Style tutorial up in My Tutorials

I've finished a basic tutorial on style use in Word 2003 - if you took me up on the Word offer, I'd definitely check this out, but even those who aren't might want to take a look as well.

New vocab lists up in My Vocabulary

Midterm mark adjustment

As mentioned in class today, I have decided to remove the 4 marks from the midterm that were assigned to grammatical work. Everyone's adjusted mark is now available on Blackboard.

Grade Estimator updated - take a look!

I've modified the Grade Estimator (it's in Course Docs) in 2 ways:

1. It now shows both your estimated numerical grade AND your corresponding letter grade, and
2. It now has an area to check your estimated grade out if you are taking me up on the Assignment 2 offer.

I strongly recommend taking a look at this spreadsheet, especially if:

1. you absolutely need to get a certain grade in this course, and are confused whether it's realistic that you'll hit this mark, or
2. you have had a rough time early on in the course, and need some help deciding whether it's best to drop the course or not
   

Karma updated in My Grades

Word assignment - Office 2007 issue

If you created your Word assignment in Office 2007, please email me your file - do not save the file in 2003 format.

Assignment 2 - an offer

Due to a variety of circumstances, I am making the following offer to all students who have already had their assignment #2 marked: if you wish, you can make changes to your assignment such that your mark is over 80%. If it meets this requirement, I will ignore your Word mark and weight your Excel mark at 13% (instead of 7%).

If you wish to take advantage of this offer, know that:

1. you must let me know by noon on Monday, Oct. 29 that you will be doing this, and
2. you must submit your revised Word assignment by Friday, November 9, and
3. you will not be able to change your mind about this offer - if you get a poor Excel mark, you have to live with it.
   

Demo 3 now available in My Demos

Journal task and Friday task now available

They're basically one and the same - so just go to My Tasks and look at the task for Friday (Oct. 26th).

Tasks for Wednesday now up in My Tasks

Vocabulary list up for DBs and Info Systems in My Vocabulary

Assignment 2 instructions

I just noticed that when I updated the instructions to assignment 2, I had used an older copy that didn't have the submission section on the last page completed.

I won't be able to fix the problem until I get back to my desk on Monday - in the meantime, just be aware that it should state 2 things: that the assignment is due this Wednesday (the 24th) at 4PM, and that you should submit properly via My Assignments.

Tasks for Monday now up in My Tasks

Playing "what-if" with your grades

I've placed a spreadsheet called Mark Estimator in the Course Docs section. You might find this useful to play out a few "what-if" scenarios, given that you've now completed your PPT assignment, first quiz, and midterm.

If you have any questions on how to use the spreadsheet, please let me know.

More on the midterm

• I've placed the rubrics for the short answer questions up in Test Info > Midterm material. The multiple-choice answers and comments about them will appear after 12:05PM on October 22nd in the same location.
• If you have any concerns about the marking of the short answer questions, please arrange to see me in person.
  

Small change to assignment 2 instructions

If you've grabbed the instructions to assignment 2 prior to this announcement, please note the following change in the assignment instructions:

On page 3, replace "The Header style for the page headers." with "The Page Number style for the page numbers." (Note that this change will change the rubric as well.)

This change has now been made to the instructions available in My Assignments.

Midterm results are up

The marks for the midterm are now available in the My Marks section of our BlackBoard site.

The class average: 55%

Highest mark: 75%

We're going the bubble-sheet route for the midterm after all

I've had a few concerns drawn to my attention about the use of clickers during the midterm, so I am not going to be using them during the midterm. With this in mind, you should remember to bring those HB pencils - and a good eraser - on Wednesday.

Online office hours

I'm having a lot of problems making the online office hours work...the nature of my IA job keeps me out in the labs a lot, which kind of defeats the purpose of having the online hours!

So as of today, I'm discontinuing my online office hours. If you need to contact me, email is the way to go!

Old midterm available

If you want to look over the midterm from last winter, it's in the new Test Information section of the Blackboard site.

This test is *not* meant to be the only thing you study before the exam...in fact, if it is, you're probably going to get spanked.

If you want to know "the answers", you can contact me with ones you're stuck on.

Answers to end-of-chapter text questions

If you want to check your answers to end-of-chapter questions in the text, take a look at either:

• L:\2203\Williams_Sawyer_Chapter_Answers
• General Blackboard Site > Course Docs > Textbook End-of-chapter Answers

Karma updated in My Grades

My Objectives section now available

There is now a new link on the front page of our site - "My Objectives" will show you all the objectives we've covered to date...useful for the midterm, I would hope!

Assignment 2 now available in My Assignments

No lecture Friday

If you couldn't make it to class today - there is no lecture this Friday. Instead, work on the task assigned (as per the previous announcement).

New task for Friday up in My Tasks

New task for Wednesday's class available in My Tasks

Karma updated in My Grades

Just to make something clear - the rating there is a measure of your karma and not a rating of you as a person. This karma system is just something new I'm trying to roughly measure student engagement in class - it is not a mark, per se.

Don't forget to click on those Submit buttons!

After you're done each step in the Friday tasks, you need to click the Submit button - NOT the Save button. If you don't do this, I can't see your results!

Um...yeah...about those Friday tasks

Well, I learned two things when I got up this morning:

1. Some of you guys work on stuff really late at night.
2. Forgetting to mark a checkbox that says "Make this item available", surprisingly, stops the item from being made available.

I think I'm up to a thousand thousand (=1,000,000) pardons.

OK - *now* the Friday tasks are up in My Tasks

I goofed - I thought I had made the info available, but it was still hidden. A thousand pardons!

New Friday tasks up in My Tasks

Links mentioned in class

Here's the page of the test I mentioned in class which illustrates the issue of digital manipulation.

Here and here are the two links regarding cell phone issues.

New journal task up in My Journal Tasks, and...

...I will no longer be accepting loose sheets of paper and/or late journal submissions.

Notes about PPT assignment marking

First off, thanks to those who put in some humorous comments with their submissions...I got a surprising number of chuckles - now if only you guys would do that IN CLASS. {sigh}

Secondly, here are some notes about what I was looking for while marking:

• Having different styles for each and every slide isn't the best design choice - you want your presentation to appear unified, not haphazard!
• Few people got the mark for the footer - either people tried to use the View Header and Footer feature (which doesn't work very well - it only puts the current slide number...or doesn't autonumber at all if you use the Footer selection, as some of you did) or did not attempt the question. What I wanted you to do was View the Slide Masters and make the proper changes to the Number Area of the Slide and/or Title Masters.
  
• Considering that I gave explicit warning about the topic, I was pretty strict about wordiness in slides - ideally, you're going to be using brief points most of the time...I still saw quite a few slides with long sentences or even paragraphs used.
  
• I was also pretty strict with the format for references - you were given all the examples you needed right on the assignment, so I wasn't too forgiving about any deviation.
• All in all, the class performed quite well - a bit above my averages in the past.
  

Assignment feedback

In your H drives, you have a folder called "2203" - I'll be placing a pdf of your marking sheet in that folder.

If you have any concerns or questions regarding the grading, please let me know.

Please don't forget your name cards!

Remember to bring those suckers tomorrow (Wednesday) - I need more help remembering names!

Demonstration booking calendar

Here's a calendar you can use to figure out when you can make bookings with me for your demonstrations.

Links from today's class

Here's the Tivo article, and here's the link to the depersonalizer.