. 2:00 Working on our department's self-study as a distraction from the Dean's request for budget items for next year. We were given two days and needed to have costs and justification figured out. Since nobody is on campus, that's essentially impossible. I sent in my white flag of surrender. At least I can mark the item off my to-do list. Time to go get some lunch. 3:15 Working on a proposal for a new program on the math side of the house. It's interdisciplinary so we're now at the stage of gathering support letters. I'm drafting outlines so the other programs have some idea of what will be useful to our curriculum committees. 4:00 Back to working on our department self study. It sucks when you lose notes because you were about to work with them -- and then spend a week working on other emergencies and misplace the notes in the process. 4:15 Just have to redo the work. It's times like these that the job is really not enjoyable. Everyone else is having a day off and I'm still here as the afternoon goes on, now re-creating work. 5:50 The only thing worse than losing my notes is finding them, because they were electronic after all, after I've finished reworking everything. 6:20 Okay, sent off that draft document to my faculty. Nice to check something off the list. Moving on to some grading. 7:00 Frenzied burst of productivity has helped me finish grading my math course and also whip out the prep for the next class. Getting my computer science courses together isn't that easy! 7:30 Something I notice as prepping my data structures course, a course I'm much more familiar with than my math course, is that my prepping tends to fall more along a decision tree model than a straight line. The prep is very much about the questions I will ask and then how I will proceed depending on answers -- what I should introduce anyway and what I can hold off until it comes up someplace else. 10:30 In-laws arrived at 7:30 so it appears the weekend has begun. Of course, new work has arrived via email. It will have to wait. Overall a rather sedate day that somehow knocked a dozen items off my to-do list. 047 1:00 am Just arrived home after a hectic visit to relatives in the north for a weekend wedding. Grading? Class Prep? Oh well. Better get some sleep. 7:30 am Life was easier when the only person I had to worry about waking up was myself. Now the morning is a rush of trying to wake up three other people, get them fed, make sure they have all their stuff for school together and madly scrambling to get everyone out the door on time. That leaves little time to get my own head together regarding my tasks for the day. 7:55 am Calm before the storm. The house is quiet and I can check my schedule. One class and one meeting on the schedule. So deceptive-looking. That one meeting is on top of another, I haven't prepped the class, haven't graded for tomorrow's courses and will also need to deal with an onslaught of students begging to be added to closed courses. 8:30 am kids are at school, time to start on students trying to get into closed courses... Okay, best news of the day so far: pulled up the schedule to see how many students were in courses and see the most students in CS II that we've had in several years. 10:00 am finished dealing with the immediate student-into-courses issues and snuck a few minutes to read reviews of our CHI submission. It's a new community for us and I found the reviews really informative. (It's also nice to be at a point in my career where I can care more about the information in the reviews than about whether or not the paper gets accepted.) It's nice to think about research, even if only for a few minutes in the day. 11:00 am Gah. Dean says nobody should give course evaluations before last week, if not last day of course. Some of us point out Peter Seldin's research suggests that it is better to do it no later than 2 weeks before the end of the course. She says she would enjoy seeing that research and wouldn't be surprised but not being consistent will negatively impact some more than others. So we default to the case that will yield the less-relevant and more negative evaluations? Why bother sending us to those chairs workshops if we don't improve practice as a result? Oh well, managed to prep class while wading through that email burst. 11:30 Getting material ready so I can discuss a draft of an alumni survey with statisticians. 12:25 Just had a relatively quiet hour of advising students and the computer science club, getting updates from faculty on various things going on, and of course getting started on some grading. Now off to class. 3:15 Wow, time flies. Taught class, then directly to a meeting, then answered yet more questions about courses, and wrapped up this thrilling time interval learning from my department secretary why sending a plain white postcard to alumni would not be acceptable (they would simply throw it away she says). I am grateful to people with common sense. The meeting discussed the alumni survey for our program self-study. It was informative and helpful, now I just need time to implement these suggestions so we can get the survey out. Despite this being a Monday on which I'm tired and hungry, it's actually going pretty well (or at least extremely quickly). 4:15 Working on multiple things at once: student make-up quiz, certifying a graduation, email discussion with research colleagues, event organizing with department secretary. Just gave the student the wrong quiz. Twice. I'm glad she noticed! And dealing with student schedules. A student just asked to be allowed into a full section at 1 pm. I noted that the 8:30 am section worked for her. She told me she, "doesn't do well with 8:30." When did education and faculty become so little-valued that it is assumed we will accommodate preferred sleeping patterns? (And actually, we would be happy to -- except there are not enough rooms for everyone to teach between 10 am and 2 pm!) 4:35 My children arrive in a rush, settle in to play with some toys. I'm continuing to deal with student schedule issues while also trying to grade. 5:05 Time to get the kids home and ready for their evening sports... 8:20 Sports are done, made supper while the kids showered and now they're eating and then off to bed so they can be up early for their Spanish class before school. Grading and class prep loom for me. 10:20 One set of quizzes graded. Two more homework sets to go... 6:00 am -- fell asleep grading. Woke up at 5:30 and finished the set. That happens more often than I'd like. 047 15 December 2010 Overslept to 7, fortunately we're a smooth, finely oiled machine here in the morning and so we'll probably get the kids to school on time. Except for the not finding socks and stuff like that... It's finals week so schedules are a bit kerflooey. Both kids have field trips this evening and we're trying to coordinate getting everyone where they need to be with only one car. My kids, somewhat proudly (I hope), have noted that they are the only kids at school with 0 TVs and 1 car in the family. It's fine until you realize the planners expect us to have more of those things. 8:45 Kids to school, now getting ready for the kind of meeting I hate to attend. 10:20 Ah, joyous meeting, glad it's done. Now waiting for a student to arrive for a make-up final. She's a student that tears my heart out, lots of personal problems but determined to finish this course. In the meantime, trying to provide guidance on broken code for students whose project is due in 2.5 hours... 11:00 Student needing make-up final is working. Broken code student is probably helpless but at least I tried sending advice. I am also now receiving the parade of faculty in person or email telling me about various students that may be upset about grades (generally resulting from the student not showing up for the final). 11:07 One of my students sent me the perfect comic for today: http://xkcd.com/69/ 12:00 An hour of helping students makes the time fly. 12:30 Why is it so hard to convince people that touching students is a bad idea? It's not about being loving to the student, it's about recognizing you don't know what traumas they've had that your touch might trigger. 1:00 And away we go with the final. Nice to be done with this course. Nice students but not as willing to work as one would hope. While they're working on the exam, I will be grading their final project. 2:30 Wow, just finished grading the first of the final projects. Should I care less why it doesn't work? But it was so close I just had to debug to find the error... Meanwhile, we're now getting worry messages from Provost and some students about the inclement weather headed our way. It could make finishing finals week difficult. I'm not so worried about my non-majors and their final, but I'll be sad if it means we have to cancel the poster session that was going to run during my upper level elective tomorrow. I want people to see the nice work they've done. 2:55 The last student has finished just as I finished grading a second project. Yay. 3:30 Money from the bank, christmas cards distributed to the staff, checking in our new hire as she finishes her first semester, and catching up with a retiree. Maybe back to grading now? 1:00 am Well. From 4:00 - 8:00 I was with my son on a field trip to the museum center and observatory. Sixth graders who have recently studied astronomy make for a very excited and inquisitive bunch. From 8:30 until just this moment was games night with the computer science club. I was dethroned as the monopoly champ. So now I need to catch up on 9 hours of email, wondering how many panicky students will have sent mail regarding the weather. 1:10 am Only one panicked email, not too hard to handle. Time to get some sleep because unless they cancel school, I need to be back there in less than eight hours. 047 15 January 2011 8:00 Ah, the bliss of sleeping in. My body is on 2-hour delay. 9:30 Kids are fed, schedule for my daughter getting homework done is set and off with me. The glories of shuffle on the ipod for the walk in, mixing Coldplay, Brenda Lee, Sonya Kitchell, Alannis Morrissete and the Peter Gabriel Genesis. Not something you'd think of on your own, that's for sure. 10:30 Administrative crap brushed aside for awhile. Turning to the grant work portion of the day. The main part of the grant is in biology; I'm the computational infrastructure, data management, and informatics person. 1:30 Grant brain turning to mush, time for lunch. 2:30 How do they find me on a Saturday afternoon? Got trapped in a conversation with another faculty member on my way to get lunch. sigh. On to reading promotion packets. 5:15 Starting to get brain fried on promotion packets as well, but I want to get one more done before taking a break from them. 5:45 Time to stop and go home. (The evening lottery: will I have to cook?) 6:30 home to the chaos of kids and the dog. The working day may be over (plans were made while I was out). 11:00 pm Yes, the working day was definitely over. 047 15 February 2011 6:00 Not sure Simon & Garfunkel is the greatest wake up song. Pondered the existence of my computer science program as I did dishes this morning. The large state university in my town announced yesterday that they will no longer be accepting undergraduate computer science majors as of 2012. They have a thriving engineering program and it appears they expect this to be the place computer science is done. It was shocking because I thought programs ensconced in engineering schools were the safe programs and now I find I'm the only pure computer science program left in town (the others closed down long ago). All that to think about but it doesn't get me out of making school lunches for my kids. :-) 8:00 Got the kids to school and made it to work. 90 minutes to get something done until meetings hit me. Our department is working on its self study and things are going pretty well. I need to pull out data on numbers of students and also need to pull down the data from our alumni survey that was just completed. The good news about having taught everyone on the alumni list is that you get over 70% response. Oh but first I have to remember to pay my mortgage. 9:00 Did I think I would get to work on the self study? No, it's really much more interesting to spend the time trying to reconfigure the fall schedule so people with <insert problem here> don't have to teach at <time they don't want to teach>. I guess it makes me old, but I just taught at the time they scheduled my class. 11:00 Just spent 90 minutes meeting with a company about internships and jobs for mathematics and computer science majors. Critical thinking is such a great job skill. 12:15 Spent an hour with students, discussing tomorrow's exam and doing advising. 1:00 More students, this time about summer opportunities. Time for some quick lunch before the next meeting. 3:00 I was actually able to do some work on our self study (but not much). The alumni responses are fun to browse but it's clear I'll need to do a bit more clever analysis to get more than a little information out of it since the students go back fifteen years. Our computer science group started discussing the future of the program. We somewhat agree on topics that will be important (multi-core, multi-and-parallel processing, ubiquitous computing, large data sets, communication and security, interfaces) but I may have pushed to hard when I revealed some questions I'd written to myself (which basically asked why our courses weren't already naturally incorporating these topics). I realized that we've let exactly what I feared happen. In a nutshell, we're old -- tenured faculty, not necessarily using all the new whiz-bang tech ourselves -- so we aren't naturally incorporating them into our courses. It's time we step up. I look at all the efforts to invigorate computer science education and I think the bottom line is to program the cool tech to solve the cool problems just as we did when the {mainframe, personal} computer was the cool tech. Interesting problems will follow and the real computer science will be necessary. Of course, now I need to find the time to walk the walk. 4:15 Data gathering for the self study, with small detour to pass on some job openings to 2010 math grad still looking. Getting ready for the next student meeting about tomorrow's exam. 5:00 Student didn't show up -- solid time on the data. Now time to get everyone to their evening activities 5-8:30 Kids to music, purchase crickets, wait for kids to finish lessons while going over survey data, make supper, eat supper, send kids to bed. And then more (slow) working through of data so I can start pulling out actual information soon. It's more fun to read the parts of the survey where the alumni tell us what they are doing now. Starting to separate things out by 5-year eras. And now at 10:30, I'm falling asleep. 047 15 March As good of day as any to have my alarm fail. That should make the day more exciting. 8:30 okay, we seem to be caught up from my late start. Now at school and trying to decide if I should work on the grant due next week or keep working on the self-study. I also need to answer advising email so I guess that comes first. (Advising period for Fall Semester started this week so I am getting plenty of email from students wondering which courses will transfer, etc.) 9:00 Okay, that was a lot of email. And in the middle of it I realized my course schedule was formatted incorrectly for my math courses, possibly giving them some excuse to not understand when the final will be. Corrected that! Now trying to get some things together for this grant meeting. 11:20 Grant meeting finished with plenty of tasks ahead of me, primarily around planning assessment and getting the other STEM faculty to make themselves available during the program. Returned to a waiting phone call from a search committee potentially interested in hiring away one of my math education faculty. This put me in a strange position because she's not really on track to get tenure here so this is a good thing... but what should I be telling them regarding that issue? I danced around it and actually the questions they asked make it sound like they might be a better fit for her than we are. Of course, that's what we thought about her versus her previous position when we hired here... The daily sinus headache has also started to kick in. 11:50 Is it bad when the faculty member you asked to schedule the courses asks about the schedule? Shouldn't she know it better than me since she did it? Okay, better take medicine or I'll go postal on someone. 2:30 Student issue discussed (not solved), computer science meeting successfully navigated, and the joyous discovery that the programmable lock on our lab door was replaced but the replacement "is not connecting to the campus network" so nobody can get into the lab. That helps security. The CS meeting was pretty good. I finished my summary of the alumni survey from the last five years and we should just use most of these quotes as advertisements for our program. One of the faculty said it brought tears to her eyes when she read the "things our program does well" section last night, such a welcome respite in a semester that also involves teaching statistics to a bunch of students who don't want to learn. We are now working on our direction for the next five years. All in all, the self-study of the CS program is coming right along. 3:30 Oh no, as I feared, learning to build a pivot table has made me a target for anyone seeking Excel assistance. It turns out not all knowledge is good! 4:15 Possibly a miracle: my advisee came to his 4:00 appointment slightly early and completely prepared. He had a good plan for his fall schedule and reasonable questions about a possible music minor. While it is unlikely all the other advisees will be this prepared (he was the first after all), it's a nice start. 6:00 I've been trying to research the radioactive materials being emitted in Japan so I can find the half-lives and use them in my elementary functions class tomorrow. We're studying exponential functions so this appears to be a ready-made real-life example to show some value to modeling data. 6:15 Time to deal with running the kids around to various things and feeding them, etc... 9:15 Kids are off to bed. We filled out our NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament brackets. (We'll have to do the Women's bracket tomorrow.) Time to go back to work on prepping class. *** much later: fell asleep prepping class. I hope they appreciate my effort. I could have just grabbed the notes from last semester, but with some luck this will be a more interesting and teachable moment for them. 047 15 April 2011 6:00 am Who doesn't love 6 am? 6:10 am Phone call: my son will be returning on the bus from Washington D.C. in one hour. I go a bit early so I can sit and read in peace while waiting for him to arrive. He doesn't have school after he gets back so he'll be tagging along with me today. 7:30 we get back to the house so he can say good morning and good bye to his mother who will be heading out of town right after she finishes work today. He's got a million things to tell her about his trip before she leaves. 9:30 Finally arrive at work. Class prep at home didn't go so well but my son got his trip photos up and labeled in iPhoto, so that's good. Now he's going to play legos, write his journal and sleep while I'm working a bit. First task: approve a late senior degree application. I turned in all of the others over two weeks ago. Apparently there's no amount of procrastination that a sufficiently high late fee can't handle. This might be one of those bustling about days where there are a million little things to do. So far I've sent out reminders about talks, posters and picnics; handled appointments for prospective students; started a list of students from one section who want to take the final with the other; and monitored an online survey I'm running for a theology professor. Really need to get to that course prep now! 10:30 Friendly, helpful colleague commandeered computer to show my son something. Wasn't using it so no problem, but still haven't finished prepping... 10:55 finished prepping with five minutes to spare before my next meeting. Even had time to add the giant Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters to the Blackboard page. (I'm sure it's relevant to power functions and proportional growth...) 11:50 Fantastic meetings with my seniors finishing their senior projects. They're getting ready to present next week so this is the fun part. Also we've brainstormed some million-dollar apps we should write over the summer. (I told my son if this works I'll give him a button to wear to college saying, "My education is funded by dumb people.") 12:10 signed books for the seniors, consulted about ballots for faculty committees, and now time to take my son to lunch. 12:50 No such thing as lunch in peace. The Dean called to discuss staffing for the fall. We have an interesting situation of an open tenure track line that is in danger of being lost to an administrator returning to our department -- of course he is not in the area we need that line to cover. Also took the chance to deal with a tenure issue that's come up. Just more of the glorious fun that comes with being chair. 3:30 Teaching complete! ("Mischief Managed!") Having my son in the room is always somewhat interesting. He asks questions which usually surprises the students. His main question today was about why -7 can be considered a power function, which let us talk about x^0. On the downside he was against throwing a rock from a bridge even if it would make a nice parabola. The students, he tells me now, told him that he seems more mature than me. Time to go pick up my daughter from school and then we'll see if there's time to get any more work done... 7:50 pm quiet time with the kids after getting them dinner. I guess I really should start those taxes now. 047 15 May 2011 8:00 am We're on the road today. My nephew celebrated his first communion yesterday so my crew journeyed on over to watch it. Now we're trying to wake up and get ourselves together for the day. I let the kids stay up late so they're groggy. (I'm not expecting to get many work-related tasks done today.) 9:45 pm Home at last. I don't think I have the energy to do any work at this point, though I see some email has piled up so I'll probably go through that. I have meetings starting at 10 tomorrow and teach in the evening so it'll be a long day once it gets rolling. 047 15 June 2011 8:45 am Some mornings can't be described. I made it to work, so that's something. 9:30 Reviewed the job description narrative for the department secretary. Human Resources is conducting a reclassification process which appears to mean that Human Resources hires a consultant, the consultant tells all of us to rewrite the job descriptions into a new form, and then nothing happens. They'll probably do this every few years. 10:50 just became obvious that the edits I did on the secretary job description were ignored by the secretary when she put it into the online form required by HR. So why did she ask me to look it over and make changes? 10:55 Oh god, now she sent it back for further suggestions. Do I suggest she use the edits I originally sent? This is why being a manager sucks. 11:30 Finished today's grading for my TR evening course. Looks like exponential functions are not everyone's friend and it was clear last night that power functions aren't so great either. Some re-trenching may be in order for tomorrow's class. Time to prep, I guess. 11:50 How is it possible that a student asks a question about a grade within two minutes of my posting it? That's incredible! And the question was whether I meant to record it in the wrong category, so nice save. Also, trying again with the secretary position description. This time I tried to be more clear that I had attached a document and that I want this to be what is used. I also changed the name of the document so it couldn't be mistaken for the same file just because it has the same name. I'm either not cut out for management or I'm just so tired of being department chair that these are the kinds of stupid things that drive me crazy. 12:30 Dealing with office space issues. It is nearly impossible to get anyone to commit to giving us space but I have two new people coming into the department this year and they need someplace to park their rears. 1:30 Might have a plan for office space but I still don't know how to cover all of the fall courses with the staff I have, unless an adjunct is willing to teach at both 8:30 am and 4:00 pm. I met with my new full-time visiting faculty as she winds her way through the hiring paperwork. It turns out I don't have her transcript because they sent a link electronically and it ended up in my spam folder. So it goes. My daughter is now visiting, reading quietly in the corner. I guess one of the plusses of working in academia is the ability to have her at work when necessary. 2:30 Giving up on figuring out the fall schedule. Trying to write a quiz while evaluating transfer credits and dealing with parents who want their children to have the ideal fall schedule, which of course is never the one they already have. Time to send the daughter off to visit the doctor. 3:45 Today is the day for massive interruptions. Finally finished the quiz while dealing with an onslaught of advising questions, helicopter parents, the occasional, "just stopping by to say hi," and updates on my daughter's doctor visit (for the historical record: her allergy medicine isn't working and she probably isn't sleeping well as a result). Prior to today, my summer has been pretty quiet and I could easily schedule time slots to work on course prep, administrative tasks, and office cleaning (with a glimmer of hope to actually get some research done in the future). Today it has blown up in my face. 4:50 Forgot to prep some material (a summary sheet of concepts and formulas) for my evening class; looks like I've got it done just in time to run off and teach for a few hours. 8:10 Let's sum up this evening's class: utter disaster. In lower-level math classes I like to use problems from the textbook in class so when they do homework they can see that we did similar problems in class. This particular problem came up about 2.25 hours into what should be a 3.25 hour class, so in prepping the class I consciously decided to not calculate the values, just leaving boxes in my notes -- gives us spontaneity, they know they really need to give me the answer (and this far into the class they should be able to), we really work the problem together -- it generally works well for me. But everyone got an error as they calculated. Okay, the formulas are complicated and this is a *very* low-level math course, so try again. Hmm, still errors. So I pull out my calculator and, whoops, I get an error too. Haha, try again. But no, this error isn't going away. Yeah, eventually I pull the problem apart and realize the error is a real error -- the problem doesn't fit the case we're studying. By this time the students are mentally out of the game and getting through anything else was nearly impossible. And all I would have had to do was calculate the values while prepping -- which I consciously decided not to do. This fits my overall day which has careened from one task to another, filled with interruptions and resulting in little of value. But I hate having that experience happen to my students. I understand all the cute life lessons I could claim they gain from this, but these are adults, they already know life throws crap at us so having this hit them in the face does not add value. So now I have to design homework to reinforce the concepts of the lovely classroom learning we just experienced. 9:05 Homework written. Now I really need to prep the class I teach tomorrow. (This is the class that I wanted to start prepping at 11:30 am this morning.) 10:30 Wife calls wondering if I'm coming home. Not quite done prepping. 11:00 Class prepped, homework written. Get me out of here! 047 15 July Academic work has taken a back seat to spousal care issues today. My wife had ACL surgery yesterday so I've added a bunch of duties to my plate instead of working on research or server building as I had hoped to be doing at this point in the year. 1 pm Kids are at piano lessons, giving me a breather. I left my wife strapped into the CPM (Continuous Passive Motion) machine. I should get home at about the right time to turn it off... The break gives me time to check on messages. I'm being asked to contribute to an advising session about "Good Advising Enhances Retention." I'm not sure I have much to contribute other than advising students to get their butt in gear or get out. The only other message is from my secretary and I think it means I don't need to do anything. She frets about faculty not getting back to her when she reminds them of things -- being faculty, I assume no news is good news or at least I-accept-the-consequences news. So as long as I ignore the tasks I'm not getting done, all is good! Fantastic weather for a Friday so spending extra time at home is wonderful. 3:30 pm Father-in-law is painting the doors, giving me a headache, but I may be able to grab a bit of time to work on installing server software. 12:20 am mostly played with the kids while various makes ran on the server. Hard to keep things straight in my head with everything going on, hopefully I installed some of the correct software! 047 15 August 2011 12:55 am Good morning. :-( My new server mysteriously went down just before midnight. It's a brand new virtual server and I have not yet been able to figure out why the host machine rebooted. Unfortunately the university systems people have access to the machine so it could be they decided to reboot it, but the log does not include a reboot so that suggests the power was cut off and then turned on -- an event that should not be likely and either means campus power went off (but here I sit in a lit room so it was very brief) or someone came into the server room and turned something off. The latter appears difficult since other than security and physical plant, I'm the only one with a key to this room. In any case, it led me to discover the server is not set for automatic boot, an error I've now corrected. I decided I should take a snapshot of the machine while I'm at it and have also discovered my image is too big, whatever the heck that means. More digging in manual pages is mostly what it means, I suspect. Hopefully I'll get to go home and get some sleep soon. 1:45 pm Hectic day so far. I was back up at 6:30 to get the kids up and going in time to get us out the door and over to Karate camp. Then it was a trip to the knee doctor with my wife, followed by a trip to the kids' school to drop off beginning-of-the-year forms. The highlight of the day was a break for a nice Thai lunch. I made it to work by noon, stopping in the lab to make sure the server was still okay. Then I dealt with the department printer not working (not sure why this is my job) and a scheduling issue for a student. That brought me to the task of moving furniture in a faculty member's office. The furniture moving unearthed materials from the person in the office two moves and over five years ago so I recycled those. And now here I am, hoping to get a chance to think about what I'll tell Admissions at 3:30 pm to convince them they can recruit more Computer Science majors. 2:45 Helped two new adjuncts find their books and calculators. Introduced one to his mentor. Discussed an installation issue on the new server with a faculty member. Discussed theft-prevention methods with another faculty member. Dealt with another scheduling issue. Passed on resume from third adjunct to department secretary. Eventful hour, but I am no closer to the task I started with last hour. 4:10 wheeeeew. I managed to put together a document that I think will help admissions tell a story about our computer science program and then spent a half hour meeting with them about computer science as well as our new actuarial science program. It was nice to see that some of them appreciate that these are difficult majors and that some of the students out there want to find these difficult majors. All in all, I wish I would have had more time to devote to preparing for the meeting, but I think what happened was good. I feel a bit mentally exhausted now. Of course, as I write that another advising question calls me up. No rest for the weary as school starts. (And while that's true, I still feel a strong temptation to call my family and see if they want to go to a movie tonight instead of working.) Following up on system administration issues now. The new server has a new host key which is causing problems for several people because their systems are rejecting the new key. 5:50 time to head home. Solved the sys admin problem, solved another advising problem, maybe even figured out where tomorrow's meeting is located. And made the terrifying to-do list. Not quite sure how to get this all done, but now I have to get home and make some supper. 9:50 Kids are off to bed, wife's PT is done and she's got ice on the knee, time to get to work. PHP configuration is still not quite correct on the server so I need to fix it before I can do the real work. Dang. I'm not sure why PHP has been so tough to get working on this install. 12:25 am Finished a draft of a new course/instructor evaluation form. The Dean is now requiring seven particular statements on a 5-point Likert scale. I get the honor (horror) of presenting this new reality to my department so I figured I might as well re-do the whole form while I'm at it, and move it online too. Today captures much of the diversity of my life and job. I flip between system administrator, department chair, faculty, father, spouse roles repeatedly throughout the day. The accomplishments range from the small -- a schedule fixed, to the large -- promotion materials for the program, a new course evaluation. There remains too little time for research and teaching prep but somehow it all keeps rolling along. Time for bed 048 Teaching one module this morning followed by meeting my really good Masters project student - a good start Then meetings to review allocation, staffing and timetabling issues. Finished mid afternoon - looked at inbox 300+ - have to go through those - but can wait until Saturday/Sunday - sigh Looking forward to clearing the email - as Section Leader and in charge of allocation - probably 50 of the emails need to be answered by Monday and will have knock on effects. We have a lot of staff close to the limit and sadly many over - but may have to live with that for a while - sigh NB family getting very fed up with many hours working evenings and weekends - have promised it will calm down soon. (lol) 048 Busy day today. Left home 8.00. Degree Ceremony this afternoon and also the start of employability week - an full week of activities to try and get our students to think more about employment. Spent the morning looking at developing a new support system for students as ours is outdated and is being maintained by technicians using 5 year old technology and does not interface to central systems. This is a 3 year project but will provide some case studies for teaching as well as a new system. I never seem to do anything just for one reason any more - it has to benefit me in more than one way (ideally 3) before I really want to do it. Started writing a European bid (due in Feb 2011) with colleagues over lunch time. Lunch is always sandwiches whilst working. 2.00 lecture on widening horizons - try and get the students to think beyond their narrow degree pathway. Degree Ceremony 3.30 onwards - inspiring speech by VC - hard times ahead but not total doom and gloom. Good meeting with Assistant Dean 5.30 - 6.30, started to plan ahead instead of fire fighting. Home by 7.30 - resisted the urge to switch on PC and deal with email backlog. Fell asleep in front of TV. 049 Sept 15 2010 -- Classes have not yet started. I spent the day developing and preparing for a new course I am offering in fall. It's a very highly visible pilot and is being run with a very large number students (yes, belying the term pilot). VERY large for us is 600-800. The largest class usually taught at our university is 250. I began the day by continuing to set up my new laptop. I've been working with an old spare for 4 weeks waiting for one to get warrantied, and when that was dragging on, deciding to order a new one. Out IT help installed the very basics, but most was left up to me. There's a good way to blow 2+ hours. Spent about 1 hour triaging email. Recently switched to gmail's priority mailbox and it does seem to help a bit -- but I get 200+ mails a day so there's only so much it can do. A largish number ARE priority. Note: Inbox contains 49,000+ emails, 15,000+ are unread. The rest of the day was spent not SO much developing materials for the course as managing issues with the course. I have some external help developing labs. I had to provide feedback. It was OK, but I spent 30 minutes making changes and then reporting back. I also had to manage the fact that I was expecting 750 students to enroll, but only 550 have. I needed to coordinate communication between the people advising students (who claimed the course was full) and the staff in my dept (student affairs) who set up the available enrollments. Yes, there were issues on both sides. To "make up for this" I will be spending 4+ hours on friday at orientation events, demoing and trying to recruit 150 more students to the class. For 30 miniutes, I had my picture taken by our communications professionals, since I know I will be asked to provide pics for various things in conjunction with this class. Had to change into my "emergency professor" shirt. As in computing, we don't often dress as others expect professors to look like. A multitude of other "mundane" tasks regarding logistics for the course occurred: setting up a purchase order so the university can collect teh 35,000 USD that is helping to pay for development of the class, adding tutors, putting class resources (schedule, etc) on moodle, arranging for a company to sponsor TShirts for the tutors (including designing my own tshirt on zazzle and walking the company person through the ordering process on the phone for 30 min). Where was the "development" during the day. There was some, but a lot got pushed off. I did develop (from 4:30-6am) the tutor training that will be specific to this course. well, I started. I got the first assignment up. I worked on the pre-survey for the course, which is important to consider what I really want to assess (using survyemonkey). Here I at least got to have some brainstorming emails with a colleague visiting for sabbatical. That was actually very nice -- what are we really looking for to change in students attitudes -- about the topic and about learning in general? That was less than 20 minutes though. 2 hours of "development" I had planned (I plan my day each morning on google calendar so I know what to do next (while I can still think), and then as things run long, I choose to move certain "appointments" to the next day) got pushed to tomorrow. Important stuff too like, finish labs 1 and 2! I did meet with a new PhD student working for me for just one year for 1.5 hours. That was quite rewarding. I am concerned about working well with him, as I had a student last year who didn't get on so well. Everyone says it was him, and they are right. But I could have been more proactive in handling it. Really, he was my first grad student to manage on my own. I then spent 30 nice minutes doing a lit review for a question that the student brought up. Actually it was useful for both him and my colleague visiting on sabbatical. Now, it's 5:30 pm, I started working at 4:30am (which is a BIT unusual, but the term is approaching) and I need to decide if I will finish any more of my tasks remaining (at least 60 min). While my husband serves as an unpaid assistant and returns materials to the electronics store that I bought for the course but won't use. And today is the last day to return them. But I did plan dinner! 049 Fridays are nice, my low stress, mostly unscheduled days. The faculty reserve 11am-1pm for faculty meetings all year, so when we don't have one (varies), you get a nice open hole. This week was spent treading water on my super large, in development class -- and this was the day to catch up on other things that needed doing. I am considering writing a grant with some education people at another university, and had a meeting scheduled with them at 12:30. Luckily, their building is actually closer to my house than my own university, and so I decided to work from home for the day. (Aside, I can only easily meet with these people because their building is "off-campus" -- and doesn't a) require a parking permit and b) has readily available parking. We'll never break out of our institutional silos unless we can ACTUALLY effectively meet with people from other local campuses. Maybe the schools should pool resources and rent and office room or two in various locations around the area. A few whiteboards, digital projector, and internet and we'd be golden). First thing in the morning was supposed to be finally reading carefully the call for proposals for the grant. As usual, at least one hour got dedicated to triaging email and getting the priority inbox down to <20. Some Fridays I make a real effort not to read email until at least a couple morning things are done. But sometimes, it just feels better to get it over with. Read the grant, marked some notes and questions for the meeting. Had a half hour skype with a colleague here on sabbatical who I have roped into helping in large ways with my class. We work together on lectures and we're trying to study how students are affected by in-lecture experiences. But honestly we can barely keep up with lecture (and homeworks that we designated the TAs to create, but they can't seem to get the hang of what we want). Having felt a bit better for the call for proposals' read (anything not related to the course content is so enjoyable!), I rushed to finish up an internal research grant application that will fund (surprise, surprise) a student I am already paying to do (this term) that very research we are proposing (for next term). It's interviews with students who are likely at risk in this new class. Due to previous rounds of "do X% of the work you want to propose in grant X with money from grant X-1", I am getting the interviews done now. BUT, I still really need to get this grant since we claimed to only need 2 terms to pull it off, but really it will be three. Qualitative research takes more time than I believe most of the (primarily science) faculty at my institution will accept. Had gotten the key part (description of work) done weeks ago, and yesterday had finally sat down to get the IRB started, so I would have a temporary number to put on the app. Already had the dept chair's signature electronically. Amazing -- the amount of time sucked into getting the darn thing completely finished. Oh, they need an abbreviated CV, with specific requirements. Bleh. Why can't I just give them the one I submit for promotion cases? Better yet, given these people are on campus, but likely don't know me, can't I just say -- check out my web site? OK, maybe not, but the repeat and re-management of the same material over and over gets weary. This is not helping anyone. That's done. Have enough time to realize the TA in charge of lab grading (starting 3 weeks ago) STILL has got nothing in place. Not sure he ever will at this pace, and it looks like I'me going to have to clean up the mess and organize it all. Spend a couple hours pounding out the last of that (setting up surveymonkeys and googlesdocs, writing full instructions for graders, passing my ideas by the two TAs awake at 8am. (yes, I did start around 5am this morning). Well, I won't be able to finish that, but I can whip off the emails to him suggesting I take it over, letting him know this is not "good enough" but also giving him some positive feedback, as I have heard he's just super shy and had NO idea when I said, "set up and manage the grading of the lab questions" that YES he was supposed to do it (and ask questions as needed). 10:30 Weekly conference call with those people piloting the same course I am, at other institutions. Is a nice way to summarize in 5-10 min what worked and didn't this week. Run off to meeting at other institution. Very enjoyable. These people seem competent AND interested. But what am I thinking in getting involved in more work? Am thinking to take my sabbatical (50%) and get enough money on this grant to not teach at all next year. By the time I get home at 2:30 though, I am exhausted and drained. I need to handle the TA/lab thing and wrap it up. But I just can't. I need to read 2 research papers for reading group on Monday -- should be fun, but I can't summon the energy for that either. So I veg and nap on the couch. Well, will have to work tomorrow morning. 049 Today is the Wednesday of the week AFTER final exams. Final course grades were due yesterday at noon, and I even managed to make that for my 700+ students across 3 courses this term. The BIGGEST and most SUPER important thing about today is that it was to be my first official day NOT "teaching CSE3" since probably early September. Of course, I did end up tracking down one more student grade - a guy taking it from outside the university, -- taking a freshman course after already having a bachelor's degree - and he had no midterm grade. Never an email from him. So I unilaterally decided to give him his final exam score for the midterm one so he wouldn't "fail" and he thus earned a low C. Sigh. (BTW, I just realized that to remember what I did, I should look at sent mail. Normally my gmail calendar holds all knowledge, but as this is supposedly "break" it looks rather empty - especially since I've been working in my office solid since 7am) This morning, my first goal was to beg off on a "test" I was supposed to help administer to determine if a foreign graduate student has sufficient English language skills to be a TA. The other administrator is excellent and has heard me ask "explain the difference between stacks and queues" and "how do you explain how to insert an element into an already full array" so many times that despite being a linguist with no programming experience whatsoever, she'd be more masterful at these explanations than just about any faculty member in the dept. Next, a graduating PhD student who has TAed for me many times and participated in CS education research with me (including adopting peer instruction when he taught a course in summer school) dropped by. He is on the job market this year for a "teaching" faculty position in the US. The market is probably bad this year, but he already had one interview and they made him an offer on Monday and want him to accept in 5 days. Most other institutions won't even interview until late Jan or Feb. So we talked about strategy for delaying, I made a personal request that his favorite school try to consider him NOW even though their application deadline isn't until mid-Feb and we spent an hour discussing what points to negotiate with the Dean. Argh. Like I know this. I probably did a bad job myself, and bizarrely for the 3 jobs I have had, I was only "applying" one place at any given time. Then I got back to what I was supposed to spend un-interrupted morning time on - working on a grant proposal we need to finish in a few days. Got like 45 minutes of time out of the 2 hours I was hoping to spend. But it was fairly effective time. Then I got to spend a nice 1.5 hours with my colleague here on sabbatical (that I am writing the grant with) and we got to have nice discussion about our planned research - which looks at the impact of the course I just designed and taught. It will look at how various instructional design aspects of peer instruction led naturally to 2 key (hard to assess) learning goals for the course - analysis and communication skills. Just before running off to a dept meeting, I managed to finally touch base with my Dean who is trying to offer me a directorship position regarding teaching and learning on campus, and the process is one month delayed because, get this, my university can't figure out how to hire me. I am already a senate faculty member... I don't get it. Luckily, since I can't actually give up my teaching requirements, since there's no one else to cover them, I am teaching a crazy 450 students in one course, AND it's the subject of my research, the "hiring" problem is kind of moot. I'll do the job anyways, and ask for some extra resources in terms of students to "cover". Luckily! No faculty meeting! When was it cancelled? I don't know, I have been ignoring almost all email all term..... Finish off the last of grades, negotiate for extra TA resources due to possibly new director position... Back to lunch. Skip lunch, work more on grant. Faculty member from cognitive science who is teaching CS1 for "them" next term comes by to talk for 60 minutes about using clickers. He's already assigned them, but doesn't know how to use them effectively. Luckily he's a good guy and listens and really had the right idea already, so I think it will go well. Although when I review his teaching evals on ine I'm a bit more concerned. But I advise him for an hour. Back to the grant. Brain is pretty toast at this point - we work 40 more minutes, then realize we should be doing our Share project journals since it is the 15th. (Where's the email reminder today? There wasn't one. Takes 5 minutes to figure out the link...). Now husband is here, off to the gym to run, then meeting a new TA who is a beer brewer at one of the best bars in the world...  049 Though my general (90%) habit is to not work on weekends at all, I actually had some work I really wanted to get to, and even though the weather is really fabulous, I've have some shoulder pain (too much time hunched over computer) this week, so getting out bicycling (normal activity) isn't too exciting. So, for maybe 1.5 hours this morning, I did some analysis on what has happened with students in my non-majors computing class last term. Even though it was a non-majors class, we advised some majors (32 by end of term) to start there as we thought they were at risk of failing our fast-paced course for majors "with no prior computing experience". It should be called "with no prior computing experience, who can afford to spend 20 hours a week on the course, are very organized and not procrastinators". At first I was concerned that of the 32, 11 were not in the "follow on" course. However, further exploration found that 7 of them were students past their first year in CS! That is majors, taking our lowest offered class. Looking at their records, you can guess they wanted to try to increase their GPAs... but they apparently didn't read the fine print, as after you have taken our CS1, you can get credit for taking CS0, but it doesn't contribute to your GPA average... :) Of the rest, 4 "declared" freshmen computing majors are not seemingly continuing on in CSE. One got a D in the class (there were extenuating circumstances), one is already switched to psychology (perhaps her parents made her select computing). The 2 others? I don't know. However, there are also 16 other students (non-majors0 from the class (out of >500) who are taking CS1 this term... Not all are freshmen, but many are. We'll see what happens! That was all I was interested in, and after that I successfully shut off from doing any work all weekend, including missing the date to report this :) Out to enjoy the 75F + weather! 050 We're in our third week and things are starting to settle in to a routine to some extent, though I'm still scrambling to get my courses under control. Today I'm working on a couple of teaching-related items: - I'm revising my notes for tomorrow's classes (networks and computer organization) - I'm desperately rewriting some sample networking code to go over in class. I've used Beej's guide (http://beej.us/guide/bgnet/output/html/multipage/index.html) in the past to supplement the textbook when it comes to sockets programming, but Beej changed all of his examples to take advantage of IPv6 networking routines. I discovered this while in front of the class and giving them a tour of Beej's guide during the last lecture! My examples (and notes) will need to be almost completely rewritten because the technology changed. - I'm refreshing my memory about stack conventions on the MIPS architecture, since we've started covering that material. Where does the stack pointer get saved with respect to the $s registers? Does the order of the $s registers in the frame matter? (It must, so how are they to be ordered?) - I'm hoping to get some grading done for the networks class. - I need to process submissions from the computer organization class. There was a due date last night, and I need to see who submitted and whether they followed the submission conventions this time or not. I also need to get the assignments to my grader and put together some notes on how to grade them. I've never used a grader for this course before, and we're still figuring out our work flow. So far, he hasn't really saved me any time, but I'm optimistic... - You've asked about teaching-related activities, but my primary task today is to finish up a letter on a colleague who's up for tenure. Back to it! 050 It's Friday. It's been a long week. Most of my day went to grading exams -- a miserable task. (More on that in a second.) I was interrupted by a recent graduate dropping in for advice, and ended up spending close to two hours talking with him about grad school and career options. He's one of our top graduates from recent years, and was doing a master's program in Germany but got disillusioned and quit. We talked a lot about what he enjoyed, what he hoped to do with his life, and the kinds of grad programs he might find to support that. I also spent about 30 minutes on the phone with a colleague a couple of thousand miles away about ways in which I can support his NSF proposal. I wrote a letter of support when he initially submitted, but it looks like it's going to get funded and he's hoping I can take a more active role. It's an interesting project, and I offered to get more involved, though I've really been trying to cut *back* on my commitments in recent years to spend more time with my kids. I just can't say no... The grading: midterm exams from my networks course, and from my assembly/comp org course. The networks course is senior level, and I try to ask questions that ask students to reason about things rather than regurgitate (e.g. proposing modifications of Ethernet's CSMA mechanisms and asking about the impact). Makes for some miserable grading though, as many of the answers are essentially essays. Thankfully I've got a small Networks class this term -- just 5 students. The computer organization course has 23 though, and has been much harder to grade despite being more specifically focused on skills and facts. I gave them an assembly programming problem, and therefore have to wade through 23 pages of hand-written MIPS code. I'd been reading about Parson's problems in an ICER paper recently, and had *really* wanted to try doing something like that to test programming ability on this exam. I didn't come up with any problems in the new style that I was comfortable using, though, and so went with the "old familiar". As I started grading I was regretting not having tried a Parson's-style problem, thinking that they'd have been easier to grade. But the more I graded the programming problem the less I was sure it would've helped. Students solved the problem in some very different (and very clever) ways, and I fear that a Parson's problem would've constrained them. 050 While I usually work a *lot* over the weekend on course-related issues, I left most of it behind this weekend. I have two toddlers at home, and they've begun having more anxiety about my absence, so it was good to spend some time with the family. (The kids ask me not to go to work these days. It's very sad.) I did spend some time editing documents and writing up notes as part of a comprehensive overhaul of our curriculum that I'm leading. (We started at the beginning of the summer, and have continued to meet and hash out the details.) The basic shape of the new curriculum has emerged, and we've sorted out staffing issues and frequency of offerings, etc. The bulk of my energies this weekend went into writing up a summary of the changes that can be circulated ahead of a meeting with the full department. (We're a combined Math/CS department, but only the CS faculty have been meeting to discuss changes in the CS curriculum.) We need to make sure the entire department is on board with the revised curriculum, and discuss some issues that will impact the full department like increasing the total number of required courses in CS, and changing some of the math prereq details. My remaining time this weekend went into assembling some intelligence from across campus about teaching loads in departments that teach labs. We currently get a .5 unit teaching reduction for teaching certain upper-level courses -- a remnant of the early days in the department when math faculty retrained to teach these courses. In practice, our load is 5 courses a year instead of 6, but there are rumblings that the model will disappear soon. This will cause at least two and likely all three of our full-time CS faculty to leave. (We have a fixed pay scale across disciplines that results in *very* low salaries for CS. An increased teaching load will be the final straw -- especially since two of the three of us have been here less than two years and can easily find more accommodating departments.) We're considering increasing the length of our labs and trying to "qualify" for the same treatment that lab sciences get: 1.5 teaching units for a course with a lab. Even that isn't keeping some CS faculty happy though. Finally, we had yet another failure of web services over the weekend. The situation has gotten bad enough that it's really starting to impact our ability to deliver courses, but we're having trouble making that point. This morning there's been lots of discussions and finger pointing about what happened and who was responsible, and a greater sense than usual that we need to push our point until the situation is improved or resolved. 050 We're on the semester system, so there's a flurry of activity this time of year. As I type, I'm watching 22 students from my computer organization course struggle over their final exam. (Later this evening, I'll be struggling with the grading.) I've been swamped with the final crush of grading, exam creation, and (soon to be) exam grading. The end is in sight! Additional issues on my plate today: Revising and expanding a letter of support for a colleague's NSF grant. (Mentioned in the 15 October 2010 entry.) Multiple meetings with students who are trying to line up independent projects for the spring semester and need my approval. A chat with the chair about one of my departmental colleagues who's almost certainly going to leave us because he (and his relationship) are having difficulty surviving in the face of an academic workload. I'll expand on that last item, since it's on-target for the Share Project: This colleague is a relatively new hire -- he's finishing his second semester with us, and came straight out of graduate school. He had a stellar academic pedigree and fantastic research credentials. He could've gone anywhere in academia or industry, and we counted ourselves extraordinarily lucky to have "landed" him. In the span of two semesters he's so discouraged by the demands of a faculty position that he's going to look for a position in industry. To be fair, he's a perfectionist, and puts MUCH more time into his lecture prep and grading than he should, but doesn't want to do the job unless he can "do it properly". 050 Yes, it's a Saturday, but I've been working for most of the day since our classes begin on Tuesday for the spring semester. Gotta keep this one brief... I've been scrambling to pull together my syllabi and teaching materials for two different courses: CS1 (I'm teaching two large sections) and the programming languages course. Not much new in CS1, though I'm going to be trying to work in some changes in advance of our curriculum overhaul. (I've mentioned in previous entries that we're in the middle of a comprehensive review. We'll be shifting some material from CS1 to CS2 in the new version, and I'm going to experiment a bit with reducing or omitting coverage of a couple of topics.) The bigger issue has been with the programming languages course. I used to use two textbooks -- one on Haskell and one on Prolog. The last time I taught the course I dropped the Prolog text and used an online tutorial instead. (Someone else's -- not something I'd written.) It worked pretty well, so this time around I decided to replace the Haskell text with an online tutorial as well. I discovered (quite recently) that the order of the topics in the new resource, and the way the introduce some of the material, is quite different than what I've done in the past. I'm having to rearrange my materials quite a bit to accommodate. I'm also furiously trying to wrap up a document describing our new curriculum. I promised back in my November entry that I was going to get it done, but it's still hanging over me. I've written about 10 pages so far this weekend, and need to write a couple more before I can call it a draft and circulate it to colleagues. It's been an awkward weekend to have to cram all of this in. My in-laws are here to visit (from 1500 miles away), today is their last day with us, and I've been hiding the in bedroom in front of my laptop all day. 050 Whoops -- missed this one by a day. Yesterday I was inundated by students, and didn't have a spare moment to eat, think, or work. It continued long after I got home (though it's easy to argue that it's my own fault for continuing to answer E-mails). Many of the students chasing me were from my intro course, asking for advice on homework or how to prepare better for our exam next week. Most were from my programming language paradigms course. They had an assignment due last night and were in a bit of a panic. I give them challenging tasks to complete, but the point is to expose them to some new technique or process that I want them to master. I *want* them to succeed. Giving up in frustration isn't the point. Hence the long hours I spent trying to coach students through it in person and via E-mail. Other things on my mind yesterday: I lead a subgroup of the curriculum committee, and I needed to schedule a meeting and set its agenda. I was also trying to finish up a survey to administer to CS departments at peer institutions to learn more about their teaching loads -- it's much harder than I'd thought it was going to be. I have several advisees in academic difficulty and I'm trying to stay on top of it. Finally, I had to spend time giving feedback to the graders for my CS1 sections and coaching them on how to grade the latest assignment. (This is only the second time I've used graders for CS1, but I have about 50 students and give weekly assignments, so I thought I'd give it a try. So far, the results have been less than stellar). 050 This is the first diary entry for which I have no academic issues to report! I haven't touched work all day. (This might, literally, be the first time that's happened since the start of the term.) I was at SIGCSE in Dallas, which is always a whirlwind, and I returned to my week-long spring break. I have no shortage of academic work to do: Assignments and exams to grade from before SIGCSE, reports to write to my departmental colleagues, etc. However, I chose to spend the day working on house projects and visiting with an old friend who's in town. I'm actually sitting on my butt and drinking beer as I write this -- a very rare occurrence indeed. 050 My grading backlog has reached an all-time high, and I've been scrambling trying to get back on top of things. I made some good progress yesterday, and if all goes well today I might be close to caught up. This is the first of two days when admitted students (and their parents) are invited to sit in on classes. I'm trying to come up with interesting material to present. I didn't plan very well though -- we'll start talking about inheritance in my intro classes, and it's not an obvious choice for impressing parents or prospective students! I'm also well behind on a variety of tasks -- from paperwork documenting my work on the curriculum committee to internal work on our 5-year curriculum review document. (I get to see it from both sides!) I'm also working up the nerve to meet with the dean regarding our teaching load issues. (We want to shift to a required lab component in our intro classes at long last, and need to negotiate teaching credit issues.) I'm supposed to organize our department's end-of-semester "conference" where students present talks on their work too. It's two weeks away and I haven't finalized a program yet! At home, I've had kids' birthdays to help with, visitors to host, and a flurry of household chores to complete as we're considering selling the house. It's been busy... 050 Our semester is officially over, and the graduation ceremony was today. I'm at home though, watching the kids, as my wife caught a bug from one of her students and is in rough shape. (This was a bit of a relief, actually, as otherwise I'd have had to decide whether to join a faculty boycott of the graduation ceremony to protest some heavy-handed revisions to our benefits package!) As possible, I've been finishing up some final grading today, and corresponding with students. I've also got "homework" to do regarding our curriculum review process, but I'm procrastinating on that. In other news, my long-awaited (and dreaded) meeting with the dean to address a switch to a lab-based model for our intro courses took place two days ago. It was a resounding success, from our perspective, and I'm still basking in the glow a bit. Since my last report, a bit of big news is that our department (a combined Math/CS department) has decided unanimously that a soon-to-be-vacated faculty position on the Math side should go to hiring a CS person. It's not up to us -- we need to lobby the dean to be allowed to hire -- but it's exciting to think about growing from three to FOUR CS faculty. Of course, the universe giveth, and the universe taketh away: While I've spoken previously about one of my fabulous new colleagues who's likely to leave, I've only recently discovered that the OTHER might be on his way out as well. Sigh. 050 I'm sitting outside enjoying a cup of tea and the sunshine. But, obviously, I've got my laptop with me and I'm doing work, despite the fact that a) my semester's over and the summer has started, b) I'm on sabbatical for the year, and c) I'm not even in the country anymore. Our curriculum revision project needs my input, so here I am generating Curriculum Action Reports and updating prerequisite graphs. Also, our dean authorized a three-year visiting position, and as I'm the senior CS person in a very small department, I need to be involved in the process even though I'm officially not on duty anymore. Fifteen years ago I told my wife that this job would get easier with time -- that the day would come when I wouldn't have to work every evening and every weekend. I don't have the heart to tell her how far off the mark I was. I guess I don't have to at this point! 051 Thank goodness for fall break. I really needed those two days off to rejuvenate myself. Before those two days, I was feeling extremely stressed and overwhelmed with all I had to do. After two days of relaxation, reading, and yard work, I realize that I really _didn't_ have that much to do. The stress was making me run in circles and I was getting (needlessly) overwhelmed. Lesson learned. Time for self is important too. I was also annoyed with my teaching observation this past week. I taught what I know was a great introductory programming class. The students were engaged, responding to questions, and really grokking the material. They actually cheered when they finished telling me what code to write and the program worked as expected. Applause! In a intro CS course! It was a great day. I've never had that happen and I was thrilled that this all happened on the day of my departmental teaching evaluation. I met with the observer (who I'll call Eeyore because he never has anything positive to say to anyone from what I can see) later that day who said, "Yeah, it was fine." Fine??! No, it was more than fine, and I know it. A great teaching demo wasted on Eeoyre. Grrrrr. I'll be really glad when my first year as a new faculty member is over. I feel like I'm spending so much time on mundane things that will be useful in the long run. But right now, they're sucking my time. For example, I managed to lock myself out of my voicemail and had to figure out the procedure to get it reset. Necessary, certainly. But time consuming. It seems way too early to be thinking about next semester, but book orders and catalog descriptions are due at my school. So I'm scrambling to put that together for 4 courses (I'm only teaching two of them, thank goodness). All the stuff they don't teach you about in grad school... Being in a small dept. means that there really aren't any standardized textbooks or formats for classes I can pattern match off of. I really hope I get some of the same preps next year so that all this effort will make next year smoother. 051 Busy time of year. The students are tired, the staff is tired, and I'm tired. But in 10 days, we get the (American) Thanksgiving holiday, and by this time next month, I'll be grading finals and entering final grades. Then to start the routine all over again by prepping next semesters courses. Why is it that 10% of your students take up 90% of your time? I have a student that I've tried to reach out to several times as he hasn't appeared in my class for 6-7 weeks and is failing miserably. Of course, I heard from him an hour before the exam on Friday saying he was horribly prepared and wanted to take the exam at another time. He's blown off several meetings with me and has blown off another one today. Why do I keep trying to help students who just won't be helped? Time to concentrate on the 90% of students who care. On the plus side, I continue to love my freshman seminar class. The students in that class come to class everyday and are enthusiastic about the material and computer science. I'm not sure how I got such a wonderful group, but I'll take it. They actually celebrate when they learn how to program something really cool. It makes me even more enthusiastic about teaching them and I'm willing to put even more effort into prepping for their class. I was also really pleased with my CS0, non-majors class's test results from last Friday. I can tell they really studied and worked for the (relatively) high grades they received. They still don't understand the difference between "return" and "print" statements through. That's the curse of teaching in an interpreted language like Python. 051 It's been a long week, month, and semester. Am like the kitten on the poster: "When you get to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on." Am hanging on for just a few more weeks. Spent good portion of morning on phone with Uni Honor Council over students who cheated on work. I don't know why students think I won't see it when they turn in IDENTICAL copies of the work and both claim to have worked independently. Then sit in my office and boldly proclaim, "I'm not a cheater." Ummm, I beg to differ. I hate it when this happens. I start suspecting ALL my students and that's simply not fair to them. Most students are hard-working and motivated to learn. It's a case of few bad apples tainting all the others. This week has me so rundown that I showed two short videos in one class and am giving a problem set for in-class work in the other one today. They're relevant to class, but I'm just not up to giving a full lecture today. Hopefully I'll be back in force next week. And soon, the summer to recharge my batteries and wash the bad taste out of my mouth that this semester is leaving. 053 I'm on sabbatical, so my stories may not be quite like the standard teaching diaries, but the sabbatical topic is education research. Working day started at 8.30am with a conversation with Viv (pseudonym). Having got in quite a lot earlier than me, she had received an e-mail from a guy at an agency from whom she'd opened negotiations on the possibility of our jointly getting funding to extend my stay / research programme here. She eagerly told me that she'd been waiting until I came in before opening it. I'm writing about this because I related completely to the almost-superstition with which she was approaching the email opening - like receiving exam results in the post. Open... silence... "hmmmph", "almost never fund special projects" - so that was it, not funded. But Viv is very pro-active - within a few minutes the disappointment had partially dissipated and she was already looking at the next possibilities for funding. I'm tracking a major course that Viv is preparing to teach both in Fall and Winter term. She is trying out so many new things at once (just like me) that I have rather lost track of exactly what she is aiming to achieve with them all. Why is she trying them? What is her research objective, if any? She had sent me some questions to include in a pre-survey the day before, and I had ground to a halt on reviewing them because the context of the pre-survey, in terms of the research questions/framework, was not clear. So we arranged a time later in the day to talk about this. Back to my own office. Some emails from back home concerning an innovative student induction programme which I was heavily involved in running last academic year, and this year I'm watching from afar. Mixed reports. The person who ran it (front of house, taking my position from last year) is quite gloomy - and wonders whether the (perceived) reduction in student enthusiasm is due to something in the recipe, or is it due to his front-of-house performance compared to mine. Hey-ho - educational evaluation is so challenging - and it can be so easy to take it personally. My colleague is externally bullet-proof, but in his mail, I definitely read strands of his having taken a personal hit from the responses. Of course, we have proper student evaluations from all students this time, but from only a few last year. So many false ways in which our fragile egos can get hit. If it really hasn't gone that well, I'll be disappointed too - because I did think this was a bit of an education/induction breakthrough as a design. I'm running a project back home about university-level writing skills. We're into our second round of annual funding (the initial one-year project got extended), and a final report on the first year is required. So read the draft and Skyped the author for a chat about it. Exciting in that the report opened up for me some new avenues for a possible third year of funding. The project so far has principally been about adjusting to university level writing - or more particularly, university level writing as required by different disciplinary areas - and how this is different in each. But the next phase, if funded, would be about the next transition - from university-level writing out to whatever working context the student meets. This is something I don't think many academics think about. First, they forget that every discipline has a different style and then they forget that their style, once mastered by their students, may not suit the student well in their on-going careers. Another example of academics only being interested in creating graduates "like us". While reading the beginning of a paper on measuring metacognitive skills, some grit got disturbed. Yes, grit. Viv and I are using that term right now in the context of learning experiences that upset a student's understanding in some way - show up a hole in understanding, open up a new avenue - that sort of thing. The grit in our understanding needs to be worked out. So the paper got me thinking more deeply about what we were doing. The paper's context was stated as understanding more about what students were doing in complex assessments - which required meta-cognitive skills such as planning, problem solving, awareness, choosing of appropriate cognitive strategies and so on. The grit moment was the realisation that pretty well everything we ask students to do in a programming course requires all of these - none of our assessments are what I assume this paper would call 'simple' (though it gave no examples of these). Since we are trying to measure the effect of various interventions on metacognitive skills, this paper looked promising - but by the time I got to the end, the questions just didn't seem right :-( Back to the drawing board. Spent 90 minutes with Viv after this going over all the aspects of the very complex learning design she has associated with this course. What she commented on, and what I know so well from personal experience, is how valuable it is to have someone else to bounce one's ideas off. Of all the stuff she's doing, she'd probably not get to about 50-70% without having someone to discuss it with, to help her see the next steps, to get moving and commit. In this case it works both ways, because the conversations are getting clear to me what I want to evaluate in this course. But the general point is: why don't more of us teach more collaboratively? Sure, it appears that it takes up time discussing what we're going to do with another - and for them, time to listen and comment. But how much improvement would we get in our thinking toward our teaching if we did more of it? Lots. I guess the benefits aren't perceived for both parties. But I'm learning a lot in more of the observer role - and I've gained huge amount when I've been in the driving seat. This, a conversation a few weeks back with Viv, and a conversation later in the day with an Englishman working over here long-term, really underline how valuable my working relationships have been back home. I've had quite a lot of very valuable reflection time around my teaching both before and after its delivery with my colleagues. Yet I see this is very unusual. Most of academia is so individualistic, particularly here in the US apparently. To Viv, it is clearly quite an eye-opener to have someone sit down with her and discuss her learning design in detail. Essentially, my ex-pat colleague was essentially saying the same thing, only in the research context - even there, there is now such a focus on inter-campus working that nobody in his research group is ever there. While the connections are/look great, the cohesion of the local unit is breaking up. I fear for this in my home institution, where cross-cultural working is being pushed heavily, and in my own department, where a number of my favourite, and very collegiate, colleagues are at the point of retiring. With the individualism of US academia thoroughly encroaching on the UK system, how much will we lose in our learning and teaching environments? I've always suspected that writing a diary was the reason so many successful people are successful - but it's amazing how much happened today, in what I probably would otherwise have thought of as quite a mundane day. God, reflection being useful for learning - who'd have thought it? Always wished I could get myself to do more of it too.... 053 It's the end of Viv's course, the one that I've been working alongside on my sabbatical out here. Yesterday, the final grades were resolved for the 570 students on the course. The difference between the UK and the US is so marked at this point - nearly all students in the US got A or B, and a tiny tail technically failed with below a C - whereas a D is a pass in my institution in the UK. And so many points towards this final mark are given for participation. "Students go where the marks are." Although I find this slightly odd, there are interesting consequences: the students had a "take home" part to their final exam which was termed a "reflective essay" and was in reality an extended evaluation form to help with Viv's research. Great! Now we're working on a grant application to further analyse what's been going on in the course - in particular, in Peer Instruction discussions, -what do students speak about -even with PI, how much time is really spent discussing Growing realisation over the last few days and weeks around the strange emphasis we put on construction in CS - not like this at all in other subjects - far from us, Eng Lit doesn't expect graduates to be able to write Jane Eyre, and closer, Engineering don't really teach the specifics - there's too much in the subject to do that. So why do we? This particular course of Viv's appears to have been particularly good at developing students analysis and communication skills, though not necessarily their construction skills. Perhaps this is a better way to start embedding students' skills in computation? No e-mail from back home! (Christmas!) I notice how ever more quickly the corridors empty out once teaching is done, whether it's in the UK or here in the US. Where does everyone go? Do so many of us work at home? Or have visits away in the vacation? Or are there large armies of academics sitting at home, feet up with a beer, recovering from the onslaught? I've just been to the loo, and in the cubicle next to where I was standing doing what men do, I could clearly hear intermittent tapping on a keyboard. Now, **that** is taking work toooo seriously! 053 I've been fairly disconnected from my University's activities while out of the country for eight months, but this last month or two since my return has been a rude awakening. This was churned up on Sunday while at lunch with a colleague. My general observation is a parallel I see between my university's management and that of the country. Principally, they present their ideas so badly. They're made up of intelligent people (I assume), and have good reasons for what they're doing. Is the failure to communicate their reasons to those who work for, or vote for, them down to oversight or arrogance? Examples at the level of government involve the fees issue. Presenting them as fees has attracted all manner of bad press and instilled genuine fear among parents by promoting the view that from 2012, each student will need to find #9K. But they won't. The 'fees' are not fees, they're fee-loans, or in many cases fee-waivers. Students won't pay the money back until they can - many never will. Furthermore, there is plenty of research showing that the best return on educational investment takes place at the 0-5 age group, and then steadily declines through primary, secondary and tertiary education. Yet currently, the most money is spent on tertiary education per head, with steadily reducing amounts through secondary, primary and pre-school. This is a compelling argument for shifting the balance of education funding. I'm not saying that I agree or disagree with what the government is doing - I'm just amazed that they don't think it's worth spelling out their reasoning more clearly in order to take the electorate with them. Similarly in the University here, there is a clear failure to articulate policy that is created by an ever-more unrepresentative, and diminishing, body at the top of the institution. One example is a decision to close a number of subject areas in the face of imminent budget reductions. At no point has the senior management made a coherent attempt that I've seen to argue why these particular areas, not those, should close. But surely there must be such an argument in place? One is left to assume incompetence or mendacity at the top, neither of which any sensible management group would want to attract. Hey ho. On balance, my colleague and I are erring toward mendacity. The University is in the process of spending #13M on a new student records system. From the very first day it was announced, we in CS have noted all the typical hallmarks of failure in procurement of public sector IT systems. At so many levels, this process and system are broken. We, a highly-rated department with specific interest in accident analysis and software engineering failures, have duly reported our concerns on many occasions. But there is no point. Nobody listens. They talk about consultation and transparency, but these are smokescreen words for apparently listening but then doing nothing. My colleague is only a year or two from retiring, and so while he is amazed at the incompetence displayed, he appears content to hold his station on the juggernaut. I'm left wondering how you do get heard. Do I have to go to the press? What evidence do I have? Data Access Requests have parts of meeting minutes redacted. Why? What is there to hide? Surely it can be nothing other than some wrong-doing?! Another colleague, also at retirement, recommends the light-hearted approach. "You mustn't let it get to you" - and of course I know the truth of that. Laugh about it with friends and take the next step. But where do we take a stand? What issues are large enough? Surely twenty-five thousand staff and students should stand against a management group of four, for the sake of the good standing of their institution? Damn. I'm on the fence, or rather, still keeping my head below the parapet. Where **is** the Vice Principal's number....? 053 I'm on paternity leave this week for our second child - this is towards the end of the second week - so of course, it's all plain sailing now :-) I"m getting used to doing most of the looking after of my son, while my wife looks after the new baby. I'm even getting time to work on a load of things that need attention in the flat, only three months after we returned from the US. I'm (almost) not reading work email at all. It seems to have broken on my laptop anyway, so I can only get it on my iPhone, and I can't do anything serious on that. My wife commented today that the pretty-well complete break from work, to be replaced with the solving of entirely tractable problems around the house, seems to be doing me a lot of good. Is there a lesson in here for me? I love to fix things. Yet so many of my work projects seem to be either hugely open-ended, or impossibly broken. Hence not much completion going on! But now I look at it that way, i can see that my approach to the projects is actually the problem - I've slipped into impossibility. Rather than viewing them as open-ended or broken, I need to identify and take a step at a time. Oh, and of course, simply drop the ones that I discern to be really truly broken! (Potentially) simple, really. Good stuff, this diary writing. I'll let you know whether I've made any progress on my work projects, as well as my flat projects, next time! 053 I am writing this entry some time after the event, but my over-riding memory coming from the 15th was the realisation that there were only five working weeks, bar a work trip away and a holiday, until the start of term. This is a repeating annual problem for me! There I am, thinking I have all the time in the world to get ready for the coming year, and then it's suddenly just a few short working days until it all starts again. The summer used to seem so long - and yet somehow it is now getting smaller and smaller! Start of induction week is September 11th. This is nearly a whole month earlier than it used to be. Yet it doesnt' feel that the year is finishing that much earlier - back in June/July. It's a big wake-up call this year because of new courses for me to teach next session, a new student records system to get our heads around (as an adviser who communicates with all new incoming students), and being class head for Level 1. Not to mention commitments to complete on from sabbatical and such like. 053 Gah - once again, I'm writing way after the event. And this time, I actually opened up a window to record what I was doing on that day. One reason for that was the University picked the week 15/19th August for me to do my "Time Allocation Survey". How strong the contrast: with one half of my brain, I'm reflecting on what is of value in my day; with the other, I'm noting down the number of minutes spent of different activities. How typical that it takes something external to the institution to get me thinking in really useful ways. I made bread this morning for the first time for literally years. My wife of a similar number of years is wheat intolerant, and my usually very successful bread recipe requires granary flour - and I've found no non-modern wheat equivalent, and past attempts with spelt flour have failed unpleasantly. But not this morning, I'm glad to say - really nice light fluffy loaf. Sneaky trick - make dough the night before, put in fridge. Still rises ok. Early morning, put in microwave on defrost for 10 minutes just to wake the yeast up, knock back, add goodies, then prove and cook. Much faster morning, great bread, and still get into work at a decent time. With recent young children, and a consequent restriction on when and for how long I can do work things, I'm becoming increasingly petrified of the impending term. Only mid August, but in a month, we'll be back in the whirl. I keep telling myself I must become more ruthless, shut the door more, focus on what must be done. But, God, I'm so bad at it. I just find it so difficult not to be sociable. This morning, as I walked into the department, I spoke to Helen the secretary whom I've know since I first came here 16 years ago, and for some reason we ended up talking about cancer of all things (a favourite colleague's wife has it); then it was Pete, the head of IT in the dept, and we had a blether about machinery; then it was Patrick in the next office who had his leg amputated a while back, and we fell into a deeper conversation about the effect of the lost leg than I've had before - and somehow juxtaposed, discussed what a beautiful week it was. These "make" my work environment for me - necessary oil. But my head shrieks "no time, no time!" I was "collared" by colleagues who are teaching a course this year that I've taught for many years, in order to get me to do a guest slot. Oh oh, I really should follow their model more - they're organised and ahead of the game, and making their life during term-time easier. I see I've written in my notes for the day "Why can I never do this?" Note of despair?! Well, come on, how hard can it be to be organised ahead of the game? I guess I don't know, I don't think I've ever managed it!! Today was a tussle between dealing with students and writing a paper. This is at the root of my difficulties with organisation: I'll firefight or respond to immediate external queries rather than putting them aside until I've made a plan, allocated time etc. And even when I've made a plan, allocated time etc., I still let myself get distracted by the same stuff - firefighting and external requests. Gaah. Oddly, I think I may have started the year writing a diary entry much like this! Anyway, thanks for enabling me to have the experience of this exercise. I don't think I've ever actually written on the day of the diary, but there's something immensely forgiving about the process. I missed a few months, but I've always been drawn to get there in the end if I can - and oddly, it's become increasingly my choice to write each month rather than the result of an external driver telling me I should. This sparks me to consider another huge challenge delivered by the ludicrous flexibility of the Higher Education environment: doing exactly what I want to do vs. professionally, doing what needs to be done. 059 Share Project Diary Entry 15/09/10 Got up at 05:00, browsed yesterday's papers over breakfast, and a London Review of Books article "The Pope Wears Prada" - by Colm Toibin - not really a book review but a reflection on Catholic Ireland and where it has possibly disappeared to. Collected up handouts for today's teaching. 06:50: At the bus stop, a notice saying all buses will be diverted from 05:00 tomorrow owing to the Pope's visit. That will mean a half hour walk to the station tomorrow to make my 09:00 tutorial - well, it's good to have the incentive to do what I always mean to do but seldom accomplish. 07:25 Train fuller than usual and rather noisy. Catch up with 100 emails of which 20 require actual thought or action. Email seems to take up 2 hours a day at present. Time management gurus say "Delegate tasks" - but to whom? There's good news from a colleague in Germany about interest shown in joining the European research proposal consortium which I'm currently driving. 09:00 to 11:00 Two hour lecture slot, my first with this group of Masters' students. Someone decided we should start teaching in mid-September this year - allegedly to meet student demand, though I doubt it. The class is certainly keen. It will be fun teaching them. They come from an amazingly wide range of backgrounds; this could be daunting for most of them, as every student is going to feel he/she is in a minority. I give them a 15 minute break in the middle (nobody can pay attention for two hours!) 11:00 dash across to next block for an Honours tutorial group. There was no need to hurry - they drift in over the next 10 minutes. Rather low-key at first, but when they get going on their group exercises they become more focused and more alert. 12:00 back where I started. I seem to have mislaid two of the Masters students, but the rest are there full of questions and suggestions. Set them a reflective writing task based on giving an account of their final honours project - if they did one. Most did, but we have an Architect and an Islamic Arts graduate, whos experiences were very different. We work out how you can reflect in a similar way on very different types of project. It's 13:00 before I know it. 13:00 sit in on "Postgraduate Cafe", an event organised by our student's association to get postgrads more involved in university life. Unfortunately have to leave before the sandwiches are served - I have a meeting with our Research and Innovation Services about an industrial contact. Meeting cancelled, but it seems bad manners to crash back into the "Postgraduate Cafe" at this stage. 14:15 One of last year's overseas Masters' students comes to go over the main points of his dissertation. Owing to the change in teaching year, he got thrown out of the university residence one week before the due hand-in date for his dissertation: not much joined-up thinking there, for all the marketing effort put into increasing our overseas intake. 15:00 Colleague calls with concerns over a research student. I remind him we have to firm up on dates for Masters' presentations. He promises to check his own diary against the availabilities I have sent him. 15:15 Another Masters student comes to hand in dissertation, very proud to have made the deadline. 15:50 Train: reading, writing, planning. Before I get home I receive an email from the Masters student who handed in on time - he has now discovered what he thinks is an enormous mistake in his dissertation. Watch the news. Great merriment about Cardinal Kasper. Well, it's true, Heathrow *is* a third-world airport. What's the point of prelates if they can't speak truth to power? - power nowadays being in the hands of the many, or their self-appointed spokespersons. Supper. Sort out desk and bag for tomorrow's early start. Relax in a warm bath and fall asleep nearly instantly. 059 En route to Oxford for a reunion of my college year. Spend morning updating material for remote collaborative learning exercise in academic writing between our students and students at University of Cologne. Afternoon on bus from Aylesbury to Oxford. Receive request from colleague for rapid input to a research proposal with a very tight deadline and start to pull ideas together. Deal with two emails from taught postgraduate students who are going to have to re-submit their dissertations. Difficult to strike appropriately sensitive yet stern note, particularly in the email world! 059 Four hour train journey, should be able to get some work done. But the first hour-and-half turns out to be standing-room only. Read and respond to students' online contributions, and to several anxious emails about the presentations they are to give later this week. Firm up arrangements for industry research liaison officer's visit. In office, locate and mark a missing script. Schedule various meetings through the week. Return overdue library books. One stubbornly refuses to be returned - the kiosk says it has "Status BO". Rush home for a meeting about neighbourhood parking controls, after which I download a lot more emails, which I resolve to process quickly and efficiently - tomorrow? 059 Morning - write feedback for a re-submitting MSc student; catch up with online forum of Cologne and GCU students, follow up potential project partners, submit expense claims. Afternoon - Department Meeting to discuss the third university reorganisation in as many years. Meet collegue to discuss FP7 proposal. Chase up spare equipment for visiting students from Crete who will be on a training placement at GCU from January. 060 7:30 a.m. My day begins. The semester commences from next Monday (20th September), but I do not start teaching till mid October. This is my time to catch up with my research and do all the administrative work I have in addition to my teaching. 10 a.m. Meeting with a new colleague, who is due to start teaching next week. I have met him earlier, and now we discuss his syllabus, the learning outcomes and how he plans to arrange the workshops for students. R Rest of the morning... In between writing the paper I am working on, I answer emails from colleagues (about arrangements for the freshman orientation, how to set up online quizzes, hiring of programming tutors) and from students (questions about internships, schedules, setting up a student server). 1 pm: Time for a lunch break. In the afternoon, I get some uninterrupted time to write. 3 pm. Meeting with two other colleagues to discuss the possibility of a Masters(TM) student being hired to support the staff in using educational technologies. Blended learning is now officially recognised as the university norm. Far cry from photocopying notes and exams and lecturing for 3 hours! I feel elated at the role I have played in this transformation. 4 to 6 pm. Address by the Vice Chancellor followed by high tea. I take time to chat with new colleagues and reconnect with those in other campuses. I leave inspired by the vision of the future and the strides that we have taken so far. I hope my enthusiasm lasts till the end of the academic year. Somehow, the second half of each year just deteriorates into chaos. Once I start teaching, my day is likely to be a whirl of classes, grading, and preparation. It is nice to have a long summer break. 060 7 a.m. My day always begins with checking mail. This is my non-teaching day. I taught yesterday. I log into our learning management system. I notice that my students have all made it to the deadline and uploaded their assignments. It is rather nice to have a system that can enforce deadlines! I spend an hour revising a paper that I am writing. I relish the quiet time before I leave for the university. 10 a.m. I am at the university. Today, the Geek Club is organising a Clean PC workshop for the students and staff of the university. As mentor, I check that all the arrangements are done for the visiting speakers. I am constantly amazed at the way that students and colleagues can ignore basic anti-virus and firewall safeguards on their laptops. This is one way to generate awareness, and get the club to offer their services later. 10:30 to 12:30 I attended the workshop. The attendance is less than expected. However, the ones who attended appeared interested. I noticed a number of Business majors. CS and IS majors have falling numbers, and during the workshop I pondered if it was the job market, or perceptions of computing that kept students away. 12:30 to 2:00 My lunch is mostly a sandwich at my desk. However, today I went with the Dean to have lunch with two faculty members from another university. This was a preliminary discussion for collaboration. We are looking for visiting faculty to teach and they are looking for students to help with research projects. It seems a win-win situation and we part with the understanding that we can now take the next step through proper channels. 2:00 to 5:00 This is grading time. I am pleased with the quality of some of the assignments that have been submitted by my students. It seems that they actually read the criteria carefully. Language is a major issue in this part of the world, and sometimes stuff gets lost in translation. I worked steadily, interrupted only by colleagues who dropped by to chat. Returning encouraging feedback does require concentration. I check that I am ready for next week's classes. 5:00 I leave the university. I spend some time hunting for a gift for a friend who will have her birthday soon. I find the perfect gift - a spa set! It's Friday. I spend the rest of the evening relaxing at home with my husband. A spot of cooking, reading, TV. Nothing unusual. 060 Nov 15 This was a non-teaching day. So, I spent the day grading, preparing for the next day's class and meeting colleagues. Morning: It would be nice to have more time to grade. However, the students need feedback before they can start their next assignment. Already, a couple of them have enquired about their grade. If only more students were motivated by the love of the subject, rather than an interest in finding out about their grades! The assignment seems to have been handled satisfactorily by most students. There is only one girl in the class. She has done well. I wonder: Where are the girls in computing? Why aren't more girls signing up for majors in technology related subjects? Lunch with a colleague: We talk about funding for projects. There are limited sources for funding, too many proposals, and low approval rates. I get an idea about how to go about the business and come away with plans for the next year. Afternoon: Prep time for the next day's class. A 9 a.m. class necessitates that I have everything ready the day before. The student tutor drops by to discuss issues with students. Language continues to be the biggest handicap for some students. A colleague invites me for tea. We discuss plans for the revised Masters' program. It seems our programs need constant revision to keep up with industry expectations. Falling enrolment numbers are a clear indication that it is time to rethink the focus of the program. Evening: I left work early. The annual food festival is on, and it was a nice way to end the day. 060 I woke up to find grey skies and a forecast that promised single digit temperatures. My day revolved around the programming class that I taught from 12:30 to 3:30. I spent the morning clearing my email inbox. There was some good news. The local telecom giant has agreed to take three of our students for a work experience stint. This has taken two months of correspondence and telephone calls to set up! Now I have to chase the students to get their schedules for January. Another bright spot for the day is confirmation from a local IT professional to teach a project management module. Nice to know that local professionals want to share their experiences with our students! In the staff room there is a discussion about the looming Christmas break. Like me, most of my colleagues seem to be happy to stay at home and avoid airport chaos. I spent the rest of the morning grading assignments and returning feedback. A couple of students came to show me their progress with the next assignment. They have decided to tackle the challenge level and I am pleased with the effort they have put in. I returned from the programming class feeling very satisfied. The role plays to understand how to associate classes was fun. The student pairs managed to generate their javadocs and create jar files. The noise level was high at times, but the engagement was intense. I still have a problem with the low language ability of one of the students. He did not attend the session arranged with the programming tutor. However, he has signed up for extra language classes, so I guess he has prioritised his requirements. It started raining with squally winds. Later in the afternoon, I had my annual medical check-up. My doctor was impressed with my blood pressure readings. I left the hospital and spent the rest of the evening at home with my husband. 060 Since it was a Saturday, my entire day was devoted to non-work affairs. This meant catching up with my mother and son who live in other countries. It was also a day for surfing Facebook to catch up with the happenings in the lives of my friends and extended family. I spent part of the afternoon reading a novel. My husband and I went out for dinner with friends. I have made a resolution for 2011 to allocate the weekends to "me time". The previous year was a period of high stress at work and home. I took a good hard look at my lifestyle and realised that I am the cause of my health problems. Now I have resolved to be kinder to myself. 060 I forgot to upload the diary on Feb 15th. That's how busy I was! Semester 2 started on Feb 14th and the crazy beginning-of-semester-chaos set in. Let me list all the things I dealt with on Tuesday, the 15th. I had to meet with disgruntled students who could not add or drop modules to their liking - yes, we have perquisites. I had to identify students who were eligible for supplementary exams - an excruciating process of wading through Excel sheets. I had to patiently explain to visiting faculty the mysterious ways of our IT systems. With no official "term break" I was still lagging behind in preparing for a module that I was going to teach for the first time. In between, I checked to make sure I was ready for the next day's class, coordinated with another faculty member about a workshop she was conducting on cooperative learning, and answered endless emails. I prefer days when I am teaching. Then, my day flows in an organised way and I have a sense of achievement at the end of the day. My non-teaching days are typically chaotic and exhausting. I am seriously thinking of checking emails only once every hour, instead of watching them bounce into my inbox every minute. No matter how I plan my non-teaching day (catch up with grading, work on a paper for submission, read professional articles), the day ends up disorganised. I just "crashed" when I came home in the evening and switched off all thinking faculties! 060 Friday, the 15th of April started as any other day. However, it ended up being very stressful. I spent the morning preparing for my noon class. Half an hour before my class was due to start, Windows crashed while updating! So there I was sprinting across campus to the IT Support office. Luckily, they had a new laptop available and I was able to use the material I had already uploaded on the university(TM)s learning management system. The class experience itself was delightful. My students are using a FOSS database to create a web-based project for the university. The teams are really working well. The main reason seems to be that the project is seen as real, useful, and interesting unlike other oetoy projects done earlier. Also, it is my belief that team monitoring and individual accountability components of projects work better with year 3 and 4 students. The rest of the evening was stressful. I was able to load my work files from backup and sync across other devices. However, I also had to install a dozen programs I use for various classes. Think JDK, BlueJ, Jeliot, VMs, servers. I also went from Vista to Windows 7, from Office 2007 to 2010 " enough to make me wish IT Support would hand out Macs or seriously consider Linux OS. All of the above was punctuated by a meeting with colleagues about funding proposals. It is useful to hear about other successful projects. At the end of the day, I had just enough energy to cook a meal for two. --------- There is no entry for March as I was preparing for my doctoral defense. I graduated summa cum laude. However, it seems that even after enlightenment, sages still carry water and chop firewood! 060 It was a lazy Sunday morning. I got up late - the after effects of attending a party on Saturday night. I spent some time chatting with family on Skype. It seems parents continue to give advice even when the brood has quit the nest. After a long nap in the afternoon, I was ready to tackle the conference paper I was preparing. I worked steadily till dinner time. All in all, a very satisfying Sunday. 060 On June 15th, I taught graduate students from 7 to 10:30 pm. Therefore, I spent the morning preparing for class and clearing my mailbox. In the mail, apart from the usual queries from students and notices from administration, there was an invitation from the Head of the undergraduate school to join Yammer. So now we have a university social network site and I have one more daily task to monitor the discussions among colleagues. I barely get time to surf Facebook and do not quite relish the extra demand on my time, even if it is meant to "increase productivity". I spent the afternoon attending a press conference to launch a Business-IT business plan competition among local universities. I am all for strengthening the links between local businesses and students. It gives an opportunity to our students to do summer internships and opens up their eyes to local career prospects. It was time well spent to meet industry leaders and educationists. My graduate class is everything I hope for. My students are smart, funny, and enthusiastic. They are so different from my undergraduate students. It is so much more challenging to motivate the undergraduates. The graduate students are all working professionals and bring a refreshing perspective to the issues we discuss in class. Two weeks to summer vacation and hibernation! 060 I have moved to another university to take up a researcher/lecturer position. It does not help to be jetlagged and to cope with new systems, expectations, and procedures. The good news is that I do not teach until next month. The bad news is that I have a number of deadlines for submission of papers and a book chapter, in addition to preparing for my forthcoming classes. I am grateful for the friendship and support offered by the close knitted CSEd community that I am now a part of. I cannot help comparing the institutions. It seems to me that we have similar problems with administration, with finding funding, and with striking a balance between our professional and personal lives. Having said that, I do find working at a large university exhilarating. I can see how stimulating the interactions with a large faculty can be. I hope I can maintain the close rapport with students that I have in my own much smaller university. 