What I Did on my Summer Vacation (2013 edition)

Typically, when students hand in their final exams at the end of term, they say, “Have a good summer!” Ha! If only.

Because of the Provincial Government’s disastrous budget, I had a lot of worry about my contract being renewed over the summer. The relief I felt when my contract was renewed for another year was short-lived, because it’s not looking good for next year--even more budget cuts are on the way. And some of my colleagues have already been laid off. So any joy I got from my contract renewal was diminished by seeing the toll the cuts are taking on the post-secondary education system--on people, and on the quality of education. Thanks, Government of Alberta: way to invest in the future.

Assuming that I had a job to return to in the fall, there were two major projects I had to complete over the summer. Not only did I have a secret project (OK, not so secret any more) to work on, but I also had a new prep. “New prep” is instructor-speak for “having to write lectures and develop an entirely new course from scratch.” This is the kind of thing that takes over your entire life for months and months like a face-hugging, multi-tentacled monster. Any spare time I had, I was prepping. In fact, here’s a picture of me at the beach, prepping on my (Faculty of Arts-issued) iPad:

Beach? What beach?

(This new prep has been such a massive endeavor, I’ve got an upcoming series of posts about it in the next few weeks.)

My family did expect me to spend some time with them, too (I know: selfish!). Usually, our summertime holiday routine includes going to Sylvan Lake. Unfortunately, the water level is so high and the beach has eroded to the point where, well, there really is none. (If you’ve got young children, a lake has to have three things: a beach, a playground, and ice cream--usually in that order.) Faced with the prospect of only two out of three, we explored some other central Alberta lakes.

• Miquelon Lake. Did you know that the lake is high in sulfur? Yup, it smells like a skunk eating garlic during a natural gas leak. And farting. My younger daughter gagged whenever the breeze blew in off the lake. Also: no ice cream. Okay, cross that one off the list. Next!
• Gull Lake. I remember going here as a kid when I lived in nearby Lacombe. The lake is shallow and has a nice big beach--and a really nice concession stand. Too bad we arrived right as some ominous black clouds rolled in. Who expects an extreme thunderstorm at 11:00 in the morning? Obviously not us.

• Ma-Me-O Beach. On the way home from Gull Lake, we stopped here--at the “summer village,” unfortunately, not the actual beach. (We should have gone to Pigeon Lake Provincial Park.) I blame my wife, who was driving. And me, who was supposed to be navigating--but was actually nose-down in my iPad, prepping.
• Gull Lake (again). We tried Gull Lake again on another weekend with better weather. This time, the extreme thunderstorms held off until right before bedtime. We watched helplessly out the window of our motel in Lacombe as hail came down on our vehicle in the parking lot, and winds ripped branches off trees. The next day, we checked out my old home, school, and the storefront that held my dad’s Thriftway grocery store. Enough nostalgia, let’s find us another nice beach-playground-ice cream stand!
• Alberta Beach (Lac Ste. Anne). Consistent with our luck all summer, the beach was almost nonexistent; our sandbox at home had more sand than Alberta Beach. My older daughter stepped on some broken glass that littered the beach. Also: blue-green algae advisory. Sorry, but Alberta Beach is now crossed off our list. (The restaurant across from the beach did serve excellent pizzas, though.)
• Rochon Sands (Buffalo Lake). Advisory: swimmer’s itch. Of course. No ice cream. Next!
• Ol’ MacDonald’s Resort. Hmm, this is also on Buffalo Lake, but they told us there was no swimmer’s itch. It was fun to spend the day with some of my daughters’ friends and their families. Nice beach, but they never opened the concession stand or the ice cream stand.

In between beach trips and prepping, I managed to fit in some other summer activities:

• my cousin and her family visited from Germany for a few short days, before they all jumped into a motorhome and drove to Vegas. They loved the World Waterpark. It’s my kind of beach: no sand, no swimmer’s itch, and no blue-green algae.
• volunteered to help out on a fieldtrip to the zoo my younger daughter took with her daycare. You don’t know cute until you take a bus full of 4-year-olds to the zoo.
• got stuck in my office for a few hours during a tornado warning 
• spent an afternoon on the midway at K-Days (Seriously, does anyone like that name? It’s Konfusing.)
• Heritage Festival, as usual. The German pavilion even offered leberkäse this year, yum!
• inspired by UAlberta's new DINO 101 MOOC (massive open online course), we went to Drumheller:
  

• put up a couple of sheds and, in a mad scramble before summer finally ran out, my wife and I painted our deck--whew!

But mostly, prepping. But maybe a good summer after all. What did you do on your summer vacation?

Why aren’t you studying?

The Pause

For me, it's the end of the 2012/2013 academic year. Stats, please:

• 11.5 months of teaching in a row (July, 2012-June, 2013)
• 8 classes
• 1,285 students taught
• 21 exams
• 56 terms papers marked
• 1,000 meetings

(OK, so maybe the last one is an exaggeration. But not by much.)

Thanks to everyone who took my classes. Congratulations to all graduates, and best of luck!

I'm going offline for a while, mostly to recover from dental surgery. (Third root canal on the same tooth. Hope the third time's the charm!)

