Not really but
Gord Nickerson made a joke in class today about how he'd probably go
home and read all about how he was the Worst Professor Ever on people's
blogs so I thought I'd oblige him (with my post title anyhow.)
I'm
pretty sure there are other profs beside him in the Department who
would take this title though. Heck, from what I hear, he's one of the better profs in the department. (Warning: linked page contains very irritating embedded video clip.)
"Managing Internet information Systems" actually looks like it'll
be a great class - we finally get to learn what blogs, wikis, RSS and
other assorted cutting-edge technologies are all about. After we
were dismissed today, a classmate summed up my feelings exactly: "This
is the class I thought 505 was going to be." 505 is our
introductory computer course and it would be a great course - in
1992. To me, it's patently ridiculous that a Library and Information
Science program doesn't do more to give their students a working
knowledge of current information technologies. In my view, this
will be the single most important skill that they give to their
graduates and they're failing us by not giving us a basic familiarity
with things other than MS-Office and HTML. We shouldn't even be
learning today's cutting edge technologies, we need to know what's on
the horizon one year from now when we'll be entering the work
world. Even the fact that they're holding this course IN A
COMPUTER LAB where the students can follow along and fool around
themselves rather than sitting and watching an instructor "now you
click here" in a regular classroom is a vast improvement.
And don't get me started on how they don't utilize technology in the
delivery of their classes either. Every course should have a
class web site with a message board, assignments and lectures posted,
links to PDF's of suggested readings (get Sam Trosow on the legal team
when you're inevitably accused of violating copyright by doing so) and
so on. As far as I can tell, not one Mac computer is available
for students to work on. I did eventually find the USB drives on
the computers in the GRC but they're the old style in the back panel
instead of the new kind that are available in the front. So to
save work you're doing in the GRC, you have to get down on your hands
and knees, crawl under the desk and find the USB port in the back of
the tower. Here's another one - they have really old style
ergonomic keyboards on maybe 75% of the computers in the upstairs
lab. Yet when you go in there, students immediately fill up the
25% of the machines with the regular keyboards first. How much
does a keyboard cost? $25? Why not replace the crappy ones
and yes, you may cause more carpal tunnel syndrome but you'd also have
less frustrated students.
One of our assignments is to create a blog and I was a bit surprised
that I was the only person (out of ~30) who posted a link to my blog
when we were posting our contact info on the class web site (which is
pretty close to what all class web sites should be - readings,
assignments, lecture notes, message boards, links to a class blog and a
class wiki, etc.) Gord said people who have blogs already will
have to decide if they want to create a new one for the class or keep
going with their existing one as we have to do a lot of our reports on
our progress on our blogs. I think I'm going to stick with this
one and just create a category that I can tag all my 525-related posts with.
Okay, now I'm off to try and figure out if I can use Trillian as a
front-end for MSN which is another aspect of this course. I
haven't used an IM program since the heyday of ICQ so I've got a bit of
a learning curve ahead of me. I've added my professor as he
requested but it shows he's offline - not sure if this means he's
offline or if he has to approve my request to add him before he shows
up as being online or if I just did something wrong. So if anybody reading this is on MSN (or ICQ or AIM or Yahoo Messenger), please send me your contact info so I can try to add you.
Met my mentee (yes, it's not a word - I agree. Hmm, what is the
opposite of mentor? The online dictionary suggests "disciple" and
"follower" but both of those are a bit...cultish for my taste. So
"mentee" it shall be for the time being.) Other than getting her
name wrong at first, it seems like we'll get along fine (I don't think
I ever said it out loud but I wanted to call Sabina "Sabrina" for the
first few times we met as well. I still keep spelling
Lindsay/Lindsay/Lindsey/Lyndsey Holdsworth's name wrong. And sometimes I forget my own name and call myself "TomKat" instead. I suck
at names.)
I'm taking Kathleen for a birthday drink tomorrow afternoon so we can
get to know each other a bit more and I can impart further wisdom
(ha!).
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Wednesday, May 10
Meme, Does It Rhyme With Dream?
