Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Read GradeMark thoroughly.

You must read the GradeMark pages thoroughly. All my suggestions and comments are in there, and your 36 points on WA2 are riding on how well you follow my suggestions.

I have comments with icons in the body of your paper, then you can pop up the sub-window and view
  1. the list of comments,
  2. general comments
  3. rubric scorecard

Here is the toolbar you must click in order to open the sub-window:



and here is the medium size toolbar that also activates in the sub-window.

Writing Assignment 2 is ready to go, due at noon, Saturday.

Your instructions for Writing Assignment 2 (WA2) are now UP. Look in the Week 5 learning module, item 7. It is due at noon on Saturday, Aug. 1.

By the way, do you see the "dollar bill" being used with the dinosaur footprint?

Scores for WA1

It is a pain in the kiester to move your scores from TurnItIn.com over to Webcourses. I will be working on it sometime in the next day or two. But until I get them into Webcourses, you can definitely view everything in TurnItIn.com -- grademarks, suggestions, score etc. -- by clicking your red apple icon.

Monday, July 27, 2009

WHAT THE --?!

Everybody has a grademarked paper. YAY.

But I am going to hit the rack now for some snoozing. I will release our WA2 instructions tomorrow morning, and it will be due on Saturday, lunchtime. Sound OK?


Completely unrelated cover art from Marvel Comics. Enjoy! :)

Still grading

I am still grademarking. Obviously I will be giving everybody an extra day or two to complete WA2, so do not stress out.

Week 5 module is UP.

Week 5 module is ready for you now. I also included links to the Discussions area, where we can get down to the nitty gritty on thermodynamics and electric fields, thereby building some excellent mv for global conquest of PSC1121 concepts for the final exam.


Famous PSC1121 student with excellent experimental hair.

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Still grademarking!

I am still reading and grademarking. Stay alert. When I finish all papers, I will release instructions for WA2.

Saturday, July 25, 2009

Next on my lovely weekend schedule: WA1 grademarking

The rest of my lovely Saturday will be cranking out the rest of the Writing Assignment 1 grademarks. Yay.

When they are all finished, I will release the instructions for Writing Assignment 2, in which we put it all together.

Grades are UP.

Your exam 2 scores are up.

I inserted some bonus points on a few of the brain burners, so it is possible to have scored 3 bonus points and gotten 53/50. Nobody aced it at 53/50, but many of you did nab a few bonus.

By the way, Webcourses does not "know" anything about my grading scheme, e.g., 50 point midterm exams. It just knows that I have 53 points available; it cannot distinguish bonus points from regular pointage. But you can. So, take your Exam 2 score and remember, it is that score out of 50, not out of 53.

Friday, July 24, 2009

Be ready for exam 2 this afternoon!

Exam 2 will be activated and available for you to take at 12:05 PM. You will have one hour for the 50-point test. So block out an hour somewhere in your schedule after lunch. Take it early, and if you start before 11:00 PM you will get the full hour I want you to get for this exam. The Exam goes off the air at 11:59 PM tonight, and I will release the grades Saturday about breakfast time or so.

By the by, I am still working on your WA1 papers, so do not stress out about it. Focus on today's exam. Your papers will be GradeMark'd up soon and then I will release the WA2 instructions.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

You guys...

You guys are putting in a lot of questions in Discussions, and I must praise you for it. It helps you AND anyone else who reads your thread.

Excellent.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

More GradeMarks ready.

I just finished up with some more GradeMarks. Look for your red apple !

By the way, I am working through the papers on the basis of "first submitted, first graded."

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Just released some GradeMarks.

I just released some GradeMarks on WA1. So go dip into TurnItIn.com and look for that red apple icon. If you see it, you can start reviewing my suggestions for WA2.

If you still have the grey apple, be patient.

And EVERYBODY must be patient for the instructions page for Writing Assignment 2, which I will release later this week.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Nifty Apollo 11 moon landing Youtube and iTunes podcast

I just embedded on our home page a nifty YouTube of the the Apollo 11 moon landing. However, the
best way to view: on your iTunes application!

SWEEEEEEEEEEET!

Week 4 learning module is ready.