072 9:30-10:30 going through emails and short documents at home 10:30-11:00 travelling to the University 11:30-14:00 attended workshop on research collaboration, including a working lunch where we had a discussion in small groups 14:00-15:30 had three half-hour meetings with research students. Caught up with emails in odd moments. At one point an MSc student who has been having some problems came to knock on my door so I had a brief 5 minute chat with her to sort out her work and said that I would send her something later in the day with some ideas for how she could restructure her project. 15:30-16:00 catchup with two colleagues about progress on various tasks within the department. 16:00-17:30 working on minor tasks: writing a reference for a grant application, reading emails, checking up on the progress of a few ongoing projects. 19:00-20:00 Reviewing a grant for the Royal Society (deadline today!) 22:00-0:00 (and beyond) working on computer program for a research project. 072 12 midnight-3am Working on computer experiments for research idea (at home). Have had a good idea and since 10pm yesterday I have been implementing it and testing it. Seems to work well, but need to do comparison against other methods on a wider set of data sets. Take a semi-break at one point and watch an old episode of '70s BBC engineering programme "The Great Egg Race" for inspiration - astonishing how disorganised and undistilled TV programmes were in those days. Get concerned that I have just reinvented a standard technique so I look things up in a textbook - hurrah I can look this up online despite the book being in my room at the University - and look up some related papers. Some colleagues from the States had a paper in Science about these techniques a year or so ago so a significant innovation would be great - but their paper had a lot of experimental physics work in too so I don't think we will be aiming that high. If it works out it'll make a nice talk for the European conference for which the deadline is looming, then a good journal paper. Try to install a charting program to do automated charts for my program, but it doesn't install properly and screws up the text editor too. Time to give up work for the day - tinker around on some piano music (another technology hurrah I can play piano on my electronic piano at 2:30am without disturbing the neighbours) and watch some TV I recorded earlier. Go to bed at about 3am. 10-11am wake up, shower, coffee whilst checking emails and copying files over to University machine, go up to University getting croissants for "breakfast" from local shop whilst on way bus stop. 11:00-12:30 Lots of little tasks. Talking to various colleagues individually about UG and PG admissions, National Student Survey, access to the building. Tinkering with computer program for research and sending emails in the gaps between this. 12:30-13:15 Go down to lunch in refectory, chat socially to a couple of research students over lunch. 13:15-15:00 Work on computer program for research (little details that can easily be fitted amongst other tasks), talk to one of my research students about his upcoming viva, have a read of national student survey results and discuss this informally with another colleague. 15:00-15:30 Tea and cakes as end of induction programme for new research students; chat with students and colleagues. 15:30-16:00 Skype call from colleague at another University asking if I would consider standing as vice-chair of a learned society in which I am active; have a chat about that and a couple of other things and say that I'll get back to him next week. 16:00-17:00 I Skype call a colleague at Warwick to talk about a research project. We spend about half an hour updating each other on what we are doing and setting plans for the next week, then we spend about half an hour on social chat. 17:00-19:00 Working on computer program for research project, gradually fades into pissing around on the internet for half an hour at the end looking at cartoons and blogs. 19:00-21:00 Go to gym on campus, something which I am bizarrely managing to keep up fairly well after making a new years resolution to go regularly a couple of years ago, though whether it has any effect I don't know. Nip to shop on campus to buy food and newspapers and get bus home. 21:00-22:30 Cook dinner whilst watching television, read the newspaper, get a phone call from a friend. 22:30-24:00 Feel inspired to do something productive again. Finish reviewing a paper for a journal, send it off, then spend an hour reading a book about new media - the latter feels like half work half personal interest. 072 Travelling back from a research visit to Japan Advanced Institute for Science and Technology. Got up early (5am) and went to airport, got on a plane to Hong Kong, did a bit of shopping and then went to my hotel and went to sleep very early. 072 Arrive at University 9:15 to attend course on Strategic Leadership together with other Heads of School and similar. Like a lot of these sorts of things, the course is a mixture of useful techniques and ideas and fairly useless ramblings. Have lunch as part of the course, then from 13:00-15:00 I have a further session with the same group about the student admission process - this is much more focused and gives me some useful information. From 15:00-16:30 I see a PhD student who has lost his direction somewhat and have a substantial talk about his work. 17:00-18:30 I go to listen to a research seminar talk (on the way over stopping to hear a brass band playing christmas carols!), which was rather bitty and unfocused. Finish work, meet up with friends and have dinner on campus then go to the comedy night at the campus theatre. 072 Visting my parents in the midlands. My mother has just come out from hospital after having taking ill over Christmas, so I am looking after her at home, and also my father who is showing increasingly dramatic signs of dementia. Spend most of the day on domestic tasks: cooking, cleaning and shopping. Spend an hour or so in the evening reading a book that I have volunteered to review, and then spend a couple of hours watching television after my parents have gone to bed. Trying to work out how I'll manage to organise all of this once term starts - at least for the last four weeks I've been able to stay up in for all but an occasional day. 072 I'm currently spending weekends at my father's house since my mother died earlier in the year, so I started out this morning there sorting out a few domestic things and making lunch. Headed back on the train in the afternoon, a three hour journey, read some of a PhD thesis that I am examining at the end of the week and a couple of papers to review, and then a bit of the London Review of Books for a contrast. Got back, checked email, made dinner, wrote up the reviews from earlier, responded to a few work and personal tasks like paying bills and sorting out arrangements for external examining and answering student queries about the upcoming exam. 072 Working on various admin tasks from 9:00-11:00, firstly at home then at the Univeristy. See research students from 11:00-12:30ish, then a resitting project student for about 10 minutes. At 12:30 the first of our external examiners arrives to look through material for the exam board tomorrow. I take the examiner to lunch at around 13:00 and then return to go through some of the exam material. I see another research student for around 30 minutes at 14:00, then return to talking to the external examiners until about 15:30, when I go to a research discussion group, arrive slightly late, until about 17:00. Then I spend another hour or so talking to the examiners and travel into town with them. I go home for an hour or so, then head out to meet the examiners for dinner at about 19:00. 072 On holiday at a music festival. Arrived last night, spent the night in a tent, which I don't really like but is by far the best way to experience something like this. Had an enjoyable day far away from work - I find actual "having a rest" type holidays quite difficult so "doing something different" is really enjoyable. 072 Check emails from around 10:00-11:00, then attend some interesting research seminars from around 11:00-15:00, spend a little time talking to the speaker, then a bit of a break and dinner until about 20:00, when I go to the "Skeptics in the pub" meeting for a discussion about psychology and visual illusions. 073 Final stage student on a 2 year degree giving a demonstration this morning. I have supervised him throughout the last six months in putting together this project. I feel for the chap in that english is not his first language and during the demo his nervousness meant his english slipped. However, luckily the other marker was sympathetic to his situation and looked beyond the words being used to the content of the demo. I was concerned about the standard that the student was working to - he has struggled with being able to critique his work and logically draw threads together. I was saddened that he had not taken on board some of the things I had talked to him about during the course of putting together his report but was pleased that it was much better than he had originally done. Rest of the morning taken up with dealing with student queries and marking the reports for students final stage projects. Spent some time sorting out project website for collecting research data. Gets difficult to put aside time for research activity especially towards the start of the new term. Still not as much on top of the new terms teaching as I would like. Difficulty comes in that the field of computing is not static and you have to keep up to date. Off to talk to a new cohort of trainee lecturers this afternoon to tell them in as constructive a fashion as I can given that doing the training nearly sent me to a nervous breakdown. Many of their sessions were delivered in a very condescending fashion - being told about research methods from people without PhDs or masters given that I have that was really a waste of two hours of my time - made worse by the heavy workload that I've been struggling with. This year should be much better. 073 Grabbed my breakfast whilst still trying to finalise the briefing document for the session in the afternoon. Gathered together plastic cups and a bag to hold the cakes in. Feeling slightly anxious about the briefing meeting for the afternoon - this was a step outside the norm for me - encouraging students to take on a development project that was outside of the normal scope for second year software modules. Made it into work and grabbed the podcast hardware. So far the students have appreciated the lectures being podcast, but it does take a bit to set up and pack down. Not too impressed with the lecturer in the session before me as he continues to overrun his lecture and insists on shutting the computer down as he goes (as apposed to logging off). Trouble with the computer is that it takes a good 10 minutes to come back up again. He doesn't seem to get any hints as in I have this camera and I need to get in the room to start on time, not late. I think I shall need a more direct approach - it is a shame he appears to come across as unthinking. Slightly disconcerting that the students start yawning half way through the lecture. I must work out a way of keeping them engaged. I've rewritten this several times to keep it fresh but I'm still not managing it. The briefing meeting was very exciting and vibrant. They were very keen to get their teeth into something for a client. The client supplied cakes and juice which was appreciated. I'll have my work cut out trying to coordinate all this enthusiasm - lets hope it doesn't fizzle out. Grabbed all my stuff, books, laptop etc to work from home this afternoon. Means I can create the podcasts for the practicals in a quiet area. Podcasting seems to be appreciated and does make it easier for running the practicals as the students do like to review things in their own time. 073 Monday, a day to work from home. This is where the flexibility of the job wins for me. Filled out a survey for the employer about what I thought of the facilities - interesting the question about whether I wished to work from home more. The ability to work from home is a double edged sword. Yes I get more work into the day because I am not traveling for two hours to get to and from work, yet I cannot really get away from it all and take time out. Another good thing I have found as a working mother, I can take fifteen minutes coffee break and get to know some of the other mums who live nearby - be part of the local community whilst still holding down the full time job! Managed to get some of the research work completed. It is a struggle to balance the good teaching with good research - yet I'm expected to do both of these. As you give more and more to the students, they expect more and more and quickly too. Given the amount they have to pay it isn't surprising. There is concern in the organisation about the effects of the spending review, the raise in fees and the loss of funding. Worrying times and we just watch and wait. 073 Carrying out some collaborative work with a colleague from another institution. High in our thoughts were how to cope with current situation of raising of higher fees. This impacts me as a parent as well as a lecturer. I have grave concerns about the amount of debt that my child will emerge with should they choose Uni. Seriously considering apprenticeships as a suitable option. Have grave concerns about the amount of violence being depicted throughout the media. Of course I know media have their stories to tell, but interesting that I can easily get different perspectives online - national press, tabloids, BBC, independent media, youtube etc. I don't like the violence on either side - both the protesters and the police - but can't help but wonder if mediators with expertise on de-escalating situations were there there may not have been so much violence??? Every action that somebody takes results in a reaction - protesters and police - both sides should learn that calm the whole thing down. For me a key image that will stick in my mind is the biased questioning of the national union of students president by the press - almost goading him into trying to condone the violence. Sickening. Work goes well dividing up the data to be analysed between myself and colleague. We make plans on when to complete our sections and bring it all together. Start to identify journals and conferences where we can publish as well as potential funding opportunities to continue the work. Next tonight is to deliver a talk as an invited speaker. Feel quite concerned to pitch at the right level as am unsure of exactly who the audience is. Still not quite sure why anybody would want to listen to me. Evening goes well, talk apparently enjoyed, lots of interesting and stimulating discussion. Wend my way to the hotel - crummy place. Some friends are envious of my travel around the country - and to the most part I enjoy it - but when I stay in crummy places like this it isn't very nice! 075 Having spent the last two days reviewing student project reports, it was good to be able to get back to revising a research paper based on my PhD research this morning. I have now sent off the revision to my co-author in Canada. I am hoping this might be the final draft before submitting to a journal. One of the MSc project students did interrupt for me to read the evaluation section of her report. They seem to know so little about how to evaluate their own work. It makes me wonder whether they have been given evaluation exercises to do prior to starting their project. Should an exercise in the first year workshop include evaluation of their work. I am including comparison of solutions to problems in the exercises so that is a starting point but should I push for something to be written. When I lead the Team Java course in second term, I will need to give them some exercises in evaluation or at least reviewing evaluations written by others. I still have a project demonstration to organise. The main problem is getting ER to agree to a time. Them seems to be a number of meetings happening this week so it is difficult to rearrange these project demonstrations for student granted extensions for welfare reasons. I have two such cases. This one, I am the primary inspector. Another lecturer has to organise the other inspection. I managed to spend a couple of hours working on an exercise sheet for the first year software workshop. Not entirely happy with what I have produced but it is moving in the right direction and is beginning to include some of the ideas from my research. The working day has ended with a strategy meeting. A lot of opinion but very little focus on specific outcomes. What is best for the school isn't necessarily best for me. The school has a number of research centres and possibly a teaching programme that doesn't align well. To succeed in the current environment those research centres need to be working at their best. The school then needs to work out how to support the broader teaching goals while also providing focussed teaching aligned with the research. How heavily do I get involved when I am on a fixed term contract? If I don't get involved then there is less likelihood of the contract turning into a permanent role. At least one benefit of the strategy meeting is going out for a meal with some of the school. Another chance to mix socially rather than just work based interactions. 075 This seems to have been a long day. With M on early shift, the alarm went off at 6:45am. For some reason, I was thinking about logarithm calculation algorithms. It was only one of the exercises that I added to a worksheet yesterday. I made good progress on conditional and loop exercises yesterday but still a little way to go before I release it next week. Wrote my usual morning reflection on yesterday. Continued to think of things that are still missing from the worksheets. In some ways my worksheets are a draft for a programming book but I will need more time and opportunities to test my ideas. With having to replace our HP Slimline machine (motherboard failed), I am thinking about startup and background services on Windows and their impact on performance. The replacement machine is quick on the startup but then we don't have all the applications loaded. Isolation of applications into virtual machines so they were not competing for resources might be a better environment. We have a range of different usages so separating them might help improve performance because we don't have all applications assuming they are always going to be used. We also thought and prayed for family in New Zealand. Especially M's dad in hospital dying of cancer. My mum has also decided not to put her name on a list for a unit. There is a three year waiting list for the units so I can understand when she is still living in the family home. At least my head seems a lot clearer. The head cold remnants might be going. Still must dress warmly for the day. The days have been overcast and fairly cool for most of the last few days. While I dress M is already getting her breakfast and making her lunch. As usual, she will get the base of mine ready as well. I will finish my lunch preparation when I get downstairs. Breakfast, lunch making, and make the bed before heading off. Damn still sneezing this morning. Not sure that is good. M raised having purchased New Zealand organic apples when she prefers to buy local. It reminded her of an article on the benefits of New Zealand manuka honey. She also talked about the tragic death of someone she interacted with in her work. With nephew's murder in July in NZ, death seems to be a familiar topic at the moment. 7am and M is off to work as I finish making the bed. Almost ready to go myself even though there isn't really any need to be there this early. I do find getting in early allows me to get on top of things before the other arrive. Sharing an office can be difficult for retaining focus during the day. 7:35am and I am at my desk having survived a near miss with a truck that changed lanes while going round a round-about. left lane on entry to right lane on exit and then back to left lane 100 feet up the road at the next intersection. No concern for other road users. Not keen about UK driver habits. Regularly blocking intersections. There was a voice message from M's mum. Dad has deteriorated and they are now saying he may die in the next 24 to 48 hours. Rang M and tried to ring son, P. Rang M's mum. B, M's brother staying at hospital overnight to be with dad. Mum has gone home to own bed at hospital's advice. M rang back and we talked. Brought a tear to my eyes. 8am and finally cleared the emails. Usual stuff from the discussion forums. P rang back. He is to fly to NZ tomorrow and will go down to Palmerston North after a nights sleep after arriving. Must email daughter, A, in Texas and give her an update. An email from a student who has been sick and missed assessments. Responded him of the welfare system as it may relieve him of some of the assessment pressures. 8:30am. Quick review of a student's final year proposal. The proposals are due in at midday. 9am. Emails processed. Have sent an update request for the syllabus for the First Year Programming module. Also reviewed text for a poster on the course and decided that I didn't like the emphasis on Java. Now I have to reword the poster amongst all the other pressures. 10am Looking for flowchart diagrams for conditional and loop statements. Reusing some material dating back to 1993. Some things change little but I want to contrast this with interactions in object-oriented development later in the course. 10:50am and I am off to this morning's lecture. Just need to finish off the material on data types. Today is focusing on strings in Java. This went much more smoothly than I had expected so I managed to get through the material. There were still some questions but not as many as earlier in the week. 12:00pm Went to reception to clear my box on the way back from the lecture. Attendance sheets for next week's advisory tutorials and project meetings. Another piece of administration to satisfy another government regulation. Took back down the final year project attendance sheet for the last two weeks. Another task completed. A quick catch up on Facebook posts and posted on father-in-law. Facebook is a good way to let a big group of people know the status. Also offered a lift to three or four people to ten pin bowling this evening. 12:20pm and the recording of today's lecture saved and given to MS for loading to the web site. Started to complete marking scheme for the second week's exercise. 12:45pm and it is a quick discussion on the marking of an M.Sc student project that I supervised. She had indicated that she had used code from the internet but never acknowledged it in her dissertation. It now seems she has clarified the situation but without having the code that she says she referred to, we can't prove how much was copied. As a result we have to trust what she says. 13:00. A software workshop exercise class. Focussed on exercises Java string usage. The class was fuller than I had expected. I thought I had chosen a couple of code reading exercises that we would be able to complete quickly but the discussion around them filled the time available. It was good though because we had to deal extensively with the way strings are handled in Java and why the standard comparison operators don't work. It also laid some foundations for talking more about objects. Still not convinced that I have everyone on board. There were some fairly blank faces in the room. 14:10 again reviewed emails, sign off the earlier student project grade decision, and registered for the staff and research student outing on 3 Nov. It is difficult because we could easily be in NZ rather than here in Birmingham depending on when M's dad dies. 14:30 Meeting with a final year project student to review her proposal. Another weak student so she is going to need a lot of support. The proposal does really tell me what she is going to do but she has already handed it in before she came to see me (her supervisor). 15:00 Back to worksheet development. Getting closer to completion. Added an exercise to compare the different loop constructs and recursion. If the students do this one then they should have a much better idea of the way each of these constructs work. Now, there are just some flowchart diagrams and structure diagrams to add. 16:30 Relief break and discussion with to TA's about a course that I helped with last year. They are keen to have me work with them as a tutor in term two but I will already be helping the primary lecturer with the course. Next term, I will have one to lead and two to assist with so I could already be fairly busy. 16:45 Pack up and prepare to go to ten pin bowling. This proved nice and relaxing. Didn't bowl as well as I should have but none of the students were doing particularly well either. At least I improved in the second game. The highest score for the evening was 166 by one of the students. My best in the second game was 108. I really should have been over 150. 19:41 checked weight on the Wii. slightly higher than last night but still lower than I had expected. There are no phone messages so dad must be still hanging on. Letters from Southern Electric saying we are late paying our electricity and gas bills. I queued up the payments last week so it must be the slowness of the banking system. In NZ, you could guarantee that it would be paid on the day you said. Checked the back account and yes they were paid on the day on had loaded them for. Discovered that i had left the DVD in the drive after installing the Adobe suite last night. The spam count in the email is high today. 79 messages. A quick review shows that only one is miss identified. I find it strange that spammers seem to believe that I might actually take an interest in their spam if they can find a way around my spam filter. At least the number that I have to manage manually is declining. Signing into the bank is frustrating with the multilevel security codes that I can never remember. It really give the impression that the bank doesn't want me to be able to manage my money. The interface to both of our bank's on line systems are crap compared with our NZ bank. Need to transfer some money or we will be over drawn at the end of the day. Fixed. Discovered that I had missed some entries on our finance tracking spreadsheet while checking bills that still need to be paid. Found and installed the tab manager in Forefox and made sure its options were set up the same as the laptop. Another step to getting the desktop back to what we had before the motherboard failed. removed the Skype plugin from Firefox. We never use it so it is simply wasting resource. I suspect there are others as well but it takes a bit to identify them especially when what they do isn't documented anywhere and the related application simply assumes you need them. Why should developers and companies assume they know what I need? Now, to write this up and type it in while I watch "New Tricks." Done now time for bed 22:45. A long a fairly full day and no telephone call to say dad has died so that is promising. Really don't want to have to fly to NZ before Wednesday. With lectures on Monday and Tuesday, there would be less reorganising to do it we are away from for the second half of the week. Some Final Reflections This has been a busy day and left a number of issues for further consideration. I am still not confident about the teaching sequence despite my original mind map and progressive exercises. I made some mistakes last week when talking about expressions by introducing operators that required knowledge of data representation issues. This week dealing with the data representation issues seems to have brought this back on track. I am now planning to do control structures ahead of interfaces as type and classes. I think this might be a mistake as I could have dealt with objects as simple abstract data types without knowledge of control structures. Introducing strings as objects in Java has laid the foundation for this but now I am going to step away for a week before returning to that theme. Meeting with project students has also helped me rethink the writing of proposals. I am placing much more emphasis on the proposal laying the foundation for later evaluation and dissertation writing. I would like to see the students saying more about their intended process and the relative importance of features. However, most are so vague that it is really difficult to tell what they are trying to achieve. When I teach the Team Java paper in term 2, I need to try and emphasise the type of things that I am looking for in the proposals. Unlike last year, this may mean that I will need to read and respond to them all rather than relying on my tutors. Even though the tutors are Ph.D. or MSc students, I don't think they understand the implications of a poorly written proposal. It is only as I am moving more into the assessment issues that I have begun to really consider what should be in a proposal. 075 7:45am While waiting to be able to deliver the car for its MOT check, I have updated my job application log. Yesterday, I submitted two job applications for lecturing positions (UofB (UK), UofA (NZ)). The strain of being on short term contracts is beginning to show. It is difficult when students ask about doing further study with you or when you are trying to raise funding for research. UofB would mean staying put here in the UK while UofA would mean a return to NZ but a return to NZ would prove costly since the NZ dollar has increased nearly 25% in value since we left in June 2009. 9:30am Over an hour to deliver the car for an MOT check and travel by bus to the university. On the bike, it would have been 15 minutes. Now to write some reminder notes for the 11am lecture before heading to a meeting with the tutors. Need to encourage students to look at alternatives and not simply write a solution that works. 12:15pm Tutors meeting went well although we are now getting indications of struggling students coming through. Still fewer than I might have expected. Having a Teaching Instructor managing the tutors does make it a little easier but I am concerned that it is easy to become distanced from the issues that students are struggling with because primarily, I am delivering the lectures but unless the students come to my office hours or are in my academic advisory group, I don't get to talk with them. I know some lectures like to be able to keep this distance but I find it frustrating. The lecture at 11am seemed to go across well with some good questions being asked. I really don't like having to explain class methods and variables but I am hoping that coming to it from the perspective of factory methods will help clarify the reason for their existence although it doesn't do away with explaining access restrictions. Now, to prepare the lecture recording for the web site and let the academic advisers and PASS leaders know what is being covered this week. Also need to follow up a project student to see whether he is coming in for a meeting this afternoon. I haven't seen him for three weeks although he did email. 1:30pm Lecture recording reading to pass to TI for loading to the website. Email sent to academic advisers, PASS leaders, tutors, and demonstrators. Copied lecture to USB stick and passed it on. One task completed. Also met with a project student who is on target with his project plan but was concerned about the possibility of having plagiarised his own previous work. Had to reassure him that as long as he cited his previous work, it would not be regarded as plagiarism. 2pm Started work on the next phase of a coding example but was interrupted by students looking for NB who is on paternity leave but shares my office. Now, I need to find out whether someone is stepping in to do his academic advisory meetings since the students are looking for work back. I will offer to take them if no one else has. 3:45pm No interruptions for a while so managed to complete some example code for batch processing temperatures. A second project student didn't come for the scheduled meeting and he hasn't responded to the email. I need to check up how he fits into the new attendance reporting process. Being an MSc student who was approved an extension for the project, I am not sure what rules apply. It is time now time to pack up and go and collect the car. Just checked and it seems that it hasn't been done yet. Will work on for a while. 4:20pm Completed and action listener adapter and number verifier while waiting for garage to ring back. I will now pack up and head off regardless. This code will do a number of things that I won't expect the students to understand but it will show the interaction between objects that will give flexibility in object-oriented coding. When we talk about forms design, I will show the stages that led to the style of thinking reflected in this example. 7:00pm What level of interaction should we include in code? The code that I am working on implements a model view separation but the controller is that built in to the standard Java Swing framework. Agile design suggests being able to test from just behind the form. My code structure means that this is possible. My model contains the state of the relevant controls and the actions all work on the model and never the view. The view redraws itself when changed. In this implementation, I am not implementing the observer pattern. Instead the actions will tell the form to refresh at the end of the command. I like using things like input verifiers to handle data validation. In this example, if the data is valid, I am storing the valid data into a field in the model. The action buttons then simply use the validated data. Makes for a nice code structure. I will spend part of this evening getting it closer to completion. Tomorrow morning, I will prepare lecture slides for discussing polymorphism and then illustrate it with my code base. 8:10pm NetBeans is playing up again. Over the last while, it has been consuming a lot of processor time and running extremely slowly. Now, it wouldn't allow me to open one of the source files after changing the package of the source file. I should do this development in Eclipse or IntelliJ Idea but they have their problems as well. 9:30pm I thought I was getting out of practice with my programming but having created most of the model and back end processing code, it was easy to create the action listeners and verifiers to make it all work. Reasonable progress after a slow start. 075 6:40am As I wrote my reflections about yesterday, I realised that today is when I participate in this share project. Yesterday's reflections are reasonably significant so I will share them here. Date 14 December 2010 - Exercise Solutions I went fairly early to work and endeavoured to work on exercise solutions. Project inspections, a lecture, and an advisory meeting took four hours out of the working day. As the exercises have become more difficult, I have been giving more dialogue on my thinking. In some ways, writing these journals of code development are becoming easier the more that I focus on doing it. My first effort for this set of exercises was written as comments in the test class after the completion of the code. For the current exercise, I am writing my reflections as I go. The nature of the development log has changed as I am now including more thinking about how I might approach the problem or breakdown the problem. Even though this is taking a lot of time, I am enjoying doing it. I have been working on these for the last three weeks to not only provide sample solutions but also to show the sequence of development. Sample solutions don't provide the reasoning that a programmer goes through in order to produce a solution. For larger exercises, I have been looking at sequences of solutions that show revisions based on improving the architecture of the software or removing duplication. The current exercises don't have much scope for this although the next two should (game of life and Sokoban). 8:30am While waiting for the computer to boot (takes about 15 minutes), I observed a very red sun rising over Birmingham. A little frustrated that I don't have one of my trusty cameras with me. My usual compact has lens focus problems and the iPhone doesn't allow for manual exposure setting. This is frustrating when I would prefer to be a little more creative. A quick check of the emails and I see the student that missed Monday's project inspection has emailed asking whether he can see me this afternoon at 2pm. I have time then so I have put it in my diary. 10:30am Distracted for a while with emails but uncovered some interesting references on games. But I have put some time into trying to complete the current exercise solution. However, I did achieve these steps in the exercise solution log. "13) The toString() skeleton has won out. This will be in minimal for but define the basic layout. Will possibly come back to this later if I get a chance to look at the formatting issues. The formatting isn't something that was expected but being an experienced programmer, I like to make things look right. The initial test will just check for an empty string. This will be changed to the expected format but I want to force the writing of toString() in the Bill class and using an empty string will achieve this. Yes, that failed so now add the toString() method to the Bill class. 14) First part of the bill is the name of the bill payer. Nothing fancy but will still give it a label and place the new line at the end. 15) At this point, I have no calls in the bill so I am really looking at the total cost line. As well as the total cost I will output the number of calls. Place some spaces in front to make it readable and roughly align. I didn't fudge the string but called the getCallCount and getTotalBill methods simply so the formatting was correct. But really this test is only setting up the basics. 16) Now to make the bill class really fulfill its function. Need to add a call and repeat the tests for one call. I will use a different payer name simply to ensure that I didn't fudge holding the payer's name. Started writing this test before committing the previous work to the source control done now but have to interrupt my process for some project marking and visits by others to my office." Decided it was a good idea to record the interruptions as it shows that we have to take breaks as well and sometimes this may cause us to change direction when we return to the task. The interruptions have been interesting. One was from a Ph.D. student who is looking for employment and not finding it easy. He talked about an interview that he had yesterday. I have sent him some links for the job sites that I have been using and will possibly need to use again in June. I love teaching and would like to continue my research but when you are on one year contracts, it is difficult to raise research funds. I am on one research proposal now but I am conscious that if my contract isn't extended, I won't be employed here when the work is supposed to be done. I am trusting that the current negotiations will see the contract extended. Everyone assumes that graduates will walk out of university into well paying jobs that will last a lifetime and set them up for retirement. As someone closing in on retirement age, my career in the computing industry and teaching hasn't given me that confidence. I started out on mainframes and was told when they were being phased out my skills weren't transferable. I transferred to teaching students the skills that were supposedly not transferable for the new platforms. That looked like being a good job until polytechnics began to offer degrees and want staff with Ph.Ds and research records and the polytechnic that I was at got taken over by a university. To satisfy their requirements, I completed my Ph.D but computing education isn't seen as a string research field for funding so I am sitting in a temporary role just trying to get money to survive never mind save for the upcoming retirement. So will these graduates get jobs for life? Not likely. Will governments plan on the basis that people will struggle to find jobs? Not likely. We have a major problem looming if we want to believe that current economic thinking is going to satisfy the environment that the policies are causing to come into existence. How does this relate to teaching? I stand in front of first year classes and students ask about the future of the industry. I used to promote life long learning and being adaptable but I think it is more important to play the status game and not the ability to do the job. You have to compete and I am not a competitor even though I try to maintain the publication record. Have to leave this reflection now while I go to a project inspection. As I said to one of my Ph.D student visitors, I am a lecturer by name and not by salary. You could say I am a cheap lecturer who has not research expected of me but has to do it if I want to stay lecturing. Not really a good situation. 12:45pm Supposedly two project inspections completed and meeting with one of my own students. One of the inspections didn't happen because the students machine had crashed and there was no backup. I wouldn't regard myself as the best example of regularly backing up but I didn't lose everything when my desktop machine failed earlier in the year. I was able to recover all the data without too much difficulty. The second student simply didn't have anything to show. There seems to be a problem in understanding what having something working means. I would have expected some portion of the system to be there to illustrate progress but he didn't even seem to have anything that demonstrated the problems he claimed he was having. We did see some code but it took quite a lot of pressure for that to be shown to us and that was really just a data object. None of the core of the system was there and he had been working on this for two months and has another month to go. One of my final year project students that I am supervising came to see me following his inspection. His main concern was about what he should focus on next. So we talked about was essential for his project and what was peripheral. He went away with a clearer understanding of what needs to be done and hopefully won't get distracted by nice to do items. Even thought theses students have done project management papers, they are not applying the concepts and principles to their own projects. Even agile projects have to prioritise work based on the importance to the project. They talk about focusing on show stoppers (i.e. those things that if not done means the project wouldn't be completed). They do spikes or proof of concepts simply to know whether they can get past the major hurdles and they do these as early as possible in the project. We need to be doing more to help students recognise the importance of doing this. Back to my programming exercise solutions before the next inspection. 2:33pm Completed the exercise solution. Could do some additional work but have other tasks that need to be done and this illustrates the key points. Final inspection also completed. This student looks like he is exceeding the expectations. A little concerned about the amount of time these good students spend on these projects but not sure how you can hold them back. I just hope they don't burn out. Will go to a teaching committee meeting now. 4:45pm Meeting over and although some was a little frustrating, I did learn a couple of things that are helpful. All I will do now is package up my exercise solution so it can be placed on the course website, pack up and go home. I might even take tonight off although there is a Ph.D sitting to be read and assessed. Strange how I was asked to be one of the external readers when I don't have a permanent lecturing position but then the thesis does touch on a lot of research that I have been involved with over the last five years. 075 I woke this morning and wrote my usual journal entry reflecting on the previous day. Yesterday had ended with me feeling a little frustrated. I wrote: "I feel like today was a day of frustration. I did make some progress on preparing a lesson on version control and it looks like K has found a guest speaker for agile practices for TJ. But the thing that really coloured my day was the drawn out session with B on ICW. I don't understand why he wants to assume the students have no knowledge of Java servlets of JSP when this is what they have finished last term working with. Instead of building on that learning and reinforcing it, we go back to a procedural command line application. Half way through this term's work they will switch to using Spring and an MVC style architecture without these ideas built from their previous learning. There has or is a complete disconnect. The technologies are dominating rather than the thought processes and design or problem solving principles. This seems to be the approach to what is being done here." Since writing that entry, my day has been spent assembling a desk as a sewing desk for my wife. Have just looked at a couple of academic positions. I may apply for one although they say they want a senior lecturer. In NZ, that is probably the status I would have if they hadn't closed the department at the end of 2007. Now, we float in uncertainty waiting to see what happens next. 075 My waking thoughts this morning were about the marking of an assignment for a master's paper. The code produced by the students seems to be primarily following the template of the example. Some show an ability to adapt the template for new requirements. Others simply copied and failed to satisfy the new requirements. During the marking session, one of the markers complained about the poor quality of the code. In general, I agree but if the example code they were given used good engineering techniques (I think it should) then what happens to the assessment. Simply because they copy the code or code structure doesn't mean that they have learnt to think as good software engineers. In effect, the course isn't set up to teach software engineering practice. It is centred around technologies and being able to write code using those technologies. The lecture, lab exercise, and assessment technique of teaching doesn't force people to think or learn. In many ways, it promotes plagiarism. Problem-based learning or enquiry-based learning may present greater possibilities. The problem is that in this institution and many others that I have worked, fostering learning is secondary to achieving research outputs. Lecturers don't have the time to spend thinking about how to teach and how to produce good learning materials. The focus becomes a knowledge dump with the result that many students know how to copy solutions but not how to reason about solutions. Certainly creativity and innovation are not encouraged because often a single solution is shown and exercises and assessments revolve around duplicating that solution. The end result is crap in and crap out. I was going to work at home for the morning but the house being cold and the need to deliver a document to the solicitor for a house purchase meant that I was too distracted so I headed to work via the solicitors. The remainder of my morning was spent drafting an exam. The style of exams here is different to what I was used to in NZ. The questions seem to be made up of more compound parts. The result is that it is taking longer than I want to write but it needs to be written by the end of the week. I have a meeting with the TJ demonstrators at midday and I need to talk with them about how we will mark a unit testing exercise. So exam writing goes on hold while I print off the marking schedule. The afternoon has been a bit of a blur. After the TJ meeting, there were a number of students that I had to email and a general email to get across the message that individual marks are dependant on the effort that each student puts into the team work. Some seem to think that as long as they do some small part, they will pass the course. It gets frustrating having to keep telling them that they aren't doing enough work. At the half way point and some really need a kick in the back end. The guest speaker for TJ arrived and KS took him for a coffee. I was about to go and join them when AS came to see me about what we taught in first year programming so he wasn't repeating it in software engineering. Reinforcement of some topics would help but he had some good ideas of what needed covered. I did get to talk with the guest speaker before heading over to the lecture. Interesting to get a different perspective on the games industry. His lecture was good and reinforced team work ideas as well as needing to know low level technical details. Back to my office to try and finish off the exam but not really making enough progress. Now my wife has texted to say she is on the bus home so I need to pack up and get out of here. 6:30pm isn't too bad. If I had been going to the spin class at the gym, I would have stayed another half hour. I probably won't feel like doing anything else tonight but I see I have a request to look at a sample solution for ICW and try to improve the code. I am not sure I have time for that. Dam, just realised that I didn't take the TJ mid semester questionnaire to the lecture and hand it out. It will have to wait until Thursday or maybe next week. Not really sure of the value of these. The questions are so vague that it is difficult to understand what the student feedback is really saying. Still it is a requirement so I have to do it. 075 8:50am. I just opened my email to see the reminder that this was the share project day. I came in early today (arrived before 8am) because I didn't think I had achieved my objectives for yesterday. While reviewing a logic exercise that my tutorial students had to do for another class, I was called by an elderly friend from NZ. He and his wife had escaped from Christchurch to Auckland, and he just wanted to catch up. Christchurch has drifted off the radar a little with the events in Japan. Predicate calculus and logic are not my strong point and I had a little trouble understanding the exercise but with a little reading my maths knowledge is returning after a 30+ year gap. As I don't meet the students until Friday, I have put my review of the exercise aside so I can concentrate on other tasks that need finishing. The first is making changes to an exam to meet the QA requirements. The exam has too much reading... 9:36am Exam changes made. Now to look at the comments for the Final Year Project progress assessment. One of my Final Year Project students isn't responding to emails or meeting the targets that he has set himself. The range of different tasks that I worked on during the day is partly why I didn't feel like I had achieved my objectives yesterday. Today seems like going in the same direction but all of these little tasks have their deadlines this week. 11:30am Having completed the exam changes, I settled into coding some example Wicket/acegi/Spring code. This should be ready by Friday and I am really just getting started. Admittedly, I am not starting from nothing. We have already completed a Spring exercise that contains some of the logic and configuration files and there is a previous example that I can use to ensure that I am roughly right on the coding and configuration. However, there is a meeting with demonstrators coming up at midday so I will have to take a pause and when I come back from that prepare for a session this afternoon. It isn't a full lecture as we are really telling the students when they have to demo their games and giving them an opportunity to try out the room in which they will be doing their presentations. 2:00pm As I thought, I was distracted after the meeting to tasks related to the TJ course. Still have a slide to make for the session later this afternoon. This is a team course and the students have been using a central subversion repositories for their teams. I have been able to extract the statistics in their use by login. Gives a fairly reasonable idea of who is driving each team. Only one team from 21 clearly has one person do almost all of the commits (82%). I am sure there were more teams last year in which one person did the work and the others watched. We may have got something through about the importance of team work this year. Just checked my emails and see that I need to go and check the exam formatting so will go and do that now. 5:20pm What happened to those three hours? I checked the exam formatting and then returned to my office and worked on the ICW sample code. I did make good progress although there is a lot of stuff that I am not explaining in the development log. In some respects, I am just pushing the code in based on the example so we will have a code base for the students to work from. Not really very good. I would like more time so I could experiment with some of the coding options but that isn't going to happen. Just before 4pm, I headed off to the experiential learning room in which we will run the TJ demonstrations. Some of the teams got their games running but no one was able to get the networking running. It looks like they have closed down all the networking options in Windows Firewall other than those used for web browsing. I am going to have to talk with Technical Support to see whether there is a solution that we can use. Setting up a laptop as a wireless host might work but I need time to try before next Wednesday. Nothing is ever that easy. Now, I am heading home and probably won't look at further work as I really need a little bit of a break. I have been working some long hours and with a Workshop over the weekend, I didn't get a break from intellectual challenge. A little space and time out would help the intellectual juices. Hopefully back on the bike tomorrow. That always helps. 9:35pm I have spent the evening entering comments on a paper that I am reviewing for IEEE Transactions of Education. It is proving frustrating. At least, I have finished the review. It is just another one of those things that I do as part of the academic community. A community that I am really on the edge of. 075 After four days solid focusing on reading team project reports, I decided to take a slow day and work from home. My initial activity was to create a blog on ecology and faith from an old journal entry. It raises issues about where my heart is in all the things that I am doing. Increasingly, as it continues to be difficult to get much more than fill in teaching roles in universities, I am wondering about a shift back into industry. The problem with that as a solution is that all my research projects would halt. At least with my Teaching Instructor contract, I can get final year and MSc students to do some work on the projects. Small steps and some prove useful. As well as the marking, I have had quite a number of MSc students come asking me to supervise their projects / dissertations. The problem is that most don't really understand what they need to do and are wanting to write some system that already exists without doing any background reading. It takes quite a lot of time to push them to think about how their project might push the boundaries of their own learning and of some computer science field. To some extent, I feel many of these are the dregs at the bottom of the barrel that no one else wants to supervise. I send most away to rethink what they need to do. I still have signed up some but not necessarily on things that I want to see done. I agreed to another this morning even though I am concerned that he hasn't fully grasped what is required. There are problems with my agreeing to supervise as I won't know until next week or later whether my contract will be extended for another 12 months. If it isn't then I may have to notify these students that they will need to look for someone else. Yet, if I don't agree to the better one's then I will definitely end up with the stragglers and those that will take a lot of effort. The other problem is that it commits be to being around all through the summer or not being able to take two or three weeks leave. In 18 months on these contracts, I have only had a week's break when a sister-in-law came to visit last July and a week to go back to NZ for my father-in-laws funeral in September. I have been fully committed during term times to teaching and in the gaps to marking or supervising projects. I don't get a break of two or three weeks when I can take off and forget about teaching. My wife has next week off so I am going to try and take as much as of that as I can but I have a symposium to attend on Tuesday. All of this is making me less enthused about the job and making me feel just like a spare part - used and then tossed aside when no longer needed. As I write this, I have a presentation to prepare for the Teaching and Learning symposium but I don't have any enthusiasm for it. What I have said I will present is an active learning exercise but if I am not careful, I will deliver the seminar as just another knowledge dump. How do I communicate an idea that fosters interaction to an audience of computer scientists and engineers? I don't have an easy solution because I haven't had the time to think it through. Give the mind a break. Mow the lawns. Play some Wii sport games and try and relax. Maybe I will get a better focus later but I suspect that I really need a holiday so I have said I won't be around other than for the seminar next week. In fact, I may not stay right through the symposium on Tuesday. Another interesting distraction, a person came to look at a bike that I want to sell. I have changed my focus from cycle racing to long distance touring and I don't see the light weight race bike as suitable so it is on the market. However, we ended our conversation talking about how he is working with Birmingham City University looking a similarities and differences between poetry and hip-hop. That doesn't see to far away from my own interest in the variations in algorithms or coding solutions and how we can represent these to students to aid learning. Oh for some funds and a more permanent position to pursue these without the endless pressure. Back to looking at the symposium presentation. Clarity of thought at last and presentation prepared. Buyer has also rung back to say he wants to buy the bike so that is good news as well. Maybe we will go to Derby next week to look at some possible recliner trikes and the Crown Derby factory. One last thing to end the day, write a journal entry reflecting on this week of marking and project discussions with students. Basic problem with the projects is that the students don't understand what it means to write a report with appropriate background research. They see their projects as writing code with the rest as an undesirable requirement. I have made comments on project students above. 075 19:00 and I have switched the computer for the first time for today. What's more I didn't manage to clear my emails last night. My weekend has been full with a Workshop course looking at issues around the Christian faith and living it out where we live. What is even nicer is that for the first time for almost a month, I haven't had any marking remaining to be marked. This week, has seen me complete the marking of a final programming exercise, complete moderation of project marking, and go through the moderation of portfolios that I marked for a PGCert in Learning and Teaching. This marking emphasis was interrupted by students wanting to negotiate project supervisions. I now have ten MSc projects to supervise over the summer teaching break and five or six final year projects for the next academic year. The good part is that most of the final years are working on projects that I want done or I am interested in getting up to speed with. The MSc are more diverse. There are some that are working on projects that I want done but most are working on things that I have knowledge of but it really isn't my major focus. On Friday, I did get some time to chase down a reference for a paper that has been accepted for a journal. The big difficulty with the reviewers comments is that at least two of them really want me to frame the research in terms of what they see as important. Potentially the research could but when we gathered the data, we were not focused on what they want. Consequently we don't have all the data that I think is needed to address the issues that their framing requires. Still I will read the references they have suggested and see how they relate to our research. I really wonder how much of the effort to get research published is really about satisfying the way reviewers want the work published rather than simply reporting on the work and the outcomes. I know that I interpret the results in a specific way because of my experience with teaching but I don't have data from that teaching to justify my interpretation. As long as I am in contract teaching role, it is going to be difficult to collect that data or to raise research money to carry out the research. However, if I can't get the research published, I have no hope of getting a permanent lectureship so it is a case of doing what I can and have to in order to publish what results, I do have. The coming week will be focused on revising the paper and ensuring it is ready for publishing. 075 8:50am Off to a slow start today but I have been since shifting house two weeks ago and now I am looking at moving to a new permanent position at the end of the month. My contract was to run out here at UoB at the end of the month and they did offer a six months extension but Aston offered an interview for a permanent position almost at the same time so the permanent position has won out. I will still supervise MSc project students over the summer for UoB but that works both ways since they need supervisors and I have a personal interest in some of the projects. It was also a slow start this morning because we went out last night to celebrate with the demonstrators who assisted with the Team Java module. They are a good group and we had a good time. A bit sad that there won't be another celebration. Into a bit of tidy up mode initially this morning as I sort through papers on my desk and work out what should be kept and what can be thrown. As I look ahead to the day, I have a series of meetings with MSc students so I should be kept fairly busy. Facebook tells me I have a spammy link. Strange but I don't click on many links so who is doing the spamming? Facebook by any chance! 11am First project student meeting completed. She needed a lot more assistance than I had expected. 11:21am I thought I had a meeting with the lecturer who was going to take over one of the courses but he doesn't seem to be in. Never mind, I have used the time to sort and discard a back log of notes. 1pm The other lecturer turned up and we talked for almost an hour and a half. Again disappointment expressed that I am moving on but understanding that a permanent position is better than short term contracts. Still we had a good talk about the team work course and how it has been structured and what I might have done differently had I been running it again. 1:30pm Second project student meeting completed. Difficult to determine whether this student understands what is required. Language barrier is part of the problem but the student does seem confused. Had to emphasise the importance of understanding the theory behind the model that she wants to implement and not just understanding the case that she hopes to model. 3:30pm Two more meetings with project students completed. One was concerned about whether his project was appropriate. The other just needed to clarify the direction of the project. Most do not consider evaluation when they are preparing these proposals. In the gaps between the meetings, I have managed to send the Head of School a draft proposal for a computing education paper. I am not sure what will happen to it now that I am moving on. 16th June, 9:10am Didn't get to complete the entry yesterday. The last student meeting happened at 4pm and then it was off home for a quick meal before coming back to pick up a student and head to the Wolverhampton Track Cycling League meeting. The student is one of my project students and is looking at a training system for track commissaires. He had never seen track racing but had watch some YouTube videos. I ended up as the chief commissaire for the evening. Its a role that I enjoy because you are more focussed on riding technique and whether fair racing is occurring. You still have to do the administrative paper work at the end but that isn't that difficult. A good organiser makes it even easier and these leagues have good organisers. Last week had been a road race with another student as my scribe. It had also been a fairly easy race to commissiare so didn't really give a feel for the problems that a commissaire might face. Still both events seemed to give the students an idea of what is involved. 075 7 am: A early start. Not really, I am preparing to go to a photography course photographing birds of prey. The change of job to Aston University and trying to continue to supervise MSc students at University of Birmingham has kept me busy. I am not convinced of these one year pressure cooker MSc programmes. The students have 11 weeks over summer to complete projects but they don't see the importance of doing background research and treat it very much like an undergraduate project. I don't see many of these students going on to do PhD research or more in-depth research. They simply don't understand the importance of putting their work in context. At least one thing with the change of job, I am getting better rides in each day. A 12km ride still doesn't match the 25km or more rides I used to do in New Zealand on my commute but my fitness is improving compared to me 7km rides to Birmingham. Teaching the non-CS students to program will be one of my tasks at Aston so I have been looking over the materials they have been using and beginning to prepare resources. It looks like the way that they have their programme set up is quite different from Birmingham so there will be some new challenges. I am also to teach a course on testing and reliable software. Since I got rid of all of my testing books, I spent part of yesterday trying to see whether there was a suitable textbook or what other reference material there might be. This isn't a testing certification course but I would like to think that a student graduating from the course would find the certification easy to obtain and might question some of the certification topics. It is an interesting challenge to have but one that I feel reasonably confident about addressing. There won't be a lot of entries today since I expect to be in a field most of the day trying to take photos. Saturday morning: An exhausting day yesterday but some of the 400 photos make it worthwhile especially one of the falconer with a golden eagle. Although I was a student on the photography course, I found myself thinking about the way we were being taught. It tended to be pushes toward certain settings and compositions. I would have liked to have been encouraged to experiment more with the camera settings and obtained variations in photos so that I could compare and contrast to determine what was working effectively. It wasn't until I sat down reviewing the photos that I really had time to reflect on what I had been doing. Stationary portraits weren't really a problem as I already understood the issues around depth of field to throw the background out of focus. Flying sequences were more of a problem and I struggled to know what settings were best. With flights coming rapidly, it was difficult to take time to review what changes I might make and their impact. Although I did get some good shots of the bigger birds in flight, I felt I could have learnt more given more time to experiment and reflect. This left me wondering about my own teaching and whether I am rushing the students when they really need time to experiment. Do I encourage them to try alternative solutions and to compare and contrast them? Are all my examples good solutions or do I show variations in solutions and then take time to discuss these solutions with them? How well am I really getting the important issues across or am I like the photography tutors happy when I see the student has a good solution and not so happy when they don't? Photography might seem a practical skill but the thought process involved in creating a good image takes time to pick up and you have to know what the possible options on the camera are that will give the effect that you are looking for. I wonder whether this is really all that different from teaching students to program? Then to complete my day, I went to a cycling track event primarily to complete my commissaire certification. This involved getting the chief commissaire to sign off on my involvement in an event. As the chief commissaire signed the report, a discussion arose about how to train commissaires. The consensus was that people could get certified but not necessarily understand the real issues. In my case, I am looking for certification so I can get on with commissairing here in the UK. As a qualified national commissaire in New Zealand, this process is simply about certification. However, I can see that the opportunities to learn about track commissiaring are not good. These track league events provide limited experience of the different roles and if none of the commissaires present have experience of the wider roles involved in a bigger event then you either end up judging or starting. The rules and their application and helping riders to understand good riding etiquette are ignored. Increasingly, I see our university programmes being about certification and not about learning the craft. Students want to know how to earn the marks for the grade they want rather than to become immersed in the learning. My response is often focus on learning the craft, try out what is being taught, experiment with it, put in the practice, and forget jumping the hurdles for marks. The marks will come if you understand what the subject is really about. I have always been a person who has linked theory with practice and I want my students doing the same. 075 9:00 am - I am in my office looking at another day of working through preparation for teaching at a new institution. I had a good weekend in which I managed to test the limitations of the recumbent trike. With the sun shining and little breeze outside, I know that I would prefer to be somewhere else today but there is no leave to take so here I am preparing for the next academic year and hoping I might get a chance to work on another research paper. A quick catchup on Facebook tells me that New Zealand has snow from top to bottom. That is really unusual. Auckland hardly ever sees snow. 9:30am - Fetched a cup of hot chocolate and filled my water bottle. Now to look at the drafting of a research paper. The paper draft that I have has a lot of material in it but no real flow. Maybe some thought away from the computer is required. 10:30am - Was expecting an MSc student to come for his weekly meeting. I know he is struggling and been depressed. I may need to contact him and check where he is at. 11:00 am - Just discovered the student came while I was collecting print out and talking with the head of department. Rescheduled now for Wednesday. One less problem to worry about today. 1:00 pm - I seem to have lost some time. I have been looking at the design of the course for next year. How much of it do I change? I am not comfortable with the way that it currently works but if I start from scratch, I have to build examples, lectures, lab worksheets, Blackboard resources, tutorial sheets, ... Sounds like a lot of work. Do I really want to lumber myself with so much work. Will it help the students learn the material better? I would like to argue yes but where is my evidence? What evidence can I gather to see whether the changes I make will make a difference? It is a big task even though I have materials from last year although in a different context and aimed at a different student group. At least, a university machine has now been ordered for me so hopefully it will arrive this week (next week, I hope at the latest). I like my own laptop but you don't get much support to link it up to university systems so it will be nice to have a university machine and get a little more support. There is some resistance however to Macs so I may still find I have to do most of my own set up. There are more people around today so I had a talk with the other person teaching introductory Java. He will be using a much more problem-based, inquiry-based learning approach to me. He will be teaching the new intake of Computer Science students where my course is aimed at non-CS majors including business and maths students. I am thinking of a guided exercises closely linked with lectures and tutorial worksheets but will attempt to include some advanced material that will require the student to do some of their own research. From my perspective, there is what the students need to learn in order to pass the module and then there is the learning that I hope they are inspired to go on and do. 4:00pm - After a lot struggling with a lack of motivation, I finally settled in to planning my teaching schedule. I now know the sequence in which I want to approach the teaching. The next step is to work through the learning resources. A good afternoons work after a very slow start. Now to head for home. Overcast now so won't be quite as nice for riding but I will still enjoy the relaxation. 081 last night I read the last 30 pages of the Draft position statement for Enhancement Led Institutional Review, noting the gulfs of execution and perception between what our university quality people would have us say we do, and the reality. The depressing thing is realising that my role, as departmental quality person, is to bridge the layers of the school - via the subject groups to the individuals and find some things that are not hostages to fortune and also flag up the good stuff. It's so much effort to reach across these different groupings though - you wish they all just talked to each other. This morning began with thinking about angles for a meeting of senior departmental colleagues today to get buy-in to this task that needs adddressing in the next couple of weeks. The next couple of hours were a blur - and so often I can't remember what it was I did. I am working on a couple of pieces that I hope will shape the UK agenda within the discipline, but I was also catching up with emails. By 11.30 I was not really as prepared as I'd like to be for an overseas student coming for restart of their MSc project. They have visa problems and have been ill on a truip back home, but in anycase the work so far is worryingly short of the standard required, though the person is diligient and not stupid - just limited in their english ability and doesn't grasp nuance or academic writing. This ran considerably over the half hour slot scheduled, and I had three minutes to get lunch and eat it at the meeting with colleagues. There's several of these covering different things but with the same people and a dynamic to each according to who's become chair. We meet too often and it's hard not to know what certain people will say, and hard to get a word in edgeways. But I get some backing for getting everyone to buy in a little to making a genuine response to ELIR. A gap before the next meeting - a new start supervision for final year ug. Another one of those bubbling with ideas yet with nothing sufficient for a project, drawing too much inspiration from outside our discipline and too little to gain a pass in ours. These conversations I need to handle a bit better - they tend to run on and on and eat into the time planned to work through the pile of papers I keep carting twixt home and office. I'm also running a dialog with an industry person - getting them to participate in a professional body event I organise each year. Think that is almost in the bag now which is great. Another professional body item popped up at 5pm - marked out some time on sat and sun to deal with it - can't really justify it in the dayjob (no workload allowance for a start) yet the institution does play up in external-facing stuff, the handful of us who do do these things, yet never go after the ones who don't. You'd think we'd all be expected to be professionals. But there are a lot who see this as just a trade and so join unions etc. But that's another issue for another day. 081 I don't have much teaching this trimester, but I do today - 6 hours of it. 4 hours straight this morning and a two hour gap to do this log, eat lunch, address some urgent issues for the professional body I have a major role in, whittle through the email and attend a one-hour research seminar with a guest from North America, who is also one of our graduates. Today I play second fiddle in the classroom as one of our colleagues in a university central support service is delivering two hour workshops on transactional analysis to our first year (in Scotland - technically the equivalent of A-level in England but in reality a little more demanding) predominantly male and with a reasonable proportion not yet 18, the "child" state comes readily to some which triggers the "parent" state in us! But actually these are really good, energetic, demanding but rewarding workshops. TA is a simpel concept - doubtless over-simplified, but it's just the right level for these students. Just had the third of four over the two days, and it was the best. We got the students in groups to design ATM dialogues in one of the TA states. The "free child" ATMs are a hoot, but so too are the "nurturing parent" and unusually today the "adult" one was actually different and innovative - usually we get the standard ATM dialog for that. It does make me think that as the trends grow towards more playful approaches to systems design - hedonics etc, that what we define as adult-adult quality of interaction being somehow optimal and professional, will need some examining. last night was fun - I was chairing local branch meeting of the professional body, and afterwards took the speaker - a professor in my subject and another professor, I hadn't met before out, for a meal and we had one of those grown up intellectual conversations that you love about conferences, but too rarely find in your own institution 081 Now this was an unusual day - my first ever trip to the Houses of Parliament - the Strangers Dining Room. My involvement with the professional body led to me being one of the few to help host a set of awards for MPs' activities related to our field. Quite an honour and doubtless useful as an impact factor, but of course not part of my workload. Luckily the professional body was funding my travel expenses, for we'd have no budget otherwise. However no bags allowed past Wesrtminster security so travel light! I kept my travel time to the bare minimum, allowing me to work until lunchtime, partly at home partly on public transport to the airport. But a bit of a fright when the plane was about to load - "heathrow has freezing fog and our arrival will be delayed by 90m" (any longer and I'd struggle to catch the return flight never mind attend the event). I'd read all the paper documents stashed in my pockets, and we sat in the plane, doors closed, with instructions not to use our smartphones. Arghh - dead time! I've been working every work night until 9pm for almost two weeks, as I have a life on Saturdays and Sunday mornings. So now it looked as though I had a couple of empty hours. Luckily the fog cleared and we were only half an hour late. London is so spoiled with public transport that I was inside parliament within 55m of landing at Heathrow, gawping at camera crews and politicos and lobbyists acting out on a familiar movie-set. Usually when I see an MP they're the only one in the room, they come in, speak briefly, give generously of their time for 20m and then leave for the next appointment. Funny at our event to now see MPs in clusters in a crowded room, their native habitat, almost giggly schoolboys (noted only one female MP in the 20 or so present), all 15 years younger than me. When did I get to be a senior citizen, still so many years from retirement? I did some good professional body networking activity - I'm still a bit backwards at coming forwards, but getting better. I didn't talk to any MPs - not really my role on the day and none of them familiar as decision makers in education anyway. But for just a few minutes in the day, you feel like you have some influence on the world outside, some "impact". KT Tunstall rattled through my mind "Suddenly I See" - just for a while the clouds cleared and you could see clearly what needs to be done, how to really lobby next time, what we should actually be telling our students about professionalism in our field in industry, and so on. Fun! Dashed for the last plane, more delays but caught up on most of the day's emails in the departure lounge and got home by 11pm 081 It's cold. Below the legal minimum in the lecture room and the committee meeting room, but my office is warm. Flitting from one temperature to another all day. At least the worst of the snow has gone. The bad weather ran a steamroller through the first week of exams. Some were rescheduled for the second week, this week, but we have a lot of overseas students so they'd booked flights home after their last scheduled exam. Some UK-based students have even more expensive transport options if they change their tickets! So we have a large number of acceptable mitigating circumstances in the pipeline and a need for an early re-assessment opportunity. We have the summer resit exams ready if needs be (means more work creating new set of exams for the summer), but we can't tell the students yet when the resits will be. Obviously if we say now, there will be some (many?) who won't turn up for the rescheduled ones. But I can't say MitCircs is the best way to handle this - too bureaucratic and too open to value judgments. last week you could live half a mile away and not have a safe walking route to campus, but at the weekend I drove 100 miles north on main roads without problems (after an hour digging my car out from 50 yards from the main road!). Disturbed that the violence of the students in London now normalised by a certain cadre of academics and starting to spread. A body of militant opinion is vocal on Facebook that all our exams should be cancelled until the new year and vowed to pressurise us to kowtow. Yesterday someone deliberately set off a fire alarm 10 minutes before the first exam of the day. 2000 students and 200 staff out in the cold for 45 minutes, three firetrucks pulled away from real emergencies. Why dow we have exams the two weeks before the Xmas holidays anyway - such a hostage to fortune. 5-10 mild winters lulled us into complacency. This is the fourth winter in a row that started with snow in early December. Normal service has been restored, and contingency measures needed once more. 081 The thaw is in full swing and the rain is pleting down. Localised flooding and potholes. Bit of a metaphor for academic employment. Headed to the rural retreat. Took ideas for a paper for a conference I help organise (deadline in 6 days time), all the slides for next 12 Mondays' classes, determined to balance them better (last year first few are too light, last few are overloaded. Better the other way round!) I have several Hons and MSc supervisions for whom English is not first language, and each one has got some major challenges to overcome if they are to pass. And I packed a few national consultations on both HE and my subject area. Spent an hour going over one MSc project and have sent the student several pages of suggestions. And that was it. Didn't even open any of the rest of the work I'd taken with me. We went shopping instead (back to nearest local city). Sales are still on, bought stuff we've been meaning to for ages, just as final reductions appeared. Thought a little about those other issues, but as Lennon sang "I just had to let it go". No submission to my conference, more busking it in the classroom, continued fretting over supervisions. Trying to be the compleat academic is becoming a forlorn aspiration. The AND statements are becoming OR statements. Research OR Industry. Professional Bodies OR Scholarship. 081 Completing this after the event. Tuesday diary entry shows only 2 appointments - an honours project student and an MSc dissertation student, neither of whom turned up again, neither of whom sent apologies...again. Helpful concerned email sent to each...again My outbox gives a good sense of what I spent the day doing and it looks like it's not the day job! Most of it seems to be either work I am doing with the professional body, reading consultation documents on government policy, working with the trade association to establish a national strategy for our sector, trying to bring businesspeople into our classrooms, trying to set up links between our local research pool and the professional body - since I seem to be the only person with a foot in both camps. All worthy but apart from a notional allowance related to research impact and scholarship, not justifiable. Between 4 and 6pm however I seem to get down to preparing the following day's two hour class for postgrads. In this at least I am keeping to resource allocation model - one hour prep for each hour's contact. But I do feel I am going into the class underprepared. Menwhile I trying not to think of absolutely huge piles of work that need doing across multiple fields both internal and external. Spouse is out of the country on a business trip for two weeks so have additional share of housework to do, but the family is coping. Quite tired though and spend the evening half asleep in front of TV instead of working through one of the things I ought to be doing. Ah next month it's the Ides of March! 101 Wed 15th Sept, (head of department) Up at about 7 and arrived at Uni about 8:15. Spent a usual hour on routine overnight emails plus matters that had not been fully dealt with the previous day. About 9:30 went down to enrolment to show my face. Technically I am the senior member of staff for the faculty who can be called on today to come and make final decisions. Actually the staff on hand are much more capable than me of making those decisions and I do not expect to be called. The rest of the morning: One and a half weeks before the start of teaching on the 27th, so yet another close look at individual staff, module and course timetables. They all seem to be as complete as I can manage at this point in time. Out of a staff of about 30 I have one out on a year's personal sabbatical, one on sick leave until at least 2011 and two about to be served with redundancy notices. These latter two cannot be taken off the timetable until they have their notices and I have to ask other staff to fill 'dead mens shoes'. Also during the morning had a phone conversation with HR about an under performing and obstructive member of staff. The only sanction I have is a formal disciplinary procedure which I do not want to engage in at this stage. Ask the dean to see him and give him a 'put up and shut up' message! Afternoon from 13:00 is the PG resit progression boards. Long and tedious but very necessary. by 16:30 I am back in enrolment and not feeling at all well. I had been feeling dizzy and tired all the previous day but had stuck it out through the UG boards. Decide at 16:30 that I have had enough for today. Home by 17:30 and straight to bed, up at about 19:00 for a bite to eat and back asleep from about 20:30. {Postscript: was ill for the rest of the week and had to take the next day off staying in bed most of the day. Having reviewed this I note that there was no real academic, pedagogic or scholarly activity!!!} 101 The day stared with a 9 to 11 'lecture' session. At least that is what it is called on the timetable but the activity is more of a directed, interactive seminar. I had not found the chance to update the slides from the previous year the previous week and so had left that to the weekend. My home broadband went down on Saturday morning just as I was about to look up new material I was aware of and cast a search for any other new material I should be aware of. The broadband did not come up until about midday on Sunday, so most of the weekend was given over to concern about the slides. It is week 8 of the semester and the final year students finally seem to have got the message that they should be there at 9am (ish). By about 9:15 the data projector was up and ready and all of the students who were going to attend were present. The session went really well with many voluntary and solicited contributions from the students. Several had been on the demonstration last week and issues from that came into the discussions. Most of the rest of the day was not so engaging or encouraging. An hour spent trying to clear the emails from the previous week which had yet to be cleared. An attempt to have a chat with the dean thwarted as they are working off-site (ie at home) again (I often wish I could manage that much time working at home!). Several hours spent marking up draft examination papers for January; and wondering why staff seem unable to do relatively simple things such as stick to a published template. Before wondering further about issues do with plain English in exam papers, simple direct verbs so the students know what to do, minimising the amount of reading in the paper (one paper for a 2 hour exam was 11 pages long!), ensuring an appropriate balance of tasks and activities wrt Blooms taxonomy. The TES blog at the weekend had had a thread about 'professionalism' and 'licence to practice University teaching'. The dinosaurs had yet again pontificated about how if only the trappings of QAA etc were removed and they were allowed to 'be professional' standards would magically improve. From that state of the exam papers produced by my dinosaurs this would translate into obtuse tasks, inconsistently expressed with many, many hidden assumptions about what was required. They are also the ones who are most likely to ignore my red ink and later insist that the external examiners are incompetent. The only other thing I attempted was to complete the semester 2 timetable. I have lost several staff, for various reasons, since last session and the recruitment freeze has prevented any replacements. However we have a bulging first year with more tutorial groups than in recent memory. I am trying to fill a quart jug from a pint pot and having to schedule everyone for as many hours as I am allowed to still leaves me with a shortfall. I arrived at work at about 8am and left at about 6pm, worked at my desk over the lunch hour and will probably be doing the same all week. . . . But my cycle to and from work was a joy as my old bike had finally succumbed to old age and uneconomic repairs. I had forgotten what smooth gear changes and efficient mechanics felt like. . . 101 was supposed to be going for a 10 mile run first thing, but had to abandon after 2 miles due to an groin injury which refuses to clear up. Have not really done any running since the start of December and I have two marathons scheduled in the spring. Time is getting short . . . . Then pottered around the house doing bits of this and that, including 40 minutes or so clearing emails out of my work inbox that had not been cleared in the week. After hitting the supermarket for the weekly shop sat down for three hours marking first year programming courseworks that had been submitted before xmas and had to be returned on Monday. Nothing too remarkable, some very good, some not so good but the students had tried and one which was too good. That student had only turned up about three times and did not have a clue or any apparent motivation, yet the coursework was very good. It is possible, but most unlikely, that he had settled down and cracked it! Our regs say that I have to mark what is in front of me (and those who 'know best' are threatening anonymous coursework marking soon . . . ). Gave it the lowest mark I could for the standard presented and felt sorry the students who had worked really hard and got a lower mark. Consoled with the thought that sooner or later he would slip up while cheating and get caught and/or fail exams . . . Then cooked dinner for me and my partner (who had been out shopping all day!) before slumping in front of the telly for the evening and successfully resisting the temptation to open a bottle of red! 101 Something that felt like an honest day's labour for a change! Spent five hours in classrooms and lectures. Arrived at work at about 8:15 and settled down to clearing emails. Then reviewed material I had been supplied with for a tutorial 11 -> 1 before going and taking the class. This was only the second time I had seen the students and I felt the class went well with lots of questions and activity. The class overrun and I got back to my office at 1:30 eating some lunch as I reviewed the lecture slides for the guest lecture I was giving from 2 -> 4 on academic integrity & academic misconduct to the collected MSc students. The lecture went well but it was very hard work getting the students to contribute and keeping them contributing. I have the impression that many of my MSc tutors (sorry lecturers) still see a 'lecture' as exactly that and talk at them rather than with them. I had planned to finish at about 3:30 but there were many questions at the end (good!) and it ran onto about 3:45. I had an unsatisfactory meeting with one of my staff at 4. He had produced a unit guide using an obsolete template and this had been picked up in routine monitoring. But he had also done exactly the same thing the previous year, and this was the only unit he had responsibility for, and I had had to see him about the standard of an exam paper he had produced in the first semester. . . . For most of my career heads of department have had the option of being able to sideline people who do not contribute sufficiently as student numbers and budgets were growing. Unfortunately for the time I have been a head of department numbers and budgets have been shrinking. I have lost staff through retirement and movement and also made several redundant. I now have very little spare capacity and one staff member underperforming increases someone else's workload and hits morale. He agreed reluctantly to revise the unit guide and complained about 'management' not managing but only berating good honest workers like him. Then I toured the tutorial rooms where the MSc students were discussing academic integrity scenarios and deciding what the outcome and the penalty should be. The scenarios were based upon real incidents and the tutor notes included the actual outcome and penalty that was given. The report I got from the tutors the next day was that in general the students thought that the University was being too lenient!! Another hour in my office clearing emails and seeing colleagues about routine matters. A check of the diary for tomorrow to make sure I had ready what I needed for the morning. Away at about 6:30 for a chat with my partner a bit of supper, an hour or two of telly and aware that the next day's labour would be nothing like as honest!! 103 Woke up really early (5AM) to correct the slides for today's lecture. As usual, a lot of corrections were necessary. My colleagues keep making random changes to the agreed way of presenting the material... Sigh... Could not make all the corrections in time. Went through half of the slides only. Lecture from 8 till 9:20 AM. Was not feeling 100%, but it went OK. As I expected, there was way too much material for today's lecture. Since I decided to show the students how Java classes actually work, so that they can grasp the whole idea of class and the relation between classes and objects, I slowly implemented a Point class using BlueJ, thus abandoning most of the presentation. The students responded positively. I think most of them grasped the idea. Other classes will solidify the idea further. The number of students halfway through the semester is going down. My problem, or a general problem? Hard to know. Lost about two hours fetching my keys from where I lost them over the weekend. About an hour going through new emails. Solved a few problems related to the latest introductory programming quiz. A student entered the course in the middle of the semester (an overreaching state, stupid laws, and heavy burocracy lead to this, year after year...) and she's having a hard time keeping up. Scheduled a tutorial session with her. 103 Woke up 5am. Classes at 8am. Last week of classes. Today we go through a model exam. I checked it out and it has a number of conceptual problems. I will have to deal with them in class. Class over. Had to deal with quite a few conceptual problems in the model exam. Discussed strategies for solving the exam. All questions were overviewed. Some time was spent actually developing a set of integers class in Java, starting with a discussion of its interface. Back home for more work. I do work from home much more often, these days. No interruptions, good food nearby, students and colleagues easily available using messenger, etc. Spent some time finishing my solution for one of the problems given as exercise. Most of my team thinks that we should not provide the solutions to the students, or at least not all of them. I think this is paternalistic, naive, and counterproductive. Naive because solutions for most problems are readily available on the Web, and each day more so. Paternalistic because it assumes the students are not able to make an honest attempt at solving the problems before looking at the provided solution. Counterproductive because students are in touch and thus will share their own solutions, which are often low quality. Quick but good lunch (I'm at home :-) ). Back to the preparation of the problem solutions and then to sharing them on the Web. Interruption (sigh...) from the communications office. I've been given them a hand. Now they plan to create a second Facebook page for our university. The existing one would have contents in our own language, the new one would have contents in English. I tried to explain how bad this idea is: quite a few of foreign students and academics interested in our institution are native speakers, a lot of our students do not speak Portuguese, the correlation between the preferred language and whether people are insiders or outsiders is quickly being blurred, that multiple pages create a terrible mess, that duplicated events are basically unmanageable, etc. No luck. Pointy-haired bosses want it this way. I ought to know. I had to deal often with them, unfortunately. Not exactly bright. Back to productive work. Producing code for student consumption is very time-consuming, at least if you insist, as I do, that the code should contain only good practices, that it should be simple, but not simplistic. Administrative tasks: record the attendance of students to classes, scan student attendance sheets and send them to central quality control office, etc. Multiply this time by the total number of classes, the number of teachers and the average cost of teachers per hour and you will get an idea of the money wasted in this stuff. It would be trivial to streamline the process with a couple of well designed tools. Pointy-haired bosses. Back to school. E-mail processing. More administrative tasks. Scheduling of exams. After all these years we still have not learned that teaching staff should not spend time going to meetings and exchanging emails just to schedule a dozen of exams... Classes from 6pm til 09:30pm. Only a handful of students in my open lab session. I developed and discussed an Java enumeration for the days of the week with a bunch of useful extra methods. It was a good pretext to return to a lot of important subjects (equality vs. identity, etc.). Finishing the day reading e-mails. The saga of the scheduling of exams continues. A total waste of time. 105 We haven't started classes yet, so, up to this point my work has been all about preparing the first 2/3 weeks of classes for the course of Introduction to Programming. I have been discussing with my colleagues the best way to start off with this course and the general opinion so far is to start off by introducing the concepts of computer, language, algorithm and program and from that point on, we jump to teach them how to structure a solution for a problem and to produce an efficient algorithm. The discussion has also been about the evaluation process. Should we include a final (group-based) assignment or should we only have weekly or bi-weekly individual assignments? So basically, on this day, these were some of the aspects that were discussed via e-mail with my colleagues. In the meantime I focused on creating a script for the first exercises as these will also be used by my colleagues on their classes. 105 09:00 - After dropping the kid at school, this day starts a little differently as I have a medical appointment. Luckily, it didn't take long. 10:00 - After the daily dose of traffic, I finally arrived at the University and continued working on next week's practical classes of the Introduction to Programming course. The exercises are aimed at allowing students to make the transition from pseudo-code to Java. 11:30 - Finished the preparation of the exercises and the scripts (including resolutions) for my colleagues. Edited and uploaded the exercises to the appropriate webpage so that students can have a look at it during the weekend and prepare themselves beforehand. As if. 12:00 - Bureaucracy time. Started gathering the student attendance and summary sheets (for statistical purposes since the attendance at classes is not mandatory) to send to the central services. This is the boring part of each week since it includes gathering all this information and update it in different channels: central services, school management system and the course's webpage. 12:30 - Lunch time with a bunch of colleagues. For the last two weeks the topics of conversation have always been the same: the cuts in the salary mandated by the Government amid the concerns of the current financial crisis that is hitting Portugal; and the evaluation process that will start next year, which has led to considerable controversy because there's no consensus as to what metrics should be used to evaluate, for example, publications. Some believe giving more importance to scientific journals will diminish the importance of some well-renowned international conferences. 13:00 - Introduction to Programming class with around 25 students. We worked on specific pseudocode exercises, mostly dealing with manipulation of numbers. It also included an introduction to Eclipse, the IDE that will be used during the rest of the semester as we make the transition to Java. 16:00 - Class is finished, it's time for a snack and a bit of hallway conversation/tutorial with a colleague regarding the use of Blender (a free animation software) to produce more appealing movies out of the output of collaborative robots simulations. 18:00 - Normally, this would be the time to leave and enjoy the weekend but today is a bit different since there's a talk at the campus on hacking and internet security by Samy Kamkar. "Privacy is dead" - this is how he ended his presentation. I, for one, believe him. Why? Well, because he gave some very compelling arguments. In his presentation, suggestively titled "how I met your girlfriend", he showed how some basic internet infrastructures are fundamentally flawed and may enable ill-intentioned users to take advantage of those flaws to gain access to private information. I was also very happy to see a bunch of my students in the front rows. Nothing like the prospect of meeting hot girls through hacking to make the students become interested in programming languages. 20:00 - In the wise words of Obama, "Yes, Weekend!" 105 Unfortunately, today I had to stay at home with my son because he was ill. And since taking care of a feverish two-year old that is still able to run around the house breaking stuff is quite the hogging experience, I practically hadn't had the time to work. The only thing I was actually able to prepare was the 3rd test of the series of 4 written tests for the semester. Perhaps, next month I'll have a more interesting entry. 105 7:30 - Arrived at the University. Today's a full day because we're doing the oral discussions with the students. 7:45 - At the classroom to start preparing the computers for the oral discussions. This semester we decided to have a different approach on the evaluation process. Students have 4 tests during the semester and then we have individual oral discussions to assess if each student is actually at the level of his/her average of the 4 tests. Basically the outcome of the oral discussion is a percentage between 80%-120% of their 4 tests' average and that's half of their grade. The other half is given by the exam at the end of the semester (in January). 8:00 - The discussions take place. Each student is asked to solve a specific programming problem (adapted to his/her skill level) on the computer and then we have an oral discussion about the solution. 12:00 - One must eat, right? 13:00 - Preparing the second batch of oral discussions 14:30 - The discussions take place. 17:30 - What a busy day. Time to go home. 105 Since it was a Saturday, the only thing related to work was the typical checking of work e-mail to make sure that there were no urgent messages from students. That's it. 105 Very basic day. No classes today, so I'm taking the time to prepare the classes for the rest of the week, including a mini-exam (first of a group of four taken during the semester) for the Algorithms and Data Structures course. 105 Not much to report here. My PhD defense will be next week and I've been preparing for that. Stress much? 105 We're in Easter hiatus, so basically everyone uses this no-classes time to focus on research meetings and writing papers, which was the case for this day. 108 10.13am Tuesday 14th I'm marking MSc theses today (Tues), before the deadline, which is on Friday. I have a paper to write on making lectures interesting for large groups. I have lots of ideas but probably not enough quantitative data, just qualitative. I wanted to write an abstract for IEEE Educon in Jordan. It is due in tomorrow, so I might make it later today, if I don't get distracted. I need to do some more work on peer assessment and I want to test out some ideas. I have finished my induction lectures, updated my webpages, organised two teamwork events and put all my material for assessment on the VLE since yesterday - so been pretty busy. Anyway, the rest of this week: I am on the recruitment team and we are meeting to plan the strategy for the year ahead this week. I am going to attend a seminar on enhancing feedback to students and I am also going to do some more work on my PhD - yup, not finished that yet - been a little busy teaching, researching, publishing and working to get that finished. I have some paperwork to finish for the EU report on a Summer School I and my students took part in - part of the Intensive Programme. I need to do some reading and set up some experiments. I am trialling a new assessment method this year in one of my modules. I need to think of some projects for undergraduates to do and put them on the VLE. I have some quizzes to write for the induction events. I have been thinking of the value attributed to teaching and those who choose to concentrate on their teaching and pedagogic research as opposed to 'real' research (not my view but the view of some). In an educational establishment it always amazes me that excellence in teaching and pedagogic research are not seen as significant and can actually be a hinderance to career development e.g. I have been told my research does not fit the School's aim for the next REF or its future recruitment. My contract ends in Sept 2011 and my HOS is sending me job adverts now. So, I have no future here, it seems, even though I am excellent at my job and have been praised externally and internally for my innovations in teaching and learning. I need a cup of coffee. Wed 15 Sept 8.28am I now have a cup of coffee. I signed up for the EQUATE course here at work yesterday - Equal Acclaim for Teaching Excellence - a course on creating the best learning opportunities for students - a teaching enrichment programme. Meeting about that on Friday. Today is a research day - reading papers, writing papers - squeezing some time in before the new term starts. Writing this diary is somewhat akin to the reflections I ask students to write at the end of their project. Stream of consciousness works better though than 'all at the end'. Something else to think about for students - they keep a log book but a project diary or blog that is ongoing would be useful and something to look back on at the end. So, I might introduce that. Of course, assessing it - well, that is also something else to think about... Ok, a-reading I must go - before the recruitment meeting. ___ 108 Term has started and lectures are in full swing. We have a lot more students this time round so getting the logistics sorted has been interesting - printing of notes has gone awry for everyone, room bookings have been clashing, technical glitches have occured just before class, registration confusion still reigns - normal stuff until the dust settles. My diary is suddenly full of appointments with tutees, teams and project students so the day contracts at an alarming rate and the todo list and email inbox expand. The students are really keen and nervous and eager to do well - so the mood is high. I am glad to see them back. It takes a week or so to get back into lecturing mode after a Summer of research and quietness but I am eager to get my modules under way and see how the new set of students get on. I like seeing them learn and love looking at what they produce in the end - which is always great and much better than they expected. In the staff room, apart from Chilean miners and sitting up all night glued to the TV in anticipation - the talk this week is about the announcement of the removal of the cap on tuition fees. I have never agreed with fees and believe education should be free for everyone, however a free market in HE may make some wake up to the fact that teaching well is important and always has been but is set to become more so. I wonder though how the policy of widening participation will gel with the fees idea or are we just scrapping that now? A new government, new students, a new term - ok, let's go! 108 It is revision week and time for all academics to catch up on marking. Exams will start soon and there is an air of nervousness whenever I encounter students in labs and classrooms - always an anxious time, the anticipation, preparation, perspiration and tiredness that always ensues. The student protests have ended but the exact amount of fees have not been decided yet. People are worried about losing their jobs and what the changes will mean for their discipline. Will we be able to recruit and retain students? Will people want to enter HE now that it is due to get MORE expensive? Can we compete and sustain our courses? etc. A new term will start soon so preparing notes, assignments, exams and attending meetings on strategy are all part of the work for the next few weeks. I got some good feedback for my first semester courses but there are changes to be made if I teach these modules again next year. I want to improve my lectures and make them more relevant. Time is a factor in all of the ideas and plans for the future, making time, sticking to deadlines and avoiding meaningless meetings and time-wasting. New Year's resolutions. Saturday is Open day where we interview all potential students to the School. I like doing this as you get to meet future tutees and tell potential students about the School and the work we do, their course etc. It helps to convey our sense of excitement about the subject and learn what students want from our courses. Parents are anxious about fees and about the job prospects of their children on completion of the course. I wish I could guarantee my students a job on graduation, but we have never been able to do that. Ah well, onwards and upwards. 