Blah
Still not doing so well at the LJ thing…
At any rate, things are going quite well, few odd bumps, but well for all of that. Went to a really awesome financial seminar on investing in the stock market, so I’ve started playing with that. The training I’m going through gives the user ‘paper money’ to play with, which is a really good thing given the dive it took on Friday. ::grin:: Still, my chosen stocks did pretty well.
Teaching at ITT is beginning to drive me nuts. This past quarter, 2 of my best students decided to plagiarize their final assignments. Idiots. I found this out just before I left town to visit my Mom for a week. So I took all the information to the Assistant Dean and let him deal with it. Have to admit, it really pissed me off. These were not young kids; one was 45 and a retired Military person, the other was in their thirties. Their final was proctored by another teacher as I was out of town, so they didn’t get a chance to talk to me about their grades.
::snicker:: The 45 year old sent me an email to the effect of “I copied the wrong file and forgot where I saved it..” Right. One quarter away from graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Information System Security and you “forgot” where you saved a file? Especially when we’ve been working on this project for 5 weeks and we talked about plagiarism, printing out every thing correctly and covering all the points that had to be made? I don’t think so. ::smirk:: Then to add insult to injury, the student went to the Dean complaining that I didn’t respond to their email and had given them a zero on two assignments that they had grades on earlier.
While the student was in the office, the Dean called me at work. I explained to the Dean that the student plagiarized and the two previous assignments were part of the final project. According to ITT rules, the whole assignment is a Zero. (Technically, they should kick the student out, but ITT does plagiarism on a case by case basis. Since both students had good records, they decided to let them stay, but it goes on their permanent record.) The Deans voice went ice cold and he asked me to send an email so it would be in writing, but he would explain to the student why the grades were a zero. Not the brightest thing in the world to do, go to the Dean to complain about a teacher when you were the one who plagiarized…
Have to admit the whole situation really bothers me. These were good students and people that I almost viewed as friends. That they would steal someone else’s work and then try to wiggle out of it, really upset me. I can understand (sort of) being super busy and not having the time to finish something, but I can’t understand stealing someone else’s stuff to make up. Think I’m going to be checking much closer for plagiarism in the future!
I was supposed to teach their class again this quarter, but contacted my boss and did the “No way” thing. She switched me so I’m teaching a different set of students and handed them off to a teacher that they are not too fond of. My heart bleeds, really.
Then she called me on Thursday to ask me to teach another class this quarter. That takes me up to three … and I’m not thrilled about it. It’s the basic Hacking class, and I’ve taught it before, I’m just not crazy about it. There is a lot of work to do in the class and of course, all the students think they are going to learn how to hack their way into any system. That’s not the point of the class, but they think it is. *sigh* Although, I think I know which group of kids it is, and they are a lot of fun. I substituted for them this past quarter and we had a good time. I’m hoping that’s the group I get. ::cross of fingers::
My other class is on Server 2003 and I know at least a few of the students in it. I think that is going to be a good class, even if it’s Saturday mornings at 8 AM. (>.<) Oh well, I suspect I’ll survive.
Been riding my bike to work which has been a lot of fun, I really love my bike. (^__^) Had to take it in this weekend for a check up, but it seems to be in good shape. Little worried about the rear brake, the ride to work is downhill the whole way there…and uphill the whole way home. Since it’s downhill, I ride the brake something fierce… figured I’d best get it checked out. I’ve got a bike to borrow this week, although I don’t like it as well. Now that I’m teaching an extra night during the week, I’m down to riding only 3 days of the week. *pout* I was trying to set it up where I’d only drive on Saturday, but ITT gets out a 10:30 PM, and it’s 6 miles back to the house. Not too cool on riding that late. Besides, again, it’s uphill all the way. (>.<) Gonna have to look at riding there on Saturday since my class is so early.
Other than the usual irritations, work as been going quite well, I do work with really sweet people! We’re looking into buying new computers for the whole staff which means I’m going to be horribly busy for the next few weeks, but so be it. I’ve got a week long training coming up in August to look forward to…although it’s going to pull 3K from my checking account to afford the thing! And some other kind of fun things. This summer is going to be super busy, but hopefully productive.
Well, really should get moving, still have this week’s lectures to write!