But I've also got a long to-do list before fall term starts: there's my not-so-secret Secret Project, my other slightly secret project (a psychology MOOC), and the big one: the new course I'm teaching starting in the fall. There will be an upcoming series of behind-the-scenes posts about that.

Of course, all of this depends on my contract being renewed for another year. Here's hoping. The provincial government's budget cuts have been brutal, and there are still more to come.

Why aren't you studying?

The Updates

Occasionally, I get new information about something I've posted about before, and usually update the original post. Unless you go back and reread those, however, you may miss out on that info. Sometimes, it's hardly worth it to do an update. So here are some updates to things I've previously written about:

• The New Colleague: After the brutal Alberta budget was released, our potentially new Faculty Lecturer decided not to come to the UofA. This is probably not a coincidence.
• The Budget and the Clocks: I wish the clocks were the only thing affected by the devastating provincial budget. There's talk that the University may invoke "Article 32," a clause in the Faculty Agreement that allows the University to eliminate programs--in effect, cutting tenured positions. This would be a very bad precedent, and would substantially affect morale. (Oh, also? The brackets on the wall where the clocks used to be have been removed. And I may lose the phone in my office. Do you think the Premier has a clock and a phone in her office?)
• The End of Perception: The end is near. I'm teaching PSYCO 267: Perception for the last time this term, and taught PSYCO 365: Advanced Perception for the last time in the past winter term. On the other hand, I will teach PSYCO 403 (LEC B2): Advanced Perception in Winter, 2014. And I will try to teach PSYCO 367: Perception in Spring, 2014.
• The Udacity Partnership: Massive Online Open Course provider Udacity, with whom the UofA signed an agreement last year, has decided to concentrate on one discipline (Computer Science). That means all of our MOOCs (including the psychology one I'm working on as well as DINO 101) will have to find a new home. Stay tuned.
• The Secret Project: ...is still moving ahead. I've been consulting with some people who have given me some great ideas about how to improve student engagement. Plus, there's a cool new learning technology that I'm going to be using. All of this will be tested in my Fall, 2013 PSYCO 104 LEC A3 class.

Why aren't you studying?

The Open Comments: 7

It's the Spring term edition of open comments. I'd like to get some "formative feedback." That means if there's something you want me to know about my courses, tell me now while I have a chance to do something about it. (Don't wait until the teaching evaluation to tell me to speak up, for example.)

Comments can be anonymous, so you don't have to worry that I'll find out where you live. Unless you want me to.

Why aren't you studying?

The Google Calendar

I took an informal poll of one of my classes this term, asking about students' use of Google Calendar. I was shocked (shocked!) to find that only a small minority of students used it. (Although a few did promise to start trying it out.)

For every class I teach, I've been creating a separate Google Calendar containing important dates and deadlines. For example, I include the due dates for assignments. There are also reminders that will be emailed to you a day before each exam, as well.

I have a hard time keeping track of all the stuff going on in my life--and that of my family. Who has dance class today? Where is the soccer game? When is my dentist's appointment? There's no way to remember these in my head. (Some of my colleagues can really harness the power of their mind, memorizing the first 100 digits of pi, which is great. Me, I don't trust myself to be so organized.)
My wife has used a paper calendar in our kitchen, but that system is flawed. I can't book an appointment for myself if I'm not standing in the kitchen looking at the calendar. I don't know when the dance recital starts unless I'm standing in the kitchen looking at the calendar. It's very awkward. The solution: Google Calendar.

OK, it doesn't have to be Google--any online calendar that synchronizes to your devices will work. I've been using GCal since it came out in 2006, and it works well. You can get to it via the web, but it also syncs nicely with my Android phone and iOS devices.

You can "subscribe" to a whole bunch of different calendars, too. In addition to your personal calendar, you can subscribe to Canadian Holidays, UAlberta's academic schedule, or even the Department of Psychology's events calendar.

Here's a sad story. Despite my Google Calendar--and Bear Tracks, too--giving the time, date, and location of the final exam, one student last term forgot/missed the final, and ended up with a terrible mark. Don't let that happen to you!

Google has killed off other products that don't make it any money, and I can't see the revenue stream for Google Calendar. But the good news is that GCal is part of Apps@UAlberta, so it will likely survive future purges.

Why aren't you studying?

The New Colleague

I’d like to welcome the newest member of the Department of Psychology, Dr Catherine Ortner!

Dr Ortner, who is currently at Thompson Rivers University, will be a Faculty Lecturer (in Arts), starting on July 1, 2013. She will be responsible for teaching courses in personality, abnormal psychology, and clinical psychology--courses which are very popular with many students. She gave a fantastic presentation when she was here for her interview earlier this year.

Although it may seem incongruent that the UofA is hiring someone new in a time of significant budgetary shortfalls, this position is actually not new. The previous Faculty Lecturer in this area, Dr Doug Wardell, retired in 2010. We’ve been looking for a full-time replacement ever since.

I’m looking forward to working with Dr Ortner, and I hope you enjoy her courses!

Why aren’t you studying?

Update 5/24/2013: Unfortunately, Dr Ortner has decided to pursue other options and won't be coming to the UofA. (Understandable, considering the uncertain budgetary future here in Alberta.) Best wishes to her in her future endeavours!