108 This week I have been giving students back their exam results. My first year tutees all managed to pass their first set of exams with flying colours - no resits. I felt like their mum and was so proud. I gave them all a sweet to celebrate. Cheesy - but they seemed to appreciate it. I am thinking about grant proposals and working with others at the moment - planning work we could do and writing draft proposals. I am also writing a book chapter with some colleagues elsewhere in Europe and trying to sort out all the literature for that. But at the moment the real hot topic is the fact that we are deciding fees. I am not party to the discussions but I get to hear the rumours. It is worrying and I suppose everyone is nervous of the impact higher fees might have on recruitment in the near future. I am hoping it will all mean high quality teaching is given equal consideration to research in terms of real importance in the strategy and for promotion purposes. We shall have to wait and see though. There are also mutterings about the REF but generally everyone seems quite happy - it is almost Spring after all. I've got some guest lectures to organise and marking to do - as usual. Another thing I am thinking about for students is the fact that they need to be T-shaped when they leave - specialist and deep for the majority in their own discipline (vertical) but also broad on the horizontal with some knowledge and skills relating to other disciplines. Therefore, we need more multi-disciplinary projects and schemes for undergraduate programs in the sciences - I feel this is the way to go and the only real way that Computing Science might survive long term. Students need to be able work in multi-disciplinary teams and to realise that software is not always developed in isolation from the rest of a system. I'll keep working on writing proposals. Some of my project students seem to have developed flu this week and are missing their meetings with me but they performed well in the first semester. I had it for 6 weeks last term and it was awful, so I understand how they feel. I can't help getting nervous when they don't show up though and I keep hoping they keep up the good work for the second semester. 108 Easter break - time to catch up on the marking and organise research for the Summer break, think about next year's teaching and generally worry about what the changes higher fees will bring. We have conducted a survey on teaching styles preferred by students in lectures. Our attendance figures have been poor this year and we are wondering why that is? Is it the way we teach students? Is it more to do with students having jobs? Is it because lectures are viewed as unimportant compared to practical work in Computing Science? Do we need to introduce new methods of teaching in the lecture slot? The results so far from 150 students are, in part, reassuring and in some ways not so good. Apparently our students don't want to interact in lectures - they want to observe, listen and take notes. 111 Had a good day today, first teaching in several months. Got up at 7.30am, cup of tea, shower, let the dog out for a wee but had to get him back in because the window cleaners arrived - had to walk the dog for 15 minutes instead of letting him have time in the garden as I usually do. Caught train into work, delayed 10 minutes while waiting for a platform to be free. Bang went my plans for getting an early start to do a final run-through of my session plan. Arrived in office at 10am, checked emails for urgent items then walked 10 minutes across town to another part of campus to get a lift to the other campus 3 miles away to deliver training to new academic staff on their PGCHE course. Todays session was on using the VLE for technology enhanced learning. Two parallel sessions had been arranged, one for beginners and one for more advanced (which I was delivering with 2 colleagues). Only 6 participants were interested in the advanced session so I swapped to the beginners to help the other 2 colleagues with their 25+ participants. The 2 hour session was well received and I enjoyed supporting the session by providing one-to-one support to those that were struggling or had questions about how they could achieve some of the more technically advanced features. Spent half an hour discussing the sessions with my colleagues to review effectiveness and any improvements for next years delivery. Got a lift back into city centre and dashed to train station to meet my daughter and go to card shop to pick up birthday cards for my husband as I had sort of forgotten it was today as the past few weeks have been very busy with conferences and preparation for todays session. Bought birthday cake and wine from the supermarket and ordered chinese takeaway for birthday tea (big cop-out from me as I cook really well and should have planned a nice meal or at least booked a restaurant). 111 Catch up day. Spent 1 week at Open Ed 10 conference in Barcelona followed by a week of unexpected flu resulting on the overwhelmingly depressing duties of the day consisting of bottoming the 2 week-old inbox. Found myself contemplating '1001 ways to stop email reaching my inbox while I'm away from the office' - by the time it reaches 'Out of Office' its just too late. 9-11am scanned the 437 new emails for: a) junk (delete) b)events with a 'past' date (delete) c) urgent jobs to do 11-12 Very bored of email sifting so I've moved onto catching up on a few necessary essentials: attempted to collate my conference expense claim but realised I'd left half the receipts neatly in a wallet at home. Dropped in to see Admin Team to pick up a sickness absence form and got bombarded from all sides on the important topics of a)'insisting' I volunteer to participate in Secret Santa; b)select a date for the office Christmas Meal; c) pay my dues for everyone that has left due to budget shortfalls in the 2 weeks I was away (3 people, grim times). 12-12.30 decided to take a short lunch break and quickly nipped over to the local sandwich shop. Discovered I hadn't got any english money as my purse was still full of euro's from the week before I was ill. Hiked into town to get some cash and settled for a Greggs pasty instead of something healthy. 12.30-3 trying to concentrate on the emails and make a list of tasks to do in order of importance. Running out of steam as the afternoon wears on. Realised that I deleted some this morning that actually weren't junk and still needed my action - feel like I should have just pressed 'Delete All' (but I'm not brave or stupid enough to really contemplate that!). 3-4 Going bog-eyed and slightly brain-dead now but I'm quite pleased I got through the emails and have a neat list of jobs to do ready for tomorrow. Heading for home. Sticky, busy, germ-laden, commuter-packed train home - at least it was on time and I got a seat. Arrived home to find husband has come down with the flu now - I guess the bonus for him is that I won't dismiss his as man-flu now I know how I felt last week. Not much point cooking tea for one so I settled for a nice meditteranean platter of houmous and chunky salad to accompany the large bottle of Metatone Tonic I picked up from the supermarket on the way home to ward off the train germs. Attempted to join in with University Challenge - was gutted that I couldn't retrieve the final bit of Maslovs Hierarchy of .......... it just wouldn't surface, doh! Early night, new day tomorrow! 111 Morning woke up this morning and felt like it should be Friday, don't know why because I'm looking forward to meeting a group of Student Enterprise Pioneers today. Was supposed to meet a group of 6 students (at their request) but only two turned up! Wonderful meeting though, they want to create a means to spread the word about enterprising events, activities and support on offer to fellow students, targeting them by faculty/study discipline. Interesting note to self - do not assume students know about the power of social media. Discovered that these particular students (Business Management)only use Facebook to communicate with friends ............ they were blown away by my demo of how it can be used for marketing, events, promotions, communities, academic and student groups and so on. I hope I didn't overload them with too much information. Found myself telling the students how important it is to take a good break at Christmas ready for their final semester. (I wonder if I'll take my own advice!) Afternoon Got a phone call inviting me along for interview for a lecturing position that I really really really want! Why is it that every holiday I get is spent either applying for jobs or preparing presentations of one kind or another! I guess that's the nature of research roles and the current funding crisis. Back to the office to work through the emails and prioritise what I can finish before breaking up on Friday for 2 weeks. All the jobs seem too big ... I'm tempted not to make a start on any. 111 Had a massive cleaning day yesterday then watched the Eurovision Song Contest ... woke up feeling very chilled this morning and totally refreshed - it's been ages since I didn't do any work at the weekend. Spent today happily pottering about and not thinking of anything much - its been ages since I've done that either! 114 Wednesday 15th September I am apparently on leave today so shouldn't really have any work related activity to report - however that is not the reality of my week! I have a handover deadline for some course material on Monday so that only option is to try and complete during my weeks leave. I resent this as I've taken leave to try and work on the final assignment of my MSc. I'm finding it hard to manage the conflicting demands - I'm paid to write the course materials so they should take priority... but my MSc is an important investment in myself and it is getting close to make or break point, if this assignment doesn't get written that will be 3 years work wasted. Actually not wasted as I have enjoyed and used what I have learnt along the way, but it will seam less worth while if I don't get a piece of paper at the end! So this is how my day panned out: First thing I checked my e-mail, not to do anything about it as I have become more strict with myself now and only respond to e-mail during office hours, just to clear out the junk. This leaves me with 35 messages which I will need to deal with when I return next week - I expect triple that number by the time Monday come round. Next I write out a things to do list - this is a week for me to sort things out and try to get on top of both home and work life so I feel pressured to make the most of it. It is a catch-up week so that I'll be able to cope better when I am back at work next week. It is maybe worth saying at this point that I'm going through a process of trying to get a better balance in my life - I have given up my teaching hours this year even though it is a part of the job I really enjoy. I've done this to try and reduce my workload which is ever increasing and made significantly worse by new systems which are being imposed. Frequently new rules and processes are designed by people who don't work where the impact is felt. I spend a lot of my time devising ways to circumnavigate regulations to arrive at sensible outcomes. I decide I can mix work and pleasure by making cheese at the same time as doing my course writing. This kind of works but takes all the pleasure out of the cheese making. My course writing is not going well. I'm frustrated that my job forces me to do things which I am not very good at - we have an everyone must do everything approach in my institution. Why we can't all do the things that we are good at and work as a team I will never know. I finally become frustrated enough to decide something has to change. I call the British Dyslexia Association and book an assessment. I've always struggle with reading, writing and organisation but never been assessed, I've always muddled through. I resent having to pay #500 for the assessment but if it results in a positive diagnosis then I will finally be able to demand that I am given a reasonable amount of time to complete writing and then actually get a holiday during my leave. With the cheese now into moulds I go out for afternoon tea to cheer myself up. When I get back home I decide that I need to work on my MSc. I get my papers together and try to get my brain in gear for another writing task. I'm interrupted by a phone call from a colleague. There is a problem with recruitment. My colleague is going to look into it and asks if I am around tomorrow to help sort it out. I remind her I am on leave so she agrees to call after 9! Back on the MSc work I find I'm floundering but manage to write 500 of the 6000 words I need. This is a start but I have a deadline on 7th October so I am feeling pretty stressed about it. 114 Not a great start to the day - my partner arrived home from a client meeting at 3am yesterday and was lucky to be literally sent to the dog house! It is an ongoing grumble in our household that he gets paid 3 times as much as me. He claims that it is because he works longer hours. This is not actually true - his contract specifies longer hours. My contract specifies fewer hours but I work nearly as many. But the real bone of contention is that I don't get paid extra for being woken up in the middle of the night! Anyway, rather bleary eyed I arrived at the office at 8am after only 4 hours sleep :-( This is a really busy time of year for me. I have some courses starting in November and need to allocate tutors. The interviews were done in August and I have well qualified and very keen tutors wanting confirmation that they will get a student group. But with 2 weeks to go I still don't know how many students I have. With the current economic situation there is pressure to appoint as few tutors as possible. However, I am keen to keep the student groups small as I believe that will improve retention. It frustrates me that the university is always focusing on reducing expenditure and, in my view, doesn't pay enough attention to the overall cost in the longer term. Deciding on the group sizes isn't as simple as employing as few tutors as possible, but that is the atitude of our administrators and somehow they have been given increasing power and can stand in the way of my academic judgement. The final result of 3 hours looking at figures and negotiating is that I appoint two tutors and defer the other decisions till Monday. Usually we end up with whatever model I suggested int he first place, but the system forces me to delay decisions meaning that my new tutors will be less prepared for teaching the new course. My next task of the day is to try and join in the co-ordination exercise for two courses which ahve just ended and need projects marking. It takes several e-mail to estabilish where I collect the scripts from and then to reset my access permissions so that I am able to download an electronic copy. It is 4pm before I get access to them so they will have to be marked over the weekend. My other main task of the day is much more self focused. I have recently been diagnosed as dyslexic, or perhaps that should be officially identified as I have self identified a long time ago but only just went for an assessment. I chose to go for the assessment as I was finding that even with working additional time I was unable to get some of my work completed by various deadlines being set, and some colleagues had complained about my spelling. An assessment would get me access to dictations and readout software which I hope will help me work more efficiently. I felt it would be worth the #300 assessment to get some support. I am still trying to get that support though. Although the university is very good at supporting students with dyslexia I am now discovering that there is no process for supporting staff. My line manager was very sympathetic but directed me to Occupational Health. OH said it wasn't their problem and I needed to go to HR. HR said it was a matter for "staff in my area". Today I sent details to the head of department in my faculty and am waiting for a response. So far I have had to speak to 6 different people about a matter that is supposed to be confidential, and still I haven't found anyone who can help. I'm only asking for a couple of bits of software and a slight upgrade to my hardware. I'm certain the cost will be recovered in improvements in my work, it is a legal requirement that I am offered support, but nobody wants it coming out of their budget. I will keep pushing to try and get the university as my employer to provide help. But as a back up optionI have registered as a student and start the process of applying for a Disabled Student Award which will get me to the same end point via a different route. I head out of the office at 4pm and collect my partner on the way home. Flowers and tea persuade me that we should be friends again and I get to go for a nap whilst he collects the children. I'm trying to make a start on the marking when the kids arrive and soon put a stop to it. The kids quite rightly point out that they spend all week working hard to get their homework done so that they can make the most of the time they spend with their Dad and me, not so that they can watch us doing work! Work computers and phones are turned off and it is all put out of mind till Monday :-) 114 Winter is definately hear and it is rather chilly this morning. Of course the first negative numbers on the weather forecast is like an instruction to the boiler to stop working and the house is freezing! Equally annoying is that I arrive at the office to find the heating turned up so high that I can barely think. Our building is in desparate need of refurbishment as the heating system just doesn't work - whilst I am sweltering from being in sauna like conditions other people elsewhere in the building are shivering. Anyway, todays first task is to get together everything I need for exam project marking. I've got a list of scripts which need to be third marked. I've just recieved the paperwork which indicates they need to be returned by yesterday! It should be a simple task to print 20 scripts ready for me to mark them. However the combination of access problems, printer errors, network issues and incorrect file formats means it takes me most of the day. However, whilst waiting for the electrons to travel the three meters from my desk to the printer, I at least have a chance to start looking at the 300 emails which have arrived in the past week when I was on leave. Having filtered out the spare sandwiches, lost property and micelanious messages of no relevance I have about 200 messages left. How did the world work before email? I can't help feeling that there was a better system, like people just made decisions and got on with things without feeling that they need to consult the whole world all the time. Amongst all the dross there are some good messages though. I was presenting at a conference on Saturday and the feedback is very positive. This is one of the moments when I feel aprechiated and that my hard work pays off :-) I've been copied into a number of messages regarding the provision of special software to assist me because I am dyslexic. Two months on from when I requested the software there is still ongoing discussion as to whether occuptional health have approved it. The It department say it needs to be signed off by OH, OH say it is not within their remit as it is a condition not a disease. I'm starting to think it would be easier just to go and buy it myself! I have an interesting discussion with a colleague around recruiting some new teaching staff. This is a really positive conversation both as it is about recruitment but also we are working closely together to combine resources to improve conditions for both our staff and students. I wish we could do more of this type of colaboration. I had approached another colleague looking to do a similar thing and got a response basically saying they couldn't be bothered. I head home at 5ish and then make a start on marking those exam scripts. I only have chance to put in about an our before I have to stop and change hats to become a student. I have an online tutorial this evening. I've used the tutorial software many times before so leave it till quite late before loggin on.... my PC gives me the blue screen of death, on rebooting I manage to get windows to load but it won't run the tutorial software. I grab my partners laptop and boot it up... discover the tutorial software won't run in firefox and he hasn't got explorer installed. With about 5 minns to go I wipe the dust off my old laptop andboot it up, it is looking good till I discover I need to update my version of java... I eventually manage to get on to the system about 5 mins late. I find it quite scary that it has been so difficult to get onto the system - how do new students cope? This is obviously the first online tutorial my tutor has given. The audio keeps dropping out and one of the other students dissappears every five minutes or so. The technology is very definately in the way of engaging wiht the learning. I'm quite surprised that even though I have used the system as a tutor, once I have my student hat on I am very nervous about speaking and feel uncomfortable in that environment. It is made worse by knowing that the sessions will be recorded - what if I say something stupid? I do my best to join in a contribute verbally a few times but I think I am doing this more because I feel sorry for the tutor who is struggling then because that is what I want to do as a student! My partner sticks his head round the door and hands me a plate of dinner and a fork - he has cut it all up into bite size pieces as that I can eat it one handed whilst still in the online tutorial! Tutorial done I consider returning to my marking but think better of it and take a couple of hours off before bedtime - it's going to be a long week! I spend that "off time" reading papers for the school governors meeting I'll be chairing tomorrow evening. Glutton for punishment is the phrase that comes to mind. I'm so looking forward to getting on top of things and then I'll be able to spend time on some exciting new projects I want to take on. I am hoping to get a partnership together with some new contacts, but it never makes it to the top of the priority list - tomorrow I will action it, just as soon as I have finished marking, and responding to e-mail, and whatever else people think needs my urgent attention! 114 Yipeeee - it's christmas lunch day :-) But the day started on a more sombre note as I had to drive past the scene of a RTC which I had witnessed last night - Two teenage boy in a corsa had hit a telegraph pole at about 50mph. The car is still parked in the ditch. They were wearing seatbelts and very lucky to have hit it dead central, a little to either side and I am certain one of them would have been killed. The relevance of this to my job is that I am currently a first aider - that has given me access to training so having witnessed the incident I knew what I needed to do. I remember going through the process - check for own safety, get to casualties, talk to casualties, get help. Thankfully when I opened the car door both lads asked me what happened, they were shaken and I expect a bit bruised but it wasn't the blood bath I'd been fearing. To cut a long story short I did my best to direct traffic whilst waiting for the police and we avoided anyone driving into the fallen telegraph pole. This morning as I drive past I suddenly realised how lucky I was not to have been hit, either by the spinning car or the falling telegraph pole. I'm also angry that I was the only person who stopped to help. I had stopped one car and asked the driver if he had a red triangle, he'd just said no and driven off! I am so grateful for the first aid training that I've had. I've treated very few people at work but yesterday I did something important for our community and would have given them whatever first aid they had needed if they were hurt. Unfortunately one of the cut backs at our institution is not to fund as much first aid training. Whilst I see that this can easily be identified as an unnecessary expense, I feel that we are loosing something valuable. If all companies cut back on their first aiders who will be there to help me when I need them? Anyway, back to work... Today a dear colleague is retiring. He gives a very touching speech on his career and there are a few teary eyes at the though of him leaving. Thankfully he ends on a happy note.... no replacement has been appointed so he'll be back in the new year to "help out" until an appointment is made. This is typical that the insititution can't manage to recruit in time despite several years notice! I spend the morning doing some interviewing for jobs that probabally don't exist. It's always lovely to talk to people and hear there enthuiasm for teaching, but a bit disheartening that student numbers are looking much lower than forecast. Eventually lunchtime arrive and off we go to enjoy our christmas dinner... alas I am on a table with vegetarians who complain about the veggie option. As Chair of the staff club I get to formally thank the organiser for her many years organising the christmas meal and announce that she is stepping down from the role - I resist the temptation to add that it is due to the complaints from vegetarians that she resigned! I'm slightly frustrated that some of my colleagues are still talking shop at the dinner table but there are important decisions to be made and they might not see eachother again for a while. I win a bottle of wine in the raffle and a magician does some impresive tricks. This is a slight problem for me as I used to be a magicians assistant and my colleagues think it is unfair that I won't tell them how it is done. Life was so much more simple when my job was to climb into a box and get sawn into three! After lunch we have to head back to the office and get on with some admin tasks. I have a long conversation with one of my colleagues about promotion. She's been approached about putting a case together this year and is surprised that I haven't. My problem is that I am very good at and enjoy the management side of my role but these aspects don't score any points in promotions cases. I'm left with the dilemma to either accept that I won't ever get promoted, or I have to neglect the student facing side of my role to be able to spend time on the point scoring activities. I have been struggling wiht this tension for quite a while and recognise that it may be time to move on - square peg in a round hole and all that. I check the Guardian jobs page when I get home and dust off my CV. I've now moved from complaining mode to planning. The buracracy and the lack of recognition for the hands on work with students has finally worn me down. My partner buys me a beer and we start planning my exit strategy! 114 Although it is Saturday, I am working today. We have a staff development event for new lecturers so I am here to meet a new engineer and fill his brain with more information than he can possibly remember! Although I'm not keen on working on a Saturday, it is a really nice day, full of enthusiasm and injects a great sense of energy. Sadly it is rare at the moment to have such positive vibes in the buliding as we are being restructured and people are understandabally nervous about job security. I also do some work which is still outstanding from the past week. Most of our courses start in February so we are busy allocating tutors to students, and in some cases still interviewing for possible new appointments. It is an understatement to say we are working close to the wire! In some ways it is actually nice to work on a saturday - it is very quiet in my office so I can methodically work through my "TO DO" list without interuption. Alsas I don't get to the bottom of it though, I'm not sure I ever will! Another nice thing about working on a Saturday is that everyone is a little more relaxed and takes the time to stop for a chat. I have a good discussion with the Head of Unit about life the universe and the excitement of the increasing number of Engineering students. I also got laughed at for arriving at lunch with a selection of tupperware boxes - they always over cater and I hate to see it go to waste :-) I have to slope off at 4pm so leave my colleagues to finish off the workshops whilst I head home, 10 mins to change and collect my partner before heading off to watch Ice Hockey. Unexpectedly the game is very tight... we had a goal disallowed, unfairly in my opion, .... finally in overtime we get the WIN!!!! All in all a day of hard work, but also great pleasure. I only week days could be like this! 114 I've been waiting for this day - 3 weeks leave starts today and I'm off to America. The only way to truely excape work is to be in a different time zone, turn off your phone and have limited email access. I'm sure they will still mail me and call me and I will pick up some of the messages - leave is not quite an excuse to stop work... but you can at least choose to ignore some stuff which will hopefully go away before you get back. It will be great to have a break :-) 114 Today should be my first day back in the office after three weeks holiday and a week working away in Nottingham, but I don't actually make it into work. I've woken up with a very high temperature and have no choice but to stay in bed. It's lunchtime before I even manage to get up and send amessage into the office and let them know. But I don't think I am really ill - simply tired, both emotionally nad physically drained. Whilst I was away my Aunt went missing. Last week I diverted on route to my meeting to visit her imeadiate family and became involved in the search. On a beautiful spring day I found myself with the police walking the canal towpath. I've walked this section of canal with my Aunt many times and it is a lovely walk, but today I can't take my eyes off the water, I'm looking for a body. I'm completely blown away when I visit the police incident room and see the scale of the search they are conducting. Door to door, helicopter, ground search teams, water search teams - there is no limit to the resources they are putting into looking for her. But that was last week, she is now missing for 16 days with no clues at all. I can't stop thinking about my Aunt and trying to work out where she might be. This afternoon I get the call I'd been expecting and dreading - they ahve finally found a body in the canal and it is probabally her. I knew this was the likely outcome, but it is still a massive shock. I can't imagine my lovely bubbly Aunt being so depressed she would want to end her life. But the reality is that she was very ill with depression and she'd had enough. Part of me wishes that they had never found her, that I could pretend forever that she'd run away and was living a new live elsewhere. But I would still know in my heart that wasn't true. I have to call my partner to let him know. He comes home to give me a hug. I feel bad that they found her body in one of the spots that I had been looking for her from the canal bank - I was looking in the righ tolace but just couldn't see her. That is probabally a good thing, but I somehow feel I let her down. Even though it doesn't matter, She'd already been dead a long time, a few more days till recovery doesn't really matter. I send out some e-mails to thank people who had been helping in the search. I spend a long time on the wording to try and get the right tone but eventually decide basic facts given clearly will work best. I wonder if I should talk to any familiy members but decide there is nothing to say. My partner tries to comform me that she is at peace now but it doesn't work. He's a devote catholic, I'm an athiest. I tell him that suicide is a sin, she's failed the entry requirements for heaven! Some days I am jealous of his faith and the support it offers him. But these situations strengthen my athieism - how can you believe God would let this happen? I have an early night - I need to go back to work tomorrow as there is nothing else to do. It I think about it too much it will just get worse. 114 I've just looked back at last months entry - how much life can change in just 4 weeks. Today is a great day, I've taken the afternoon off to go shopping and buy myself a new posh frock to wear tomorrow when I will be graduating :-) This morning I tried to clear some of my email backlog. When it gets to tripple figures I know that things are going badly and things are starting to fall apart. I have been trying to fix up some dates for interviewing with a colleague, we eventually decide to shortlist fewer candidates so that we can fit them in, and then only by doing 6 a day which is hard work for us and not really very fair on the candidates. Luckily we know most of them so it is hopefully a rubber stamping exercise. I have also spent some time looking for a colaborator for some research. A colleague has suggested I use my recently identified dyslexia as the basis for a case study. The idea was that I could find someone to interview me and write it themselves with me just being the subject. However, now I have found an expert in the field it is clear that he's not falling for that trick! So I have not got mayself an additional task of researching and writing a paper on my dyslexia and the difficulties I have with working in academia. Hopefully this will payoff in the long run, but right now feels like I have shot myself in the foot by finding more work to take on. The other task I tried to complete this morning was writing some assessment questions. Writing the questions was failry straight forward but there is also an expectation that I will imput them into Moodle. After much swearing at being unable to work out what style of question I needed, how to set up catagories and general computerbased angst I gave up trying to work with moodle and complied a word document - someone else can input it! Although I'm only supposed to write about the 15th, I want to tell you about the 16th because it was a fantastic day :-) Although I alreayd hold a BSc and MA, I've never actually been to collect a degree at a graduation ceremony before. This time round my partner was very keen for me to collect my MSc and celebrate it properly. Dressed up in my new posh frock and accompanied by my partner, his children and his mum I went and joined all the other students who were graduating today. Strangely I have attended 10 ceremonies as an academic, just never recieved. It was lovely to be on the other side, to have my name read out and walk accross the stage to the applorse and shouts of my family up in the gallery and my colleagues on the stage. The VC congratulated me and also thanked me for all that I do for the university which was very touching. Not many of our staff go to the graduation ceremony but I strongly encourage everyone to do so. There is such a lovely atmpsphere and it reminds you what all our hard work is for. 114 Was woken up this morning my a cockrel! With the weather being so glorious we've gone camping for the weekend in our newly aquired "funbus" which has room for children, bikes, camping gear and a few other bits and pieces. Stayed on a lovely little campsite on Kent where thye ahve a cockrel who does the rounds of the camp site each morning, stopping to crow outside every tent to make sure everyone is up. After a breakfast of eggs, spagetti hoops and brioche we packed up the tent and got on our bikes. Unfortunately we'd expected the terrain to be a bit flatter and then route to be a bit shorter.... and there was nowhere to stop for sweeties. There were a few complaints from the children by the time we returned to camp after 2.5 hours and about 16 miles. Luckily it only too tea and a hot shower to get them to speak to us again! Stopping for lunch on the way home the guys hastily rejected the childrens menu and demonstrated just how good cycling is for building an apetite, much to the shock of other diners! Yes a petite 11 year old girl can consume a large roast dinner and ask for more :-) Once we got back home the kids were fed again (just a light snack of ham, potatoes, salad, eggs, crackers, fruit and cake!) before being returned to their mother. Their more sedentary lifestyle during the week allows them to recover from the weekends! We often go out on a Sunday night but there was not time for that this week as I had work to do. I'd got a call on Friday asking me to go and do a TV interview with one of my students who is getting a NIACE Award as part of Adult Learners Week. It's going to take me about 3 hours to get to the location and they want me there before 10am. I spend a couple of hours sorting out train times, thinking about what I might say, worrying about what to wear and booking a rather ealy cab. I crawl into bed surprisingly early and looking forward to the coming week :-) Monday 16th June (OK I know this isn't in the remit but let me just share a little bit!) I turn up for the TV interview, my student is there ready and waiting. The recording will inclue a training session with one of the UKs top weightlifters who is on track to compete in the paralympics. We get a call to say the camera crew are about an hour late so order another round of coffee. Eventually the crew turn up and we can get started. Our athlete starts his warm up by bench pressing roughly my body weight before moving on to his main set which is nearly twice his body weight - he is significantly larger and heavier than me! I'm completely blown away by the display of strength as he completes the fifth rep. Meanwhile the cameraman casually asks "can you do that again so I can get another angle?" clearly oblivious to the amazing athletic feat we have just witnessed. Undetered by the refusal to repeat the bench presses the camerman changes tack "can you do some leg presses with a couple of hundred kilos?" I laughed as the obvious reply came back "I've only got one leg, I don't think so mate!" Later on I join the boys for lunch and we recount tales of our athletic endevours. My new weightlifting friend keeps nudging me under the table. I though he was playing footsie with me but it turns out it was just his prothetic leg being a bit unruley! 114 Today I have a 2 hour journey to get to campus (I usually work remotely). I decide to head off early and thenI'll be able to go for a run whenI arrive before a series of meetings. Alas the train system says no! Arriving at Euston head of schedule I discover there are no trains. I'm directed to walk to Kings Cross and catch a train for Bedford. When I arrive in Bedford some time later I'm told that it would have been better to direct me via Luton instead - the next connection is nearly an hour! I walk into Bedford, find the coach station, wait half an hour no realising there is a queue forming outside the bus station and then only just get on the bus before it is declared full! Eventually after the bus and a cab I arrive on campus4.5 hours after leaving home! Naturally it is my run that has to be cancelled as I'm already late for the first meeting. The afternoon meeting is with quite a large group and I have been complaining for months about how badly run these meetings are and that they always go massively over time. In response to my complaints I have been made Chair and today is the test or my ability to improve things. It starts well and we are still on time after the first hour. It's hard to get a group of academics to reconveine after teabreak and by our second tea break I have been renamed Miss Whiplash! I'm really chuffed that we are running 5mins ahead of time when I hand over to the previous Chair who has the final item which should be timed at 10 mins..... the meeting then runs over by half an hour! Oh well - it was definately an improvement and I'm pleased when several of my colleagues compliment me on how well run it was. 114 Today I am on study leave - an oppertunity to catch up on the best bit of my job, but also the bit that usually gets pushed asside for opperational crisis! I'm up early with a list of tasks to get completed. Unfortunately my study day starts with having to speak to a colleague about student marking which has not been completed. I love being a line manager and supporting people who are teaching, but I don't enjoy dealing with those few who don't perform. I had left a message asking them to call me back... they called at 08.50 and left a message. The cynic in me thinks they purposely called before I would be there to answer. Conveniently they work in a building with no phone reception so I can't call them back till later on. Dealing with the start of a diciplinary case is not my idea of a great way to spend Friday night! Next I deal with a sick chicken, I don't know what is up with her, she's just a bit off and not laying properly. Ilet her spend some time on her own for a while separated form the other girls who get very jealous when I give her some corn. Finally I get down to doing some study and am ust getting into it when the phone rings. I need to pop out to collect a new kayak paddle which I ordered a couple of weeks ago. As we are going out this weekend I'm keen to collect it, decide it will only take an hour to drive each way so I could get there and still have time to complete my work this afternoon. Alas the M25 had other plans..... Just over 4 hours later I get back with a shiny new kayak paddle and a bad mood! I do get some work done in thelate afternoon and evening but have to stop to deal with my diciplinary case. I am frustrated as I am sure the individual is lying to me abouthaving done the work. But the computer system is not reliable enough to be 100% sure so I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. I don't understand why someone would bother being in teaching if they don't care enough about the students to give them a reasonable level of support. This one is going to run and run! 8pm - it is now officially the weekend :-) 114 Several times I have started my entry stating that I should be on leave.... this time I really am and enjoying solo kayaking round lake windermere. It is so beautiful, peaceful and relaxing. This is a busy time of year for us as we are coming to the end of one presentation, preparing for the start of the next two and trying to do other work at the same time. It is so nice to get a break away from course writing and trying to juggle students numbers at the same time as being restructured and reorganised. I'm hoping that a week will be long enough to recharge the batteries before returning to the mad house. Whilst I'm away I do spend some time thinking about work - I'm trying to take stock and decide what I want to be doing and which direction to head in. Shortly after returning I will be having dinner with my line manager. I was summonsed to this dinner date and am aprehensive about it. When I asked if there was an agenda for our discussion I was told it was to "ensure I was getting access to work oppertunities" I have no idea if I am about to be offered a role on a new project, or about to be told I'm not productive enough, or advised to look for oppertunity elsewhere. I'm trying to keep an open mind about it but also aware that it might be an oppertunity to request something... if only I knew what I want to do when I grow up..... I've prepared my CV, as it needed updating anyway and it helps me remember what I've done. This is the last blog entry so I'm afraid you'll never find out what happens! 116 (Times indicate when I wrote the entry. Entries discuss what I did prior to the indicated time.) 8:10 AM: Up at 6:30, usual morning routine. Checked email for any hot issues from students overnight. Campus email service was down, so I could read what was downloaded overnight, but any processing had to be deferred. Checked Twitter for any signs of student angst with assignments. Left home for campus around 7:30. Spent first fifteen minutes chatting with colleagues and staff, then grabbed a cup of coffee and ate breakfast at my desk while reviewing the tasks and meetings for the day. My department chair is overseas with a student group this week, so our department meeting was cancelled. I don't have classroom responsibilities on Wednesday, so I have an open schedule compared to usual. I have an 8am meeting with a colleague to draft a report on our summer activities. We were funded this past summer by a small ($10,000) grant from our home institution to develop a video series and accompanying active learning and assessment materials on C programming. We'll use the series as part of our introduction to software development class and as review materials for students entering Operating Systems or Networking later in their careers. 9:10 AM: Met with colleague. Drafted report summarizing our work. Spent a substantial portion of the hour looking for the email from the Dean's office that requested the report. (Our Dean retired and was replaced by an interim this summer, so we're unsure who requested the report. We both just noted that it was due.) 9:40 AM: Went to Dean's office to discuss report submission. Finalized report with colleague. Draft appropriate cover letter and submitted the report. Spent 20 minutes reviewing my list of tasks to be completed today. I have to complete twenty six more items today to avoid missing deadlines for classes or reviewing obligations. Although my use of time is almost completely self-directed, outside of my scheduled classroom time, the vast majority of my work is extremely deadline driven. I have to complete course preparation in advance of course meetings or the course meeting time is lost forever. I have to grade homework in a timely manner or the students' learning suffers. Despite the number of tasks on my plate for today, I need to take care of some non-deadline items related to homeownership today as well. Realistically, the pile is larger than I can get through, but I'll make a best effort and sacrifice sleep to meet expectations. 10:16 AM: Spent a half hour setting up Subversion version control repositories on a server for the teams in my programming language paradigms course. This was time critical since I didn't get confirmation of team names from the students until last night, but they need their repositories to begin working on their team milestone that is due Friday night. 10:21 AM: Shared my solution to a homework assignment with students so they can compare their answers with mine. I can share solutions immediately after the homework due date, which is more quickly than I can turn around grading. I think this helps (the most diligent) students own their own learning. 10:26 AM: Responded to an email from an ITiCSE working group leader regarding a follow-up presentation of our work at a workshop this fall. 11:37 AM: Continued working on a journal paper review. Heading to lunch with colleagues. 12:40 PM: Had lunch with colleagues from my department and two or three others. After general conversation about our soccer game from last night, talk turned to the campus upgrade to Windows 7 and the automatic network backup system that is rendering most faculty members' computers so slow as to be unusable. Talk ranged over ways to circumvent the system, the political situation within the IT department, and the IT department's apparent lack of concern for academic computing and the school's teaching mission. 12:55 PM: Spent 15 minutes processing email. Worked to reschedule one regular meeting with a student team to accommodate the schedules of another team. 1:05 PM: Dug into a couple of past articles looking for related work that should be cited by the journal article I'm reviewing. 1:50 PM: Met with my colleague on the video production work to review our task list and identify next steps. Together sent three emails requesting assistance from various staff members (institutional assessment, IT, and digital media) 2:24 PM: Completed review of journal article. Proof-read my comments and uploaded them to the journal's website. 2:35 PM: Ten minute Twitter break. Lots of activity from students but none that requires a response. 2:41 PM: Talked to colleague about scheduling a soccer game tomorrow late afternoon. 2:54 PM: Started re-reading a journal paper that I assigned to my classes so I'm prepared to lead a discussion of it tomorrow. A student working on an independent study project stopped by with a question on a paper. After that I decided another caffeine infusion was required. On the way back from that, I ran into a colleague from Electrical and Computer Engineering and ended up doing a 5 minute unpaid consulting gig on Python. 3:36 PM: Finished reading the journal article in preparation for class. 4:01 PM: Reviewed code for in-class live coding tomorrow. Decided I wasn't pleased with a portion of the OO design, so attempted to refactor the code. Discovered that two methods that I thought were the same had a subtle difference that prevented my refactoring from working. So, I reverted that refactoring and used a different one that highlighted the subtle difference and eliminated duplication of code. (I often use live coding in class to demonstrate interesting issues. I find that reviewing and improving that code before class is a good way to get in the right mindset to teach it. I don't necessarily end up using that exact code in class. Part of the point of live coding is to get student input as we go to see where we end up.) After sorting out the coding, I reviewed my in-class quiz and slides. I use test-first teaching [ArdisDugas04a], so the quiz is critical to reifying my learning outcomes for the class session into active learning for my students. The quiz still seemed fine, but I made some tweaks to the slides to head of points of confusion that seemed likely to come up based on what I know of my students this term. I aim for fairly sparse slides, so many of my tweaks were to the notes section of the slides that I see but they don't. I post PDFs of the slides proper that students can reference and annotated, but don't share the raw Keynote files. 4:09 PM: Finished the preceding journal entry. :-) Fighting a headache, so I think I'll take a Tylenol and a walk. 4:19 PM: Walked through the downstairs hallway looking at the new art installations for this fall. There are some nice pieces and a few paintings that belong on black velvet. 4:36 PM: Made phone calls to several home repair contractors to schedule estimator visits. @inproceedings{ArdisDugas04a, Author = {Ardis, Mark A. and Dugas, Cheryl A.}, Booktitle = {34th ASEE/IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference}, Organization = {IEEE}, Title = {Test-First Teaching: Extreme Programming Meets Instructional Design in Software Engineering Courses}, Year = {2004}} 4:46 PM: Caught up on email. 5:00 PM: A student flagged me down in the departmental lab to show me his progress on an iPad app he's working on and discuss some graphic design issues and the code to implement them. I headed for home. 5:30 PM: Ran a couple of errands on the way home. Decided I wanted a decent supper after several days of eating leftovers, cereal, or take-out. Meals have been a challenge this academic year, since my wife moved 10 hours away for the year. She's been attempting to make career change over the last three years and decided she needs to upgrade her credentials. She can't do that in our small city, so we're a two household family for the next 9-18 months. Two body problems are always challenging, but perhaps especially so for two professionals with aversions to major urban area. 6:40 PM: Made and ate dinner and stowed the leftovers. Clean up will have to wait, since I have choir practice at 7. 8:45 PM: Enjoyed most of the 1.5 hours of choir practice. Singing is a great release for a couple of reasons. I have to concentrate at it, so I don't have time to worry about work. And I'm not very good at it, so it keeps me humble and helps me remember how to empathize with my students. 9:30 PM: Cleaned up the kitchen. Quick Twitter check, then settling into my recliner with a baseball game on and a (binary?) heap of reading on my iPad. 9:50 PM: Read some tech and news blogs and RSS feeds. Need to read new blog entries from my independent study students next in preparation for meeting with them tomorrow. 10:05 PM: Finished reading my students' blog posts. They did a great job this week. I've had good success with asking independent study students to write blogs on their work. They tend to be familiar with the medium, and it hells them both find a voice and feel like they aren't just going through the motions for a grade. I'm fortunate to have a few young alumni who will occasionally read and comment on students' blog posts. 10:30 PM: Video chatted with my wife. Long distance relationships are a lot easier than they were 20 years ago, but their still not great fun. 10:55 PM: Skimmed a couple of on-line reference manuals for Objective-C that were on the syllabus for a colleague's iOS software development course. I'm sitting in on the course this term. Sitting in on colleagues' course is a fairly common practice at my institution. I enjoy it because I get to learn new subject matter, remember what it's like to struggle to keep up with the workload in a class, and observe great teachers in action. I'm blessed to work with many outstanding educators. 11:10 PM: Reviewed my task list for the day. Had to put off some household tasks to tomorrow and Friday, but it's too late to make a hardware store run or vacuum furnace filters. Conveniently, the Cubs just completed a three game sweep of the Cardinals and it's time to get ready for bed. I'll do a quick email check, then read some news and opinion pieces on my iPad before lights out. 11:50 PM: Sleep, perchance to dream. 116 8:49 AM: We're on fall break for a couple of days this week. I'm taking advantage of the lack of classes to visit my wife who is back in grad. school out of state. I love the school at which I teach, but its location isn't great. There are very few opportunities there for my wife, so we're living in separate households this school year while she updates her vita. The separation has been hard, but it's been nice to spend a few days here visiting. I slept past 8 this morning--sleep is the biggest leisure of break--then caught up on email and the morning comics. I have some work to do to prepare for my classes next week, but I can do that while my wife is at her classes later today. 11:00 AM: I walked with my wife to her morning class. It's nice to be on a big campus again. I appreciate the hustle and bustle of thousands of students going their own directions. It gives the place a certain energy, even if half the students look barely awake. After seeing my wife to class I parked myself at a coffee shop and caught up on some reading. I find it amazing that I can carry the vast majority of my reading list on the phone in my pocket. Now I'm pack at our apartment to do some laundry in preparation for a conference trip starting tomorrow. While the laundry tumbles I'll work on learning the Go programming language so I can introduce it to my class. 1:39 PM: One of my students was very kind and created a VIrtualBox VM image for use by my students in the Programming Language Paradigms class I'm teaching. We're going to experiment with Google's Go programming language, which currently runs on Mac and Linux, but not Windows. The VM will let my students who run Windows on their laptops do the course work with a minimum of installation fuss. I can't overstate how grateful I am for this student's generosity; he just poked his head in my office the other day and asked me if I'd like him to do it. I've spent midday playing with the VM--there were some issues with the networking configuration--and revising the installation instructions accordingly. I really like to use practical tools in my courses. I think it's important for computing professionals to develop skills in finding their way through new technology. The challenge is that requires a significant time investment in not just learning the tools, but also updating assignments, lab description, and installation instructions. 3:07 PM: I posted the VM installation instructions and started writing an initial homework assignment. I plan to spend the rest of the day with my wife, and will be without reliable bandwidth for the next couple of days. As such, I'm pulling down a Google video on Go so I can use it as the basis for a homework assignment next week while I'm away at a conference. I should have plenty of airport/airplane time to put the assignment together tomorrow. 7:12 PM: We went for a wonderful hike on a local mountain, then went out for pizza. Time for a relaxing evening at home. 116 8:05 It's final exam week and my classes this term were upper-division undergrad, project-based. So, no exams for me to give or grade. I'm staying with my wife at her grad school for the next two weeks--finals plus Thanksgiving break. (I'm in the States.) This will be our longest stretch of time together since she started school in mid-August. I started my morning by catching up on email. My students have a final essay due today, so those have been rolling in. They also have to complete their team evaluations. I need to grab some breakfast, then see if any of my students need another reminder to complete their evaluations. I hate that they need multiple reminders, but the team evaluations are an important part of how I distribute project points. So, I treat those who dally like they're 4 year olds. (Or faculty members?) 10:15 Scanned through the latest issue of the Chronicle of Higher Ed. Not much news of import, but it seems important to stay connected to the wider academic community. More email. Depressing news that we'll exhaust our funds for graders well before the end of the academic year. Department funds for that were steady this year after a couple of years of cuts, but federal support for students in the form of work study money was cut well after local budgets were set. I'm now starting to consider how to minimize the academic harm while reducing the amount of graded work. Since I'm a firm believer in learning by doing, it isn't clear how to do that. Perhaps I can find a way to motivate their doing without detailed critique of every bit of their output. Time for a run. Perhaps a few miles and some fresh air will inspire some ideas. 2:14 PM My run was good. Always feel like I can think more clearly after exercising. Post-run, I popped over to a sandwich shop for lunch and some reading, then to the hardware store to get parts to repair the yard-sale humidifier that my wife bought for her apartment. Probably a penny-wise, pound-foolish investment on her part, but I'm going to a be a good husband and let it slide. Now I'm back at the apartment and ready to start tackling the end-of-term grading and start-of-term prep. 5:30 PM Spent three hours rearranging the planned schedule for my CS2 course winter term. I'm leading the department in a process to incorporate concurrency and parallelism throughout our curriculum. We've settled on program outcomes for our CS and SE degree programs and are beginning the process of deciding how to change individual courses. A colleague and I are team teaching CS2 this winter (in Java) and want to spend some time on fork-join parallelism, parallel arrays, and basic multithreading. We're going to have to compress some intro. material, but our classes are small enough that we can do that by providing extra individual attention to the students who struggle. 10 PM Enjoyed dinner with my wife, then turned to grading to wrap up the fall term. All the team evaluations came in. It's always an ordeal to process those. I usually have a reasonable notion of how team mechanics are working out. However, there always seems to be a team or two that was really struggling on teamwork issues, but thought it best to hide that from me instead of getting help. Anyway, I put off that pain for tomorrow and graded their final programming assignment. I like to make the final assignment in this course a "nerd sniping" problem [http://xkcd.com/356/]. I'm up front that I'm doing that and am always pleased when they respond. About 15% of the class solved the whole problem, and more than half the class solved at least half of the problem. (The problem this time was to model Trono's Santa Claus Problem [John A. Trono. 1994. A new exercise in concurrency. SIGCSE Bull. 26, 3 (September 1994), 8-10. DOI=10.1145/187387.187391 http://doi.acm.org/10.1145/187387.187391] using the Go programming language's channels and goroutines [golang.org].) Still waiting on final reflective essays over the Go language, due tonight. But I'm looking forward to wrapping up the term tomorrow. It always seems like the grading is easier at the very end of the term. 116 Dec 15, 2010 Today was a crazy day in a crazy week. I'm not scheduled to teach on Wednesdays, so I try to set aside at least the mornings for professional development work. Not so today... I'm team teaching a course this term. A colleague and I are both teaching our own sections, but we're sharing all of our materials (slides, assignment descriptions, course schedule, grade book). This generally works well. Our preparation styles are very similar and we get better materials by virtue of extra review. My colleagues took the lead on preparations for tomorrow, so I was reviewing his work this morning. We're building on materials from a previous term, but moving several topics around to make room for additional material. Unfortunately, for this day my colleague failed to notice that we had made significant changes to the schedule for tomorrow and the subsequent week. So, the materials that he prepped contain several errors and omitted half the material that we needed. Compounding the issue, he teaches for five hours on Wednesday for different courses. Thus, my day began with having three hours of unexpected course prep dumped in my lap. The craziness of the week stems from volunteering to cover class for two different colleagues with medical issues. So my usual 12 contact hours for the week became 16. My spouse is coming home from grad. school out of state tomorrow night, so I'm stressing about having the house in some semblance of order. It would be nice to have groceries bought as well--don't want her to think I'm a helpless man with the domestic situation--but time just isn't going to permit that. I finished the course prep by late morning. Next up was a meeting of a Faculty Affairs Committee subcommittee on Information Technology. Our Faculty Affairs Committee functions somewhat like a faculty senate, though with far less power. We're a small institution, so official faculty representation for shared governance is through a committee of the whole. That's useful for major decisions, but committees are responsible for doing the work of shared governance. The Faculty Affairs Committee is elected by the faculty, one representative from each department, and is essentially charged with reviewing all concerns raised by faculty members and either sending them to the appropriate standing committee or addressing them itself if there is no appropriate committee. The committee has been dealing with widespread faculty concern about the institution's IT department. Part of the concern stems from a transition to Windows 7 as the operating system on all institute-maintained computers. Part of the concern is a perception by the faculty that the IT department prioritizes administrative computing and ignores academic computing. As the CS department rep. to the Faculty Affairs Committee, I was tagged for a subcommittee to discuss faculty concerns with the head honchos in the IT department. The meeting today was just our subcommittee. We were planning our strategy and message for the meeting with the IT folks. This will be a challenging service assignment; the IT staff is really solid, but the leadership has a reputation for bullying. After lunch at my desk, I met with some students in my CS1 class to help them through some challenges with their homework. Then it was a quick trip home to meet with a contractor about an estimate to fix a mold problem in my crawl space. Homeownership has some benefits, but it is also a massive pain in the backside sometimes. Back at the office, I spent the late afternoon working on grad. school recommendation letters for a student that did some research work with me. These were hard letters to write. He was an outstanding student, but ran into some personal issues at the time he was working on the project with me. Those issues derailed the project work, so I can't say anything about the results. I tried to write the letters honestly and directly, but I worry that other writers might spin their recommendations, shutting my student out even though he may be just as strong a candidate. Letters written, I spent the rest of the afternoon catching up on email and planning for the rest of the week in my other class, CS1. This is the week before holiday break, and the break falls in the middle of our term. So I'm trying to find an assignment that they can begin in class and resume after break. I drafted my solution to the planned assignment before heading home for dinner. A quick microwave dinner at home, then upstairs to my computer to actually write the assignment description, prepare slides, and an in-class quiz. I got the OK from my colleague in the other course on my revisions to the material for the other course from earlier in the day. Set a 5am alarm so I have time to print handouts and posted materials to the web before that 8am class. To bed around midnight. I'll be grumpy on Friday; it always gets me the second day after a short night. 116 8am: Up early for me on a Saturday, but I've been getting up at 5am to teach an 8am class this term so the extra 3 hours felt great. The past week was frantic and I still have a journal paper to review and a team project assignment to write for my CS1 class this weekend. Still, I should have some time for myself today. Probably better use some of that time to take down the Christmas tree. Was very pleased yesterday to find that the Institute's budget for next academic year includes funds for my sabbatical. I'm still waiting for the Dean's recommendation but have had very positive feedback from the Leaves Review committee, so I'm optimistic. That means I need to start figuring out what to do about leasing/selling our current home and planning a 14 month move to Seattle. I've lined up a job working with a small software firm there doing Mac and iOS development. I'm really excited about the chance to make software for real people and see the current state of industrial practice. 9am: It was nice to have a leisurely breakfast and read the newspaper for a bit. I say "newspaper" but I'm actually reading the NY Times app on my iPad. It's nice for reading articles, but doesn't have the same convenience in moving between them as a real paper. There's a subtle lag in the navigation that breaks the spell. On the other hand, it's cheaper, cleaner, and doesn't fill our recycling bin. noon: I spent the rest of the morning at a local coffee shop reading. It had been a couple of weeks since I took any significant amount of waking time for "not work". I'm still trying to digest the shootings in Tucson and what it means about the state of our democracy. The shootings seem to have been the work of an untreated schizophrenic without proper medical care. Still, it troubles me that so much of the political debate is mere tribalism devoid of true reason. Maybe that's just human nature, but I'd hope we could rise above it. 1:30pm: Fixed a batch of pork fajitas for lunch. Pork chops rubbed with chili powder, then grilled. Sauteed onions and peppers, then sliced and heated the pork in a skillet with salsa, lime juice, and Worcestershire sauce. Threw it all together with some fresh diced tomatoes. Yummy. And the leftovers will feed me for another three meals. I really enjoy cooking, but I seem to always make a production of it. Nice to take the time to do it. 2:15pm: Video chatted with my wife who is away at grad. school. She is starting her job search. Her focus is on Seattle, but we may end up spending another year in separate households. Hopefully that won't be the case. 4:30pm: Met a friend/colleague to do some planning for a party a couple of weeks hence. We're going to try to organize a Scotch Whisky tasting. Hopefully this won't end badly! 6:30pm: Spent a couple of hours digging out my inbox at home and going over my projects to make sure nothing is slipping through the cracks. To stay sane I have to maintain a discipline of reviewing all my projects on a regular basis. It's amazing how helpful it is to stop "doing" and just reflect occasionally. 8:50pm: Took inordinately long making some pasta for supper, then starting reviewing a journal paper. So far it seems intellectually interesting and merciful well written, two features that so rarely come together. I really detest the process of reviewing papers, but recognize that with the present publishing arrangements we all have a duty to the community to do our share. I find that I'm becoming less effective at reviewing as my dissertation retreats into the past and my heavy teaching load demands most of my time. I'm probably nearly at the point where I'm no longer of use as a reviewer. 9:00pm: Spent 10 minutes exchanging emails with a colleagues about prep for Monday. We're team teaching the course and (roughly) alternating session preps. It's his first time teaching the course, so he's reasonable reticent about making executive decisions. In truth I'm also probably too much of a perfectionist about how the pieces of the course fit together. 11:30pm: The journal paper I was reading started well, but then fell off a cliff in the last half. The paper had three authors but switched to first person singular voice in the last third. I suspect the first author pasted in a couple of sections of his master's thesis and the other two authors never actually read the submitted paper. It's extremely aggravating that authors would expect a volunteer reviewer to do more work than they are willing to do themselves. 12:30am: And sleep. 116 5am: Up and at 'em. Today is a recovery day. I was gone yesterday traveling back from my parents 50th anniversary party. A colleague kindly covered my one course that met yesterday, but today I have two courses spanning 4 hours to prepare. I did much of the prep last night, but need to get into the office for some final prep before the 8am class. 6:30am: In the office. This is a great time for "maker" work. No colleagues or students to interrupt, so I can get into a flow and get a lot done. 10am: I completely missed my marks in my morning class. I covered less than half of the material I had hoped to cover. Then an on-line survey for a colleagues research project was not accessible to the students, so I'll have to ask them to do it tonight. That's going to destroy his response rate. I went for a run after class. I'm training for a half marathon in May. That goal has helped me to make exercise a priority. Often I let work supplant exercise. I'm not letting that happen this spring. Normally I'd run in the afternoon or early evening, but I have work obligations 4:30-5:30 and 7:00-11:00 tonight. That later obligations are pleasant anyway: dinner with undergraduates who completed independent study projects this term, followed by our once-per-quarter "Cold Drinks with Cool Profs". This is a great tradition that we've been observing for the last 4 years or so. In the last week of each term, the professors in the department meet the juniors and seniors for drinks and conversation at a local pub. It's fun to get to know the students better and also helps them transition to the role of supportive alumni of the department. As a private school the support of our alumni is crucial to our financial viability. 11:45am: Spent 10 minutes briefing my colleague who teaches the other section of my morning course on the things that went wrong and our plan for the next class meeting on Thursday. 12:25pm: Back from lunch in the faculty dining room. I like to eat there when I can make the time. It's a great chance to chat with colleagues in other departments. Those connections are often useful when new projects or ideas come along. 2:30pm: Back from two hours of CS1. We're experimenting with an inverted classroom for the last three weeks of this course. The students are watching videos on C programming, both conceptual videos and example problem solving. During class time they work on programming assignments of various sizes (starting small and growing to 300-400 LOC for the final project). This seems to be working well, as we can provide immediate help when students have difficulty with the tools or debugging in C. 3:30pm: Catching up on my journal for the day. Chatted with a colleague about the challenges we're having integrating a large number of Chinese students into our student body. English as a second language is proving difficult for many. Also met with three different students this period with questions about assignments and about the upcoming final exam. (Next week is exam week.) 4:30pm: Caught up on email and worked to reschedule six student presentations. My school closed because of an ice storm a couple of weeks ago and we've been juggling schedules ever since. 5:30pm: Just released from "Innovation Hour". This is a monthly meeting organized by our President and our Interim Vice Pres. of Academic Affairs (think "provost") at which one staff group and one academic department give a short presentation about what they do, then answer questions from the faculty and staff in attendance. The series started poorly with some really poor presentations, but people have warmed up to it a bit and the last couple have actually been interesting. Today's presentations were from Residence Life and Civil Engineering. 6:30pm: Home. Reviewing my TODO list. This is usually a first-thing-in-the-morning task, but I've been dousing fires all day. Nice to get a few minutes to reflect. The grading pile looms large, but there are very few assignments left to come in, so the pile seems surmountable. 9:00pm: Back home again after dinner, I managed to carve out 15 minutes to talk to my wife via iChat. We haven't seen in each except by video since the second week of January. I'm really looking forward to visiting her next week. 9:30pm: Showed our house to three students who are considering renting it next year. I'm going on sabbatical in Seattle. I really hope to find good renters so we aren't making payments on two places at once. After the showing I'm headed to the pub. 11:30pm: Back from Cold Drinks. We had a huge crowd tonight. Always fun to hear what our students plans are after graduation. The job market is amazingly strong for software engineering. With 4.5 months until graduation nearly all of our seniors have jobs already and most of our strong juniors have internships. We spent some time discussing curriculum. I enjoy using the seniors as sounding boards for ideas on curricular change. 116 8:25 AM: In the office an hour later than usual today. One of my goals for this term is to see if I can maintain the quality/quantity of my work while maintaining a sustainable time and energy commitment to that work. I was perilously close to burning out completely last term. As a newly tenured associate prof the idea of lifetime employment isn't very appealing if it means working 6.5 days a week and 18 hour days at least four of those. At the core, I love the sort of work I do. I'm going to try to stay under 50-60 hours a week this term and see what doesn't get done. 9:08 AM: Processed email and started the process of finding a meeting time for a task force I'm leading. Scheduling meetings is always a challenge, but sometimes a meeting is what's needed. 11:01 AM: Finished up course prep and taught my Formal Methods in Design and Specification course. I enjoy this class. It took a couple of iterations to figure out how to help the student connect to the material, but it works well now. The course divides neatly into three modules, so it's easy to make changes to one without changing the others much. I like that design because I can evolve the course over time without killing myself. I have two colleagues sitting in on the course this term in preparation for teaching it in my stead while I'm on sabbatical next year. It's always interesting to get another teachers perspective on the class. 12:46 PM: Work on course prep for Thursday for 45 minutes, then had lunch with colleagues. Topic of the day was the nuclear plant troubles in Japan. This is one of those times where working at an engineering school is especially great. At our table we had a former US Navy nuclear engineer, a mechanical engineer who designed and supervised the construction of reactor pressure vessels, an industrial engineer who supervised construction of multiple nuclear plants, and an electrical engineer who specializes in power generation. Fascinating conversation! 1:55 PM: Finished prep for Thursday class session of my Formal Methods class. The biggest part of this was defining the "homework teams". I'm trying something new this term. I'm assigning teams of 3 students each to solve the homework problems together. I polled students for their confidence in each of three areas: proving statements of logic, solving programming problems, and producing written documents. From that I was able to assign teams the have at least one member who is somewhat or very confident in each area. I did not ask students who they prefer to work with or not work with. I know students will collaborate on homework anyway. I want to make that explicit and endorse it. Some students may hide behind their teams, but I think the majority will learn more from the interplay of ideas as they work together. I'll also have the students form project teams for three major assignments. I'll let them choose those teams, subject to the constraint that none of their homework team members may be on their project team. I hope this further causes them to confront misunderstandings and group think. An auxiliary benefit of the homework teams is a reduction in the grading load. I'm hopeful that this will be a win-win experiment. 2:20 PM: Caught up on some email. Off to teach a double-period CS2 class/lab. 8:03 PM: Class was followed by "Innovation Hour", a mis-named but interesting initiative of our new President. On the third Tuesday of each month representatives of two departments, one academic and one support give talks on what their departments do, then take questions from the assembled faculty and staff. Attendance isn't great, but I always seem to learn something interesting about how our institution operates. After innovation hour, I hit the track for 3.5 miles. I'm training for a half marathon in May. The experience of being disciplined about something that isn't work has been good for me. I expected to just endure the training, but I've actually been enjoying it. After my run, home for a quick bite to eat, some reading, and more email. 8:57 PM: Chatted with my wife, then sent some emails to keep the ball rolling on our sabbatical transition to Seattle. I'm realizing that for the second night in a row I don't have any work that _must_ be done tonight. This may be the first time in my career as an academic that that has happened. Nice. 9:52 PM: Made some progress on deciphering our insurance policy. We're planning to lease our house to students while I'm on sabbatical next year. That might create some complications for residency requirements with the state and our insurance company. 10:30 PM: Made arrangements with my wife's cousin to stay with them while house hunting next month. Looking forward to that visit. Time to call it a night. 116 8:45am: It was an early start today. I need to get a last load of laundry done before heading to work. Tomorrow is a crazy day--13 mile run in the morning, then a flight to Seattle to look for sabbatical housing. There's not enough time between now and the flight to get everything done. For an extra degree of difficulty, my brother-in-law and his buddy are stopping over tonight en route to Muncie. It'll be nice to have company for dinner, but I'm not in condition to be a good host. 9:42 AM: Taking care of a few quick emails and plans for three faculty candidate interviews the week after break. Spring break is next week. I have one more class before break. I'm expecting very low attendance. That bothers me, but the bright side is the students who come will be the engaged ones. 10:45 AM: Remarkably good class today for the day before break. Attendance was good and the students were nearly all engaged in the material. Always good to go into a break on a high note. 11:45 AM: Had a good meeting with my undergrad thesis student. He's making good progress on his project. It won't change the world, except in so much as he is learning a lot. I've decided that's OK. He's earnest and hard working, if a bit disorganized. 12:30 PM: Met with a colleague for some planning on a project on which we're collaborating. Mostly we're just doing data analysis this term as a third colleague is teaching the course we're studying. That colleague tends to be very unstructured, so I'm concerned that we won't get the information that we would like for our analysis. However, we're doing what we can and am not going to get upset about it. 1:30 PM: Enjoyable lunch with a colleague discussing our sabbatical plans. He's going to Africa for the year on a Fulbright Fellowship. All the logistics of moving him, his wife, and their five children, put my minor trials of moving to Seattle in perspective. Weighing on me is that my wife hasn't found an internship in Seattle yet. If one doesn't materialize soon, she is likely to take a position in Philadelphia. That would mean another six months of living apart. That routine is getting very old. For the next few months, practicality dictates that we do what we have to do, rather than what we want to do. Once she finishes her current degree, hopefully we'll be in a position to make some choices about what we *want* to do together. That may mean that I have to leave academia for industry. I'd miss the teaching, but my students are finishing bachelors' degrees and taking jobs that pay more than mine for less work. We'll see how much I really miss teaching while on sabbatical this year. 2:18 PM: Spending the early afternoon knocking off a bunch of odds and ends before leaving. There's always a mountain of things to catch up on after a break, but if I can leave the decks mostly clear I'll be less frantic when I get back. I typically use spring break to catch up on grading, putter around the house, and prepare for the final sprint to the finish of the year. This year I'm spending half the break in Seattle and the other half in Pennsylvania. That mean the last four weeks of the term will be more stressful than usual. 2:28 PM: Heading home to meet with the contractor who has cleared the mold from our crawlspace and furnace. Need to crawl under the house to inspect the work, then cut a bigger check than I'd like to pay the last installment. 4:08 PM: Contractors had reinstalled our dehumidifier incorrectly, but otherwise did a fine job. Money well spent, since we can now sell the house if need be. Now to pack for my trip, then enjoy a beer with my guests. The rest of the tasks will still be there in a week. 116 Sunday, Sunday. 8:49 AM: Up early thinking about how much I need to accomplish in the next six days. We leave for sabbatical on the 21st. Need to pack everything we need for 14 months, but still fit it in the car. Also need to pack personal belongings out of most of the rooms in the house so we can turn it over to our tenants. On top of that, I still teach through the end of this week. Thankfully, both my courses wrap up with significant projects, so I'm spending most of my classroom time consulting with projects teams this week. That reduction in prep time will save my bacon. 1:28 PM: Sang with my choir for the last time this morning, then forgot to pick up more packing boxes on the way home. That meant a quick run to the packing store after lunch. Thankfully they're open on Sundays or I'd be further behind on packing. Since we have to hire someone to take care of the lawn this summer and next, I'm selling all our yard equipment. The lawn tractor went today. I took less than I hoped for it, but it went to a 13-year old boy who is just giddy about getting it. He's starting is own lawn mowing business this summer. I appreciate seeing kids with ambition. 7:45 PM: Spent the afternoon packing up my home office. Tough to decide what to take along and what to store. I'm just accepting that I'll take some things I don't need and will leave at least a few things that I will wish I had. It's just stuff, so I'm not going to worry about it. After the packing, my wife and I went to some friends for a going away party. Several people in our running club are leaving the area, either permanently or temporarily. Our first big race of the season, a half marathon, was last weekend, so today was a good day for a party. Now back to packing for the rest of the evening... 116 9:34 AM: Today is the start of my third week of sabbatical. I'm working as a software engineer with a mid-sized Mac/iOS software development company. We have just under 50 employees and about a dozen consumer/retail productivity application. I'm thoroughly enjoying the work so far. It's nice to not be so driven by deadline pressure--pressure to prepare lectures, to write assignments, to grade assignments. Because this work is in a new area for me, I have much to learn. That's been a lot of fun. Last week we went to Apple's Worldwide Developer Conference. It was exciting to see programming language research ideas making their way into practical libraries and APIs. I'm always intrigued by the ways in which practitioners choose to simplify and refine academic ideas. 11:30 AM: I spent the morning studying text layout documentation and formulating a bug fix. 12:30 PM: For the past hour I participated in a planning meeting on the next steps for the evolution of one of our product families. It's a complex problem to balance customer expectations, the evolution of the host platforms on which the product runs, competition, and engineering resources. 1:00 PM: One of the great perks that this company offers is three free meals a day. For breakfast, we're on our own to fix toast or cereal. Lunch is a sit down affair with the whole company. For dinner we can take food home for our families, or our families can join us hear. Communal dining really helps to strengthen bonds. It's also a huge time saver. 2:00 PM: Completed a fix to a bug in a shipping product. The fix ended up being just 25 lines of code, but required an understanding of several thousand lines. 2:45 PM: I met with our technical lead and another new engineer to review the code and discuss the overall architecture of the application. After committing my fix to our source control repository, I updated the bug in our bug database so QA knows to review the fix. 3:39 PM: After a mid-afternoon coffee, I caught up on email, read some technical specs, and started looking at the next bug on my list. 5:00 PM: I determined that one of my assigned bugs affects the user interface in two other project families. I consulted with developers on those teams about proposed changes. 5:30 PM: After dinner, I spent some time looking for code in our libraries that might already solve part of the problem on which I'm working. Reuse is a challenge when the code base becomes so large. 6:00 PM: I found the code that solves this problem in another of our products. The solution there is much more general than what is needed for the products on which I'm working. As such, I'll think about doing this code from scratch. It will still be re-used in three product families. Seems like a good stopping place for the day. 6:58 PM: The drawbridge on my route home stopped me for 10 minutes, but otherwise the commute was easy tonight. I hope to start bicycling to work but need to figure out how I'm going to shuffle clothes and computer back and forth. After I got home, I chatted with my wife over iChat. I'm in Seattle and she's in Philadelphia until December. Hopefully we'll be done with living in two locations then. It seems like we have to sacrifice choice of location to find interesting work. I know we shouldn't complain, since we both have work now. Many, many others aren't so fortunate, and the pols don't seem to care. This sabbatical came just in time. I was getting very burnt out by the pace of teaching. Although my course evaluations and conversations with our graduates told me that I was still touching students' lives, I was focusing more and more on the parts of the job that make it work. I'll be interested to see whether I'm missing teaching in the fall when my colleagues had back to the classroom. I'll also be interested to see how I feel about my industry work in 12 months. Will the novelty wear off? Or is the pace of change such that there is as much novelty in industry as in research? 116 10:49 AM: A late start today. I had beers and french fries with a former student last night, so took it slow this morning. My sabbatical position has very flexible hours for an industry job. We're expected to put in at least eight hours a day, but we can time shift that however we like as long as we're here from 11am-4pm. We can flex that time too with prior notice, which is helpful for doctor's visits and whatnot. I'm now 6 weeks into my sabbatical and am enjoying it thoroughly. My initial feeling is that I have as much freedom to explore new ideas in this industry position than I do in my academic one. At school no one is telling me what to work on, but the demands of my teaching are such that I have no time to work on things outside of my teaching and service obligations. In this industry position, I have focused work to do, some of which is mundane and some interesting, but the company has reasonable expectations about how many hours I can productively contribute each week. As such, I have substantially more time available to pursue other interests. I'm not missing teaching at all at the moment, but that's not surprising considering how brutal the past school year was. I'm curious to see how I feel about it when my colleagues head back to the classroom in the fall. 1:17 PM: My current task is to implement a "split row" feature for our outlining application. That's involved a bunch of refactoring to extract an abstraction for contextual menus. I can get the request from a user now, but need to figure out the best way to actually implement the splitting in our model, then update the view. I spent the rest of the morning researching our existing code base to decide where the responsibility for the action should land. I think I've spent at least an order of magnitude more time reading code than I have writing it over the past 6 weeks. This experience is convincing me that a significant component of our Object-Oriented Design course should be on code reading. I'm envisioning giving students a few thousand lines of code and asking them to identify and describe all of the design patterns employed. 3:00 PM: One thing I enjoy about the company for which I'm working now, is the CEO and CTO are actively involved in our day-to-day software development work. They write code and fix bugs on a daily basis. I met with our CTO to discuss possible approaches to the feature on which I'm working. He didn't have any easy answers, which is a good thing. It's nice to find that something I suspect is subtle, actually is, since that means I wasn't missing the obvious. Unfortunately, he also showed me another half dozen classes from different products in the same product family that I'll need to study to craft a complete solution. So this feature will take at least a couple more days. For the rest of the afternoon, I'm going to work on sharpening my tools. That includes writing some scripts for some common development activities in my workflow. It also includes diagnosing and attempting to fix some indexing errors that are slowing down my IDE. 5:53 PM: The level of indirection in these build configurations is mind-bending. After an hour of reading documentation and studying our build configurations, I don't feel much closer to understanding any of it. I hate to end a week with a problem not understood. I like to end every work day with a solution in mind but not implemented. That has me itching to get back to the office and get to work the next day. I've heard that Hemingway was in the habit of writing a half sentence at the end of the day, so he had a starting point for the next day. Someone called this "parking on a downhill slope". That makes a lot of sense to me. Oh well, I guess I'll just have to push the metaphorical car up the hill on Monday. 116 11:34 AM: Spent most of the morning reading. My reading is a bit different now that I'm working in industry on my sabbatical. This morning's reading included several analyst pieces on Google's acquisition of Motorola and the possible implications in the Android market and smartphones in general. I also participated in a discussion about plans for the next version of one of our products. A group of us did a bunch of triage work on bugs and feature requests Friday. All of the items were marked as "engineering triage" in our database, and so a group of engineers assigned them to categories. Our project manager seems to be a bit miffed by that. Lurking in the back of my mind today are my colleagues' preparations to start a new academic year. I have a few administrative odds and ends from the spring at which I've been chipping away. The sheer amount of administrative BS that we put up with as academics is even more staggering from an industry perspective, at least compared to the very flat hierarchy at my sabbatical employer. 3:02 PM: I've felt unproductive for the past week. I'm switching to a project that's new to me, and that is a Mac application instead of iOS. That means there's a giant pile of information that I have to digest before I can contribute. So much of the work of a practicing software engineer seems to be filling your head with information so that you can make the connections necessary to accomplish a task. All the theoretical underpinnings that we teach make the task of gathering, categorizing, and communicating that information tractable. However, the actual practice feels like a craft rather than a science. It's a craft of extraordinary complexity, but a craft nonetheless. I wonder how the complexities of software development compare with other intricate crafts. 5:57 PM: Continued reading code and taking notes for the rest of the afternoon. I'm close to understanding the overall architecture and some implementation details of the application. I should be able to start wiring some of our mostly-done model into our very-rough user interface within the next day or so. We have a very talented group of user experience people here working on information architecture and design mock-ups. One of the things I've most enjoyed about my sabbatical so far is working with the user experience designers, support, and marketing people. It's been helpful to see how they approach software and to get a sense for the mechanisms through which teams with a variety of skills and perspectives create better results. Leadership here is explicit about include the viewpoints of everyone on the product team. By exhibiting respect for engineering, design, testing, support, and marketing, our executives help everyone avoid the tendency to discount others work. 119 INTRODUCTORY NOTES (1) I found it easiest to do this as a time log to capture the activities of my day. (2) I then looked it over and and reflected on it at the end of this posting. (3) I am not concerned about anonymity. I didn't put my name in this file, but I did see what I do and where I'm located because I think that some context may be needed to evaluate what I wrote. If I should not have done this, someone should please simply tell me so and I will not do so in the future. THE DAY'S TIME LOG an absolutely beautiful, crisp Wednesday in New England context: Professor of Computer Science at a state research university outside of Boston 06:15 -- up without alarm 06:45 -- snap, crackle, and pop! -- breakfast of Rice Krispies & milk with lots of raisins, a cup of tea, & the Boston Globe, saving letters to the editor re an article about UMass Amherst and "brand name" schools for my cousin, who asked me lots of questions about colleges at a family party last Sunday because his daughter will be going to college next fall 07:10 -- checking e-mail from home -- 15 new messages since I last checked at 10:30 PM last night -- including responding to a posting on the SIGCSE listserv 07:35 -- in car for 3.8 mi drive to the university 07:45 -- at the university 07:50 -- at the pool -- 1 mile swim in 35:23.42 (1750 yards), which is very good for me (I swim a mile every morning :) 09:15 -- in my office, doing final preparations for class at 10:00, including printing copies of code to be reviewed in class today 09:35 -- checking e-mail -- 7 new messages since I last checked at 07:10 this morning 10:00 to 10:50 -- teaching class -- GUI Programming, a senior-level project course with 27 students enrolled 11:20 -- back from class and talking to students and another professor -- 14 new e-mails since I checked before class, that's 36 e-mails received so far today 11:30 -- installing Dragon NaturallySpeaking version 11 (upgrade from my previous version), which went very smoothly except for the confusing messages at the end of the process about the additional iPhone apps available, which I did finally manage to install on my iPod Touch 11:55 to 12:55 -- reviewing a Declaration of Intent to Graduate (DIG) form with a student and reviewing whether he can realistically expect to graduate at the end of next semester (no, he has too many courses to finish) and then working with him to fix a CSS error in his Assignment No. 1 submission for the GUI Programming course and instructing him on other missing components required for that assignment 13:05 -- 12 more e-mail messages have come in (sigh) -- now responding to e-mails from students and colleagues on a wide variety of issues while I eat my nonfat cherry vanilla yogurt for lunch 13:20 to 13:30 -- meeting with a student who dropped in re late registrations -- today is the last day to add a course, even with special permission 13:50 -- 2 more incoming e-mail messages 14:00 to 14:20 -- discussing advising issues with another professor 14:20 -- 3 more incoming e-mail messages 14:30 to 15:40 -- meeting with graduate student re work she's doing to assist me in my role as CS Undergraduate Coordinator and her own PhD work, including discussing papers she's preparing for publication 15:40 -- 6 more incoming e-mail messages 15:45 -- running over to Dunkin Donuts to buy 3 $3 debit cards for students who posted the correct answer to a question asked in class on the class discussion forum 16:00 -- 3 more incoming e-mail messages, which makes 62 so far today (sigh) 16:05 -- reading Mark Guzdial's Computing Education Blog 16:10 to 16:45 -- dealing with a late registration for a student wanting to do an independent study with another professor (in my role as CS Undergraduate Coordinator) 16:45 -- helping another professor with university paperwork for a research grant 17:00 -- 5 more incoming e-mail messages 17:15 -- headed home from the office 17:35 -- at home, dinner and relaxing with my wife 19:40 -- at my computer at home, 9 more incoming e-mail messages, that's 76 to this point today 20:00 -- writing to Mark Guzdial at Georgia Tech and Mitch Resnick at the MIT Media Lab about sabbatical plans for the Fall 2011 semester 20:35 -- 3 more incoming e-mail messages, making 79 that I've dealt with today 20:40 -- updating iPod Touch to rev 4.1 20:50 to 22:15 -- grading GUI Programming assignments 22:15 -- backing up my system and turning in so that I'm fresh for my swim in the morning! :) REFLECTIONS ON MY DAY This was a pretty typical day for me. It started out well, and it ended well. The fact that the weather was so beautiful and that I swam well contributed to my good mood. Class went very well today, as it has every day so far this semester. The students are really engaged, and that makes it a pleasure to teach the class. The funny thing is that I based virtually the entire class on questions that were asked by a student in my office yesterday, and then that student didn't show up to the class! (Sigh.) The new version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking (version 11) seems to work somewhat better than the previous version (10). This is great for me, because I use this software quite a bit. As a matter of fact, I am using it to dictate this entire section of text. It is much easier than typing, even though I am a rather swift typist. It is a real godsend for grading. I like to write a detailed grade report every student in the class when they hand in an assignment, and that obviously takes a lot of time. Being able to dictate rather than type those reports saves me considerable time. Even though the speech recognition software makes mistakes, those mistakes are less frequent than when I type things out. One also has to get used to using speech recognition software. That is, you need to know when to pause for punctuation, and you need to try to speak in phrases rather than individual words. the truly amazing thing is that Dragon now has an app for the iPhone. I don't have an iPhone, it works perfectly well on my iPod Touch. It is really rather incredible. You plug in the microphone, talk, and your words are converted to text. Again, there are errors, but surely dictating to an iPod or iPhone is faster than typing on those little keyboards. One thing that set and me today is that the superintendent of schools in our town resigned last night. The man just happens to live directly across the street from me. I knew that he was under a lot of stress, but I didn't think that it was quite so bad that he would resign suddenly as he did. Obviously, I was wrong. My wife sent me an e-mail in the middle of the day telling me to look at an online article that announced his resignation. I did, and I also looked at the comments that people started to post about him. They were absolutely vile. I was amazed. I understand that people in public positions are often pilloried, but this was beyond the pale. What's more, all of the posts were anonymous. This really annoyed me, and I made a post myself about the cowardice of making public attacks while hiding behind anonymity. I signed my post with my real name. Incredulously, someone replied to my post, accusing me of not using my real name. I couldn't believe it. My name is very unique. If you Google me, you any one of the literally thousands of pages on my site, as each has my name in it in a meta-tag named "author". My wife didn't want me to post a reply to that posting, but I couldn't resist. I didn't use any of the foul language that other people used. I simply confirmed that yes, that was my real name. The postings about the superintendent made me think that one has to do one's work without expecting thanks. For this reason, I am very thankful to be a professor. I have worked in industry, and working in academia is very different. One has a Dept. Chair and a Dean and a Provost and a Chancellor, of course, but this is not the same as having a boss in industry. No one tells me what to do on a day-to-day basis. 90+ percent of my work is self-motivated. I like that. I feel very fortunate to be where I am. I want to take a moment to thank Sally and the other people who started this project. It is very interesting to me. And I think that you are very clever to ask people to do this just once a month. I obviously couldn't do it every day. It's just too time-consuming. But once a month is about right. I had fun keeping track of everything I did today, and then writing these reflections. I look forward to seeing the report you write on this project at some point in the future. 119 It is 4:40 PM on Friday, October 15, 2010, as I write this, and this is the very first chance that I have had today to write this journal. It has been a good day, but very, very busy. The day started off well. I was up at 6:10 AM and in the pool by 7:45 AM. It is a cool and rainy and windy day in New England, but I am not the type of person who is bothered by weather. I was in my office shortly after 9:00 AM, dealing with the normal onslaught of e-mail and gathering things I needed for my class at 10:00 AM. I also made a PDF out of the article "Pushing Positive Reinforcement" by Darby Lewes that appears in this month's NEA Higher Education Advocate for a colleague who is having trouble teaching non-majors in one of our department's service courses and sent that to her via e-mail. Our Department Chair walked by, and I called out to him to see if he had a moment to discuss a small point about my upcoming application for sabbatical. We talked for just a couple of minutes, but cleared up a fine point dealing with that issue. The Associate Chair then came in to see me and asked me to help him revise our standard curriculum grid for students enrolled in our new robotics minor. We did this together and talked about a couple of other things, including an NSF proposal that we are writing together, and that took up pretty much all the time I had before I had to leave for class. Class was good. We finished our introduction to regular expressions and their use in validating user input on web pages and then returned to our discussion of CSS element selection techniques. I met with a student after class who had not submitted an assignment that was due on Wednesday and learned that he had correctly loaded the page on his website, but that he had not submitted it electronically as he is required to do. He thought he had done this, but on returning to my office I checked the submission log and confirmed that he had not. I therefore e-mailed him, telling him that he had to submit the assignment properly today. He did so early this afternoon. I also e-mailed the one other student in my class who had not submitted this assignment. Only a simple, two-page paper was required, and the students have had an entire week to get this done. I asked the student why he had not submitted. He replied a short time later citing some detailed personal reasons that are not necessary to repeat in this journal, but that I fully believed were true. I therefore responded to him saying that I would accept paper from him if he would submitted by Sunday morning, when I expected to be doing the grading. He replied again to thank me for my consideration and said that he would be sure to submit the paper electronically by Saturday night. A colleague from another department then showed up as planned to go to lunch and discuss the NSF proposal that we are working on together. (This is the same proposal that I discussed with the Associate Chair.) We just went to the cafeteria on campus, and we spent about an hour discussing my second draft of the proposal summary and the comments on that draft that he had e-mailed me earlier in the day. We are still struggling with stating the project goals and measurable outcomes clearly and succinctly. My colleague agreed to take the next cut at this if I sent him my notes from our conversation. I said that of course I would do that, but I felt that they were to illegible for anyone but myself and that I could not simply copy the sheets that I had been writing on and give those to him. So on returning to my office I dictated my notes into an e-mail using Dragon NaturallySpeaking and sent that e-mail to three other colleagues working on this proposal with me as well as to the colleague I had lunch with. At that point I was back to dealing with yet more e-mail, including one from the college I had sent Darby Lewes's article. That e-mail identified some problems with CSS and asserted that things worked properly in Internet Explorer but not in Firefox. I believed that just the opposite was true, so I tested the CSS with the W3C Validator and did indeed find errors. So I spent some time writing this colleague an e-mail explaining her errors and why the page appeared to work in Internet Explorer (which excused the error) but not Firefox (which did not excuse the error). My next task was to try to address some networking issues dealing with mapped drives under Windows 7. I've been working on this problem for a couple of days now. Windows 7 simply seems to lose the connection to certain mapped drives while some large files are being copied. It is very frustrating. I talked to our system manager about it and also one of the networking specialists on our faculty. Neither was able to help me. I tried a few tricks that I had found on the web pages, but to no avail. The problem still exists, both on my systems at school and at home, but I just had to cut my losses due to the time involved in trying to track down the source of the problem. It is now time to go home, it will be a busy weekend. Not only do my wife and I have some personal things planned for the weekend, but a colleague and I want to go in to the Music Hack Day at MIT on Sunday. I have my normal load of grading and class prep to do, of course, but in addition I have two applications for promotion to review for a faculty meeting next Tuesday. And looming over everything is the NSF proposal. The work is never done, but I wouldn't have it any other way. 10:00 PM Addendum... For the last hour I've been catching up on e-mail and creating the modified curriculum grid for the Associate Chair. Unfortunately, I found a problem with that grid -- as laid out it only adds up to 119 credits while 120 credits are needed to graduate -- so I had to e-mail that bad news to my colleague to ask what he wants to do about that. The Celtics game is now over an that's enough work for tonight, so it's finally off to bed. 119 Monday, November 15, 2010 Another busy day. We're in the middle of the official university advising period for next semester, and as undergraduate coordinator of my department many students are seeing me not only for normal advising, but also for clearance of Declaration of Intent to Graduate (DIG) forms. Those are time-consuming, as we have to check every course the student has taken and get them on the right lines of the form and make sure that the student has satisfied all university and departmental requirements. It's rather exhausting to do multiple ones in a row, but it's also very satisfying, too, to review students' academic careers with one semester to go before graduation and chat with them as they look forward to the next chapter in their lives. The differences between students really are amazing. One would expect seniors to be more mature than freshman, but this isn't always the case, at least not when it comes to simple responsibility. The advising period lasts for two weeks. Some students are on the ball and, at the beginning of the period, while others not only leave things until the last minute, but miss the opportunity to meet with a faculty advisor altogether. When they do that, they *sometimes* apologize profusely and beg me to meet with them and lift their advising hold flags. At other times, they exhibit amazingly unapologetic attitudes and simply expect me to accommodate them. As implied at the beginning of this paragraph, one might expect these differences to be predictable by the student,s class, but they're not. Another amazing thing is that I post message after message on our electronic bulletin board pertaining to advising procedures, deadlines, and who to see about what. These messages are automatically sent to all students' CS e-mail addresses. Students are free to forward their CS e-mail to their personal e-mail, but many seldom do. Therefore, I get literally scores of messages from students asking me the same questions over and over. It is frustrating and exhausting, not only due to the repetition, but do to the poor quality of students' communication skills. Our students are required to take two semesters of College Writing and a special course entitled "Oral and Written Communication for CS Majors," but I often wonder if they learn anything in these classes. Even if what they write is grammatically correct, many, even upperclassman, have no clue with respect to how to write a professional e-mail. It is very disheartening. I have to tell them that they should not address faculty members as Mr. or Ms. I remind them that they are no longer in high school. I tell them to always use Prof. or Dr. One would think that they would know that by now. On top of this, they don't read a thing. As with all universities, everything I know about our program is posted on the web. They don't spend any effort at all in searching for answers. And when they do stumble across a page with the information they're looking for, they don't read it carefully. Many times I reply that they should reread the page that they are asking me about. I try to think back to the time when I was in college. Was I as irresponsible as these students? I really don't think so. I remember laying out my program on graph paper so that all the courses lined up properly and I knew exactly what I had to take. Today students come to my office with no paper, no pencil, and no clue as to how to complete the course of studies in their own major. It really is very sad. But as I said in the first paragraph, when the student does come to see me who is clearly focused and has done his or her homework and simply needs to discuss a few fine points before making final course selections for the next semester, is a real pleasure. I often think of one of the scenes in my favorite movie, "Scent of a Woman." In that scene, Chris O'Donnell 's character, Charlie Simms, a high school boy, returns unexpectedly to the hotel room he is sharing with Al Pacino's character, Lt. Col. Frank Slade, a retired, blind, Marine veteran whom he is helping out on a visit to New York City over Thanksgiving weekend. Lt. Col. Slade is exasperated because even though a friend of Charlie's has put him in a pickle, he would betray his friend. The scene is too complex to describe in detail, but at one point Lt. Col. Slade says, "Charlie, how are you ever going to survive in this world without me?" He respects Charlie's integrity, but he shudders at his naivete. At the end of the scene, Lt. Col. Slade says to Charlie, "I don't know whether to shoot you or adopt you." Sometimes I feel exactly the same way about my students. 