Anna Croft - FriendFeed

Group dynamics issue: Group of 5 students - 1 who does not seem to be interested in contributing, 2 other guys and 2 girls. On recent group exercise, group is asked to revise/improve a plan given to them...

Thursday - Comment - Like - Share

The two guys do some minor edits, change a couple of fonts and tell the girls this is what they want to submit. Girls are infuriated, as they haven't been consulted, but take plan and do a proper job. They come to you to complain, because they think the guys have been trying to wind them up to get them to do the work, and are unhappy about the non-contributor. You are allowed to advise on the exercise but not intervene ... any strategies/recommendations for the girls? - Anna Croft

5 more comments

Kind of in two minds. One answer is "sorry this is the way the world works" - you will be judged on what you present. At least it's not an obviously rivalrous situation, yes some might get marks they don't deserve but at least they won't lose marks that they don't serve. Second answer, put it on a Wiki, and present it, along with history for the assignment :-) - Cameron Neylon

History is your friend. As Cameron suggests, in future use a tool such as a wiki, Google Docs or Wave which records individual contributions and a timeline (great for spotting those last minute panics). Mark scheme for each individual: 50% for overall submission, 50% for individual contribution. - AJCann

Actually, interesting thing is they aren't bothered about the marks (for once!); They're more bothered that this will happen again on the upcoming assignment, and impinge on the other stuff they need/want to be doing. (The things that presumably the lads in this group are doing, having fobbed all the work onto others). [ok they are somewhat bothered about marks, or the strategy would be to let the group sink, but this isn't per-se a grading issue] - Anna Croft

Building the history into the marking scheme makes it clear to all students that individual contributions are taken into account. - AJCann

And if the lads still don't care? ie happy to take the 3rd, if they get away will less work (especially if they think they'll make it up elsewhere)? This still doesn't help the rest of the group who pick up the slack ... (not trying to be difficult, btw, just trying to mitigate) - Anna Croft

Then that will be the outcome. Discrimination in marking is a positive, as long as the high achievers are not unduly disadvantaged. - AJCann

YAY! managed to get NGS working and jobs running. *dancy* Now onto AWS as next target.

Wednesday - Comment - Like - Share

Deepak Singh and Cameron Neylon liked this

finally got round to this ? ace! - Jim Procter

any suggestions for good screencast software (the sort for making videos of computer actions ...)?

November 17 - Comment - Like - Share

Daniel Mietchen, Mary Canady, Dan Hagon and 3 other people liked this

I like Screenflow for Mac but it costs money. Camtasia for PC similarly is highly recommended. Jing and similar are fine for short videos less than a couple of minutes. - Cameron Neylon

9 more comments

screenr.com is fabulous, runs in your browser, very quick to use, uploads straight to youtube if you want. Has set window sizes which helps you fit your demonstration window to include all the action you want. - Jo Badge

Try http://www.screentoaster.com/ - also runs in the browser, and is apparently free (haven't tried it because I bought Camtasia earlier, which is pretty expensive). - Victor / Mendeley Team

What OS? I like gtk-recordMyDesktop on Ubuntu, others recommend Istanbul. - Neil Saunders

mac osx ... also open to ubuntu for the more technical stuff. browser-based sounds fab! thanks guys :) - Anna Croft

Jing is cool if you want quick, easy and short. - Matt Leifer

I like Jing as well - François Dongier

I use and like Camtasia but it is not free - although the 30 day trial is fully functional - Camstudio is free and might work for recording but not editing - Jean-Claude Bradley

Try Screenr.com - excellent. - AJCann

I recommend ScreenCamera because it makes live real-time screencasts on Skype, UStream, messengers, or wherever you can use a webcam. http://www.pcwinsoft.com/screenc... - PCWinSoft

ISHOWU is quite amazing ..its only US $10 or so. creates very compact H.264 codec using files - Hari

Noel O'Blog: Chemical Identifier Resolver + TwirlyMol = Easily add molecules to a webpage - http://baoilleach.blogspot.com/2009...

November 20 from Facebook - Comment - Like - Share

almost have oplsaa->gromacs converter for unusual molecules (via projectaten) working .. a few more tweaks then testing :)

November 16 - Comment - Like - Share

Anders Norgaard and Cameron Neylon liked this

Guardian Higher: Any student, Any degree, Anywhere http://www.guardian.co.uk/educati...

November 15 - Comment - Like - Share

nearly ready to make the great push to gromacs courtesy of Aten and some intensive filter writing ...

November 13 - Comment - Like - Share

I'm looking for an automated emailing service to remind people to do things while I'm away - any suggestions? I remember seeing one that might be useful with a female name (but can't remember what), and unfortunately google reminders don't send to everyone on the calendar (which was what I was trying to do, having subscribed everyone necessary ...

November 3 - Comment - Like - Share

Ah - found the female named one: 'I want Sandy' - it's been bought out by twitter and shut down. - Anna Croft

6 more comments

Would Remember the Milk do the job? - Cameron Neylon

I think rtm would require people to have an account - and even then I'm not sure it would do what you need (I love rtm though). You could do it via delayed emails from outlook if you knew beforehand what you needed to remind people of. Only thing is the sent date would be the date you click sent rather than the date Outlook delivers it. Might do what you need though... - Stuart Johnson

hum... I'm not sure I would like to receive this kind of emails - Pierre Lindenbaum

cron+mail? That's one for the linux geeks out there. You can also try automating things in Outlook if you're willing to dive into VBA scripting. - Dan Hagon

@cameron @stuart was going to look at Rtm, but not 100% sure - had seen it more as a task manager (for the iphone), but will look in more detail, @stuart - outlook not a solution in this case - I aim to be _away_ (would traditionally have used Eudora instead for this) @pierre either are the people that need to be emailed - they're covering me on sabbatical, but I am (and I think rightly... more... - Anna Croft

@dan cron looks like what I might be doing at this rate - seems the simplest solution (now if only our mail servers would work). might fail if they have more "machine updates" while I'm away ... - Anna Croft

currently trialling RTM - we'll see how it goes since it does require the people with whom I'm dealing to do something (confirm their email address), which judging by past experience may be a bit too technological. - Anna Croft

Frontiers of Science { Home } - http://frontiers.library.usyd.edu.au/

October 29 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

Australian 1961 comic - Anna Croft from Bookmarklet

Cell Size and Scale - http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content...

October 29 from Facebook - Comment - Like - Share

@mza will check it out but don't have any money (as always) ... (although I guess I can look into a separate grant ...)

October 29 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

@CameronNeylon unsurprised, it was going to be a long shot ...

October 29 from Twitter - Comment - Like - Share

xkcd - A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language - By Randall Munroe - http://xkcd.com/651/

October 28 from Bookmarklet - Comment - Like - Share

mjc, Cameron Neylon and Björn Brembs liked this