Looks like I haven't posted this yet

I'm not sure why I made this if it wasn't to post on here. Perhaps I made it for Facebook, since it has my name in it and I was keeping that as a secret identity for a while. I came across this on my storage drive and think it is worth sharing now, so here it is:

Vending Machine Education

Does anyone else feel at times that college is no more than a vending machine for a diploma? You put your quarters into that machine, one after one, and then maneuver the joy stick to direct the steel claw over to your chosen field of study and press the red button. The claw is released and (after a dozen or so more tries) it grabs the diploma and drops it into the prize recovery area. It is perhaps a little more complicated than this, but I wouldn't say too much more. That's one way to see college as a vending machine, but not exactly how I initially constructed the idea.
I'm completing my weekly assignment for my current class, Statistics, for the Master's program I am enrolled in. I am at times a little less than attentive to the questions because I know they are not being graded. Each week I complete between 40 and 50 questions from the end of the chapters assigned for reading that week. The procedure is to answer the questions, submit them, and then receive a grade based on completion rather than accuracy. This is great...for when I don't want to learn anything. I answer the questions, some of them accurately, until I get low on time or interest, whichever comes first, although both usually arrive at pretty much the same time in some Happy Days comic fashion when Ralph "Mouth" and Potzie show up at the same door-step, at the same time, with the same discount store roses to take Mary Sue to the sock hop at the American Legion. The point is that I don't put a lot of effort into answering these questions. I accept full responsibility for this, but I can't help but notice there are some aspects of the program that make this sort of behavior possible for me.
The vending machine is marvelous. It is the hallmark of convenience. The best part about it is that it is unmanned. If I owned a vending machine I could spend an hour a week stocking it and retrieving money from it and call it a day. The machine does all the work. Here I compare the current process of completing assignments in this class. I answer several dozen questions and submit them. The instructor returns to me a grade. The instructor didn't instruct me, they simply gave me a reading assignment and indicated which textbook questions I should answer. In follow through, I receive a grade and a filled-in answer key. If I am motivated I can review my answers and find out how I'm doing. Of course since I am not very motivated, to say the least - only in regards to this topic, statistics, I'm motivated to learn otherwise -I don't review my answers to the questions after I get the answer key. I chalk it up to a combination of the condensed time frame for the course (8 weeks) and the difficulty of instructor/student interaction through an online environment, not to mention (yet I am?) I work full-time and have other responsibilities in addition to school. Still, it is slightly disappointing that I am required to put in this effort without substantial feedback and monitoring.
Don't get me wrong, I love to learn on my own schedule without someone breathing down my neck, and I often read and think about things for the purpose of educating myself, everyday in fact. The difference here is that I'm not paying anyone for my own educational pursuits. When I am paying someone and my progress determines my eligibility for a degree I expect more follow up and direction. This is like going to Plato (who I tend to disagree with his philosophies the more I read about them) to be instructed by this historically celebrated teacher, and then he hands you a paperback copy of The One Minute Manager (no offense to Ken Blanchard, I read the book and found it valuable, but in contrast with learning at the feet of a master, it doesn't quite compare). Perhaps a better example is going to Mr. Myagi and hearing him tell you he'll e-mail you some "neat vids" he found on YouTube to teach you karate.
I should get back to finishing my assignment now. The point is that I don't think online education should be like a vending machine, I'd rather it be like walking into the candy store in Willy Wonka with Gene Wilder. Rather than putting money into a coin slot and getting a foil wrapped chocolate bar, you drop a few shillings into the flesh and blood hand of an eccentric man who will then sing you a song and pour unwrapped candy into your hands with a small shovel. That's the kind of education I want!

Calendar

Muffin Man is a great Facebook status writer. I've decided to take some of his status updates and try to turn them into a comedy routine. Here is a bit based on his update...