119 I was amused by your second e-mail dated Thursday, 13 January, in which you wrote: "Even though Saturday is (for most) not a 'regular' working day, we'd still be glad to receive your diary entry - whether you do anything or think about anything that's connected with work or not." I do things and think about things connected with work every day of the year. This job is never finished, and the experiences I have as a professor infuse my entire life, not just the hours that I spend at the university. As I write this I am sitting on a plane, on my home from teaching a one-week workshop on web programming to 280 second year students at K.L. University in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, India. It was an intense experience. I was there with three teaching assistants, two of them undergraduate students in my classes back home and the third an Indian graduate student in our program who looked after us and helped us with the culture. The students loved us, but there were many fallacies in what we were told before we came to India. I fear that some of the Indian professors were threatened by our presence, as they were clearly defensive and grossly exaggerated what their students knew. We had been told that all of the students would have completed two weeks of training on HTML and CSS before we got there. In the very first lab sessions on the first morning, however, it quickly became apparent that they really had no practical knowledge about how to use HTML and CSS to put a web page together. We knew that Indian professors stressed theory and that Indian courses lacked hands-on experience, but the total lack of such experience was rather shocking. Students couldn't even grasp the importance of indenting code to show its hierarchical structure despite the many examples we showed and the stress we put on this in our lectures. It was especially puzzling why one of the professors who had taught these students kept telling us "not to worry about that." He, too, was unable to grasp the importance of practical application of theoretical knowledge. Despite the many difficulties we had with equipment and network connectivity and even just keeping the electricity flowing -- it went out on us a couple of times a day -- we adapted and the students seemed to love us. We had set up a Google group for discussions and SurveyMonkey surveys that the students responded to at the end of each day, and their posts overflowed with thanks to the teaching assistants and to me. It seems that they had never before had a professor work with them one-on-one in the lab. They were amazed that I would actually sit with individual students or small groups and personally tutor them for hours. I changed lecture plans on the fly. I shortened my presentations to allow more time in the lab. I removed advanced material and spent more time presenting examples. I met with the teaching assistants each night to learn their perceptions of the students' problems and misunderstandings and started the next morning by addressing those issues head on. The students progressed. They took delight in showing us their work. They thanked us profusely, in person, in the Google group, and in the daily SurveyMonkey surveys. It was satisfying to see them not only develop successively complex web pages, but also to see their obvious excitement in doing so. Despite the small successes that we feel we had with the students, the sad thing about our experience in India was to see that the professors all taught in the "sage on the stage" tradition and had little direct interaction with the students themselves. We learned from one of the professors who was particularly attentive to the workshop and to us that the Vice Chancellor had addressed the full faculty in a meeting that happened to take place halfway through our workshop, after he had received feedback from special students who were "planted" to keep him informed about the workshop. It seems that the Vice Chancellor chastised the faculty for not "teaching like the visitors." As satisfying as all this feedback was, I was personally disappointed that I don't think we had any influence on the professors who teach at that university, despite that being one of the reasons we had been sent to India. We did our best for the five days we taught the students, but I fear that there will be no real lasting effect on their education when they return to their Indian classrooms. I hope I am wrong. 119 Our university's connection to the Internet has been down since about 10:00 PM last night, which is both a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because I don't have a flood of e-mail in my inbox this morning, but it's a curse because there will be an even bigger than normal flood when the Internet finally comes back, which I expect to be sometime later today. It actually pretty funny how completely access to the Internet pervades our lives now as compared to just 20 years ago. My colleague and I teach our interdisciplinary computer+music class in a few minutes and we've had to change our lecture notes on the fly because we can't get to YouTube to play the music we want to use in class this morning. This would be unheard of earlier in my career. My wife even called this morning to ask why she can't get to my website. That's an interesting statement on technology, too: to know where I am and what I'm doing during the work day, my wife typically doesn't bother asking me, she just goes to my website to access my online calendar. All of this is made even more interesting by the appearance of two articles on Ken Olsen, the founder of Digital Equipment Corporation who passed away last week, in this morning's Boston Globe. My first job in the computer field was at Digital in 1974, and I loved working there. I had even met and talked to Ken a few times in a variety of circumstances. He was a highly moral man and a legend in his own time. His "fall" left many of us feeling especially bad for him. Ken's passing therefore left a bit of a hole in many of our collective hearts. The many articles appearing in the press about his passing and his legacy bring back those feelings and sadden me to know that DEC is hardly even remembered anymore. It surely shows that nothing lasts forever. 119 No, it's "not a 'regular' working day" as you stated in your email, but with the end of the semester upon us I spent most of my day working. I did do the TeamWalk for Cancer with my wife this morning to benefit the Cancer Center at our local hospital, but then I came home and spent the afternoon putting the finishing touches on our responses to questions from an NSF program officer about a large grant proposal that we submitted in December and that "was well received by the review panel." We are hoping that satisfactory answers to our questions will result in funding, which is of course our goal. The interesting thing about this process from the perspective of the Share Project is that I sent the third draft of our 11-page response to my fellow researchers on the grant proposal on Friday evening at 9:55 PM, and all four of them reviewed that draft and responded to me by 24 hours later ... on a Saturday. Thus, again from the perspective of your study, you can see that all of us worked this weekend, not just me. Such is the life of professors in US institutions trying to be true research universities. It is 5:20 PM on Sunday as I write this, and after dinner with my wife I will return to my home office to continue grading student work. 119 The summer is still full of work. My day began with a meeting with administrators at a local high school about how they might work with us on an NSF grant that we have just received. The meeting went well, and then it was off to my office. There I responded to ever-present e-mail, and then revise a handout for an upcoming workshop that I am presenting with a colleague. One thing that I am able to do during the summer when I'm not teaching is take advantage of the pool being open for a couple of hours at noon time. At one o'clock I went over to the pool and swim a mile as I do almost every day. After my shower I headed over to our South campus for another meeting with my colleagues in Music and a teacher from another local high school. After that meeting I stayed to work with one of the Music professors and review some new tools that he had recently learned about for combining computing and music. By the time I got home and had dinner, there were 38 new e-mails that come in since I went to the pool at 1:00 PM. It took me a couple of hours to go through all those, leaving some, filing some, and writing answers to some. I did some accounting on University project as well. Finally, at 9:30 PM, I got a chance to sit and write this journal entry. It's been a busy day, but the Red Sox have beat the Tampa Bay Rays this evening, and the Bruins are leading Vancouver at the end of the second period in the 7th and deciding game of the finals of the Stanley Cup playoffs, so one cannot say it's been a bad day! :) 119 Today begins 10 days of supposed vacation. Please, Lord, give me the strength not to check email! 119 Hey, it's still summertime! And I'm supposed to be on sabbatical! So why am I at the university today?!? Well, the answer is: for two important meetings. One is with another professor who is introducing me to some new software, and the other is with an undergraduate who is helping us with our research. As Gilda Radner used to say, "It's always something..." Two good meetings today, both designed to teach me, and so they did. One was a personal tutoring session from a music prof teaching me about MaxMSP, and the other was a report from a student helping us with research. Man, good students are worth their weight in gold! :) And the financial markets are recovering, so maybe I really can retire someday... 138 9am: my first School of Computing Science Management Meeting, in my role as academic staff representative. This was a strategy meeting to discuss the directive from 'the management' that we make more money from PGT programmes. Not 'provide more interesting or useful or relevant programmes', but simply make more money from them. This is a good discussion for me to be part of, as having been director of PGT programmes in the school for several years, I can make a strong contribution (although it irks me that one of the well-established-end-of-career professors gets the role of 'PGT Strategy' when I know that my having such a role would help my career a great deal.) I feel uncomfortable that that emphasis (in the university management, not within the school) is on getting money from international students, rather than giving them a good, well-managed and well-taught qualification. Not happy with the ethics. 11.15: a meeting with two wonderfully enthusiastic lecturers in the Management department who would like to use a peer-assessment system that a colleague and I are wanting to roll out to as many departments as possible in the university this year. It has been used successfully at a NZ university for many years, but we are finding it hard to find people to use it here in the UK - here academics are more concerned about 'whether it will fit within the regulations', 'whether students can be trusted', 'whether students will like it', 'will their HoD approve', and no-one seems keen to use it for summative rather than formative assessment (despite all our research that shows a very high correlation between peer- and tutor- awarded marks). This university is so conservative - people are so scared to branch out to do something different without having higher approval. These management lecturers will hopefully give the system a good try-out here. And inbetween: preparing lectures for start of semester, preparing materials for a meeting of all level 1 teaching staff tomorrow (in my role as head of level 1), and working out how to use an system for allocating first year students to lab sessions next week. I know someone has to do it, and it seems arrogant to say that it is beneath me, but an administrator would be able to do this lab allocation task much more effectively than I. Just like I couldn't believe that I had to send costings for the level 1 tutors to the head of Teaching Committee: I have already sent the number of hours of lab and tutorial contact required to an administrator who will be able to work out the overall costings much more easily than I can. It's not that I don't like administration, but I prefer interesting administration that at least uses some of my skills - not something that I have to do because the university has starved our department of administrative staff (while, of course, increasing the amount of administration done 'at the centre'). Lots of common-room and corridor discussion about the drive for more PGT money, and how much PGT provision currently costs us (we make a loss on it at the moment). Lots of ideas, opinions, concerns. It strikes me how passionate the members of our department are, and how committed they are to 'quality'. At the end of the day: summarising the CSMC meeting for all other academic members of staff - trying to keep it light and cheerful, while representing all the information and discussion correctly. Very hard not to include my own personal opinions - and I have many! In all, a rather bitty day; don't feel that I have done a great deal of worth. Thank god for the two management lecturers I met today, I say - a saving grace. Tonight I will go home and work on my Open University PGDip in Management. I am doing this in the hopes that it might help me towards a management or leadership position in the university in the long term. 138 Semester is well underway now (end of week 4), but the end seems very very far away. I am teaching a new course (never been taught in the department before), and the continual slog of preparing three lectures, one lab and one tutorial every week is getting me down - thank god I was disciplined enough to semi-prepare 'one lecture a day' over the summer: my task would be much more difficult otherwise ... but it does mean that I have been living and breathing this stuff for over three months now... and there are still two months of it left. The students are struggling though, and I am aware that in my desire to teach them a whole load of interesting stuff, I am not allowing sufficient time for in-class exercises and that they are finding it all a bit stressful. But I have been given an impossible course spec to follow: I will only be able to cover about a third of it (and even that seems like too much now that I know the students better). I wonder if the people who put this course spec together REALLY considered the market? My guess is not: so much of what we do we do because we think it is a good idea (and don't believe that we could ever be wrong), when in fact even we make mistakes. Like our PGT Masters programmes that assumed we would get lots of high-quality committed students who would feed our PhD programmes: how wrong we were. I have a radical proposal on how we could redesign our MSc programmes so as to take into account what we now know about the market - but know that the HoD and the professor in charge of PGT strategy would dismiss it as 'lowering standards'. So today I got together some courage, took it to another professor who said she would support my putting it forward. Scary thought - but the university is determined to have us take on more and more overseas PGT students, and eventually we will have to start being less precious. And in the midst of our worry of diminishing resources, there is yet another proposal for us to offer yet another course. We already offer too many. Way too many. But every academic member of staff wants an honours or masters-level course in their own area, and our Teaching Committee is too afraid to say no to individuals for the sake of the common good. We all teach too much, leaving little time for funding applications etc. And then the day got better - a bright, cheerful, enthusiastic junior Honours student popped in to say hello. I am his new advisor of studies and he simply came in to meet me. Usually I only see the students for whom I am advisor when they have problems, so it was a delight to chat with someone so keen, lively and pleasant ... without problems. Make me remember why I do this job - there are lots of undergraduates like him who I seldom see because they just get on with the job of being a student, cause (and have) no problems, have a fulfilling and challenging time, and come out the end as happy graduates. We tend to forget them amidst the concerns with the struggling, problematic students (and all the other stuff we have to do ...) I am supporting some members of staff in other departments in the use of a peer-review tool: it is so refreshing to speak to people from outside my own insular department. Nice to know that there is another world out there. The day ended with a departmental seminar from my colleague who is also working on this project - he was witty, relaxed and convincing. We have finding it hard to overcome the scepticism of academic staff who believe that students cannot be trusted to review their peers' work. We are surprised that the most vocal objections came from the PhD student tutors rather than the academic staff themselves! And between us we discuss the fact that we found that peers' marks (while highly correlated with tutors') tend to be very slightly lower than tutors' marks, that an academic member of staff had observed that PhD student tutors mark slightly lower than academic staff, and we speculate that it could also be that new academics mark slightly lower than their more experienced colleagues (now there's an interesting study!) Rush off for a two hour drive to Forfar to attend the opening of a neighbours' art exhibition. Nice to unwind at the end of very hard week. 138 It's not often that I want to take a sickie, but it is negative 4 degrees outside, and bed is very warm. (I eventually remember that no work gets done while lying in bed, and am in my office by 8). Having spent all Sunday reviewing papers for journals, I am incensed by the recent comments in the THE by a representative from an academic publishing firm saying that they did not think that the subscriptions paid by universities for journals were unreasonable, even taking into account the millions of pounds worth of unpaid hours spent by academics who review papers. His comment that "The only way for universities to save money is to make people redundant" is insulting. Not considered in the article are the many many hours that academics spend formatting papers for publication - gone are the days when you sent plain text and the publisher formatted it - it can take days to get a paper into the format required: this is not interesting or useful work for an academic to do. At least peer-reviewing a paper can be (sometimes, maybe, possibly) somewhat interesting, unlike battling with fonts and margins and picture placement. One article I reviewed yesterday bore no relation at all to the subject matter of the journal; it should have been filtered out pre-peer-review. What do the publishing firms Actually Do? Deadline for a journal special-call paper today: having told my overseas colleague that I do not like last-minute-working-to-a-deadline (as other priority tasks get shifted), I am annoyed that I have let myself get into a last-minute-rush situation where the paper has effectively been written in the last week. I like being organised and hate it when external events or people prevent me from being so. My current slogan is "I wish I were important enough to be able to demand the resources I need to do my job properly": network connections in lecture theatres don't work, there are no working overhead projectors any where, projector screens occlude the only whiteboard in the room ... there are never the range of facilities that I need to do my teaching properly. Very frustrating. And this is aside from photocopiers that are continually being repaired, lifts out of action, and servers down. We have been called to enter in data for our mini-REF: indicators of esteem, best four papers, impact. I always find doing things like this very scary: I seem to be working all the time, but never feel that I am making any substantial contribution that anyone but my students and my collaborators might value. It makes me think about where and how we are (or should be) valued: does it matter if my 'impact' is only so-so, when I had a great lecture today with interested and enthusiastic students who obviously enjoyed the session and obviously learned a lot? Does it matter if my four best papers are not in the most highly regarded journals when one is the result of my advising a cross-continent collaboration of post-docs who have now learned sufficient techniques and methods for them to pursue the research area without my guidance? Does it matter if my research grant record is not brilliant when I have just signed a textbook contract? It is dark and cold. Tonight I will fix some software for my lab on Wednesday - hope I manage to fit in my Monday night ritual of University Challenge and Only Connect. 138 8.30am. My students sit their exam this morning: and I am nervous. This is not only the first time that I have taught this course, but the first time it has been run in my department at all - so the preparation of all the materials, from scratch, fell to me. A Very Big Task - and now, with no previous exam experience for this course to go on, I am worried ... will the exam be too hard, too easy, too long, too short? Are any questions ambiguous? Even though the paper has been through the scrutiny of both an internal vetter (two comments) and an external examiner (correction of one typo), I am still very concerned that it may be a disaster. I used to feel like this before every exam when I was a less-experienced lecturer: perhaps I am more aware now that most mistakes can usually be fixed (more or less) after the fact if necessary. One thing I do like about going to the exam hall is seeing the students, and being nice to them when they are feeling a bit stressed themselves. I am particularly looking forward to seeing this bunch again. Having spent 6 hours a week with them for 11 weeks, I have kind of missed them in the past fortnight! We are told that this is the last exam diet when academics have to invigilate their own exams. I worked out once that the time spent invigilating exams by the academics in just our department was equivalent to two months' full-time work - plenty of time to write a really good grant proposal. We are told by the powers-that-be that starting from the next diet of exams in May, invigilation will be organised (and paid for) centrally - but they have made that promise twice before in the nine years I have been here (and I am not sure how many times before my arrival!) 11.30am. Two didn't turn up. One arrived late. No one left early. Most finished with 5-10mins to spare (a good sign?). Only one still writing at "time's up" (another good sign?). Off to mark the scripts now - I will find myself an out-of-the-way empty office where no-one can find me, and hope to get them done by the end of the day. I always try to mark exams in one sitting - it gets it out of the way and ensures some measure of consistency. 4.30pm. Whew, a bit of a slog, but they are all done - it's a small class, which means (a) not too difficult to get all the scripts marked today, and (b) I am not really surprised at the results - I know the students so well that I could have predicted each result: the students who turned up to lectures and tutorials and labs did well; the students who did not turn up did poorly. A clear bi-modal distribution. But with a high-proportion of A's, was the exam too easy after all? I like to think that there were lots of A's because the course was so amazingly interesting that lots of students attended - and attendance is a good predictor of performance. I wish students would figure this out: attendance is a good predictor of performance. How can they expect to pass if they don't turn up? Still got all the admin to do now: having lost so many administrative staff recently in 'restructuring', we each have to maintain the marks spreadsheets for our own courses. My guess is that as soon as one academic makes a big blunder with their spreadsheet, they will all be passed back for admin staff to maintain again! It's all a big circle. 5.00pm. The day finishes with a wee party held by a research group to celebrate their new office premises. Don't much feel like socialising, I'm afraid. Looking forward to an early night. 138 I am sending this in on Thursday 13th because I won't actually have many hours of Saturday: I leave the UK at noon on Friday the 14th and arrive in Perth at 8pm on Saturday 15th - the time difference means that most hours of the 15th will be stolen from me (and those that I do have will be in the air or in Dubai airport!) I am off to the Australasian Computer Science Week conference in Perth, followed by a week visiting family in Auckland. I will take a short diversion to Brisbane (where I used to live) - it will be distressing to see places that I love devastated by floods. I feel a little guilty at taking time out at this time of year, after a wonderful Christmas/New Year break, and at a time when my colleagues are settling into a hard semester of teaching ahead. Having satisfied all my departmental teaching requirements in semester 1, I have no scheduled teaching this semester. So all I need to do before June is submit at least one grant, supervise six student projects and write a book: easy! :-) 138 Oh dear, things are fraught here. I live in fear of having my head bitten off whenever I want to ask one of my colleages for a simple bit of information. A request for hours spent on a departmental task yesterday afternoon resulted in a response of four long ranting emails - one sent at 10.30pm. We are all tiptoe-ing to ensure that things don't fall apart. The problem is that we are all overworked and stressed. And if this weren't enough, we are continually being told that we just have to 'do more with less'. Our admin support has been reduced to a quarter of what it was, and we are told that submitting research grants must be our highest priority. Morale is very low. And everyone is snapping at everyone else. I have spent my day mostly on the high-priority task: preparing a research grant. Last time I applied, my proposal was ranked bottom of the panel's list. I can only propose projects on topics I know about, and on research that I want to do - and I know that these topics are most unlikely to be funded. So it seems such a waste of time for me to put in a grant proposal at all. I do it because it is part of my job and because it was written under 'objectives for the next year' on my P&DR form last year. Like the lottery, the chances of my winning by entering are only marginally greater than if I don't enter at all! What I find most galling is the fact that, despite having had no grants for several years, I still have a very good publication record in international journals and conferences. Am I congratulated for doing all this research without the additional resources that a grant would have given me? Oh no, I am simply berated for not having any grants. So: this is how it goes - the university does not want me to get grants so that I can get support for my own research (as I have proven that I don't need it): they want me to get grants so that the institution can gets its 'top-slice' so as to fill the gap left by reduced government funding. I will spend at least three weeks preparing a grant proposal that I am most unlikely to get - surely the university has better things to do with my time? Today I have met with four eager, enthusiastic and competent project students - reminding me why I do this job. 138 Started at 8 with 'real research' - moving data, organising data, copying data, preparing data for analysis. All 10 minutes of it, but had to be done so as to pass to a colleague so he could work on it today. Most of the rest of the day concerned with not-real-research: 'expression of interest' bids for the university's Teaching and Learning Development Grants close tomorrow. Several things strike me: first: this is the second time in two weeks that I have had to "bid for the privilege to bid" for a grant - as if preparation of grants for which there is a low success rate does not eat up enough of my time already. Second: what started out as small sums to help enthusiastic and innovative lecturers do a better job of their enthusiastic and innovative teaching has now turned into a weighty process, where the research scholarship of the bid is more important than the on-the-ground student experience - these are grants to support research, not teaching (no matter what the university says in its publicity). Third, this means that it becoming increasingly difficult for me to sustain both: to keep up the level of scholarship and education-research required for me to get any support in my teaching innovations, and keep up with my 'real' non-education computing science research - which is still pottering along quite well. I used to be able to do both, but the requirements of each are becoming too demanding. And finally, on reflection, I realise that all the colleagues I know who get Teaching Excellence awards and get Teaching grants all only focus on education research, and are all typically University Teachers. So perhaps these awards are just not intended for people like me. So - lots of phone calls and emails getting people on board for our bid: everyone I call is delighted to be named on a bid that they don't have to initiate or write. I am leading one bid, and co-investigator on another, and we need to be sure that they don't overlap too much. Fortunately, my lovely colleague actually writes the bid while I am busy with seven student meetings during the day. Just sent off a draft to my co-conspirators, and feel more relaxed now I know that we have a fall-under-the-bus version. Meetings with project students: one of them diligently writes down everything I say, which left plenty of pause time for me to reflect while gazing out the window at the beautiful big snowflakes that have been floating their way downwards all day - yes, snow, on the Ides of March! It seems strange to have snow in 'spring light' rather than 'winter light'. Not much time to get back to the 'real research' today, I'm afraid. Maybe tomorrow. The big news is the special meeting of Senate called for Friday (called by a group of academic staff who are unhappy with university management) - the big university ceremonial hall has been commandeered for the occasion as they expect a big turn out. The academics have put forward 9 motions for debate. All is not well. And then there is a UCU strike on Thursday - I am not a member of the union, but as Thursday is my designated research day, I can work from home all day with clear conscience. The best part of the day was a delightful meeting with a keen final-year student who showed me a demo of his 'restaurant recommender' system for groups: based on the individual restaurant ratings of group members, the system will suggest a restaurant that will suit the whole group. My partner and I are going out for dinner tonight - we will give it a try! 138 Dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull, dull. I am spending all my time writing funding bids - describing the research I would do if I were funded rather than actually doing the research that I want to do in my currently unfunded state. Since the former is unlikely and the latter is more productive, I find it hard to understand why we have been told to prioritise funding bids over everything else. Nice to have a quiet period over the Spring Break - although exam and project marking and the creation of exam board spreadsheets is looming. I am in charge of getting all the spreadsheets together for our first year courses - I find it hard to understand why putting exam scripts into alphabetical order and entering exam question marks into a spreadsheet is considered an appropriate task use of academic time. There is so much I don't understand about my job! 138 I slept in. After church (where a choir of 3 did a marvellous Byrd 3-part), I met with a 92yr old member of the congregation who has created a new crossword for the monthly church magazine for over 15 years ... and is still going strong. I am producing an edited booklet of all her crosswords to sell in aid of church funds. She is a wonderful woman - I hope I am as sprightly and as sharp and as witty as she is when I am that age. But she is lonely, and tells me that she only has one friend left. Having someone interested in putting her crosswords together has cheered her up no end. So I honestly did no work on Sunday: listened to choral evensong, had a luxurious late afternoon bubble bath, read a novel, had salmon and white wine for dinner, watched some TV, and went to bed early. This coming week is TAS week. Not sure what "TAS" stands for, but I know that it means that I have to keep track of everything I do, and at the end of the week, have to fill out a form to tell the university-powers-that-be how I have spent my time. We are allocated one random week a quarter. The categories are broad (e.g. 'institution funded research', 'teaching support') - it usually results in my making up some numbers that make reasonable sense. This week I hope that I will spend more hours in the 'research' column than in the 'support' column. 138 What a varied day! With exam boards over, my diary is now my own: what bliss to have a bit of freedom back. I love the academic annual cycle of activity - especially at this time of year! Started the day meeting with two very keen summer research students - third year students going into Senior Honours next year. I am always amazed at how much research can get done with the help of a 10-week summer scholarship: the students may need a bit of training in research methods, but if I meet with them daily, I can usually ensure that they remain focussed and that we make substantial progress. The #2500 that the department gives me for a summer scholarship provides much more research value for money than the countless hours I spend writing unsuccessful research grants. This year, I have three such students funded from various sources, as well as a very good Masters student project running over the summer. I have told that that while I am away in July, they have to 'supervise' each other, meeting briefly daily, and sending me a short report on progress - written by a different member of the group every day. Their projects are different, but related enough that they will be able to talk to each other about them. I am interested to see if this peer-supervision works. Today was our annual Honorary degree ceremony - I don't go often, but I do like to attend if I have a free spot in my diary: it's interesting to find out about selected famous people (mainly people I have never heard of, to be honest!), and hear their stories - which are usually very inspiring. I could take part in the academic procession, but don't: I just sneak in at the back. Today we had a Very Reverend, and Baroness, an Emeritus Professor, a Professor Sir, a Professor, and an Rt Hon The Lord. Lots of pomp, singing choir, and yet another opportunity for our vice-chancellor to tell us how extraordinarily well the university is doing (the professor doth protest too much, me thinks). Arrived late at a workshop on Assessment for PGT Masters students, and had to leave early (figuring it was better to arrive late and leave early than not be there at all). The university push for 'internationalisation' (for which, read 'One year PGT programmes for overseas students who will bring in lots of dosh') has meant that lots of schools have proposed new PGT programmes - I believe the total number of PGT programmes we offer has approximately doubled in the last year - the online system for submitting PGT proposals broke down in January because it could not cope with the number of new submissions. I hope that we all know what we are doing - and that we have not forgotten the importance of the student experience. I led a review meeting for our level 1 courses next in my busy day - it went fine: we had a good team of lecturers on these courses this year. I was head of level 1 this year - for the first and thankfully the last time! I have managed to persuade our Head of School that I would be better placed as Director of the PGT programmes - taking over from a professor who is due to retire next year and who has held on, and held on, and held on, to this portfolio for years - while I have not-very-secretly coveted it. Fortunately our new Head of School has agreed that I can take over that role. Hurrah - I am looking forward to working at a broader, more strategic level, rather than worrying about the finer matters of relative assessment weightings for level 1 courses - we do get ourselves into such a mix over small decisions, and tend to forget the big picture sometimes. The final task of the day was difficult meeting with a second-year PhD student who has not been permitted to progress to the third year of his PhD, and has been given the option of submitting for an MPhil instead. I am his second supervisor, and was instrumental in this decision after I quizzed him in his progression viva. He was not really reconciled to the fact that he will not be able to progress to a PhD, and was under the impression that if he worked very hard this coming year, we might change our mind. He gave me lots of reasons for having performed poorly in the viva: I gave him details of who he should contact in the Graduate School if he wishes to appeal. I took notes on the meeting, and gave him some advice on some literature that he might pursue. He told me that he had been under the impression that the point of a viva was for him to get feedback on his work from us, rather than for him to justify what he has done - and that this was the reason why he did not answer many of our questions. I find this all rather confusing, and have a lot of sympathy with the student - who is a really nice guy. But a student who cannot tell me, at the end of second year, whose work in the literature has most influenced his own research, is really not on track for submitting a reasonable PhD within a year. He is too obsessed with programming a system that embodies little real Computing Science innovation. And then a swim at the end of the day - ah! 138 Hurrah - today was the last day at work before I take two weeks off. I would rather take three weeks, to be honest - at least with three weeks absence somone else picks up your duties while you are away; if you are only away for two weeks, everything is simply left for you to pick up when you get back (so what's the point of the holiday, then?) I have just come to the end of a wonderful fortnight in Uppsala, where the university has kindly given me space to focus on writing my book - didn't get as much done as I would have liked (but isn't that always the story...) I would have got further if I hadn't spent two-three hours a day dealing with stuff back at my home institution by email. It really is very difficult to escape. I will be spending the next two weeks taking the Inlandsbanan train (affectionately called the Inland Banana) up the centre of Sweden into the artcic circle. I will be taking Christopher Brookmyre, Bill Bryson, a camera, a list of friends and family to send postcards to, and a man to carry my luggage. I will not be taking a computer. And I will not login to my email for two weeks. Honest. 138 A full and frustrating day. I have moved office and been given a new computer - I can't print, the computer is doing strange things, and I can't find anything. I couldn't access any of the FOUR university admin systems that I wanted to use so as to get small irritating things off my desk while I am having an itty-bitty day: two are down and two don't recognise me anymore (because we are all, of course, only recognised by the computer we are using!) Despite this, I spent three focussed hours on my book (this is my routine: I work on my book from 8-11, and the department can have me after that!), planned a course with a colleague, met with two students, and spent a couple of hours getting data into a reasonable enough form that I can pass it on to two summer student research assistants. They will be looking at the outcomes of three previous student projects: I wish I could remember that ALL students, no matter how good they are, will pass their materials onto me in a mess, and I WILL have to tidy them up. If I remembered this at the time, I would fix the materials while the student is still around - doing it a year or so later is difficult and error-prone. Very excited at the possibility of doing a project with a clinical professor who wants some software to visualise clinical data - hope that I can get a good enough student to take it on so that he is not disappointed. Filled in my time-sheet from last week (as we are required to do once a quarter) - I worked 43 hours last week, of which 31 were "institution-funded research". Oh, that all weeks were like that! I feel semester creeping on. Sigh. 141 7:15 Got up and got on with getting myself and my daughter out of the house 8:30 Left for daughter's school. In the car this morning as daughter was going on a trip so needed car seat. 8:55 Back at home. Chat with the missus. 9:05 Off to work on my bike. 9:20-9:30 Getting into work, chatting to colleagues to start the day. 9:30-9:40 Waiting for computer to boot up so read a draft MSc thesis that I am part way through. 9:40 - 10:30 email. First quarter of hour was just trashing stuff but then got into two more important ones. One to a research colleague in a different uni and one to a potential PhD student. 10:30-10:45 Short break. Played a game online! 10:45-11:30 Worked on preparing a practical for the coming term. It's a brand new module so working from scratch. 11:30 Went to see people to sort out admin around a PhD student I have starting this October. Saw two admin people who look after these things. 12:05-12:30 Went back to working on the practical. 12:30 Went over to other campus for lunch. 12:40-1:15 Ate lunch and continued with draft MSc thesis 1:15 Went to library to return a book then on to next meeting 1:30-1:55 Met with a PhD student to discuss a report she's resubmitted and which is now fine but I still have some comments on. 1:55 - 2:05 Met another PhD student, not mine but I have worked with her, who I know and just chatted about things. 2:15 Back in the office sorting out student related problems on the email and in person with colleagues. 2:30-2:45 Bit of a break but still fiddling with email. 2:45-4:15 Worked on the practical again. Finished it and started another. 4:15-4:30 Cycled home. 4:30 - 5:00 Back to daughters school to collect car seat! 5:00 - 5:20 Bit of telly with daughter. 5:20 - 6:15 We all went out to walk the dog. 6:15- 8:00 Daughter's bed time routine 8:00-9:20 My own supper with the missus and then we watched some telly. 9:20-10:30 Back catching up with work emails. Fiddly ones or less important ones. Sitting chatting to the missus as I do so who is also watching telly at the same time. 10:30 Started heading for bed. 141 6:50am Woke up before the alarm worrying. I am about to start teaching my brand new, large undergraduate course and I just feel overwhelmed about sorting out all the niggling things. So woke up with things spinning around in my head: practicals to photocopy; webpages to write; assessments to edit; lectures to write and so on. I feel terribly behind despite doing nothing but organising this for the last two months. 7:10 Finally get up and start making breakfast. 8am Escape, briefly to shower. One of the few times in the day when I am left in peace and not interrupted. Often good thinking time. Not today. Brain freewheeled away from useful organising the day to remembering being at College as an undergrad. 8:10 Free time over. Rush to get me and my daughter dressed and out of the door by 8:30 when we cycle to school and then me on to work. It's quite nice cycling - only one thing to do. Requires full attention and it wasn't a bad day. Just a bit chilly. And I believe the exercise does me good though sometimes it doesn't feel that way. 9am Into work. Spot a teaching assistant as I go into the building and arrange to see her in 15minutes (time for me to get my computer on, get my head in gear and be ready to go). 9:05 Get to my office and worry about all the things I need to do. Joined by another teaching fellow who was also worrying so we had a chat worrying at each other. Doesn't help really but still nice to know I am not alone. 9:20 Quick flash of email deleting (spam) until my TA arrives. Sorted our her role on this new course only to find she's not here next week the first week. Aaaagh! Brief flat spin. Recovery. Saved up flat spin for later. 9:55 Have to move bike from bike shed! Due to our building still being a building site, they were closing the shed at a moment's notice. Last thing I need is ten minutes running around to sort out my bike. 10:05 Late for my 10am meeting with students to all sort out our new labs (another aspect of this being a new building). Everything was still in crates. Thanks to their help, only a few things are still in crates and a couple of things are set up and ready to be used. 11:45 Start of terms supervisions with my students. Nice to have a chat with them. It feels months since I last talked to students like this. 12:25 More emails and head of teaching popped in just to discuss the bike fiasco. I like it when people pop in - better than email by far. 12:30 Off to forage for a sandwich through the building site and have a bit of a break to clear my head. Fretting a lot now as I haven't had much time to solve the problems I have to solve. 1:05 Entered project marks into the project mark system. Another small but time consuming task. I had to do it then because somebody messed up the deadline and moved it from next Wed to Friday. Harrumph. Fortunately also spotted another TA and interrupted to see if she could fill in for the one who is away. She could. Hurrah! Phew! 1:45 Went for a meeting. Other participants late and delayed it but only after 20 mins of waiting. Still, chance to socialise with those that did turn up! 2:10 Fiddled around with the webpages that I was worrying about at 7am this morning. 2:25 Meeting started. Basically a getting to know you exercise. Would be nice ordinarily but I haven't time for pleasantries today. Or so it feels. 3pm That flat spin caught up with me. I attempted three different things all at once. And did them all badly. After half an hour, I caught myself doing this, stopped and did just one thing: wrote some webpages. Feel very anxious but at least I got it done! 4pm Talked to Sally Fincher about the course. Not sure how coherent I was given my day. Hey ho. 4:25. Home time. I was going to work this evening but actually, I just needed to stop thinking. So walked the dog with my family, had take away dinner and generally chilled out as much as I could. Which wasn't much but it was a start and the weekend did the rest. 141 Normal start to the day. Rushing to get daughter out to school only to find that my car had frosted up. So we were late! Oops. Fortunately, it's not far to work and I am driving at the moment after having had such a bad cough a couple of weeks ago that I've pulled a muscle in my chest and can't ride my bike. Sigh. Mind, it was quite nice to get into work and not be (a) out of breath or (b) cold or (c) wet. So today was a relatively free day. I had a free morning until 2pm when I was due to meet a PhD student. Wonderful feeling - lots of time to get on with things. Here was the plan: 1. Spend at most an hour on email 2. Write a lecture 3. Prepare an assessment for giving out the next day 4. Perhaps do some research What happened was... Planned my day while my computer booted up. Did email for an hour and a quarter. And in that process, I had to look at two applicants for the MSc I lead and also working out plans for meeting people. Then I got an exam back that needed to go the admin team straightaway (after edits). Then on my way to the admin office met a colleague who has been off sick for a long time with serious problems. Lovely to see her and catch up with her and then her partner as we walked down the corridor together. And then I met another colleague who is "retired" and was in to do some work on our usability labs. It's an interesting question whether that's work. Cos I am not being "productive" and I am sure RAE/REF and QAA would not recognise this activity. Yet it's essential to making work places function. It's the oil in the wheels. And actually what makes work enjoyable. Heaven forfend! That I think I should be able to enjoy the job! Any road up so it was 12 by then and I had two hours (not four) to write my lecture and sort out the assessment. Which I managed - necessity is the mother of invention. And lunch can be eaten at a desk! I met my PhD student who is doing really well. Much better than earlier in her studies. Still not brilliant but it's really encouraging to see the progress. Then a pause and a chance to sort out a website still for the module I am teaching. Bit more email to stop it backing up then seeing an undergraduate project student who is just kicking off his project. Really nice to have these research related chats. The teaching prep is fine and I love the teaching but the contrast and the nice one-to-one experience is really refreshing. Then it's off home to walk the dog. Later in the evening, I did a bit of email while waiting for the supper to cook. It's just an endless dribble of stuff that mostly I could live without but if I don't clear out the dross, I can't find the gems I need. And then later still I read a chapter of another PhD student. Sadly though well written it was hard to stay awake and I nodded off after an hour or so. And woke up in time for bed! 141 So my wife gave birth two days ago - Monday 13th. It's just great for us. Little boy who is doing just fine. And that means of course I am on paternity leave. My diary? Nothing at all to do with work. Which is not to say I wasn't busy... Up at 6:40 thanks to daughter (who is 4) coming in and bothering me. Out of bed (despite my reluctance) at 7am because I forgot to put the bins out and the bin lorry was coming. Breakfast and getting ready went more smoothly than that. Then off to the hospital around 9:30 with daughter. Hung out with the new one for a while whilst also entertaining daughter. Back home just before lunch to walk the dog and leave daughter with grandparents for me to go back to hospital and await Deb being discharged. Which did eventually happen and we all came home at 4. Then into a whirl of sorting things out, feeding the baby, feeding the rest of us, dashing to the shops to get some more sheets having realised we haven't enough if baby is going to be sick on a regular basis. Finally a bit of peace once daughter has gone to bed and baby settles down for a good long nap. And now to bed (c. 11:30pm) . No work in sight. Don't miss it - I worked jolly hard this term to get the new course out - as I have so much more important things to think about that somehow turn into a chaos of mundanity. The devil may be in the detail but sometimes I think heaven is too. 141 Not a lot of work done today despite the massive marking backlog I have (about 37 hours to be done in the next two weeks in amongst full term with teaching and everything else...) Up at 8-ish. A positive lie-in but with a new born and four year old that was really very good. Took my daughter to ballet. One of the best bits of my week because I get to sit in a coffee shop next door to the dance studio and read my book. I am reading the History of the World in 100 Objects and it is absolutely enthralling. And my daughter has a lovely time too. Then back home. My bike gear cable had broken on the way back from work on Friday afternoon and is it's my main form of transport, I needed to get it mended. So I walked the bike and the dog to the bike shop and the dog back home again which took us up to lunch time. Lunch altogether just about though the new baby needed a feed also just as we were finishing so lunch dissolved from sitting at the table into just generally getting food into us somehow! Then we all went to collect my bike (except dog who was having a nap) and stopped in at a supermarket cafe on the way home for a cup of tea and a bun. It was really nice just to be doing stuff altogether. Then into the evening routine for my daughter - bath, supper, bed for her. And amazingly bed for the little one as well albeit it at 8:30ish. Wife and I grabbed some supper afterwards and then she had a nap while I actually did some work. Not the necessary marking but other stuff that I could feasibly do whilst underslept: my performance review forms which are due and some applications for the MSc that I look after. 11:30, wake up wife to feed the baby who has now woken up and I collapse into bed to grab a few more precious hours of sleep. The marking still needed doing but I've found marking when sleepy to be nigh on impossible... 141 Not a good day today. I've been sick for the last four days (of course during the weekend!) with a chest infection and whilst feeling better today, still not right. Still, I thought I'd better battle in - the backlog would just get worse if I took another day off. So I planned for a slow day... Alarm went off at 7am but felt groggy and finally got up at 7:30 and it's getting daughter ready. She was getting her haircut this morning (she's on half term) and with wife looking after the new baby, I take on most of the responsibilities of getting E sorted out. To be fair, she's pretty good - it's just a case of steering her in the right direction most of the time. So by 9am, E and I were both ready, the baby was fed, and wife was almost ready. Pretty good really. So I washed and changed the baby and finally felt up to facing some work. No cycling in today though - I've learned my lesson after cycling through last term when I was similarly poorly. Get to work shortly before ten and started on the email backlog. Lots of odds and sods to sort out. A colleague popped in at 10:30 and we discussed our assessments and changing them to reduce the killer marking load that we've both suffered up till now this term. Then on with tackling the biggest backlog problem - a special journal issue which I am co-editing. The reviewers are dragging their heels and with it being a special issue the deadline is real. So I chased up all the emails I'd let slip to do with that and fired off some new ones myself to nag dawdling reviewers. Seems to be less of a crisis now but it's taken a fair bit of time to sort out today. A student came for a meeting at 11:15. She was late but actually that was a blessing as I could finish off the first lot of editing problems before seeing her. We then had a good long chat about a project she might do with me this summer. Time well spent - getting a good student can be a real boon and turn a decent project into a decent research paper. We all win! I think she'll do a good job. Here's hoping! Then quickly out to buy lunch but no time to eat as a current project student came to see me. He's doing a great job of producing software that I could use in my future research. And he's going to try an experiment with it as well so that's brilliant. Very pleased with him. Then it's eating my lunch while back thinking about the journal reviewers and wrestling with the publishers' review management system. Finally won! Ten minutes break and then at 2pm start preparing a lecture on a stats class I am co-teaching to all first year PhD students in the dept. Fun to do but better if it had been done last week not this. Still, that's what happens when you're poorly - nobody else prepares your classes for you. By 3pm, I'm done in. So time to go back home. Sounds like a short day but it felt a lot longer. My Mam and Dad have been visiting to take E out for the day so I got to see them for a cup of tea. Very restorative. Then doing jigsaws with E whilst the baby has a feed before we all take the dog out for a walk. Can't say it was the best day - rather damp to say the least but we all had a decent walk and it's a chance to talk and hang out together. Bathed E, cooked the supper, did some email whilst we watched a bit of telly before bedtime and again while the baby had his final feed before bed. At least he's in something of a routine now and we are getting some decent wadges of sleep through the night. And here I am finishing the day with a couple more emails. The backlog is looking less dreadful - nearly down to the last 30 in my inbox which is something of a milestone. I try to keep below twenty but that's been impossible this term with the marking load. Anyway, time to sign off and go to bed. I'll be up in four hours! Still, at least I am feeling better. 141 Today was a totally different sort of day from normal. I had agreed to be a judge in a competition for schools being run by the local Rotary club at the National Railway Museum. So I had to be there for 8:45 - a real early start for me ;) Got my daughter ready for school double quick time. She was brilliant. Dropped her off early and went on the the NRM. Still late. Medieaval cities were not designed for 21st century traffic! Then the rest of the day was spent helping teams of school children to build a crane. They received the brief and all the building materials at 9:30 and by 1:30 had to have a working crane. Really hard challenge with a combination of gearing for the lifting mechanism, good strong structure, wheels and all control done at a distance of 1m. So there was me, a former mathematician specialising in psychology (of sorts) and working in a CS dept, advising on an engineering project! I really thought I would be out of my depth but teaching is teaching and it was a lot of fun. It was also really great to work with children - yr 8s so 12/13 yr olds. They were really great, enthusiastic and motivated (well most of them!). And the three teams that I worked with did really well, each in their own way. One of them came second for their age group and rightly so. So was it higher education? No. Was it research? No. Was it valuable? Definitely but not in a way that QAA or REF could count! Anyway home early as the event finished at 3pm. So tea, walking the dog, a spot of email, a trip to the pet shop all filled up my afternoon. Then into the evening routine with the children. At 10pm, I started doing some more usual work and treated myself to a bit of data analysis instead of adminny email stuff. And 11:30 came round really quickly :) So off to bed... 141 Holidays! I was in Norfolk with my family. The weather was pretty decent so on this day we decided to go to Holkham Bay, one of the finest beaches I know of. (And featured at the very end of Shakespeare in Love!) Goofed around in the morning over a leisurely breakfast. Prepared a picnic lunch. Went to the beach. Ate lunch. Made some very fine sandcastles and one of my most complicated moat arrangements to date. Looked for shells and found loads of oyster shells. Paddled in the North Sea (brrr) and then demolished the sandcastles. Went home for tea. Work? What's that? 141 Sunday's are not normally a day where I do much work and this Sunday is no different. Perhaps the context for this is that this is the summer term. I have no modules to teach (projects to supervise, PhD students to look after etc but not the standard routine of lectures, practicals, exams to set and the like). Thus I am not generally busy at work except on things of my own making so why would I make my work so busy that I had to work on a Sunday? So basically, leisurely breakfast, walk the dog, go to church (late but it's hard to make a five month old run to schedule!). After that, started getting lunch ready as my sister and brother-in-law were coming over. We don't see that much of them even though the live only about an hour away. The plan was to have a picnic but the Yorkshire weather had decide to threaten rain. Still, it was jolly. They went about tea-time and I did some work! Well, sort of. D and I were discussing days when I would not be around due to work so I looked up on my email when I would be doing a stint of External Examining that means an overnight stay away from home. So I deleted some email as well while I was there. Hardly strenuous! And then it was just usual evening things of getting children to bed, a light supper (left-overs from lunch) and then watching/snoozing through a DVD. 141 Today was a pretty normal day for me at the moment. I don't have a module to teach but nonetheless there is plenty to do. So usual day of getting my daughter to school. She was really good. Then it's back home to wait for the electrician to come. Our house seems to be having a run of things going wrong. This is just a fan in the shower but it needs doing. My wife is at home but then if she is looking after the baby then it's hard for her to be sorting out the electrician. As it happened, the electrician was brilliantly prompt. Didn't stop long though as he didn't have the part he thought he would need. Hey ho. I did some email while he was doing stuff. So then I did some reading. I've got a PhD thesis to read. I am not examining but have picked up some co-supervision with the head of dept. The student is excellent. The problem with excellent students is that they produce large quantities of sophisticated work. So ploughing through a thesis is no small task. I've had it a couple of weeks already but I am seeing him on Friday so I needed to crack on. So I finished chapter 4 which mostly went over my head. Then I went in to work. At work, quite a lot of email. We need a "new module" to allow us to transfer students who are failing on the MSc to a Diploma. Admin seem to think the module doesn't exist but I know it does - I wrote it! So that needed sorting. Then I was sorting out other PhD students, either arranging to meet or reading abstracts. Nice stuff but it all takes time. Getting close to lunch time so I thought I would try to do something for myself so I looked up funding opportunities for a proposal that I am hoping to write with a colleague. He's now at another uni but we'd met the day before to talk research. It was wonderful! So many ideas. Really uplifting - I miss that with my current colleagues. Not sure why it doesn't happen. I think because we don't make time for it to happen. Anyway, we have an idea for a proposal so we were wondering who might have the money to fund it. The short answer is the usual suspects. If we're lucky. Bit depressing but still - you have to try. So then lunch so I took some reading to the cafe. I don't usually do that but I don't get reading done if I eat my lunch in my office. Also I can treat myself to a pizza so that's my reward. The reading was another chapter of the PhD thesis - I skipped one which I have read many times already and went straight for the final chapter which was relatively short. Not so good as the others. I think he's failed to big up his work enough. I also read something one of my MSc project students had produced. She's just starting and this is the first bit of writing. Good start. Not perfect but any writing is good writing in my book. Then the departmental seminar. I made a special effort for this one as it was being given by a new member of staff. Missed my daughter's sports afternoon for it. And it was quite good but quantum computation is a bit beyond me. Still, at least I went. Afterwards, I worked on a paper that I have been knocking around with someone I don't know well. She's a usability consultant who comes to teach on our course. When I met her earlier in the year, she seeded an idea which over the last couple of months has turned into a more substantial argument. So she and I are trying to write a paper now. Which is great. Unfortunately, I started in LaTeX and she doesn't do LaTeX so I spent a while converting to Word and tidying up some things as I went along. Very satisfying. Then home. Spot of tea with the family. Walked the dog with my daughter. Made the dinner while my wife fed the baby and my daughter had her supper. Got daughter to bed and read some emails. Ate dinner. Spot of telly - well can't miss the Apprentice :) And then some more emails mostly doing some work on admissions for the MSc course and looking at a PhD applicant. Then bed. Oof! 141 Haha! Today was a half day :) Which is always a mixed thing - I end up trying to cram as much as possible into the half day. Anyway here's how it went... Daughter is on holiday at the moment so no rushing out of the house whilst shoe-horning her into her uniform. And I didn't hang around so I actually got to work for just after nine. Something of a record for me! Did a fair bit of email first. Nothing too taxing though - I'd been up till 11 the night before as part of my usual evening routine doing email. So there was very little fresh that had come in overnight and needed my attention. Then on with a little work on a paper that I am writing based on some student projects. Only I got stuck on some of the stats in the data analysis. I (foolishly) decided to do the statistical analysis in two different stats packages, SPSS because I am used to it and R because I want to learn it and use it in future in my teaching. And of course they gave different results. So I was checking to make sure I hadn't done something stupid like use the wrong data. I hadn't. But by the time I'd worked that out, I needed to go to a meeting. I am the Chair of the Board of Examiners elect and so I went to meet with the current Chair to find out more about the job. Very nice meeting. We had a good chat beforehand about his research - he is clearly enjoying the opportunity the summer vac brings in terms of research. Then we got down to business. This meeting was for me to find out who in the university I need to talk to/listen to when doing the job. As ever it is fascinating to learn about the arcane workings of this (any) university. Actually though it is relatively straightforward and sounds like there is good administrative support for all the connections and committees involved. Very useful. Then time for a bit more stats analysis (data definitely right and definitely doing the right analysis) before meeting my work experience student. I don't think many lecturers will have had 16 year old come and visit for a week to do work experience. But he approached us from a local school having had a visit to the dept in the spring as part of our outreach work. He wanted a programming work experience role. Poor chap got stuck with me and it was pretty isolated for him - working in the enormous student lab on his own. But he's done some cracking good programs for me looking at low level phenomena that influence time perception. I had thought I could use them in some of my research but it turns out they are far more delicate to reproduce than I expected. Still. Now I know. So he was finishing up and transferring his programs to my computer. Which involved upgrading my ancient versions of Java and corresponding IDEs. Good for the soul and good to have a reason to do it. But a bit of me hates upgrading - it just shows me how out of date my knowledge is. Ah well. Then we had lunch together and discussed his plans for the future. He's a bright chap and I hope he goes on to do interesting things - he's certainly capable. By this stage it was 12:30 so still time to do some more stats before knocking off. Decided that as I didn't know whether to trust SPSS or R (though instinct says R) I should redo the ANOVA by hand. Bleah. A mixed measures ANOVA by hand - that's the kind of torture I only really reserve for students! But needs must. So I made a good start with the help of a good text book to keep me right. 40 minutes later I was half way through having calculated my first main effect (not significant) and it was time to go home. And once home it was a whirlwind of busy-ness. Packing the car, sorting out baby food, toys, car seats... Then we hit the yellow brick road (aka the M1) and headed south to the Emerald City (London) where on Saturday we were going to see a show. Guess which one! 141 Looking back through the entries, I seem mostly to have been on holiday. And so I was again! This time it was the middle of a two week holiday so almost no thoughts of work whatsoever. Before hols, I was worrying about getting all my teaching prep done. Since coming back I am simply ploughing through emails but this middle day was a work void. 142 6:30 am - manage to get up in time to do a (very!) short yoga session this morning - and still get on my bike before 8am, so as to avoid the school run 4x4s! 8:15 - check email - etc, then remember at just after 9 that I'd not changed out of the biking stuff & students were immenent. They didn't show - so over to the coffee shop with a colleague - then joined by another, to discuss mix of social & work related things. 142 08:30 - OK - might actually manage at least part of this today - in early for several reasons - have the afternoon off (yay!) to see a friend; so I've driven in. Needed to get in in plenty of time to get a parking space; also had to photocopy an article I found on Friday (re. Twitter & student engagement for class to discuss) Hoping that the last minute lectures I prepared yesterday will work, but as the VLE appears to be down at the moment ... just glad I put them on the external hard drive as well as uploading them! We appear to be out of paper - so they're going to have to share blue copies in pairs, rather than having 1 white one each. Oh well, gets them talking. 16th: am It did get them talking - and some good ideas; though it was more the level 2 students in the next group that were more inspired - by what I'd thought would be potentially more boring! Who can tell! PM: Afternoon off ...woohoo; dropped all my stuff in my office & dashed off - managed to get to meet friend in next town (some 20 miles) in a very respectable time, so had a lovely afternoon with her planning our Xmas holiday (I have a feeling that that's going to be the first weekend this semester when I don't spent at least part of one day of the weekend working...) Managed *not* to put the computer on when I got home - lovely. (Watched Harry Potter 2 in preparation for the next film) .... Afterthought. Is 'Champagnedrinker' the best pseudonym. Oh well, you said pick something that helps to anonymise you. Think it does that well ... had I said '20 coffees a day' could be more truthful, but maybe more revealing! 142 Interesting day - started off having stayed over with friends who work on very similar courses to me - had merely dropped in as I was passing, having been visiting placement students. They had some of their MSc students giving presentations - and wanted to show them off (and then to put the educational world to rights over recent acquisitions to the cellar!) Luckily I'd not got a 9am class, so was able to get back home, dump the car & bike into work in plenty of time for the first (and only) class on a Wednesday. Which had the grand total of 4 students; 12 weeks is a long time - staff and students alike are exhausted! Next it was our weekly staff development meeting; I'm not sure that discussing the new curriculum and the changes it will involve is perhaps the best thing to talk about when we're all so tired (on the other hand, it meant that everyone was keen on the idea of a reading week part way through the term ... ) Ended up leaving early - as there was something I wanted to buy for my holiday next week - but had to go to the next town to get it. Naturally, due to a rather disrupted day, didn't get the marking finished until nearly midnight - but hey - it's done! (And, miraculously for me, over two weeks before it has to be! ) 142 A totally different day! This was the first saturday in term time (including the 18th Dec when I should have been on a plane - cancelled due to snow, so did a few things that I'd not done before term ended on the 17th) that I'd not actually worked! Partly, that was due to the fact my teaching load is much less this semester than last - but also due to the fact I'd decided to do a yoga weekend, as a taster for doing a years' foundation course in it (most on the course were thinking of doing a foundation course & then being a yoga teacher, not sure that's for me, yet. Stick to the day job for a bit longer). However, it was a wonderful day - lovely people - only the barest thoughts of work/students/marking; mostly time for me! Bliss. In the evening, relaxed with Brokeback Mountain that's been sitting in the to watch pile for ages! A wonderful change from the normal - and I decided to sign up for the whole course during the day, without waiting for tomorrow's session. :) 142 The main drawback with having a long weekend *and* not checking your email while away is that the inbox takes a long time to sort out; just getting towards the end of it - fortified by some University Coffee. I'd planned to finish getting all the feedback back to students (via the VLE - slower for me, but more convenient for them) - but had forgotten that I'd booked to attend a seminar about Social Networking & integrating it with a VLE. Well worth it; even if that did mean I had to spend some time in the evening attaching the right feedback to the right student (marks have to be done by student #), but the VLE works by student loginID / name. 142 Woke up round 6:30, realising that the sore throat that had been imminent most of yesterday was well & truly here today. Called work - the departmental secretary suggested a throat spray (which works surprisingly well!) Failed miserably to call the Dr. after 44 calls I'd still not got through, though my phone decided that clearly the Dr. is my new best friend. Spent the day reading (none work!) and drinking hot lemon, honey & ginger. Managed to avoid putting the PC on/checking work email until just now - when it was really going on to email them to say I suspect I'll not be in tomorrow either - as I'm still feeling pretty rough - I'm neither wanting to make myself worse, nor for that matter, infect anyone else. A further day's enforced silence should help! 142 As with the 15th January - this was one of the days on my yoga weekends. (Only got 7 through the year, but they happen to be round the middle of several months!) So, totally relaxing day - very refreshing; and made a point of not doing anything work related in the evening. (Didn't even put the computer on, so couldn't not check the email as it were!) A blissful day. 142 Oohh... might even remember to do this today :) So far, have managed to reinstall the basic OS on an old Netbook - preparatory to installing UberStudent - which is meant to be a linux distro for Students - so has lots of studenty things included (such as Zotero for the referencing & YouTube for the relaxing) 153 Reflections on time management An unusual location, but today's teaching and learning activity is part of my normal academic work. As supervisor to 4 part-time PhD students (and Director of Studies to 3 of them) face-to-face meetings happen about once a month with at least one of the students. The unusual location, however, is Alexandria, Egypt. This is because one of these students is the Manager of e-Learning at Alexandria University's Faculty of Medicine. He is what is known as a Split PhD, studying part-time in his own country with annual visits to the UK university. Split PhD students can also request visits from their supervisor, so here I am on the sunny Mediterranean coast of Egypt. Complaining? No... Bragging? Just a little! This student is in the final stages of data analysis, so each section he writes now is one step closer to the completion of his thesis. He has been on this journey for a number of years, so his final submission date is only a matter of months away. And this brings me to my first reflection on teaching and learning: the balance of full-time work and part-time study is difficult at the best of times. For Split PhD students - studying over a period of years - this becomes crucial, especially in the last year of the programme. So a part, perhaps the biggest part, of my role here is to meet his colleagues, his Dean, his wife, and remind them that now it is important to scale down their demands on him and allow him some thinking and writing time. I meet his Dean, a charming man, in his office overlooking Alexandria's ancient eastern harbour. The building was once the British Consulate and still retains many of the original features, including parquet floors and splendid chandeliers. The Dean obviously appreciates my student's work in the development of e-learning in the Faculty and comments that they are now a centre of excellence in Africa. I remind him that my student's PhD will secure this position not only in Egypt and the UK, but also by dissemination throughout the world, so it is important that he has time to complete. I know that he is hoping to get leave of absence (preferably paid) for a few months, to finish his thesis in the UK. I plan to continue my own 'charm offensive' at a social event requested by the Dean. PhD students (based on my personal experience) believe that collecting and analysing the data will be the difficult part of their programme. They don't realise that crafting the thesis, presenting the evidence, discussing the focus and originality of the work, drawing clear, logical and appropriate conclusions is really the hard part. But this is where they achieve the greatest learning and move from apprenticeship to mastery. Which brings me to another PhD candidate and another of today's activities: this visit allows me to meet one of my students who completed and had a viva last year. He is now in the final stages of major modifications. He has sent chapters to his examiners and needs my encouragement to push himself just that little bit further. In our meeting this afternoon we discuss the difference between generalisation and extrapolation, and how to integrate the stages of his research programme into a coherent story of Egypt's development of e-Government services. The reason he is doing major modifications, not minor, is another reflection on teaching and learning. His intention is to develop his career in academia - his college ( a private degree-awarding institution in Egypt), who would like to have well-qualified staff, are sponsoring his programme. However, their funding ends after 4 years (yes, this is a part-time doctoral programme) and they rarely give him give him sufficient time to pursue his studies. In order to finish within 4 years, he took 6 months unpaid leave to complete his write-up in the UK. He felt that the writing business was taking too long, rushed through the concluding chapters and submitted what was still a draft. Although his examiners agreed that he had done enough interesting and original work to be worthy of a doctorate, he had not written a strong enough argument to support his conclusions. Hence, major modifications and a year to complete them. Under pressure from his employers he did not build thinking time into the writing, re-drafting and revising process, and finally he skimped on the polishing that brings a good PhD thesis to the attention of a wider audience. It seems short-sighted to me that an organisation would pay for an employee to study, to enhance both his/her own career and the standing of the organisation, but not to make provision of study leave and other measures for the student to do the necessary thinking as part of the writing process. I also encounter this with MSc students, especially in the dissertation phase, and I see the symptoms in undergraduate students. Those who write their assignment the day before it is due are invariably disappointed with the result. No matter how many days or weeks are given as preparation time, many students find time management difficult to cope with. (But they are not the only ones!) The lesson I would like to draw from this is that those students who develop thinking, drafting and writing skills - and time management as part of the process - are those who can think quicker and evaluate situations better as they progress in both education and life. 153 Reflections on quality assurance This month I am in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, about to start a quality review of the Computer Science department of a women's university in the city. Yesterday I travelled here and tomorrow the review begins, so today has been a hiatus. This evening I met panel members of my review team and three other teams, also working at the same university. We were asked by our hosts to develop a supportive and collegial relationship. We did this beautifully over a pleasant meal. We are from the UK, USA and Australia and all have the same concern that, while quality has to be assured, it should not be at the expense of constraining and stifling the creativity of the university staff. Tomorrow we will do our best to do good for the women of Saudi Arabia. 153 Refelctions on building for the future Today, and for the rest of this diary project (I think), I am back in my normal working environment - not gadding about the middle east. The day starts and ends with interviews. Successful MSc graduates would like to pursue a PhD programme with us. It is gratifying that we are doing something right, that they want to stay with us. Personally, since I am module leader for research methods across the MSc courses, I am pleased that they enjoy the research process enough to carry on. Both wish to continue with the topic of their dissertation and take their initial research to a further stage. Both talk about writing articles and sharing their knowledge through teaching. I remember that for this reason; I too came into university teaching during my own PhD study. In between, I have tutorials with current MSc dissertation students. I doubt that either of these will apply for PhD study, as they both struggle to articulate their ideas into readable prose. They are part of a large programme (over 100 students) recruited from south-east Asia. Although technically competent, many find the research methods module difficult. There are no right ways and wrong ways, just the most appropriate approach. They have to explain what they do and justify why they do it. Many resort to copying large quotes from textbooks. A few plagiarise the work of someone else. I don't understand why they think that it will not be noticed. Of course, these are mostly the ones who do not attend the lectures and seminars - all carefully designed to help them through the thinking stages of developing a research proposal. Average attendance can be as low as 40% of the cohort. But those who attend do well in their dissertation - and some come back after graduation to embark on a PhD. And then I know that a small part of my work is building for the future. 184 12:20am. It's just after midnight. I arrived home after my 6-10pm class around 10:30pm. After a light snack, I'm ready to start prepping for the coming days. I'm going on a trip this weekend. It's just a vacation to celebrate my XXth birthday. Since I'll be gone all weekend, I need to get a bit ahead in my preparations. I'm normally a seat-of-the-pants, last-minute kind of teacher. I do my best thinking in the shower as I'm getting ready for the day. I can often be found at my computer ten minutes before class pounding out an activity or assignment for the students. They don't like that. They (the students, I mean) want to know what's coming up so they can plan their week. I don't blame them. I'd be frustrated, too. But that's the way I am and they've come to expect it. I teach four or five classes per semester, all preps. That's the nature of where I teach. It's a community college. Everyone teaches 4-6 classes each semester. We have no TAs, no graders. Plus we supervise labs, student clubs, and honors projects. There are committee meetings to attend, tests to write and grade, homeworks to grade. It all adds up to more than forty hours a week of work. Don't get me wrong -- I love this job. I can't imagine teaching fewer courses. I can't resist making big changes in at least one of my classes each semester. Assignments get old, technology marches forward, and teaching styles change. This semester I made the bold move to abandon the textbook I had been using for CS1 and *gasp* write my own. It's infinitely cheaper for my students, although I've been devoting about 15-20 hours per week to it. We're four weeks into the semester and I'm on chapter 7. Each chapter is 5-7 pages, so I've written about 30 pages so far. Not bad. But the students just got done reading chapter 6 and I'd like to have up through chapter 8 done by the time I leave in three days. I don't think I've had a full night's rest since the semester started. Between prep and writing, I've been averaging about six hours of sleep each night. Go to bed around 3-4am, get up around 8 or 9am to get to my first class at 11am. I better start writing. 12:45am. Answered an email from a student in my night class who is apparently staying up as late as I am. At least he's working on his assignment. :) 2:45am. Chapter written and posted online. Time for bed. 9:45am. Ready for work. Catching up on emails over a bowl of cereal. 10:45am. Fifteen minutes until class. Just got into my office. Need to type up a homework assignment, but my CMS (course management system) is being cranky about formatting math symbols. Still, I get about 80% done and promise my class that I'll finish formatting it this evening. 11:00am-12:30pm. Discrete structures class. Today's topics is Karnaugh maps. My classes are interactive, so I give them a problem to do and along the way we discuss how to solve them with K-maps. They learn as they go. I'm quite pleasantly surprised that the students are all doing the work, helping each other out, and asking intelligent questions. I'm doing my best to keep them awake -- some of them haven't had any sleep all week because they've been playing Halo Reach, which was released on Monday. 12:30pm. Class is over and now I'm meeting with five students who are doing honors projects. We have to turn in the paperwork by tomorrow, so after speaking to them as a group, we sit down at computers and I individually meet with each one to complete the paperwork. A couple of students have to leave for work and can't finish it today, so they'll fill out the papers online and email me the documents. The honors committee would rather that the student drops off the papers, but since one of the student won't be on campus tomorrow (she lives about 20 miles away), I'll turn it in for her. 2:30pm. Poke my head into the meeting of the robotics club, but they've gone off to Home Depot to get supplies. They'll be back later. 2:45pm. Soothed the CMS and now it's formatting the problems correctly. Still need to add some more problems, though. Decide instead to read some blogs. 3:15pm. I'm the internship coordinator for our department. It's getting to be that time when a few students approach me asking about internship opportunities. Responded to some of the emails requesting they come to my office so we can talk logistics and paperwork. 4:00pm. Still waiting for the robotics clubs students to come back. Answered more emails and worked on completing the honors project contracts. 5:00pm. The students have come back, finally. I'm kind of disappointed in the ones that went to the hardware store. Four of them left around 2:30, leaving three behind. They said they would be back no later than 4:00 and now they are an hour late. It's disappointing because this is the first real meeting of the club and the three people left behind were just sitting in the classroom patiently waiting for the others to return. I don't think they had much else to do, but if I were in that position I'd be upset that half my afternoon had been wasted. Club president JJ is an energetic guy with a can-do attitude, but he needs to learn how to delegate and ensure that his other club members are kept in the loop. With some guidance he can probably get to that state of mind, but he currently wants to do everything himself. 5:30pm. JJ starts painting the plywood they bought from Home Depot, but again has not consulted the other club members. Some of them are just standing around, watching him work. I come outside to try to include everyone else, but JJ is feeling pressured to get enough robots ready for next Tuesday when they can do a demonstration in the cafeteria. He wants to get the platforms painted and a couple of robots assembled before 6:00pm. Other members of the club remind him that they have class at 6:00 and there's no way they can finish in time. JJ says he'll take care of everything, so that's when I step in and suggest that JJ put everything away for now and reconvene tomorrow. If it doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. JJ reluctantly agrees. 6:00pm. JJ finally packs up and heads home. I return to working on the contracts. 7:00pm. I head home, finally. My girlfriend is out shopping and wants to go out to eat when she's done, probably around 8:30 or 9. My day isn't over yet. I need to write the next chapter of the book, finish the contracts, and prep homework assignments for the weekend. Probably another late night for me. 8:00pm-ish. Nodded off at my desk at home, maybe for about 5-10 minutes. That should be enough sleep to keep me going. I'll just goof off until I'm ready to get back to work. 12:30am. After dinner out, a bit of blog reading, and eBay shopping, I'm back at the computer typing up another chapter. 2:45am. Chapter done. Heading off to bed. The day is over. It starts again in six hours. 184 12:07am My work week begins on Sunday. Sometimes Saturday, too. I'm so busy during the week with classes, advising clubs, watching the computer lab, and meetings that I don't have time to attend to the menial tasks: grading, sending copy jobs to the print shop, and preparing for tests. So Sundays and weekday evenings are when I do those things, much to my girlfriend's chagrin. Seems like I'm at work 24 hours a day with no time for leisure. Frankly, I'm getting tired of it. So here I am getting ready for Monday. I'll try to do the minimum possible. It becomes a game: what can I put off until later? 1:15am Enough for now. I'm off to bed. Up at 8:30 or so! 10:30am I'm at work now. Mondays are short days for me. I have only one class to teach: discrete structures. Today we're finishing up talking about graphs. I have to quickly make copies of the chapters from CS Unplugged that talk about Dijkstra's and Prim's algorithms. Love that book! 11:30am (middle of class) I really like this course. It's all about making connections. Connections from databases to set theory; connections from regular expressions to graphs; connections from algorithms to data structures. I've managed to retain most of the students. They may not all be getting great grades, but at least they're all engaged. I have them pair up and run through various graph algorithms on paper. Then we talk about real-world uses for them. I decide not to give them a lab assignment this week. Maybe I'll have something for them next week. 2:00pm. Most of the rest of the afternoon is spent in the computer lab. There's supposed to be a faculty member present whenever the lab is open. Some of my colleagues flake out on their duties, so I fill in. I think it works out in my favor. Students from many classes who are in the lab see me hanging around, so they ask questions. I answer them. They see what other students in my classes are doing and get interested. It's free advertising. Unfortunately, I don't get much done during those three hours in the lab because I'm helping students. The lab closes at 5, officially, but I let some students stay until 6 (when their evening class starts). Once I lock the door, I take an opportunity to do a little FaceTime with my girlfriend who's visiting her sister out of town this week. 8:00pm. Home. Grabbed dinner at a fast-food place on the way home. Now to sit down and prep for tomorrow. I tell ya, it never ends.... 184 The semester ended last week. Grades are due this Friday. My lack of grading diligence during the last few weeks has come back to bite me: I have hundreds of assignments to go through. Luckily, since few students will ever want to collect these long-ago turned in assignments, I can just quickly grade them and assign a mark based on "gut instinct." Statistically, I'll be within 90% of the "real" mark every time. At this point for most students, it doesn't even matter what mark I give them; their overall grade won't change. I aim to be done by late tonight. I wish I could assign final grades on the fourth week of the semester. By that time I can pretty accurately predict their grades. You can see it in their faces and the way they behave in the classroom. Once my grades are completed my winter break begins. Four weeks off, here I come! My break won't be all rest and relaxation. I have to start prep for the upcoming semester, including: Writing an easy-to-use Java graphics library for my CS1 class. It'll be something like an updated ACM Java Task Force library, but utilizing the more modern Graphics2D classes and, if all goes well, be able to generate simple Android apps. Converting my discrete structures class to use Python instead of Scheme/Racket. Writing the remaining chapters of my own CS1 textbook. See you next year! 184 We're in winter holiday break. A nice breather of four weeks to regroup, recharge, and rework courses. Classes begin in just over a week. This coming week is our in-service week consisting of meetings and the final rush to get the online courses set up, copies made, and calendars posted. I spent the day working on various school-related projects, including: Resetting the Moodle courses; Creating student accounts on the Linux server; Writing scripts to maintain the accounts. You see, since only a few of us use the Linux server, it's up to me to set up the accounts and maintain them throughout the semester. When the server goes down, it's me that gets up in the middle of the night to go reboot it. No one else wants the job. This semester I'm going to try to get our Linux server hosted on a VMWare server so rebooting it will consist of clicking a button on a web page rather than physically going to campus to push a real button. The governor announced proposals to massively cut the higher education budget this year. I'm sure we'll learn more this coming week. Otherwise, I'm starting to stress about my to-do list to get everything prepped. 184 Summer time is recharge and retrench time. After nine months of No Free Time, my three months of summer are a time to: * Take some time off * Get home projects done * Get ready for fall I won't bore you with details about my home remodeling. Instead, I'll brief you on what I'm doing to get ready for next semester. As the de facto system administrator for our Linux systems, I'm migrating our physical servers to a virtual environment. Our IT department does there own VM stuff, but I wanted to learn about it, too, so with their help I procured a couple of cast-off servers and installed Ubuntu Linux-KVM on it. Since then, I've been having a blast! All this fun will result in something to show my students come September. A few of my more enthusiastic students want to work on some side projects over the summer, so I have been scheming up some things for them to do such as re-write some Java graphics libraries we use and work on some web-based teaching tools that I've been trying to bring to fruition for a couple of years. I've discovered YouTube. Not as a watcher--been doing that for years. No, as a producer. Inspired by Salman Khan's TED talk, I'm recording a bunch of short problem-solving videos for my some of my courses. Already I've received positive feedback from all over the world. I want to "flip" at least one course this coming semester. I also got an offer to help completely upgrade the PCs and server in an office. I spent a good part of the day playing with Windows Server 2008, ordering network gear, and planning out the upgrade process. Maybe I'll even get paid. At the very least it's a chance to do something different. 187 6:30 AM - got up/dressed/breakfast 7:15 - left for office 7:30 - email 8:00 - CS Service Committee meeting 9:00 - Ensured CS110 lab started and GAs were present 9:15 - Met with PG to ensure my understanding of universdity course assessment requirements for CS104 and CS110 9:45 - CS110 lab - helping GAs answer questions 10:45 - Office - email (May have missed an appointment w/ a student at 10:30 - student not waiting) 11:15 - Office Hour - One-on-one with CS110 student - had problems with lab activity 12:30 PM - lunch 1:15 - email 1:45 - Alpha workshop for new faculty - subject: grading and assessment 3:30 - email 4:30 - headed home 4:45 - cleaning house 5:30 - dinner 6:00 - email and Facebook (mostly fb) 7:15 - grading 9:00 - snack break 9:30 - email 10:30 - CS104 lab activity development and testing 2:30 AM - headed to bed 187 Friday, October 15, 2010 6:40 AM - Alarm awoke me after an "OK" night's sleep of 7.5 hours - longer than my last two nights combined! Dressed and ate my usual bagel for breakfast. 7:15 - Out the door, headed to campus. Dropped my wife off at her building, and headed to the parking lot (We're down to one car at the moment.) 7:35 - Arrived at my office. Got PC turned on and checked and reacted to e-mail. 8:10 - Rearranged my desk contents to utilize a shelf on it. 8:50 - Headed for a haircut appointment 9:30 - Back in office. Class preparation & grading lab exams. 11:00 - Met with student - Lab exercise help. 11:15 - Grading lab exams. 11:45 - Met with student - Reading assessment make-up. Noon - Checked and reacted to e-mail. 12:10 PM - Met with student - Lab exercise help. 12:30 - Lunch 12:45 - Met with Graduate Assistant about grading he's doing 1:00 - Took wife home 1:20 - Back to office; met with a second Graduate Assistant about grading he's doing 1:50 - Attended a graduate school Workshop on campus in support of the Golden Key International Honour Society chapter of which I am the Co-advisor. 3:30 - Further arranging of my desk to accomodate a second monitor for my computer! Woot!! 4:00 - Checked and reacted to e-mail, including explaining to a student why he was earning the grade he is. 4:45 - Grading lab exams. 5:15 - Headed home. 5:30 - Visit with my wife and daughter (who is home from college on Fall break); dinner. 6:30 - Packing for a Boy Scout outing 7:15 - Headed to Boy Scout outing 8:00 - Arrival at Boy Scout outing 11:00 - Checked and reacted to e-mail 11:30 - Grading projects 12:15 - Bedtime 187 Monday, November 15, 2010 6:40 AM - Alarm awoke me after an "Good" night's sleep of 4 hours. Dressed and ate my usual bagel for breakfast. 7:45 - Out the door, headed to campus. 8:00 - Arrived at my office. Got PC turned on and checked and reacted to e-mail. 8:35 - Grading CS0 projects. It's going to be a long day of grading; these take a while! 8:50 - Helped in Intro to Computers lab until GA showed up 9:05 - Grading CS0 projects. 9:50 - Met with student in my office to review a makeup lab 10:25 - Back to grading projects. 11:10 - e-mail 11:25 - Exercising - Something I started a week ago... 12:40 PM - e-mail 12:50 - lunch 1:15 - e-mail 1:30 - Reviewing new version of Blackboard course management system 1:45 - e-mail 2:00 - Back to grading projects... just 23 more projects to go! 2:35 - Photocopying exams for Intro to Computers exam on Tuesday 2:50 - Back to grading projects. 3:50 - Visited a class to collect data for an ongoing research project 4:20 - Back to grading projects. 5:40 - Headed home 5:55 - Arrived at home, visited w/ my wife and opened snail mail 6:10 - e-mail 6:20 - Dinner 6:45 - Nap (unplanned - I sat still too long) 7:45 - Back to grading projects. Just 17 to go! 9:00 - Discovered an instance of cheating on the CS0 project. Started researching exact process I need to follow. Message drafted and sent to involved students. :-( 10:10 - Back to grading projects. 4:30 AM - CS0 project grading complete. All grades and comments recorded in Blackboard. Headed to bed. 187 7:15 AM - Got out of bed after 2 hours sleep. The CS0 final exam took a lot longer to write and format than I expected! This "being a new instructor" thing keeps surprising me about how much time it takes to "prep"! 7:45 - Arrived at office. Checked email. 8:05 - Grqduate Assistant dropped by to get some papers to grade and to talk. 8:30 - Took a final look at the CS0 final exam in the "light of day". Decided it was too long and cut out some of the questuons. 9:45 - Declared CS0 Exam ready - Made copies 10:00 - Grading CS0 Final projects 10:30 - Met with student so they could make up a missed assignment 10:45 - Back to grading Noon - Lunch! (and e-mail) 12:15 PM - CS0 Final Project grading 2:00 - Head to the class room for CS0 final exam. 2:25 - Grading Final Projects while protoring Final Exam. Looks like the length of the exam was about right. Haven't reviewed their answers, so clue how they did, though. 3:45 - CS0 Group Project demos after Final Exam - Good experience for those who chose to stick around. 4:15 - Took exam bubble sheets from yesterday's final exam to be scanned. 4:25 - e-mail 4:30 - Student quiz makeup 4:45 - e-mail 5:05 - Exercise! 6:25 - Back in office - check e-mail 6:40 - Headed home 6:55 - Dinner 7:15 - e-mail 7:35 - (unintential) nap! 8:10 - e-mail 8:15 - Wife arrived home from meeting - visited with her 8:35 - e-mail 8:40 - Grading "Intro to Computers" lab exams 11:00 - Snack/wake-up break 11:15 - Back to grading 2:30 AM - Giving up and going to bed; I hope I'm more productive after some sleep! 187 6:45 AM - Woke up after a good night's sleep; a bit longer than I've had for a few weeks. Snuggled w/ my wife - something we've not had/taken the luxuary of time to do for way too long. Looking forward to a 3-day weekend. Hope to finally get caught up! 7:45 - Got up and dressed, checked email/facebook and ate breakfast. 8:45 - Researched fundraising oportunities for the Boy Scout troop I'm involved with. 9:30 - Email/facebook and visiting with my wife. 10:00 - Boxed up Christmas decorations (Been too busy to get to it before now!) 11:45 - Lunch 12:45 PM - Reviewed interview notes and decided which undergraduates to hire as Lab Assistants for my Introduction to Comuters courses. Established work schedules. Set up Lab Assistants to have access to courses in Blackboard (course management system). Sent messages to those hired and not hired. 3:30 - Email/facebook 4:30 - Graded submitted work for a student taking an online course 4:45 - Email/resolved a student's problem with Blackboard 5:00 - Set up wikis in Blackboard for Intro to Computers course 5:45 - Left for dinner at my Son's and Daughter-in-Law-to-be's house 9:00 - Back home from dinner. Continued setting up wikis for Intro to Computers course. 10:30 - Created and loaded lab materials into Blackboard for Intro to Computers course. Sent material to Lab Assistants. 12:45 AM - Resolved a student's problem with Blackboard 1:00 - Researched i>clicker issues and responded to students 1:45 - Bed time; I hope to be more productive tomorrow. 187 6:45 AM - Woke up after a decent night's sleep. Got up, dressed and ate breakfast. 7:30 - Headed to campus. 7:45 - In my classroom getting ready... 8:00 - Teaching CS 104 - Intro to Computers. 8:55 - In my office. Email/Facebook. 9:15 - In lab for CS 104. 11:00 - Back in office. Email. Arranged with GA to proctor an early exam for a student athlete that will be traveling when the exam is administered. 11:45 - Headed to classroom to teach another section of CS 104. 12:55 PM - Stopped by the CS 104 lab after class to make sure Lab Assistants were present and doing OK with student questions. 1:10 - Lunch 1:25 - Visited with a past student that dropped by my office. It's nice when students come back and report that they were able to use something you helped them learn semesters earlier! 1:40 - email... 2:00 - Observed another prof teaching a course I might be teaching in future semesters. Never a bad idea to know how someone else introduces new concepts! 3:15 - Grading - various classes. 4:30 - Department chair dropped by to let me know that a retiring tenured prof is going to be replaced (for the short term) by a new contract facutly position. Implication for me: I'll no longer be low-man-on-the-totem-pole. Yea! 4:55 - Grading - projects for CS 0. 5:15 - Exercise - Haven't gotten in as much as I'd like to have done for the last week, so I'm making time for it today, even though I know it's going to be a late night. 7:00 - Back in office; email and packing up to head home. 7:10 - Headed home. 7:25 - Arrived home. Visited with my wife and ate dinner. 8:00 - email. 8:30 - Bill paying. 9:30 - Preparing and loading lab info, project info and a chapter reading assesment into Blackboard for CS 0. 11:30 - email Midnight - finalize CS 104 exam 1 12:15 AM - back to (hopefully) finish up CS 0 project grading. 3:00 - Grading done - now to record it in Blackboard. 4:15 - Prep for tomorrow's 9:00 AM class. 4:45 AM - To bed. 187 6:35 AM - Alarm 7:00 - Got out of bed, dressed and ate breakfast 7:30 - Headed to campus 7:45 - Dropped bags in office and headed to the classroom for my 8:00 Intro to Computers class. Barely half of the class was present. Did they get lost on Spring Break last week? 8:55 - Back in office - checked email 9:15 - Headed to Intro to Computers lab 11:25 - Back in my office - checked email 11:35 - Had one of my non-traditional Intro to Computers students stop by my office to express his pleasure to me about a "small victory" he experienced a few days ago. It seems his (college professor) wife was frustrated not knowing how to set up a spreadsheet to organize/keep track of some data. He was able to say "I can do that; let me work on it for a few minutes." His wife was "amazed" and appreciative. The significant part of this story is that this student had never touched a computer until about five months ago. He has picked up enough skills to feel proud of his accomplishments. It made my day to know that I've been a part of his journey leading up to his victory. 11:50 - Headed to the classroom for my Noon Intro to Computers class. 1:00 PM - Met with a student to review his lab exam submission for Intro to Computers. 1:30 - email 1:50 - Headed to sit in on Computer Org and Design class to review the material and to observe how the current professor presents the material. 