The Undergraduate Sociology Journal

JA, a former PSYCO 494: Human Factors and Ergonomics student of mine who is currently a graduate student in pediatrics, has a great opportunity to pass along:

I wanted to mention something interesting to you. I am not sure if you have heard of the new Sociology undergraduate journal at the U of A called invoke, but I submitted my psych 494 term paper and it actually got accepted for the first issue! This is the website if you want to check it out: http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/invoke.

Generally, I believe this journal will accept papers from a variety of disciplines, but I thought it would be good to pass onto psych. undergraduate students that if they already have a good paper already written, they might as well submit! I was able to take the edits you provided me with, and in turn my paper did get accepted and published. Looks great on the CV. I am currently in grad school and I have included this publication on all scholarship applications - it's better than just having abstracts and presentations.

Thanks for passing that along!

Why aren't you studying?

Update 4/24/2013: Bad news from Evan Shillabeer, editor of Invoke:

While the journal has been a wonderful endeavour  we are currently placing it on a ‘hiatus.’ The reasoning is that in sociology, unlike in psychology, the undergraduate population is largely apathetic to research, and it seems sociology in general. Few students have interest in continuing in sociology (there are only 3 honours students), and more often than not, are using the degree as a transition to professional programs (i.e. law school). Over the last year, we have worked diligently to promote and inform sociology students about the journal, but when it came time to publish, we did not have any submission or peer reviewers! My editorial team and I were somewhat disillusioned by our hard work being thwarted by an ambivalent student body, and I made the decision to resign from my post, with the intention of burying the journal. However, I am now in the process of starting up an Undergraduate Sociology Association (a la UPA) to try and stir up some student engagement, before resurrecting the journal in a few years.

I love the idea of psychology students submitting to the journal and would be absolutely ecstatic if it could continue when the journal returns. It would also be really nice to see an undergraduate psychology journal start up; the interface used for these journals is surprisingly easy to use, and it would be a wonderful way to allow the department to show the high quality work that many of the undergraduate students in psychology produce.

The Narcolepsy

A student in PSYCO 104 this term (M.B.) wanted to share his experiences with narcolepsy. I've read about it, but have never met a student who has it. He was okay with me giving his name, but in the interests of ethics, I'm just using his initials. Here is his description in his own words (with minor editing for readability):

...when I had the [multiple sleep latency] test done, I went in and out of REM sleep 173 times in an 8 hour period. During the daytime portion of the test, where they had me take 5 scheduled 20 minute naps, between each of which I needed to stay awake for 2 hours, the average time it took me to fall asleep for each of the naps was 2.3 seconds, starting from when the attendant turned off the lights in the room.

My physician told me that on average, a narcoleptic will wake up in the morning after being in bed for 8-9 hours feeling as exhausted as a normal person would after being up for 36 hours straight.  Obviously, after almost three years since my diagnosis, I can no longer relate to what waking up "rested" feels like, but from what I remember that statement is the most accurate relation I used to make.

In terms of my daily routine, including medication, the general consensus is, for lack of a better word, to jack me up on stimulants in the daytime, and knock me out at night.

Every morning I take 30mg of methylphenidate (which is fast acting), along with 40mg of methylphenidate-SR (which is slow acting).  The methylphenidate takes effect within about 15 minutes, and around the time it wears off about an hour and a half later, the methylphenidate-SR takes effect, lasting for up to 4 hours.

At noon, I take an additional 10mg of methylphenidate (fast) and 20mg of methylphenidate-SR (slow) to get me through the afternoon. When I get home from school, or 4 o'clock comes around (whichever comes first), I usually feel overwhelmingly exhausted, at which time I take a nap daily which is usually 45 minutes in length. This nap allows me to make it through the evening without further medication.

My nighttime routine has fluctuated most, as I've previously tried two different types of medications which did not work for long, each with their own odd effects:

Initially, I was on Co-zopiclone, and during that period of about 6 months, it supressed my ability to dream completely, which was a welcome effect, seeing that I had gotten used to the hypnogocic hallucinations and sleep paralysis during which I dreamt of snakes in my bed or shadows coming at me with knives. Now however, I am taking Apo-trazodone, at a dosage of 200mg each night. Trazodone has helped reduce the frequency at which I wake up during the night, and helps me stay asleep longer. As expected though, when I wake up, I am quite drowsy and groggy.

Most days when untreated, I could not stay awake in the passenger seat of a car for further than a block, nor could I stay awake for more than 2 hours without napping even when I was occupied.  Even now on medication, there are times at which I cannot stay awake, and involuntarily fall asleep for brief periods.

I also experience cataplexy, although luckily not to the extent that many individuals do.  While I have had some episodes of collapse, my symptoms while untreated ranged from buckling at the knees and dropping whatever I'm holding (being the most severe), to loss of the control of my facial muscles when angry, happy, or laughing. To this day, mostly during the evenings but also when I am extremely fatigued, I will slightly slur my speech, close my eyes, and involuntarily flatten my tongue in my mouth, pressing it against my teeth.

I know that I have very likely given you more information than you can talk about in class, but I am completely comfortable with you using anything you see fit. I am not embarrassed to tell my story, and I consider it an opportunity to do anything that I can to help educate more people on the effects of Narcolepsy.