Well, it’s 2012, the year of a major political battle for the U.S. presidency, the year of the warmest January in recorded history, and the last year of existence as we know it, according to some. The Mayan calendar ends in December 2012. Since their civilization ended about a thousand years ago, I’d say their calendar did pretty well. I don’t see how we should get so worked up about the end of a calendar made so long ago, I mean, I buy a calendar every year, sometimes with motivational pictures of kittens, other times dramatic scenes from the Harry Potter movies, and all of those calendars end in December. That’s just what calendars do, they end in December. I don’t open my new calendar each January, flip through it, and then exclaim, ‘Happy New Year! See y’all at the apocalypse next December!’ What it comes down to is we have more faith in an extinct ancient civilization to keep the time accurately than we do in Hallmark…

Oreo cookies and graduate statistics

75% of me really doesn't like stats homework, the other 25% hates it. I started out with the 13 pages worth of questions in good spirits. I was answering questions with ease as I was remembering the French-accented Dr. Deltoid (yes, a nickname), my undergrad research methods professor, and all that I learned in his class. I remembered distributions and measurement scales; independent and dependent variables, even what between group and within group mean. It was almost a joy, until I hit the part where I was given data and needed to organize it and create charts and tables. You see, in my undergrad classes (stats and research methods) we were required to purchase a program called SPSS. I purchased that program and complained quite frequently about how slow it was. Well, it turns out that the program is a million and a half times faster than I am at creating histograms and frequency polygons in Excel, manually. Can you believe Excel doesn't have built in functions to automatically create histograms from a grouped frequency chart? I know!

Well, needless to say, but here I am saying it anyway, because this was the point of writing (negating the usefulness of ever saying 'needless to say' in any seriousness), I wish I had SPSS. I don't know if I still have the CD for the program or not. It could be in a box in my parents' attic, or possibly in a box about 10 feet from me right now, I don't remember, it could also be in a trash dump out in Idaho somewhere after I gleefully tossed it out when I left school. One of these days, perhaps tomorrow, I'll check the box here at the apartment to see if it is still in my possession, otherwise I'm seriously contemplating a 3 hour round trip to scour the attic for it. The alternative is to drop $60 for a new one year licensed copy. Come to think of it, that probably is the best option, I'll spend close to the same amount on gas driving to my parents' house. Even if I find that I do have the CD, I might not be able to run it because it is probably a limited use license and it has been a few years since I bought it. Well, such is life.

I'm glad to be finished with this assignment, and until I have SPSS, or until I look at what next week's assignment entails, I am going to be dreading week two of this class. At least I have some Oreo cookies to keep me energized.

Mixed Nuts

As I sat at the table after dinner my attention was drawn to the bowl of nuts left over from Christmas. The variety bowl of shelled nuts has served as a center piece/meal supplement for going on three weeks now. Next to it is a smaller bowl with the nutcracker and shell fragments. The process of shelling nuts has taught me a few things. First, I like the crazy looking nut that slightly resembles an alien spacecraft I saw on the X-Files or some such show once. I have no idea what type of nut it is, but i like it. The almonds are also good, but I think I prefer those smoked, or adorning chocolate covered coconut. The second thing I learned is that I will never again criticize or question the cost of shelled nuts you can buy in the store. Never again!

In the past, back before I tried my hand at cracking and shelling nuts, I often wondered why it cost so much money for a jar of nuts. But not anymore, no, not after realizing just how difficult it is to crack a shell and not smash the nut inside. Not after seeing how far the shards and splinters of shells spread explosively after making the first crack on the nut. I learned to keep on hand wrapped around the shell and to apply pressure more evenly, but they still shatter in an out of control fashion. By experiencing the work that each little tiny nut requires in order to spring the tiny morsel from its woody cage, I will never again question the $25 price tag on an ounce of macadamias. I won't wonder why you can buy a 5 pound bag of raw peanuts in the shell for $9 or a jar of raw shelled peanuts for pennies on the pound. In fact, I wouldn't even question if they started paying us to take the nuts in shells because it is so much work to shell them. It is probably cheaper just to give them away.

Well, this was a funnier thought when I was telling Taylor about it while cracking the nuts, spending minutes on extracting small fragments from the shattered remains. Your loss.