3:05 - Out of class - checked email 3:40 - Call to HP support. My wife's PC had been sent in for diagnosis/possible repair. Our house flooded a couple of week ago (4 inches of water in our first floor) and the LCD in her notebook appears to have been a victim of the flood. HP said it's going to cost $200 more to replace the LCD than we paid the the whole notebook new a few months ago. Guess we'll pull the old notebook out of mothballs for a while until we have the money to buy a new one again. :-( 4:10 - Research of cost for LCD replacement part. Just exploring if it's a viable option to do the replacement myself. 4:35 - Exercise 6:00 - Headed to my Mom and Dad's for dinner. (My wife is going out with some of her friends.) 6:15 - Dinner at Mom and Dad's. I also got to visit with our two cats that have been living at Mom and Dad's since our flood a couple of weeks ago. 7:15 - Performed some updates on Mom and Dad's PC. 8:00 - Headed home 8:05 - Visited with my wife 8:30 - Checked email 9:00 - Restored backup files onto my wife's old PC. 10:00 - Email and Facebook, etc. 11:00 - Prepared and loaded Intro to CS project 3 into Blackboard. 1:15 AM - Bedtime 187 6:35 AM - Alarm went off 7:00 - I finally got out of bed, got dressed and ate my usual bagel 7:30 - Headed to campus 7:45 - Arrived at office & checked email. Had a reminder that I needed to keep this log! So glad I put that reminder in MS Outlook. It was one less thing I had to remember. 8:05 - Final preping/review of presentation file for CS0 class 8:45 - Headed to CS0 class 9:50 - Came back to my office and had three students waiting to pick up their copy of a section of a new textbook I'm helping class test. Got them taken care of and read email. Also did some last-minute fund-raising for the American Cancer Society Relay for Life walk that I'm participating in starting this afternoon/evening on Campus. 10:45 - Headed to CS0 lab for the rest of the morning and part of the afternoon. There are really only two one hour labs scheduled, but I typically provide a lab exercise that takes longer than an hour to complete. They can finish it on their own time, but many students choose to stay and complete it, so one lab time runs into the next. I'm glad to stay and help, but it does make for a long day at times. 1:00 PM - Snuck out of lab and warmed up my lunch. Took it back to the lab and ate it between questions over the course of the next couple of hours. It was warm when I started eating it... 4:00 - Headed to my office. The Graduate Assistant assigned to me dropped by and we had a good discussion about how things were going for him as his first year wraps up and what his plans for next year are. 5:15 - Headed home 5:30 - At home, visited with my wife, ate dinner, gathered a chair, pop-up tarp, water bottles, snacks, etc to take to the Relay for Life walk tonight. 6:15 - Headed to the Relay for Life walk. 12:30 AM - Back home from the walk. Checked email and started to do some work. Woke up an hour later and... 1:45 - Headed to bed. 187 7:30 AM - Woke up and got ready for the day. It's nice to "naturally" wake up rather than waking to an alarm going off! 8:15 - E-mail/Facebook 8:45 - Paying bills, etc. 10:00 - Heading to church and lunch 1:15 PM - Shopping for material needed to relocate two phone lines in our home. 1:50 - Home - checked email 2:00 - Started work on phone line relocation: testing that current lines work. 2:20 - Placing material orders for my summer job (Business Manager at a Boy Scout summer camp). 3:15 - House reconstruction from our flood which occured the first of March. (Now that my son's wedding is done and the semester has ended, I have a bit of time to complete the reconstruction before starting my summer job full time.) Today's task - preping for drywall. 5:00 - Hmmm. The drywaller didn't show up. Guess I'll do something else. Reviewing new textbook edition for CS0 and identifying required changes in assignments and projects. 6:00 - Dinner break 6:45 - Back to reviewing new textbook edition and identifying required changes in assignments and projects. 7:15 - (unintended) nap - must have stayed up too late last night. 8:00 - Back to reviewing new textbook edition 10:00 - Email message to online student and preparing an exam for her because the course management system is not working correctly. Grading what she was able to submit online. 11:45 - Back to reviewing new textbook edition and reworking assignments and projects 1:00 AM - Bed time 187 7:20 AM - Woke up. I'm working at a Boy Scout summer camp as the business manager this summer. While I've been in camp for most days during the previous three weeks getting ready for the summer, this week is the first we have had campers in camp. Today one set of campers leaves this morning and a new set come in this afternoon. As a result of a very busy and full schedule for camp, I have had very little time to devote to non-camp activities. Therefore, my independant learning (online) students have received significantly slower response times from me than I like to provide. In total for the day, I may have devoted 15 minutes to them. 5:00 AM Off to bed for a few more hours. 187 7:15 AM - Alarm woke me up. 7:55 AM - Loud singing of scouts woke me up again. Opps! I overslept. I was supposed to be at flag assembly 10 minutes ago! I've been working at a Boy Scout summer camp as the business manager this summer. It has been very rewarding, but has provided for some very long days with very little sleep. Hmmm; that sounds similar to my grad school days. As a result of a very busy and full schedule for camp, I have had very little time to devote to non-camp activities. Therefore, my independant learning (online) students have received significantly slower response times from me than I like to provide. In total for the day, I may have devoted 15 minutes to them. To further complicate the issue, the camp's internet connection has been down since the early part of the week and just came back to life today. I'm going to have a lot of catching up to do this weekend! 3:00 AM - Off to bed. 187 6:30 AM - Alarm tried to awake me, not too successfully. 7:00 - Finally got out of bed, dressed and ate my usual cinnamon and raisin bagel. Classes do not start until next Monday, but this week is starting to fill up with a variety of meetings. This afternoon I have a meeting to start the budgeting process for a 2-3 week trip to Ireland and England that I'm organizing for Computer Science majors next May. I believe it will be the first international trip for students for the department in a long time, or maybe ever. 7:20 - Checked Facebook and email. 7:35 - Reviewed work turned in overnight from one my Independent Learning (online) students. Her time runs out today at 11:59 PM. It's always interesting how productive students get when their time is about to run out. Unfortunately, there is a lot this student isn't getting, so it's been a lot of emails back and forth. Taking this course on campus may have been a better approach for this student; it would have been easier/quicker to work through the challenges she was having in person, rather than via email. Oh well, I think we're going to make it. 8:00 - Headed into my office. 8:15 - When I arrived I discovered that a fellow faculty member had officially left the building - at least that is what his missing office name plate would seem to indicate. He provided much guidance, support and humor to me as I worked my way through grad school and then as an instructor this last year. I'm going to miss having him as a neighbor, but wish him well in his retirement. 8:20 - Email and checked department snail mail box. 8:45 - 2010-2011 Research data analysis and summarization. 9:00 - Worked with a student that had questions about course work. 11:15 - Research data analysis and summarization. Noon - email 12:15 PM - Lunch 1:15 - Headed to a meeting to start the budgeting process for a 2-3 week trip to Ireland and England that I'm organizing for Computer Science majors next May. 2:30 - Done with meeting. Waiting for next meeting to start. Checked email and had another email from the online student that is struggling. Responded. 2:50 - Headed to a meeting for freshmen common reader small group discussion leaders. I've not led one of these groups before, but decided to give it a try. 3:45 - Back in my office waiting for a student to arrive so I can answer more questions for him. 5:15 - Online course grading. 6:30 - Headed home 6:45 - email 7:15 - Dinner, visiting with my wife, talking about possibilities for the international trip next May, relaxing. 9:30 - Checked email and found a pair of messages from my struggling online student. She still is not getting it! I don't know how I can be any more specific in my responses to her without actually telling her the exact lines of code she needs to write. I'm trying to resist the temptation to wish midnight was here and I'd not have to worry about responding to further questions from her since today is the end of her allotted time to complete the course. I respond to her, hoping it sinks in this time. 10:00 - Graded online work & further email exchanges with struggling online student. 12:15 AM - Caught up on Facebook. 12:45 - Headed to bed - a bit early for me, but that struggling online student wore me out today! 191 Just got back this morning from 3 weeks away in London where I was semi-working (ie. answering emails etc) but semi-taking some personal time with family. Today is an Open Day. 9-9:30 - run down to payroll (different campus) to get copies of payslips for mortgage application. 9:30-10 - sit in coffee room opening post, chatting, catching up, eating breakfast 10-11 - catch up on emails (been off 1 day driving back from London and 76 emails - some personal but still .....) and review lecture slides for open day talk. 11-1 - give talk on 'why you should come to our lovely institution', talk to prospective students and parents afterwards. (grab sandwich in quiet time in middle). 1-1:30 - give talk again 1:30-2 - catch up on day's email. Mainly students asking when resit results are available. 2-3 - talking to prospective students and parents again. 3-4 - work on advising slides for first years who arrive on Sept 27th 4-5 - I am on a HERA appeal panel tomorrow as a union rep. Try and get caught up on documents so ready for that. 5 - go home. Later will have to review mortgage documents, look at emails from the institution where I am an external (am really overdue on that). 191 Term has really started now, which is a bit of a relief really. The incessant registration hiccups are almost over. The problem is that while handling all that stuff I have got behind on actual teaching stuff. I have 2 final exams, 2 assignments and a test overdue to go to final stage. Today I have only one tutorial - all my teaching is on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays - thank heavens. Today is a Friday. 9-9:30 - coffee room catch up - read THES. Ad for new VC. Much laughter from all. I hate that THES puts the 'executive ads' separate from the other ones - potential VCs can't even have their ads touching the hoi polloi? 9:30-11 - catch up on email and admin stuff. The originals of some change of registration forms have been mixed up with copies and the registry wants the originals. We can't find them. Why do they care? Two students have a clash between introductory programming and a physics lab both of which are core. I don't even know why I am involved in this - it isn't part of the academic advisor's role that I can see, so I ask Head of Teaching to talk to physics Head of Teaching. I noticed that in last month's survey I mentioned being on the panel of a HERA appeal, this caused me to look again at the job evaluation stuff and think that I am in the words of HERA 'acting above my role'. This happens all the time and I am trying not to do it, since I don't get paid for it, I have no prospect of promotion, and I already have too much to do. Our student-who-has-been-here-longest came in and has still not successfully completed registration. This is his last chance to get a degree - he is long past normal deadlines but has mental health problems. I have mixed feelings about this - part of me thinks he has spent enough time here and should get out. Part feels that he is well capable of getting the degree intellectually and should get enough time to succeed. 11-12:00 - Get both exams and all assignments sorted and given to administrator. Now I need solutions too but we both know I may never get to that. About to leave for lunch when. 12:00-12:30 - Student wants to switch out of intro to theory of computation despite having a-level maths. I go over last week's lecture with him - think he gets it. More a matter of looking scary than being hard (regular expressions). Feel horribly guilty about going too fast last week. 12:30-1 lunch - usually eat sandwich at desk but the machine is never refilled for Friday so have to go to cafe; ok, though because need to be near there for ..... 1-2:30 - presentation on USS changes by union. Sit around and talk about it afterwards. Since when did 'consultation' mean 'we'll tell you what we are doing'? 2:30-4 - email and prep lectures for next week. I enjoy that - this survey experience has made me more aware of all the things I do that I don't enjoy - sigh! 4-5 Tutorial for second years. This is centered around a module on the Software Development Lifecycle which involves a big group project. I am manager for 4 groups. This one was very quiet and passive - maybe my fault but I'm too tired to worry..... homeward bound 191 Feels like a weird week to be writing this since it is our 'work week' and what that meant for me is that I went to Canada to visit my mother who is 87 and in a nursing home. So I have little to say of a working nature. I guess I could (if I were more able) write all sorts of musings on mortality etc. but will just say that although she seems happy enough, she is a shell of her real self and the thought of ending up in that position myself is horrible - my stuff not hers. I continued to deal with email while I was gone, which was OK in this circumstance (gave me something to do) but also rather horrible to think that in one day I can get behind on 60 emails. If I really didn't deal with it for 2 weeks I feel like I'd never recover. I visited with my old college roommate who has just retired and asked her why she decided to retire early. She said that she just couldn't deal with the bullshit any more. Bit worrying since I'm at that point too but not financially or in other ways ready. 191 This project is in some ways a microcosm of what is wrong with my working life. I do all the things I have to, but skimpily and in the most slapdash way. What happened on Wednesday? I took 4 group project tutorials. Three of the groups are doing OK but the third cannot get organised. The most technical person has now effectively taken over the leadership too. This is a mistake in some ways because he is already overloaded, but he couldnt stand the chaos. This is all I have time to write. See what I mean? 191 Saturday - I am doomed! I am doomed - or at least my marking is. Monday, I went into the office to mark in the evening while my partner went out to dinner. Blackboard had some kind of bug after its latest release and I couldnt download the programs. I also couldnt go home so spent 4 hours waiting to be picked up. Thursday I spent 10 hours marking and then deleted my spreadsheet and couldnt get it back. Today I was supposed to start again and I couldnt face it. Had a lovely day but felt guilty whenever I thought about the amount of work I had to do. Students appear to be very understanding (put me in perspective really). The gaps between what happens and what is supposed to? We are not perfect - we make mistakes but feel guilty when we do. IS this the same in every job? 191 Quite entertaining to look back on the last entry. This is actually one of the things I like about academia. One way or the other things get done. I did finish my marking. It was awful. It is over. Some students did quite poorly in my Intro programming module and I felt my usual guilt and then we had exam boards and the same students did poorly everywhere. Closure. This was a busy day. I had 2 lectures in Software development. We have a new theory that lectures should be recorded. In the first one the mike didnt work and in the second one I forgot to upload the recording before I logged out. This may be a freudian slip kind of thing. I feel like it interferes with my spontaneity - probably an overrated feature but still .... 'I wanna be me' In between lectures had 2 project students. One is designing his project to death - very unusual problem. The other's is going very well. Also lots of advising queries as students try to leave the 'mobile and wearable' module. My colleague who teaches it has told them they may have to make minor changes to some C code and the non-programmers are panicing (how do you spell that) - back to the conundrum of computing students who dont want to go near any code - why why why. Tonight off to see the King's speech and dinner. I'm always happier the first few weeks of term. Went back and looked at previous entries. I started with a '9-10 did this' kind of approach - although it is probably better to just write, the advantage of the other is that I see where the hours went. Reading the above it looks like I had 2 lectures, talked to students for about 30 minutes and so where did the rest of the day go? 9-10 drink coffee, deal with email and final prep lecture 10-11 give lecture 11-11:30 and 12-12:30 project students, in between gobble sandwich at desk and get next lecture finished 1-2 give lecture 2-2:30 tea and chocolate in coffee room 2:30-5 prep lectures for later in week. Refine assignment to hand out on Thursday. Get interrupted (at one point the interruptions were 3 deep). 5-5:30 write this :) 191 This was actually written on the 18th which was the UCU strike day about pensions. Inevitably that colours my looking back at Tuesday. Seeme like there is this invidious creep in HE to hire people for their academic judgement and expertise and then try to force them not to use it. A bunch of papers came back from the Dean's office. They were reports on unsatisfactory students that were apparently done on the wrong form. It took 2 weeks for them to be returned. The students have been unsatisfactory for months (attendance). My colleague is fuming. Actually it isnt my problem - although this is yet another example of me getting things because I respond. But the general irritation falls out on everyone. Ditto the finance office has asked people with grants to account for every hour they spent on a new form (I believe this is going back several years) - despite the fact that they already gave in that information on an old form over the grant period. THEN the letter came from HR about the strike. We all have to fill out a form saying whether or not we worked and are being docked 1/260th of salary. This is in marked contrast to the last strike when only the strikers reported they were out, the old VC brought strikers tea, and we lost 1/365th in recognition of fact that we work all days asked. Quite funny but several people are saying they will now join the union. The fact that this VC is about to retire having been given a 15% raise and on the final pension scheme is making this even more galling (I probably mentioned that before). So general mood in department very bad at present - and it is a bit catching. In the morning there was a handin of an assignment that I plan to mark next week - first by seeing all groups demo their programs. This is problematic with next week's strike. Have finally decided that I will say I was on strike but actually attend the necessary tutorials. I am either an idiot or very dedicated! My day involved dealing with the inevitable assignment hand in problems, preparing the marking sheets and listening to colleagues moan. Maybe this is also fallout from the news from Japan which I find so depressing I cannot even talk about. So, Tuesday ended work early with a walk on the prom - The world may be going to hell in a handbasket but Spring is springing. 191 Hay - this is US tax day isn't it! I was I US but am now in Canada visiting my mum and brother and family. It is a relief to be away from work, although I am still working of course. Got an email from the chair of the local USS asking if we were willing to have the 1/260th vs. 1/365th deduction from pay discussed in exchange for considering set days and hours. My first reaction was 'why not' but when I thought about it my current situation illuminates the situation pretty well. Am I working at the moment? I am not in XXXXXXX but I am reading my email, just finished critiquing a student's dissertation, advising a student about degree schemes, and am in the middle of writing a paper. If I had set days and hours how would that work. How would I define these 3 weeks, could I even define them as 'working'? What does the University hope to get out of this discussion? Meanwhile, though, I am in a better frame of mind. Went to a workshop on teaching programming that although not brilliant did give me the opportunity to reflect a bit on my teaching and chat with people in the same boat. Gave me some ideas for next year. Reconnected with old friends and family. Saw the Mississippi. Thank heavens for Easter break! 191 The 15th was a Sunday, which made me think about what the point of this diary is. Reading back on my entries there is a lot about the Union and general job dissatisfaction, some about teaching frustrations, not much on research. Does that reflect the way I spend my time? Not at all. Your guidelines were very vague. You said 'We're interested in ...the gaps between what is supposed to happen and what does happen, between staff and student, between institution and individual' so I have talked a lot about the gaps between institution and individual, which are an easy target and also, I think, fairly entertaining. But the gaps between staff and student are more difficult to discuss without a whole bunch of background; and while I find my research interesting, I can't imagine that a general audience would find it so. In addition, if I were honest about my frustrations with my research partners, I fear they would find out about it. If the first couple of entries hadn't coincided with Union sort of issues, this might have gone in a different direction. If the instructions had been different then what I wrote about would be different. I don't spend that much time thinking about the Union. I spend lots of time thinking about my teaching. I spend some time thinking about research, but not around the 15th of the month apparently! I signed up for this because I also do qualitative research and wanted to be helpful, and I know all the stuff about how this will describe a particular snapshot in time etc etc. but, to be honest, I cannot imagine that you will get anything useful out of it whatsoever. Yesterday I read Sebastian Faulks book about the benking crisis, did my shopping, talked to my partner on the phone and stared at the rain. What will that tell you? 191 The 15th this month was just after the marking deadline for my second semester module, so I felt like I was on vacation. In the morning worked on a Java program that I'm hoping to use in our 'bootcamp' at start of year with total beginner programmers. I have taken what is essentially a LOGO program and the idea is that the students will learn about loops - and if statements although that is harder - in that context, and then we will look at Java proper. The idea originally was to make it as control structured as possible, but as soon as you introduce the idea of subprogram you get into a bind. Either you put everything into the main, but then subprograms become static methods .... a dangerous direction. Or you have to get into instance variables, and constructors etc. I don't know if this will help. This year we had dreadful results in the 2nd programming module, and as the teacher of the first I felt responsible. I think I was really low energy. But anyway, I am reinvigorated AND I am having fun with the program - makes me remember why I went into computing in the first place :) At coffee, read an interesting article in the New Yorker about 'why go to college'. One of the things it says is that there were two old reasons for college (college is for sorting out who is the smartest; or college is for educating everyone to make a more democratic society of people who appreciate ideas more). Now we have students going to college for whom neither of those apply i.e. they just drifted there with no real motivation, so what does that mean? I'm not stating the argument well, but it certainly fitted some of our students, and some of their behaviours. For instance, first theory students will work hard in order to get ahead, second theory because they are intrinsically interested. We have had (for the last few years particularly) students who just seem to want to do no work. I was talking to the person who teaches the group project module and he says that at one time students underreported their hours so as not to get in trouble, now they overreport them. Ah well - I refuse to be depressed - my LOGO program will solve all problems, and yes I know that this is the triumph of enthusasm over experience! Actually a lot of teaching is that, now I think of it. Anyway, then took the afternoon off and went to the market in XXXXX. Had tea and cake with friends, came home, watched the last but 2 episodes of Northern Exposure on dvd. This has been my trashy entertainment option for the last year and now I only have 1 episode left! I know, I am a sad old hippy, but I enjoyed my day. 191 15th was graduation day. Got up late, got gown, sat on platform. Heard Vice-Chancellor's same old tired joke (he only has one). Students looked freshly scrubbed and both older and younger than in their normal clothes. Spoke to the ones who had done projects with me and a few others and their parents. Almost all had jobs, but not all were at the party, or even at graduation, of course. I have to have at least 2 glasses of champagne in order to do this - despite appearing to be a friendly person. I guess I find graduation awkward and I hate goodbyes. So then I was pretty tiddly and I went home and slept it off. Woke up grumpy with a headache. Another year. 200 Pretty uneventful morning leading up to leaving for work. Woke up at 7:00am. Both of my kids (3 and 10 months) are battling colds and we were concerned that the older one actually had an ear infection because he was complaining about ear pain last night. This morning, no complaints. My younger daughter slept in later than normal, which was a nice break and made getting everyone ready and out of the house easier. I ride with my husband into work because we both work nearby to each other. He is not an academic. It is a 25-mile one-way commute (about 40 minutes). On the ride in to work, I finished cleaning up a Greenfoot scenario that I am using in class later today to illustrate how to get a random number within a specific range. I want to post it to the Greenroom so others can use it, so I wanted to fix up the comments and take out some unused variables that were left in the code. I want to learn how to get typed user input in a Greenfoot scenario, so I am going to put that in the comments when I upload to the Greenroom. I also want to know if anyone has a good way to do buttons on a sceario (easily). When I arrived at my office (9:00) and I opened up my email. The Web-CAT server is down. We've been having problems with the grading modules and last night one of our other faculty members said that he could not access his data - this is probably related, but my students are in lab now and some may be trying to submit. Need to upgrade my tablet to Windows 7 and it looks like I am scheduled for tomorrow, so today I need to back up all the important data from the laptop onto our servers. Went to go look at the SPLASH website. Used to go to OOPSLA, but since the themes of the conference have moved towards parallel and concurrent programming, I was not interested in participating this year. However, there still seems to be a strong OOPSLA track and even the educator's symposium still has some things relevant to my interests (which aren't parallelism). Email arrived at 9:25 from TA in lab about Web-CAT issue - wasn't quick enough to get word to them about the situation before students found it themselves, *sigh* In process of uploading data from laptop to server for backup. This will probably take significantly longer than I would like because the wireless connection in my office is painfully slow. In the meantime, I am going back to read more email. Finally fixed a URL another faculty told me about in an old course page that has instructions for installing the C++ plugins for eclipse. Emailed him to indicate that the instructions were from 2008, originally written by a student and probably weren't the best reference for the current way to install Eclipse. Not interested in changing it drastically at this time because I'm not teaching the course for this semester or next. Answered another email from a student about my syllabus confirmation form. This semester, I had the students fill out a web form indicated that they had received a copy of the syllabus and read and understood the course policies. The form sends me an email with their name indicating they completed the assignment. It was due Monday. Many students did not complete it, so I have been sending out reminder emails and now every student that completes it wants confirmation that it was done because they all claim they already did it. It is possible that the emails were lost, but since I received a majority of the emails (>80%) it seems as though soem of the students simply did not do the assignment. Email came from cousins from my husbands side about our daughter's first birthday. They live in Washington, DC and I emailed them yesterday to see if they would be available for her birthday. They might be. It would be nice to see them. It's 9:45 and I need to get my bags packed and ready to walk to my 10:00 class. I think I need to stop the current upload to the server from my laptop - it will never survive the walk over to the classroom. On my way to class, I ran into the other instructor that is teaching the "A" section of the course I am teaching the "B" section of (we'll call him Professor A). We are collaborating to a point on the course. We have almost diametrically opposing views on education, so we collaborate as much as possible without arguing over those things. In this way, we each can keep the integrity of our courses while still covering approximately the same material for the students. He told me how much he was enjoying Greenfoot. It is his first semester using it and I explained briefly about the problems with Web-CAT (which effects his students as well). In class from 10:00-10:50. The class enrollment is 143. It is a course whose syllabus is similar to the new AP CS Principles course and it is full of entirely non-computing, non-engineering, non-science, and non-math majors. It fulfills the university's gen ed requirement for mathematics, so many students who are weak in mathematics take it as an alternative. In class today, I did a CSUnplugged activity for the first time - the binary number activity. We are starting a unit in this class on how the computer works and computer architecture, so what better place to start than with binary numbers. After class was over, I ran into a former student in the hall. We talked for about 5 minutes. He is graduating at the end of this semester with degrees in electrical and computer engineering and has a job lined up. He was a good student, so I am happy to hear he is doing well. He will be working for a company that works on radar and other steath devices, some government contracts, some non-government work. He interned there over the summer and they offered him a job. He was excited about it. Back in office and 6 emails to read, mostly about the issues with Web-CAT. One is actually from a former student who is in grad school in California and back in town visiting family. We will probably meet for dinner tonight. He worked for several years on a project with me and we became close. It will be nice to see him and find out more about how grad school is going. He finished his first year last year and will begin his second at the end of the month. He is pursuing a PhD in electrical engineering. We'll call him Mac. Unpacked my bag from class - put completed papers on a pile for grader, but papers in bag for next class. Pulled out laptop to begin sending more information to the server for backup. While working on that, wrote up my own lecture notes for the other course I am teaching. Should take me through the end of the week in that class (today and Friday). Faculty member from the office next door stopped by. We chatted a bit. He leaves nearby me (within 2 miles) and we have kids the same age. Talked about non-work related stuff. Opened the text for the "principles" course I am teaching trying to decide which sections I am going to cover in Chapters 1 & 2. Need to prepare a lecture for Friday. Have to stop because it is 11:45 and I have my next class at 12:00, so need to pack and up and begin walking over there. Before I left,the ACM Technews came to my mailbox. Skimmed the headlines. Nothing jumped out at me, so I continued on to class, but not before the phone rang from home with an update on the kids - everyone seems okay, but the younger one has not taken her usual morning nap yet, so she's cranky. In class from 12:00 - 12:50. It's another section of the same course I taught at 10:00. Did same activity. It is always better the second time. Really enjoyed doing the activity. Will definitely look into incorporating more stuff like that into lectures. Walking back to office, met up with another former student who just started grad school in our department this semester. We talked about how things were going. He was telling me how it was very different transitioning from undergrad to grad than he expected. I think he will do well, he was a talented undergrad. When we arrived at my office, there was already a student waiting for my office hours. Turns out he is actually tutoring one of my students and just had some questions about the course. We talked for a while and then he asked me about learning other languages while he was an undergrad to help his resume when he got out of class. 1:25 - grabbing lunch while in office hours. At this point, there are no more students, so I can work on other things while I wait for anyone to come by. 18 emails came since I left the office. Just read an email "nudge" about this project. Futher emails about an ethics course from the SIGCSE list have come as well as messages about an internationalization issue brought up yesterday. Computers in the lab are slow - leftover problem from last week when a disk had volume of 100% full. More emails about Web-CAT. It has to go totally offline tomorrow for a re-install, which will impact my lab section in the morning. Emailed TA to warn him of this. Finished email and ate lunch - ham sandwich and cookies. While eating I looked at Yahoo news headlines, TV show spoilers and gossip and on hulu to see if an episode of a show I watch has been uploaded yet. Then (15 minutes later) it was time to go back to figuring out what I am going to teach on Friday to my Principles class and uploading more stuff for backup. But, I was distracted by a file I had open in my task bar that was the schedule for spring classes. We need to look over it and provide comments and feedback about our schedules. I need to make sure that the lab sections for my courses are scheduled at good times and in the correct rooms. The administrative assistant in charge of creating the schedules never seems capable of actually doing this check. If I catch errors now, it will save me tremendous amounts of headaches going forward. So, using Excel, I make charts for each of our computing labs (two of them) and indicate when the recitations are scheduled, making sure none conflict with each other and none conflict with the lecture times for the course. I have to request changes. I need to eliminate one whole section for my first course because the lecture room only holds 100 and there are seats in recitations for 125. Also, I want to change the time of the Friday recitation section. Further, I want to number them so that the first section in the week is 1 and the last is 4. For my second course, I want to move a section from Mondays to another day. The second Monday of the semester is a holiday and that throws off assignments, so if no recitations are scheduled on a Monday it makes my life easier. Just sent the email to ask for these changes. Took about 20 minutes. Spent some time looking at a basic outline of topics for the next few weeks in my priniciples course. I am starting a unit on hardware and architecture and I sketched out what order I would like to cover things. Unpacked my bag or finished assignments from class. Need to post information on the class website about what to do if students missed the in-class activity today. Took about 5 minutes to post the information and fix all the HTML permissions. Showed Professor A the Greenfoot scenario I am going to show my students about random numbers. He would like to show his students as well. Worked on more stuff for my Principles course. Sometime during this block, I realized that uploading everything for backup on my laptop was mute because I didn't bring my media base with me and without it, there is no CD-ROM drive on my machine, making it impossible for the upgrade to be installed. Oh well, will have to wait for another few days. Got ready to go to class again at 2:50. In class from 3:00 - 3:50. This is an introductory programming course for non-majors. Today, we introduced the idea of selection and if-statements. I also started talking about randomizing behavior and showed my demo scenario. I think it helped to illustrate my point. I walked back to my office and met up with one of my TAs for the principles course. He told me that lab sessions were going well this week and the students seemed to be completing the assignment rather quickly, but doing a fine job. Then, I ran into a colleague I work closely with on many projects and he indicated that they were definitely going to reinstall Web-CAT. I decided at that point to go talk to our IT manager and express to him that he and his staff were doing a good job and to reiterate that I am happy with the progress. It is so hard to make sure that you don't come across as cross or angry in email and just wanted to give some face time to ensure that. We got to talking about my courses and another software installation that I need done from the main computing group on campus (not internal departmental machines). We talked for almost 40 minutes about various topics related to computing. Came back to 8 emails. Some information from our faculty about a former PhD who won an award. Some other former colleague died. Emails about the ethics and academic integrity discussion on SIGCSE. More email about our Web-CAT troubles. An email from my husband confirming that he should eat dinner without me. (He is taking courses for his MBA on Wednesday nights and sometimes we have dinner together before class.) Left office again for last meeting of the day at 4:57. Meeting from 5:00-5:50 involves meeting with a bunch of students who are working on a project I have been supervising with another faculty member (Prof G) for a number of years (greater than three, but the actual amount escapes me. This is our weekly status update for the week. The students working on the project were not able to meet this week so there was no forward progress, but we did look into some of the code base to ensure that the students were looking in the right place this week. We are trying to change the way the project reads and writes XML. The projects saves files in XML and one of our users has asked for a change that would require us to change our XML. Mac actually stopped by the meeting and brought me crossword puzzles. When he worked on the project, he would always bring me puzzles to work on/help him finish during our weekly project meetings. Did go out to dinner with Mac around 6:30. We spent dinner talking about grad school and how things were going with him. We also talked about our families and such. We are actually the same age (he's a year older), so we have a lot in common just because of that. We also both grew up in the same area, so we have common experiences. It was a nice evening. Got back to campus and back to my office around 8:50. My husband was done with his class and came to my office so we could drive back home. Left the office at 8:52. Arrived home around 40 minutes later. My daughter was asleep, but not my son. We worked to get him to sleep. I cleaned up a few things and went to bed around 10:30. 200 Woke up at 7:00 this morning and managed to get ready and out of the house before anyone else in my family was even awake, which is good because today is an exam day in two of my classes (where the enrollment totals 285 in two sections. Got to campus a little before 9:00 and spent from 9:00-9:30 organizing for the exam - making sure I had proper copies, signs to post on the door about the exam taking place inside, and sorting the graded work to return back after the exam. At 9:30, I walked from my office to the office of disability services on campus to hand off exams for students who have accommodations for test-taking because of some sort of diagnosed disability and then off to my classroom to set up for the 10:00 exam. There are three versions of the exam for this class and the classroom seats are not exactly in well-defined rows, so setting the papers up so that students with the same versions of the exam can not see one another is challenging. Exam went well - as students finished the exam, I handed back their graded work. Then, I went to the door of my next class (which starts at noon), and placed the "do not disturb - exam in progress" signs on the doors. Headed back to my office for office hours, which were packed with people wanting to ask last-minute questions about the noon exam. Left office hours at 11:45 to get ready for the noon exam. That exam administration has 5 versions, but the classroom has the same problem with seating. That session started a few minutes later than noon, but most students were done fairly quickly. After that exam, I came back to my office to finally read the morning's (and weekends) email. Then, I remembered it was diary day and was excited about it. There were a number of people that did not take the exam and I am not sure why - it is required. I have never been able to understand students who just "give up" on a course. Of course, these students seem to never seek out help before "giving up", they just disappear. I determined later in the day that this number was 30 out of 285 who simply did not show up to take the exam, nor did I hear from throughout the day about some issue that prevented them from taking the exam. Grabbed a slice of horrible campus pizza for lunch and settled in to figure out what I was going to lecture about for my 3:00 class, which I couldn't prep this weekend because I was busy (with my daughter's first birthday party) and writing the exam for the other class. The prep took me until almost class time (3:00). I have decided to have a discussion with the class about a scenario that I have used before, an elevator operating program. The lecture went well. Although when people found out what we were doing, I had a small handful (about 3) who simply got up and left the lecture hall. I didn't think the topic was all that boring, but perhaps I am mistaken. After lecture, I had another office hour, which was full of students asking me to regrade their first practical exam. This is the second semester that I am using practical exams with the students where they need to go into the lab environment and create a program that solves the task I have given. The grading for this exam has been problematic, primarily because I did not have it ready on the day of the exam, so students who did not name things properly received zeros from the automatic grading, even though they may not have deserved them. I probably saw 6 or 7 students for regrades. All received more points on their assignment due to various errors. We (myself and the 5 TAs) started to grade the exam I just gave earlier in the day at 5:00pm. Grading these exams is always exhausting, but I am happy to report that we were done at around 8:45, which is good time. The last exam in this class took us until 10:00 to finish grading. All of the grades have been entered in the gradebook. All the papers were sorted and I left campus before 9:00. It was a good evening. The average on the exam was in the 70's, which is high in comparison to the last two exams I gave in that class, whose averages were in the 60's. On this exam, I did not include as many questions that were strictly from the reading and not covered in lecture. I have decided that this particular group of students does not like to and does not believe they have to read the text. Many of them simply did not purchase it. Therefore, they do more poorly on the questions from the text not covered in lecture. I wanted to test my hypothesis about this by not giving as many questions from the book as on previous exams. While I am not convinced I have proven my hypothesis, I have a bit more evidence that I am correct. I arrived home a little after 9:30 and spent the ride home talking on the phone to one of my closest friends. She is a pharmacist and her oldest daughter is six weeks older than my daughter, so we have lots of stories and "mommy" things to discuss. Plus, we have known each other since high school and share a close bond. When I got home, I helped to get my son off to bed and I don't remember falling asleep, but I did because the next thing I knew it was 2:00am by the clock by my bed. 200 Got up late today (7:30), but still managed to get ready and be at work at about 9:00, really like 9:10, but it's okay because it's exam week (or as I like to call it "the whining season"). It is always the time period when students come forward with complaints and issues that should have been taken care of weeks ago. Further, it is the time they decide to have righteous indignation about several course policies or grading procedures that have been employed all semester. However, it is only at the end of the semester that they realize that their lack of performance lead to point deductions that are actually hurting their grade because of the policies. I met with a woman from industry looking to come back to school to take a class to improve her skills in enterprise computing. Luckily for her, we have an undergrad elective in that area that is being offered in the spring semester, so I believe she will take it. I hope she gets out of the course what she is looking for. I then needed to listen to a makeup presentation (5 minutes) from the end of the semester. Some of my students missed the last two weeks of recitations and did not complete the assignment, so they are doing makeups with me. Spent a lot of the rest of the morning dealing with student issues and grades. I am in the process of the final transfer of grades from Web-CAT to the gradebook now that all assignments are officially closed. During that process, I needed to deal with the small handful of students who had problems submitting on the last day the system took assignment submissions. Left at 10:45 to go me some former students for a late breakfast/early lunch. All of them work in the area and we meet about once a month for a lunch. It is nice to see them and how their careers are progressing. They were all former undergraduate teaching assistants for our intro course. They were excellent TAs and have turned into excellent software developers and architects in their own right. We broke lunch shortly after noon and I returned to my office. The rest of the day was peppered with students picking up papers that they did not pick up on the last day of lecture and filling in more grades from Web-CAT. A student I was expecting on Friday showed up early to give the last of the "makeup" presentations I discussed earlier. His presentation was good, but he also discussed with me about his personal situation and a close friend that tragically died in an auto accident a few weeks ago. She had just found out that she was pregnant, but her husband did not know and he is struggling with her loss and what to do in the situation. I advised him that he should perhaps speak to someone about the entire situation. He is already seeing a counselor about other issues and I encouraged him to talk about this loss as well. Sometimes we aren't just teachers, we are also substitute parents and confidants. Most often, I prefer to encourage my students to discuss any of these types of issues with a counselor or other professional better educated to deal with these issues. However, I lend an ear and support when I can. The work day ended with a continuation of grading and getting reports ready to email to my students about their last practical exam that occurred on Monday and Tuesday of this week. I left around 5:30 to venture home. When I got home, I didn't do any work, but I worked hard to get items ready so I can start writing Christmas cards and sent a final batch of pictures off for printing in the hopes that they arrive before December 24th. I have my fingers crossed. After tucking two little people to bed, I think I feel asleep around 10:30, hoping to catch a good night's sleep to start again the next day. 200 Nothing exciting happened at home this morning - the usual morning routine. Got to work and begin going through emails. Prepared for a TA meeting for 10:00am with the TAs for my programming for non-majors course. We need to discuss this week's lab assignment and the grading of the exam that was administered on Monday. Have to turn in another set of grade change forms that were apparently lost. The entire system of changing grades after the fact at our institution is totally frustrating. Not only is it paper-based, but the faculty member never is informed that the change has been made. So, if a diligent student hadn't followed up with the office of records and registration, I would have never known there was a problem. There are 6 grade changes missing. Luckily, most of the changes did go through. Then, I worked on finishing up the JUnit tests for this week's assignment for programming for non-majors. After my meeting with the TAs, I spent some time discussing various issues with one of my colleagues Professor A. We discussed implementing "worksheets" in our lectures this semesters. "Worksheets" as I am calling them are ways to keep the students following along during the lectures when we are developing code. It was an idea I piloted last semester, but now this semester, I roped Professor A into doing it in his courses as well. We both believe it to be a good idea, but would really like to be able to encourage students how to use the worksheets as a way to learn how to take proper notes on their own without the scaffolding, but that is a goal we will work towards. Then, I came back to my office to work on my notes for upcoming lectures. I briefly met with a student who took a course with me last spring. He is taking the follow-on course this semester and needed help getting some of his code to run with the JUnit tests they are working on this semester. I find it nice when a student who is not currently taking a course with you feels comfortable enough to still seek out your advice and help. It was an easy problem to help him solve. I went back to working on my lecture notes for this week and then had a little lunch (microwave Thai noodles) for lunch. Spent a little time meeting with another student (graduate student) who worked as a TA for me. He has recently struggled with the grad program and it looks like this semester will be his final semester (because he will finish his MS degree) and he is looking to go find a job. He stopped by to give me an update on how things are going for him so far this semester. Seems to be going well and I am glad. After completing more worksheets, lecture notes, and power point slides, I moved on to wrestling with the ACM listservs for the workshop mailing lists for SIGCSE, which we actually seemed to get working - yeah! We had our faculty meeting at 3:30. I had to present changes to our department's combined BS/MS program because I am the coordinator for that program. The discussion was lively (as always). I sometimes feel that there is at least a small contingent of our faculty who feel the need to fight everything that is ever brought up "just because". In the end, the changes we proposed were accepted and the meeting ended on a quiet note. I retired back to my office to finish up some more lecture prep and then needed to leave a little after five. The babysitter needs to leave a little early tonight so I need to get home. After I put the kids to bed, I'll be looking more at the ACM listserv stuff to try to get those set up ASAP. 200 We are on Spring Break this week, but I have been sick since before SIGCSE, so it is not all that exciting. I spent the morning working on a colloquium talk I am giving tomorrow. I left my house at noon to drop by on my kids. They are staying at grandma's house while I am giving my talk. They were happy to see me, but I could only stay a 1/2 hour before I needed to leave. I was driving to the school where I was giving the talk and they are putting me up for the night and I am having dinner with some of the members of the department tonight. The drive takes about an hour and was uneventful. I checked into the hotel, got my stuff settled, took a shower and worked more on my talk. Dinner was at 6pm at a restaurant that specializes in organic and local products. The menu changes daily and I was impressed with their selection. I decided to stick to a safe selection - pasta. It was very good. I was happy with it and even happier with the dessert I ordered. Conversation was light at dinner, which is good because I'm still not feeling well. Luckily, dinner only lasted until 8pm. I was able to go back to the hotel to work on my talk some more. I worked until 11pm and then headed to bed. I *think* it is done. It's not like I didn't know about the talk beforehand, but I was so caught up with other things, I waited until almost too late to prepare properly. Reminds me of my students, always waiting until the last minute. What they don't realize however, is that experience helps when working last minute. Experience is something they don't usually have and most of the time is what keeps them from finishing. I did finish my preparation, and the talk went very well, even if it was more rushed than I would have liked. 200 Attended CCSC NE conference all day. It was a busy day. I drove into Springfield, Massachusetts late last night (11:00pm) and was up around 7:00(ish). I met with my co-presenter for my workshop at breakfast at 8:00am, and then we attempted to drive to campus. Apparently, neither of us can read (or more accurately interpret directions) and it took us slightly longer than expected to get from the hotel to the campus where the sessions were being held. However, we got to the room in enough time and were able to start on time at 9:00am. The workshop ran until noon and I think it went well. Some of the people in the audience felt it went well too. I did have to do some debugging of basic syntax for some of the participants. It seems that they may not have been as proficient in Java as we had expected coming into the workshop. We got through the material we wanted, but some of the more advanced topics in the second half of our presentation may have been over the heads of the beginning crowd we had attend the session. Then, we had lunch, which was a nice break and it gave us some time to figure out what our Tutorial presentation was going to contain (that was 5 hours later). Both of us wished the two presentations would have been on two different days. Then, it was time for the opening keynote of the conference, which was good. I skipped the first official session of the conference to finish up some "camera-ready" elements for a conference in July. After the coffee break, it was on to the tutorial session, which was a condensed version of our workshop that only showed completed demos, not hands-on exercises. I think that session went well too. Then, it was a social hour before the dinner at 7:30. The dinner was very good for a campus-catered affair. By 9:00, I was back at the hotel and collapsed on the bed. After a day of conference, I'm not sure I picked up any new information, but I definitely had very little voice left after the two presentations. 200 It is really Tuesday when I am writing this, and even though I should remember what I did on Sunday, I am having a little trouble doing so. I'm not sure if that is a sign of old age or the fact that it is the end of the semester. However, now as I am forcing myself to remember, things are coming back slowly. I know that I started off on Sunday waking up with the kids and having some breakfast. My in-laws came over early to spend the morning with me and my family. They usually spend one weekend day each week with us and the kids. While they were at the house, I did some laundry. Then, I needed to call about some tickets to an amusement park because the online site was not giving an appropriate field for a discount we were entitled to. By some miracle, the person I spoke to on the phone was helpful, courteous, and we were able to resolve the issue. While on hold, I read through some emails. I had been away from campus (and my email) since Thursday doing some personal stuff so I had quite a few emails, but nothing that couldn't wait until I got back to campus. It is the end of the semester and grades are due on the 20th, so it is the time of year I like to call "whining season". It happens twice a year if you are on semesters, three if you are on quarters. It is the time of year when students are told the grade they earned and suddenly realize that it is not the grade they wanted. So, they proceed to explain to you why they deserve a grade they did not earn, and beg for extra credit work, or give some other set of excuses why they deserve a higher grade. My favorite is the "I'm supposed to graduate and I need to pass this course to do so." In the afternoon, I met with a former student and former TA who was in town for graduation ceremonies on Saturday. I did not go to graduation. I am not in any mood to see my colleagues. I am leaving the university for another (and they don't know yet because everything is not finalized at the new place). I don't trust myself to "behave" at the ceremony, so I just felt it best not to go. However, I am sad that I missed seeing some of the students walk the stage. This student I met for coffee has been in New York City since February and has started a new position which he is extremely happy with. He will do well. Afterwards, I did a little shopping (mostly returns) and then picked up my mom to come back with me to the house for dinner, which was a fairly unimpressive lot of Chinese take-out. Afterwards, I worked on giving my children a bath and doing some last-minute clean-up and laundry before the work week started again. Can't wait until this week is over and grades are submitted and then I can work on other things! 200 I have a lot going on right now that is keeping me quite busy, but not much of it is academic. I am leaving my current position at University X and will be starting at University Y in the fall. So, I am at X today to try to finish cleaning out my office. That is not an easy task. I am down to some of the big and heavy stuff as well as all of my back issues of the SIGCSE Bulletin and Communications of the ACM and other miscellaneous publications I have collected over the years. I am trying to assess just how important the paper copies are to me now. I truly like reading papers on paper. I have never been able to read as effectively on the computer screen. However, paper copies of proceedings and the like are not searchable (easily) and they are extremely heavy (when you pile them up). So, it will be a tough decision, but one I have to make today, because it is the few decisions left I need to make for the things in my office. I met my husband for a quick lunch. It was nice to see another human being during the day. Campus (of X) is a ghost town in the summer and I can go an entire day without seeing another human being from my department, which after days and days of the same, gets to be boring. I have heard that campus Y is not like this. Dealing with the move has been interesting. There is a physical move and a technological one. Email, files, etc. all have be thought about and maneuvered in such a way that I have access to what I want and don't lose anything. It has its own form of logistics. In the afternoon, I sorted through all my paper conference proceedings and magazines. I went to dinner with some of my former students and TAs who wanted to take me out to celebrate the fact that I am moving to a new job. It is always nice when someone is happy for you. 204 8am-10am: Mixed tasks, mainly email. The teaching-related email includes... a discussion on how to teach web form designers to recognise and cater for the variety of names found in real life; contacting a student regarding his absence from a test; discussing the next assignment with a lecturer at an overseas campus; and discussing with colleagues an application for late admission to a coursework masters degree. 10am-3.30pm: A full-day workshop on the challenges of running multi-campus subjects/courses. This was facilitated by folk from another university as part of a national research project on that topic. My department offers many such courses across two main campuses in this country, one in another country, and several smaller campuses. I myself coordinate the offerings of three such courses, so I'm forever having to create new assignments and exams, and my 'teaching' year is the whole year except for a small break from 24 December to 4 January, as the overseas campus runs on a completely different timeline from our domestic ones. I feel I was able to contribute a lot to the discussion. The workshop was more about gathering opinions than presenting solutions to the challenges, which is a shame: it would have been good to be shown some good practices, particularly if they were adaptable to our own situation. 3.30pm-4pm: Dealing with a student misconduct case. One of my roles is to deal with all cases of student academic misconduct across the department, in a system designed to ensure uniformity of treatment. 6pm-7pm: At home now, and writing the initial letters for a new academic misconduct case that was referred to me today. 8.30pm-8.45pm: Backing up my files - an essential aspect of every day's work. 204 9am - 3pm: teaching - a 2-hour lecture and two 2-hour tutorials. This is my first-year course, and it's really precious to me. It can make or break students right at the start of their degrees. If they get the ideas, they have an excellent foundation for everything that follows. If not, even if they scrape through the course they fumble around in subsequent years, really not comfortable because they don't have the required basis for the rest of the work. So my job is to do everything within my power to help as many students as possible get the ideas. It's a challenge. To add to that, this year I've dramatically revised the course, so it's all new to me as well as to the students. When I went to a conference recently on the other side of the world, I left the morning after my Friday classes and made it back to campus, direct from the airport, half an hour before the next week's classes. I'd rather do that than ask somebody else to take my classes for a week. Why? Because I really believe that I do a better job of it than anyone else could do. Am I kidding myself? Probably. But if I'm right, I have to teach this course myself to give the students the best possible chance. Just as well I enjoy it! 3pm to home time: after 6 hours of teaching I'm not up to doing much that's serious. Email, phone messages, little catch-up jobs, corridor chats... After dinner: a few days ago I had a couple of teaching-related papers accepted to a conference. One of them is co-authored, so I started revising that in light of the reviewers' comments, to give my co-author as much time as possible to consider my revisions. The other paper will probably be done the night before the camera-ready deadline, as usual. My co-author is somewhat upset at the scathing criticism from one reviewer. I see it as telling us what we haven't yet explained well enough. It's a cliche, but a severe review offers great opportunities for improvement. And why be disheartened when the other reviewers were full of praise? But of course we're nowhere near the deadline yet, so at 10pm I downed tools and called it a day. There's a whole weekend ahead of me... 204 Spent most of the day conducting annual performance reviews of my colleagues. Not exactly a teaching activity, but highly conducive to pondering the nature of what we do. On the surface, and as typically assessed by my institution, good teaching essentially means being well received and liked by the students. Of course many good teachers are liked by their students; but many teachers who are liked by their students might not be good teachers. Is it possible to be a good teacher while not really caring whether and how and how much the students learn? Is it possible to be a good teacher when your main goals are to make life easy for the students, give them good marks, and sit high in their esteem? On the other hand, some people take pride in the fact that their students don't like them. These can sometimes be the teachers who challenge their students, who underspecify assessment tasks and leave the students to work out what's really required, who refuse to spoon the material into the students' squawking mouths. Are these people good teachers? They are certainly likely to be remembered in a good light when the students have had time to appreciate the value of what they have learnt. Where do I sit on this spectrum? I think the general perception is that my classes are enjoyable and my assessment demanding. Of course I think this is the ideal place on the spectrum, but is it really any better than the popular spoonfeeder or the unpopular challenger? Who's to say what good teaching really is? Remarkably, did no work at home this evening! 204 On the opposite side of the world from what appears to be the majority of respondents, we're gradually winding down for the Christmas and summer break. The office carpets had their annual steam clean this morning, so I worked at home until lunchtime. Spent most of the time writing letters to students winding up their academic dishonesty cases, typically awarding them marks of zero for the assignment in question for plagiarism, unauthorised collaboration, or other forms of cheating. At the office after lunch, continued working on the revision of a couple of core courses I'm running next year. My offerings don't start until March, but one of the courses starts in the first week of January at our overseas campus, so I really have very little time to get everything rewritten for the lecturer there. My Christmas break isn't going to be much of a break. We have this notion that we get four weeks' holiday each year, but with courses running from early January until late December over there (I'm still awaiting the latest batch of exam scripts so that I can vet the marking), and of course at various other time frames here, there really is no decent slab of time to actually stop work for even a week or two. The closest I come to holiday is working at home instead of on campus over Christmas and New Year and a few weeks into January. Went out to dinner with my wife, something we try to do at least once a week. Then got back to work, spending a couple of hours going over the online Performance Management folios of the people I supervise, signing off when possible and giving feedback for those that aren't yet ready to sign off. I'm pleased to say the process isn't fully online; it does include a face-to-face meeting, but the online bit is our record of the meeting's outcomes, and even though the online folios are seen by nobody but the staff member and supervisor, alarm bells ring in central administration if they're not all signed off by the end of February. Teaching? Yes, I'm sure I remember what that is. Some of it's bound to crop up again on a survey day before the year's out. 204 Over the summer break I've been working on a student's PhD thesis, and it's hard going. Just as with undergraduate students, I find myself muttering exasperatedly "But we've discussed this several times!" He has no idea of how to present data so that it's informative. In a table with several independent variables and some dependent values, he tends to simply list all the dependent variables in adjacent columns, cycling their values down the column. He's on holiday at present, so I've been designing the new tables myself, as well as fixing the rather poor English. This is probably more than I should do, but I plead lack of time - it's a great deal faster to fix it than to tell him what to do, let him try - and then fix it anyway. Spent a little over three hours on this today, then emailed him and stopped, because I found a place where there was some missing data, and I need him to provide it before I can continue. Leaving first thing tomorrow for a week away at a education-related conference, I spent much of the day putting together the things I'll need to take, and making sure I'm more or less ready for the two papers I'll be presenting. In the gaps I also did an hour of academic administration for the courses we run in Singapore. These offerings of the courses, in three trimesters a year, are so out of phase with our own two semesters that we really get no break at all throughout the year, even though there are times when we pretend to be on leave. Just as well we can do so much of the work from home, or we might become strangers to our own families. So yes, it's Saturday, but I've still spent 11 hours working - on postgrad teaching, teaching-related research, and teaching administration. A teacher's job is never done. 204 Whoops - so busy this week that I forgot to write this entry until the project kindly sent me a reminder. My wife's away for a couple of weeks, and I'm remembering once again why I so admire single parents. Apart from the washing, cooking, etc, over four weeknights we (I) drive children to and from dance (twice), guides (twice), music (once), acrobatics (once), and scouts (once) - and three of those activities fell on the 15th. The working day began at 7.15 with a one-hour drive to the main campus for a meeting of academic conduct officers. There's one of us in each school, and we're charged with encouraging good academic conduct and dealing with academic misconduct (plagiarism and other forms of cheating) across the school. There was an interesting discussion on the range of penalties that we generally apply. The default penalty in my school is that students get no marks for the assessment item; this is seen as quite harsh by many of the other academic conduct officers. As soon as that meeting finished I had a 90-minute drive past my home campus to a local high school, where I was interviewing students for entry into an offering of our first-year programming course for gifted high school students. I think it's funny: the point of offering such courses is to attract these good students to our uni by giving them a head start on some first-year courses; but they will inevitably (and who can blame them?) go to a more prestigious uni - which will of course give them credit for these courses if they apply for it. Fortunately, I teach them because I enjoy teaching a class who's much more motivated, capable, and involved than my own first-years, and if they choose to go to another uni it will be with my blessing. It wasn't worth going to the office after that, so I went home and continued working from there, putting out email fires and working on the administration of the high school course, interspersed with meal preparation and trips to and from my own children's evening activities. I'm having trouble at present with my external hard drive. This is very scary, as I use it both for backup and for transferring files between my work desktop and my home laptop. A new one should arrive soon - I hope it fixes the problems. 204 An uncommonly early start today. My son's heading off on a major school excursion that required him to be at the school by 7am, so I drove him there. Then I went on to work, arriving at 7.15, and appreciating the extra time in the office. An email from a lecturer at one of our overseas campuses reminded me that I hadn't yet sent him the lecture and tutorial material he needs for Friday. Bother! I'm revising this course substantially, but like so much of what I do it's been ceding priority to tasks with immediate deadlines - so of course now it's become such a task. I spent the morning producing the revised materials, and sent them off by lunchtime. Tuesdays are my wonderful afternoons this semester. I'm teaching my first-year course to gifted and talented high-school students, some as young as 14. There are inevitably one or two who don't grasp the material, despite the best I can do to help them; but as a whole class they far outshine my normal university classes. This is a computer programming course, and one 15-year-old girl, not content with the exercises I ask the class to do, has decided to write a program that people can use to play noughts and crosses. Her approach is severely limited by how little we've covered in class (she's never programmed before, and we're only in week 4 of this course), but the way she has overcome those limitations is little short of astonishing. She thinks so clearly, so systematically, that I believe she'll do better in the course than even the best of my regular students do. As a bonus, she shares my love for words and language, something that doesn't always go hand in hand with skill in computing. Home at 6.30, slipping dinner between driving kids to and from their evening activities. By 9pm I was ready to start working again. I spent an hour writing the position description for a new lecturer we're hoping to appoint, 45 minutes dealing with the early stages of an academic misconduct case, and 15 minutes backing up my files. Finished work at 11pm, 15 and three-quarter hours after sitting down in my other office, the one at the university. 204 Under massive pressure from several huge tasks due in the next week or so, when I woke at 5.30 I realised I wasn't going to get back to sleep, so I sneaked out of bed and started writing the exam answers that are needed at an overseas campus before Monday. Stopped for breakfast at my usual waking time of 6.50, and was on my way to work (which I sometimes wryly think of as my second office) by 7.15. One of our academics has recently departed, abruptly and not of his own volition, and I spent some time working out with other staff how to reallocate teaching to take up his load. A PhD student who believes he's almost ready to submit has come into serious conflict with his supervisors, who don't. Spent some time discussing this with the head of school; as always, she speaks with a wisdom that belies her tender 60 or so years. Two hours at a school meeting. I can't say it was time wasted, but I remained acutely conscious of the pressing tasks that awaited me in my office. Spent some time dealing with academic misconduct cases at an overseas campus - essentially, students sharing and modifying copies of the same work and calling it their own. I was greatly taken with the student who said 'You can't blame me: the assignment was my partner's responsibility, and I had nothing to do with it.' I also really liked the one whose letter of explanation was a word-for-word copy of his partner's, changing only his name and half of one sentence about extenuating circumstances. At least he's consistent! Back home, after dinner I put in a little more sporadic work, but I was running out of steam, and once I'd finished the overseas exam answers at 9.45 I gave up for the day, after a little over 13 hours of actual work. But those deadlines remain frightening. For two weeks I've been stuck on a major aspect of the course I'm currently rewriting. That aspect needs to go in Monday's lecture, so I have to overcome the problems this weekend. Even though I'm only halfway through delivering the course, I have to finish the development by Monday week, when it's needed at an overseas campus. For that same course I have a batch of assignments to mark, again by Monday, and a final exam to write by Thursday. And I have two education research papers, one with multiple authors, that need a lot of work from me before the submission deadline of Wednesday. If I make it to the 15th of next month, it will be with great relief. 204 I've been totally rewriting a second-year course. I wanted to complete this task before the course started, but other tasks with tighter deadlines kept intervening, and for the most part I've done it week to week. The lectures are at 9am Mondays, and each lecture requires a couple of days' work, so this course has occupied my Saturdays and Sundays for many weeks now. The main thing that distinguishes weekends from weekdays is that on the weekend I can concentrate more on a single task, whereas during the week my days are far more fragmented. I continued preparing for Monday's lecture at 8.15am and worked for three and a half hours. Today is my mother's birthday, so I stopped at 11.45 and prepared the food we're taking, then gathered my wife and children and set off for the celebration. Back at 3.30, I spent half an hour on the lecture, then broke again for my ritual walk with my wife. Another two hours of lecture preparation when we got back, two hours off for dinner and a spot of television, then a final push from 8.30 to 10.45pm. I think I'm ready for tomorrow's 9am lecture. Somewhere in with that 8 hours of lecture preparation I found 15 minutes to respond to an enquiry about an assignment at an overseas campus; and at the end I indulged in another ritual, half an hour of file backup. My working weeks since Christmas have hovered between 80 and 90 hours. Several important deadlines passed a couple of weeks back, and I met most of them, so I'm really looking forward to the gradual return of my usual 65-to-70-hour weeks - blissfully light by comparison. 204 A bit of excitement today - my campus of my university was closed because of the expectation that it would flood. It's rather low-lying, there's been a lot of rain over the last week, and torrential rain was forecast for today. I normally go to the main campus on Wednesdays, so I wouldn't have been affected; but my students were to have sat an exam today, so I'd arranged to stay at my home campus. Therefore I ended up working from home. This isn't a great deal different from working at work; it's just like Saturdays and Sundays, when I take a little time out for shopping, housework, etc, but spend the rest of the day at my desk. (In the event, the campus didn't flood, but I suppose they were wise to be prepared.) Started on my email at 7.45, and spent an hour there. One recurring issue was the uni's handling of the campus closure. They had notified students whose exams were affected that they could do a replacement exam in the middle of July. For all you northerners, that's in our short winter break, but even so, many students have already booked holidays in that time. I assured them that the uni would receive many complaints and would soon be trying an alternative solution. Sure enough, it wasn't long before the uni told them instead that they can do the exam on Friday! Much needless alarm could have been avoided with a little more thought. A couple of hours reconsidering the evidence in a student plagiarism case. The two students involved insisted that their work was neither plagiarised from a common source nor written in collusion, so I spent more time than it's worth re-reading all of their work, and concluding that they're lying. The case will proceed on that basis. After the luxury of a long lunch break I was brought back to work by a phone call from my Head of School. A student is concerned that the reason for her poor marks in a particular course is either that she's female or that she's Muslim, and the lecturer is therefore discriminating against her. The lecturer's away at a conference, but the course and all the material are mine, so I know it all well. I downloaded the student's three assessment items from the submission site and marked them all. I was delighted: my marks were exactly the same as the lecturer's, except that he'd converted the actual marks to weighted marks and rounded them up. I saw this as vindication of the finely detailed marking schemes I tend to produce when working with multiple markers. Another concern from the student will also have to be taken seriously: she says that she's received no feedback on the assessment items, and that the lecturer has told students not to contact him outside class and not to email him because he's too busy to respond. This is not the way we do teaching at my university, and if it's true, we'll need to start working out how to address it. The rest of my working day was spent solving a hardware problem (I ended up replacing my USB hub) and working on a teaching-related paper for an education conference. All in all, an incredibly light day's work - just under 8 hours! 204 Wow - if I hadn't kept a diary, I'm not sure I'd believe it. Apart from half an hour or so on sundry emails, I spent the whole of my working day on two teaching-related research projects, polishing one paper and analysing data for another. Working uninterrupted on single tasks for so long is an incredibly rare luxury. I think I must attribute it to the fact that my students and almost all of my colleagues are enjoying holidays - and what better time to get serious work done than notional holidays? 204 A 9am lecture, so I was in the office by 8 to make sure I was ready for it. An hour of preparation, two hours of lecture, two hours of tutorial. It's a small class, but a good one. After lunch my time was divided among three tasks: a student discipline case; some major revision of a course that's taught at an overseas campus under my coordination; and some more data analysis for a teaching-related paper I'm hoping to submit to a conference with a frighteningly close deadline. At 5pm, one of my calming moments of the week - singing with the campus choir. It's a lovely break from work. At home, after dinner, I spent a couple of hours working on the agenda for a department meeting, doing some more on a student discipline case, and backing up my files. All in all, a fairly typical day. 221 Morning: dealing with email, preparing for this afternoon's session, preparing for next week's induction. Transferred across to another site. Afternoon: running a staff development session for new staff. Having a discussion with colleagues about next week's user group meeting. 221 Friday 15th October - no formal academic work as I work only 3 days a week and Friday is not one of them. Spent a little time thinking about following week's teaching and planning how to manage time. 221 9-11 saw individual final year students for 10 minute sessions to continue discussing their project for the year. Not all of them turned up. 11-4 worked on preparation for teaching, sorting out student problems as personal tutor, particularly non-attendance of some first year students, processing email. Office hour 12-1 but no-one dropped in. 4-5 session with my first year group about how to carry out a presentation. Was planning to show some useful slides provided by a colleague, but computer in teaching room would not work owing to absence of a hard disc. Contacted technical support to report this, but no possibility of it being fixed immediately. Gave a brief talk about presenattions to students and sent them away early. 221 9.00 - 9.30 checked email, prepared for workshop at 10.00 9.30-10.00 online meeting via web-conference, about producting resources to support the introduction of web-conferencing 10.00-11.00 scheduled workshop 11.00-12.00 meeting with individual student about his progress with project. Advised him on applying for an extension to the hand-in date, gave feedback on his previous submission and discussed tackling the next assignment. 12.00-12.30 moderation meeting with fellow tutor 12.30-1.30 lunch in refectory with colleagues - discussing work issues 1.30-5.30 working in my office, dealing with email, reading a student essay, learning how to use Turnitin. Also spoke with Student Liaison Officer about how staff are informed about students with disabilities and about what the University has agreed in terms of Reasonable Adjustments and Exam Contracts. Tried to complete TRAC return but failed. 221 Saturday, and did not do any academic work that day. 221 9.00-10.00 email 10.00-11.45 meeting to plan online user group meeting following week. I will have to run it as two colleagues taking leave for half term. 11.45-12.45 lunch at cafe with friend. Disturbing phone call about family. 12.45 - 4.00 Working with colleague planning a staff development event for next month. Discussed various possibilities, tried out activities for timing, etc. 4.00-5.15 Meeting with 7 colleagues about Teaching and learning strategy within the university. 221 9-10 dealt with email 10-12 planning for a web-conference following week 12-12.45 lunch break, visited art exhibition 12.45 met with final-year student to discuss his project 13.45-14.00 bought sandwich and ate it 14.00-16.00 (important) Team meeting about radical changes to be made because university is re-organising in many areas 16.00-17.15 continuation of informal discussion of strategic points raised in team meeting 221 I don't work on Fridays so did nothing academic today. 221 Taking a week's leave this week, so on holiday in Somerset. 221 Not at work as I don't work on Fridays 221 On leave, staying on a farm in Devon. 224 Today is in an unusual context for us here - our city had a huge earthquake 10 days ago, and the university was closed for cleanup and recovery until today. Consequently people need to talk a lot about what has happened to them, how their courses/deadlines will change given the interruption, and there is a lot of planning and communicating to do about changed deadlines and in fact changed courses so that we can complete in time for graduation. 7:10-7:30am Check emails 8:50-9:15 Reviewing proposed high school curriculum material for Computer Science 9:30-9:55 Transcribing one of my educational videos so that it can be have translated subtitles for other countries (I'm currently working with some people doing a Polish translation) 10:30 - 11:30 Morning tea to welcome back postgraduates after a 10 day break due to the earthquake, and discuss the changes to plans. 11:30-12:00 Making arrangements for general access to our computer labs due to closure of a lab in another building after earthquake damage. 12-12:20pm planning a Chinese version of some of our educational material with a visitor to the department from China. 2-2:15pm Finish the video transcription and upload it to YouTube, where it was automatically synched to the video without me having to give timings. Amazing! It will save hours of manual work. 3:00 to 3:30 Dealing with student cases where personal issues in their lives were having a severe impact on their study. Between the above: spent about 2 hours writing an exam for a first-year algorithms class. 8:30pm 10 minutes posting information to my class about changed arrangements due to the earthquake 9pm 20 minutes on Skype to a colleague in Sweden talking about cool ideas for teaching algorithms (this time of day is where our time zones overlap comfortably) 9:30pm 20 minutes booking details for a conference trip 10:30pm The Chinese translation (to be recorded tomorrow) arrived in the wrong format; spent about half of the next hour getting clarification and adjusting it ready for the recording in the morning. 11:30pm I think I'm prepared enough for tomorrow... time for some sleep 224 Today is the last day for handing in assignments for my first year algorithms course. A lot of students are getting worried about finding all their bugs before the deadline. 9-9:30 dealing with emails, mainly about the impending assignment deadline 9:30-10 meet with HOD to discuss administrative issues in the department 10-11am Choir practice for the Engineering College (yes, the head of engineering also likes conducting choirs, and is running an ad hoc choir; conducting a choir is a lot like running an academic department!) 1-2pm met with a student interested in doing a research project over the summer; hopefully he'll apply, hopefully he'll get a scholarhship. On and off today I have been responding to students having problems with the assignment due today. Most of the queries are from people with delays for medical reasons. I didn't have so much sympathy for the one who lost their only copy of an assignment which was on a flash drive. No copy anywhere else, just editing it on the flash drive. Does everyone learn about backup the hard way? Spent most of the rest of the time drafting an agenda for a facilities committee that I chair. People have made many requests for new equipment, and I need to nail down all the details so that the meeting next week will be efficient. 224 Exams are over, marking is underway. Summer is around the corner! Today was most unusual - two out of town visitors with whom I spent nearly the whole day in meetings. 9am - 12 Spent most of the time meeting with a potential doctoral student from another university who would like help with supervision of her work. 12-5 Spent most of the rest of the day with a visitor from another university who has been working with me on developing material for the upcoming revised high school curriculum in Computer Science. The day was punctuated by two quick meetings to grade 4th year projects. Handily in both cases the three assessors had all chosen almost exactly the same grade, so no negotiation was needed. With meetings all day, the evening was filled with the email and preparation that I actually needed to do today. 224 The end of the year, summer holidays are just a week away, exams are all done, yet things seem as busy as ever. I've been getting by with very little sleep to try to meet all the deadlines for proposals, budgets, and courses that need to be sorted out before everyone who sets the deadlines goes on holiday for the summer! But today is graduation day and it's nearly Christmas, so most of the day is spent socialising. 8am Go into town and hire my gown for graduation, then grab a cup of coffee and hang around talking to other academics, waiting for graduation to start, and clearing the most urgent emails from my iPhone. There was supposed to be a parade, but it's raining, so we have even more time to hang around talking instead. Graduation is a great chance to spend time with academics that I wouldn't normally meet - departments that we don't interact with, administrators who are normally only recognisable by email addresses, and general staff who today are fussing about whether or not my hood is the right way around instead of whether or not I've filled out the right forms. It's great having the university united for once, even if it mainly involves wearing silly clothes and sitting on a hot stage clapping for a few hours. It's also great to see the students and families proud of the outcome of their hard work. 1:30pm Graduation is over, and I hastily deal with some of the admin that piled up this morning while I was offline. 4pm I head over to the Maths department's end of year barbeque, where our humble Engineering college choir of about 10 people are going to sing Christmas carols. The choir is conducted by the PVC of Engineering, who happens to be a trained singer. Another enjoyable time of hanging out with people from different departments, united by our interest in singing. The backlog of emails and urgent requests will have to wait until tomorrow - it was nice that I was paid for a whole day mainly to sit around, drink coffee and wine, and sing. I must see about getting those added to my job description. 224 The good thing about being in New Zealand is that a Friday deadline for a paper submission gives you most of Saturday to get it in due to the time zone differences. This is also a bad thing about living in NZ - doing final edits to papers seems to come up on Saturday mornings quite often! I spent the morning editing a paper coauthored with colleagues in Europe and the US. The deadline translated to 11pm on Saturday for me, and I got it submitted by about 2pm. I then took some time off for the rest of the day, although made a few last-minute changes in the evening as my overseas colleagues woke up and made last minute suggestions. 224 7am I wake up in someone else's house, and quietly poke around getting ready for the day trying not to wake up their kids. I'm visiting another university for some meetings to discuss research, and mutual hospitality is a great way for academics to encourage such visits, and get the most from informal chats. Their kids have been a delight, but I think their daughter will be pleased to have her bedroom back tonight. 7:30am Catch up on email. Being away means that the email really backs up, and term starts next week, so there are urgent questions to be answered. 8am Joining in the household morning routine provides random opportunities to talk about work, mixed with playing games with kids. 9:15am Arrive at university and spend time talking about my colleague's research projects. 10am Go to a meeting that turns out to be postponed, so use the time to review some papers for a conference. 11am Meeting with a colleague to discuss possible joint work. 12noon Lunch with a few colleagues who I have worked with in the past, mainly with the purpose of discussing a planned future paper. 1pm Meeting with my colleague's PhD student to discuss a project of mutual interest. 2:30pm Time has slipped by - time for quick farewells and arrangements for our next step with our plans. 3pm off to the airport... looking forward to seeing the family after being away for 5 days, BUT first... 6pm drop by university and review a seminar for tomorrow that my student is giving. 7pm Home at last, time to catch up on email! 224 7:45am It's exactly 3 weeks after the big earthquake that closed down our university, and this week we're finally teaching again, but without use of the our offices or lecture theaters. The temporary venue that we arranged for some lectures today got changed last night, so I phone first thing to re-book buses that were going to take students there from the main "campus", which is mainly a bunch of tents being used for lectures. The next hour and a half is spent driving around picking up people who went to the wrong place. 9:30am Drop by another temporary lecture venue which is in a motel restaurant to make sure it's set up for the day while their staff clear the breakfast tables. 10:30am Drop by the staff member's house that has become a temporary department office. There's a shopping list of things needed to make it a real office (we're not allowed to get gear from our normal building because it hasn't been certified after the earthquake), so two of us hit the road to visit stationery, computer and grocery shops (coffee is still essential to run a department!) 12:30pm Drop off the shopping and pick up gear for my 1pm lecture. 1pm Give my first lecture of the year in a restaurant to an enthusiastic class; it was supposed to be 3 weeks ago, but the earthquake happened 10 minutes before the lecture time! The students are very positive; they almost seem more motivated because of the unusual circumstances. 3pm Lecture is over, report back to the "office" and deal with requests, timetables and equipment needs. 4:30pm Meet a visiting lecturer who I'm working on a paper with. 5:30pm All emergencies sorted for another day, time to head home and deal with my personal complications from the earthquake. Our house got water back on today - but now it's off again. We've got internet, but not sewerage - garbage in, but no garbage out. 224 Today is basically annual leave for me, so I'm only working half the day. 7:00am We videoed a seminar last week for someone who couldn't be there; I had the format conversion running overnight, and it's finished. Time to burn it to a DVD - simple job, but all these things take a chunk of time! I clear a few emails, then time for annual leave. 8:00am Head into town to help my son, whose office has been locked down in the "red zone" for nearly two months since the Christchurch earthquake; he's been told that he's allowed 4 people to help carry things out of the office. We have a plan to get the high value items in the limited time we're likely to be given. 9:00am Queue to be allocated an engineer and safety person to take us into the red zone. We get assigned 3 people to escort us, and get to the office about 11am - pretty fast really. 11am The engineer doesn't like the way the stairs have come loose, and only allows two of us 5 minutes flat to make one trip with essential items from the office. The main rule of earthquake retrieval: if you get an opportunity, take it. We manage to get some essential/irreplaceable items out. (It turns out that the next day there was a significant aftershock, and the red zone is locked down again!) 1pm We happen to have a retrieval from our building at university today, so I join our staff for that. Compared with the red zone, this is a walk in the park! 15 or so staff are allowed to spend about 40 minutes in the building gathering up whatever they need, as long as they stay away from some glass that is threatening to come down. 3pm Items from the building have been delivered to where we can use them in our temporary accommodation in another department. Time to run some messages paying for some printing from a local print shop, since the campus printery doesn't have all its equipment available. 4pm I'm off for the day... it was a day off anyway, but now it's time for a friend's wedding rehearsal. Nice to participate in a regular event after spending the day trying to get hold of things that we normally have easy access to. 224 I do try to keep Sunday as a day off, but as usual a few jobs had to be done. Overall I spent about an hour and a half providing students with feedback for a project due in a week; and did some work on a project I'm doing to help schools with teaching resources for new curriculum material that is needed urgently. The rest of the time was spent with family, and at a church service. 224 I'm at a conference on beautiful Jeju Island, in South Korea. The setting is idyllic and relaxing and the talks and conversations are stimulating, which is a nice change after a rather frantic 9 months of natural disasters at home. I spend the morning browsing talks and touching up my slides for my talk. The talk is in the afternoon, and is actually a 2-hour workshop. The attendees are really interested in the material, we have a long discussion that extends past the allocated time, and I come away with some great ideas for developing the material further. Perfect. The conference finishes around 5pm, and the evening is spent going for a pleasant walk on the ocean front, and enjoying some Korean "folk" food and drink. Who wouldn't want to be an academic on a day like this? 224 15Jul2011 It's the first week of term for the new semester. I spend most of the day preparing lectures, interspersed with other events: 10am Meet with a student who is doing an individual course of study with me. She's just starting, and is making reasonable progress already. 11am Meet with a student who isn't happy with a grade from last semester - I was the person who signed off all the grades. It turns out that she should have put in an aegrotat application, so I send her off to do that. 2pm My third lecture of the semester on algorithms. The class are really responsive despite it being Friday afternoon. I love this part of the job. 4:30pm Join half a dozen staff for drinks to celebrate a successful conference that some of them ran over the break, and to celebrate a successful first week of term. It's great having colleagues who are also good friends. It's been a tough ten months with 3 major earthquakes wreaking havoc in our lives, and we've all become a lot closer as a result. 224 In my city it almost never snows. Today we had a "one in 50 year event", and our university was closed because of the snow. Of course, this meant I could get on with some overdue work without having interuptions! 6:30am A friend woke me up and invited me to go for a walk in the snow, followed by coffee. A great start to the day! 8:30am Checking emails and making sure that people know what is happening with cancellations. 10am Instead of meeting with tutors about upcoming labs, I emailed them instructions. 10:30am Time to start working on two papers that are due at the end of the month. 1pm I get to have lunch at home with my family for a change. Then the neighbours drop by to borrow snow shovelling gear, and it becomes and extended lunch hour. 2:30pm Back to work, mainly doing research for one of the papers, but also fending off emails inbetween. 6:30pm Dinner time, and a friend drops by to celebrate the "day off" with us. 8pm Back to work, clearing emails and making some headway on the paper. 11:30pm Enough work for one day. Hopefully it will snow again tomorrow and I can have another productive clear day! Reflecting on the last year, almost all of my diary entries have begun by saying that this particular day is unusual. It has indeed been an unusual 12 months, with three severe earthquakes and two closures due to snow (for the first time in decades), but this is the joy of academic life: it's not routine, and I wouldn't swap it for any other job 226 Sept 15, 2010 Day 1 of journaling what I do as an academic. This year I am on special assignment to the National Science Foundation, a federal agency, so I am not teaching at all. [Note to researchers - you may want to expunge this identity revealing information at some point.] I put down in the profile that I am a professor at XYZ teaching institution but the fact is that I'm not there much this year. Instead I am in a different city, doing 'other duties as assigned'. However, those other duties are very much part of the academic life so I will journal faithfully. I believe I will journal my entire day in detail since even the minutiae have meaning - we are, after all, often driven by the constraints of our personal lives. 5:15 - 6:30 AM Got up for yoga exercise and meditation 6:30 - 7:30 AM Personal hygiene, breakfast, pack lunch, go 7:30 - 8:15 AM Commute time. Read a novel on the train. 8:30 - 10:00 AM In a meeting planning a large event (1500 people) to take place in early January. My role at this time is mostly observational since I am new and this planning process is well underway. However, I volunteered to help with event evaluation and, later, analysis of the evaluation data which I find personally interesting although I feel like I am cramming in another thing for which I may have insufficient time. However, I would like to become expert at this (I should say more expert at this) and one of the people working on the project is well known as an expert in evaluation. I think I can learn something valuable from her so I am going to make time to do a good job. Of course this means that I must make feedback to her today's priority. Sigh. Also started reviewing SIGCSE papers during the meeting (multi-tasking!). We have only TWO WEEKS for SIGCSE reviews this year. What the [expletive deleted] are they thinking?????? 10:00-10:45 AM Checked email and followed up on my travel authorization which is still 'Under Review'. Since I leave tomorrow this is a concern for me. Also started this journal. 10:45 - 11:40 AM Planned to attend a cultural event/lecture on Hispanic Heritage at 11:00 but, as usually happens, will do my priority work task instead of taking the interesting byway. Oh, wait, there is something more urgent. I must put together my Telework plan so I can officially work on the road or at home. Interrupted by urgent request to obtain a signature. This is the end of the fiscal year for us when all money must be spent. Spent 20 minutes or so printing out then running a piece of paper around. Back to Telework agreement. Interrupted by colleagues for chat, technical assistance and peer mentoring. Back to Telework agreement. 11:40 - 11:55 AM Checking new email and cleaning out backlog. Checking to see if anything urgently needs attention. I do this a lot. It is a way of keeping myself organized. 11:55 - 12:10 Started working on feedback on evaluation questions from meeting earlier today. 12:10 - 1:00 PM Brown bag at library about reading genre literature - strictly for fun. 1:00 - 1:05 PM - Back to checking email 1:05 - 2:00 PM Took my evaluation questions to lunch. Completed my analysis of draft of evaluation questions (on paper). Missing electronic format, however. Also read through reviews of one grant proposal. 2:00 - 2:05 PM Back to email. Then back to tracking down my travel authorization. To no avail. 2:05 - 2:35 PM Received electronic copy of evaluation questions so can provide written feedback. Interrupted for peer mentoring. Back on task documenting my feedback. Finished and sent off via email. 2:35 - 3:05 PM Trying (AGAIN) to resolve my travel authorization. Interrupted someone else for peer mentoring about travel authorization and other issues. Very helpful ideas. 3:05 - 3:15 PM Checking email 3:15 - 3:35 PM Facilitating planning for a training session for 30 new investigators. In reality I was doing gofer work for someone who was not in the office. Technically I am the lead on this project today since the real lead is out of the office. But in reality I just run errands for the lead. A bit beneath my dignity but I might as well be cheerful about it. 3:35 - 4:35 PM In a meeting to explore partnerships with the office that funds international research collaborations. 4:35 - 4:55 PM Checking email. Still working on travel authorization. Getting closer. 4:55 - 5:05 PM Break 5:05 - 5:15 PM Processing a grant proposal. This is my primary job function so it is a bit discouraging that I've eked out less than 1 hour to work on it today. 5:15 - 6:00 PM A colleague came in to ask a question about a meeting scheduled for tomorrow. This morphed into a social chat session. The day is over. I must go home to pack for my trip. 6:00-6:15 PM Break 6:15 - 6:30 PM Spent a little more time on reviewing SIGCSE conference papers 6:30-7:15 PM Commuting home After I got home I spent about another 20 minutes on email and about half an hour packing for travel tomorrow as well as taking some time for personal stuff. Some parenthetical comments - I'm still in the orientation stage of the job. There are 6 of us starting at once, all getting acquainted and all trying to figure out what we are doing. Each of us works on 3 to 4 different grant programs (not all the same ones) as well as doing outreach to prospective grant applicants and responding to questions from people who have previously been awarded grants. So it is a pretty complex job. Today was a 'meeting' day. Some days are 'reflective' days when I have extended periods of time to read grant proposals and process. It was a bit discouraging to actually track the time I spent on specific activities. No wonder it seems so hard to get things done. Next month I will probably just list activities briefly instead of giving all this detail. 226 October 15, 2010 Today is one of my rare days at home. Got up late (7:00), cleaned up and did a load of laundry. Checked email. Left for doctor's appointment. Reviewed grant proposal for possible funding while waiting at doctor's office. Home in time for online teleconferencing with my research group. We are re-grouping after a break for the summer. Technical difficulties delayed the start of our meeting but we managed to discuss some of our reading as well as set our goal through New Year's. Ran some more errands and went to yoga class. That's it for today. I admit it. I played hookey today. 226 I'm traveling this week - back to back events. Monday was the middle day of a small 3-day conference on computer security. I can only describe it as excruciating. Dull, dull, dull papers yesterday. Dull reports this morning with glimmers of hope. And the worst organized working group I've ever experienced all afternoon. I used my advanced meditation techniques for patience and wisdom to keep from running from the room screaming and even managed to make a number of constructive suggestions. Here's the rub - these folks are attempting to develop new curriculum but they appear to be doing it from a very limited perspective. They have a good understanding of the content matter but seemed to find the idea of identifying desired learning outcomes difficult to grasp. And no mention was made about some very good previous work on curriculum development. The good intentions were there but they were missing the boat in a lot of areas. All in all, not a comfortable meeting to be in. Apparently my skin is thinner than some, however, since the leaders appeared to appreciate the feedback - an admirable and adult reaction to some less-than-tactful criticism offered by the participants. I was struck by the difference between the exclusiveness of this 'insiders only' crowd and the inclusive nature of a K-12 educators' workshop I attended last week. Both events were small; both were by invitation only; both were trying to move large, important national agendas forward. I felt a lot more comfortable with the educators than with the government and technical geek people. I think I'm outgrowing my technical interests. They no longer compel my interest and I am less and less willing to put in more and more time to stay current. But I'm too young to retire. It's going to have to be a career shift. In the evening I had dinner with a colleague and skipped the late evening social event which was past my bedtime. The whole thing was not particularly time well spent. But I received continuing education credits which are required to maintain my technical certificate, I showed my face and I made a number of contacts. 