I just activated your Week 4 learning module. GO FOR IT. Here are a few extras in the learning module:
  1. There is a link to the visual podcasting archive on my Physics server. If you have iTunes on your computer, you ought to be able to view the podcasts in your web browser. Otherwise, you can use iTunes directly, which is also good.
  2. Mini-blurb about how to handle the GradeMark that I add to your mighty mighty two-sentence paper on TurnItIn.com -- look for the red apple icon. The apple is gray until your GradeMark is ready, and then it goes red. In the meantime, look over the blurb sheet.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Grading your Writing Assignment 1 sentences.

I will start grading your sentences in Writing Assignment 1 today, and it will take me a few days to do so. So hold your horses about asking me for your score etc.

I will let you know when to go back in to TurnItIn.com and read my comments and grades, which you will use for completing Writing Assignment 2. You will be able to improve your writing in WA2.

For now: focus in on chapters 6 and 7 concept guides.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Exam questions

In case you are wondering, I never re-activate exam questions or publish them in any way. Your look at them is during the exam and only then.

You can click on the "attempt" on the Assessments page, and that will let you see many though not all of the questions with general feedback. The general feedback let's you know the general area where you might have tripped up.

Using Twitter

I have tried a few Twitter applications on my Powerbook, like Scalaris and Canary, but I like the browser interface best. Seems simpler and easier.

That being the case, it is good to point out that my Tw subchannels, like #PSC1121grav, can be read from a search like this
http://twitter.com/#search?q=psc1121grav
and then saved in my Tw page's right hand sidebar.

Just a suggestion. I cannot claim this is the best.

But if you use a Tw application, I would like to hear about how it works and why you like it. Post your remarks in Discussions.

Choose your dollar bill carefully

Be sure to figure out a good "dollar bill" for your writing assignment. For instance, comparing a spacecraft mass to an iPod mass is slightly ridiculous. It would be like Office Donaghy photographing a human hair next to that boot print. Yeah, you could do it, but why would you want to? There are plenty of other everyday things that make good dollar bills.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Writing Assignment 1 is ready!

Take a look at item 8 in the Week 3 learning module. It is the instructions page for writing assignment 1. Two good sentences and they require careful thought.

Read the instructions carefully. 48 points of your semester grade are riding on how well you do this assignment and Writing Assignment 2, which builds on WA1.

You will be able to turn it in at TurnItIn.com starting at 5 PM tonight.

Almost ready

I am getting your Writing Assignment One instructions ready. It's going to be good. Stay tuned.

Dollar bill

Dollar bill


Saturday, July 11, 2009

Week 3 learning module is UP.

Your week 3 learning module is ready, complete with an extra blurb about Einstin's theory of relativity.

By the way, for those of you studying the impulse of the gravitational tractor, you can learn its precise meaning in chapter 6. Good.

Honor system on exams

As most of you know, UCF and I expect complete academic integrity on exams and all study activity. This expectation is why university enjoys the honor we give it here in the West.

One feature of this honor system is the normal expectation that, during exams, you close your notes, your textbook and your problem solving manual, and go at the test with only your thinking cap. Once in a while, I give an "open book" test, but usually my exams are "closed everything." I do permit my lecture students to use
  1. pencil and eraser
  2. a blank page of scratch paper or graph paper
  3. a straight edge
  4. a calculator
You can definitely use these tools, too. And of course, they have their scantron forms.

I also ask the students to shut down cell phones and iPods, clear their desks of books etc. For online students, you should shut off AIM, Facebook, MySpace, Hi5 etc. during exams, too, and stay off email.

My exams are always loaded with basic questions that cover the basic concepts and sprinkled with a few brain burners that will challenge even a top student. For this reason, you will need most of the hour for each exam. Good. I can see the amount of time you each spend on the exam, so I can tell which students work their you-know-what off, right up to the 60 minute limit -- and which students do not.

We call it the honor system because it reflects the amount of ordinary personal honor you each have. I like this because, although most profs do not take this attitude, the honor I observe in you lets me take an attitude of respect: though most profs never honor you, by semester's end, for those who strive to the utmost, I will honor you.

