CEM 141 Blog

1. Sign up for a 10 minute ‘interview’ with Dr. Ott. The sign-up sheet is on his office door.
2. Read the syllabus and complete your first homework assignment.
3. Read the rest of the blog entries on this site.

Here is your first homework set, due 11am (in class) 8/19. It is worth 10 points and covers the syllabus and course blog. I would read the entire syllabus first before you even look at these questions. This is NOT to be done as a group work exercise. You must do these on your own.
1. Why are you writing to these questions on a piece of ‘recycled’ paper?
2. What can (and probably will) happen to you if you are caught cheating?
3. Which of Dr. Ott’s office hours do NOT conflict with your class schedule?
4. Which set of quizzes, Monday or Wednesday, will you (sortof) know the questions beforehand?
5. Why should you check posted grades as soon as they go up?
6. What questions do you have about the course/syllabus at this point?

If you would like me to respond to e-mail, you need to have a little bit of etiquette. The most obvious is to indicate who you are. I do not memorize your email address, so I cannot recognize thedudeman99@whatever.com as you. Pretend this like a semi formal letter. All you have to do in mention your name.

Some professionalism is appropriate. I am not your buddy who you send email jokes too. I am your college chemistry professor. No need to send me some cool chemistry joke you got from a friend. Trust me, I saw it long before you did.

A nice little website with some good info

Since I am behind in the second draft screencasts, here is the link to all the first draft screencasts for the course, broken down by chapter.
http://www.docott.com/files.141/screencasts/

SOme great suggestions here.
5 ways to make lectures note more readable

This blog is an effort to make things move a little faster, be a little more current, etc. It is meant to be a collection of all the pertinant information for teh class.
Some postive side effects:
1. This page can be updated quickly. When a student asks me a question about a lab, lecture, whatever, I will post it here for everyone to read.
2. You can comment. I have the ability to post the main message (or comment) and anyone on the planet, including you, can also comment on the page. Don’t worry, I have the ability to make any comment go away if I deem it inappropriate. It is set up such that I have to ‘approve’ the comment before it is posted, but I will RARELY do that.
3. You can (if you choose) set up your News Aggregator to watch this blog so you will know whenever something new gets posted. That might be significant, because decisions get made fast, and knowing sooner rather than later is a good thing.
4. You can search old posts from a long time ago (early in the semester) In other words, everything I have put in the blog all semester remains there until the end.

This is a new technology for many of you, and I am here to help you. Just ask.

I found this short article on a website I monitor. It talkes about how your location of studying makes a big difference. When I was working on my Ph.D. thesis I spend long hours at a particular restaurant eating fries and drinking coffee. SInce that was all I ever did there, it was easy to stay focused. No distractions.