Take care all
At any rate, things are going quite well, few odd bumps, but well for all of that. Went to a really awesome financial seminar on investing in the stock market, so I’ve started playing with that. The training I’m going through gives the user ‘paper money’ to play with, which is a really good thing given the dive it took on Friday. ::grin:: Still, my chosen stocks did pretty well.
Teaching at ITT is beginning to drive me nuts. This past quarter, 2 of my best students decided to plagiarize their final assignments. Idiots. I found this out just before I left town to visit my Mom for a week. So I took all the information to the Assistant Dean and let him deal with it. Have to admit, it really pissed me off. These were not young kids; one was 45 and a retired Military person, the other was in their thirties. Their final was proctored by another teacher as I was out of town, so they didn’t get a chance to talk to me about their grades.
::snicker:: The 45 year old sent me an email to the effect of “I copied the wrong file and forgot where I saved it..” Right. One quarter away from graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Information System Security and you “forgot” where you saved a file? Especially when we’ve been working on this project for 5 weeks and we talked about plagiarism, printing out every thing correctly and covering all the points that had to be made? I don’t think so. ::smirk:: Then to add insult to injury, the student went to the Dean complaining that I didn’t respond to their email and had given them a zero on two assignments that they had grades on earlier.
While the student was in the office, the Dean called me at work. I explained to the Dean that the student plagiarized and the two previous assignments were part of the final project. According to ITT rules, the whole assignment is a Zero. (Technically, they should kick the student out, but ITT does plagiarism on a case by case basis. Since both students had good records, they decided to let them stay, but it goes on their permanent record.) The Deans voice went ice cold and he asked me to send an email so it would be in writing, but he would explain to the student why the grades were a zero. Not the brightest thing in the world to do, go to the Dean to complain about a teacher when you were the one who plagiarized…
Have to admit the whole situation really bothers me. These were good students and people that I almost viewed as friends. That they would steal someone else’s work and then try to wiggle out of it, really upset me. I can understand (sort of) being super busy and not having the time to finish something, but I can’t understand stealing someone else’s stuff to make up. Think I’m going to be checking much closer for plagiarism in the future!
I was supposed to teach their class again this quarter, but contacted my boss and did the “No way” thing. She switched me so I’m teaching a different set of students and handed them off to a teacher that they are not too fond of. My heart bleeds, really.
Then she called me on Thursday to ask me to teach another class this quarter. That takes me up to three … and I’m not thrilled about it. It’s the basic Hacking class, and I’ve taught it before, I’m just not crazy about it. There is a lot of work to do in the class and of course, all the students think they are going to learn how to hack their way into any system. That’s not the point of the class, but they think it is. *sigh* Although, I think I know which group of kids it is, and they are a lot of fun. I substituted for them this past quarter and we had a good time. I’m hoping that’s the group I get. ::cross of fingers::
My other class is on Server 2003 and I know at least a few of the students in it. I think that is going to be a good class, even if it’s Saturday mornings at 8 AM. (>.<) Oh well, I suspect I’ll survive.
Been riding my bike to work which has been a lot of fun, I really love my bike. (^__^) Had to take it in this weekend for a check up, but it seems to be in good shape. Little worried about the rear brake, the ride to work is downhill the whole way there…and uphill the whole way home. Since it’s downhill, I ride the brake something fierce… figured I’d best get it checked out. I’ve got a bike to borrow this week, although I don’t like it as well. Now that I’m teaching an extra night during the week, I’m down to riding only 3 days of the week. *pout* I was trying to set it up where I’d only drive on Saturday, but ITT gets out a 10:30 PM, and it’s 6 miles back to the house. Not too cool on riding that late. Besides, again, it’s uphill all the way. (>.<) Gonna have to look at riding there on Saturday since my class is so early.
Other than the usual irritations, work as been going quite well, I do work with really sweet people! We’re looking into buying new computers for the whole staff which means I’m going to be horribly busy for the next few weeks, but so be it. I’ve got a week long training coming up in August to look forward to…although it’s going to pull 3K from my checking account to afford the thing! And some other kind of fun things. This summer is going to be super busy, but hopefully productive.
Well, really should get moving, still have this week’s lectures to write!
Take care all