Thanks for sharing that information with us, MB. It puts into perspective what "being really tired" is, and how most of us have no real idea what it feels like.

Why aren't you studying?

The Secret Project

For over a year, I've been part of a "secret" project. (Although I've mentioned it a few times, no one has asked me about it. You, dear readers, have the utmost respect for secrets!)

This project, led by the Arts Resource Centre, was intended to address two issues. One was in-class engagement. What would the classroom experience be like if every student had a tablet computer? Not a smartphone, not a laptop, but a tablet. Like, say, an iPad. All students involved in this project (a couple of intro psychology classes, some economics, and political science) were going to be given free loaner iPads. There would be an option to buy out the lease at the end of term, meaning students would get to use an iPad for free for 4 months, with the option to buy it at a discount. (Did I mention that it would be free?)

I went to seminars put on by Apple, got a loaner iPad 2 (the day before the iPad 3 came out, argh!), and experimented with a lot of apps. Apple even offered us the use of some of their app development team in Cupertino.Cool! In a too-good-to-be-true way.

Unfortunately, the lease cost of the iPads kept going up and up until it was out of our price range. (Hey, someone has to pay for all those iPads!) At that point, the focus shifted to the much less-expensive ASUS-made Nexus 7 tablet. Our experimental team members designed the research side of things, to measure how using tablets would affect student learning and engagement. Those of us on the instructional team used our loaner iPads to work out how we would engage students in class with this technology. The team leader applied for research funding. Everything was clicking along fine--until it all went off the rails.

Two days before the devastating provincial budget was released, we were told that our application for funding had been denied. The little money we had wasn't going to be enough to supply multiple classes of students with tablet computers. The many hours we spent meeting, discussing, reading, and preparing for this project were all for naught. Although, there was still the other part of the project...

I shouldn't really talk too much about the other issue that this project was going to examine--after all, this is still an ongoing research project (even if it is radically scaled back). If I blab about it and reveal our hypotheses, it may affect the results. I think it's safe to reveal that we are interested in how you learn outside of the classroom. In fact, I've got a meeting today with a publisher's representative who is working with me on this project. And we're collecting baseline data in my intro psych class today. Beyond that, I'm afraid everything else is going to have to remain...a secret.

Why aren't you studying?

The World Backup Day

It's March 31, so happy World Backup Day 2013! Yup, it's a real thing. You can spread the message by taking the pledge to backup your data. (I did.) You wouldn't want to lose you data, would you?

Imagine losing your digital photos. Or your music collection. Maybe those great videos you took of you last vacation. What if there were all gone? What if your term paper (which is due in a couple of weeks) were to disappear--with no backup?

Did you know they almost lost Toy Story 2? Of course they made backups--but backups be corrupted. There's a great video that explains what happened. (Warning: don't watch it if you have a weak constitution and/or you haven't backed up any of your data since there was a U.S. president whose name is a synonym for "shrub." On second thought, maybe then you should watch the video.

Not only do I make backups, I go one better. As soon as I save anything to a local hard drive, my data is immediately synced with my other computers, and is simultaneously saved to a server in the cloud. (My human factors and ergonomics students will know what this is called. It's not merely a backup, it's "active redundancy".) Last summer, the boot drive on my primary laptop died. It was an inconvenience--that's all, just an inconvenience. It wasn't the end of the world.

But just because you save your data to the cloud doesn't mean it's safe. The company you rely on likely uses another service to provide their storage. Somewhere out there, your data is sitting on a spinning disk. And those can fail--even in the cloud.

So: make an extra backup today. Save your term paper on a flash drive. Save it to a cloud storage service. Burn it onto a CD. Hey, copy it to a floppy, if you have one. And save your pictures, songs, videos, and everything else you don't want to lose. There's no excuse for losing your data. No, really. Saying, "My computer crashed and I lost my term paper" is today's equivalent of "My dog ate my homework."

Why aren't you studying?

The Budget and the Clocks

Late last year, I noticed that one of the clocks in the hallway of the psychology wing in the Biological Sciences Building was wrong. Not a big deal--every year or so, a clock goes wonky, so I make a call and it gets fixed. Only, not this time.

A few days later, another clock was out. Then, a couple more. Next, several clocks froze. One by one, all the clocks in the entire building started to fail. At first, it was kinda funny, in a stopped-clock-is-right-twice-a-day way. What wasn't funny was the fact that the clocks weren't being repaired.

- - - - -

Yesterday, the provincial government released the budget. It was not good news for Alberta's post-secondary institutions. In fact, President Samarasekera was "horrified," it was that bad. To keep up with inflation (for example, rising costs of physical goods and increases in salaries), the UofA needed an increase of 4%. (The government had promised an annual increase of 2% a year for three years, which still wasn't enough.) Instead, what was delivered was about a 7% cut.

For the past few years, because of insufficient provincial funding, faculties and departments have had to make cuts, on the order of 3%. This is why I don't hand out paper copies of the syllabus in all of my classes any more, and it's part of the reason why the Department of Psychology has one fewer Faculty Lecturer in Science. There's no more room to make sweeping across-the-board cuts. The main cost in the UofA's budget is salaries: academic staff and nonacademic staff. These salaries are negotiated with UofA administration, and cannot simply be cut, similar to teachers. (Interestingly, teachers are allowed to go on strike, whereas the UofA's academic staff are not.)