226 Meetings today. I moved over the weekend. I am now within 5 minutes' walk to the office. Still arriving at the same time, but that extra hour of sleep is greatly appreciated. At the office I started the day by reading email and cleaning out the junk. Had a few more minutes before my first meeting so reviewed and approved an annual report. System had the slows so only managed to look at one annual report. Caught a phone call on my way to my first meeting and stopped to listen to an explanation for a minor mistake. Met for two hours with tax expert who addressed the complexities of having permanent residence and being paid in one state and yet actually living and performing work in another. Fortunately there is an easy solution - paying a tax consultant to do my taxes for me. However, the session was useful for the entire group. Grabbed lunch during the break and ate during the meeting since today is back-to-back meetings. I'm really past the age of enjoying grab-and-go food. My standards are higher now. In my next meeting, we reviewed budgets available for awarding grants, discussed collaborating with other internal groups, recapped the post-analysis of our first ever virtual job fair, discussed recruiting and had a chance to look at the results of a year-long analysis of the projects we've been funding for the past 10 years. Very interesting. I bailed out of that meeting to take a pre-arranged phone call from two rejected grant applicants who wanted feedback, followed by yet another meeting. The last meeting of the day was a planning session for a workshop on evaluation/assessment we will be doing in January. It's a bit early yet but I may call it a day. I'm meeting'd out. My nephew and his son are visiting and we plan to meet and see the big Christmas tree downtown tonight. Tomorrow I fly home for Christmas. The office is emptying out rapidly. Hard to stay motivated and on task. 226 Saturday is my day off. I slept late, went hiking along the Potomac River, then attended an open house. Managed to do some yoga and meditation and read a book. A very nice day. I almost never work on Saturdays since I am usually worn out mentally by the end of the week. Saturday is my day off. 226 I was on vacation on Tuesday, February 15. I'm taking huge advantage of my temporary administrative assignment. Vacation is not an option when teaching so this is a special treat. On Tuesday I snorkled in the Caribbean, had a leisurely lunch on the beach and soaked in the ocean. No computer, no email, no work reading. Just a vacation. Sheer bliss. 226 On Tuesday, March 15, I hosted a panel of scientists who reviewed grant proposals in the area of computer security. I had the relatively easy task of quality control. I proofread final reports and tactfully pointed out inaccuracies, inconsistencies and typos. I took part in the debriefing in the late morning, then went to lunch with two panelists. In the afternoon I met with one of the investigators whose project I manage. To my disappointment, he is retiring. We discussed how he will hand off his project since it is not likely to reach completion by his mid-summer retirement. I scanned through most of my 175 backlogged email messages and took care of a few emergencies before throwing in the towel for the day. In the late afternoon and evening I scanned my home institution email and read that backlog of 75 or so messages, taking care of most of the pending items. Last week I attended a conference and gave three presentations, then returned to supervise two days of proposal reviewing. Next week I travel and give presentations at two more conferences, followed by a half-day workshop presentation. I'm feeling a bit stressed. The time changes due to both travel and Daylight Savings Time this week did not help. 226 I'm scheduled to give a talk in Massachusetts tomorrow morning so today is a travel day. Airfare was over $1000 (!!!) so I opted for the train, thinking that a 7 hour ride was roughly equivalent to getting to the airport, waiting, flying and getting from the airport to my conference. It was a nice thought but wrong. The train was a bit delayed and the trip was longer than I thought it would be. I had good intentions to work while in transit but did not act on them. I was late, late, late to my conference but the reception and banquet were more pleasant than I anticipated. But I'm kicking myself for agreeing to talk at this small conference. It probably was not worth the investment in time and money. Although you never know what trees can grow out of small seeds. 226 During the school year Sunday is often a work day for me. But this one was not. I had breakfast with an old college friend, then picked up my niece who had a long layover at the airport in my city. We had a lovely day as she was returning from a semester abroad in Africa and had lots to share about the differences in cultures. A beautiful day, gorgeous weather, laid back - I wish I got to enjoy more weekends like this. 226 This was a travel day for me. I attended a workshop on the west coast on Monday and Tuesday. Returning home to the east coast took all day. (Really all day - 8:00 AM Pacific to 8:30 PM Eastern.) Although I took work on the plane, I read a novel instead. 226 This has been an email sort of day. I'm in a bit of a lull and am caught up on all my deadlines (??!!) so I spent the morning filing email. This is more important than it sounds since I was filing records of correspondence with people who have been awarded money. But it is dull work. Very dull. I also cleaned up some more of my backlogged email as well as the usual incoming, answering random questions from people who want to know where their money is, can they spend it on something else and why haven't I approved that thing that I actually returned to them two days ago. That sort of thing. Also pinged the 20+ people who are coming in for review panels in a week or so to remind them to do their homework. Had lunch outside in the beautiful weather since it cooled off. I spent a productive hour talking to one of my research collaborators about a paper we are writing. Found out how to use an archiac system to look up critical information. And made and broke weekend plans. And now I'm calling it a day. 226 Went to the beach over the weekend. We stayed over Sunday night so as to avoid the traffic and drove back to the city this morning, arriving late at work. Today is Spend Out day - the last day people at my level can spend money for this fiscal year. Since I'm done with my spending I'm just filling in time today, being available in case of unexpected occurrences. Of course there is the endless email to deal with as well as a conference deadline looming for which I plan to submit a paper and a panel proposal, as well as organizing an affiliated event so there is plenty to do. But there is a certain sense of relaxation among those who have completed their work. Coincidentally (or perhaps not so coincidentally), my next batch of 35 proposals to review landed in my inbox this noon. The sense of completion was fleeting. Spent a bit of time inviting people to a workshop and chasing down those who have not responded. Took my annual privacy and security training (online) and more email. That's it for today. 232 Principal tasks today were: Research student supervision (2 hours) Development of School strategic plan (1 hour) Research proposal preparation (3 hours) Research workshop (evening dinner) Other time taken up by email etc. 232 Most of the 15th was spent preparing a 'business plan' - a somewhat pointless exercise that is required by the project funder in order for a knowledge transfer project to be approved. The proposal has been technically approved and the business plan is a formality - no one will pay any attention to it - it's simply a box-ticking exercise to 'demonstrate' due diligence on the part of the funders. 232 Early start today to travel to Edinburgh for a collaborative EPSRC project start up meeting with partners from Bristol and Aston. Delayed by accident on the way to station so missed train - late for meeting. Meeting involved presentations from all of the project team about themselves and their previous work and planning discussions for the next phase of the project and a summer school that we are planning for June 2011. Home at 7.30pm and catch up with email after dinner. A productive day. 232 I try to avoid working on Saturdays so no work tasks today apart from dealing with a few emails. 232 Morning. In St Andrews meeting research students and catching up with bits and pieces. Visit to Abertay University in Dundee planned in the afternoon - no car today so planned to take bus - but so wet, ended up in a taxi. Presentations about SICSA - Scottish Informatics and Computer Science Alliance to Abertay staff and discussions about more SICSA involvement. Home about 5.45. Evening spent catching up on emails 232 I try to avoid working on a Sunday but e-mail hangover needs to be dealt with. I really would like to simply switch the f...ing stuff off. Rain started in the afternoon so also did some work on the website for the course I'm teaching in York this week. 238 Diary of a CS Professor September 15, 2010 Background: I teach computer science in a small liberal arts college with about 1400 students. I have taught at the same school for the past 20 years and I taught at a different small college for the 5 years previous to coming here. I (finally) completed a PhD in Computer Science in 2004. I teach four courses per semester - each being a different preparation. Due to an alternating schedule of some of the upper division courses I usually have 16 courses to teach over a 2 year span with a total of 12 unique subjects. I am the chairperson of the combined math and computer science department. I am in charge of one part-time computer science teacher, two full-time math teachers, and three math adjuncts. I have no secretary or student workers. I am 55 years old, have two grown children, three grandchildren, one spouse (of 36 years), two cats and one dog. 5:30 am alarm goes off and I start my day (shower, dress, breakfast, feed cats, etc.) 7:30 - 8:00 drove to the college 8-9am Made an attempt to clean office / tables / desk. Organized stack of papers on my desk and made my to-do list for the day. Started to download an SDK for one of my courses. Requested evaluation copies of textbooks via publishers' web sites 9-10am Filled out purchase order / check request form. Took it to division chair for a signature. Checked with a couple of other departments looking for a phone for one of the adjunct's office. Installed the phone - Met with data center personnel to request the phone line be set up. The adjunct's office is in a new building and they had not turned on the service to his office yet. (He had no office phone for the entire previous year.) Walked to campus center to pick up a tax-exemption form to submit to Microsoft 10-11 Tried (unsuccessfully) to scan a document on new office printer. Prepared lesson plan for my 11:00 class - an introduction to computer science with a breadth-first view of the field. These are new lessons plans since I have not taught the course in the last 7 years. 11-12 Taught the introduction to computer science class. All 5 students showed up! The math skills / reasoning skills of two of them are pitiful - they had no concept of what a square foot was! How did they get into college? I am in constant fear that the administration will decide that there are not enough majors and kill the program. 12-12:30 Ate lunch in office while reading / answering e-mail. Noticed that the 3GB download I started at 8am said it still had 6 hours to go until finished. 12:30 - 1:00 Met with the computer center staff to discuss the miserable download speeds I was seeing (30KB/sec!) 1:00 - 2:00 Made lesson plans for my 2oclock class on Java programming. Wrote a skeleton program for the students to complete as well as the solution. A student stopped by to ask a question about a Java assignment, which I answered. 2:00 - 3:00 Taught the Java class to 9 wonderful students. They ask intelligent questions and are very engaged. This group reminds me why I enjoy my job so much even with all of the other headaches. 3:00 - 3:30 Office hours are scheduled until 4:30 but I had to leave at 3:30 in order to get home, pick up spouse, drive to a neighboring town to pick up our other vehicle (which was at the mechanic's shop) before 5:00. 5:00 - 6:00 Ate out at a restaurant, a rare treat for us. 6:00 - 7:00 Drove home. Got there in time to see the last 10 minutes of the news. 7:00 - 8:00 Fed cats, started laundry, did ironing while listening to the Dr. Oz show on the television, did a few stretching exercises while waiting for the spin cycle to finish. 8:00 - 10:00 Tried to work on an assignment for the class on programming the iPhone which starts at 8am tomorrow, but my brain wouldn't cooperate, so I watched television and folded the dried laundry. 10:00 - 11:15 Finally able to do some debugging on the iPhone assignment. Did I mention that this is the first time that I taught this subject? 11:15 - 11:30 ready for bed and lights out 238 Oct. 15, 2010 My school gives faculty and students a two-day fall break every year. This year it occurred on Oct. 14 - 15. I generally do not give assignments over break since I feel the students (and I) need some down time to renew their(our) energies for the remainder of the semester. As a result, my spouse and I took the opportunity to travel to a neighboring state, do some camping, and visit my daughter and grandson. I must admit though, that I did take computers, a mobile broadband device, textbooks and homework to work on, just in case there was any lull time in the weekend. There wasn't. On the other hand, I did find myself thinking teaching related-thoughts occasionally. When we went geocaching, I thought that I should develop a geocache hunt based on CS ideas for my classes. As I took photographs over the weekend I was reminded about a project I had seen about giving students a file that represents a photo and having them produce the picture with a prize for the first-to-find where the photo was taken on campus. Of course, the short vacation was a two-edged sword - I got away from work for a few days for a much needed and appreciated break, but I did not get caught up on the seemingly endless list of grading, administrative reports, research, curriculum design, lesson planning, purchase orders, etc. 238 Diary March 15, 2011 - A typical teaching day... 8:00am Stopped by store on the way to work to get some equipment for an experiment to do in one of my classes. It is easier to pay for small items out of my own pocket than to go through the paperwork for purchase orders. 8:30 - 9:00 read e-mail and submitted an administrative report 9-9:30 prepared for class, recorded grades, uploaded example program to web page 9:30-10:45 taught class - that was a little less polished than I like, but I can only do so much. There never seems to be enough time to do everything. I have too many preps (5) in a field (computer science) that is constantly changing - sometimes I feel like I am in a hopeless situation. On the other hand, I never get bored - overwhelmed, yes, but never bored! 11:00 go to post office to get physical mail. The department's projector needs to be replaced so I spent the next two hours researching the capabilities of different projectors. It sure would be nice to have a secretary to delegate stuff like this to. Worked through lunch (spouse will fuss at me about that) 1:00 -1:45 taught a shortened version of class since my cold was getting the better of me and causing me to cough when I tried to lecture. 1:45 -2:00 answered questions regarding internships and registering for next year's classes. 2:00-2:30 helped a student debug his program 2:30 Finally had a break to sit down and eat lunch! Gobbled it down in 5 minutes so I could get back to investigating projectors, check the amount left in the departmental budget, fill out the paperwork to have the purchasing department order it. Also need to order toner and printer ink and request a reimbursement for equipment I purchased with a personal credit card since company would not accept purchase orders for amount under $2000. 5:30 well, I didn't get to the point that I could make an intelligent decision about the projectors - will continue that another day - time to go home. 6:00 arrived at home and practiced playing my hammered dulcimer for a half-hour. I find that I need to do something unrelated to school work occasionally or I will go crazy. 6:30 - 7:00 fixed dinner 7:00 - 7:45 ate dinner with spouse exchanging stories about our day. 7:45 - 8:00 did a few household chores (gathered garbage, fed cats, etc) 8:00 - 9:00 allowed myself the luxury of watching a television show. 9:00 - almost midnight: preparing for the next day's classes. 240 My reduced load allowed me the luxury of going to the local recreation center for a morning workout. At home, I had coffee and made a quick check of personal mail and favorite news sites as well as a scan of the local papers. Then an hour of catching up with professional email, both from students and those that professional society work deems necessary. A final cursory read of non-personal, but professional list serv conversation before heading off to the campus. I spent the next couple of hours grading homework, talking to students and colleagues. One student came in with several questions on the homework and to point out some of the deficiencies in the new-to-me Moodle course site. I met with the students in my seminar class (there are only two in the class on comparative programming languages). They had jointly take notes on the reading using Powerpoint and gave a combined computer/blackboard lesson with my acting as tutor, and interrogator. They also worked some problems on the board as I watched and gave advice. The three of us settled on a plan of action for the next week and I went to my office and spent another hour and a half refining the next week's assignments on Moodle. I also put together the materials I would need to prepare a take-home exam for them. Back at home, I downloaded the conference papers for which I would need to write reviews as I traveled over the weekend. I went home to meet my husband for a quick dinner at church and while he was a his men's choir practice I stopped at the office to get printouts of some papers. My last event will be to return to church for my own choir practice. 240 Most of the day was a field trip to IBM Research--two school vans full of students, two faculty and two folks from our IT staff. The presenters were excellent and spent a lot of effort engaging the students. I had not met many of the younger majors and it was an excellent forum for getting the pulse of that group. It was affirming for me as a faculty member to listen to corporate researchers giving the students advice and stories similar to those I give them. We saw demo labs highlighting sensor technologies and practical applications in energy conservation, health care, and home device control. But the most impressive was the tour of a real lab where the latest servers were being tested -- water cooled petaflop machines! A long way from the labs where we wired plug boards in the 60's. The engineers were a varied lot, but all enthusiastic and good role models for the students. Much of the conversation in the van, however, centered around the latest game technologies, none of which were even touched upon during our tour. By the time we returned to campus there was little time for anything. Hardly a wasted day, but definitely one that left my mailbox and to-do list much longer than I would have liked as we go into the weekend. 240 I walked three miles with my daughter and practiced my euphonium before heading off to work. My programming language seminar students and I discussed implementations of exceptions in various languages. I spent a lot of time preparing contracts for advisors on my NSF grant and reviewing the grant budget with university budget officers. I worked on a report for Peter Denning's rebooting conference held in January of 2009. I also spent far too much time setting up an account in order to participate in tomorrow's NCSWIT webinar I worked several hours on material for the Charles Babbage Institute as we prepare to have them archive and host the Computing Educators Oral History Project. 241 I remember seeing information about this survey on Mark Guzdial's blog (http://computinged.wordpress.com) and on the SIGCSE mailing list. I wish Sally good luck with this project. Today is September 15. I have three classes to teach today. I taught this morning at 8:00 and will be teaching at 12:20 and 1:25. In the morning class, a sophomore-level algorithms class, we are learning about basic analysis of algorithms. On Monday we covered big-O, Omega, and Theta notation. Some of the students remembered those definitions this morning, which was good. One of the students on Monday was trying to get everyone awake and excited about class. I liked that, especially because I need some caffeine to get going in the mornings myself. Today in that class, we started to determine the number of times that a basic operation is performed in an algorithm so that we can determine the order notation. I am trying to encourage them as much as possible with the mathematics. I announced that they would be having their first test on the 27th. At 9:00, we had a disaster drill in our building. The all clear signal was announced for about 15 minutes, which was very annoying. I felt sorry for the teachers who were teaching at the time. One of the math professors decided to cancel his class. I don't blame him. No one came to my morning office hours. That is not too surprising because nothing is due now. However, three students stopped me at the end of my 8:00-8:55 class to ask about what they had missed on Monday, and one student wanted clarification about something that we had covered today. That was encouraging. On Monday, the network was down in our department, so I had to write code on the board in old-school fashion in the 12:20 class. Hopefully the network will cooperate with me in a few minutes, but I am bringing backup files just in case. ... Back from classes. The network did cooperate with me. I was able to use BlueJ in class today and the object workbench. We discussed more class examples, with instance variables, constructors, and methods, both static and non-static. This course is an OOP class in Java, and it is the third programming class that students take. Whenever possible, I point out connections with C++ from their earlier coursework. 34 out of 36 students were present. The third class, at 1:25, is my cross-listed senior/graduate algorithms class. It normally has 15 students, but over 30 students are enrolled this semester. We are using the Kleinberg/Tardos book. However, we are currently working on techniques for solving recurrence relations. When I teach the sophomore-level class, I cover recurrence relations, but I cannot count on everyone having (or remembering) the background material. I also have to record this course using Camtasia for two online students. The computer in the classroom is a tablet computer, but the writing pen is not working properly, so I have to type, which is a little bit of a pain for dealing with exponents. Hopefully the proper driver will be installed soon so that I can use the pen again. After class, a student wanted to ask questions about the current homework assignment. We had to go to my office because another class was beginning soon afterward, and also, I have office hours from 2:30 to 3:30 anyway. Another student showed up for office hours from the OOP class. He had some good questions. Then another student from the senior-level class stopped with a quick question. I took a break for a minute to check Facebook, and then started back to this survey. Anyway, I still need to finish grading a set of homeworks. Hopefully I will finish them tonight or tomorrow so that I can return them to the students on Friday afternoon. Well, I got sidetracked for an hour by talking with a colleague. I brought my grading home, but now I am too tired to concentrate on that. Hopefully I will get done tomorrow. 241 Today is Friday. On Monday and Tuesday there are no classes because of Fall Break, so hopefully I will be able to get caught up on some grading. I have a set of approx. 36 programming assignments to grade, and I will be getting approximately 36 homeworks in one class and 32 homeworks in another class today to grade, as well. I have three classes to teach today. One was at 8:00, our first algorithms class. Several students missed, probably getting an early start on Fall Break. I handed back a homework in that class. Most of them did well on it, but I went over the solution anyway for the ones who didn't do so well. We then got back into the Chapter 4 material on the Divide and Conquer problem-solving paradigm. We analyzed mergesort using the master theorem for recurrences. I explained why the master theorem works by using geometric series. The corequisite for our algorithms class is Calculus 2. I let them out 1 minute early and said that was a present for them. They laughed. As they were leaving, one of the students said that she hadn't started on the programming assignment It is hard to concentrate on work now because my grandmother is very ill. Last night, my aunt called me, crying, saying that she may have had a stroke. A little later, my cousin called me, saying that she might have had some kind of seizure. The doctors don't think that they can help her and they said that she might only live a couple of more months. I want to go visit her this weekend. She lives in my former home state, about a 5-hour drive from where I currently live. My beloved dog is old, too. I don't want to lose him either. So far, he is in decent shape, although it is harder to get him going in the mornings, and he doesn't want to walk as far. I have been calling my aunt and cousin to find out what is going on with Grandma. I am having to use Skype because my cheap Tracfone cell phone doesn't have service in my office. Skype works great. I have two more classes to teach today. Attendance should be good because I am collecting homework assignments in each class. I will be returning tests in the object-oriented programming class. Many of the students forgot about using "this" to call an overloaded constructor in Java, and they also forgot about object casting. One student in the senior/graduate-level algorithms class just stopped by to ask a question about the homework. I called my grandmother's house just now to talk to my other aunt, who stays with her. The doctors had ordered some blood tests, and she is waiting for the results. 241 I hope that next semester will go more smoothly than this semester does. My grandmother is in hospice care in the hospital now. I went to see her on Thursday. I was able to get a substitute for my lab. For Friday, I was able to get a colleague to give a test for me, and I prepared lectures for my other two classes using Camtasia. She has not passed away yet. It is very hard to get substitutes, and I cannot afford to cancel class. This is the crunch time in the semester. I stayed at the hospital for three nights. The hospital had wireless access in the lobby, so I could answer emails. Several students sent me very nice messages of sympathy, and one student brought me some chocolate this morning after our first class. 241 My grandmother passed away the day before Thanksgiving. Final exams are going on this week. I have those to grade and one more set of programs. Hopefully I will get everything done by the deadline and not have to give too many bad grades. 241 School was supposed to start on Thursday the 13th, but classes were cancelled Thursday and Friday, and there is no class on Monday because of Dr. Martin Luther King Day, so the first day of classes is on Tuesday the 18th. This is unprecedented. I just have an independent study student to meet on Tuesday, so my first day of lectures is on Wednesday the 19th. My classes this semester are smaller than last semester's classes. I am getting my tablet laptop set up so that I can use it in class if needed. 241 The semester is rolling along quickly, as usual. I gave tests on Friday and Monday. The students taking a test on Monday were given a homework assignment to practice solving recurrence relations. Over the weekend, I had to go out of town to a training workshop to prepare for giving a summer workshop for teachers. Fortunately there was no snow, so I did not get stuck. When I got back, I was able to grade the Friday tests. However, I could not return them to the students because one student had an excused absence and needed to make up the test. The class did well overall, although there were some failing grades. Today I have not been able to get to the grading for Monday's tests because I had two meetings this morning and students have been asking for help on the lab this afternoon. Hopefully I will be able to do that grading because one student has asked if the tests will be returned the next day. 241 I enjoyed attending the SIGCSE conference last week. I brought papers to grade with me, but I didn't actually do any grading until I got to the airport on the way back. I was very guilty of procrastinating. I did attend presentations for all three days of the conference, and a workshop after the conference, so I was doing work-related stuff. On Saturday evening, I investigated the workshop-related material some more. I wish that I could be more like my husband with respect to grading. 241 The next few weeks will be rough due to the crunch at the end of the semester: programming assignments to grade, homeworks to grade, tests to make and grade, meetings, etc. We have five more Monday-Wednesday-Friday class meetings, so I have 15 more class meetings because of my three class preparations. I also have two more Thursday labs and two more meetings with my independent study student. Hopefully I will be able to concentrate and get everything done. 241 Today I actually did some much-needed house cleaning that was neglected during the semester. I also read some in "Chicken Soup for the Soul Teacher Tales: 101 Inspirational Stories from Great Teachers and Appreciative Students". It deals with K-12 teachers and students in the U.S., but the stories are relevant to faculty in higher education, too. One of our students emailed me yesterday that she had a poster accepted at this year's Grace Hopper conference and thanked me and some others for the encouragement. I was very happy to receive that email. 241 Since I don't have any papers to grade until August, I have been surfing the Web. Some of my surfing has a practical purpose: the csprinciples.org Web site and some of the 2010-2011 pilot sites for the course. Looking at that material has rekindled some of my excitement for the field, showing the passion, beauty, joy, and awe of computing popularized by Dan Garcia at SIGCSE. The students have done some cool things with a rudimentary knowledge of Processing. I need to check that out. 241 Our recent workshop for high school teachers was a lot of fun, for us (the organizers) and for the participants. A few months ago, I was worried about getting it done, but I was mostly pleased with how it turned out. Hopefully the teachers will be able to use what they learned from the workshop. Now I need to get motivated to finish another project before classes start again. It is great to be able to hang out with my lovable old dog a lot during the summer. Earlier in the month, he enjoyed playing with his much younger canine friend. 242 This has been a good, but busy start to the year. Perhaps it is always a busy start, though. Our 18-month-old son has only been ill once, and yesterday was the start of his second cold. So, all night, he would wake up with a fever and are having a hard time breathing (as one does when one has a head cold), and would start to cry. More than once I tried to console him, but he most definitely wanted his mother. It eventually grew late enough in the morning that there was nothing to be done but to get on with the day. I had a bit of leftover ham (from a tasty dinner on the weekend), made some coffee in my to-go cup, and walked up the hill. Work is about 1 mile from home (uphill both ways -- we live across a small valley), and this morning was comfortable. Cool, but not cold. My morning started with filing receipts and setting up warranty information on equipment recently purchased through a grant (video cameras and audio recording equipment). I sat in on a colleague's class, and ended up providing tech support -- the projector in our large lecture space has been misbehaving, so I set up a mobile projector so he could more easily run class. My "sitting in" bears some explaining. This year, we're working on revisions to our intro course -- or, perhaps a completely new course. Our goal is to develop an intro to computing that is more appropriate to our local audience, which is largely made up of students studying biology, psychology, and literature. Our traditional "lecture-about-code-and-give-them-programming-assignments" approach is not broadly appealing, and the tools we introduce them tool do not necessarily help them in their own endeavors. So, I am sitting in on our intro this term for several reasons. One is to provide feedback to my colleague on his class at a detailed level. A second reason is to make "meta notes" about what I see taking place, and reflecting that back through our readings and conversations regarding next year... in some ways, "what do we know needs to change based on practice and research?" Third, it is to strengthen trust and build our relationship as we dive into this design process. After sitting in on the intro, I handled some tech support issues for students, I forget what happened in the next hour (it was busy), and then had class. It is a design-centric class (titled "Human Centered Design"), and I am confident my students do not understand what it means to work hard and produce quality deliverables. So, I put them on the task of doing what they were supposed to have done, and said I'd be back in 20 minutes. We then proceeded with what we should have done at the start. After my class, I talked with one of the students about expectations and whether or not I am communicating clearly. I suspect that I need to be clearer, and I also realized that they are not verbalizing any of their confusion. So, we'll spend some time Friday discussing our collaborative process as a full group. What kinds of communication/explanation do the students expect from me? What quality of work do I expect from them? What processes can we use as a group to get to a point where we are working as a large team to simply do excellent work in the context of helping design and test interfaces for open source projects? (I should email those questions to them now...) From there, I went to a workshop on evaluation in the context of our freshman seminar. I am also teaching a course on basic writing and public speaking titled "Creativity and Leadership." The Freshman Seminar programme is long-running at Allegheny, and while it is enjoyable, it is also challenging, as it places me (as someone grounded in computing) in the context of introducing writing and speaking at the college level to first-year students. As it happens, they also become my advisees, and I am responsible for helping them in their scheduling and major selection process. (Talk about a complex relationship.) After the workshop, I spent some time talking to one of the conveners (the writing coordinator for our Learning Commons here at the college) about a series of assignments I'm considering for my students, and then I took off for home. My goal is to get home early to help on the home front, and hopefully let my wife catch a bit of a nap before the afternoon is over. The last thing I'll do here in my office today is record this diary. As it happens, I only remembered to do it because Dan Garcia advertised it on the SIGCSE mailing list. However, if I get a prompt automatically from now on (it seems like that was an option), I shouldn't have any problems doing this in the future. 242 Friday started well. It ended less well. Is it bad when your Department Chair wants desperately for you to remain at the institution, and the other two colleagues in your department would like nothing more than to see you move on? I think it is. Sadly, I thought we were passed this. 242 Monday was the start of my third week playing racquetball. This may not sound important, but I haven't played the sport since 2002. I was abroad for five years, and for the past three haven't found anyone to play with. As it turns out, there is an active group of faculty who play Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at lunch time. The mental and physical health aspects of regular exercise are massive, and I've thoroughly enjoyed getting back into the game. The day started early. I reviewed notes from nearly 10 years ago, reviewing software I developed to manage course hand-ins and the like. I sat in on a colleagues class, and spent most of my time reflecting on lab-based instructional techniques, and how beneficial they might be; certainly, lecturing about programming seems absolutely futile (with no particular disrespect meant towards my colleague---only general disdain for the practice of lecturing about programming is intended). The evening brought dinner with a hiring candidate in Chemistry, and that was a reasonable enough conversation. It felt as if they were less-than-interested in the position... but, then again, they had been interviewing with people for 10 hours at that point. It is tiring. My semester is overrun with grading at this point, and most of it has nothing to do with computing. I'm desperately trying to finish revising application materials so I can look for employment elsewhere, as the political climate within my department remains grim. I spend too little time with my wife and child, and my colleagues remain... unsupportive. But, there is always hope. We will see what the next day brings. 243 8:00 am dropped kids off at school took car to repair shop generic handling of email in morning prepared next module for online course analyzed and entered quiz grades into moodle cms emailed class about reading assignment read two articles on OOP, prepared response taught graduate software engineering class talked in hallway with colleague about a joint work idea helped student with registration questions completed a course registration form for a student met with GTA about grading current module walked after lunch more generic email handling picked up car at repair shop and kids at school took kids to soccer practice chatted with other parents about community issues helped kids with homework read a small bit for pleasure (history of inventions) 10:30 pm 243 8:00 am - woke up (kids out of school so can sleep late!) 20 minutes email 244 15th of September: 8-10am Introduced a colleague from the UK in a two hour lecture and discussion on cultural awareness. Stayed to participate. 10-10:15 coffee break, chatted to a colleague about new computer systems for anonymous written exams that are to be implemented university wide. 10-11:15 Talked to some of the international MSc students about course choices. Worked on two extended abstracts for the EDUCON 2011 conference with deadline this evening. 11:15 went to lunch 12:15-13:15 prepared some details of the teaching and examination of my course in computer networking 13:15-14:30 teaching meeting to discuss arrangements of the computer networking course with the three teaching assistants in the course. These are all PhD students, and we needed to discuss the grading of the programming exercise. We have decided to interview each pair of students in order to assess if they really understand what they have done in the exercise. This takes some planning since we have 120 students in the course. 14:30-15:00 completed one EDUCON abstract and uploaded it as PDF to the conference management tool. 15:15-17:00 gave a lecture in the Computing Education Research course we offer to advanced undergraduate and MSc students on CER literature and values, and the role that research in CE plays in supporting a scholarly approach to teaching and learning practice at University. 17-20 family stuff 20-22 course admin, reading e-mail, working on a second EDUCON extended abstract. Installing some new software on the laptop. 22-22:20 completing this survey 22:20- I intend to complete the EDUCON abstract and upload it before midnight. 244 Up early again. 06:30 Drank a cup of coffee and prepared the last details of a special exam that would be sat by some of my students at 9am. Printed the exam and packed to go to work. 08:10 Dropped Kristina at school on the way to work, we always seem to be running late :-( School starts at 8:10.... Drove into town. 09:00 Met the students who would take the exam, booked a meeting room for them to sit in and handed out the exam and writing paper. The rest of the morning was spent multi-tasking trying to do the following - supervise the students taking the exam - record enrolments for students in the MSc program I coordinate - finalise the exam paper for the larger exam in the afternoon, and print it (needed 100+ copies). - fiddled with the LaTeX class file I use to produce exams to improve the layout and add a Uni logo in colour. 11am, needed to see systems support to collect a new account and password so that I can access the enrollments record system for the Uni. 11:30 lunch 12:30 realised that I have no idea how the new systems will work for anonymous written exams and entering grades! The online system has send me three links for the same course, and it seems that I need to enter codes according to degree programme :-( What a huge admin overhead, this is going to take more time. 14:00 attend the exam hall to answer questions, about half the students taking the exam had not enrolled for it, so they don't have an anonymous code anyhow, so much for students caring about anonymity of assessment! 15:30 left work to collect Fredrik and take him to his tennis lesson at 16:30. 16:00 collected both kids, when to tennis, and bought food to make a nice friday dinner. A good autumn stew was on the menu. 17:30 headed home 18:00 food cooking, red wine open, realised that I was going to miss the deadline for returning reviews for a conference, which are due tonight. Drat, left that too late. 22:00 put kids to bed, and zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz 244 This was a rather different day. A friend had bought a new house and needed some help to fix som urgent plumbing and wiring issues. I decided, what the hell, and took the day off and spent 9am to 5pm helping him with his kitchen renovation. Felt good... 244 Up late, overslept, panic to get the kids to school in time, made worse by the unseasonal cold, it was -13 C this morning. After dropping the kids I headed off to town to meet up with colleagues and listen to project presentations that conclude the university science education course that we are running for staff in the faculty of science and techonology here. Really good presentations, and nice examples of scholarship of teaching and learning in practice, and the application of research results in disciplinary specific educational research to classroom innovation. A high point of the day. 11am I head off to get my hair cut for Christmas, and then am back at work about 11:45 in my office. Good news in the e-mail, my project application for funds to support development and evaluation of an extionsion to Jeliot which allows clicker like prediction of parameters and return values in methods using a small android phone application was approved. Yay! After lunch I have a meeting with the MSc student who is working on the application and Jeliot extensions. He is done with the prototype, we are on track to clean up the code, port the mobile application to a real phone from the simulation environment, and do some classroom evaluation in spring of 2011. The rest of the afternoon is eaten up with writing a course evaluation report for the course I taught in the autumn, providing a perspective on the student course evaluation is important, but it also takes quite a lot of time. At 4pm it is time to head off to school and look at the kids Christmas show, they have all made Christmas decorations and small "Jultomtar". We stood in the snow in the school yard eating pepparkakor and drinking gloegg. Current temperature -12 C. About 5pm my wife heads off to a work Christmas dinner, and I head home to make Pizza with the kids. 9pm, kids are in bed, and the last thing on my list for today is to finalise the Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge document review that I volunteered for, not realising that the document is over 600 pages. Well, I have read a few chapters over the last few weeks, and I light a fire in the library and sit down to read some more and write the review. 12:30, I wake up with the laptop on my knee, and realise that I will have to complete the review tomorrow, time for bed. 244 Dear Diary.... What a day! Minus 26 centigrade today, not helped by the fact that I am starting to realise that I took on too much (again) this year. Just now I feel like I just attend meetings and run from one thing to another, masses still to do this week before the school spring break skiing with the family in the northerly parts of Sweden. Today began with an interview at home with the head of the cleaning firm that cleans our house, a symptom of the times that both of us work so much that we feel that we never have time to clean properly. However, the service is expensive, and we felt that we were not getting value for money, thus an interview with one of the managers of the company. Hope that this results in a better experience. Rushed out of the house at 09:30 to head into town to teach a class in my project course at 10:15. Arrived on time and had a nice two hour session talking about team roles, team dynamics, communication climate (was able to weave in some of Lecia Barker's work). The final discussion was on decision making in team projects, where I had the students break into small groups and talk about their personal experiences so far in the project course. After that I went directly to a lunch meeting where teachers and students gathered to discuss this term's and next term's courses in one of the interdisciplinary degree programmes we run. This was a nice example of how teacher student collaboration and open discussion can lead to improvements for the courses and a better educational experience for everyone. After that at 13:00 a quick meeting on a technical project I am currently working on with one of my students to increase classroom interactivity for Jeliot3 using an android app to provide clicker like feedback (check out http://www.it.uu.se/research/group/upcerg_new/projects/ICT_prog :-) ) for more details. Yes I know I just gave up being anonymous ;-) 14:00- 14:30 A discussion with an MSc thesis student on his thesis writeup. 14:30-15:00 Handing out webcams to project students. 15:00-16:00 Planning some pedagogical project kickoff activities with a colleague, and also reading some chapters of a PhD thesis for a colleague who should defend his thesis in April. 16:10-16:40 writing this report, and now home to spend some time with family. Still have about 700 FIE 2011 abstracts to review before 27th Feb, 3 papers to review, and an expert evaluator report to write before Friday. Might have to spend some time on one or other of those acitvities tonight after dinner ;-) 244 8:00 kids dropped off at school, and now time to get back home to work. Have decided to work at home and try to sketch out the rest of a paper I am working on. 8:30 made the mistake of starting to read e-mail over coffee at home :-( of course there are suddenly several urgent things that I need to take care of. 9:00 - 11:30 Worked on setting up course information to address student uncertainty in one of my project courses. Hope this will work out well now. 11:30 had lunch 12:30 worked with conference organisation issues for a conference committee I am chairing in the USA. 14:00 done with the conference and start to think about my paper. The challenge is to write a paper that draws on several related areas of research, learning models (specifically PBL), learning theory (conceptual change theory) and constructive alignment principles to make an argument about how this type of research can inform and guide instructional design to help scaffold learners in the development of professional skills in engineering. 16:30 time to head off to get the kids from school, down tools, well really I spent most of the previous two hours reviewing literature I have collected as background to this paper, so I still really have not started to write, just trying to manage to get my preliminary thoughts and intuitions backed up and identify useful citations from the literature. 17:15 back home and cooking dinner, I guess no more work today, have made a decision not to work as much in the evenings. 244 8am Drop kids at school. 9am Drove into town, filled up the car with petrol and put it through the car wash, there was quite a queue, so this took nearly 40 minutes. While waiting I thought about what I was going to say at 10:15 at the board meeting. I am one of the names proposed for "Prefekt" of the IT department. I'm not quite sure it is a role I want, since it will involve a lot of work, though there are opportunities to help with the strategic development of the department. In any case, at 10am the three of us who are nominated for the position will make 10 minute presentations to the Department Board. I decided that I would divide my presentation into three main parts Background/Relevant Experience, Reasons for accepting the Nomination, and Vision. 11am. Presentations are over. Hmm, interesting, I went into the meeting thinking that the other two nominees were much more strongly positioned than I was. After listening to all three talks I am not so sure. The person I thought was a sure fire winner was not as confident as I expected, and did not present as well as I had expected either. This may not bode well, maybe I have a better chance of being elected as "Prefekt" than I thought! Not necessarily a cheerful thought. 11-12:45 consulations with my MSc students about courses to choose for the Autumn. The deadline for online applications for courses is today so there were quite a few of them. 12:45-13:10 Eat a quick lunch 13:15 Lecture in computer networking underway. Today's topic is subnetting of IP addresses, so I get the class involved in a subnetting exercise in small groups. We end up spending 90 minutes on analysing the problem, and most people seem to have understood masking and how to divide up the network address range in a sub-net and host part. Overall I class the session as a success. 15:30 do some end of the week shopping on the way home, and then collect kids, soon time to cook tea. 244 Finally a weekend where I decided to not do much work. Morning was spent working in the garden at home, and afternoon playing with the kids and mowing the lawn. Back to the grind tomorrow. 244 This was the first day of real official work after the summer vacation, and straight back into work with a bang. 9am drop kids at daycare, since school does not start until Wednesday 10am first meeting of the term, talking to an international MSc student about the letter he needs for the migration office for a VISA extension, and then about how to apply for a thesis project. 11am meeting on developing a strategic model for educational excellence of the faculty of technology and natural sciences. The idea is to convince the Faculty Board that subject didactics/educational research is an important component of a long term strategy for staff and educational development. The administrative director of the technical arm of the Uni was there and very positive to the idea, so this might actually get some traction higher up. 12am continuation of discussion on how to link educational development, staff development and encourage innovative teaching and learning practice in the Faculty over lunch. Seemed positive, we are making progress towards a quite unique model of renewable innovative practice and scholarly teaching and learning activity if we can get this off the ground. 13:15 meeting to discuss the development of new educational quality assurance proceses for the IT department. Some good progress here also. 14:15 a meeting on enhancing the democratic imput from international students into the running of the University. We are a group of programme coordinators who are working on this with the financial support of the faculty and also the student unions. Quite exciting. 15:00 back in my ofice trying to write some more on the proposed Faculty model for sustainable educational excellence. 16:30 opps running late to get the kids at school. 23:05 realise that I am really late with my reviews of papers for the next conference I promised to review for, they are due tonight. Drat, five papers to review, I guess I might be up for a few more hours. 245 Arrived @ work @ around 8. Fiddled around with moving electronic files about to help those covering for my study leave. 9.30 went off to all day event sharing teaching good practice arising from some faculty projects. A rather typical event of this type ... Lots of powerpoints ... lots of talking ... a mixture of inspiration (engaging with community organisations) and exasperation (long self concerned presentations). Much concern about food and coffee. Post-it notes. etc etc The door to the building worked only intermittently, sometimes jammed open, making it freezing or at other times keeping out anybody who didnt know the magic words. Im sure this could be turned into a symbol of something to do with HE. Then had a long discussion over coffee in the student union with one of my research students about his project, that was quite inspiring. Felt the project made sense. Then waited a long time for a bus that never came and walked home. (I suspect this is also symbolic of something... probably the state of my career). After tea, had a bit of an argument with another research student on email and read a number of anxiety promoting emails from head of department and others. Loose ends. Started to reply to some of the emails but realised I couldnt finsih the email without doing this or that. The weather has turned unpleasant and everyone is under the pall of the return of students. This period of anticipation (after a long summer of freedom) is more unpleasant than the reality of encountering students, usually rather pleasant and intriguing. 245 I got into work before 8.00 and did admin - ie answered emails. Then had to walk up the hill 15 minutes to give a lecture 9-11. Not a popular timing, from student lateness. The session went quite well, although had a long chat walking back with a student who is disappointed by the other students' lack of engagement. He wants more long chats over coffee discussing things intensely. At the end of the conversation he seemed reassured, but its an interesting question how I could do more to create a context for that intense experience he is after. Aren't we all after that? Then one of my research students doing a presentation to upgrade from Mphil to Phd. Meeting with a student who is trying to write a research proposal to get funding to do a phd. I am not hopeful for her. Was shocked to read the leaks about funding cuts for HE. Looked really severe. I was surprised how upset personally I was by this. I suppose in a way it feels like an assualt on one's status as an academic. Probably if you have been in the job for a long time you will feel that status has plummeted for a while, but this was the first time I felt such a loss. I went home on the bus around 3pm. Went for an hour plus run. It felt good, although it rained. Wrote some more emails, chasing people up. The end of a long week. 245 8-9.30 Worked on lecture for the afternoon, ie spent loads of time reordering powerpoints and copying and pasting from past presentations. & (of course) did some photocopying. 9.30-10.30 PGT review. We are resuming our review of PGT, thinking the unthinkable. Trying to work out if there is core curriclum across all our programmes (in plain english- courses). Avoided room naming event. I dont really think rooms should be named after people no one has heard of. It doesnt impart personality to rooms which chiefly look the same as rooms anywhere else on campus. 12.00-13.00 Distressing meeting where research student seemed to get very upset, but couldnt seem to express why. I think she is just struggling with motivation and conviction in her third year. I remember I rather hated supervision meetings doing my own phd. Either the supervisor upset one finding fault OR seemed to say nothing. Yet one invests so much in those meetings. 1.15-1.35 Talked at some students about the film they are trying to make about the digital divide. 2.10-4.00 The lecture. Went well. (I thought). 4.00-5.00 Professional skills session. We talked about networking. 5.00 long wait in cold for bus. In between and before and after: email. 245 Wednesdays were traditionally reserved in the afternoon for sports etc. Therefore all important meetings and lots of more marginal (eg pgt or specialist) teaching gets crammed into Wednesdays. As a result its one of the busiest days. 7.30- 9 Revising teaching 9-12.00 Teaching first part of my usual double (2*2 hour) session. Small class so relatively painless. 12.00-13.00 Guest lecturer. Arrived late, but that allowed us to continue with previous stuff. 13.00-14.00 Student-staff committee 14.00-14.30 Short meeting with research student 14.30-15.00 UG student with query on course work and discussing him looking for work (as also personal tutor). 15.00- Meeting with potential research student planned, but he didnt turn up till about 4.15; creating a gap in which I got various questions from students about some PGT coursework 16.10-16.40 Short meeting with research student 16.40-17.10 Discussion with colleague about extra-curricular academic work for second years 17.30-19.00 Xmas shopping. (Managed to do it for entire family ;-) Oh I love Christmas) 19.15-22.00 Kate Rusby concert. Drifted in and out of this. 245 Got up late ... and found it difficult to concentrate on work. Fiddled with various unimportant admin tasks. Replied to emails. Thought about dissertation topic ideas. Sent out some emails to keep research collaboration ideas ticking over. Went for a run after 1pm and then took the bus to visit a photo exhibition in the city art gallery, then we came home had fish & chips and watched four episodes of Sex & the City (season 5). 245 I am on study leave (it started last week). I spent the whole day reading a book. I realize I have been so busy for the last five years that I haven't really read that much or properly. My usual advice to students to read journal articles now seems wrong! Went for a run. Went to a meeting of the local history and conservation society in the evening. 245 Am on study leave. Writing a paper in the morning. Meeting of the social theory reading group within our Faculty. As ever a rather small and select group. I think the habit of filling time with bits of work is very deeply ingrained from the pressures of working in academe, but its an unhelpful approach when you actually have a good block of time to read and think. I expect by the time I have unlearned this way of using time I will be back at work. 245 I think I have finally learned what study leave is about and am trying to shut out other calls on time. 245 Unusually for me I did little work today. Was visiting my parents. Did spend some time reviewing a student's draft thesis on the train home. Not a bad effort. Also looked at other draft chapters and flicked through some of the material for our social theory reading group. Proved a good diversion from train delay worries. 245 Assorted meetings with masters students about their dissertations, PhD students. Meeting about REF.High angst levels. 245 I worked at home in the morning, writing up a summary of recent reading. Took the bus in to town and got a hair cut. Met two students about their dissertations and talked to a PhD student about when she can hand in. Ran home - was pretty stiff and it felt hard. 246 Wednesdays are my busy days. I taught a web development course (mainly reviewed for the upcoming exam), CS1 (facilitated a lab converting flow charts to C++), and graphical user interface programming (gave implementation hints on an upcoming project). I also managed to play basketball at lunch. Now I'm exhausted, but I've got some contract work to wrap-up, and in a few hours I'll be rounding up the kids and taking them to church for our mid-week get-together. I've been somewhat concerned recently that my students might be a little intimidated by me. My wife says that I just have that way about me at times. I have a decent rapport with some of my students, but some of them are so introverted that I find it challenging to engage them outside of class. It doesn't help that I'm somewhat introverted myself. When I was younger and single, I used to invite my students over periodically to play video games at my house. Those were always a big hit. Now that I'm married with children, I haven't opened up my home to students in years. I've decided today that I need to start inviting my students over periodically to establish a better relationship with them outside of the classroom. When students are invited into a professor's home, I think it helps them know on a deeper level that their professors really do care about them. So today I invited three of my classes to come over on a Thurs evening for chili and to watch "Tron", one of my favorite movies that is also well-loved by many computer geeks. When I announced this opportunity to my classes, I saw quite a few faces light up. We'll see how it goes. Oh, one of my CS1 freshmen added me as a friend on Facebook today, despite the fact that he received one of the lowest exam scores two days ago. At least he doesn't hold a grudge. :-) 246 I got up earlier than I normally do because our department has a computing seminar every Friday at 7am. Our students absolutely love getting up before the sun makes its appearance. ;-) Today's seminar was a little different than our traditional seminar. Instead of one of our graduating seniors giving a technical talk, a 2004 graduate came back to talk about how to be a successful programmer. I think his advice really got the students' attention since he closer to their age and has gone through what they are about to go through when they enter the workforce. The entire department enjoyed a nice breakfast together with our alumnus and his wife. I attended chapel at 9am with 4000 of our undergraduates, and one of our History faculty members gave a memorable talk about being a child of God. The singing was excellent. I gave an exam at 10am to my Internet Development course. I've only graded the first two pages, and it looks like most of them have done alright. No one left the room in tears, so that's always good. ;-) At 11am I led my CS1 students in a lab where they completed a tic-tac-toe game that I had partly coded for them. This assignment is the first to combine arrays and functions, so it's usually pretty challenging. None of the teams were able to complete it in class, but I've given them until Tues to finish it. At noon I played basketball like I normally do on MWF. We had exactly 10 guys which meant lots of playing and no waiting. Just wish I hadn't missed those two easy shots. After grabbing a quick lunch in the student center, I taught my 2pm GUI class about how to rename nodes in a .NET TreeView control. Unfortunately, I strayed from my script a little and tried to shown them how to do something that I thought was very simple to do, and it didn't work the way I expected. I was totally astounded why my code wasn't working. I was frustrated, but I used it as a teachable moment. "Sometimes your professors run into coding problems, so who do we go to? Google!" I showed them how to search online for the problem, and we found a few possible solutions. I think it's helpful to show students how to problem-solve using a search engine, but I'll never forget the comment I got a few years ago from a student who dinged me on a teacher evaluation because he thought me using Google in class showed ignorance. Oh well. Now I'm back in my office for office hours. I don't usually have any students stop by on Friday afternoons, so I'll probably get some stuff done. I've got a pile of exams to grade, and I really want to figure out that coding problem! I'll shoot to be home by 5:30 so I play with the boys before putting them to bed at 8pm. Then my wife and I will enjoy some peace and quiet. 246 This morning started early as my lingering cough and sick kids got me up much earlier than I wanted to. I was at school by 8am and started frantically on my Android tutorials that I had to submit by the end of the day to Google Code University. I had a lot more to work to do, so I rushed through prep time for my other courses. I got the tutorials finished just in time to join the family for dinner. However, I didn't get anything else done today except teaching. In my CS1 course, I handed back an exam where half the student did well (75% or better), and the other half flunked. I thought I would be gracious and have a special programming day tomorrow where the students could earn back half of the points they lost... it would give everyone some much needed practice and ease a few minds that were worried about their F. I was surprised that three of the students who failed did not show up for class. How do you expect to learn when you don't show up on the day we go over the exam answers? I suppose F students aren't usually the brightest. We talked about creating login pages in my web development course and Java SWT in my GUI course. I also played some basketball at noon. Last week I caught a couple of students cheating in my CS1 course on a project. One student copied a program off the web and then allowed another student to copy from him. The second student, let's call him Bob, is the same student who added me as a Facebook friend in my first entry... just checked, and I'm not his "friend" anymore. What a surprise. ;-) Today I filed the official academic misconduct papers. Bob came by my office this afternoon to sign the form, but he was still unapologetic. The other student still hasn't apologized either. I'm really worried about what this says about their character. At least I didn't have 200 of my students cheat on their exam like they did at UCF last week! 246 This is final examination week, so I spent most of my morning preparing a final exam and most of my afternoon proctoring one. Overall my students seem to be doing fine. Looks like I'll only have to flunk 2 students, but many are getting A's. I had one student today who somewhat surprised me by showing up for the final. He hasn't come to class in over a week, he failed to turn in his final project, and he's ignored my emails. After the final I asked him what was going on, and he confessed he was in a serious funk and couldn't get motivated to do anything. He's married with a small child, so at least I know there is someone at home who is looking out for him. He assured me he was getting help for the problem. I sure hope he means it. I get a little down at the end of the semester, perhaps because I miss teaching and I miss interacting with the students. On the other hand, I can get so much done if I just get up the will-power to do so. There's nothing more motivating though than knowing you will be standing in front of a classroom the next day and will be expected to "perform". My wife and boys surprised me by coming by the office to join me for lunch... that always cheers me up. I better get back to grading. I'd be done with it except that I keep taking little breaks to play WordFeud on my Droid X phone. Argh... I hate grading. :-) 246 The spring semester starts up again on Tuesday. I've been at the office all this week preparing for my Web Science course, and although I did not get as much accomplished as I wanted to, I'm at least prepared for the first week. I'm far enough ahead that I will not be coming into the office today... I want to spend time with my boys and wife and spend as little time worrying about the upcoming semester as possible. I look forward to starting the semester although I have to admit that I've gotten quite comfortable with my laid-back schedule, and it will be hard to say goodbye to it. 246 This was an incredibly busy day, yet I don't feel like I got just a whole lot accomplished. I finished a review of a paper yesterday for a workshop, and this morning I saw that someone who was much more experienced in the area shot down what I thought was a decent paper. It's a little embarrassing when you don't see the wholes in a paper that someone else does. God is always looking for ways to keep me humble. After dropping my son off at school, I answered a ton of email, attended chapel, and then busily prepared for my Web Science course. I was going to collect a homework assignment from the class today, but I got an email from one of my students asking for some clarification about the homework. After looking at the assignment for a while, I found a problem with it that I hadn't seen before... I worked on the problem for quite some time before I decided that I'd have to clarify some things for my students in class and give them another few days to work on the problem. I hate to do this to my students, but sometimes stuff like that just happens. I ended up working through lunch getting ready for my classes, and then I had to sit through a practice seminar with one of my students. His presentation had quite a number of problems, but I didn't have enough time to go over the numerous problems before having to run off to class. I hope he's at least able to correct some of the major deficiencies I noted before I left. I gave a make-up exam while I taught one of my afternoon classes. The student was sick yesterday, but I didn't have any time today when I could monitor him taking the exam, so I just put him in an empty classroom while I taught and hoped he was not cheating. After my afternoon classes, we had a campus-wide faculty meeting to discuss whether or not we should allow students to take a maximum load of 20 or 21 hours. It was one of those issues that 99% of us could care less about, so the resolution quickly passed, and the meeting ended up being far shorter than usual. Thank goodness for my Droid which allowed me to reply to a number of emails during the meeting... hope that wasn't too distracting to those sitting around me. Now I've got just enough time to crank this out before leaving for the day! Looks like my un-read stack of papers and un-graded exams will have to wait until tomorrow. 246 This week is spring break, so all the students are out having a good time, and the faculty is scrambling to catch up. First thing after getting up with my kids, I had to deal with a personal issue regarding some close friends. Then I went to help a local charity load a shipping container bound for Africa until lunch time. Finally I made it to the office where it felt like I had a million things to do, all of them equally important. I finally settled into getting caught up on my email, sending out some last minute information to my Android workshop attendees (I led a workshop at a conference last week) and grading an exam. Oh, and I had to deal with a student who submitted a very poor senior research paper... I told him to add to it or take a huge hit on his grade. I really don't know what I'd do without a spring "break". 246 Last night we had a horrendous wind storm that knocked down trees all over town. I arrived on campus at 6:30 am to discover half of the campus was without power, including our entire Science building where we were supposed to have our senior computing seminar at 7 am. Thankfully one of my colleagues had arrived a little earlier than I did and was running from building to building to find a place for us to have our seminar. He finally found an open classroom in the Ganus Athletic Center across campus, so I staked out a spot just outside our Science building where I could direct our students across campus. The seminar went fine although it started a little late and had a smaller crowd than usual. The computing faculty grabbed some breakfast after seminar, and our chairman was able to join us since his 8 am class was canceled due to the power outage. It was nice to visit, and we saw a number of other faculty enjoying their morning off as well. The power didn't come on until 10 am, but thankfully I had plenty to work on that did not involve a computer until that time. My first class wasn't until 11 am, so the power outage affected me very little. However, one of my colleagues gave an exam audibly in the lobby (which has large windows) since he wasn't able to make copies of his exam. And I heard another faculty was holding a candle up to the white board as he wrote notes on it... I'm sure the students loved that! I had rolled my ankle on Wednesday and therefore did not play basketball at noon like I usually do. Instead I worked worked through lunch, grading the exams I had given the day before, and I worked on preparing another exam that I was giving at 2 pm. After giving the 2 pm exam, I was a little annoyed that one of my student had not shown up for the exam. I have a strict policy that says if you are unable to attend the day of an exam, you must contact me *before* the exam via email or voice mail or some means. I didn't hear from him all day. As I was about to leave my office at 5 pm, I sent him an email asking why he missed the exam. I got back a reply a few hours later saying he lost track of time and didn't realize it until 20 minutes into the exam. He figured he would wait until Monday and see if I'd give him the exam before class. I have to admit I was quite angry that this student thought he could just skip, not say a thing, and then show up on Monday and expect me to give him the exam. He is a freshman, so I suppose he's just starting to learn that college doesn't work like high school. I've decided to give him the exam on Monday, but I will subtract 30% from his final score. I hope that decision lies evenly between justice and mercy. This afternoon my parents drove into town for a short visit. We are going to celebrate my oldest son turning four on Saturday, and Becky and I had a faculty/staff dinner to attend tonight. It's nice to have parents who enjoy watching their grandchildren! At the faculty/staff dinner tonight I was awarded one of the eight Distinguished Teacher Awards for the school year. It came with a rather sizable check. My wife knew I was receiving the award, but I had no idea, so it was quite a shock to hear my name being read! We joked that my career has peaked. Maybe it's time to change careers and go work for Google. ;-) 246 I just finished grading the last of my final exams. Yesterday was our spring graduation, and usually I'm finished turning in my grades before the ceremony. This has been an unusually busy semester, however, because my family and I will be spending all of it at Harding's study abroad program in Athens, Greece. It's amazing how much effort goes into preparing for such a long trip, especially with two little boys (age 4 and 1). Thankfully my wife is gifted with excellent organizational skills, and we'll be catching our flight early in the morning (Lord willing). I'll be teaching two courses in Athens and my wife one. The semester in general finished very well. It was nice to see another group of graduates smiling so big as they passed a major milestone in their life yesterday. One great thing about academia is that you get to see new students each year and congratulate a group which is about to go apply all they've been learning the past four years. 246 This summer I've been teaching Speech Communication and the Life of the Apostle Paul this summer in our university's Athens program. These subjects are a little out of my subject area as a computer science professor, but I have enjoyed teaching them and have learned a lot. I have made extensive use of PowerPoint presentations and exam questions that others have written for the exam, so I am very thankful for the time these have saved me. Today my family and I are traveling with our 32 college students in Israel. We don't have classes while we're traveling because each day is already packed with an exhausting amount of touring. Yesterday we toured around Jerusalem, and today we visited the Judean Lowland where we visited a number of places like the Beth-Guvrin (house of the Nephilim), Ela Valley, the archeological site of Beth Shmemsh, and walked along the Emmaus Road to the Dome of Silence. It's been fascinating visiting some of the places where Jesus once was, and it's very eye-opening to see the collision of the world's largest religions in such a small geographical location. This is our last big trip-- the other trips were to Egypt and all around Greece. This summer has been an amazing educational experience for me and my students. And to think that I am not having to pay a cent to experience all this... I love being a college professor! 246 Our fall semester starts one week from today. I should be panicked considering all that needs to be done between now and then, but I've gone through this process so many times now that I really don't worry about it much. As long as I'm ready for day 1, it will all be OK. Today was mainly about getting the office clean, planning my daily fall schedule, writing my syllabi, wrapping up loose ends on a research project, and playing basketball with friends I hadn't seen all summer. After being in Greece all summer, it feels good to get back to a more normal schedule. 249 Wednesdays are my busy days this semester. It is surprising to me that until the semester starts, you don't really know which days will be the busiest. I only have one additional independent study on Wednesdays, as compared to say Mondays or Fridays, but it seems to put me over the edge. That and perhaps the mid-week stress and strain. I got in just before 9am, as usual, spent about 40 minutes putting the finishing touches on a homework that I would assign in my 11am Computer Organization class. I had identified most of the problems yesterday, a few more last night, and knew I could draw on a homework for the remaining few from a previous semester. Thankfully I had enough time to not only type up and print the homework, but also rough out the solution - it's always better to assign problems that I have actually done - it helps me to know they're do-able by the students and also to clarify in the problem statement if something needs clarifying (which in this case, several problems did). I finished that at 9:45 or so, with 15 min to spare before my Independent Study meeting. I looked up on the spreadsheet I keep what the student should be handing in, and what material we would go over today. I had just enough time to skim the material before he came. He didn't have his work to hand in and wasn't as prepared as I expected, so we discussed a few concepts he wanted more information about/help with, and then he left about 20 min early - so, a bonus 20 min before my next class! Except for a few minutes to update the spreadsheet for the Independent Study. Since I was already prepared for that class (including: graded homework and solution, new homework, extra reading to go with today's topic, and PowerPoint for today's topic, which is a topic that I didn't cover last year), I skimmed important homework (a friend of mine had her baby!!!) and started looking at my next class, which I was not at all prepared for but that I knew would be pretty similar to last years'. I pulled up last year's PowerPoint and also the in-class exercises sheet and started looking at it, before my Google calendar warned me it was time to go to class. Computer Organization class was good, lots of questions and some interaction. It's funny though how I can see the point at which most of the class just checks out. This class is 1 hour 15 min long, and at about 55 min their eyes start glazing over. Today I needed the whole 75 min, and they did perk up at the end when we started talking about the 1-bit ALU they need to design a virtual circuit for by Friday. Class ended, then I have 75 min to my next class, Introduction to Programming. I changed up the slides and in-class exercises, remembering from last year what students found more and less difficult, adding more info here and there. Then I realized too late that I needed to assign their next homework today! Whoops. I pulled up last years' but it needed too much work for this year - I don't like to assign the same homework year to year so students can't just blatantly copy (although I do some just out of my own time limits), but last year's program for this homework, which includes Boolean conditions, Ifs and loops, was too difficult and there was a lot of confusion. So I went to class and confessed that I didn't quite get the next homework ready for them but I would post it later today and send them an email. After class, which went well, back to my office where I had a student waiting for me for office hours. A Computer Organization student, she told me this morning she would come to my office hours today. We have an exam next week and she had some misconceptions about different negative integer representations as well as some of the Boolean logic proofs. We had a great 1-1 session, but it lasted from 3 to 5:15pm. Then I made up and posted my Introduction to Programming homework, and sent the email, now it's 6pm. NOW I can carefully go through my email. Flagged some things for another day, responded to some things, and left work at almost 7pm. I would have stayed later, but was so hungry I wasn't bring productive - you may have noticed in my narrative there was no time for lunch today! Thankfully I don't need to work tonight since I don't have anything that HAS to be done by tomorrow morning. So I went home, ate, had a beer (which tasted oh-so-good!) spent time with family, and went to bed early - I have been very tired lately and felt like I needed the sleep - although by the time I actually got to bed it was only about 15 min earlier than usual. Oh well, will try for more sleep tomorrow, or catch up on the weekend. 250 Today was like many days in the recent past, with the notable exception of writing a diary entry. I've been meaning to chronicle this year, but none of that has happened until today. As is my normal schedule, I visit the gym for a vigorous workout before arriving on campus. As an Acting Chair, I've not been freed (or perhaps, I haven't freed myself) of extra (extra from the point of view of being chair) activities. There is the danger of not being chair next year. So, I acknowledge my over-committed schedule of keeping up my prior level of service and research while taking on the Chair's responsibilities. From the moment I'm in my office it is a juggling act. I spend a few moments in my office signing forms, and catching up with the events that have occurred in my absence. Spending time at the gym keeps me off campus during the first 1 to 1.5 hours of normal business hours. At 10:00 I intend to make my way over to the library for a meeting. I didn't actually get out the building until about 10:15, but that leaves sufficient time to get to the library and have a chat with the Engineering-Librarian. From 10:30 until 11:15 it's a meeting with a faculty member in another degree program. I'm half of a two-person interview team performing a part of an internal program review. We ask the faculty what are the points of pride and opportunities for improvement. The subject is relaxed and has many good and many insightful things to say. After the meeting I spent a few minutes debriefing with my interview partner. The meeting and debriefing are rewarding. This is a chance to have an impact. A chance to get to know the University community better. A short walk through another building affords me the opportunity to grab a small pizza on the way back to my office. The pizza is 1/2 eaten by the time I am back in my office. This eating in motion is a time-utilization technique employed to make the most of every in-office minute. I spend the next 20 minutes on the phone with an adjunct faculty discussing the spring semester teaching schedule. She wants to teach a course, but at a different day/time. This will be difficult to make happen. Any course changes for the spring should happen immediately as the students are already being advised. I spend the next 30 to 45 minutes playing catchup with email messages and impromptu meetings with students. Several of the email messages are related to the summer teaching schedule. Beginning about 12:00, sequestered myself to concentrate on the lecture to be delivered at 13:30. About 60 minutes of that time was focused on 38 powerpoint slides and making improvements to them. Shortly before class, a graduate assistant, who maintains laboratory equipment dropped by to talk about a specific problem. Fifteen minutes later I'm walking with him to the copy machine to make copies of the powerpoint slides for class and finish our conversation. I arrive in class a few minutes late. I deliver the lecture and finish exactly (by my watch) at the prescribed time. It doesn't always work out that way. I'm frequently stopping a few minutes early to avoid a deeper topic from ending prematurely, or accidentally going over time by a few minutes. After class I spend 15 minutes in the classroom answering questions about a research paper the students are reading. When I arrive at my office (just down the hall) a faculty member is waiting to talk to me. Though I have an appointment for a student to talk about a research project, the student is absent and the conversation with the faculty member begins. Fifteen minutes later the faculty conversation is done and the student comes in. An hour of fruitful discussion of the research topic brings me close to the close of business. As the secretary is leaving, another student arrives for an discussion about University, but not classroom issues. Though I have a course scheduled for that time, it is a project course and the student teams are working independently. I spend from 16:30 until 18:00 with the student. Back to the email inbox. I spend about an hour catching up with the dozens of email messages ... one of which prompts me to type this. In a short while I'll probably carry my laptop home, only to carry it back to the office in the morning. Tonight (I guess it will be at home), I should review the CVs of the applicants for a position on campus. Presentations are tomorrow. Oh, but wait. There is at least one more email that must be sent today. talk to you next month 250 Friday 15 October 2010 I began the day as I have most recent days, by running 2.25 miles on a treadmill at the local YMCA. Running has been going well. I've be injury free and slowly getting faster and adding distance to my runs. Following my run, I had an appointment with my primary-care doctor (physician). After waiting a while (maybe 25 minutes) in the exam the doctor arrived for the checkup. The appointment was just a follow up from having reduced the number of blood pressure medications I am on. As he always does, he listened to my heart and lungs, and pressed on my liver. His report: blood pressure is good; follow-up in 6-months; keep up the running and weight loss. Given my recent appointment to Acting Department Chair, it is remarkable that the new source of stress has not increased my blood pressure. I am sleeping relatively well and not tempted to eat a lot of sweets. I give all that credit to the running. I went to the post office to send a package to my daughter on my way to campus. I arrived on campus (about 11am) and immediately checked to see if the Dean was available for a meeting. I needed to follow-up with him about budget issues for the Spring teaching schedule. After about 75 minutes, he agreed to the plan I had proposed, but hesitantly. I had planned to work on Dean Evaluation survey this afternoon. As you will see, that didn't happen at all. Lunch! It's Boss's day and my secretary wants to take me to lunch. What a nice gesture. We had a nice time. The food was fair (university restaurant) but the conversation was good. I met with a junior faculty member to discuss their plans for submitting a (USA) National Science Foundation CAREER Grant. This discussion, scheduled for one hour, took approximately 2.5 hours. The ideas are good. I believe I contributed to the ideas brought by the faculty. Now it's about 4pm and the list of things to do that I carry around with me (mentally and physically) isn't shrinking. I sent an email message to my wife to indicate my plan to work late until 6:30pm and to coordinate meeting at a restaurant for a late evening meal. Fortunately, she agrees. I have (approximately) 15 undergraduate students folders (academic records) on my desk to audit them for graduation eligibility. It doesn't take long. Most students are a minute or less. My secretary has done the tedious part. A couple of students records are not clear. Two or three of them require double checking the online transcript. After completing the checks, I begin to mow down the email and voice mail messages that have accumulated over the course of the day. I try to log into the payment system to approve payments, but I can't. I later learned my password had expired. 15 minutes wasted trying to get that done. Drive to the restaurant and meet my wife. Wine, food, conversation, and sleep conclude the day. 250 Happy (wedding) Anniversary to us. 19 years. Wow. Each day seems to be more busy than the previous. I began the day with the normal trip to the gymnasium for a run. I had planned on two miles, but my body had a shorter run in mind. After completing about 1.3 miles, I quit. The combination of time pressure and lack of energy convinced me to abort. Arriving on campus later than planned, I visited a classroom I would be using for the coming Wednesday's Senior Project presentations on the way into the building. Counting the chairs, I was pleased to learn there are more than 30 seats available. I made my way to the computer system administrators office. He and I meet for 30 to 60 minutes each week, usually on Monday. Today, being Monday, he's expecting to meet. I don't really have the time. We had brief discussions about a) problems we've been having with Moodle, b) problems with the computer club's social website, and c) preparations being made for the coming term. At about 9:45 I've made it to my office to begin last minute preparations for the next meeting: Dean Review Committee. Print a few documents and collect thoughts before walking over to the library for the meeting. At about 10:15 I've made it to the conference room with the key. I pick a strategic place in the room and at the table to be in the middle facing away from the windows. I want to be as near to everyone as I can be, but not distracted. It turns out that being in the middle of the table makes it hard to see everyone, but I don't want to seen as the leader of the discussion. I want to be the facilitator. The meeting goes well. There isn't much in the data (survey results) to cause anyone heartburn. By the data, I think most reasonable people would support retaining the Dean. I'll keep my comments to my self. After that 1.5 hour meeting, I make it back to my office a little after noon to do some last minute prep for class. Unfortunately all the meetings have cut into my class preparation time. Given there is one more meeting today, this time it is even worse. A little before 1pm I am off to another meeting. This one is to hear about another learning management system. These meetings are often more marketing fluff than I care for. Just show me the tool in use. This committee will recommend the tool used by the entire (just about) University for the next few years. It is an important decision. But, I have to leave early to get to class. Class begins at 1:30. I'm probably a few minutes late. I continue to amaze myself by being able to context switch. I haven't taught this class before and haven't put the time into the preparation that it deserves, but I explain the material very well. I have, very unfortunately, moved into the 'sage on the stage' mode of 'delivering' content. There is little interaction in class. After class ends, I run into the laboratory manager for the ECE department. I'm negotiating for some borrowed space for some of the research assistants in my department. This impromptu discussion goes well. 3:00pm - time for the Monday afternoon research meeting. Matt and Chris meet in my office with me. We're making progress on the problem. We've defined a new data structure and related algorithms for solving a specific problem with laser scanner point cloud data. This meeting often runs late. 4:30 off to class. The students are practicing team presentations for their capstone projects. It goes well. 5:45 impromptu meeting with Andy and Susanna 6pm email for the first time 7pm was on the way out the building - Scott Miller 8pm leaving (less than 11 hours on campus) 9pm Panda / home / drop laptop / dinner / paper review 10pm Skype with daughter 10:30 pm didn't do any video work ! ARG! keep plugging away worked on Dean Review statistical report 11:15 give in to sleep .. set the alarm for 5:15 250 Wednesday of exam week - the term is nearly done. Most of the day was spent on administrative activities, but there was some teaching activity and quite a bit of thinking about next term. MS students have a non-thesis option that requires an 'exit exam'. Students attempt four sections. Two of the required sections are Computer Architecture and Operating Systems. Prior to this semester one faculty member handled both of these topics. This semester, with that faculty member on sabbatical, I handled these sections. That means writing and grading them. Writing happened in November. Students took the exam on the Tues. before Thanksgiving. I'm still grading the exams. I need to be done before the 12:30p meeting today. Got it done with 20 minutes to spare. Everyone passed the OS section. Two students failed Arch. The committee meeting tabulating results from the exit exam took about one hour. My one an only final exam (for a course) is tomorrow. I've not finished writing the exam. Though I planned to finish the exam today, it seems the time to finish the exam evaporated. I'll work on it some this evening, but finishing will happen tomorrow. I've got to leave campus early to avoid the coming snow (or will it be ice?). I'm wondering if the University will be closed tomorrow. Maybe I'll get an extra day to finish that exam. Next semester I'll only have one course. I am very tempted to overhaul the order of topics and activities. I would like to load the first half of the semester with more than half of the topics allowing more time at the end for project using the topics. I know I can start off with a revised course, will I have the time to follow through with the revision? Today marks one month since I dropped my laptop. It slipped out of my unzipped backpack as I slung it over my shoulder, unprotected, and landed on a concrete floor. It seems to have survived with only cosmetic damage. I'm typing on it now. 250 Ah, Saturday. I like to sleep a little later. My wife likes to get up and get things done... though I see the value in her agenda, I usually have other things I'd rather be doing (like napping). I agreed to spend an hour with her cleaning up in the garage. So, we did. The result: a full recycle bin, a full rubbish bin, a little more room to walk around, and a commitment to do another hour's cleaning next week. It's been cold. We've been utilizing the fireplace for warmth. The rest of the day was spent with this and that around the house. There is a list of projects partially completed needing attention. No matter what household task has my immediate attention, there are spurious thoughts concerning my Software Engineering course. Though it is the only course I have this term, I fear I will sink too much time in it. The first week of the term is completed. Enrollment is up in almost all CS courses. The enrollment in my course doubled from what it was in December. Curious. Thoughts turn to research projects as well. Two rejections yesterday (not unexpected). A paper due this evening - the second author is polishing it up for submission. Nothing substantial was done around the house. (Time doesn't slow to match my pace.) This evening we spend time with friends at a wine-tasting club meeting. A few bottles of Petite Sirah will entertain about 20 adults for two hours. Good juice, somewhat pricey. Then about 10 of us will go to a restaurant for conversation, food, and more wine. Spent 20 to 30 minutes standing outside the restaurant on the phone with my daughter. Shopping with grandma wasn't any fun. No dress was found and the dance is a week away. Too noisy inside, too cold outside -- not a great conversation. During dinner, biographies I find on the net with my 'smart' phone become fuel for discussions of deceased entertainers. Email from the paper-writing colleague: The submission deadline was really yesterday. Time and effort on three papers and no publications? Fortunately, an early version had been submitted and this conference allows for responses to reviews. Perhaps the revised version of the paper will be useful in a month. 250 Tuesday, 15 February. I don't make a habit of it, but shortly after my wife left the house, I crawled back into bed. A debate was raging in my head: should I make it to class, or should I cancel? I am certain the debate was fueled by the infection in my right middle ear and the drugs for the same. Eventually the decision was reached to go to campus. But what to do in class? Sure I was a little dizzy, but standing (and driving) wasn't too challenging. However, stringing thoughts together seemed challenging, which is why the debate went on for so long. I've already canceled a few class meetings due to the snow. So, I have no lack of material to talk about. However, I don't know what to do today. It's too late to cancel, and I'm still having trouble deciding what to lecture on. Eventually, the plan boils down to this: collect homework, and administer a quiz. At the last minute, I recall an old powerpoint presentation on Capability Maturity Model and the Capability Im-maturity Model. Some of it is a rehash of a reading (reinforcement), and the other part is somewhat humorous. At least is it when it's delivered correctly. So, I go to class. Say too much - can't seem to stop saying 'clever' things. I collect the homework, administer the quiz. Then I try to lecture. It doesn't go well. Students are writing down the 'funny' parts. Quit early and go sit in my office. Time passes, and it's soon time for a research meeting. The participants come to my office. I feel like an outside observer, so much so that I announce that I won't be contributing. Some profound things are said (that's how I remember it). More time passes and it's time for a meeting across campus to talk about how instructional technology might play into the healthcare informatics MS program being developed. An interesting meeting with people who like to talk too much. Eventually, I am tasked with writing a report of the meeting for the Associate Provost. That should be interesting. Back across campus, there is a student waiting for me to talk about getting a waiver for a course pre-requisite so he can graduate a semester earlier. He was mis-advised. After listening to him for a while, and taking a look at his transcript, I agree to allow the waiver. After meeting with the student, I attempt to write the meeting report. I seems as though I've forgotten how to type. Each keystroke is slow and I've become error probe (mistyping about 1/3 of the words). I abandon the effort about one paragraph into the work. At some point, I realize that the ear infection makes decision-making, and typing, much more difficult than normal. Apparently, it also makes me more likely to talk. However, I managed to stay relatively quiet in meetings. Tonight is the School of Engineering Banquet. The faculty who are willing will assemble at the ballroom on campus for an evening of happy thoughts, handshakes, and polite applause. Engineers don't know how to party. This is especially true when the food and the music for the evening is Turkish, but not good. A long day ends. It's a day filled with great efforts gone wrong and little accomplished. Time for some much needed rest. Perhaps tomorrow will go better. 250 Tuesday, March 15th Last week was SIGCSE and Spring Break. So this week is just after a break for the students, but no chance to catch up on things for me. ---- begin digression into Monday, March 14th -------- ---- sorry, but yesterday was way more interesting --- Yesterday was lost to car repairs and an unexpected snow. My car slid off the road in the morning. No damage, but it took two hours of shoveling and salting to drive away. The unplanned off-roading prompted a trip to get car service. Timing belt, brake service, broken motor mounts, and more = $2,700 of work. I didn't make it to campus. Just keeping up with adminis-trivia via email consumed the time I had between getting the wife to work, car to the shop, and renting a car. We spend the night in a hotel to avoid morning snow / traffic. ---- end digression into Monday, March 14th -------- Due to yesterday's events, the wife and I spend the night in a hotel near her office. We're driving a rental car. But, we won't be concerned about a repeat sudden snow event. Thoughts of my class haunt me. The midterm exam in software engineering is set for two days from now; last week was spring break (for the students) - so, what should I try to accomplish in class today? I could forge ahead with new material, after all, we are behind in topics due to several "snow day" cancellations earlier this term. I want to forge ahead, but the students, most certainly, will be focused on the exam. So I decided not to introduce new material, and will spend the class period trying to get them to reflect on the first half of the semester. It might even help make the rest of the semester go better. I chauffeur the wife to work and get to campus a little later than I had hoped. I spent the first hour on campus dealing with email and adminis-trivia. There is always a pile of documents that need my signature. There are frequently electronic documents for me to review and authorize. (payroll, key control, activity reports, book orders, student graduation checks, p-card transactions, ...) At 10am the Chancellor gave his 'state of the uni' speech. I went to be seen (and hear). He usually gets to the point and covers the bases. He announced good news about budgets and possible merit pay increases - this was a surprise, a pleasant surprise. I left the Chancellor's presentation early to make it to software engineering. I gave the class a "study guide" that listed many topics. I brought an old exam to show them the format and to read some actual questions to them. We spent about 45 minutes talking about course/exam topics. The last portion of the class period was used by the students to form teams for the upcoming group project. Three teams were created by the end of the day. After class I met quickly with a student who had a pre-req problem. Shortly thereafter, I had an appointment with a student who is a dual major criminal justice and computer science. We spent some time mapping out how to finish the CS degree. He is a senior in CJ and a sophomore in CS. Interesting fellow. From that meeting I quickly transitioned into the regular research meeting for 'point-cloud processing'. We are putting the final touches on a paper accepted at a conference (yeah!). We talked about future work and publication ideas. Since January, I count 1 paper accepted, 1 poster submission, 5 papers that are likely to be submitted this year, and 6 more paper ideas in some state of work/completion. Three papers are due in 15 days. (I've got to keep this short, I've got a lot to do in the next two weeks) After the research meeting, I spent some time with a visitor to the department. The tour of labs and chatting was an investment of about 1.5 hours. Hopefully this was a wise investment. From meeting with the visitor, I moves to another research meeting. This meeting includes discussions of two of the papers due in two weeks. So, I make it to 5pm and I've barely been in my office. Thus, there is no midterm exam written for Thursday and there is a collection of email waiting for me. Since we have a car in the shop and the weather has been chancy, I've got to pick my wife up to get us home. She emailed to say to pick her up from a restaurant about 8:30pm. This is great news, I can work on the email pile until about 7:45pm before leaving for my chauffeur gig. I work until about 8pm, primarily answering and sending email messages, and then leave to get us home. Probably make it to bed about midnight. Better set the alarm early, I hope to make it to the gym tomorrow. (but it didn't happen) --- begin a bit about Wed. 3/16 --- Went to dry cleaners. Picked up the car. Went to campus. Much of the day is spent in informal and formal meetings. Blah. More email. Blah. I began working on the midterm exam around 10:30pm. Based heavily on a combination of prior midterm exams, it wasn't finished when I went to bed about 1am. 250 Even though I've been on campus more than 60 hours already this week, the alarm rings at 5am. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I did not move at 5. I arose at 6, a more normal time for me. The loss of the hour meant I would not get my exercise today. <outline> with intentions of working on this later A quick shower and off to campus. There isn't much time before senior project presentations. Walk over to university center Meet industrial representatives Work on scheduling student evaluation of teaching during presentations. Lunch with industry and faculty More senior presentations Research office. Work with grants person on the million dollar idea. Back to my office. I still haven't finished the Spring 2012 teaching schedule. Tornado watch Leaving campus. I don't think I'm off by much in reporting that I'd been on campus about 70 hours this week. Sushi dinner </outline> 250 Sunday This Sunday is a bit atypical in terms of weather. Recently, the weather is more like November than May. It's cold and wet. It's been raining pretty much all weekend and more is expected today. None of that cold and damp stuff makes getting out of bed particularly appealing. The typical Sunday morning routine involves coffee and some quiet time. Other than a slow start, this Sunday begins on that normal routine; except, the recent acquisition of an iPad has my wife and I playing some game early on this Sunday. Time passes. We both sing in the choir at church on Sunday mornings, so we're on a schedule. I've recently been moved back to the bass section after about five years in the tenor section. Neither move was my idea. I guess it's good to be flexible. We practice / warm-up beginning about 45 minutes before Mass. In other words, our Sunday morning commitment is about 2 hours. Usually, about half of the choir has breakfast together at a neighborhood bagels-and-coffee place. It's after noon when we get home. The plan for the day includes working on a newel post and cooking Mirliton (Chayote)and Shrimp casserole. I've been working on a renovation of the staircase for (what my wife claims is 2.5) years. The problem is that I'm a perfectionist when it comes to the carpentry. I've replaced the tread and risers with solid oak. One newel stands with a temporary handrail (secure, not pretty), but there are no balusters. We're between terms. No classes last week, no classes this week. Summer term starts in eight days. I'll be teaching in the summer term. On Friday I came across a list of 60-second videos for university courses. Today I'm thinking about creating a series of 60-second videos for my data structures course - perhaps one per chapter. I'm also considering using algorithm tools for explaining data structures and algorithms. All told I probably spend between one and three hours sketching some plans and thinking about these non-traditional teaching techniques. The casserole turned out OK. I burnt something along the way, but it didn't totally destroy the dish. I glued together the frame for two faces of a newel post. There is more to do - both with the stair project and the course design. But I didn't work too hard on either this day. 251 9:35 Day started a bit rocky; alarm failed so i woke up 10 mins before physical therapy appointment. Zoomed out. 9:45-10:30, physical therapy, then back home. 11:30 - 12:45 commute to work 12:50 - 1:20 met with honors student who wants to do a project as add-on to my OO programming course. we discussed, decided on a scheduling program for debate competitions to be done as a constraint satisfaction problem. 1:20-1:40 met with lecturer in department to discuss how to use software in his lectures given application not installed in room. 1:40-1:45 Discussed schedule change with colleague for her spring course. 1:40-2:15 Ate lunch at desk while reading email. 2:15-2:45 Went over recent panel review of one of my proposals; sent reviews to a collaborator. 3:00-4:15 Met with student and 2 colleagues for demo of system that checks graduation requirements and generates approval forms so students get their degrees. Discussed what features are still needed, sent student off with tasks. 4:15 - 6:00 work on my course: update/upload syllabus and schedule, edit this week's lab exercise and homework assignment for friday distribution. 6:00 - 7:30 commute home 252 730-8. Have to get to class 1/2 hour early now to set up the technology: unlock cabinet, connect laptop to projector, turn on projector, turn on laptop, make sure wireless is working, start up the software to be used in class, etc. Luckily this is fairly routine so I can reflect on class while doing it. 8-930. Teach a section of data structures. There should be about 15 students in this class, but several prefer to attend the afternoon section, so there are 8 or 9 -- a luxury to teach such a small class. Starting Stacks today. 930-1115. Worked with two students on the program that was due yesterday evening (still acceptable with a late penalty). Amazing how much difference you can make working with people one-on-one. 1115-1220. Reminder emails and paperwork to set up lunch for our four scholarship students in computing (2 freshmen, 2 sophomores). In the end only one student shows up -- not much of a networking opportunity! Always difficult to arrange any kind of event for our students, so many of them are working full-time in addition to taking a full course load. Will try to reschedule. 1220-1250. Lunch with the one of the students who showed up. 1250-130. Reading paper and algorithms text in preparation for meeting with honors student. 130-2. Chatting with colleague. 2-320. Research meeting with honors student. 320-340. Personal (break for phone calls). 