Did I keep my 2011 new year Tech Resolutions?

Back on 1st January 2011 I wrote a blog post - Happy New Year: My 2011 Tech Resolutions - so, what were my tech resolutions, and did I keep them?

Well, I made six resolutions and they were:

Stop using Excel as a database
Add better comments to my code and stop assuming that I will know what piece of code does when I come back to look at it a few months later.
Add better comments and instructions to my scripts so that when I come back to use them in the next academic year I know exactly what they do and what information I have to give them to do their thing...
Improve the online assessment and feedback system I use.
Improve my use of get things done.
Keep this blog going (although admitedly I may not post as often as I have in the last few weeks).....

So, how did I do?

1. Stop using Excel as a database

I blogged about this in April - Exam Question: Spreadsheets are evil. Discuss - and whereas I have completely stopped using spreadsheets as databases (if you are unfamiliar with databases have a look at - Do you speak my language: D is for Database, debug, DNS), I have discovered why a number of the students I teach refer to spreadsheets as 'databases' - it is the IT training they get at school.

2. Add better comments to my code and stop assuming that I will know what piece of code does when I come back to look at it a few months later.

This one I have kept and I have been putting lots of comments in my code - although there is still room for improvement (as I discovered recently when I was trying to debug some code I only wrote only 6 months ago).

3. Add better comments and instructions to my scripts so that when I come back to use them in the next academic year I know exactly what they do and what information I have to give them to do their thing...

This I am now doing and I now include a large comment block at the start of my scripts so I know what inputs and data are expected, and what the script should do.

4. Improve the online assessment and feedback system I use.

This one proved interesting.

For a number of years I have been running my own online assessment system. The system had the advantage that it was easy to get assessments set-up and it was able to provide great feedback. The system worked well and was able to handle around 1700 assessments per year. However, it also had some disadvantages. For some reason it occasionally lost answers submitted by students off campus (no idea why, but I suspect it was do with how quickly the local Internet service provider re-cycled IP addresses), and as it was my system if it broke then I was the one to get in to trouble.

As we were upgrading to a new version of Chalkboard (a VLE - see Do you speak my language: V is for Volume, Vapourware, Virus, VoIP, VNC, VPN, VLE, Virtual Campus) I decided to move back to the local system as the new version showed significant improvement over the old, and if it all goes wrong it is not my fault!

If you look at my posts on 'Surviving the semester' you will see that Chalkboard was not an ideal solution as there was no day way to rapidly write and edit assessments, and the feedback system used by Chalkboard is useless and meant that I had to write my own.

So, the bottom line is, yes I have improved online assessment by moving to Chalkboard as the system is more secure and robust than my old system. However, rapid creation of assessments and the quality of the feedback took a hit, but were saved by some crafty scripting.

5. Improve my use of get things done (GTD).

This one is a 'yes and no'. I am using GTD, but I am no longer using a dedicated GTD program, but instead I am using Evernote (see Software I use: Evernote and Software I use: More on Evernote - teaching, research and students?).

6. Keep this blog going (although admittedly I may not post as often as I have in the last few weeks).....

Well, the blog is still running, and I am still posting. So, I would say I have ket this resolution.

There have been a number of hiatuses though. Posting was a bit thin over the summer, due to other commitments, and was very thin in October and December due to teaching load. I will try to spread out posts more in 2012, and therefore have something on 'standby' for the busy periods.

Summary

Overall I think I did a good job and stuck to my resolutions....

0 Comment

Did I keep my 2011 new year Tech Resolutions?

share

Email your Friend