- - - - -

A few weeks ago, the clocks started disappearing. All that remained were a few dangling wires. (Some of them, with one clock remaining on the other side freak me out. They remind me of the fembots from the 1970s Bionic Woman show. Brrr.)

Is this a good sign? They're taking the clocks out to be fixed? Or replaced? Maybe it's a bad sign. They've never had to remove the clocks completely. And they haven't been replacing any of the clocks. They're just...gone.

It turns out that the clocks are so old, they can't get parts anymore. Maybe they're trying to salvage what they can to scavenge parts from some of them and get a few clocks running again. Maybe the days of having the luxury of a clock in every hallway are gone.

- - - - -

The government has put the UofA in a bad spot. Costs cannot be reduced further (at least, not without some pretty serious consequences like declaring a Financial Emergency). Revenue cannot be increased (the government has prohibited tuition increases to cover a shortfall). So what's left? Apparently, the magic bullet will come in the form of "mandate letters" that the government will send out, dictating to each institution what their role will be in a "more unified" post-secondary education system.

See, the government apparently sees a lot of waste due to duplication. The UofA confers undergraduate degrees in Arts, as does MacEwan University (and the UofC, and Mount Royal, etc.). That's inefficient! It's waste! Let's consolidate and increase efficiencies! Yeah, I don't see it either. Is it going to mean that, if you want an undergraduate degree in arts in psychology, you'd go to the UofA, but if you want economics, you'd have to go to the U of Lethbridge? Or maybe, the UofA would do away with all undergraduate degrees entirely, and just focus on professional degrees (nursing, law, medicine) and graduate degrees. Hmm, good luck with that.

The government also wants post-secondary institutions to be engines of economic diversity. That means doing research to solve real-world problems, forge patents, and bring in some money to the province. But don't you think that if some researcher was sitting on a goldmine idea, they would have already tried to cash in on it? What about the fact that most research is not applied, but basic (that is, designed to tell us about ourselves and the world we live in)? And what about those not doing scientific research, but scholarship in the arts? How do you commercialize that? This whole idea is: stupid.

- - - - -

People in government must know what they're doing, right? I mean, they consolidated all the different regional health authorities into one big Alberta Health superboard, and that turned out...oh, right. It was a colossal screwup. Well, I'm sure they've learned their lesson, and they won't do anything like that again, right? Right?

Do I have any better ideas? Sure I do. Increase royalty rates on natural resources. Institute a sales tax (hey, as a lifelong Albertan, it pains me to say it, but with such volatile resource revenues, it just makes sense now). Scrap the flat tax and have progressive income tax instead. Each one of these would work--if there's any backbone of political will.

- - - - -

Some people need clocks. The admin staff in the Psychology office need to time-stamp papers that students hand in. Students and instructors have to get to class on time. I synchronize my watch to the clock in my hallway to make sure I wasn't late to class. (if I'm 1 minute late to a class of 400 people, I've just wasted 400 people-minutes of time, or over 6 hours). The Department of Psychology has dipped into its budget and gone to Grand & Toy to buy a bunch of clocks.

Unfortunately, we can't afford to pay for clocks for the whole building. So I might be a bit late for class sometimes.

Say, do you have the time?

Why aren't you studying?

Update 3/8/2013 12:55p.m.: Half of the lights are out in Biological Sciences, the projectors in my first class were dead, and I can't log in to update my website. This does not bode well...

The Open Comments: 6

I'm up to my ears in midterm-essay marking--half-done, yay. That means it's time for open comments.

Anything you want to say? Any questions you want to ask? Can't hear what I'm saying in class? Now's the time to let me know. Comments can be anonymous, and I'll make sure moderator kitteh approves ur submishinz.

Why aren't you studying?

The Awards: 8

The ISSS Hosts

Dr Peter Lee

Thank-you very much to the ISSS (Interdepartmental Science Students' Society) for their Instructor Appreciation Night last Friday. I was surprised and honoured to have been nominated for excellence in teaching, along with 13 of my colleagues in the Faculty of Science--including Dr Peter Lee from the Department of Psychology (that's him looking quite dapper in a tux). Although I did not win the Outstanding Professor Award, it was still a great time. It's nice to hear from students directly; I talked to a few who appreciated the work I did in teaching them. You're welcome! (I did have to duck out a bit early to help put my daughters to bed, sorry. But they liked the balloons very much.)

If you want to see the kind of professional-looking job the ISSS did, you can watch the YouTube video that kicked off the evening.

I am also pleased to report that I was named to the Department of Psychology's Teaching Honour Roll with Distinction (modestly) for the two courses I taught in Summer, 2012 term. Yeah, I'm a bit late. I was going to read my comments and post the best ones (as I've done in the past), but haven't had time. I've got my hands full with a secret project, a MOOC that I'm contributing to, and the new...well, that's going to be another post. A series of posts, in fact, about something that been in the works for over 2 years...

Why aren't you studying?

