It’s All Over But the Crying…

…and there will be plenty of crying.  Grading is going slower than usual this semester, but I’m almost done. (more…)

Read Full Post »

Plagiarism and the Art of the Email

Desiree doesn’t think my Signals and Systems class is humerous enough, since my humor section is so small.  That isn’t true, but what goes on in Signals and Systems pales in comparison to what happens in my graduate Project Management course at times.  The big problem is plagiarism. 
Many students don’t see a problem with copying [...]

Read Full Post »

Feedback

As a professor, I have to deal with feedback of various sorts.  Some good, some bad, some indifferent.  Students have opinions of my work, my Dean has opinions of my work, our accreditors, other faculty, pretty much everybody will give their 2 cents.
I am teaching a project management class for the first time.  I don’t [...]

Read Full Post »

Using the Tablets

I finally got the tablet PCs working in the classroom.  We use two access points connected by a small network switch.  That, however, only seems to cover about 15 or 16 computers.  The 17th seems to need to be on the campus network.  I’m wondering what the actual capacity of an access point is. 
In the [...]

Read Full Post »

Project Management

As I have mentioned before, my Project Management class is overfull, with two sections of 16 students and counting.  Most of the students are from India, and I suppose that they would like to stay in the US after graduating, which leads to another issue.
India (as one student verified in class) is very hierarchical in [...]

Read Full Post »

Overload

My project management course has been split into two sections, which means overload pay for me.  It also means 28 mostly international graduate students that I have to teach the concepts of Project Management. 
The international aspect of the class changes things slightly.  Their understanding of English is marginal.  Given that project managers must be proficient [...]

Read Full Post »

The Art of the Annoying Email

Guy Kawasaki outlined the five sentence email awhile ago. While I don’t necessarily subscribe to this draconian approach to email, I do believe that email should be concise, state explicitly the action or question to be answered, and provide the amount of information necessary for the reader to quickly understand what the sender intends.
Scott Berkum, [...]

Read Full Post »

It Must Get Done

We’ve been watching a lot of the Food Network recently, not necessarily for the recipes, but for the entertainment. One program that is quite interesting is Dinner: Impossible. The premise of the show is that the star, Robert Irvine, gets put in impossible situations, and has to cook a gourmet meal in a limited amount [...]

Read Full Post »

Project Management and the Tablet PC

I’ve been developing several good ideas for my project management class, several of which I need to fully develop. One thing I haven’t developed yet is how I will use the tablet PCs in the classroom. So let me lay out several options:

Use them for immediate responses to in-class case studies. Students could spend some [...]

Read Full Post »

The Boeing 787

Rather than watching sports or some other mindless TV last night, I watched the introduction to the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Yes, I am that big of a geek. I am fascinated by the new technology, the aerospace industry, and feats of engineering, and all of that is wrapped up in this broadcast. The one [...]

Read Full Post »