by
Jason
on Wed 10 May 2006 03:12 AM EDT
It's not quite 3am (aka "bedtime") so I'll do one more, based on a meme-thing I found on Kathleen's blog:
10 Favorites. ---> Favorite Color: red. ---> Favorite Food: pizza ---> Favorite Band: Beatles ---> Favorite Movie: lots but "Trainspotting" was the first to pop into my head ---> Favorite Sport: to watch? Hockey ---> Favorite Season: Summer ---> Favorite Day Of the Week: Friday ---> Favorite Ice Cream: Black Cherry and/or Root Beer ---> Favorite Car: Mustang ---> Favorite Number: 22 9 Currents... ---> Current Mood: tired ---> Current Taste: toothpaste ---> Current Computer: Acer laptop ---> Current Finger/toe nail color: translucent pink? ---> Current Time: 2:56 am ---> Current Surroundings: our apartment's living room ---> Current Annoyance: none really ---> Current Crush: hmm, I honestly can't think of anybody. ---> Current song: "Twinside" - The Boo Radleys 8 Firsts. ---> First Best Friend: Shaun Oudot ---> First pet: A cat named Fiji. ---> First Piercing: None although I probably came close in shop class once or twice. ---> First Crush: Kelly and I can't even remember her last name now. She lived next to Shaun who was a block from me. ---> First Music: Dad's Elvis records. ---> First Car: 1972 Malibu Classic. ---> First Sport Played: Hockey ---> First Concert: I think I saw Kenny Rogers with my parents when I was 10. 7 Lasts... ---> Last music: "Treeful of Starling" - Hawksley Workman (that I bought, not that I listened to) ---> Last Drink: Water ---> Last Car Ride: A couple weeks ago when I took the rental car back. (Does the bus count?) ---> Last word: "I'll be in bed soon!" (about two hours ago) ---> Last Phone call: Shea ---> Last CD Played: listened to the Beatles walking to Grad Club tonight ---> Last movie watched: King Kong 6 Have You... ---> Have You Ever Dated one of your best friends: Yes ---> Have You Ever Broken the Law: Yes ---> Have You Ever Been Arrested: No but I've been taken home in a cop car ---> Have You Ever Skinny Dipped: Yes ---> Have You Ever Been on TV: Yes ---> Have You Ever Kissed Someone You Didn't Know: Yes 5 Things you did today... ---> 1) Played basketball ---> 2) Had a shower ---> 3) Got my CLA Membership package in the mail ---> 4) Drank some beer ---> 5) Watched The Daily Show 4 Places You've Been Last... ---> 1) Montreal ---> 2) Toronto ---> 3) White Oaks Mall (hey, it feels like a different place, even if it's in London) ---> 4) a variety of small towns around SW Ontario during semester break 3 People You Can Tell (Almost) Anything... ---> 1) Shea ---> 2) Shea ---> 3) Shea (That's about it - don't know if this is a good or bad thing. At the same time, I'm fairly open about my thoughts and opinions. But for the (almost) anything stuff, I tend to keep that close.) 2 Choices.. ---> 1. Silver or gold?: No preference. ---> 2. Vanilla or chocolate?: Vanilla 1 Person you want to be with right now! ---> 1. Mr. Sandman. (Goodnight.)
The Mentee Becomes The Mentor
by
Jason
on Wed 10 May 2006 02:42 AM EDT
Got the list of peer mentor assignments today and I'm going to be paired with first-termer Kathleen Crowley. I've got to say anybody who names their blog "Princess Cosine, The Cunning Linguist" is cool with me!
(Maybe she'll change it to "Princess Collocation, The Depth-Indexing
Librarian." But that doesn't have the same ring to it now, does
it?) Uhm, that weak attempt at risque librarian humour was courtesy of McSweeny's Library Science Jargon That Sounds Dirty List. I mention this because I learned in 501 that it's important to acknowledge the theft of copyrighted material. Or something. I don't know if I should tell Kathleen that library school doesn't actually teach you what a blog is. I'm hoping to learn tomorrow (er, later today) when I attend my first LIS525 class - "Managing Internet Information Services". Reading through her blog, she seems pretty cool. Sabina belated admitted that she wasn't sure what I was going to be like based on my original e-mail reply to her. And I think David's first words to Shea when she got here were "I didn't even want to meet Jason when Sabina invited him to breakfast." So obviously, this peer mentorship thing can be hit & miss (I have classmates who are still waiting for the inaugural contact e-mail from their mentees!) What else happened today that is boring but helps clear cut a few more pixels from the ether? I lucked into a couple extra days of break since I don't have class on Mondays this semester and our Tuesday class doesn't start until May 23. So instead of sitting on my computer for eighteen hours like I usually do on days off, I went outside (The sun...it shines) and ended up playing basketball with a guy who lives in our building (he just moved in next door actually.) He's a bouncer at Ceeps and looks like he normally uses guys like me as a speed bag. And telling him I'm a library student probably didn't help either. But after losing by what I thought was a fairly respectable score of 11-5 in a game of one-on-one, I thought I was going to puke on his shoes. Being a bouncer at C(r)eeps, he's probably used to this. I was able to restrain myself and made it to the apartment where I was fine once the double-vision went away. Went to the Grad Club tonight for a few hours tonight to hang out with David, Sabina, Shea and assorted others. Good to see those guys again after their trip to Oil-berta (David and Sabina. They didn't take Shea with them. Though I bet she would've gone.) I guess that's about it. Seriously, is there a 24-hour public library open anywhere in the world? Because with how much of a night owl I am, that's probably the best place for me to work. |
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