Student "edition" found at {csi dot journalspace dot com}.

Maybe I shouldn't have started this blog now, not with everything that's been going on.

One of the things that happened at the start of this week that got pushed down in the memory of what to write here is the first class and lecture of one of my current masteral subjects.

I was observing the class from two points of view. First, as a student who had to understand what the teacher was saying.

And this is one of those "modern" classes that is one-fourth slide presentations and three-fourths talking, where it is up to the student to discern the material in the lecture but not in the slides that should be written down for future reference.

And, yes, of course a soft copy of the presentation file is available for the students.

The second point of view was from a teacher evaluating another.

Since this was the kind of teacher who spiced up his lectures with examples that required a little play-acting, there were times when, after reading something on one slide (which of course very few pay attention to), he suddenly raises his voice pretending to be a client or a non-tech-savvy person with unrealistic demands, and shows ways of dealing with it.

It surprises some of the students to attention, but not all positively.

He would also give brand name examples but only using his fingers, and fast, so that unless someone is already familiar with those letter-number models, will go past some people's heads.

These, at least, he should have written on the board, which I believe, is still the best way to emphasize major points in talk-heavy lectures.

And his antics got some of the recent undergraduate students animated, but up to the point where they were laughing inappropriately when he made the mistake of saying a certain technology took six years to reach our shores, not paying attention anymore when he corrected it to six months.

Session 1971 has to find a balance between the teacher and student roles. Class dismissed.