340-540. Teach second section of data structures. Again there early to set up, not so much time as this morning. For some reason, this class went slightly slower than the morning section, so they're now out of synch. Maybe because it's a larger group. Our sections are capped at 24; between the two sections, about 40 students are registered for this fall. A substantial increase over 2-3 years ago. 540-615. Chat with students and colleagues about work-related topics: a new independent study in cloud computing, a planned course in concurrency for Spring 2012, etc. Catch one of the students who missed lunch earlier and discuss re-scheduling. 615-730. Grading; email to students. 730: done for the day. 252 Not teaching today, so can sleep in a bit. Chronically sleep deprived this semester due to 8 am class. 930-10 Email 10-1030 Preparing for meeting. One of our alumni has agreed to be interviewed for my current research project. This is also an opportunity to see how things are going with him seven years after graduation and to explore the possibility of internships for current students. Need to find and print out consent form and interview script. 1030-11. Travel time. 11-2. Meeting with alum. He's working in a small software company in a renovated old mill building -- beautiful space. Interview goes well. In addition, it's encouraging to see that he's been very successful -- says he's making more than he ever thought he would, and has contributed significantly to the company. The president of the company is on our External Advisory Board, and I also get a chance to meet with him briefly. Both of them are very willing to have students shadow an employee for a day and to hire interns. 2-230. Travel time. 230-630 Personal time. 630-730 Email. 730-830 Working on reimbursement paperwork for conference. A tricky job. Finally have assembled all the receipts I can find, written a budget and a cover letter, and filled out the forms. Still need to xerox everything, but copy center is closed, so that will have to wait until tomorrow. 830: done for the day. 252 Our semester normally starts the third week in January, which would normally be next Tuesday, but for some reason it's starting the following week this year. So the last-minute pressure to get ready for the first day of classes has not yet begun. Still have the leisure to work on longer projects (or relax). Put in a couple of hours today on email, largely about (1) a conference I'm organizing (2) a scholarship program I'm directing (one of the students has been dropped due to low grades, and we're all hoping she can bring her grades up this semester and get re-admitted, trying to arrange tutoring for her, etc.) (3) my honors student who is doing a very interesting thesis about which he's been reading a lot, but, alarmingly, not doing much coding ... Another couple of hours on the report for our accrediting agency. Like nearly all US colleges and universities, we are accredited, that is, given a stamp of approval by a regional nonprofit organization. Part of gaining and keeping this accreditation is having a team of volunteers, usually colleagues from other colleges and universities, visit once every ten years. Before the visit, it's necessary to prepare a report, strictly limited to 100 pages, covering all aspects of the college, including organizational structure, finances, academic programs offered, how assessment is done, student support services, etc. Accreditation is important symbolically, but also in very concrete ways: for example, students at non-accredited institutions cannot qualify for certain types of loans. We've been working on this report for over a year now, and the visit is scheduled for October 2011. 21 committees have each submitted drafts of portions of the report. I'm co-chairing the writing of the report with a colleague from another department, and much of this winter break has been taken up with revising and editing these drafts and trying to get them down to the page limit. The next step is to combine the individual chapters into a single document. Sadly, it all has to be done in Microsoft Word, since that's what everyone knows. Which means that tomorrow is going to be spent attempting to format a 100-page document in Word. Just opening a document of that length and saving it takes seconds every time, and the templates are much harder to work with (and less effective) than I could have imagined. Why does this software have the reputation of being usable? Getting back to education: why are the software tools we use so flawed, and why do people tolerate such flawed software, when it could easily be better? 253 6:45am-7:00am Checked email before showering and getting dressed. 8:00am-9:00am Arrived at school, checked on whether the justification to hire a new faculty member that I emailed to the Provost last night at 11:00pm was received. Responded to emails. 9:00am-10:00am Completed approving transfer courses for 15 transfer students who entered this semester. 10:00am-10:30am Told colleague what I had covered in her class when I had to teach it when she was out sick. 10:30am-11:30am Department meeting. Updated colleagues on meeting with the Provost, discussed the justification to hire a new faculty member, discussed issue with proposed course schedule for Spring 2011 and came up with a change that works for everyone. 11:30am-12:30pm Lunch with colleagues from outside the department. Explained the Creative Commons license to one colleague. 12:30pm-3:00pm Open Source project class. Met with student teams individually about their groups status, gave them suggestions for projects to join, what to look for in a project. 3:00pm-3:30pm Met a colleague in the hallway and discussed transfer course agreement with local community college. Agreed to meet for lunch to discuss it further. 3:30pm-3:45pm Met with student who needed permission to schedule a course that overlaps the course he is taking with me. 3:45pm-4:00pm Met with student mentor to discuss how the mentoring session had gone. 4:00pm-4:15pm Packed up to go home. 4:15pm-4:45pm Discussed volunteering for campus-wide committee assignments with two colleagues. 9:00pm-10:00pm Completed course schedule for Spring 2011. Emailed proposed schedule to Chair of Nursing to approve scheduling of service courses for nursing students, emailed faculty member whose schedule had changed to get her approval, emailed proposed schedule to adjunct instructor to see if he can teach on that schedule. 10:00pm-10:45pm Signed up for Share Project and wrote diary entry. 254 Today was a pretty typical Wednesday. I had morning and afternoon office hours and taught programming languages and introductory Java programming, both classes I(TM)ve taught many times before. I had a B.A. student come to office hours seeking advice on choosing a topic for his capstone project. When students are floundering like he is they often seem to grasp at any old project they think they can manage to complete before graduation. I tried to point him toward topics he(TM)s truly interested in and that will be helpful when he enters the job market. One of the things that I notice as I get older is how my role as a parent influences my perspective on teaching. I was struck today by how close in age my students are to my eldest son, a junior in high school. I looked at a student who came to office hours because he couldn(TM)t get Java to work on his shiny, HS graduation gift laptop, and I thought to myself, oeYou are SO young! My 10-year-old is applying to be on the student council at his elementary school. Today I helped him write an email to ask a friend of the family for a letter of reference. I told him about the importance of giving the letter writer plenty of time to write the letter, of noting the application deadline, and of including additional information about his qualifications such as a resume, or in this case his answers to the application questions. I(TM)ve known many graduating seniors who aren(TM)t aware of the proper etiquette to use when asking for a letter of reference. It brought to mind the disadvantage so many first generation and low income college students face as they try to navigate college. Today all of the students in my PLC class created their language history presentations as Google sites. I wonder how Google will further infiltrate my teaching in the future? As I prepared for Friday(TM)s classes I was reminded how helpful it is to do a oebrain dump after class, noting what went well, what should be tweaked, what needs to be thrown out entirely. I(TM)ve gotten into the habit of adding this to the end of my notes immediately after class. It has been extremely helpful and has largely helped me avoid that oeOh, crap! Now I remember, this looks fine on paper but it did not go all that well last time. feeling right in the middle of using materials from a previous semester. I assigned the first pair programming exercise in my CS1 class today. I gave my typical speech about how the research shows that students who pair program learn more, are happier, get better grades than solo programmers, etc. A student piped up and jokingly said, oeAnd I suppose they get more sleep and lose weight too? I replied, oeYes, and they have lower cholesterol. 259 This day was a bit of a strange day. Living 60 miles from my workplace, and having no teaching on Fridays, I generally work from home and today was no different in that respect. When I say work from home, I really mean nearby because I find working "at home" too distracting (there's always the dishwasher to unload, laundry to hang on the line and a disastrously full biscuit tin that needs to be emptied). So I work from cafes, bars, libraries, hospital canteens, etc. After sporadic attendance over the preceding two decades, I have become a regular visitor to McDonalds (free WiFi and free tea/coffee refills at my local). I sometimes seek out WiFi deadzones and become the 21st century equivalent of the invisible man. Being out of the office, not in email, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, or Delicious contact and being very protective of my mobile number, I find there are many more productive hours on a Friday than on any other day of the week. So today I found myself at Starbucks which unfortunately has WiFi but to counteract this, has a motivating tea chai latte. To understand my thoughts and actions today, it helps to understand how I got here. I had an absolutely horrendous year last year. A third of the department's staff was made redundant and at the same time we increased our postgraduate provision from 15 students to 150. However hard I worked, however late in the evening I was on campus, however many evenings and weekends I brought home work, it didn't seem enough. This, together with the politics of Higher Education, the "interesting" management of my University and the internal politics of the department, left me bewildered, exhausted and demoralised. I ended the year sitting in the car park crying and summoning up enough courage to go in each morning. So why did I return in September? Well, despite all this, I love teaching, I love the students, I love learning (and I'm a foolish optimist). I came back with a strategy for survival that depends on me and my behaviour. So, as I am only allocated 50 minutes to prepare for each lecture, that is all the time I should spend. It's my bad time-management that means that I spend half a day updating my knowledge or the lecture slides or the student activities. This year I intend to be much stricter with myself. Similarly, I can't be as available to students. This way, I will survive, and I will be able to research and publish. I know that in order to put up with all the other rubbish that comes with the job I need to feel that I am developing myself as well as my students. My line manager understands this and discussed ways to help me publish. However, within a few days of this, extra managerial and admin responsibilities were being given to me with no corresponding reduction in my existing responsibilities. Will I end this year the same as I did last year? Consequently Friday, is "do some research or work on a paper as a priority" day. So that was my intention today. I sat, armed with the research of one of my MSc students. The research was good but the student is not a strong writer so we had agreed that we would write a paper for publication together. I sat with the work before me and my netbook on, but also in my mind were the lectures for the coming week that I hadn't prepared sufficiently, and wouldn't have any time to devote to other than today. A conversation I had had with an undergraduate student two days earlier was also distracting me. I am the student's dissertation adviser and his personal tutor so I have known him for three years. In those three years he has had a single ambition, a passion, a vocation that is drawing him through his degree. On Wednesday he said he had changed his mind so I did a bit of probing and listening. It seems that those around him think he should do something different, less risky, more mundane. I have no concern that he would be anything other than a complete success in either career but as he talked it was clear his first choice was still a burning flame in his heart. I gave him the simple advice to imagine himself in 10 years time in each career path, what his day would be like and how he imagined he would feel about himself, his work colleagues and those close to him. Today, I have been brooding on that conversation; what is burning in me and where do I see myself in ten years time? Where do I see my department and university in five years time? Damn that Starbucks WiFi. I found myself "wasting" time surfing for research positions. I found one that interested me and one that excited me. I researched around them, fired off emails, had telephone conversations, sent off my cv. At the end of the day I reflected back on what I had achieved for the day; not the work that I expected to but then it never is. The paper still isn't written but progress has been made. The lectures aren't as polished as I want them, but I never am satisfied. But when I thought about the possibility of leaving my current position and devoting more time to research a big smile came to my face and a feeling of peace that pushed out the usual feeling of panic and frustration. So thank you and goodnight Starbucks, I'm hoping that I won't be able to afford you in the near future. 259 Awoke early worrying about the week ahead. No real reason for it, just the usual - how will I fit it all in. Prioritising well however, I managed to get a morning coffee in with the colleague who attended the London demo on tutition fees. Glad that he wasn't arrested! Showing support for colleagues and my department is even more important at the moment as it doesn't take much to bring staff morale down. I had two Breach of Assessment Regulation investigation meetings scheduled in today. These are normally attended by the person marking the work (and spotting the possible plagiarism). However, the markers on these occasions are external, hourly-paid staff employed as MSc dissertation supervisors to cope with the unusually rapid growth in MSc thesis applications we have recently experienced. So, as acting (unpaid) course leader, I attend in their place. The morning was spent familiarising myself with the work and the possible plagiarism and marking the work if the plagiarism claim was upheld. Sufficient, helpful feedback also has to be given to the student so effectively I had to mark the two theses from scratch. This bit into my day substantially. Both students attended the meetings which took up the first part of the afternoon. I'm known as a bit of a bloodhound at spotting plagiarism. At the moment, however, we are getting suprisingly few. Particularly compared with other courses such as business. I don't find these meetings pleasant but it is interesting to see the range of responses from students. I've seen it all from arrogance, denial, acceptance, bewilderment that what they have done is wrong, incomprehension that plagiarism is unacceptable, pleading, embarrassment etc etc, although I wasn't at the meeting where the student claimed to have brought God as their supporting person. These two were fairly straight forward and were both upheld so the rest of the afternoon was spent writing up the paperwork for them. I then spent time with another member of staff just starting out in academic work. We are assessing a postgraduate presentation tomorrow. As it is their first time, I spent some time discussing the process, what to look out for, how to conduct ourselves etc. I enjoy nurturing staff in this way, which should not be suprising as this is the part of teaching students that I enjoy. I worked until 8pm on management/admin stuff until I felt that I wasn't working effectively, then drove the one and a half hour journey home, shopping on the way and getting home when some of my kids were asleep. Makes me wonder if it really is worth it. Still pursuing the research options of a month ago but not finding much time to research my options! The mood at work is still despairing. 264 Yesterday (the 15th) I taught 2 one-hour lectures. One at 9 a.m. to 200 students in first year and the second to about 30 students in 2nd year. In between I held office hours, frantically posted an assignment on the web, prepared for the 2nd lecture, posted lecture notes for the first and answered email. 264 Dec 15th My final grades are due today. The exam was last week right in the middle of CS Education Week and I had 5 business days to mark 132 papers and submit final grades for 154 students. I marked most of the weekend and so by this morning only had to write scripts to merge the grades from the university-mandated course-management system with the spreadsheet of exam grades I had typed in yesterday. Then I spent 4 hours (4!!!!) doing the final grade calculations and adjustments.We are required to read and sign the front cover of the final exam booklet of every student who fails the course. I am always amazed at how long this takes -- and just when you think you are almost done. At least after 20 years I knew to plan for an extra half day to do this. I made very good use of Python scripting skills (one of things I actually teach in this course) to efficiently calculate grades like (the best 10 of 11 labs) etc. The course-management software is unbelievably slow. I could barely find a work-around that would give me what I wanted and I could go get a coffee while I waited for it to calculate each set. I don't know my colleagues without programming skills can even stand to computer their grades. If it weren't for being able to download the raw data and write my own throw-away script, I would be pulling my hair out. Submitted my grades just at noon and it was sunny out. I hadn't seen the sun much in the last few days. Starting too early and it gets dark at 5. So I celebrated submitting grades by going for a nice walk. Had to put on snow pants because it is below freezing (-7 C but then worse with wind chill.) Spent an hour+ in the afternoon cleaning up email messages about odds and ends. Had a rather large backlog after ignoring the whole world to focus on grading exams. Finally time to start preparing for next term. Ack! I'm in trouble here. Only 3 weeks to go until classes start again and 2 of those are supposedly holidays. Ha! I haven't got lectures or assignments or really anything worked out. For one of the courses, I know most of the technical content extremely well but the other one will be a challenge. 264 Today I hardly did any teaching work. It is Saturday and although I often work quite a bit on Saturdays, I only put in an hour or so today. I checked my email and my course discussion board only to find that the link I had provided to the reading for my next class didn't work for the students. Well, it worked but it depended on them having access to the ACM digital library and invited them to subscribe. They don't need to do that since they can access the journal for free through the University library. But I should have realized that and discussed it in class. I spent the morning shoveling the driveway and then going to the gym because there was too much snow to run here. In the afternoon, I cooked some, cleaned some and spent an hour on the computer. Later in the afternoon I started playing taxi service driving teenagers to hockey games and practices. I've one more shuttle to do but I'm home for another 30 minutes and was quickly checking if any other students have discovered the problem with the paper link but not discovered the discussion board message and then sent mail. Then I remembered that it was diary day! After I write this I must go actually change the link itself -- should have done that a few hours ago. What was I thinking?? There are a handful of things that I really could be doing to prepare for Monday, but I'm trying to be more disciplined this term about not working ridiculous extra hours. Those things can just wait and then if I have to drop some lower-priority items later, so be it. Actually, short of fixing the problem link, my highest priority is to shovel again or my minivan is not going to get back in the garage for the night. There is at least 30 minutes of hard work waiting for me out there! Uugh! 264 Today started way too early. My daughter had to be dropped at school at 6 a.m. for a ski trip. Since her school is 15 minutes from home and right beside the commuter-train that I take to the downtown campus on Tuesdays, I decided to catch the 6:30 train and just get started early. For the first few hours I read and wrote reviews for ITiCSE papers. Boy were they terrible. I actually meant to decline ITiCSE reviewing this year but forgot to get myself off the list and then didn't want to drop out after I'd been assigned four papers. Only one was decent. A couple were reasonably well-written and pleasant to read but really didn't seem to have enough content to warrant a conference paper. Maybe my standards are just too high? In one of the papers the writing was so terrible that I had to reread almost every sentence trying to ignore the grammatical errors and work out what the author was trying to actually say. I had to write summary points in the margins to keep track of the arguments. There's no way I would have bothered to keep reading if I hadn't felt obligated to finish the whole thing before submitted my review. At one point I actually wondered if I was reading a paper generated by an automatic paper-generating grammar. But no, I'm pretty sure this was for real. Today we had a great distinguished lecture speaker -- Josh Tenenbaum -- who I very recently sorted out is NOT Josh Tenenberg. I used to think that there was only one Josh TenebXXX who seemed to keep cropping up everywhere! Anyway, Josh Tenenbaum was extremely coherent and inspiring. I briefly regretted not pursuing my machine-learning research interests from my pre-teaching-stream days. But no, I'd rather be teaching 40 hours a week and learning about other's research, than doing my own research and working 60+ hours per week like my research-stream colleagues. Hearing great speakers once a month is definitely one of the perks of my job. I lectured for an hour today and spent only 30 minutes preparing beforehand and posting lecture notes afterwards. It is a good thing that I have Jennifer's notes and already know reading files in Python upside down and backwards. I'm going to be in big trouble when we get to the two weeks of material at the end that I've never taught before. I know that it isn't hard but I'm just barely keeping up with the day-to-day grind and when something extra comes along (like 4 hours of ITiCSE reviews), something else has to give. I just received the notice that my final exam script is due March 7th. I've no idea how I'm going to find the hours to make up an exam. I'd better start dreaming up questions while I'm doing mindless household things. 264 (Written on the morning of March 16 for yesterday.) Yesterday I was sick. During my morning run I was wheezing and coughing so badly that my running partner asked if I was going to take some time off work to stay in bed and get healthy. I replied that I couldn't and that I had to be pretty-much dead to miss a lecture at the last minute when it would be too late to get a substitute. By the time my actual class came around at 2 pm, I was still blowing my nose frequently and my throad was still sore but I wasn't feeling so terrible anymore. The day seemed to disappear between lecture prep, meetings with a few students, one SIGCSE-debrief meeting, delivering a class and a little email. I did have time for coffee with my colleagues at 10 and 3 but as usual ate my lunch at my desk. I didn't make enough progress on my looming Thursdsay deadline for the final exam. It is so frustrating to have to generate the exam more than a month before it will be given and while I still have 3 weeks of lectures left in the course. All day yesterday I kept reminding myself to just stay focussed and buckle down and prioritize. By next week I will have submitted the exam, put out the last assignment, worked out the last lectures (so I can create the exam) and hopefully recovered from this awful cold! 264 (Written on Monday April 18th for the previous Friday.) Friday was my day off (since I work 80% of full time.) I learned in previous years that unless I declare a specific day my non-university-work day, I end up working all 5 weekdays and much of the weekend. On Friday I was very keen to get the online application system running for our CS4HS program. I finished the actual application on Thursday and just needed someone official to create a page on the department website and link it in. Over breakfast I sent a couple of emails and before 8 am had a promise that the site would be live in an hour or so. I spent an hour sorting out the emails for the more than 20 teachers that had requested application information and once the page was live sent them an announcement. I'm really excited about this summer program but a bit nervous about whether I'll be able to live up to my own expectations about making it truly useful for the teachers who attend. The remainder of Friday I didn't work on academic tasks. The actual term is over and marks are ready for my fourth-year course (with the exception of 1 student with an extension.) The final exam for my other course is next week so I had a brief reprieve. I did check email and the course discussion board for questions but all was quiet in that regard and other university business could wait until Monday. 264 I completely forgot to journal on Wednesday so now I'll try to remember what happened based on my log file and the sent box of my mailer. My official position is 80% of full-time. Each week I try to pick a day that I call my "day off" and on that day I only do a bit of email or do a bit of work as an opportunity presents itself. For example, even though it is my day off, I might work on my laptop for the 45 minutes that I'm waiting for my son at his violin lesson. I can't ever let an opportunity like that go by. This week my kids both had dentist appointments and one had a doctor's appointment and we had a whole slew of other errands that were spread across Wed - Fri. So I decided to not declare an official day off but divide it over the 3 days. Wednesday had the least work and the most off. I started off at the dentist for 7:30 am and had kids back to school and me at my home office desk by 9. Of course I worked (prepping for a later meeting) for a good 30 minutes in the dentist's waiting room. Once home, I spent the next 2 hours reading email and responding. Most of it was either about the UCOSP program (a distributed undergraduate project course that I help run) or about our upcoming CS4HS program. From 11-12:30, I chaired a phone conference call for the outreach committee of the Canadian Association of Computer Science. I remember when I used to be so nervous before those meetings. Now I'm just frustrated at how the other committee members don't reply to requests for meetings, don't really want to do anything and mostly want to talk. I've already given notice that I'm resigning from chairing. It has been almost 4 years and it makes sense to move on and give someone else the reigns. My previous chair was very keen that I do this but the guard has changed and while my new chair is supportive, I don't feel the same need to carry on. Time for something new. After the meeting, I did some more family errands (doctor, shopping trip, ...) and finally got back to work after 4. Spent another hour sending email messages -- again mostly about outreach or recruiting. Looking back, I don't think I did a single stitch of actual computer science work or even thought about the process of actually teaching computer science. All of the 15th was strategizing about outreach or administration of programs. I don't mind this kind of work once in a while but what I usually like about my job is that I get a nice mix of organizing things and also thinking about technical content. When I'm teaching a course much of the work is administration but not all. For example, yesterday (not the 15th), I spent a few hours writing code and working out a lab for students to do that exercised the concepts I wanted them to learn. I think I'd go crazy if all my days were like the 15th this month and I didn't have the chance to think about CS content at all. 273 On my first time through I am not sure what this is about! 286 14 days after it was due, I spent the day trying to make sense of the admin details for my EU project - money spent - hours used and so on. I went in and out of last years documents and eventually created the neccesary report. The last email of my day was sent at 9.58pm - this was an aopolgy to the head of research as a document that he wanted was also late:-) I also chased up a website design and completed some work on a call for an EU workshop from a different project. I actually was feeling pretty ropey that day as I had a nasty cold. I actually went into work for about 11am.... and spent earger more time than I should have trying to make sense of the HR processes at work. 289 0900-1130 Accompanied my wife to a hospital outpatients visit. Though, I did take the chance while waiting to read a student project report that I was marking. 1130-1200 Worked though some emails. 1200-1230 Lunch. Eaten in a common room. 1230-1330 Worked through more emails. This entailed various other actions, such as checking on the progress of other people's project marking (I am the Project Marking Coordinator). 1330-1430 Finished marking student project: last of my batch. 1430-1630 Assigning papers to reviewers in my role as associate chair of a conference. This is not my first attempt to do this. Some potential reviewers have not replied to emails, so I have to find some more 1630-1700 First meeting with a new MSc student. 1700-1730 Meeting with another new MSc student. 1730-1750 Clearing up before going home. 289 I was away at a research meeting Wednesday to Friday last week so when I got in today there was a lot to catch up on. First, though, I had a dental appointment at 9.00. With a new filling, I was in my office by 10 and hit the email in-box. I had email while at the meeting, but nevertheless a backlog had built up, consisting of mails that had arrived over the weekend plus others I could not deal with while away. The emails led to a number of things to do, relating to research and administration, but not teaching. One teaching-related email I sent was to remind my MSc students about this afternoon's tutorial. With this work backlog, I felt I could not afford a lunch break and ate my sandwiches at my keyboard. Carried on working through emails and consequent actions, until mid-afternoon, when I had a tutorial. Did not get to the bottom of the backlog, and I know there are emails further down which cannot be ignored, and need action. In the tutorial two of my students gave presentations to an audience consisting of the other two students and myself. After that I went to a meeting with people from a number of other departments and the Pro-VC teaching. We were brainstorming about possible future joint programmes, mainly at the undergraduate level, but also possibly masters. Then home. No work in the evening, except I went looking for a personal email and spotted one which needed a quick response. It was a request for an overdue chapter review. Fortunately I had done the review while travelling last week, so I was able to email it straight back. 289 Drove in. I'd normally cycle, but two wheels are a bit hazardous in this weather. I do not want an injury. 09.15-11.30 Standing in for a colleague who's on paternity leave. It's the final practical of his first-year module, which is an assessment. Students have had to design and prototype an iPhone app. This is the second session; first was yesterday. Two graduate teaching assistants are also marking. It was a good session. I have been very impressed with the students' work (which must be a reflection of the quality of the teaching!) This is the fist time we have run this module on human-centred topics in the first year, and I think it bodes well, that future graduates will be much better equipped. Twelve groups were meant to give a 5-minute presentation to each of us, but it was difficult to keep to time, and I ran over. Also collected feedback forms from the students. I didn't look at them in detail, as it's not my module, but the ones I saw looked very positive - more good feedback to pass on to my colleague. We've just gone back to paper feedback forms from on-line ones, as we seem to get a higher response. Certainly it's worked in this instance. 11.30-12.15 Desperate for coffee - so bought one from a machine. Back to my office. I was away at a Programme Committee meeting at the end of last week so am still catching up on emails. 12.15-13.30 End-of-term individual meetings with MSc students. I should have seen them on Monday but (a) they had not picked up the forms that they should have done and (b) I was straight off a flight from the States, and so not very creative. So we had postponed. Each reviewed their personal progress in the term. Two were concerned about the difficulty of a programming assessment. Wonder whether we are publicizing the programme correctly in terms of expected (programming) experience? 13.30-14.00 Lunch. Sandwich in the common room. 14.00-15.30 Preparation for teaching next term. It's a module about web design and all the materials are on the web. I have plans to teach it somewhat differently and so I have to update the web pages accordingly. Nearly finished, but more to do 15.30-16.30 Departmental finance briefing. A bit depressing. We're probably not in as difficult a situation as many - but it seems bad enough. The bean-counters don't really understand what we do. 17.00 Home 289 I almost felt that I ought to at least think about work so that I would have something to put into this entry - and maintain the image of the over-worked academic. However, to be truthful, perhaps some teaching planning thoughts vaguely drifted through my head this Saturday, but those aside, I did nothing work-related on this Saturday. I spent a good portion of the day clearing up the loft. 289 My morning was taken up with various preparation and administration activities, all of which related to teaching. These included: Exam results from January exams became available. I reviewed my tutees' results - and resolved that I had better speak to them individually. I dealt with an enquiry about projects, which should not have come to me, really, but it was quicker just to do it. Continuing email discussion about accommodating the needs of a visually impaired student. Continuing email discussion and arrangements for treatment of dyslexic students in open assessments. I ended up creating a new web page as an information source for that. Organizing external lecturers for one module, one for tomorrow and the other coming next week. I had to adjudicate a project mark. An MSc student had failed her project in October, but had been allowed to re-write and resubmit the report. It had been double-marked and judged to still be a failure. As adjudicator I had to check that a failure was warranted. After much reading and thinking, I confirmed the failure. Very careful to be fair, to justify and document my decision, not only to be fair to the student, but also with the thought in the back of my mind that there might be an appeal. Lunch in the Common Room, with The Guardian. In the afternoon I had a web design lab. I normally have 3 Teaching Assistants, but today one is ill, so the rest of us took on his group. In a 2-hour lab it is a bit of a rush to get around them all, to check on progress and talk to each of them. Some are sailing ahead. Some are a bit slower, but most seem to have the right idea. After the lab, back to my office to follow-up and tidy up, before going home. 289 Started by going through emails and reacting to them. I also had to sort out payments to be made to guest lecturers we have had this term. As so often seems to be the case, there is more administration involved than there used to be - and than seems really necessary. Specifically, before we can pay them their paltry fee, we have to be sure that they are entitled to work in the UK. This usually involves them bringing their passport to give a lecture. At 11 a PhD student arrived for a supervision which was clearly in my diary, but I had not checked my diary. Nevertheless I was able to spend nearly a couple of hours going through her thesis with her. She is not a native English speaker and has had to put a lot of effort into the writing. She has also used a proof-reader - but nevertheless we are practically having to go through chapter-by-chapter and word-by-word. (How do you explain the definite and indefinite article to someone whose first language does not have them? It's 'the' because it is!) However, I do feel we are getting there. We work together, viewing the text on a large screen, which works well. We get through half of the latest draft of the current chapter. Then we hit the heavy stats section and my stomach rumbles and it seems a good time to take a break. We agree to meet again tomorrow. Eat my sandwiches and read the paper. Chucking seawater over a nuclear pile sounds like desperation. Review a paper for a conference. I end up writing a long review of a poor paper. It cannot be published for lack of (statistical) rigour - but the idea is an interesting one and I end up feeding back ideas about the research to the authors. Practical class for my Web Design MSc module. It's the last one, so the students are supposed to be demonstrating the website they have built this term to me and the postgraduate demonstrators. None of the ones I see have a complete site. Some are near to one, and evidently have the right idea - others are a long way off. Yet none of them seems to be worried about their ability to complete the assessment - which is due out tomorrow. They are going to have to build a website of similar complexity to the one that they are supposed to have just finished. They seem to think that a lot of effort over the vacation will enable them to pull it out of the bag. Debriefing the demonstrators afterwards, they seem to have fewer concerns, so maybe I was just unlucky with my group of students. We also talk over problems with the module this year and how we might improve it next year. We come up with some ideas - which I really must act on now, while they are fresh in my mind and not wait until next year! It is also the chance to hand out module evaluation forms to the students. We have dropped the on-line evaluations and gone back to paper as we seem to get a better response rate. I have a look at them after the practical and am pleasantly surprised. Given the low turn-out for lectures recently, I thought they were bored, but that's not what most of them are saying. My practice over recent years has been to post all the feedback on-line and give my response. Paper forms mean I'll have to type in the comments - which is a nuisance. Cycle home in the fog and try not to think about work. 289 It's a bit hard to say what I was doing on 15 April. I am not sure where the day started and ended as I was crossing time zones. We'd been on holiday for 3 weeks, visiting our son in Australia. We were due to leave Melbourne in the early hours of Thursday 14th, and to arrive in Manchester that evening. However, there were cyclones over Malaya, and our flight was cancelled. The airline (Emirates) put us up in a hotel. So the morning of Friday 15th was spent mooching around a suburb of Melbourne. Then we got a flight to Dubai. Instead of our original two-hour stopover, we had a day and night in Dubai, so our second morning of 15th, and the rest of the day was spent exploring Dubai. My conclusion - it's a big shopping mall, with a bit of Las Vegas tacked on, but without the gambling. With time on my hands, I did spend some of it writing a paper on a theory of names - in my head. That's it for work. 289 I had an assessment handed in last week in which the students had to implement a website. I use a website as well to support the marking. I decided that my site needed to be re-implemented and did this last week. My plan was to give it a final test over the weekend. I have an assistant who is going to help with the marking and I need to make sure the site is working and stable before he uses it. So, in true homework fashion, about Songs of Praise time on Sunday, I looked at it. Firstly I had to deal with emails from two students who had done the assessment. They seemed to think that they should not be marked down for not having followed the instructions. I sent them brief replies, saying it was too bad and telling them to whom they should appeal if they think I am being unfair. Unfortunately, there was a major bug in my website. This was probably not the best time to work on it. Firstly it took me a while to remind myself of my own logic (implemented only last week), secondly, having to access files on the department web server was not very efficient. Eventually I gave up. I decided I now understood the correct solution, but would implement it tomorrow. I know I spent 1 hour and 45 minutes on this, because this is a 'TRAC' week at the university, when we have to log all our work, for a transparency review. 289 Funny kind of day. Term is coming to an end. I spent most of the last 3 weeks marking. I got that finished on Friday. Monday I was away external examining and so yesterday I spent the whole day clearing through my emails and reacting to them. I have several commitments - some related to marks and the end of term and some not. Spent some time resurrecting an on-line project marksheet from 2006 - for a colleague who is writing a reference for the former student in question. Then I read and reacted to more emails. This is not a happy department. Redundancies have just been announced, in administration and IT Support. I am having a technical problem with my laptop, but when I take it to Support (twice) there is no one there. I presume they are meeting to discuss the situation. Lunch at the keyboard. One of the jobs I did yesterday was to fix the date for a PhD viva, so today with some time to spare, I start reading the thesis. Seminar in the afternoon. It's an inaugural for a (relatively) new lecturer, so I want to support him. He has a difficult job pitching quantum mechanics at a mixed audience, but succeeds pretty well. Back to the office and some more admin tasks to sort out - most connected with project marking. Then some time to read more of the thesis. Home earlier than usual. Enough for today. 289 As a schoolkid and subsequently as a student, there was always great anticipation about all the things I would do 'in the holidays'. As an academic I still have the same feeling. Regardless of what my mum - and many others - think, of course, the freedom of the summer vacation is not the opportunity to do nothing, but rather the opportunity to do all the things that there is not enough time for during term - writing papers, and research proposals, perhaps even doing some research. School holidays often did not live up to their promise, and neither do my summer vacations now. Somehow those weeks are never as empty as I expect. Today was an example. I arrived and had time to answer a few emails. Then one of my MSc students arrived for a project supervision. He is a very keen and enthusiastic student - but he needs a lot of support. He is (finally) making some progress. I usually allocate 45 minutes for a supervision, but this one spilled over into an hour and a quarter. Then time for a few more emails. I usually have lunch with my two research students once a week. Today neither of them is available, but I decide to have a proper break and go and eat in the cafe on my own. I take one of their theses with me, though, and read it over lunch. I continue reading that back in my office until another MSc student arrives for a project supervision. We have some practical work to try out - and so this one over-runs more than an hour too. I am also trying to finish a paper. It has been provisionally accepted by a journal, but there is a long list of suggested improvements. My co-author is (genuinely) even busier than I, so I am trying to get on with them. There is no stated deadline, but if I can get it to them by yesterday, it has a good chance of getting into the next issue. I do not think it is a 'REF-able' journal, but I think it is worthwhile all the same. It has been rejected twice already, so eventually it will be perfect and published. Of course, I have to suppress the assumption that the referees are idiots and if they did not understand a point we had specifically made, then it is our fault, and I need to clarify. I cannot spend the rest of the day on that. MSc projects are not handed in until September, but as Project Marking Coordinator, there is work to be done now. I have been sent two lists of students expected to hand in - and (surprise) they are not the same, so I spend some time trying to identify the differences, and then pass the buck to someone else who should have access to the full information to sort out the anomalies. It is Friday. The department is quiet. I would be tempted to give up and start the weekend early. However, I have agreed to meet a friend on the way home, and he's not available until 6, so I am tied to my desk until then. Eventually I leave with some relief. That thesis is in my bag as I'll have to read it before our supervision on Monday. I stopped following one of my colleagues on Twitter because he only seems to ever tweet about how busy he is and how many things he has to do. Apart from the obvious response that if he spent less time on Twitter he'd have more time to do the other stuff, it got boring. There is probably a correlation for many academics between hours worked and seniority, but there is also a virility culture: 'I am so busy and much busier than all of you' and it's easy to slip into. Yes, I have a long list of things to do - even in the 'vacation', but I am not under real pressure; most of it will wait until I'm ready. Aside from an hour on that thesis, I am having a weekend off. 289 I took a day off. Over the weekend our son was taking part in a martial arts world championships in London. With prize-givings and a celebration on the Sunday night we stayed on for a day and played tourist in London. With my phone not feeling well and expensive wifi in the hotel, I was off-line for most of the time, until the train home in the evening. Then I did sneak a look at my emails - and regretted it. There was one mail about a problem with the project-marking software I run, but it was not a hard job to fix it remotely. The annoyance was an email about a student on a programme we run jointly with another department. How can I put this? The other department's processes are not as clear and well defined as our's. Consequently we have fallen into a small pit of anomalies. In the end I compose my response only in my head. I will commit it to keyboard once I have had time to think it over. 290 The day started as the final few minutes of the return journey from a two-day postgraduate recruitment trip I had made to France. It had made me think that I really should sign up for the staff-development language training course in French this academic year if I am likely to go again. The bureaucratic overhead of the sign up process is slightly inhibitory, however. Despite the early hour of the morning and the exertions of travel, sleep took a while to arrive as I reflected on the the trip; only to have to restart the day again a few hours later. I filled in the director of graduate studies on the outcome of the trip. There had also been some interest from the French side in pursuing exchange possibilities with other departments, but the director was sceptical that there would be any interest. Finding someone who thinks it will be important enough to devote time to is not easy, despite the potential income value. With the start of term just two weeks away, I needed to think about how I was going to provide information to the departmental administrator to enable her to organise students into classes. That necessitated a request to a colleague to adapt a questionnaire to elicit the required information from students. It was very helpful that he was happy to do that within a short time frame. I had just over two weeks left to complete some conference paper reviews but didn't want to leave them to the last minute. I usually like to look them through once, and then once again before writing up my comments. So I looked over my assignments and noticed that one had almost completely failed to anonymise their submission, as required by the submission guidelines. I sent an email to the programme committee to ascertain their views on this and received a reply a few hours later acknowledging the problem but saying, in essence, that they weren't really bothered. I was left wondering why they keep the requirement in there if it makes no difference to acceptance? Given that they are never short of submissions, they could easily afford to tighten things up a bit. 290 My diary told the lie that there would be relatively little to do today - just an afternoon one-hour lecture and an open-ended writing meeting immediately after with a colleague. First up of the space-fillers was responding to a question about one of my assignments that had come in overnight. We are now one week into a two-week deadline and pretty much all of the questions have been from students who are clearly on top of things and pushing the boundaries of what is possible on a relatively straightforward piece of work. While it is encouraging to receive these kinds of questions, it is the lack of questions from those who might be having more difficulties that really concerns me. Experience tells me that the majority of the students won't have even looked in detail at the assessment yet, despite my repeated urgings from day 1 that they do so in order to direct their background reading. Next up was fielding a phone call from a student interested in registering for one of our postgraduate programmes next year. Neither of those things had actually taken up a huge amount of time, so now comes the dilemma. This afternoon's lecture is a course that is sort of new for me this year. Although I wrote the course with a colleague about eight years ago, I haven't taught on it for a long time. Nevertheless, the material is straightforward and I could probably walk in and give the lecture without any preparation. So do I do just that and use my spare time for some research, or do I take some time to find ways to work through the course's material that provides an alternative viewpoint from the static explanations of the course text and slides? The research-focussed voice says, "You should expend as little effort on teaching as you possibly can. Doing a good job of teaching won't advance you one iota." The teaching-focussed voice says, "You have a responsibility to the students, and your role as teacher and expert in this area is to pass on your understanding in a stimulating and accessible way." As is usual in these situations, the teaching voice wins out and I spend a couple of hours reviewing the material I want to cover and finding different angles from which to talk about it. There is also next week's class material to prepare for first-thing Monday morning, so that I can distribute it to my postgraduate teaching assistants. So, by the time the 2pm lectures comes around, about 4 hours have been spent on teaching preparation; research will have to take a back seat until another day. 290 Monday: Early arrival for a 10am lecture thwarted by the first heavy coating of ice on the car. (At least the battery wasn't flat, as it would be three days later.) An immediately following first lecture on a course that is delivered intensively in what is now the second half of the term. These first-thing lectures are often birthed in the midwife hours of the weekend. A last-minute check of the online timetable narrowly avoids me having to project my voice from the other side of campus as the location has been changed since I put the course in my diary seven weeks ago. What a contrast in audience between the two courses: first-year undergraduates, from whom it is nearly impossible to get a word out of, to motivated and engaged postgraduates who help to interactively shape the course material to conform to their particular state of understanding. Straight from there to progress meetings with small-group software engineering teams who didn't actually get as much done as they had hoped in the preceding week set aside entirely for work on the project. Strange, that. Time for a bite of lunch while I look over the training materials I am going to use with a group of external people who will be helping with an outreach activity. I train them for this in the afternoon. It is nice to see that they are really enthusiastic and on the ball. We get done in less time than I had thought it would take. Returning to my office I am delighted to see that I have been sent some data I need for a research project I am working on with colleagues in another department. I am keen to keep this project moving along as it will too easily be crowded out by teaching commitments during term time - particularly now that I am involved in the new intensive course. So I get straight on with using the data, but also have to prepare some class material for tomorrow's classes before leaving for home around 6pm. After the evening meal its back to the research project and I spend about three hours getting to the point I want to be with it. There's still tomorrow's lecture to prepare, but the day has to end somewhere. 290 It's the final week of term and all my teaching is finished, but I still have some assignments active. I am awake early and get on the laptop while still in bed. Today's first assignment question is answered at 7.30am. No more teaching for the next few weeks means I can spend some quality time on research. I have a meeting for this with colleagues from another department at 11.30 so I try to put the finishing touches to some software we are building, but I am thwarted by my lack of familiarity with the subtleties of the Python GUI libraries we are using. That doesn't matter too much because the bulk of the work is done. Our meeting lasts for one and a half hours and we make tentative plans for a paper and future grant application. It is amazing what cross-disciplinary collaboration can actually achieve while standing on such thin ice of understanding of each other's subject area. After the meeting, a bit of creative query formulation in a web search yields a fix for the software through a function to chain event handlers. I spend a considerable amount of time in the afternoon researching flights for a conference in the new year. I struggle to understand why academics are all expected to be experts in finding the best travel deals before handing the details for booking over to admin staff. Surely the University engages in enough travel to employ staff centrally who could do this? I bet the ones who made the policy decisions that created this situation don't arrange their own travel. I have been running a support group in the second half of term for students who are struggling with one of my courses. After initial expressions of interest from around 20, we are down to 4 who have stuck it out. We go through a past exam paper for an hour and then afterwards discuss individual questions about the current assignment. I must admit that I had assumed that these sessions would appear like driftwood to shipwreck survivors, to which they would cling with all their might, but commitment has been patchy, despite obvious need. I need to think about the value of repeating it in future years. 290 I have missed my last four entries, for reasons that are largely connected to changed home circumstances. These have had a big impact on my normal academic life pattern, so I probably should have documented them but that didn't happen, though I guess I could do it retrospectively. This Share Day was dominated by those circumstances so I thought I ought to get something down. The background is that my wife's elderly mother moved in with us around 5 months ago. She has limited mobility and needs a lot of care. As a result, I have significantly increased the amount of time that I work from home, in order to be able to support my wife in this. There cannot be many careers in which my pattern of work would allow this, and technology is a major factor in supporting this change, too. As an academic, I don't have to be present in an office from 9-5 every day. My teaching load was relatively light this last term, so the number of occasions when I had to be physically present on campus was fairly small. The availability of high-speed broadband and wireless networking at home makes remote contact with work little different from sitting at a machine in my office, while working in Computer Science means there is a convenient symbiosis of this technological setup with my field. Sunday 15th May started like every other in recent months, with a carer coming in to help my mother-in-law get up. Shortly after, we were summoned to say she had had a fall - more like a stumble while standing at her frame. Unfortunately, her knees were bruised and painful from the fall. My wife and I cancelled our commitments at church that morning to stay home and I used the extra time to undertake some research-related programming work while sitting with my mother-in-law. It soon became clear that the pain she was feeling wasn't going to go away, so we summoned an ambulance to take her to the hospital. Two hours after the arrival she was seen by a doctor. Two hours later we had a diagnosis of a broken femur. Two hours later she was platered and on a hospital ward. As things stand, it seems unlikely that she will be able to return to us in the near future, so one consequence of today is that my academic work pattern will likely return to something like normal over the coming months. 291 Wednesday was a sunny day and I am on holiday in France. Did I think about teaching? Well just a little as I spent part of the afternoon sitting in the sun and clearing old e-mail from the last 2 years which included many from students, and (re-)reading Gravity's Rainbow (or at least the first quarter). Strange to have enough time to tidy things up, let alone reading a novel. 291 Up 05:30 Coffee, glance at Guardian Online and read e-mail, check network logs, collect milk Think about 11:15 lecture -- should I handle strings or pointers first? Realise that I need to copy a handout for 12:15 lecture, so move time of waking wife. More e-mail 07:30 Coffee/tea at 07:30. Decide to use other laptop to mail myself notes, only to find that I need to rebuild the software and d/l many development packages. Eventually get this done and manage to get to breakfast (very continental in style), and switch off the computers. 10:00 Leave home and on my bike for the 20 min ride, during which I still discuss with myself what the first lecture will do. On arrival and changing into semi-respectable clothes, duplicated the hand-out for the second lecture. This gives me almost enough time to write a few lines on paper as my lecture notes for the morning. Of course i took them to lecture 1, but forgot the laptop and full notes for lecture 2. 11:15 Lecture in the refurbished Management lecture theatre -- horrid with white boards and not enough of them. As usual had a fight with the AV system; it is so much quicker to reboot a piece of chalk! I decided on the strings lecture, which went OK I think; some interaction from the geeks in the back row, who I understand do IRC between themselves as I lecture. Other students seemed engaged as well, and we covered at least as much as I planned. After the lecture many students came an asked questions, some easy to answer and some from students who were very confused. One student was evidently thinking about the throw-away problem I set, but had not got there yet. Anyway I as late for lecture 2 12:20 Final year students and a different topic. Usual problems with my laptop failing top sync with the projector but OK. Started with some revision of last week, and then some maths. Only one mistake on the board! Slight relief to play them some music to illustrate additive synthesis, including part of a piece of mine. Also covered wavetable synthesis rather too fast, and ended the lecture with another piece of mine -- a joke work on dogs barking, which I wrote last year as an example of wavetable synth. After a student came and said he was enjoying the course but the maths today was beyond him. I reassured him that this was the hardest part, partially true. Eventually got back to my office for lunch. 13:25 Lunch at my desk (banana and two apples) and think about the next stages. Told that my Vising Research Fellow, RWD, was intending coming this afternoon as he had just been paid -- he lives a precarious existence. Spent a short time with the third member of the team setting up a demo for RWD. But very short as we have departmental seminar this afternoon. A research student came and ask questions about examiners and thesis, but only a few minutes 14:15 Seminar time, with cake. First of two seminars from my friend and room neighbour MDV; at last I understand some of what they do! We we doing the short 25min seminar. It is my turn second. After the usual problem with the projector I described the project I was working on all summer, using a final year project from a very talented student from 2009. Seemed OK, and the jokes raised at least a smile. Did not hang about much as we wanted to shown RWD the current state of the project. He has been wanting this for 3 or 4 years and at last we have it. Short discussion about how to write it up and in which direction to go next. Actually feeling rather smug about it. A short coffee break, continuing the discussion, but I had to leave to the next lecture 16:15 The second time today with these students. I was very unprepared, but I filled in with some small points like file formats and software, all free stuff of course. Also introduced the software I expect them to use in the second coursework, and played some sounds from it. The time passed, but not the best lecture in reality. A group of students discussed square waves, non-existence of discontinuities and psychoacoustics. Again I was delayed returning to my office, and RWD seemed to have gone; a shame as we have not met for a while and i wanted his advice on a number of topics. There was a happy moment when I passed the Director of Teaching en route to my office, and he reported that he had heard good reports on the seminar (which he had missed), and he hoped that i would be able to continue in the department next academic year (I am due to retire next summer). 17:30 In PhD lab, and informal chats with two of my PhD students and a research officer (not mine). Talking about the Browne report and how things had degenerated since their u/g time, at least regarding grants and fees. Really was looking for RWD or MDV. Bumped into Director of Research who said that the seminar was excellent, and many people had commented to him about it, and he personally really liked it as it covered three distinct areas of interest to me. I have never had such feedback on other seminars and it was rather embarrassing if also gratifying. 18:10 It being Friday the three of us (two SLs and myself) decided it was a night for a quiet drink -- we call it a juice night. I went to the shop to get a bottle of pink, and about 18:30 we opened it in the departmental kitchen. After dealing (again) with the student writing up, and getting a bunch of forms to deal with registration, thesis title, and annual report eventually our quiet time started. Discussion was largely on Browne and the current report that teaching budgets were to be cut by 80% and research by 1bn. I knew that both my friends were actively looking at posts not in the UK, though I think they did not know about each other. Pleasant to relax with work colleagues with whom I have ongoing projects, but the main topic is rather depressing. We broke up earlier than some weeks as they had a society AGM to attend. 19:30 Cycle home, more concerned with how fast I was going that the day's work. I cook a simple supper of salad, cheese and garlic bread, with a bottle of decent Fitou. Somehow there was no evening left. I suspect I fell asleep as soon as I got to bed, about 22:00. It has been a hard week. 291 Up late at 07:20 with my arm still painful. I have had tennis elbow for the last two weeks and it is getting worse. No I do not play games,and I think this must be a form of RSI. At least Mondays are my lightest day, so I should be able to continue a rest strategy. Over the first cup of coffee I remember that I promised my research student to read her draft first chapter of the thesis. She is not a native English speaker, and definitey not a native writer. It seems easiest to rewrite some of it, but some words I just do not understand. Wake up my wife with a cup of tea about 9:00, and after breakfast did some planning for the second assignment for the DSP course. Ask my net-colleagues and got an immediate response with some samples. After starting the e-mail catchup after the weekend it became clear that riding my bike would be too painful so decide to take the bus, which amazingly actually came on time! (13:29) At the University and my office well in time to prepare the lecture. Corrected a spelling error/typo in the handout from last year, and as it has detailed maths that I tend to write incorrectly on the board it seems sane to photocopy the 4 sheets for each student as well as putting on the web. Also invented a better way to show spectral smear, using my laptop and decide to incorporate it into the lecture 14:15 lecture. The previous occupants had actually left which was a change. Setting up the laptop took longer than it should; no idea why this is not working like before. Lecture was no better than OK. Still getting very little visual feedback; wonder if they understand any of it! Also gave them a preview of the second assignment which needs checking and signing off. At least I had an excuse to play Laurie Anderson's "O Superman" to the class. Back to my office talking to a couple of maths/CS students, who were joking about the low level of one of the CS courses they are doing. In the way bumped into colleagues who told me the examiners' meeting had finished -- I was double booked by our new no-communication admin -- and the student I had failed was to remain failed and so I need not attend. So early coffee, after a quick look at the state of our latest (and to my mind outstanding) research project -- unfunded of course. Over coffee we discussed the teaching allocation which seems to have non experts teaching subjects in which we have experts. Next year will be even more interesting with forthcoming staff changes. Also discussed the external examiners' comments on our semester one papers. I was encouraged to respond to my concerns that the examiner did not understand the situation. I am still being asked about the equipment for the new teaching lab, so more web searching for prices and options. Looks like the solution I want is just over budget. This passed seamlessly into the search for my own home equipment -- I need a pair of devices that are out of manufacture. I suppose ebay is the only hope. The follow-up to the year 2 forum is being requested. Really students should grow up a bit. We provide resources they do not use and then complain that they do not exist, complain if coursework is handed out early or late.... I suspect I am just out of touch. As my closest colleagues are doing the Euro-Don bit, travelling to or from the near continent it seems that the early bus is a good idea. A quick visit from the research student with the draft and I leave for the 18:22 bus. That gives time for more e-mail before cooking supper -- broccoli and pasta, cheese and grapes. Nice That leaves a little more time to look into my equipment and the lab equipment before giving up about 22:30 291 Got up at 06:30 after what was a disturbed night for no particular reason; only thing I can think of is the unrelenting term. After the usual initial cup of coffee and reading of e-mails (why am I always at least a day behind)? Anyway I down-load the templates for the conference paper(s) I need to write by mid January, and start the structure of a paper. Somewhat distracted by the continuing tennis elbow pain in my left arm. Take tea to my wife at 8. After a period of more email, and thinking about the current USS pension proposals got to breakfast at 10am. I know I should not, but while eating baguette I look at the lecture notes for the 12:15 lecture. The material is not totally clear to me, but I can manage. Thinking of leaving when I remember that I promised the final year some sound samples which are on my tapeless recorder, and for reasons i never understand my laptop has difficulty reading the device. The overall effect is success, but a delay in leaving. Finally got away at 11:30. I enjoyed the cycle ride and actually arrived at the department in the morning (which is not that common for me...) Rush to get changed to day clothes and get to the lecture. Yet again there were no students, second lecture in a row. I waited about 15 mins before quickly running through the lecture to the empty room, so I can say it was delivered. They complained last week that they had a number of coursework deadlines coming up, so I know why they are not there, even if I am rather annoyed. Back to my office where I was intercepted by a PhD student I second-supervise. Lent him a book to assist him in chapter xx of his thesis. We worry as he has a hard deadline of the end of the year and still has many pages to write, and it would be a shame for such a bright researcher to miss out. A good result of the lack of students was that I was on time for the local UCU Branch AGM at 13:15. Better attended than some times, but given the current problems -- pensions, REF, being lied to by the VC and more -- I was surprised there were not more. We accepted the new constitution, and elected a full collection of officers. Not sure where this leaves me as a departmental rep on the committee, a role that is abolished in the new constitution. My eastern European research student comes for yet more advice on her dissertation; this is becoming a daily feature. Work on updating information for final year, the new samples and examples on last year's student works. Got to eat some part of lunch at 14;30 while doing this. At 15:15 had our regular coffee meeting with the part-time PhD student, who is also a university systems programmer. I am second supervisor, and R. is an assessor. The supervisor is at degree ceremony this afternoon so I guess I am in charge! Actually I always enjoy these informal meetings. The people are fun and the conversations often wide-spread. Research-wise it has been a quiet week in this project. 16:00 split for another meeting with a research student -- Arabic this time. Again I am second supervisor but originally the student came to work with me, but I will retire before she finishes. The supervision team as still not sure she is getting anywhere. Is this going to be a time-costly mistake? After a further request from my eastern European research student for feedback on her dissertation i get to continue the web-site for the final years. And finally I finish lunch at 16:45 Suddenly remember that I have not resolved the problem with an examination paper. It is an odd paper, based entirely on directed reading, and I have not told the student what they are expected to read! Even worse for "security" I did not keep a copy of the paper, and I simply cannot remember what I set. E-mail exchange with the examination officer and I am redirected to a secretary (why can I never remember the mapping of names to people?) who I manage to catch as they were leaving, and we arrange that she will provide a copy tomorrow, greatly to my relief. Had a quick look in the lab for final year students but they seem to have gone. A colleague came to say that he had an extra ticket for the wine society tasting this late-afternoon and as I had totally failed to get organised I had assumed I would miss it. So at 17:40 went to the event with colleague and his Dutch visitor. Interesting time; mainly to back Christmas sales. Most of the wines were not to my taste but educational; the port was excellent but expensive. Late home at nearly 20:00. Actually being on time (19:30) is sufficiently rare to warrant comment. And I did not have to cook as a biriyani had been prepared. After supper there was little time before I felt the need to sleep. I had the feeling that the day had been bitty and rather unproductive. 291 It is Saturday so any desire to get up is quickly lost. Showing my age i listen to Sounds of the Sixties before getting "early" morning drinks. Over breakfast a Liberal Democrat leafleter appeared -- they have trouble finding our letter box -- and handed over a circular and a personal letter from the MP, one for me and one for my wife. Not sure how he had the nerve to catalog the promises he has kept and ignored the ones he has not. I did notice that the messenger was very fast to leave, so was probably embarrassed as well. Time for the usual reading of overnight (and longer) e-mails. Received the dates when I am expected to convince 6th formers that we are the best place to study. I always have trouble with this UCAS activity, and in the 1990s I was exempted from this on conscience grounds, an option that seems to have gone. I suspect that I am totally out of sympathy with modern youth with its Thatcherite views. The e-mail again brings messages from my MPhil student. She has submitted and I have arranged examiners, but she seems very anxious to be finished and to move onto a new career. I also note with amazement that the discussion/dispute on my main mailing list continues and broadens to take in all of aesthetics. Where do they find the time? The next software release is scheduled for Monday so I check the manual ; well actually fix the manual, and check the latest bug list to see if anything really matters. Preparing for a release always generates these small tasks. It is Saturday so it is time for the weekly dump of the home network's data to a backup disk. Every time I do this I remember the saying that r=there are two kinds of people in the world -- those who backup regularly and those who have never lost a disk. I have a small collection of 15 courseworks to mark. One of the students excelled himself (no females on this course) by using HRTF in his submission, so I need to use headphones. Did an initial review, and it seemed rather good. This led me to review all the submissions, the rest being stereo. Yet again I am impressed by the creativity of science and maths undergraduates A little time to myself; my father who died a year ago left a large collection of 35mm slides, and I am reviewing them to see if any should be kept. Some interesting pictures of USA, family, France... but few to be kept. Nearly finished the pile. Time for lunch -- always late by most people's standards, but after 3. As it is Saturday we allow ourselves a glass of cider. While doing things away from the laptop a student has asked a question about sampling theory. If I remember correctly that was a Friday afternoon lecture and he was at a job interview. Quite easy to reply. I have been teaching myself web/apache in part by supporting a small music entity with on-line updates etc. And it seems that the new e-commerce system is not actually working. Spent the afternoon fixing the PERL, ensuring correct permissions, reading apache logs and similar. Actually it took all my time until time to cook supper. Supper is such a nice meal -- a bottle of wine and a chance to talk to my wife. 291 As I have an early (for me) meeting I set the alarm for 6am, but managed to turn it off and sleep for another hour, which rather wasted the point! The result was that breakfast was rushed, as was collecting the work papers. A short time into the cycle ride, after the first of three hills I remembered that I had not picked up the papers for the 10:15 meeting; suspect I can wing it, but I do not like doing that. The ride was into a head-wind, so arrive only just in time to change. Did manage to arrange the next stage in getting examiners for a research student who has submitted a rather long thesis. Odd that so many people would rather not examine it! The 10:15 meeting is what I still think of as the scaling meeting -- checking the overall sanity of examinations. In the outcome it was basically OK. There were a number of concerns about the difficulty so many students have in expressing themselves. We suspect that in some sense they know the answer, but the text they produce is abysmal. Perhaps it has always been like this but it seems particularly bad with the current students. After the meeting my friend and I retire to the common room for coffee, where the discussion is largely on teaching, what skills they learn at school and whether we need to have explicit teaching of study skills. I remark to the friend that before they were appointed we actually drew up a complete syllabus before it was blocked by higher authority. The coffee was accompanied by Chinese sweet, donated by a p/g student who had been home for new year. The meeting having been shorter than I feared I got round to the e-mail backlog. It seems to take longer every day, not helped by my failing eyesight. After a while review a paper as a change -- a job application review. Not as interesting as I had hoped. Back to reading e-mail, and eat a banana as lunch. E-mails on the impending move to the new building lead to considerations of what to throw away, what to take, what to take home and so on. There will not be enough room for my current 30yr accumulation of dissertations, books, papers, lecture notes, meeting minutes.... and I must be firm with myself. A project undergraduate arrives (expected). He seems very anxious which is odd as his literature review is good in an area where there is much to review. It seemed that he had more material than he used and I am not worried about him at all. We discussed his plans and aims, which are all good. We also moved into discussions of semester1 examinations. I know they are anonymous, but it became clear that my suspicion that he was the top student in my examination was correct; nice to see a student answer an examination question with more than I taught or even knew. Project students are so often a pleasure to supervise. At 14:15 it is time to the next examiners' meeting -- this time an MSc progress exam. It seemed sufficiently important that the chairman did not attend, so we appointed a chair, actually someone who was there but should not have been! The whole meeting was a joke; one student had failed one exam narrowly so we voted on whether he should be allowed just to continue, or made to do some compulsory exercise. The other failures were such that there was no discretion. Seven people to raise the rubber stamp! Back to the office and investigate git, and read more e-mails. A corridor conversation happened on how to make final year students hand in a literature review for their project. It seems that some have realised that the only sanction we have is to make them fail 3/10 of the year, and even I am not that harsh, yet. A coffee break with many fewer than usual -- our normal gang is 4-7 people, but every one was teaching or busy with meetings so just the two of us. Actually that worked out well as the colleague has just heard that they have been short-listed for a (senior) post in a non-UK university (I have been informed about the application but it is not public), and so we could discuss privately the plans for a presentation etc. They deserve the promotion. I am due to give an extra-mural course tomorrow evening and so after coffee attempt to make arrangements for rooms and facilities. Did not get as far as I would have liked but with luck it should be OK. I also tried to confirm my flight at the end of the month to examine a PhD, but failed for all the usual reasons -- web access, not knowing the answers to certain questions etc. Back to reviewing papers.... Tuesday and 6pm and it is time for the three of us to open a bottle of wine and discuss things. Apart from consideration of the quality of the wine it was the usual topics, teaching, refereeing of papers, research applications. No conclusions but a good vent. Cycle home; strange how it seems that there is still a headwind! Home and supper. Read e-mail and there is one from a PhD student who graduated in the mid 90s. And he is getting back to his doctoral project! Also looked at the aftermath of the switch to git in our software project. Overall a very mixed day. 291 I wake very late, after 9, but this hardly matters as last week I gave my last lecture before I retire this summer. After breakfast in the post there is a wine catalog for which i had been waiting as a colleague is organising a wine tasting and this merchant is a specialist in the region. Seems a good idea to do all the washing up as my wife is not feeling well. Then to the main business, reading e-mail. Many mails about Freedom of Information requests (FOI) clearly from a spammer, and what could be done legally to thwart such requests. I have been struggling with a bug in the FLOSS software I maintain. I spend an hour or so yet again failing to fix it. It is beginning to worry me as I have been failing for a couple of weeks, and I am not used to that. I realise that with retirement comes age and loss of skills. It has been a sufficiently leisurely morning that there is time to have my hair platted (OK I was a student in the 1960s and have always had long hair sine school). I like it that way but often there is insufficient time. Cycle into the University around most people's lunch time. After changing out of cycling clothes i talk to the software support staff, about, well software. I have always enjoyed systems code and so often end up with these guys. Then a partial lunch (ie a banana). A SL, research student and myself decide to conduct a visit to our new building. We are to move in about 6 weeks, and the current discussion is who will have which desk. It takes a long 5 minutes to get there and we get in with ease -- so much for security! A tour of inspection of the new teaching labs and a totally joke lecture room preceed looking at the administration area and social space. Finally to the top floor to the staff area. I have worked in an open plan office once in industry for a few months, but this is larger and with more light. I decide which desk I would like, but at the time there was no mechanism for decision. Inspect my studio which has a strong reverberation. Not sure what can be done about that, or how to get any sound treatment. In all we spend most of an hour in the building. I suppose there must be advantages, but things like where to keep my bike are uncertain. On the way back I trip on the stairs, and save myself with my tennis-elbow impaired arm -- very painful. So it is late before the real work (e-mail) starts. Update software and the usual stuff. Look into the problem of arranging a lab time for the year2 students who are requesting it. Looks like some times are possible for me, and some for the students -- with a null intersection. In preparation for the move (and retirement) I sort through part of my extensive book, paper and reprint library (and I wonder if any one else has such a thing these days). Some are for recycling, some for friends, and some for an historical archive; and some like my undergraduate text books are to come home -- maybe I will eventually learn that maths! At about 6 my office neighbour suggests that we open a half-bottle of Sancerre. Perhaps a little old, but had lovely long flavours. As ever a bottle is a signal to talk about research, students, the new building, and all that is on our minds. Eventually joined by a couple of others so very little alcohol but very pleasant occasion. Home late, as if all too frequent. Cooked supper, and usual late look at e-mail. Somehow a day with little success or even progress. Everything attempted failed or was blocked. I did not see any student other than the massed hoards walking about. 291 There is always a question of when a day starts. The concert on Thursday evening as part of the University Arts for which I provided hardware and technical assistance led to late supper and still in work mode until after midnight. Despite that up at 06:30 and with the initial cup of coffee started the process of reading all the e-mails from yesterday that had been neglected on account of setting up the concert. A quick read of the on-line paper (strange that we still call them papers when reading on-line) and it is time to start the marking. The first stage is to prepare a spreadsheet for adding up the marks for the components. I may have been educated as a mathematician but I still cannot do simple arithmetic. Using the spreadsheet from last year it is not too hard to prepare and adjust for the minor changes. I count the number of submissions to the year 2 programming exercise; every year there seem to be more and this year's cohort are whingey. Some scripts are still in my office but it looks like about 10 students either did not submit or have dropped out. Or could it be that the softer administration has given extension to anyone who asked. We will see. I know I should have started marking, but it never seems attractive an idea. So rather than mark, I go back to bed for a little longer..... Get the early morning family drinks and prepare breakfast. Over the eating and after I fight the git system and branches. Basically it is coherent but from a different universe to my mind. Eventually I manage to get the two branches up to date after a major struggle. The advertised date for hearing from the big conference about acceptance is about ten days and still no news. There was an advert for a commercial CD from one of the organisers, and I cannot help having the uncharitable thought that they could have done the conference before the CD. Still I will go to the conference anyway, but one of the papers I submitted is really exciting. In the email I have the first (or very few I hope) of students with excuses. This was the classic "my laptop crashed" excuse, and can I ignore the date. I reply this is not my decision. But, we teach the importance of backups, use of repositories etc, but they still ignore us. I suppose it is different in kind from the earlier e-mail this morning which amounted to "my program crashes; what are you going to do to mend it for me". The usual cycle ride, but getting faster with the nice weather, and get to university about 12:30. One of the first things is to e-mail the University music coordinator about breaking down last night's kit. More e-mail, but this time the student came in person with a request I have not had before. Basically she had submitted on time, but had since thought that she would get more marks if it were unsubmitted and she used the rule that a late submission by some days (I do not know how many) with a 40% cap might give her more marks. My response is she submitted on time; basically even hunting for the script seemed like an unnecessary chore. The rule also seems misguided, or even wrong. Privately I deplore the concentration on marks rather than learning or understanding. I suspect that many (most?) of the students do not want to understand and just want the tick. Just after she left (unhappy or not I could not tell) but my desktop computer started giving unlikely messages, and then froze -- very rare occurrence. In fact the first time with this hardware. A reboot fixes it, but i had to repair the RAID by hand. I failed to get to seminar as I was interrupted on the way by trivial things, and anyway it looked grade A boring, so instead I tried to fix the problem that my laptop never connects wirelessly to the University network. Much poking at discussion swith the support team gave absolutely no result; I am still as I was. A little more room tidying and throwing away and at 15:00 I take a trolley to the concert venue to collect our speakers and cables. Pack two crates with the eight monitor speakers, padded with the cables, and take it down to the music coordinator's car, together with the stands, all with the assistance of the VRF and an SL. Load sub and a additional collection of cables onto the departmental trolley and pull it across the site to our studio. Unload, and then to the loading bay to collect the two crates from the car. Somehow unpacking the crates turned seamlessly into packing the studio up for our forthcoming building move. This move has been the major feature of university life for the last 4 weeks or so. Throwing out, breaking down, packing up.... seems endless. All for the privilege of an open plan office. At about 17:00 things look under control, so leaving a minimal studio so I can transcribe some tapes. The IVF goes home, and I am back in my office, packing a crate of PhD theses and undergraduate dissertations. Do I really need these I wonder but decisions take too long. Friday night is one of our social meeting evenings, but one of the three of us has alternative plans so just two of us plan to go to the bar. With interruptions from graduate students, e-mails and stuff it is late before we get to drink our glasses of Guinness. My friend outlined the revised plans for the forthcoming seminar/interview as part of a job-change. As well as students the move is high in our conversation, and our health issues, mainly our eyesight and cataracts. Pack the last few assignments into my bike paniers, and leave, late as ever. Cooked supper (very nice vegetable stew on rice). Deal with more e-mail before collapsing from a busy but unproductive day. I feel that there are way too many of these recently. 291 It was a late start. Not getting up until 10:45. It is some time since I had days off. Made breakfast and while eating the shopping arrived. Internet has made this so much easier (we do not have a car) but as ever there are errors in the software design. I guess we have a lot to answer for! The first task for the day was to catch up on e-mail. Friday was busy and Saturday likewise. It took until 2pm to do a first pass. Must remember to answer the student who has misunderstood a question on last year's exam paper. But more important is marking the assignment for which the deadline is approaching. From 14:00 to 15:15 I mark, marvelling at the bad answers and incorrect code; I suspect that the simple skill of programming is dying. At 15:15 I stop for a small snack and some intellectual stimulation with a sudoku. Back to marking from about 16:00. Very disappointing to detect two identical and wrong answers. Looks more like collaboration than plagiarism. I wonder why these collaborations are so often totally incompetent. I struggle on until 19:00 when I can stand it no longer. Also very disappointed to discover that I had only managed to mark 15 answers in about 5hrs. At least I am nearly two thirds of the way through now and should be able to finish in only another day. I did not get to making the travel claim or the other administrative task I had lined up for the day. Take my wife a cup of tea, and start the cooking process. Delay that a little to investigate the 1960s group The Shaggs who are mentioned on the radio, who are totally amazing! A mixture of bad drumming and awful singing with delightful poly-rhythms. Eventually cook supper, a pizza with olives and artichokes, pesto and strong cheese with a good wine, followed by a creme caramel. Relax after food listening to Reggie Goodall's Rhinegold on the house audio repository. To bed to watch a video at 22:30 291 An early rise for me, 07:20. Look at the over-night e-mail which was not very much. Read the on-line paper -- why do be continue to call it a paper when it is clearly electronic? Take my wife tea at 08:30. The post brings a newsletter from CAFAS but I decide I do not have time today to read it as I need to develop the Open Day demonstration, which is what I do all the ret of the morning. The demo is of 2D audio in ambisonics, controlled by a wiimote (at last a controller one can afford). Today's work is to look at drum loops, which is outside by normal area. Cycle in to the department at noon. Talk to my colleague about a possible research proposal. Neither of us has much belief in it being funded, but sometimes one has to tick the "tried" box. I should add quickly that the proposal is excellent, cutting edge, going places unknown, and we are the world leaders in the area. It is just that the lottery never seems to come our way. To a UCU committee meeting. Confidential material, but pensions, government policy, white paper, and university management all feature. I forgot to take any lunch, and as our department is so far away from the main campus I make do with a cup of coffee. The first part of the afternoon was spent on more for the Open Day demo, followed by the regular meeting with a research student and staff. A wide ranging discussion on HPC which is always fun, even if I am a little behind the others. The 4pm meeting was delayed as the co-supervisor was busy with another graduate student, but we managed it at 5pm. An hour with the Iraqi is always hard; English is not really good enough, but at least there is now a genuine idea that could lead to a PhD. We have to explain the necessity of recording experiments even if we do not expect speedups. Rather a hard hour but afterwards we thought that progress had been made. We move the audio kit into the lab for tomorrow morning's demonstrations, and set up stands and cables, locking away the expensive bits. Cycle home -- it started top rain as I left and by the time I got home I was soaked to the skin. A complete change of clothes was necessary. A simple supper of pasta and a little more work on the demo completed a bitty day. 291 Fridays are always late-start days after the TaiChi class, made worse this week as just as I was leaving the office a security man appeared with the news that the power was going off in the building in a sort while. It turned out later that this was due to flooding of the substation from a swimming pool, but at the time it was suggested that it was planned and no one had told us. I powered off machines under my control and alerted support. So when I did manage to wake the first task was to see if the system was alive. The support guy had done a magnificent job in getting all back by 09:30 -- even better as he is alone at present with the other post currently unfilled. As we say, the best system support is the support you do not see. Of course there is a bad side of being back on the 'net; the spam starts again. My sister phoned about the sale of our parents' house which looks as if it will complete while I am on holiday. Just more stuff to organise. In the mail i handle in the morning is one from my personal student who managed to fail 6 out of 10 courses in year 1, which included programming, software engineering and computer architecture. My advice is that he is in the wrong subject. He is a nice enough guy, enthusiastic and engaged, but he seems to have no feeling for computers. I really find this odd as he has mathematical talents, and to me computing is the an easy subset. I suppose yet again i find I am abnormal. I am trying to write a research proposal for a colleague. This involves attempting to determine the pay rates for research staff. This used to be easy -- there were fixed points on the scale for which one asked but now it seems fluid, and rather secret. I deal with e-mail responses to my inquires yesterday. And so to 11am and breakfast. After food I investigate how to improve my home network -- there is a wireless dead-spot in the bedroom where my wife uses her android device. Think I find a solution, but e-mail the manufactures help-desk to clarify the Linux aspects. Last Wednesday I had a little progress in contacting eduroam, so incorporate the configuration into my laptop. Pity it does not actually allow me to connect -- no DHCP lease available. Also shame I cannot test from home where I still am. About this time I remembered my dream of last night -- I was lecturing to a large class of computing students, and was explaining that programming is easy and not magic. They looked skeptical.... I assume that my concerns with the personal student (above) had overflowed into the dreams. It is very rare that teaching affect my sleep -- programming bugs frequently! I decide that definitely the departmental seminar this afternoon was not worth the cycle ride. I like computing seminars and enjoy learning about new aspects, but biology, management science and psychology leave me cold. I use the saved time to shred some examination material that really should not just go into recycling. After a somewhat late lunch I start thinking about the poster I am to give at a conference in August. poster-writing is not a favourite activity of mine, and after some work I realise that it is an A2 poster, which is very small as I need to display some musical score as well as code. Wonder about using 4 simple A4 sheets with different aspects and cardboard arrows between. Mail my co-authors about this idea, knowing that one is on holiday in France until the conference, one is in Salt Lake City for a conference, and the fourth is recovering from the award oh a PhD. Still I do get a response from Salt Lake. The rest of the day is spent ensuring that if I cannot show the work on the poster I can demonstrate it on the laptop withy headphones. More work is needed on the GUI, and I correct some errors and clue up others for consideration. Supper late as so often. It was 18:30 when I was a RO, then 19:00 to allow teaching 17:30-18:30. Drifted to 19:30 when I was first a professor. Now it is usually later than 20:30. Compared with the recent national survey that supper was before 18:00 again I am out of line. 291 Wake early, very early for me at 05:30. Seemed too late to go back top sleep so up and do some unpacking and scanning of e-mail. Yesterday was the last day of a week off following a week-long conference and the luggage is strewn around the house. I was surprised at how little e-mail there was -- under 1000 after pruning the more obvious spam. Maybe all the anti-spam software and detailed configuration is winning. Take tea to my wife at 07:45 and listen to the news. I need to return the hire car this morning so we need to start being awake earlier than usual. Get out as in the time-plan, and refuel the car and sit it traffic for a while before getting to Hertz. Use my replacement bus-pass, newly arrived in today's post, to get home. More e-mail over coffee, but also find my list of things to do after the holiday, and start some of them, especially ordering new hardware for the home network. Also contact solicitor selling my parents' house as today is supposed to be completion and I have not yet signed the final form, as I was away. Cycle to the university; always a little shock to be riding after a two-week break. I arrive in the middle of lunchtime, so the place seemed particularly quiet. My college in the desk behind me is back -- we have not seen each other for 5 weeks, but she is hungry and goes to buy lunch; we will have to catch up on things later. Take the walk to the lower floor to pick up physical mail. Once this was a major event, and way back when I had a secretary it was opened and organised for me. Now there are no secretaries and also almost no mail. I have a bound copy of my last PhD student's thesis (he graduated this summer), and an advert for a conference in Dubrovnik; nice photos but not my subject area at all. I was a little surprised that there was nothing from the Pensions Office nor USS. Find a friend who I can ask to witness my signature on the house document, and we take the opportunity to discuss how our paper went at the conference. He is a coauthor who wrote the code, but I wrote the words and made the presentation. After a short exchange about what we will do next we turn to his current main concern, admissions. He has the A level results and so can see how many students made our offer, and the near misses. In the current educational climate this is all serious and confidential. The department has been given two years to improve its recruitment (outcome not effort!) so we are all concerned. Seal the signed document in an envelope and start the long walk to the main campus where there is a postbox. It take about 12 minutes at my walking pace. But I also drop into the shop intending to buy a banana for lunch, but the shop is nearly empty of stock. Make do with a flapjack. Walk through our old building for nostalgia. My office of over 30 years is semi-occupied but the rest is empty and quiet. Walk back to the Far East Building (also known as Siberia to one colleague, and the East Building to management). Arrange to have coffee in about 30 minutes so settle down to finding a supplier of the correct laptop battery, mine having failed two days before leaving for the conference. Due to the demands of a MSc student in the outcome coffee was delayed somewhat but I did manage to order my battery. Our coffee machine was fixed while I was away so we can return to our conventional lifestyle, involving god coffee and discussions. We (colleague on desk behind me and myself) discuss what we have managed to do so far this summer and what we need to do. We really need to find employment for the excessively bright ex-student who will be without employment in 6 months, but EPSRC is so low-expectation. Should be involve commercial concerns, but neither of us know that sector, just the technology. We must take advice for others in the department. Our discussions move onto admissions, and I report what I was told earlier. From there we consider the importance of programming in the degree programs -- we are both keen on this aspect but some others think that all programming is outsourced to India and is below consideration. Also talked about importance of maths in our subject. Eventually joined by my other close friend, and drift into questions of MSc teaching. All this is "academic" for me as I retire in 16 days, but I still do not know if the department will allow me a role. The university centre is passing that to the Dean of Faculty who passes it to Department Head, who is not really available. Sometimes I am concerned about the department in the future, and sometime it seems that now is a good time to get out. Back to clearing e-mail, but about 6 another conversation relating to admissions starts, this time including HoD as well as Admissions Officer and the usual suspects. Much the same topics, but widens to the effect of #9k fees, performance of students previously recruited from clearing and other topics. As the group breaks up I get to see the near-misses' paperwork. Many are one point down, but some others are way adrift of our offer, their prediction, and even lower that the school's. It is such a strange game recruitment. Not only are we in competition with other universities in our subject, but in competition with departments in our own institution for numbers. But we cannot even speak at the decision meetings, but rely on the Dean of Science to represent our interests -- and he has a history of behaviour related to computing. Think it must be time to go home as I almost promised to be on time tonight. Just one more item, as our German student visitor is finishing her thesis, and I am appealed to relating to the weak conclusion. Suggest a very small change that removes the tentative element, and promise to look at it more tomorrow. It is not my area but I have supervised and examined a fair number by now. As I leave the rain or drizzle starts but I do not get very wet. I cook supper at a respectable time for a change, and after supper finish the first pass through e-mail before going to bed. 294 Friday - working at home, trying to keep this as a research day, but some other activities always encroach. Activities completed: Email correspondence with students on my programme who are still not sure of their tutorial groups, and with administrators to try to resolve. Wrote reference for MSc student who graduated 3 years ago and is now considering further study. Email discussion with Director of Admissions and AHD re student who wishes to transfer to programme. Completed UKRIO survey on behalf of institution, reporting on incidences of research misconduct. Discussed potential changes to institutional procedure with assistant registrar. Drafted application for ethical approval for project which is about to start. A number of text messages exchanged with a year 3 student who was admitted to hospital yesterday following a severe asthma attack. Checking that she is ok and that her family are making sure she has everything she needs. She is disappointed to be told she has to stay in for another night but still talking about attending Uni on Monday - she's been told to ask again on Sunday! Skype meeting with colleagues to refine methodology for upcoming project, 'Day in the Digital Life', documenting digital footprints. Finished amendments to a paper for ITALICS and submitted it. Finalised supervisor allocation for final year students, published list to students, provided details to staff together with dissertation handbook. Arranged room for PhD student to use to conduct user survey and interviews. Looked at some of the sites included in the Google Creative Internet showcase https://docs.google.com/present/view?authkey=CJ2Ug_IF&hl=en&id=0Abmo0iWBO2gEZGY3cnc3dnpfMzM4Y3o2bmduZDY - scholarship activity with possible benefits for teaching and research activities. Considered which might be useful to include in my Emerging Technologies lectures. 294 Spent the morning running a drop in session for year 1 students to provide support for their upcoming assignment. Enough students attended to keep me busy for the 3 hour period, and try not to be frustrated by those who haven't bothered to read the assignment brief before they ask for help. Working with the more prepared students to draw out their reflections was much more rewarding. It is great to see the flickers of realisation as we look at what they have learned. Afternoon spent facilitating an open day for prospective UG students. The usual chaotic administration provided by different bits of the institution added an unnecessary layer of complexity. Individually, people are working hard and doing what they can to make things run smoothly, but the system as a whole fails. Event is of course overshadowed by the future of tuition fees. Today's students are keenly aware that they need to get a place to start in 2011 if they are to avoid the new higher fees. Many of the students in my institution come from non-traditional backgrounds, with many being the first in their family to attend University. It is depressing to think that this group is bound to be less likely to apply in the face of such enormous fees. It will be a loss both for those individuals, but also for society as a whole if they fail to reach their potential. Spent the evening catching up on the inevitable email mountain which had been building all day. 294 Saturday is the one day of the week where I very rarely do any real work. However, the iPhone makes this harder to maintain, so I have kept an eye on (but not actioned or replied to) incoming mail. The main work related activity has arisen from concern for a student on my programme who has been facing significant personal problems and who it is hard to stop worrying about. Sent her a text to see how she was doing and relieved to get a response. 