Administrative and Technology Stuff

Missing Class

Attendance is not required but I'd like you to come if you can.  Today, my eyeballing of the class is that we were at 50% or less.  It's pretty early in the semester for attendance to be that low.

If you want to remain a student in good standing but need to miss class, as it is says in the syllabus the professional thing to do is drop me a note ahead of time to let me know what's up.  If you are interviewing for a job, while that is not a university excused absence, I understand its a top concern for you.  I'm much more willing to help a struggling student who has alerted me ahead of time to being absent than I am to another student who seems to be blowing off the class.

If you have flu-like symptoms, I actually would prefer you not come in that case.  I think my own immune system is a little deficient these days and I don't want to get sick.  I know going to McKinley can be a drag but sometimes the medication really does help, so the visit is worth it.

Managing Class Size and Blogging

There are currently 38 students registered.  And at present we have 35 students blogs linked from the sidebar of the class Website in the box called Blogs of Current Students.  I am unsure of the status of the 3 students who have yet to send me the links to their blogs.  In what follows, I'm going to assume they all catch up and we are at 100% of the students with blogs linked from the class site.

There are too many students in the class for me to read and comment on each student's post every week.  So I developed a scheme to manage this in what I hope is a reasonable way.  First, if a post comes in before the actual deadline, noon on Friday, I will read and comment on it.  With the soft deadline approach we are taking in this class, I expect many posts to come in on Saturday and some on Sunday too.  I have divided the class into three Blogging Groups.  (See the tab at the top of the page to find out which group you are in.)  This week, I will read and comment on all blogs in groups 1 and 2.  Next week I, I will read and comment on all blogs in groups 2 and 3.  The week after that, I will read and comment on groups 1 and 3.  Then the cycle will start again.  This assumes there is no attrition in the course.  If the class shrinks because students drop out. We'll abandon this approach.

To make sure that the students who are getting comments from me nonetheless receive feedback, I've placed students in Blogging Teams.  Most of the teams have 3 students, 1 from each group.  This weeks the students in groups 1 and 2 on the team should write a comment about the post made by the students from group 3.  The comments should be a decent paragraph, at least, and should be aimed at encouraging the poster to think more about the issues in the post.  If by Sunday evening, there is still no post by the student from group 3, then the other team members are not off the hook.  They should make a comment on a group three student from some other team.

I want to note here that there is a benefit in reading the posts of other students.  It is a way to benchmark your own work.  For some of you, you'll take pride in what you've already produced.  For others it may be an indicator that you need to step it up in your blogging.    Please think of this in terms of the content in your post.  Especially if English is not your first language, don't worry about grammar and word usage. We understand that will come only slowly as you write more in English.

I also want to note that each student should respond to comments received with a comment of their own.  This response is a way to acknowledge those comments and to push the discussion further.

Excel Homework and the Pull Down Menu for Your Alias

As some students are struggling with the pull down menu, I gave a little demo in class about a work around.  At the bottom of the page, right click on the tab with the worksheet name.  There should be a closed lock icon on the tab to indicate the worksheet is password protected. The right clicking should bring up a menu.  Choose Unhide...   Select ID.   In column E of the ID worksheet, you should see all the aliases for the class.  They are listed alphabetically by the last name of the economist.  Find the row of your alias.  In cell S2, type that row number.  You should note that the pull down menu on the ID sheet now has your alias.  Then go back to the worksheet with your homework.  That pull down menu will also have your alias.

I also did a demo about hiding the Ribbon, to give more vertical space for you to work with, and by using the Split command under the Window so you can have a fixed upper pane a scroll in the lower pane or vice versa.  If you missed class today you might want to ask somebody who was there to help you out with this.