Electives

I'm not teaching any electives this semester, but I thought this might be useful to students. The mad rush is on to register for electives for THIS semester. The system does actually allow you to register for Semester 2 electives also. But there's no rush with that just yet. make sure if you are registering for Semester 1 that you do not register for Semester 2 by mistake.

Someone took my iPhone from IT2.2

I don't want to use the word stole, because I suppose they could just be keeping it safe until they figure out who it belongs to. But if you wanted to find the owner of a phone you probably wouldn't power it off.

O2 tells me that it cannot now be used. But the kind of people who hang out in CIT computer labs are clever enough to figure out a way, I imagine, to use it as an iPod at least.

It will cost me about EUR600 to replace it and I can't afford that.

I'm actually very sad. It's not that my phone is gone. It's that a computing student stole it. I like being naive. I like thinking that all CIT students are nice decent people.

And I really really need my phone these next few days.

CMOD6001 Week 05 Class 2

We did a group communication exercise (zoom)

CMOD6001 Week 05 DCOM Lab

I asked students to check the entires in the list of blogs to make sure that they are complete and correct.

I showed students how to use Google Documents to preprare and share documents. It is idea for shared project work.

Mid-semester review

It's the end of week 5 and so it feels like the half-way point of the semester, even though it's not. So it seems like a good time to reflect on how the semester has been going, how I have been performing, and how the classes have been going.

I think I have been a bit grumpy this semester. I have been less tolerant of students than I have been in the past. I'm not sure if that is actually a good thing or a bad thing.


I was a bit put out that my teaching assignments changed around so much at the start of the semester. At one point I was teaching CMOD6001 to DNET/DCOM, ITS, and COM. In the end I ended up teaching only DNET/DCOM. I actually I think I was lucky to get the best of the three groups. But over the years I put a lot of effort into this module and it was disappointing to have my hours reduced.

For CMOD6001 this semester I have reduced the workload for students. I used to require them to do a presentation and an essay. Presentation skills and writing skills are very useful things that students will need later in their college and work careers. They will be huge factors in students' future successes. However in the past some students did not take these assignment seriously and failed the module as a result. It has become clear to me however that failure has consequences, not just for students, but for the lecturer that fails them. So I have essentially dumbed down this module. This semester I am even giving 10% for just turning up. Interestingly I have found that just as many good students rise to the challenge of a difficult module, so weak students drop down to the level of easy modules. I would not be surprised if the failure rate for this module is largely unchanged as a result.

I was neither surprised nor disappointed that the COMP6023 Web Publishing did not run this semester. It was offered last year and I think most of the students that wanted to do it, did it then. I was frustrated that my HoD did not take my advice and offer some other elective in place of this one. I was very keen to run the Computing Ethics module that I have been developing. I was also worried that my HoD seems to believe that the lack of interest this module is due to the fact that I was teaching it, and that students are avoiding my classes where possible. I'd be happy to take the Pepsi Challenge any day and subject myself to market forces with some decent elective modules that I'd like to develop and teach.

My web Application module business studies is going well. I have found it interesting how people from different disciplines do things in a different way and I haven't adapted as well as I should have. It has been an education. The bulk of the students are smart, keen, and interested. I didn't have much of a plan going into this module, but I am glad now because I would have had to tear it up. Next week's exam will tell a lot. I think overall it will be a success, and if the chance comes up I think I'd like to teach it again.

CMOD6001 Week 05 Class 1

I talked about how to give presentations.

BBADM3 Web Apps Week 05 Class 4 B

Students were a bit late because they were in the wrong room. That happens me a lot too.

We looked at nested lists.

I distributed DVDs to anyone who wanted one.

Students worked on the sample exam.

I gave out a handout on plagiarism and explained that copying and pasting any part of the essays is not acceptable. I hope people know I am serious.

Class canceled Monday 30 November

I will not be in on the morning of 30 November. Afternoon classes should run as normal.

BBADM3 Web Apps Week 05 Class 4 A

I gave out a handout on plagiarism.

We looked at how to properly nest a list.

We discussed plagiarism.

BBADM3 Web Apps Week 05 Class 3B

We discussed how Google make money. Some student are already using AdSense for their blogs. I cannot believe how much money they are making. When other students saw how easy it was to make money, they all wanted to sign up.

BBADM3 Web Apps Week 05 Class 2B

I started to talk about how Google makes its money but I found the class was a little bit distracted, so we took a short break and started again.

When I came back we discussed the technical problems students are having accessing the online class. I had not understood until then that there was a genuine problem with access to those notes. If I do not have a technical fix for that by tomorrow's 1000 class, we will have to consider postponing the exam on Monday.

We got no actual work done in this class

BBADM3 Web Apps Wiki Experiment

In order to allow students to experience wikis first had I have set up a Home & Away Wiki. Student are encouraged to correct mistakes in they find (it is not sent in Austria) and to add to the page. The object of the experiment is to see how the content is created and amended over time. You do not need to register or log in to make changes to the page.

Go to http://homeandaway.wikidot.com/home-and-away-main-page. You are then free to edit the page as you wish. To avoid conflicts no two people may edit the page at exactly the same time. So once you begin editing the page is locked for 15 minutes.

Changes are anonymous. But if in the comments section you leave something that identifies you (e.g. your initials) you might win a prize.

BBADM3 Web Apps Exam

The Web Apps short exam will be on Monday morning 19 October.

BBADM3 Web Apps - Week 05 Class 2A & 3A

I find that some students are having a difficult time concentrating in class. Please try to work on that.

We discussed how Google makes money from advertising and some of the privacy issues with Google. (For more on privacy students should visit the website of the Data Protection Commissioner and the Commissioner's YouTube Channel has some interesting movies.

I tried to show students data from Google Analytics but there is no Flash installed in the lab. I showed students some examples of AdSense statistics and the level of detail provided. Students signed up for AdAsense for their blogs.

notes: google.pdf

BBADM3 Web Apps - Movies play in back row of C162

If you are having difficulty playing the the online classes at home, you can play them on the machines in the back row of C162 (and possibly some others)

DMOD6001 Week 05 DNET Lab

I asked students to get into their project groups and work on the list of characters.

I discussed some ways to structure the game.

BBADM3 Web Apps Week 05 Class 1 B

I gave out a sample exam for students to do. I offerred to correct it for any students that wanted feedback.

BBADM3 Web Apps Week 05 Class 1 A

I gave students a sample HTML exam to do in class. I offered to correct it for anyone who wanted feedback. Nobody did it.

We went over lists and tables again, but didn't do nested lists. Details of how nested lists work are in the online class. I got the feeling that most students had not yet bothered with the online classes.

CMOD6001 Week 04 Class 2

We discussed plagarism and did an exercise on it.

CMOD6001Week 04 COM Lab

Students organixed their blogs. I'm annoyed that it is taking so log for students to get organized. A task that should have taken an hour is taking weeks.

Some students are needlessly losing marks every week.