298 Having joined the survey in October this diary is a retrospective one. 15th September was spent working from home. It is the deadline for the last of the paper work on an EU project I have been co-ordinating. The project ended in December 2009 but the EU's experts have asked for extra annexes on the final activity report. They then asked for further amendments in mid July and at the same time the finance authorities in Brussels have asked for all the accounts to be presented in a revised format. As is the normal UK practice the contracts for project staff ended in December so I am chasing all this up with just the aid of our finance department and the good will of the project partners. Some bits of information from partners have only arrived late on the 14th. [00:01 - 02:30] The boundary between the 14th and 15th is blurred. I am a night owl so 00:01am on 15th finds me proof reading the final reports. I have committed all but the final management report to PDF files by 2:30 am. [08:00 - 08:10] Four of the five documents required emailed to the commission officers as they arrive for work. [09:00 - 16:00 minus lunch] The last document has no research or teaching value and is just a report on the resources used. This just collates what has already been sent to the commission in three annual reports. Despite the fact that it will add nothing of substance to the documents sent at 8 am, without it none of the partners in the project will get paid. I email my apologies for the Department meeting this afternoon and spend the rest of the day editing the text from the three periodic reports to tell a coherent story. It is a frustrating task - we did everything that was required within the budget - but the commission needs all the details broken down by partner and by work package! However, it is done before the commission notice it wasn't in the 8 am batch. [1-2hr evening] I start to read a PhD thesis I am examining next week. It is very gratifying to find a student at another University is already taking ideas from my EU project and building on them. 298 15th October - a Friday and the end of a busy week which has had several long days. I don't need to be on Campus until 1 pm and can just potter on with a variety of odd jobs. Research planning has been pretty intensive on the past couple of days and I need to switch into teaching mode for a bit. I am responsible for a new level 2 module that is being developed from scratch. I developed a new one last year and was hoping not to have to do another one from scratch this year. However, this deals with a core part of the programme where we have not been doing as well as we should. There is some pressure on this because I am expected to make this one work well right from the start. [morning] I take a leisurely breakfast and look through the new textbook I am using while sketching out what I'll do for next week's lecture. I want to deal with the key issues that drive the RUP development cycle and make a clean break with waterfall models. I think there is a bit of Australian research I can bring in to good effect. [13:00 - 14:30] Two sessions with students not sure what they want to do for final year projects but they like some of the topic areas in practical software development that I will supervise. [14:30 - 15:00] Meet with our technical services manager to discuss delays in some of the lab software being available and actions to try and resolve this over next week. [15:00 - 15:30] I am supposed to be doing an overdue PhD progress review and I go over to my colleague's research unit only to find that they are not there. No one knows where they are. [15:30 - 16:00] I go back to my office and work through the day's emails and writing short responses on some teaching arrangements and research plans. During this time I get a phone call that my colleague is delayed coming back from a meeting in town but will be here soon! [16:00 - 16:35] Put in some time working on the next laboratory exercise sheet that I am preparing for students on the level-2 module. I hate giving students things that don't work on the University machines so I am making sure that it works on the current laboratory computers before uploading it to the server for students. [16:35 - 18:20] This is a mature student who has been part-time for the last year and will now spend a year on a full-time bursary contributing to some contracted research. She is trying to cram her life's work into a PhD and needs to be more focussed on the need to get to a successful thesis and viva in about 2 years from now. We discuss the need to focus and demonstrate research skills - the Nobel prize can come later. We also discuss how to make best use of the opportunity provided by the work the University is contracted to do over the next 9 to 12 months. For a student who has yet to reach the equivalent of a full-time first year her progress is good but not being able to attend our research methods classes because she was overseas shows in her approach to the problems. I have had brilliant part-time mature students - my best having completed the PhD in less than three years while holding down a demanding job. I have also had mature students who never managed to adjust to the needs of academic research. This one could go either way! [18:20 - 18:30] Make sure I save all the files and the laboratory exercise sheet before going home. 298 Monday 15 November [00:01 - 1:20] Again it starts by me being a night owl. Having checked my email on Sunday evening one of the teaching assistants has sent an urgent message that the Wiki server used in my practical labs is down and he is worried about what to do with the lab class on Monday. On looking into it the server has been off line since Wednesday but none of the 200 students has thought to email our technical support service! Midnight finds me on VPN and the remote desktop finishing off the maintenance upgrade that stopped it working and restarting the service. On trying to post an announcement for the students I find the blackboard option to format it in HTML isn't working and type the announcement 3 times before it is finally posted. You just have to love how computer technology makes life easier! [09:00 - 09:45] Clear the email and get onto the first of today's research planning tasks. An EU bid (1) planned for the January FP7 call is coming together and a meeting of the key players is planned in Brussels next week. The favoured option is to meet on the Wednesday afternoon before the EU briefing so I need to email out that decision this morning and get arrangements under way. [10:15 - 11:30] Need to have car exhaust replaced where a coupler has parted. Take car and laptop to Kwik-Fit - they work on the car and I work on the architecture outline for another of the EU bids (2) planned for January. [12:00 - 12:30] One partner who was dithering has dropped out of a consortium for the January bid 1. It is not a fatal problem and I email them thanking them for their interest before making adjustments to the draft work programme. [14:00 - 15:00] MSc Examining board to deal with awards to students who have completed dissertations over the summer. There seem to be a lot poor ones and I wonder whether this correlates with the students who have not had any contact with their supervisor over the summer. The students are as anonymous as the marks sheets in front of us. All the decisions are prescribed by regulation and I feel I have just wasted another hour - maybe I should be too busy to attend like the majority of my colleagues! [15:00 - 15:30] Discussion with two colleagues about the EU bid 1 we have on the table, how we will proceed with drafting and the planned Brussels meeting. One of them will be at the meeting with me. We still haven't got commitment from key partners on bid 3 and we decide to pull the plug on that one. [15:30 - 15:45] Brief discussion with technical support manager about the wiki server status for level 2 students. [16:15 - 20:00] Continued work on the system architecture plans for EU bid 1. I get them in pretty good shape (I think) for partners to cost the different components each of them will develop. [20:00 - 20:45] Checking costing and status of a 4th project plan on the University project costing system ready for submission to EPSRC. Need to make sure all the figures are consistent and the reports tie up. The online data is OK check the rest tomorrow. 298 Wednesday 15 December There is a staff student committee meeting scheduled for lunch time today and this afternoon is the last chance to meet with my PhD student before he returns home to Greece for Christmas and the new year. Apart from that it is just tackling the "in tray" and keeping tabs on progress. The Department is taking part in several European research consortia targeting the EU FP7 Call 7 in January. In three we will coordinate the project - one of these I am leading as scientific coordinator and I am assisting colleagues leading the other two. Quiet as it sounds the "in tray" is getting busy with just over a month to the deadline and Christmas in the way. It is also last week of term and I am due to give twice my usual lecture load this week. I feel like I am juggling rather a lot of balls today and begin with review of what needs to be achieved today: 1) Plan tomorrow's 2 hour lecture and get the slides organised (at a pinch the detail can be done tomorrow morning) 2) In my own project a key partner has dropped out emailing me only yesterday afternoon with "I am sorry to have to write this, but I am afraid we won't be able to participate in the consortium after all. We're a bit over-extended and as such fear not being able to contribute our fair share and in time". I have been muttering choice words about multi-nationals! 3) This project also has open issues about some of the field trials with another partner deciding they can't handle them. I also need to discuss these with one of the UK partners on the phone. In another partner the key contact has gone sick and a new contact is taking over but not yet up to speed. None of these are as serious as the above but they are all fiddling problems to deal with. 4) One of the other consortia where I am assisting as software architect has just recruited a new partner to fill a gap in the skills profile and the coordinator needs some planning input from me. [9:30 - 10:45] Can't get my contact on the phone (no 3) so I tackle no 4 because it gets it off my desk and on to someone else. I redraft the system integration and architecture work package to include the new partner. Fortunately I have worked with them before and get the revision off to my colleague by email without to much difficulty. [10:50 - 11:20] Tackle today's other email. It includes one from colleague saying he has double booked tomorrow and can we reschedule. This is a critical meeting to get his input to one of the bids and it keeps slipping. My schedule for Thursday and Friday is pretty much full. He has never worked on an EU bid before and I will have to write an email with chapter and verse on what needs to be done. Earmark this as no 5 to do today and take a break! Get a brunch at home, top up with coffee and drive to campus while I mull over how to handle partner changes in my own project and what I will teach tomorrow. My informal chat with level 2 reps last week was very amicable with no issues on the table so I decide the Staff-Student committee can take a back seat this time round - I don't need to be there for all of them. [12:45 - 14:30] Turn to the problem of partners playing musical chairs in my own project. Fortunately another partner thinks they know some one who would fill the gap and is interested so I give them the go ahead to make contact. Various bits of draft documentation need updating. I also update my project mailing lists for changes in partners and contacts and I send emails to the leaving partner and others to update those that remain. Also update Skype for the new contact where one has gone sick and touch base with the new person. [14:30 - 15:20] Informal meetings with various colleagues: * The one running third project is forging ahead with no problems. * I speak briefly to one where I am the architect to check my earlier document was what they needed. * Conversation with research centre director about my role there and my application for promotion to a chair. I feel a bit guilty about spending time on this when both projects and teaching issues are pressing. [15:20 - 15:30] back in my office, check email and again try to phone the partner on my consortium where I need to resolve trials problems but I can't reach him. [15:30 - 17:00] Meeting with PhD student. We work through a chapter of his thesis and discuss plans for conference papers in the new year. We have some accepted papers already and analysis of the fieldwork is progressing well towards completion of the thesis this summer. The session takes away some of the tension that project planning has brought along today. [22:00 - 23:59] I pick up on the double booked meeting (no5) and write a detailed email to my colleague explaining the issues that need to be addressed before starting to working on my lecture slides for tomorrow. 298 Tuesday 15 February The research bids that have occupied me over the past months are in the system and success is now in the lap of the gods. Time to address the teaching that I have kept ticking over. No long late evening session running into this days diary but briefly [15 minutes] I convert my last couple of lectures to black and white PDF handouts and upload them to the student's online resources. [9:00-9:45] Run through and respond to emails before tackling the M25 drive to the campus. [11:00-13:30] Sit in on the research centres PhD student presentations but I multi-task writing notes for student quizzes and the forthcoming examination paper. [14:00-15:50] I am one of the directors for a cross-disciplinary research network and I attend a directors meeting. Funding for next year is uncertain and the secretary is leaving - we will just have an agency temp for the next 6 months. We discuss what we might do if the University gives us a running budget for the next year. This is supposed to be a flagship centre for the campus and it is acknowledged as a model for other centres. We have been doing this on one academic post, one admin post and a budget of around #20K, but the University will not make any long-term commitments to keep this a secure core together. This hand to mouth existence is not going to achieve the ambition to be an internationally recognised centre of excellence. It takes about 2 years to establish a good research consortium across Europe with a real chance of winning research funding. How can I work building a working relationship with colleagues in Delft when I don't know if my own institutions engagement in the area is going to fold in 6 months time? [16:00-17:30] Back in the department meeting with a group of final year project students. They are working on software projects I have suggested but seem incapable of making any sort of decision about how to solve the problem with out asking me if it is the right idea. If all of the group are to pass it will need something miraculous! One has a problem statement that says "... and present an analysis of the argument in the text." Asked what he has read in the literature about argument analysis his response - 4 months into the project - is that he hasn't looked yet. [17:30-19:30] I go back to working on quiz and examination material. My resolve to give this week to teaching and ignore research is not working out. Tonight I have a choice: Meet some friends for an evening in the pub (a once a month meeting I have missed for the past two months); or a "TV" dinner and back to writing teaching materials. I choose the pub. This April I will have had 40 years as an academic and my pension will be fully paid up. Another year and I reach retirement age. Hopefully, I can get some sort of emeritus post and stick with the enjoyable and rewarding part of academic life - but it will be so good to be free of the frustrations!!! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday 15 January Although this was not a weekday it was nonetheless a very busy day. So busy that when the dust settled and I could relax at the end of the week I completely forgot about adding to this diary! Engraved in my mind - Tuesday 18 January 5pm in Brussels - the deadline for submitting project proposals for FP7 call number 7. As I said in December I am leading the P consortium and assisting two colleagues leading two others but added to these I am contributing to a consortium bidding to establish an international research network. Late Friday I work thorough to about 1 hours past midnight collating the latest drafts of different sections and noting what still needs to be done. The day is just going to be several desk sessions editing and checking. [9:35 - 11:05] At the computer again working on the project where I have lead responsibility. There are about 68 pages of detailed material in the proposal that just has to read clearly and not leave loose ends. Break to cook a good solid brunch and do a few household chores [13:25 - 20:45] Good solid session on the documents. Lots of coffee and a few breaks in the pattern like: [14:15] Brief conversation with one European partner on Skype. [16:27] Emailed colleague working with me on P thanking them for their input. About 2 hours of this time is working on budget spread sheets to get out budget tables and a few nice charts for the resources and management section. Every good software engineer knows PERT style planning with dates and deliverables doesn't work with software projects but we have to jump though these hoops with every major funding agency. Don't they ever read the research output or the textbooks discussing agile project planning and management! Break to cook supper and watch an hours lightweight TV [23:10 - 24:00] Back on the job. Emailed by the other colleague working with me on P about a potential overlap with another consortium he has identified. They seem to be way behind us in getting their proposal ready. I have been at the keyboard for about 12 hours of today. A Long hard slog but if we get the 2.9M[euro] we want that's another three-year project in the bag. 298 Tuesday 15 March For once I don't work into the early hours getting ready for the day but my calendar for today shows entries starting at 11 am and going right through to 6 pm! Today looks like being busy. [9:15 - 10:00] Collect up PowerPoint files from past presentations of the research project that I am to present in this afternoon's public seminar. Go through email for anything urgent before leaving for work. [11:00 - 13:45] I am having a first meeting with a PhD student and his supervisor this morning. This student Is a junior colleague's first PhD student and the past two years have not been going well. The senior colleague originally appointed as a second supervisor moved on to a new post several months ago and I have now been asked to take on this role to give both student and my colleague some support. After over 2 years work we have a literature review which is at best mediocre and no concrete plans for the empirical study. My job is going to be to get things moving or recommend termination by the summer. I spent yesterday evening looking at his review and making notes. This is a difficult meeting - my colleague is frustrated by the lack of progress and find the student's responses to my questions annoying because this is ground they have been over before. The student does not show the drive and initiative that I would expect of a PhD candidate. He appears to understand the weaknesses I find in the review and the need to be more pro-active about his work but the test will be how much he has achieved by our next meeting. We agree a timetable for the revised (for the umpteenth time!) literature review and the next chapter setting out a theoretical framework to test the research question. I try and end on the positive note that he has a good research question and has a good reason for pursuing this question as part of his career plan. [13:45] My research student (the complete opposite) sticks his head in to ask if I am OK. It appears that I have completely forgotten that last September I agreed to do a session on text analysis for the first year PhDs. Its not in my diary among all the other things for today and I am going to have to eat humble pie and reschedule it! [14:00 - 14:30] I am due to meet final year project students at 14:00 every Tuesday - if they need me. None of the ones I am expecting come but an MSc candidate who wants me to consider supervising her dissertation does appear. We discuss it briefly and I agree that I am willing to supervise her work on this topic. [14:30 - 15:00] Select the slides I will use to present the EU project for the psychology seminar this time. Focus on the cognitive elements of the project and how we used AI to support users. [15:00 - 16:45] I leave a note for my level 2 students saying I will be back in my office at 5 and go across campus to the second session of the public seminar. I get about 20 minutes to talk with people over the coffee break before the presentations resume at 15:30. Mine is the second one following a very interesting presentation on perception. My presentation is well received with interesting questions and a request to meet and follow up a possible spin off piece of research with one of the psychologists present. [17:00 - 18:00] Back in my department for a meeting with my level 2 project group and a discussion of the system architecture they have developed. I despair! I have been teaching design methods at this level but in the project activity almost everything I have covered that could be useful they have ignored. The project is a different module within the degree programme so the knowledge hasn't leaked across the boundary. We are discussing not telling the students which lecture relates to which assessment! Perhaps an extreme measure like this will breakdown the silos of knowledge undergraduates assign to the discipline. Discussion of why they have built some code in the way they have reveals some dubious guidance from the teaching assistants supporting the students in the computer room. Perhaps we are as guilty as the students at putting material in silos. All in all a very mixed day with some positive highlights in the research seminar but rather more depressing encounters with students. It has left me feeling frustrated and annoyed. Every so often my neighbour gives me an invite to supper with the family instead of eating alone. Tonight I have an invite to supper and I can relax and forget some of the day. 312 Today was a full day, but then again every day has been thus far. Given that this is my first semester as a faculty member, it seems like there is just not enough time in the day for all of the things I have to do. I arrived on campus early this morning to let students into the computer lab to work. Our labs are generally closed on Fridays because our department doesn't pay for students to monitor them on low traffic days. However, I had planned to be in the office anyway (despite the fact that I don't teach on Fridays), so I agreed earlier in the week to let students in who needed to work on projects. The first student to need the lab was a student in one of my courses, and I helped her out with some problems she was having with the project assignment that is due at midnight tonight. Off and on throughout the day I assisted other students in the lab with a variety of issues. While I don't have formal office hours on Fridays, my door was open nearly all day, and I was happy to help students that stopped by. It was nice to see students from my courses working hard on a day that is typically pretty empty around the building. I saw none of my colleagues in the department, nor any admin staff members today. Like most Fridays, I'm the only one here. I spent several hours this morning and afternoon grading the midterm exam I gave in one of my classes last night. I was a bit dismayed at how poorly the students did. Prior to the test I actually felt like the exam was on the easier side of things. However, the students in this course are not traditional computer science majors. Being a new faculty member here (and right out of graduate school) it's difficult for me to gauge these students' abilities and adjust accordingly. After looking at the scores I spent a good bit of time worrying about how to address the low scores with my class. Should I curve the exam? How can I get them to really learn the material? Is there something I need to change for future exams and course presentations? Mid afternoon on Fridays I have a meeting with an upper-level undergraduate student for an independent study course. Today was a lot of fun. We briefly talked about changes that need to be made to a human subject proposal document for a study he is conducting (and why), and then we spent the better part of the hour discussing a research paper on UX practices in open source software projects. I had a lot of fun today doing this. The student was engaged in the paper, and I was able to pull in related material about other topics like communities of practice. Having now read and discussed 4-5 papers in the independent study, I'm starting to see progress in the student's ability to reflect critically on the readings--something he had never been asked to do in prior coursework. I took a break from the mountain of work (grading homework, exams, etc) on my desk to have a long-distance research meeting with a colleague via Skype. Being away from the graduate school environment where research discussions were the norm, I realized how much I missed that kind of interaction. My colleague and I caught up a bit (we're both swamped with new jobs) and then we started brainstorming about some issues related to a research project she has started. In some ways I felt like I was back "home" in grad school, if only for an hour. I look forward to making these kinds of calls a regular part of my schedule to help me stay engaged in research. (The first 6 weeks of this semester have been all about course prep, grading, and other teaching duties. So much so that I worry when I'll ever have the requisite time to do the research that is needed to secure tenure---at least my other fellow new faculty feel the same way, and my senior colleagues tell me that it gets much easier after the first year or two). As the early-evening set in I finished up some administrative paperwork that has been staring at me for a while. It's now nearly 8pm, and I'm exhausted. It's time to head home, eat dinner, and then sit down to grade some homework assignments (programs) submitted earlier this week. This weekend will be spent prepping an exam and materials for the coming week. Hopefully I'll be able to find some time to relax a bit with my wife and enjoy the gorgeous Fall weather outside. 312 I got into the office around 8:30am this morning because I left a mountain of work on my desk over the weekend. The morning got off to a bit of an unsettling start with a brief meeting with a colleague about an undergraduate honors thesis proposal. Perhaps my questions/comments about it (not sent to the student) over the weekend were a bit too frank, because I think they were interpreted as harsh. As a new faculty member seeing many things like this for the first time, I have very little perspective about how to tread so as to not offend anyone. The unfortunate thing is that I was just being constructive to try to ensure the best research experience for the student, and I am now left feeling as though I can't provide the type of honest feedback we all relied on from our peers in graduate school. After the meeting, I set to work on a variety of course prep tasks on my todo list. I spent the better part of the morning drafting the assignment document for the next project milestone in my senior capstone course---having drafted all of these before the start of the semester would have been a major help, but I digress. I put a fair bit of extra detail into this document in hopes of getting higher quality results out of the students. Thus far in the semester I have been disappointed in the thoroughness of the design documentation my students are producing. Over lunch I drafted an optional homework assignment for another course (intro programming). This included the homework description, as well as a number of code files to scaffold the students in the task---thankfully I had already written the code for the completed homework and could use that as a place to work back from. Many students have done poorly on previous assignments, or they have missed the submission deadlines entirely. In an effort to give them a chance to make up some points, I decided to post an optional assignment that they can submit to replace their lowest homework grade. We'll see how many students take me up on it--it's a hectic time in the semester as it is. Early afternoon brought a number of consultations with students in the computer lab about issues they are having with their latest homework submission. Of course, they didn't stop in during my scheduled office hours this morning. Alas. However, in helping the students I realized that several people are struggling with one particular detail that we didn't cover in class, so I intend to add that to the list of material for tomorrow's lecture. In my senior capstone class today two students gave presentations about individual research topics---each student in the class is presenting over the next two weeks. One of the presentations was quite good, while the other one was a bit of a let down---a great topic, just not enough preparation on the students' part. I had to scramble a bit to fill the class time left unused by the student. Hopefully the upcoming presentations will make up for a rough start. After class I drafted yet another assignment for the third course I am teaching (definitely drafting assignments was a trend today). Now that it is posted for the students on our course management system, I am going to head home for a quick meal before settling in for the evening drafting the exam I will be giving on Thursday. Hopefully I can get the full draft completed tonight. As for the pile of papers and programs to be graded, those will just have to wait for tomorrow. 312 As today was a Saturday it was a fairly light "work" day. Our Spring term starts this coming Wednesday, so this is the last free weekend, so to speak. I spent an hour or so this morning continuing to prepare the syllabi for my spring courses. I've already invested many hours on my syllabi, and I know that students won't really consider them that important. Still, I think being a little meticulous here helps me think through all the things that I care about most and what I can foreshadow for the students about course content and what they can expect. I probably spend more time on this than others because this is my first year teaching and this set of courses is essentially new to me. I did some digital housekeeping by sorting through (and deleting) work email that had piled up during the Fall in my inbox. I tend to leave messages in my inbox, even after I've read them and replied as necessary. I suppose I like to keep them for historical purposes. Every now and then, though, I go through and delete the old ones which are clearly no longer necessary and sort the others in a more organized manner. However, I found that I was much less consistent during the semester this Fall finding time to do this organization---it's a low priority task. I also spent some time sorting through the some 20 gigabytes of digital 'stuff' that I accumulated during the Fall pertaining to the 3 courses I taught, and I backed all of it up to remote storage. I want to keep it somewhere handy to refer to when necessary, but don't need it on my local hard drive anymore. Beyond that, I used the vast majority of the day on projects around the house (e.g., laundry, cleaning, computer maintenance). This is pretty typical for me---I try to reserve Saturdays as my one non-work day of the week. This evening will be a quiet night at home with my wife. Of course, I have plenty to do---finishing touches on start of term course materials, book chapters to edit, journal articles to review, but those things will wait for tomorrow. On the one hand, it's hard to believe that the winter 'break' is coming to a close, but on the other hand, I'm looking forward to another group of students and a new set of challenges. 312 I just now realized I forgot to submit my diary entry yesterday---most likely because my Tuesdays this term are incredibly packed. All three of the courses I teach are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which generally makes for a very long day. I arrived on campus around 7am to take care of last minute course preparation details. After putting the finishing touches on various presentation materials, I was off to my first class at 10:30---a basic computer literacy course. For perhaps the first time this term, the students seemed really engaged in the material and were asking great questions. We were discussing software licensing and piracy issues, so I think it was a naturally relevant topic for the non-computing majors enrolled in the course. In fact, they asked so many questions that I wasn't able to get all the way through the material I had planned to present that day---but, as far as I'm concerned, this was a great problem to have. I quickly grabbed lunch between courses at my desk and prepared for the next course. My early-afternoon course is one of the same courses I taught last semester, so I'm finding it much easier to teach the second time around. Even though I changed some of the course materials, I feel much better prepared and less anxious about each class. From 4 to 6pm I hold office hours, though I have thus far had few students come in for help. I used the time to catch up on some email and administrative tasks that had piled up throughout the day. My night class is our introductory programming course for computer science majors, and I typically look forward to it throughout the day---I really enjoy the topic. The first few weeks of programming are difficult for many (most?) students, and I have been very excited the last couple classes to see the first 'eureka' moments happening. Things seem to be gelling for the students, finally, and I am beginning to field questions from them that indicate they are picking up on the bigger concepts. (E.g., What exactly is System.out---it's not like the other objects we've been using; Why is it that we don't have to call a constructor for Strings?) After class, I typically polish up code examples produced during class and upload them to the server for the students. I left my office around 9:00pm (an increasingly typical 14 hour day in the office) for home, where I quickly grabbed dinner and started reviewing materials related to program assessment so that I was prepared for an early morning meeting on the subject Wednesday. 312 Unlike most Sundays, I got up early and arrived on campus by 7:30am. The university held commencement exercises for the graduating students, and we faculty were obligated to don our colorful robes to be paraded around. Due to inevitable problems with parking, I got to campus early and took care of some minor work in the office beforehand. Typically I love the festivities. However, our campus holds our large graduation ceremony outdoors, and it was absolutely pouring rain. The administration supposedly had a "rain plan" in place, but decided not to use it because they believed the forecast called for only scattered showers. Things got started over 45 minutes late while they waited for it to lighten, but in the end we still wound up sitting in our finery, huddled underneath umbrellas while students got soaked and the members of the administration who made the decision were conveniently seated on the the dry, covered dais. Ironically, as we were recessing the rain lightened to a mist. Alas... Despite the rain, it was nice to see a couple students from my classes graduate. I left campus around 2pm, my regalia air drying back in my office. My wife and I attended an end of the year party thrown by other junior faculty members in the evening. It was really great to chat with other people without the pressure of tomorrow's class, next week's exam, or that stack of student papers to be marked. I've officially survived my first year of teaching---it's hard to believe it was only one year! Summer will be a great time to catch up on some research projects and work through all of the todos. 314 midnight-3am. worked on marking up honours student's report. 7am up. exhausted 7-8.30 get daughter to school 9-11 watch groupwork presentations to mark 2nd year sw esign course 11-12 discuss marking 12-13 final lecture for 2nd year sw desn course. collected teaching evaluations & tell students about the exam. 13-16 work through anothter students' report. Talk to her about some of it, scan comments and email the rest to her at home. 16-17 prepare to go off for 2 weeks to conference trip 17-19 buy kitten food; take daughter to swimming lessons; eat out; talk to spouse (OK wife :-) about her trip away, job, mother-in-law. 19-21 ensure latest Devo album and Robert Scott "ends run together" in iTunes for trip. ensure machines backed up. read and file email that I haven't got to. build todo list for tomorrow. 23 listen to archers podcast. crash and sleep. 314 managed to get to sleep around midnight. 7.30am awake 8-9am get daughter to school 9am-10am exercise 10-11am get up, shave, answer email etc 11-12pm talk to grad students 12-3pm finalise course marks spreadsheet; talk to collegaues about honours students marks 3-4pm visit shrink 4pm-5pm talk to grad students, futz around 6pm-8pm home, cook pizza, feed family, watch Jane Austen 8pm-10pm desultorily read emails; mark up two chapters of another thesis; 10pm-12 sort emails, edit content onto programming language project blog 12ish crash 314 midnight-1am futz around, listen to album rough mixes. answer some emails. 1am - sleep. listen to the archers. sleep 7am wake up 8am get daughter up, feed breakfast from packets, shave 8.40 walk daughter to school with spongebob squarecake spongecake 9-9.40 very slow run 9.40-10.30 recover, eat breakfast 10.30-12 read email, get up properly 12-1 "festive tables" lunch at daughters' school 1-1.30 commute into work 1.30-4.40 futz around. answer more email, make no real achievements 4.40-6.00 vice-chancellors christmas party 6.00-9.00 family friend christmas party 9.00-10.00 home, put daughter to bed 10-11.00 watch junk tv 11-12.30 muck around. attempting to send yet more emails 12.30 listen to archers. crash. 314 woke up 10ish? 11 went for walk up nearby Johnson's hill 12 recovered from walk 14 attempted to review a paper for a conference - impenetrable, gave up. 14 mowed lawns 15 loaded car 16 to load of rubbish to municipal landfill 18 babysitter in, managed to get out 19 dinner out 20 film 23 home to find 9yrold still away, been reading harry potter 6 00 sleep 314 midnight-0.30 - filed email - wrestled with new freesat receiver, grrr. - watched music video channel. 7.30-9 up, went for a walk, got daughter up and to school 9-11 teleconference 11-12 get into work 12-1 met with student 13-14 answered email etc 14-14.45 talked to potential industry collaborator 14.14-15.00 go home 15.30-16.30 talk to community health nurse about daughter 16.30-10 had dinner, did family stuff, wrestled with aforementioned freesat receiver, read newspaper, did some emails 10-12.30 worked on emails, advisiory board research presentation 4.15-4.40 am answered emails & conference programme committee work 314 woken up by spouse 6am. up 8am; get daughter to school somehow, answer emails... 9am get self up & in to wkr 10am in to office, read email, lend brother old phone for his trip to europe say goodbye to postdoc heading away 11am attend a seminar by doomed PhD student. Tried not to be too negative midday lunch w/ speaker 1pm do email; talked to a graduate student being evicted from the desk discover university's PhD policy now runs to sections called things like "4.3.2 (d) (iv)" 2pm talk to the school admin to find them a new desk. 3pm home for daughter's playdate. attempting to work. 4pm fail to work while not really supervising playdate. 5.30pm take daughters friend home. go shopping 6pm assemble dinner. drink most of bottle of pinot noir 8pm attempt to get daughter to bed. 10pm watch documentary on getting a phd while completeling reviews 11pm crash 314 7am woken up by spouse getting up 8am crawled out of bed somehow shoveled daughter out of bed and off to school by 9am 9.38 managed to catch bus 10 arrived at university 10.20 met external examiner for PhD student of mine; took him out for coffee 11-1300 student's PhD Viva. She passed! 13-1330 admin after Viva, including parading student all around labs accompanied by co-supervisor holding a very large (1m diameter) disc platter from a machine decommissioned 20 years ago, while banging it with a rolled up copy of student's thesis and announcing that the student had passed her exams 1330-1500 lunch to thank examiners and good restaurant downtown 1500-1530 walked around town, talked to student about what comes next (i.e. jobhunting) 1530-1600 get home 1600-1800 home! Daughter still at end-of-term film party with after school care! Bliss! 1800-1830 buy takeaway for dinner; supplies from supermarket, collect daughter from after school care bus (arrived late) 1830-1930 eat dinner. drink half bottle of wine. 1930-2030 file emails. put of doing admin for conference I will organise in about 14 months time 2030-2230 spouse watches American Idol. I send 30 conference emails, googling to find contact details etc etc 2230-2300 watch documentary on contemporary composer while finishing the emails 2300-0000 unsure. Read the web? fall asleep? Don't know 0000-0015 wake up. realize diary not finished. Download podcasts of "The Archers" 0015-0045 listen to podcasts. go to sleep. Almost wished diary day had been last week - from monday 11th to sat17th inclusive, worked about 18 hours most days, 4-6 hours sleep each day, writing a 15,000 word paper - colleagues did the experiments & stats, I generated the libretto. Luckily I have only a couple of weeks like that each year, but when they happen, everything else takes second place. 314 By some miracle, did no work today. I estimate that's the second sunday since Feb where I haven't worked for at least a couple of hours. 314 up 8am attempt and fail to get daughter out of bed in time for school - leave to spouse to mix bribery and threats 9-10am run 10-11 am mow lawns, breakfast, get to work 11-12 attend seminar. fall asleep. 12-1 talk to colleague; lunch 1-2 stare vacantly into space 2-3 work on CV for grant 3-4 talk to PhD student & ex-postdoc supervising about submission to doctoral symposium at a conference in the US 4-430 work on grant 4.30-5pm collect daughter 5-6.30pm help daughter rock-climb 6.30-8.30pm dinner 8.30-9pm wrangle daughter to bed 9-10pm watch backbenchers on soon to be shut-down by the tories public service TV channel 10-11pm watch 'Sherlock' saved on freeview 314 not a great day. 8am crawled up 9am got daughter to school I think. 9am went walking - frost around for most of the walk 10am-12pm achieved very little 12-1pm, got into work eventually, missed research meeting, but paper to be discussed was boring... 1-3pm avoid doing work thanks to the internet. 3-5pm talk to graduate student about research over the weekend: complete some of the work I avoided on friday - read 70 page phd proposal from another grad student - read draft of paper by another grade student - check final thesis post corrections for which I was internal examiner so: yep, it's great being an academic. you can avoid work - and then trash your weekend catching up 314 0400 talk to wife for 90mins about her work problems 0800 get up. attempted to get daughter out the door to school for 9am 0900 daughter not out. put on running gear. notice overnight snowstorm 0915 walk daughter to school 0920 do 40minute run in about 50mins. that comes of putting on 5kgs on last overseas trip. have to run faster to lose weight. additional weight ensures I run slower. 1010 walk home enjoying sunlight and blue sky 1100 drive into work. notice snowfalls. curse for not getting in earlier 1115 talk to grad student on skype on colleague's iPhone. Grad student not dumb enough to drive into work 1130 read email. read web news. do admin. or waste time. 1230 talk to colleague 1300 go to lecture 1420 return from lecture. talk to another colleague about them doing a presentation for an internal conference on IT use in the university 1500 email from admin advises staff to leave due to snowstorm. drive into to wifes office in town 1520 drive hope, stop to pick up daughter early from childcare. 1540 stop to buy essential supplies in case snowed in 1600 get home. happy families! 1601 discover broadband has failed 1602-2130 fail to get anything useful done. Didn't even cook dinner 2130 daughter not asleep but at least in bed 2200-2300 edit one page "summer scholarship" application. fail to upload it as broadband still not working 315 Today was the final day of the teaching trimester, and the final report submission day for our honours students. I got in at 9:30am, and the entire "normal workings hours" part of the day revolved around lightening meetings with my four honours students, checking over report drafts. I did have one impromptu 20-minute meeting with a PhD student, but I had to leave while my fellow co-supervisor was launching into some discussion about the related work because one of my honours students had a particularly weak evaluation chapter that needed addressing. I had to leave at 2:30pm to pick up my son from school, although I came back at 7:30pm and stayed until the midnight deadline, flitting between the different students, and trying to provide some high-level guidance as to where they needed to put their last-gasp effort in on their reports. Not a typical day really - a lot more report reviewing and no lecturing or administrative responsibilities 315 It's the start of the first trimester here, and as always I'm tinkering with lectures. This - without fail - means that the night before a major lecture, I'm furiously revising what I'm going to cover, in the full knowledge that I could have easily have done this months back if I wasn't so easily distracted. It's also the time where final year project students are choosing their supervisors and projects, so I've had a few people swinging past my office. I've tried to leave my door open as much as possible, but sometimes it's necessary to gently let it swing shut with a well-placed throw of a ball. Mid-week tends to be the time I work 10-11 hours per day, but I tend to slack off on Thursday and Friday and get distracted on pet projects, so I can't complain - it's a great job, and with all the other people going through pain in the world, I wouldn't trade it for anything short of a multi-million dollar lottery win. Time spent today: 6 hours on preparing for a lecture - giving a tool talk on a tool that we upgraded to a new (backwards incompatible, completely restructured) version the day the course began. 2 hours meeting final year students, and a couple of hours sifting through papers for administrative meetings, and contemplating undoubtedly ill-fated attempts to "work smarter" for the coming months. 315 Lectures have finished, and now the great pile of marking that has built up must be tackled. I have several Masters theses that need to be assessed, and that should be top priority. However, on days like this, when I don't have any crucial meetings (other than one teaching & learning committee meeting, because administration marches on) and the winter weather outside is quite agreeable, it's difficult not to go on random flights of fancy on the internet, looking for what could be the next interesting research project. Great thing about this job - sure there are days when the third extension to the deadline must finally be met - but there are also days when I can do whatever, wherever, and be paid a pretty decent salary for it too. Good day, all up. 319 Been reviewing slide sets for various courses and trying to improve them. This is the second week of term. Attendance is still reasonable but the classes are much too large, and it is just depressing when you see people sitting zoned out at the back of the lecture theatre not even bothering to listen. Some keen students are interacting which is heartening but they are the ones who you know would interact anyway. The looming of the CSR and the probably irrecoverable disaster that it is about to be inflicted on us all (well apart from bankers, financiers and the rest of the rich) is an upsetting undercurrent at the moment. I do not see much future for Universities in this country anymore. I expect many colleagues to jump ship and move elsewhere (particularly people who are not UK in origin and who have lots of research profile) Ended up with more students to supervise for projects than my I am supposed to have by the official model. Am really hacked off at colleagues' unwillingness/inability to generate projects that students will be interested in doing and their general unwillingness to supervise anyone at all. I get so angry at the "students are just a waste of my time when I could be doing my important research work" attitude - most of the time the "research work" is really rather dull, over specialised and not that important, and even more often, their research is actually writing project proposals or managing projects rather than doing any actual research. "I cant do my lecture can you fill in as I have to be at a meeting" Research is important but so are the students. They are not better or more important than me because they have the luxury of time to send doing "research" and I do twice as much teaching as them. 319 Back to teaching after reading week and start of a series of lectures with student presentations. The turnout was dreadful which given that they all have to present eventually seems ridiculous. Attendance overall seems worse this year than other years, though some students do seem to be informing us of absence more this year. Attended pointless session on institutional approach to e-learning which just reinforced my impression that some of the people involved in running parts of the University do not understand that you really cannot run a University like it was a conventional business. This will not change of course, so we are doomed to even more stupid pointless forms and multi-stage approval processes, all of which mean that you are forced to be entirely unresponsive if you teach a subject that changes fast and frequently. Lots of people talking about "quality" of course (without being able to define it) and worrying about "feedback" (without knowing how to do it so that NSS scores will go up....) The more I think about it, the more desperate the next few years are going to be, and almost certainly more than just a few. I'd give up and get out but I feel a strong responsibility to my students, now and in the future. I could not recommend anyone to take up an academic career anymore. 319 Hmm, end of term approaching. Marking to do, lots of it and then exams coming up and exam marking. I hate marking and assessment in general. Need to prepare for modules next semester too. Lots of unhappiness about fees - bound to have an entirely negative effect on everything. You really cannot put a price on education and research done in a profit independent way. It is so fundamental to development, though clearly it cant work that well or all the idiots who supported the motion would have been shown that during their stints of free education. Much too annoyed about everything to make coherent or sensible post! 319 A three-line whip from the department meant that I had to help at an admissions event today. I resent this immensely. I am very happy to work on Saturdays voluntarily or if it is of benefit to my students (and I frequently do), but I object to being told that I *have* to take part in what I regard as an extremely dubious marketing exercise. 319 At home ill. Trying to prepare teaching material, generate work for classes that I am missing and answer student emails, as well as working on some new ideas. Probably should be doing none of these. 319 aaagh, two days late again. So much to do, so little time. Marking, teaching, preparation, project meetings with students. Horrible weather, foul mood, not feeling at all well. Trying hard not to let any balls drop. FAIL looming. 319 tired, tired, tired, tired 319 A couple of panic stricken students emailing me. Nothing else. Calm before the marking storm..... 319 Another year gone and some good students graduated, some whom I am proud to have been able to help. Feeling that summer malaise though, can't seem to do anything. The usual attempts at re-organising things are under way but nobody really seems to have taken in what is going to happen in 2012 and they seem genuinely unprepared for what this new regime is going to be like. If there are any students at all. (But many colleagues regard students as a pest that get in the way of their research of course) 319 Back from holiday. Having a hard time getting motivated to do the stuff that needs doing as always (but I felt like that before the holiday as well). Too much pressure to do too many things, so nothing gets done well if it gets done at all. Teaching not properly sorted out. Timetable not sorted out. It never gets any better does it? 354 December 15, 2010 7 AM. Lying in bed. Listening to my children get up downstairs. They preparing to go to school. I will stay at home with my dad and his wife. It is final exam week. My students have submitted all of their work. I have lots of grading to do. I need more exercise. Need to get on my bike. Biking to work and back keeps my blood going, which keeps me sane. Working from home seems such a luxury, but without my biking I get grumpy. I get up. My desk is a mess. Notes of research ideas. Piles of papers to grade. A closed laptop beckoning me to open it and peruse my e-mail. Resist that I must. Grade I must. Yet, my dad and his wife are in town through tomorrow. Staying with us. I should get dressed, grab my grading and bike to a coffee shop at least 3 miles away to get my blood going. 8 AM. Dropped my daughter at a nearby friend's house where she will get a ride to high school across town. Back home, my dad and his wife are up. I lost my slot to do grading. 9:45 AM. Spent half an hour collating the final portfolio entries. I thought I had saved time by printing all of the documents at work, but a bunch of them had no names on them (they were separate files from within a zip file, so I presume the student did not feel a need to individually name the separate documents). I had to go carefully back through them all, checking the original submissions to figure out who had submitted which ones. What a pain. Sigh. 11 AM. My father and I are talking, or rather he is pontificating about stories of waste or frustration. I quickly tired these conversations, so remembering a conversation on Saturday about a a table saw that automatically stops before cutting a person's finger, I go over to the downstairs computer and look up the YouTube video for SawStop. Perhaps I can divert him into some positive stories about inventions that matter. The video is very impressive. It is such a great example of invention. How did the inventor think of using electrical conductivity of human flesh to detect imminent disaster and automatically stop the blade? It reminds me of TRIZ. Did the inventor explicitly use a strategy like TRIZ? I have been thinking of creating a course in autumn 2011 covering topics such as design, innovation, and biomimicry. This video is relevant to that, so I install delicious's Firefox plug-in on the downstairs computer and tag this video for future use. This reminds me of the quick talk on biomimicry that I did in my software testing course that I just finished. How could I redo that talk to make it more effective? It seems like it would be good to include some nice videos such as of Festo's bionic penguin, since watching a video like that may help students appreciate what biomimicry does, and help them remember it. 11:30 AM. Dad and his wife go off to the Nordic Heritage Museum. My wife is at Curves. My children are at high school. Finally, I have the space in which to do some grading. It is cold in the house, especially in the upstairs office, so I put on some warmer and I set up on the dining room table downstairs where it is warmer. Unfortunately, the light is not very good at the dining room table. I am beginning to regret that I printed the portfolio entries with two pages per side of paper. While the small font was fine at work with the bright lights in my office, here at my dining room table is hard on my older eyes. Where is that grading rubric that I had been evolving for portfolios? I search in my e-mail. Not there. Search in my hard drive folders. Can't find it there. Search on my desk. Not in any of my piles. Have I lost these notes? I wish I had taken more time to organize evolution of my understanding of this course during the course. 12:30 PM. I found the old rubric. It was in and e-mail in which I sent the feedback to students after the last submission. I spent some time merging those notes with the original rubric to come up with the one that I want to use now. My rubrics certainly had to revolve quite a bit in this course, as I came to grips with what the students could do and what they understood or found confusing. My wife returns home, and I feel my grading period slipping away. She opens the computer on the table across from me, and after a couple minutes asks if I want to order anything else from Amazon. She's ordering some stuff from Amazon for Christmas, and we might as well save on the shipping. I did have some books I wanted to order for work, so I end up spending 15 minutes in a rabbit hole reviewing my Wish List on Amazon and Skypeing her references for several books that I would like. Of course, I had to investigate some of the choices further to decide which particular book I wanted. The A3 technique used in Lean has been intriguing me for a while, and I have been doing more and more diagramming as I design my courses and research, but which book on the A3 technique should I order? There is so much interesting stuff out there... 1:20 PM. My wife and I have a lovely lunch of leftovers from my nephew's bar mitzvah. Chatting with my wife during these times is one of the advantages of working from home now that classes are over. Even though I might be more effective in the office, it is hard to justify the one-hour commute, each way, to the office. Is about trade-offs, just like I have the students write about in their research papers. Staying at home I get time to discuss Christmas presents. And now it is time to get back to grading! I am grading the student portfolios. Wow! The first portfolio I grade it was beautifully framed and woven. The words are quite poetic, and it includes some beautiful pictures. This is not what I expected from that particular student who wanted me to more precisely define homework assignments, such as specifying a word limit instead of a page limit for the research paper. It also is rewarding to read about how she gained some insight from the chaos with which she struggled in my course. 4:30 PM. I finished two thirds of the portfolios. The students are doing quite well. My one complaint is that a significant proportion of the students did exactly what I asked of them often but less than I had hoped from them. Many students simply pieced together homework assignments from the course, claiming that the portfolio showed what it meant to be a new student in software testing. Their story lines that connected the entries in the portfolio were very weak. The commentaries on each entry were. I was hoping for the students to include material from outside this course and show how it relates to software testing. Some students did do that. Some focused on the lessons they learned in this class, and wove threads about those throughout portfolio. That is what I was really looking for. How can I frame the assignment, next time, so that students better understand what I am aiming for? I am reluctant to provide examples, since students tend to focus on the example as a template for success. Still, there must be something I can do to improve the richness of the portfolio's overall. As I grade these portfolios I think of more notes for next month's experience report that I am some of the students will be giving to a local special-interest group on software testing. It is nice that this course is leading into a talk and might lead into a publication. It is tiring to grade the same type of thing for a couple hours. I take a nap. That evening my family had dinner with my brother and his family at a local Vietnamese restaurant. At the end of dinner, my brother and I got talking about Mike Cohn's testing triangle and various extensions to it that I had seen. My brother mentioned how valuable this triangle is in his work as a software developer in a large organization. He is trying to help his group use better software development practices. I had wanted to cover Mike Cohn's testing triangle in this course this autumn, but somehow it slipped out of my plan. I only remembered about it after the class ended, when a set of the students and I were doing a retrospective in order to prepare for the experience report. When I added a triangle to the list of things to do next time, the students asked what it was. It only took me less than 5 minutes to draw the triangle and described its use and meaning. Perhaps I could have fitted that discussion into this course this time. Ah well. My brother and I were struggling with one aspect of the triangle. The top third represents test that automate the application's user interface. Automated test for this are very expensive and problematic to maintain. When would you want to do this? It is unclear to either of us. We continued to talk about the triangle, and sketch different aspects of it that we have not seen in the original drawing. We headed dimensions representing trade-offs. It is always fun for me to work with my brother on such things. It was fun talking, diagramming and synthesizing with my brother. Talking to them helps me understand better. Wrapping in his deep experience with software development helps expand my knowledge. Perhaps, I said, it is time to publish an updated version of this triangle. He'd love to work on paper like this, he said, but he doesn't have time because he is doing so much programming. I really wanted to ask him whether you want to collaborate on this paper, but I resisted the urge. Over the years I have learned that there is peril in me working with him. Despite how easily we can bounce ideas back and forth and build them when talking about software development, doing more explicit work together usually leads to disappointment on one side or the other. I resist the urge to invite him in. Perhaps if he invites me in, that might work. Why do I maintain my optimism despite all the evidence? Planning is not my forte and the results of my course show that - both good and bad. Good because software testing involves a lot of chaos, and the structure of this course put them in some chaos from which they could learn. Bad because I do need to give more clarity about some things, such as what is coming up in the next couple of weeks. There were a few times when I lost even that much clarity about this course. This course was hard for me. I am not a domain expert in this topic and I struggled with how to teach some of the aspects. Several times during the course I had to revisit my assumptions of what level the students were at, and go back to more basics. The next version of this course will be much better. 10 PM. I am making cookies for my 13-year-old daughter to take to school tomorrow. It's a long story. She could've done them ... If she had been better organized. Sound familiar? In any case, my mind wandered back to the testing triangle discussion, which I had preserved on a napkin from the restaurant. As I wait between batches of cookies, I think of the student who wants to do an independent study with me next quarter. I wondered if he would be willing to do more background research around the paper covering an update of the testing triangle. What information would I want? What does the triangle look like in some existing companies? Where do they put their testing efforts? How would you measure that? What does it mean? Then I remembered that the student wants to do something on design patterns, so the testing triangle is probably not the right fit for him. How can I direct his interest and work toward something that would be highly useful to me? Something that would lead toward a publication. The mantra that I am trying to learn. At dinner, my brother had suggested that I do a course on design patterns. He and his colleagues had been talking about how universities are not putting out people who know how to design software objects. What if the student works toward an understanding of what would be a good set of patterns to put in such a course? That could be useful. What are the principles I would want around which to design this collaboration? How much can I expect from the student to one quarter of independent study? As a new professor, with plenty of industry experience, I have lots to learn here. Teaching. Research. My mind is never far from thinking of those. I'm working longer hours in this new career, but it certainly fits my wife's desires for me. Not the longer hours, but the type of work, it's fit for me, and her respect of it. 354 Saturday, January 15, 2011 It is a Saturday, so it should be a day off. That is my theory. And that is how I have led most of my working life. Now, four months into the new career in academia after many years in industry that theory is fractured. This quarter, I am teaching two courses that are new to me, and I did not put in enough time last quarter and over the break to properly prepare myself. While I have inherited the course design, and many of the in class exercises and homework assignments I am not particularly pleased with some of the aspects of the course designs. Furthermore, one of the courses was designed to have a maximum of 36 students, yet this time I have 48 students. In addition, I am searching for my research paths. For me, successful research requires collaborators. So, since arriving here in September, I have been socializing different areas in which I would be interested in doing research to see which gather energy. The seeds are starting to sprout in several areas, and I need to choose carefully with respect to my long-term tenure path, while managing my capacity. This is the context for my Saturday. I awake at 5 AM. Again. Far too early for me. Not enough hours of sleep. Same as yesterday. I am worrying about the classes I'm teaching, and the research opportunity I just declined. I know I should trust my friend, who knows academia well and knows me well. He tells me that there will be plenty of opportunities, and that's important skill of an academic is to be able to say "No". Saying "No" is the necessary shutting of one door so that I can keep other doors open. Still, I find it difficult to believe him. Intellectually, I believe him. Emotionally, I have my doubts. I get up. I really want to go for a walk, but it is dark outside and I don't want to wake up my wife looking for clothes to wear. Instead, I opened my laptop and check out the online peer-reviewed journal "Ubiquity". I learned about this journal on Wednesday night, after I gave my talk to the bi-monthly meeting of the local professional special interest on software testing group. The organizer of that meeting invited me to give an experience report on teaching the software testing class that I designed and delivered last quarter. The talk went extremely well. He told me that my talk was everything he had hoped for and more. It was insightful. It had real stories of success and failure. It had humor. And so on. According to him, there is only one other place in the United States that teaches anything like this, so this is indeed a chance for my university to be distinguished. That was rewarding to hear. At the end of the talk, Brian came to talk to me. Brian and I had both trained with Jerry Weinberg and afterwards with Robert Dunham. When I first taught a Software Engineering course back in 2002, Brian was one of six professionals I brought together to help me design the course. This time, I invited him to talk with my class about what it means to be a manager of software testing professionals, which he did. Now, he congratulated me on my talk and gave me a copy of "The Innovator's Way" by Peter J Denning and Robert Dunham. Brian also asked me if I wanted to be a contributing editor to the online Journal Ubiquity. I had never looked at Ubiquity, so given that I was up, albeit too early, I thought I might as well check it out and see if it might fit me. I read a few articles about what "computation" means. They were interesting, but a bit too abstract for me. I did learn about the real number model of computation, and that in some cases it more accurately reflects the complexity of actual computation than the Turing model. Make sense. I also noticed comments from some readers that argued against the need for a new model that was "equivalent" to the Turing model. Inwardly, I sighed. Why do people continue to look for the One model, instead of acknowledging that there is always a range of different models, some of which work better than others for different questions. Arguing for the One model seems so academic. Academic. The place I am now living. I then perused for articles that might resonate with me. One caught my attention: "Cheating in Computer Science" by William Hugh Murray, http://ubiquitydev.acm.org/article.cfm?id=1865908. In this article he writes that: "I used to teach programming by teaching a language, vocabulary and grammar, and then saying to the student, write a program that does this, that, or some other thing. I expected the student to compose and required originality. I expected the student to respond to a specification so incomplete that one would never tolerate it outside academia. "I no longer teach programming by teaching the features of the language and asking the students for original compositions in the language. Instead I give them programs that work and ask them to change their behavior. I give them programs that do not work and ask them to repair them. I give them programs and ask them to decompose them. I give them executables and ask them for source, un-commented source and ask for the comments, description, or specification. I let them learn the language the same way that they learned their first language. All tools, tactics and strategies are legitimate. "As a teacher, my job is to help students learn, not create artificial barriers to learning in the name of equitable grading. Nice people do not put others in difficult ethical dilemmas. Grading should be a strategy for making learning more satisfying by demonstrating accomplishment." This was it! These paragraphs resonated with me. They described some of what I was struggling with in my "Analysis and Design" course. That course had been designed to explicitly not show students exemplars of the types of things they're trying to create. Instead, the students read about what are good and bad qualities of that type of thing, Craig one, in class look over examples of what they and others have created, learn from these examples, and then create another instance of this for their solo project that runs throughout the course. There are some good aspects of this design, but the students are we struggle with not knowing where they are going. I had been advised, by person is taught this course several times before, to not provide exemplars, since students would then create things just like the exemplar. This design did not seem right to me. Reading William Murray's article reminded me of the programming books to study coming out a few years ago that dove directly into programming, instead of starting with theory. Couldn't we use some of those same techniques here? What if we gave students an example of a part, and have them use the readings to critique it and then to improve it? Does that not seem like a more pragmatic, useful and grounded approach? Unfortunately, this is the first time I have taught this course so that I do not know what it really means for the students to go to the full course. Nor did I get enough time over the holidays to properly prepare for this course (and the other one I also am teaching for the first time). I am but 2 weeks to a 10 week quarter, so I struggle with the idea of changing the course design. Yet what we are doing seems wrong. It seems artificial. Contrived. Unhelpful. I think back to my freshman year in university. It was Friday in an English literature course I was taking. The teacher had just returned our papers in which we had analyzed the development of a theme throughout a book we had read. I remember having absolutely no clue about how to write such a paper. When we got the papers back, mine was marked with an F. Ouch. Then, the professor read sections from the best paper she had received. "Oh!" I remember thinking, "so THAT is what she was looking for!" I asked her if I could rewrite the paper. Yes, she said, if I could have it done by Monday. I went home, and quickly reroute the paper weaving the theme and supporting it with quotes in the way illustrated by the exemplar paper. This time, I got an A+. That was a rewarding and useful learning experience. What were the essential aspects of that learning experience? Did I need to struggle and fail the first time? If I had been presented with an exemplar the first time, would I have learned just as well? I do not know about these two questions, but I do know the absolute importance of seeing that exemplar. Until then, I could not visualize what success meant. The course I currently am teaching has readings that describe the qualities of what makes a good part, but does not have examples of those parts. It helps provide a rubric, but a rubric is not the same thing as an exemplar. I continue to wonder how to weave exemplars into this course. So that I feel I can teach it well. 8:45 AM. I call my mom, who lives 4 houses away, and invite her over for a cup of tea. She is my best collaborator. For whatever reason, she and I can quickly and fruitfully develop ideas. We have even published papers together. Now, I have need of her, for this last week has been rough on me. While she is making her way over, and the tea brews, I make notes of the items to talk about: 1) the teaching blog I just read 2) Ubiquity as a forcing function for my writing 3) research and the E-learning offer I turned down 4) my stress She arrives with a book called "The Art of Choosing" by Sheena Iyengar. I saw the title and thought "How did she know about the struggle I have had with too many choices?" It turns out, she did not. A few days ago, we had talked about "The Art of Possibility" by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander, and she had meant to look at that book, but instead got the Art of Choosing. So much for supernatural connections between us. As we discussed her notes from this book, one aspect resonated with me when related to items 3 and 4 on my list. As I already knew, having choices is not necessarily good. This is especially true if you have remorse or guilt about the choice you have made. This causes worry. Which causes stress. Which exactly described my current situation: my University had offered me a chance to be an e-fellow on a project exploring how technology can help pedagogy. I liked the ideas of being part of the conversations with people who are trying to innovate here. On the other hand, I was more interested in exploring higher-level issues of innovation in university and less about how to use technology in a classroom. They needed a decision quickly, if I had a variety of complex questions about the project and what other e-fellows were proposing to do. Unfortunately, the person organizing the project was extremely busy and could only be reached by e-mail. I was feeling very nervous about the commitment, and could not tell if this nervousness was a good nervousness or a bad nervousness. Was this like the first time I signed up to teach a course, and was nervous as ever even though I really wanted to do it and it was a great thing to do? Or was this my body telling me that I did not have the capacity, that this was not the place for me to spend my energy? In the end, it was too difficult to get the answers to my questions, so I declined. And then I started wondering if I had done the wrong thing. Several times a day. At 5 AM when I should be sleeping. On my bike rides home. Feeling more and more nervous. Should I try to weasel my way back into the project? As we talked about this, my mom pointed out a tactic she used when she switched careers after raising children. She was a new family therapist, overwhelmed with the complexities, difficulties and pressures of her job. Working in a sparsely populated western state, in a clinic that had never had a family therapist before but felt it was a good thing to have. Yet they did not know what this family therapy thing was, you're having a very hard time dealing with having a family therapist. To keep her sanity, each day on her way home should find one success, no matter how small, and brag shamelessly to herself about this one success. Make it unrealistically large. She did this every day for a while, and it helped. Okay I thought let's try it. I made a list of my successes this week: - Experience report on my testing course - Saying "No" to e-fellow offer - noticed low energy in my class; asked students to fill out 3 x 5 cards of what is or is not working; now have data to act on - invitation to apply to be contributing editor on a journal - finding the Journal article on teaching that led me to rethink the use of exemplars in my course - possible Google internship for a student from my University - independent study with my student going well - realize the 9 to 1 problem in my current course design, and came up with a strategy to fix it - realized a much smaller change could fix it after talking with a student who taken the course before - implemented that fix - fixed all links on course website That felt good! By the end of writing down that list, I felt successful. What a wonderful feeling. We also talked about what new course or courses I might want to teach next year. And we talked about specific strategies to deal with some other issues I have with each of the two courses I'm teaching. And then, two hours later, it was time to end. And for me to go back to sleep and get some rest. 1:30 PM. I woke to a quiet house, the family all out and about. Ate some lunch. Cleaned up around the kitchen. Went to the local plumbing store to fix a leaky faucet. Chatted with my family when they came home. The type of stuff I wanted to do all day. By five o'clock I was back working on my courses. I did not want to be doing this. I wanted to take the whole day off. But there was too much prep to do for next week. I worked on and off all evening, until my wife told me it is time for bed. This quarter is being very stressful for me. I am making it stressful. I have high expectations for my teaching, and do not like it when I am not able to reach my expectations. Yet, as several faculty have warned me, this is the type of career that will suck every ounce of my time if I let it. I must, must get better at protecting my weekends, and protecting my stress level, and getting enough exercise, and smiling and laughing enough, and finding time to relax. Which lead me to my last activity this day. Before going to bed, I sat and meditated. For many years, I have wanted to get into a meditation routine. I have tried at various times, but have never been able to find a pattern that worked. Finally, a few weeks ago my wife suggested I meditate before going to bed. I had never tried it just before going to sleep. Her hope was that it would allow me to sleep better. And it has, usually. Just 10 min., sitting quietly, clearing my mind had made a big difference in my sleep. Now, I sometimes sit for 15 min. or even 20 min. In the afternoons instead of trying to take a nap I sit and clear my mind. It is as refreshing as a nap, and a whole lot easier to arrange to do. After meditating, I decided I wanted to read some. My mind was still too active. I needed some sort of distraction, something to get me off my work. I wanted a relaxing book to read. Science fiction. That usually does the trick for me. Unfortunately, I could not find a new book to read on. In the end, I pulled down my old copy of the book I have not read for decades: Dune, by Frank Herbert. I was very much taken by this book when I first read it as a teenager. I even marked up paragraphs that were meaningful to me. It turns out this copy is that copy that I have marked up decades ago. On page 15 was the following paragraph that I had highlighted: "I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain." As I read this, all the tension left my body. My mind cleared. It was as if an alien that had been wrapped around my head, smothering my mind was suddenly gone. For the first time in days, my mind felt refreshed. It was remarkable. I read the passage again, and again. In the middle of the night, when I woke up thinking about work, I repeated the passage and my mind cleared, and I fell back to sleep. Wow! It has been a week since last Saturday, January 15, and this passage continues to clear my mind of worry. Looking back over the last four months in this new job, I see how it has put me in a chaotic space, especially this quarter. Looking at it from the Tipu Aki leadership model (http://www.tipuake.org.nz/tipu_life_cycle.php), I am in the soil, in the undercurrents, in the place of chaos and opportunity where new ideas can germinate, where new possibilities can arise. Over these months I have been consciously using my sensing to explore this space with many experiments. What ideas resonate with others? What grading rubrics do students understand? How do other teachers deal with group work? What do students think of the type of group work that has been done in their courses here? And so on, and so on. I love this exploration. I love the plethora of ideas, and the chance to experiment with them. I love to focus on teaching, I'm making a difference in people's lives. A providing distinctions and models of action that help students be more effective in their jobs and their lives in general. Now my goal is to do this with a whole lot less stress. To be active in the present, aware of the past, with concern for the future. As James Bach so nicely put it in pages 134 and 135 of his book "Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar: How-Education and the Pursuit of Passion Can Lead to a Lifetime of Success", it is very important to make sure that your expectations are low, and your aspirations are high. If you do not meet your expectations, you are worried. If you exceed your aspirations, you are bored. The space between your expectations and your aspirations is the place in which you are engaged, with a chance of happiness. So make sure that there is a large space between your expectations and your aspirations. I came across this concept last September, when James's brother gave me a copy of his book. Now I continually assess my expectations and aspirations. In particular, I need to continually assess my expectations and make sure that they are realistic, for it is far too easy for me to slip my expectations toward my aspirations. Which puts me into my worry space. Which increases my stress beyond the good level. It is hard to change old habits. 354 Tuesday, 15 February 2011 10:15 AM. Another day of teaching. Last night's class went quite well, so I'm feeling good. And I have a pretty good idea what to do for today's class. I would like to do some more reading on a related topic, in order to give students a different perspective. We will see if I get time. Bike to bus, put my bike on bus, and take the bus the rest of the way to work. Taking the bus partway has been a new routine this quarter. I was looking forward to effective reading time. Unfortunately, the bouncy bus makes it too difficult to underline, so I am not getting much out of these bus rides. Pity. Got into the office to find that the morning meetings were canceled. Try to concentrate on my class preparation, and couldn't. Had to spend an hour cleaning up desk, filing papers, getting rid of mess before I could concentrate. Faculty meeting today. As a university, we continue to do well financially. Our administration budgets below our actual enrollment, and we've been able to increase enrollment to offset budget cuts from the state. It is odd that we feel almost embarrassed that we are so lucky compared to our sister state schools. Thank goodness our administration and luck. The issue of larger class sizes came up in the faculty meeting. Our enrollment is up substantially over the last few years, during which we have only added a few faculty and almost no staff. Across campus, the current average class size is 20 students, though most of the classes in our program are larger. At the moment I am teaching two classes of 45 and 46. This is problematic in two respects: one class was designed for 36 students, max; and at this point in my career I should not be teaching two new courses with such high enrollments. Well, that explains why I have felt so overwhelmed this quarter! In any case, perhaps we've been spoiled, and need to learn how to do well (enough) with larger class sizes. They are coming. After the faculty meeting, I met with two colleagues to discuss the history and future of the software engineering curriculum. We have a distinct and conscious emphasis on comparative approach to teaching, where we expose the students to the variety of ways to approach a particular situation, instead of focusing on one. This approach makes some sense, yet it makes me nervous. For instance, in software testing, is our role to teach students all of the different approaches that you could take to suffer testing, or give them experience with some very effective ways? It is such a difficult question, since what is effective is so very context-sensitive. I also am somewhat nervous that we do not have our students build much. Much of our curriculum is about analysis of items, rather than construction. We need both. Not sure what to do there. Still feeling my way in this new career. Met with Director to discuss a self-supporting workshop that a colleague from industry and I are planning to do under the university auspices. The U can do all of the planning and admin, while we focus on teaching. And getting paid some extra money and hopefully earning some for the program. Looks like this could come together. Scrambled to put together some material I had forgotten I needed for class. At least I've avoided another day of panic - just a little rush before class. I let my students go 10 min. before the end of class, because the next exercise would have taken at least 30 minutes and I did not have anything to fill in for 10 minutes. It felt strange. Experiential teaching is different from lecturing/seminar. Still, I would like to have a set of short topics or exercises that we could cover in such situations. Packed up. Took the 45-minute bus ride, and then the half hour bike ride to home. Got home around 9:45 PM. Another day at work. This quarter has been very tiring for me. I'm looking forward to a lighter load next quarter, so I can get back to my research. 354 I woke early today, and lay in bed calmly thinking about the course I'm teaching, and how the redesign is working for the students and for me. Earlier this week, I, perhaps foolishly, committed to presenting a poster on some aspects of my redesign at the Teaching and Learning Symposium taking place on our campus in two weeks. Foolish because in the next four weeks I have to prepare and deliver a workshop at a conference of Scrum practitioners, and two research-in-progress talks on our campus. I also am trying to ramp up my software testing research, and work within industrial colleagues to launch a one-day workshop for industrial practitioners who want to learn more about how to do computer aided software testing. Oh well. I am coming to realize how valuable these force and functions are in order to get me to produce, so I'm not complaining. In about an hour I had a diagram that I liked representing the modeling tools for the analysis and design course I am teaching. It shows the design team and the customer team, each of 3-4 students. It shows the 3' by 4' whiteboard that each team has for their use, and which they use for the design and modeling discussions in every class. It shows the digital camera to record the models they create on the whiteboard, the physical product notebooks that each student keeps, electronic learning logs, the coach (that's me), and the cycle of conversations used to create understanding with these tools. Next I drew a logarithmic spiral, like the cross-section of a nautilus shell. Along the outside of this path I attached circles with smaller circles coming out from them. The appearance looks like a Julia set coming out of the nautilus spiral. The expanding area within the nautilus shell represents the richness and complexity of the various team and individual artifacts the students are creating during this course. The circles of Julia set represent the 1-day, 1-week, or 2-week iterations during which the students focus on creating the documents for a particular milestone. The smaller circles coming out from the edges of the milestone circles represent the conversations within a design team, or between a design team and a customer team. And on the outside of the team conversation circles are even smaller circles representing the spontaneous conversations among subsets of the people on these teams. I like how the Julia set representation illustrates the fractal nature of the design conversations, and how the increasing volume between the lines of the logarithmic spiral illustrates the richness of the understanding that the students are creating as represented by the documents they produce. Looking at the diagram, I realize that the Julian set is from my conversation with another professor yesterday. It continues to surprise and please be how quickly new ideas enter into my practice. Using these forms also pleases me since they mirror the biologically inspired design underlined a talk I am preparing for next month's national Scrum Gathering conference. The talk is Biomimicry: Innovation of the Future (Brought to you by the Past) and describes the connection between biomimicry and software and organizational design. Even better than the diagram is the response I've had to the whiteboards. The energy level in the classroom is high. People are engaged and collaborating around their whiteboards with their visible artifacts. Having a central set of artifact that they are co-creating allows me to see their work and act effectively as a coach. Some students have grabbed a second whiteboard, not being used by another team. Another team filled their whiteboard and then moved to the front of the class to fill another 12 feet of whiteboard. After that I jumped into the car and went to the pool to swim some laps. My right elbow has been bothering me again, perhaps because I sit so much in my job. A couple months ago, while spending four days grading papers at the end of the quarter, it really flared up and I had to go back to visit the acupuncturist. Now I am trying to let it heal back to normal, and jumping back into swimming a lot of laps probably is not a good idea. I did a shorter swim this morning. Even that puts me into a great mood for the rest the day. I feel alert. Calmer. Ready. Back home, my daughter was up and getting ready for her high school. I made tea for her, and showed her the diagram I had just built as an example of the type of diagram I was suggesting she might want to create in order to understand the science homework she had been working on last night. I think she got the idea, and rightly pointed out that making such a complex design every homework assignment would take a long time. While eating breakfast, I extended my design with links to a few more notes, sort of a mini mindmap, and showed her this extension as an example of a simpler way of doing a diagram that might work for her homework. Diagramming is such a powerful tool, and it seems to be so infrequently taught. Why is that? Since I was already up and about, I dropped my daughter off at her friend's house nearby, where she will get a ride to her high school about 5 miles across town. It's such an amazing house. The front porch is a wreck. Tilting, boards rotting through, paint chipped. Yet when you open the front door, you enter into an amazingly done interior to the house. Beautiful carpentry. Wonderful artwork everywhere. Solidly built. Such a contrast to the entryway. It was all an accident, in a way. They put the money where it mattered as this will be resurrected the house they had purchased years ago. The porch was the least important thing to fix, so they left it last. Now they are sort of proud, and in use, at the contrast and it's how people are so surprised when they enter the house after crossing the wreck of the porch. Back at home, I chat briefly with my wife about the events of the day, and ask if she's heard from our son who is off in Alabama at a NASA sponsored rocket club event. He's a sophomore in high school, and thrilled to be at an event that is largely attended by college students. I'm sure it is pretty cool with all those rocket nerds, and the tours, and the rockets shooting a mile into the sky with their scientific payloads. Things sure have changed since I was in high school. Or, perhaps, living in the city there are many more opportunities then where I grew up in the countryside. I have been writing this entry as I go through the day. In a few minutes, I will be on a conference call for the Seattle Lean Camp that Jim Benson and some of us are organizing for this June at the beautiful Center for Urban Horticulture at the University of Washington Seattle. It's turning out to be very easy to organize this unconference, and Jim has procured enough sponsors so that the attendee fee is ridiculously low for the two day weekend. About $40. The conference call went well. Afterwards, I updated my resume to include two talks I given recently, and that I am on the steering committee for this unconference. I also am working on seeing if our campus will be a sponsor for this event. That would be useful all around. Given that this Friday, it is my day at home, and I weave in other nonwork activities. My mom, who lives a few houses away, stopped by to bring us up-to-date on her transition to a senior living home. My mom, wife and I had toured the facility last Friday, and in the meantime my mom decided that one unit which is available immediately is the best one that will probably be available for a long time. So, she's probably going to move soon. This will be different for all of us. She will be getting a much more rich social life, being down town close to lots of activities and in the center of a community of older people who like to keep mentally active. The apartment she is purchasing there has a wonderful feel, and quite a nice view so I think it will work out well. The difficult part is that she is my best collaborator. When she and I get together to work out some work question, it goes extremely well. I'm going to miss being able to have her come over on a five-minute notice. Downtown is a half hour bus ride away, or a 15-minute drive. That is quite different from the 50-yard walk. After discussing her move, the three of us spent a half hour looking for a photo to grace the front cover of the book of poems that my mom will be self-publishing. And then we all three went separate ways: my mom walked back home; my wife took the two dogs out for a walk; I heated up some lovely leftover shepherd's pie. Now I am back tidying up some work before walking over to the acupuncturist. After that, it will be a conference call with a student who is working on a human centered design course that I am creating for next winter. The rest of the afternoon was filled with meetings with students I am mentoring for Independent studies or their internships. One was via Skype. It was the students first time using Skype, or Google Docs, but by the end of the meeting it was clear this would work for us. The student is doing an independent study with me on human centered design, helping me grade my analysis and design course, and doing an internship at a local company. It felt very efficient to wrap three different meetings into a single Skype call. The next meeting was with a student who is doing an internship at a local research organization where she was just hired as a software tester. It is only 2 miles from my house, so I drove over (my bike is still in the shop) and met her at a coffee shop next to her work. It was good to see her looking much more relaxed than the last time I met her, a week or so after she'd started her job. As we talked about what she was doing in her job, and what she was learning I realized I was recording this is a diagram on a piece of paper. This is my normal way of doing things. So, I asked her if she could draw a diagram of the different parts of her organization, and her work, and what she's doing and how they relate? She wasn't clear on what I meant, so I flipped over another sheet of paper and sketched and talked to the diagram I had created for my course in the morning. By the I time I was halfway through, it was clear she was getting the idea so we switched to discussing the different types of information she could record a diagram. The organization has 20 or so different applications. How do they relate? What information passes among them? What are the dependencies? Are any of them tightly coupled? If you made a change in one application, what other applications should be retested to make sure that the interconnections still work? These are the types of questions I think a diagram could be helpful in answering. And it is surprising to me, still, how little we focus on diagrams when we teach. This discussion led me into a little rabbit hole. The prior evening, while discussing a workshop on biomimicry that I'm putting together with a colleague from industry, I came across the concept of stigmergy: how different agents can communicate with each other by leaving traces in the environment. This is central to how social insects communicate, using pheromones on ant trails leading to food, or mud balls being used to build a termite mound. It is a lovely and useful concept, though as I write this I realize that ALL communication is done by modifying the environment. So, what is the essential difference between stigmergy and the other means? What are the other means? Here is something else for me to ponder. Back at home, I try to put down my thoughts on the human centered design course I am designing, but the dinner party was about to happen downstairs, my energy was gone, and I could not concentrate. I sent an apologetic e-mail to the person who is been asking for this and to which I had committed sending something today, and then close my computer and headed downstairs. That was the end of my workday. A day "at home" where I have the luxury of interleaving non-work activities with my work. A day where I can relax a bit after four long days at work. A day where I get some research done, but never as much as I want. A day where I avoid the commute. A day in which I feel like I have more freedom than I am accustomed to having an industry. A day in which I realize the week has gone well. My course flowing better. My research is beginning to flow. I met a couple of famous people in my domain, and had some interesting conversation with them. 354 The quarter is finally over! I submitted my grades by the 5 PM deadline on Monday, and yesterday I finally had a full day to dedicate to my research yesterday. Without the hovering thoughts about my course preparation or grading that I needed to do. Today is my second full day in which I am free to focus on research. It feels great, except that I am floundering in my research. I feel like a butterfly, finding so many interesting ideas to pursue. Each conversation with a different person raises another interesting avenue of possible research connected to the things that I care about. I spent the last nine months, my first year back as an academic after 19 years in industry, exploring what types of research topics would fit in this context, with these potential collaborators. I got some good clarity about a month ago, when I realized that there are two types of perspectives that I am continually bringing to every research question that approaches me. At least this is consistent. Now it is time for me to sit on one plant (one research project), lay some eggs (testable hypotheses) and tend them into mature and respectful research projects and papers. My difficulties deciding which one to choose. This is what I have been struggling with today. My intuition says that there is a rich area to unfold in this one place, yet it is a place that has almost nothing published in it. And I'm having difficult time seeing how to take my ideas beyond the thought piece in into actionable projects. I also find that I have some interesting ideas, that other people also agree are interesting, but I am having a more difficult time identifying what problems I am trying to solve. I want to solve problems, not just do something cool. This morning my wife and I, and our two dogs, went for a walk in the neighborhood and I talked about some of these quandaries. To survive in the system, I have to find something that I can publish on. Perhaps, I wondered out loud, I should go back to the work that I had done eight years ago. It is in the place that has lots of venues, lots of people publishing in it, and is a place where I could make small steps. I could also connect it to the teaching that I am doing. At 2 PM, I called my former advisor back in the 80s. He and I still get together occasionally, and he helped me get my current position. I had sent him a "Help!" e-mail yesterday, and we had arranged to talk this afternoon. It helped to some degree. Perhaps. I'm still confused. Time to get back to making my research concrete. Took a break. Organized my e-mail inbox a bit. Tied off a few loose ends about some coursework I am associated with this summer. I have been reading a book called "On Intelligence" by Jeff Hawkins. It is a fascinating book describing a theory of how the brain works that differs from anything I've read before. It seems so simple in concept. It fits with the other things I know about how the brain works. I am only halfway through, and am looking forward to seeing what he says about how to emulate such a system and software systems. There is so much to do this summer in order to prepare for next year, and to get my research path moving that it is hard to take a break and relax. This really is one of those jobs that consumes all your spare time. All that you let it into. 354 I was on vacation today, nearing the end of a six week trip with my 16-year-old son in Spain and Portugal, and gave absolutely no thought to anything dealing with research, teaching or my job. No Internet. No phone. Bliss. 367 There are two main focal points for today's work: * Work on the conference web page for ITiCSE 2011 (http://www.iticse2011.tu-darmstadt.de/) * Work on the materials for the CS 1 lecture starting in April At first glance, it may seem ludicrous to work on the slides for a lecture that starts almost exactly 8 weeks from today. However, given the extent of the slides - about 1,200 in total -, and the amount of minute details that have to be changed to make the slide materials easier to understand, it is really a LOT of work that cannot be started to early. Apart from that, the Moodle course for the semester also has to be set up, which provides additional work - greatly reduced by being able to import last term's course, but still enough work! 367 Today is a day centered on redrafting learning materials, improving the conference web page, and administrative meetings. I have planned on spending up to three hours on refining the lecture materials for the forthcoming summer term. Additionally, the ITICSE 2011 web conference web page has to be adapted with some additional contents. Finally, I have several meetings with students writing their Bachelor Thesis under my supervision, a research training group of upcoming Ph.D. candidates, and two Ph.D.s I directly supervise. That, together with my regular email traffic and maintenance work for the learning portal for CS (based on Moodle) that I administrate should keep me busy... 367 Today was a usual day shortly before the new lecture "season" starts: most of the day was spent on proof-reading the exercises and slides for the upcoming first-term lecture. Hunting for issues in these materials, correcting them, and making sure all slides look fine, takes FAR more time than one might think... The highlight of the day was the farewell celebration for a colleague who has now left the university, after having worked there for 40 years! He will be sorely missed... 377 This is the first entry I have made, and I have not planned this, it is purely by chance. I spoke to a friend who's doing this and it sounds interesting and valuable. Today I did not teach, no lectures. I manage all of the final year projects in my department. Some students emailed asking for deadline extensions. I had to quickly meet with their project supervisors, meet with final year director, get student information, and then email students a decision whilst being sympathetic and encouraging (even if they didn't deserve this). I had students emailing wanting to have meetings: project meetings (2 off) and meetings to demonstrate work (3 off). The students wanted to meet today or tomorrow. The students seem to imagine that they are busy and we are not and we are always there for them ... no problem. It was difficult keeping calm and detached when responding to the students but I think I did okay. Although I wasn't lecturing today I parcelled up the next assessed exercise for my 2nd year class, did a final check on it, and then emailed the class to announce the exercise, where to find it, and the deadlines. I also had to cancel Thursday's lecture as I have a hospital appointment (I am an above knee amputee and Thursday they will measure me for a new leg). So, I had to email the class about that (even though half of them do not attend lectures anyway). We also have feedback questionnaires. I had to get this on the web, set it up so students could access it, and then email all the students and kindly ask them to fill in those forms if they could ... pretty please. There is a strike on the 24th, one of the days students present their work for assessement. Our boss (head of department) hacked up a new schedule to avoid that day and I had to get it out to the students (more emails, more carefull inoffensive text!!!). I am not happy about this ... what's the point of a strike if it inconveniences no one other than those on strike? And it's 17.45 and a student has just emailed ... asking for an urgent meeting, admitting that he should have done this earlier but "... due to other assignment and ill health ...". I forgot to say: Wednesday I'm going to St Andrews to talk about research collaboration, Thursday hospital, Friday morning I'm at the doctor for blood tests ... running out of time, and I think I now get an email every 5 minutes. Maybe I should just pretend to be sick, take a day off, and ask for a "deadline extension". 377 Reflecting on the 14th, I tried to attend a University staff development course "Learning and Working with Disabled People". The course's stated objectives are "understand the barriers disabled people face within employment". The course was held on the 7th floor of the Gilbert Scott building: the lift stops at 6, and that's where the disabled toilets are. I have "one leg too few" so I let them start without me. I wonder if I am being subjected to Darwinian pressure? I am depressed. 378 Diary for Tues 15th March Today I should have been teaching a first year class. Actually, we would have been watching Gattaca because it is Technology in Society and it based around sci fi films. Then I would have had some supervision meetings with doleful Msc students. As it worked out, this did not happen because my baby had conjunctivitis and had to be off nursery. So I stayed at home to look after him and did some work during his nap times. I have a feeling of desperation about fitting in enough hours this week because I do compressed working hours anyway, and normally have Wednesday off. But this week I am missed today and also will miss Thurs due to UCU strike action. I know it will all be accounted for my holiday days or losing a day's pay but that doesn't mean my work just disappears when I am not there. It is piling up and waiting for me. So this diary entry is about what I did during the 3 hours or so when I was able to work. I finished off a document explaining to students how they would be peer marking each other's performance in a group assignment, and then put it on the VLE and mailed it to the class. Yesterday I consulted various students in the module on their thoughts about it to see whether it was fair. The reason I am introducing this assessment of group performance is because the students requested it, due to dreadful problems in their groups. This year I decided to allocate students into groups because I read a lecturing handbook suggesting that this was fairer on the weaker students. I am regretting it because it has caused no end of angst from stressed students. I have had two students cry in my office because they are so frustrated by their team mates. I have had endless rounds of meetings with groups trying to mediate in arguments. It's not clear to me how to allocate marks fairly without the peer marking for a couple of groups in particular so I decided to institute it. We will see if it helps. On a related note, I got an email from one of the students who is in a group with a student who has mental health difficulties and has not been attending group meetings. It is terribly difficult to know how to deal with this. I have tried various adjustments for him, but he has dropped out of touch with the group again, and they are wondering how they will be marked because they don't have time to do the work which he should have done. Damned if I know. I forwarded the message on to my colleague who co-teaches the module in case he has any thoughts on it. What counts as a reasonable adjustment in a case like this? What is the fairest thing to do? What makes the students think I know? I also arranged meetings with various students. It is the time of year when final year students want to interview lecturers for their projects. I usually get quite a batch of them because they know I am interested in educational technology and a lot of them do ed tech type projects. Another few students are doing a module where they have to teach their peers an advanced topic and I need to mark the quality of their teaching sessions. So there is a lot of diary taming to be done at this time of year. Also spent a bit of time contacting people who do trans skills courses for PhD students in case there is anything my research network can do to help them. The network supports people who investigate effective research spaces, and we are interested in social research environments, such as how PhD students are trained. Also did various more researchy things including setting up a contract extension and helping someone install our software for a conference, and arranging for equipment loans to schools. It is a bit surreal switching between these tasks and wiping the baby's poor snotty eyes! 378 The students are on exam leave so I spent most of the day working on a paper in glorious isolation. This was interrupted by a meeting with an MSc student about his literature review and an undergrad who wanted to know about a revision class. I also e-consoled a PhD student about a rejected paper. The meeting with the MSc student was extremely challenging as his English is very poor. He is a lovely chap, and tries his best to communicate but we both have to concentrate incredibly hard, and type into a power point window to make things clear sometimes. Is he an international student cash cow (ala Dispatches)? 378 I spent the day at the animal park with the baby, and then realised with horror when I got home that the marking deadline for all final year students was the next day. So then I was faced with the choice of marking or housework for my Sunday evening once the baby was asleep. So I ended up doing both. I was marking MSc reports, which were pretty lousy. My husband said he and the cat can tell how bad the reports are by how loud I sigh!