Difference makers

I just looked over the performance of the class as a whole on each exam question. A few things caught my eye:
  1. One of the questions about the size of Δv was a tough one and was a difference maker for top scorers (81% of them got it correct) relative to low scorers (none of them got it correct).
  2. Another good difference maker was a humble milepost question concerning avg. speed of a yeloow car and a red car.
  3. Majority of class got the Hubble Space Telescope question correct, yet it also distinguished between top scorers (89%) and low scorers (19%).
  4. The absolute biggest difference maker was the jumbled sentence about circular motion, with five terms to unscramble. All top scorers got it 100% correct! Low scorers got 34% correct.
I think it is interesting that some of the calculation questions were tough but the biggest difference maker was a VERBAL conceptual question!

I always tell my students that thinking is the hardest task I expect of them, and that is because we think with concepts. Or put it another way: physics grad students, maybe even profs, would be just as challenged by a conceptual question like our jumbled sentence about circular motion.

So never sell yourself short. Don't let anyone belittle you -- EVER. Your intellectual tasks here in PSC1121 are right up there at the top, and many of you are doing nicely with it!! How about that!!??


Alert for zero pointers

To the 12 who got zero on Writing Assignment 0:
I notice that you twelve students did not send your writing assignment 0 to me yet. Even though you cannot get your two points, you will need to get me your WA0 info before you can tackle writing assignment 1, which is due on Tuesday.

Don't put it off. There are 48 points hanging on this.

All writing assignment 0 scores are UP.

All scores are up for WA0.
  1. 12 students turned in nothing, zero points.
  2. 7 students had a bit of unclarity, error or were late, 1 point. You seven ought to have some more course mail from me now.
  3. Everyone else got 2 points. You guys are GO for launch... as soon as I release the Writing Assignment 1 directions page.


I will be placing a few comments here about a few quantities that got chosen, just to get everybody organized.

I think I will use Tw Monday and Tuesday to talk with you about the article and your numbers.

Later today, maybe after lunch, I will release the WA1 directions page. I want to modify it a bit to reflect some of what I learned from your mail messages in WA0. But if I tarry, do not worry: WA1 will be two sentences long. Two sentences, but GOOD sentences.

By the by: make sure you are ready to go at TurnItIn.com, because you will be dropping your WA1 document there, where I will grade it and make recommendations for Writing Assignment 2.

Your Exam 1 grades are UP.

I just released your exam 1 scores. It is how many points you earned out of the 50 points possible.

If you look at your "attempt" you will see the feedback for several of the questions, though not all. I am adding feedback elements to my exam items all the time, so expect to see more of these. If you got one of these items wrong, the feedback can let you see the general area where you made an error.

uploading writing assignment 0 scores now

I am uploading scores for Writing Assignment 0 this morning. I just uploaded about ten of the earliest handed in. So stay tuned in the next hour or so, and see what your scores is.
  • 2 points, your proposal is OK.
  • 1 point, a problem with your proposal, wait for comment from me in course mail.
  • 0 points, not submitted. You risk your semester grade without writing assignment points, which begin here.
After everyone's score is up, I will get to the instructions for Writing Assignment 1, which builds upon Writing Assignment 0.

Friday, July 10, 2009

zzzz

DR. B is getting some zzzzz. Back by 3 PM or so.

Exam 1 is ready for you.

You will have 60 minutes to complete Exam 1, which is about the same as a regular lecture section gets.

Once you start, you must complete it all. If you drop out, or if your computer drops off the network, it will record ZIP, and you cannot re-open it. TOAST

I will release the grades first thing Saturday morning. Also, be looking for Writing Assignment 1 instructions sometime on Saturday.

P.S. Just so you know: Some of the questions are matching, etc., so they count for more than one point. This makes the 50 point test squooshed down a bit to 40 questions.

Message of utmost importance in Webcourses

There is a message of utmost importance on the home page in Webcourses. Please read it and think about it carefully before taking Exam 1.

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Some Tw links

These links might help you pick up the Twitter stream.

  1. http://twitter.com/#search?q=PSC1121acc, the #PSC1121acc subchannel

  2. http://twitter.com/#search?q=PSC1121strobe, the #PSC1121strobe subchannel

  3. http://twitter.com/#search?q=PSC1121projectile, the #PSC1121projectile subchannel

  4. http://twitter.com/#search?q=PSC1121grav, the #PSC1121grav subchannel

Radio silence

I will be working on your guys' exam for the next 15 hours or so. This means I will be in "radio silence" in Tw, AIM and course mail for most of that time.

