The last week has gone by pretty quickly. I think I've been pretty productive, which is a good thing. If I weren't productive, I'd be in deep trouble because I'm leaving town in a couple days again. This time, I'm headed to Catalina Island for the annual InterVarsity Faculty Conference. But that's for me to think about later.
There's no way I'm going to get very far ahead in the next two days, so I'm going to have to settle for being mostly caught up. I took care of a couple important things. One of those things was to finish up a couple videos for the Sewell Elementary project. That puts me in a place where I'm mostly done with that project for the time being. A lot more work falls on their shoulders to build out some individual pages for their own classes.
I have one more video to make for the Math 120 revision that we've been working on. I just need to explain a formula that uses summation notation. I tried to do it off the top of my head, and it came out terribly. So I'm going to have to take the time to try to type it up first, and then record it. I'm having a surprisingly difficult time trying to decide exactly what I want to say.
Speaking of course revisions, something came down from on high today and it's starting to look like we're going to need to completely rework the remedial math. We seem to be having difficulty establishing compliance and consistency with certain bureaucratic standards, which means that the system we're using needs to be changed. I don't know what this will look like just yet, but at least it's a structural issue and not a content issue. This means that I can use parts of the textbooks that I've written more or less in their current form. I may have to do a bit of rearranging of pieces, but all the problems and solutions can be carried over. And that's going to save a lot of time.
In a certain sense, it's probably going to be better after another revision. Not so much because of compliance (though that will be important), but that we might have access to tools that didn't exist a few years ago. There's a math project called Ximera, which allows LaTeX code to be put into a online-based problem on the coursera platform. This would (in a certain sense) mark a significant improvement in some aspects of the course delivery. One of the missing elements is getting instantaneous feedback on some of the more routine exercises.
I haven't had any time to work through my Oaxaca notes, and at this point, it's extremely likely that it won't happen until after the trip to Catalina. But for the next set, I will have pictures taken by the team. In the meantime, I did finish writing my thank-you letters to donors, and those were dropped off in the mailbox today.
I guess that's all I've got to say. I'm looking forward to Catalina Island, but not looking forward to returning from there. It's going to be another crazy few weeks when I get back before things return to normal (whatever "normal" really means).
