Make every mistake exactly once

Woa. Spent just about all day marking. We gave some useful feedback, and I saw some very neat code. But a whole day of it is a bit heavy going, and I feel sorry for the students who had to wait around to get stuff dealt with.

Last year, for some reason, it seemed to go more quickly. I think we had more to talk about with this lab, which is a good thing.

One of the things that I have learnt in this life is that it is probably OK to get things wrong in some way once, but if you do it twice you are an idiot (and I may be a bit crazy - but I am not quite an idiot)

Last time our marking worked by just getting around people. This year, because we took longer to mark it did not work this way. Next time I will have a timetable for the students with slots to fill in and proper appointments. It may take a bit of setting up, but it will stop the waste of time.

And with that I'm off for a lie down....

Is Marking Fun?

Spent a big chunk of the day marking. And loving it. I was going around looking at student code and I really like doing this. Some of the ideas that I saw were well clever, one or two I reckoned were models of simplicity and good design. In fact, in every one that I got to take a look at, there was real evidence that the person who wrote it has learned something from our programming course. I reckon I've marked around 30 or so today, on a one to one basis, and it has left me kind of zonked. But I'll be back doing it again tomorrow, and I should think I'll have just as much fun again.

Carried away

We had another bit of fun today. This time we got together and wrote programs which played against each other in a little game. You can read all about it here, so there is no need for me to repeat it.

Sadly, I probably got a bit carried away. You see the program that I wrote was, more by luck than judgement, slightly better than the ones that some other people had made. Which meant that it tended to win a bit. In fact a lot. In fact it rocked. And I was well pleased with this at the time. So, if you were offended by me going "In your face, in your face!" as my bit of code scored a couple more points than your bit of code, I apologise.

But it did rock though.

Ho for Harrogate

Off in a bus today to Harrogate. And I'm driving.

These fourteen souls have placed their lives in my hands. Very brave of them. Especially as I then tried to cut the top of the minibus by the rather cunning use of an underground carpark.

Fortunately I noticed in time, and thanks to the very helpful parking people at Harrogate Conference Centre, we got parked up and in with minimal fuss. The conference was very good (for a more considered appraisal take a look at my Spoke blog, which is where the techie stuff lives).

I love it when a gadget comes good. Today two of my little machines did the business. Firstly the Gizmondo used its satellite navigation feature to take us right to the doors of the conference center with no fus, and then direct us back again. And my Imate Jasjar let me check my email and even update software on my office machine by a cunning use of WIFI and Remote Desktop.

And then back to Hull, where Andy, Tom, David and I took Tesco by storm in search for drinks and nibbles for our software challenge event tomorrow.....

Cottingham Lights 2005

We went out to look at the lights tonight. Our village is kind of known for the quality of the lights that it puts up, and so they have a big switch on - which this year was tonight. Jolly cold out there, but for the benefit of my blog readers (yes - both of you) I went out and took a couple of photographs...

Conventional Version

Unconventional Version

(as usual you can get larger versions of these pictures by clicking on them)