So bear down and get ready for a tough exam.

Twitter help, librarians to the rescue

For those of you still flailinga on Twitter, wondering how the heck to use it, the librarians at UCF have offered to help you learn Tw. My favorite librarian said to send her an email, no problem. I linked a Twitter help mini-page in our home page in Webcourses, including the librarian's direct email address. Take a look.




aAccurate description of Dr. B a few weeks ago. ;)

Writing Assignment 0 is closed.

I just looked over the list of 100 single sentence mail messages you submitted for writing assignment 0. Looks like there are about ten "no shows" who submitted nothing.

The rest of youse, good job!

I will start reading them today, and if a problem exists, I will reply to your mail message. If your topic is good, you will just get 2 points in the Writing assignment 0 row of your grades page.

I expect to release the Writing Assignment 1 directions sometime on Saturday. So for now, concentrate on last day of prep for exam 1 tomorrow (Friday).

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Good

I am proud of youse guys for working the Discussion areas so hard this week.

I always tell my TAs that the more interactions a student can have with me, with the TAs, with classmates, with textbook, with Webcourses etc., the easier it will be for them to learn and snag a good grade for the semester.

Just finished more Tw for space shuttle exercise

I just streamed a bunch of narration and a diagram related to exercise 10, p. 73, which asks about the relative strength of gravity for the space shuttle on orbit at 400 km altitude.

Diagram is to scale, big and nice, and might help you sort out a bunch of other gravitational questions. Go into the Tw stream and click on the link to Week 2 files.

Still 62

There are still 62 of youse who have not submitted the one sentence course mail message that is writing assignment zero. Deadline is tonight, 11:59 PM.

GO GO GO!

Cool countdown timer

Nice new space shuttle countdown timer on our home page. Sweet.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

23

There are 23 course mail messages in my Assignment Zero mailbox. Good. That is 20% of the class.

However, it also means that 80% of the class is slacking. GET AFTER IT!!

Google spreadsheet

I just dropped a link to a Google spreadsheet into Tw, #PSC1121projectile. I want to know how you like it. You might be able to download it as an Excel spreadsheet and mess around with it on your computer. Let me know in Discussions.

No personal grades info on Tw, please

Students, remember that Twitter is open for the world to view. So I cannot talk to you about your grades etc. in Tw.

Best place for specific questions about your grades etc. is in Webcourses, using course mail.

Physics questions are fine in Tw, though. Like what a baseball does, why gravity is such a weak physical force etc.

Tw projectile motion is done.

#PSC1121projectile is now done for today. Good set of two diagrams and the data page.

Microblogging in Twitter on projectile motion.

I am using subchannel #PSC1121projectile to tweet about projectile motion concepts in chapter 4 of the textbook. I think I will make a spreadsheet of numbers for an extra diagram to supplement Fig. 4-4, p. 63.

Monday, July 6, 2009

11

Another eight course mail messages for writing assignment 1, total 11. Yay! Keep it up.

3

Good. I just got my first three course mail messages concerning NASA numbers. SWEEEEET! Keep it up!!

Writing Assignment 0 is UP.

Writing assignment 0 is now ready for you to tackle. Look in the Week 2 learning module, item 8.

It might seem like a trivial task, but be careful, because all your other 48 writing points depend on your decision in this assignment! Think it over very carefully.

Due July 8, Wendesday, 11:59 PM.

Twitter acc. finished

I just concluded #PSC1121acc stream for today.

Twitter centripetal acceleration

I am going to tweet about centripetal acceleration and Fig. 4-4.

Saturday, July 4, 2009

Questions about homework, mini-quizzes etc.

Here is my recommended work flow if you have a question about a mini-quiz item or something from a concept guide:
  1. Instead of sending a course mail message to me...
  2. Find the proper Discussions area for your subject.
  3. Post your question in that Discussions area.
  4. Make it one post for each mini-quiz item or homework problem.
  5. I will coach you along in Discussions.
  6. Once per day I will add to one Discussions post by branching out to Twitter for extra info.
I think this will make a good mixture of different styles of interaction.

Twitter vector done

Just finished up the vector subtraction Tw. I put together a good diagram for an example.

Twitter vector change

Twittering subtraction of two vectors, hash tag #PSC1121vector

Friday, July 3, 2009

Week 2 module is activated.

