Monday, April 30, 2012

Encouraging Dissent

Tonight in class we covered many topics; one of which was the criteria for evaluating IT projects.  In a classroom exercise I had the class look at a list of projects (Project A - Project Z) and determine which projects that should be funded.  The projects included a corresponding calculated return on investment (ROI), priority (relative alignment to the business strategy), and project budget.  I also added a constraint that we must distribute the funding so that 50% of the budget was spent on infrastructure projects, 15% on transactional projects, 20% on strategic project and 15% on informational projects.  As a result, we ended up with four separate portfolios of projects.

During our evaluation, one of the students came up with a project funding decision that was counter to what I had in mind.  After listening to the student's reasoning for this funding decision I explained why my approach was different and the reasoning for my approach.  Between our two explanations our class realized that we needed further information to best determine the proper funding approach and both approaches must be considered in the project selection process.

This student's willingness to dissent and the environment we created in class of permitting respectful dissent provided for a great debate and resulted in a better understanding of the true criteria needed for project evaluations.  It was a very successful lesson for all of us and I was very pleased we were able to have this exchange of ideas.  I'm very eager to maintain this environment in this class and other classes.  Respectful debate is healthy and results in the discovery of new ideas.

Friday, April 27, 2012

Evernote for Course Design

Over the summer I will be preparing two course for the Fall semester.  One course will be a redevelopment of our database modeling class and the other course will be a new business intelligence course.  Both courses will integrate our virtual desktop environment in connecting to a SQL Server database.  I'm really looking forward to using this virtual desktop environment in these two classes.

Yesterday I began thinking about what I need to do to prepare for these two courses.  Since I like to keep my notes electronically I opened up Evernote to create a new note for each of the two courses I am beginning to design.  Using the check-box option in Evernote I was able to create a to-do list for all of the tasks I need to complete as I prepare for the course.  Since I'm using an electronic to-do list I'm able to rearrange the list to indicate the proper order for the tasks.  Later on, within the same note, I'll add a table outlining the objectives, assessments, reading assignments for each week in the semester.  Within the same note I can also include links to the online resources I may want to incorporate into the class.

Using this approach, I'm able to have all of my course planning for a given course within one Evernote note and, because of Evernote's syncing approach, I can view and edit my course design and planning from work, home, or my iPad.  If only completing the tasks were as easy as organizing them.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Technology Innvoations

Today I presented with a colleague at the Minnesota Association for Children's Mental Health conference.  We presented the topic of technology abuse with a focus on adolescence use of technology (you can find our slides here).

In preparing for this conference I put together a timeline of the different communications-related technologies since the telegraph.  One thing that emerged from this timeline was that, since 1981 when the PC was introduced, communications technology has quickly evolved and many innovations emerged in a a very short period of time.  With such rapid development it is no wonder that we struggle as a society in understanding how to use these forms of communications without having them run our lives.

Looking back at the previous technology innovations I can guess there was some form of adjustment in the integration of the technology into society.  Hopefully, we can also adapt and find better ways to use these new technologies so that we can maintain our ability to connect with people in the absence of technology or, have technology enhance our real connections with each other.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Multitasking and Youth

Last week while preparing for a presentation I'm giving I watched a good PBS Frontline documentary.  This documentary, Digital Nation, was a series of stories focusing on the impacts of technology on our society.  One of the many topics covered was the increase in multitasking.  While the focus was on the adoption of multitasking by youth, the issue applies to adults as well.

In the documentary, researchers discussed findings from recent studies showing the impacts multitasking has on these youths.  The findings showed increased challenges for maintaining focus, slower performance while multitasking, diminished recall, reduced analytic reasoning, and lower reading and writing skills.  While the authors admitted more research is needed, these initial findings are disconcerting.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Need More Practice

Many years ago I enjoyed photography and had time to pursue this hobby.  I owned (and still do own) a 35mm Pentax ME Super and specialized in long exposure night photography.  However, over time any talent I once possessed seems to have disappeared. Earlier this month I took advantage of the nice weather and walked around town with my new digital SLR (Cannon EOS Rebel T1i).

The results from my recent attempt (posted on my Flickr account) at more artistic pictures were not great but it was fun taking up this hobby again.  I think I need to study more to improve my ability to compose the picture and also become more familiar with the functions on my camera so I'm better able to take advantage of the more advanced settings.

I hope I can improve over time.  I'm not the most creative individual but, perhaps, over time and with practice I'll improve.

Monday, April 16, 2012

Big Data and the Curriculum

This weekend I presented with a colleague at the Midwest Instruction and Computing Symposium (MICS) in Cedar Falls, IA.  We presented a discussion on the need for big data to support not only our database courses but other computer science courses and our difficulties in obtaining a good set of data.  Our goal with big data in the curriculum is to collect a set of data that is large (thousands of records) complex (dozens of tables) and meaningful (the students understand the data).

Our computer information systems curriculum needs this large, complex, and meaningful data to support the inquiry based learning approach we wish to employ.  We want our students to be able to explore the data using newly acquired data retrieval and analysis skills and discover meaningful trends in the data.  This approach will increase our students' critical thinking skills and prepare them for the ever-increasing data rich environment they will work in.

I hope to see us apply this inquiry based learning approach with big data in the near future.  It should result in very engaging courses and allow our students to develop relevant and marketable skills.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

File Folder Trick

This week I have a lot of meetings.  Most often these meetings include handouts that I received ahead of time to review before the meeting.  With all of these handouts it can be challenging to be sure I review them before the meeting and bring them to the meeting.  Fortunately, a few years ago I adopted the 43 Folders approach.  This organizational approach was made popular by David Allen in his book Getting Things Done.

Using this approach (see a demonstration) I place my meeting handouts in the appropriate daily file folder as I receive them.  Each morning when I get to my office I take out the contents of the days folder, review anything that I need to review to prepare for the meeting, and place the contents in my meeting portfolio.  I also include some of the items I'm working on that day that are noted in my Remember the Milk page.

This is a simple yet effective method for organizing loose items in the office and ensuring that I don't forget my handouts for my meetings.

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Recent Popularity of Census Data

On April 2nd, for the first time, the National Archives' US Census data was made available online.  Census data from prior years was released only in the form of microfilm and required a trip to the library to view the films.  Now, we are able to view and search this data from home or any Internet connection.  This convenient level of access has dramatically increased interest in the 3.8 million pages of data and resulted in the National Archive servers becoming overwhelmed with activity on the first day.

I visited the site today and was able to conduct a search without any difficulties.  It is fascinating to see the census data in the original handwritten form.  While I prefer a digital form to support quantitative analysis, this original data in its original form provides a glimpse into tools used to collect the data and an appreciation for the level of effort required to collect this data by hand.

It is exciting to see both the use of the Internet to publish public documents and the resulting increased level of interest in viewing these documents.

Skills to Look for in Project Managers

Today I read a brief article describing the eight skills to look for when hiring an IT project manager. The headlines caught my attention...