The Google Map of Campus

It looks like Google mapped the UofA campus (North, South, St. Jean, and Augustana) with Street View in July, 2012. Not just roads, but walking paths, too. (The University of Calgary did not get mapped. Heh.) Here’s a pic of the Google Mapper reflected in the windows of Earth Sciences. Hmm, I was teaching last summer, but never noticed anyone riding a bike with 9 eyes.

Why aren't you studying?

The Star Wars Identities

The Telus World of Science Edmonton is currently hosting an exhibition called Star Wars Identities. I'm all about science, but you had me at "Star Wars." Walk around a big room filled with actual props and costumes from the movies? Woot!

I went to SWI on the opening weekend with my good friend--and fellow nerd--George. (You should do the same. Er, but get your own friend. They don't have to be named "George," either.) He does an awesome Chewbacca, and his impression of a TIE fighter is...eerie. Go ahead and geek out, that's what it's about. Well, actually, it's about more than that, and that's what really impressed me about the exhibit.

The developers of the exhibit have added depth, meaning, and personal relevance to what otherwise might be a big room full of dusty old things. As you go through the exhibit, you create a Star Wars-universe character of your own, making choices about many aspects of its (your?) life. There are 10 different components: species, genes, parents, culture, mentors, friends, events, occupation, personality, and values. These are ordered ontogenetically--er, that is, reflective of human development, from childhood to adulthood (or "Origins, Influences, and Choices").

It became clear to me pretty quickly that there was some actual science behind this, and some careful thought. The developers consulted with scientific committee, including two neuropsychologists, three psychologists, and a some other experts in related scientific fields. For example, mention is made of the influence of different parenting styles (authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, or uninvolved) from the point of view of Anakin versus Luke. And the personality component brought up the Big 5 personality traits of agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, and openness. (Try this Big 5 personality test yourself.)

At the end of it all, you get to choose to be either good, or, you know, choose the Dark Side. And then you see the character who you created. Here's mine:

The character in the background on the right is the one created by my friend George: a Jedi named Juh. (Yeah, so we're not great at coming up with names. What, is "Jar Jar" any better?)

Actual science and Star Wars together. Cool. Star Wars Identities runs until April 1, 2013. Highly recommended.

Why aren't you studying?

Update 1/20/2013: Wired.com has an article on Star Wars Identities.

The Cost of Education

There's an interesting article in the December CAUT Bulletin. According to a Harris/Decima teleVox poll commissioned by CAUT (the Canadian Association of University Teachers):

"More than half of Canadians say they would be willing to pay more taxes to allow governments to increase post-secondary education funding."

Other questions in this survey asked people how institutions should respond to government cuts, and 52% said that administration costs should be reduced. Other options included increasing class sizes, cutting salaries, and raising fees (i.e., upping tuition or creating new and interesting ways of making students pay more).

In a finding that warmed my heart, 47% of respondents thought that professors had the best interests of students in mind (higher than private donors, administrators, or governments--all three together getting only 41% of people's votes). That's nice, even though I'm not a professor.

If you could send this information to the provincial Minister of "Enterprise" and Advanced Education and the Premier, that would be nice.

Why aren't you studying?

The Listening List: 1

A while ago, I made a list of some of my favourite recent reading. Now, here are some things that I'm listening to on my digital media player. (No, it's not a i-device.)

I'm lovin' Freakonomics radio. I read the books, the blog, and the tweets, but I just can't wait until each "radio" podcast is delivered (in my sleep!). The bits about behavioural economics are the gravy on top of the ice cream, but the "hidden side of everything" segments are fascinating and surprising. Recent topics include: where management consultants came from, why mass transit may not be so good for the environment, and how to maximize your Halloween candy haul. Economics has never been so interesting.

The Nerdist podcast (podcast network is more like it now) has something for everyone--whatever your geek niche. Examples: video games, comics, sex. Episode #250 featured Alton Brown. Wha--? Chris Hardwick and Alton Brown? Squee! (Plus, AB was on an episode of the Nerdist Channel's Dork Fork. See? Something for everyone...) My favourite part of the episode was when AB dropped an F-bomb. That ain't ever gonna happen on Iron Chef.

A TED talk that has gotten considerable attention (3+ million views) is one by author Susan Cain, who talks about being an introvert and writing her book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. If you're an introvert like me, you owe it to yourself to at least watch the video. Extroverts can watch it too: it may help you to understand the other 30-50% of the population.

Finally, I actually do have music on my player, too. Some people like to play "I'm listening to music that's so obscure you've never heard of it and never will." I understand that; I liked Madonna Louise Ciccone's music of the early 80s, then everyone was listening to her and I lost interest. So here's my totally obscure contribution: the new Nena album, Du Bist Gut ("you are good"). I bought this old-school on CD from Amazon.de but also put it on my player.

In German-speaking countries, this selection is not obscure at all. The first single debuted at #2 on the charts. And the singer isn't an unknown either. You may know her from the worldwide #1 1980s hit 99 Luftballons/99 Red Balloons. She didn't disappear after that; she's released an album just about every year for the past three decades--even some children's albums. To me, she's the sexiest 52-year-old grandmother (!!) on the planet. *dreamy sigh*

What are you listening to?