  1. The Week 2 learning module is now active. Look on the home page for the cup of coffee icon for the folder of all learning modules.
  2. More concept guides are in the Week 2 learning module. They are your study priority.
  3. In the Week 2 learning module are some extra study tools:
    1. A spec sheet comparing Mars to Earth, which lets you see how the value of g on Earth's surface, 9.8 m/sec2, compares to Mars. It's a PDF file.
    2. A prep tool to help you see what my exam questions can be like. It is a leftover mini-review from my spring 2009 lecture section. It's a set of 4 linked HTML pages.
  4. Note: if you haven't noticed already, some of the textbook materials work with a rounded off value of g, 10 m/sec2. Some of the text materials use a more precise value of 9.8 m/sec2. I always use 9.8 m/sec2 in exams!
  5. I will probably release Writing Assignment 0 instructions over the weekend. To get ready for it, read and think about that article from Nature about the gravitational tractor. What do you find interesting or intriguing in that article?
  6. Post substantive questions in the Discussion areas for chapters 2-4 and for chapter 5. I will coach you along there in Discussions.

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Writing assignments

I will be announcing the exact specs and directions for Writing Assignment 0 next week, probably Writing Assignment 1, too.

For now, we have to get motion concepts down solid, so you should be studying
  1. the concept guides and
  2. the gravitational tractor article in Nature, item 9, Week 1 learning module
  3. plus everything else in the Week 1 learning module.

Accelerator Twitter done

You can still review the stream of information on Twitter, channel #PSC1121acc from this morning. Good diagram - fun to make.

Twitter

Twitter conceptual question 27, chapter 2, concerning accelerators.

Hash tag: #PSC1121acc

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Use course mail

I do not answer conventional email during the semester. So if you want to send a private message, use the course mail method in Webcourses.

Twitter done.

Sweet. I posted a nice diagram, too, as I worked through p. 11 in the PSM.

Twittering instantaneous speed and strobe photo from PSM

I am reviewing PSM 2.3 concerning instantaneous speed, strobe photos etc. The hashtag is #PSC1121strobe.

What you should be doing


Here is a short run down of what you should be up to this week:
  1. Begin all your reading and study with the concept guide for each chapter. Right now we have a concept guide for chapters 2 and 3 available. Concept guides are the nucleus for everything we do! Give them priority.
  2. Open up the problem solving manual (PSM) and work out a few problems, e.g., Example 2.8.1 is worked out on p. 17 and is related to other problems, such as #30 on p. 20.
  3. Use the Webcourses mini-quiz for each chapter, and there are a lot of variations on how to use them. Be creative.
  4. Type in questions in the Discussions area of Webcourses, e.g., "Questions about motion, the three laws and various trajectories." I will read and coach you there.
  5. Keep eyes on the learning module, because if I come up with a new diagram that I like, I will post it there, midweek.
  6. Read your textbook, of course.
  7. Organizing your study -- we have approximately two chapters per week, so you have to stay on top of things.
  8. Always keep an eye on this Announcements blogspot, every day.
This will give you some direction as to how to study. Remember, this is an online section, so you are too far away for me to nag three times a week. :) That makes it a lot like an independent study course. You are the boss of how much work you do, when and how.

If you are new to Twitter


I will be using Twitter for microblogging several processes this semester: diagramming, problem-solving and writing assignments. You will be able to look over all of my tweets 24/7 if you are not online exactly when I am. Here are a few comments on using Twitter.

  1. You do not have to get a Twitter account. Just type in this address
             http//twitter.com/brainwave777x
    and refresh it every once in a while. Tou will see my tweets in your web browser.
  2. If you want to "follow" my channel automatically, you have to join Twitter. Here are a few spec sheets for getting started:
    1. Where to join.
    2. What does it mean to "follow" in Twitter?
  3. If you join Twitter, you can also contribute to the channel.
  4. I will announce the "hash tags" to identify different subchannels for each task we work on.

Grading the SpaceShip Two discussion

I am grading the discussion posting, a few dozen at a time. Still 51 to go.

Meanwhile you can eyeball this graphic from the Scaled Composites company. They built SpaceShip One and sent it into space a few summers ago. The diagram shows the trajectory and so forth. Click it to view the full size image.