Why aren't you studying?

The Crunch Time

It's crunch time for me--and for you. For me, I've got 18 projects due for my "other employer" for a December 1 deadline. (No, that's not a typo: eighteen projects.) Then, I've got 2 more projects due later in the month. That's on top of marking term papers, prepping exams, and getting courses ready for next term.

As for you, you should be well underway writing your term papers--not deciding on topics, or looking for papers and books to read. If you want the best possible mark, now is go time.

Not getting the marks you want so far this term? It's not too late. I've written posts on improving exam prep, learning, and studying; just click on the Category links on the right side of this page. I've also got a page of study resources for you.

The Student Success Centre has workshops coming up soon, but you better hurry, time is running out! Need help writing your term paper, the Centre for Writers is still open, but only until the last day of class (but that's when your term papers are due anyway, right?).

Why aren't you studying?

The Snow Day

I knew it was going to be a bad day when, in driving my older daughter to school, there were two collisions on the way. Her school is less than 2 km away. Then I saw traffic backed up for at least six blocks. Yup, a bad one. I got home to pick up my younger daughter and take her to daycare, but had to shovel the driveway. And then I got stuck. That’s why I’m at home writing this blog post while watching Elmo’s World.

I’ve never missed an exam in my life. (Once, as a student, a snowstorm made me late for an exam--but it made everyone else late, too.) And I’ve never been snowed out of getting to class. Today, both of those perfect records have fallen.

There was good news and bad news about the exam. The good news was that my stalwart teaching assistant lives close to campus and was able to hike in and proctor the exam. Students, stuck in the snow, wiped out in the ditch, or abandoned by the transit system, were sending me a blizzard of emails and tweets asking what to do. My brilliant solution? Hold the exam again, during the next class. Brilliant, except that the Associate Dean (Undergraduate) of Science sternly reminded the Department of Psychology that that’s not allowed--exams have to take place according to the syllabus. No exceptions. That’s the bad news.

It would have been nice to get more advance notice about this snowfall. Environment Canada’s weather office issued a snowfall warning at 9:15 a.m. MST. Really? By this point, ETS had tweeted about weather delays, the Edmonton Police Service had told people to stay off the streets, and I was up to my knees shoveling snow. Don’t need a warning at that point. When I checked the weather last night before going to bed, only 6-10 cm of snow was forecast for today. The 9:15 warning predicted up to 25 cm, with my end of town already hammered by 18 cm.

Obviously, we can’t prevent a snowstorm, but knowing about it more in advance would have been a big help.

Why aren’t you studying?

The Udacity Partnership

Earlier today the UofA signed a MOU (memorandum of understanding) with Udacity to develop a research partnership about MOOCs (massive open online courses). In a MOOC, the entire course is done online, for free. You may or may not get some kind of credit for participating and completing it; you may have to pay for a certificate. So far, you can't use these MOOCs for credit towards an actual degree.

This morning at 10:00, a group of instructors, researchers, and administrators met with Sebastian Thrun, who cofounded Udacity. (Yes, this is one of the "secret projects" I'm currently involved in. Now it's not a secret anymore.) Thrun, who gave a talk about MOOCs on campus last month, showed us his content creation system, which runs as an iPad app. Even in pre-alpha, it was pretty slick, allowing videos, sketches, and interactive quizzes to be put together to create a course, which can also be "consumed" via an i-device.

MOOCs raise many important questions about pedagogy (the "science of education"), instruction, interactivity, and the role of universities. We're thinking about those. But the reason I'm writing this post is to get the view of students on MOOCs.

What do you think about free, online courses? Would you take one? Why? What would you want to get from it? Would it help your mom learn about psychology (or whatever your major is)? Or for your younger sister in high school, who hasn't decided what topic to study in post-secondary education (much less her future career)? Would you take it to supplement what you're learning in your in-person, for-credit class? Or would you want to get your whole degree online, instead of going to meat-space classes? (Hmm, isn't that already available?)

Why aren't you studying?

The Open Comments: 5

With midterms done/coming up or whatever your case may be (in my case, always both), it's time again to open it up for any comments you have.

Questions? Concerns? Can't hear me in the back? Don't wait until the end of term evaluations to tell me. I know I've been a bit low energy recently--this darn gastroenteritis. Ooh, that reminds me: it's time for my annual flu shot again. Are you going to get one? I don't know about you, friend, but I don't want to be laid up in bed during finals.

Why aren't you studying?

The Changes

So far, 2012 has been a year stuffed full of changes. My wife moved her practice to a different clinic. My oldest daughter switched to a different school. We have a new neighbour. Our basement is in the process of being developed. (You never realize how much stuff is in your basement until you have to move it all into the garage.) My sister-in-law got a new dog. (OK, so maybe that last one isn’t a big impact on my life.)

At work, too, there have been more changes this year than in the last decade. The Department of Psychology General Office has seen a major changeover in admin staff. (See The Cuts for more.)

I’ve had to adapt to some pretty major changes in my teaching schedule, too. Each Department makes up a “master schedule” of all classes, which includes information on who’s teaching what course, when each courses is being taught (term and time of day), and in which classrooms. Starting this year, some longer-range planning has been implemented. Now, people within each “area” of specialization in the Department of Psychology have to agree on who is going to teach which courses for the next 2 years. In principle, this is good planning. Unfortunately for me, as a teaching-focused Faculty Lecturer, my courses fall into three different areas: Cognition (PSYCO 258 and 494), Behaviour, Systems and Cognitive Neuroscience (PSYCO 267 and 365), and Comparative Cognition and Behaviour (PSYCO--whoops, that hasn’t been announced yet).

So far, not so bad. But there has also been a change in policy about when classes are offered. An analysis showed that most PSYCO courses were being offered between 11:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m., and most of them were on Tues/Thurs (“TR”), making it hard for psychology majors to register for all of the classes they needed to complete their degrees. As a result, a new policy was introduced, requiring 200-level courses to be 50-minute classes offered on Mon/Wed/Fri (“MWF”), 300-level courses on TR (meaning 80-minute classes), and 400-level courses to be on MWF (again, 50-minute classes).

This term, all of my courses were flipped. My PSYCO 104 was moved from MWF to TR; I haven’t taught it as an 80-minute class since 1997. I’ve designed, tweaked, and adjusted it to be a 50-minute class for 15 years, and now had to change it--syllabus, lectures, exams--to fit into 80 minutes. In addition, my usual 80-minute classes--PSYCO 267 and 494--changed to 50-minute ones. I’ve never once taught 267 as a 50-minute class, and the last time I taught 494 in 50 minutes was 2004. I’ve never been so busy prepping “old” classes before.

Lastly, even where classes are being held has changed for me this year. This term, one of my classes is scheduled in my least favourite room, and the others are slotted in rooms that are just slightly too big. Here’s the problem: If the room holds 413 people, and enrollment is capped at 390, there will be empty seats. Students come to class and see a certain number of empty seats every time, and go, “Huh. Not everybody is showing up to class. Why should I?” As a result, attendance drops steadily during the term. This general effect is called “social proof” (HT: Jennifer Passey). So I’ve actually asked for enrollment in most of my classes to be maxed out to room capacity. Bigger isn’t always better.

On top of all these changes, and the extra work they entail, I’ve also got to work on a new prep (academic lingo for “new course”). But that’s another post.

Why aren’t you studying?

The Commercial Message

I get a lot of requests from people who want to make an announcement in my class. Usually, they want to talk to my first- and second-year classes, probably because these are in huge rooms with hundreds of students. Some of the information is important, like raising awareness of UAlberta resources available to students, like the Peer Support Centre or student groups like the Undergraduate Psychology Association (I was a member of the UPA back when I was an undergraduate!). Although this is useful information to some students, I’m thinking that a lot of this is redundant with the New Student Orientation.

There are others who want to make a presentation about something not at all related to the university, per se. They want to encourage students to Study  Abroad! Get Volunteer Experience! Run Your Own Business! Or when it's SU election time, I'm flooded with requests. (Unfortunately, election time coincides with midterm time.) Is this appropriate in class?

I let someone give a presentation to my class the other day; they had arranged for this time weeks in advance. The thing was, the presentation went on and on and on. Eventually, when the person finished, they had burned through almost 10 minutes of my class time, and left me with a class that was totally not wanting to listen to anything I had to say for a long time. Thanks a lot. I will never let anyone from that organization give a presentation to any of my classes ever again.

Here are my rules for people who want to present something--anything--to my classes.

• Do not come into the room and start talking to my class without asking my permission and scheduling a date in advance. It’s like you’ve taken over my room. Please don’t. Even if I am not in the room yet. If I get there late and there’s not enough time for you to talk, sorry.
• Do not wait for me to introduce you, or tell you to get started. I am not going to introduce you, unless you are an invited guest. Introductions from me may seem to students like an endorsement.
• Show up early, if you need to ask me for permission. I may say no, depending on what I have planned for that class, or what you’re selling. Best to email me in advance and ask me for permission. I’ll send you a link to this blog posting. (Whoa--recursiveness!)
• Do not take up any of my class time. You can talk to my class while I’m setting up. If you have lots of information to give, you better talk fast. Once class time starts, you are done.
• I am not going to give you a microphone. You need to talk loud to get the attention of the class and to be heard over the general noise. I need to clip my mic on and get the audio system set up for myself, so you're on your own. Good luck.
• You do not get to use the computer/PowerPoint or the projector. If you do, then I cannot log in or set up my lectures (this takes an agonizingly long time--up to 10 minutes). If you get there before me and log in, then after you're finished I will have to waste class time logging you out (which reboots the computer), then logging in, and setting up; I will not be happy with your or your group, and won't let you present to my classes again. Yes, I have a blacklist (see above anecdote).
• You can email me web links, posters, or contact information, which I may post to eClass. (If you prefer, I may post your message in the announcements forum on eClass instead of an in-class presentation.)
• Only one presentation per day. First come, first served.
• If I have sent you a link to this post, you must email me back saying that you agree to all of these conditions and what your favourite colour of M&M is, otherwise your permission to present to my class is hereby revoked.

What do you, as students, think of these rules? Do you want to hear commercial messages? Are you already coping with information overload? Do you pay attention to the messages in class?

Why aren’t you studying?