July 16, 2016

Today was pretty boring. And not as productive as I would have liked but that is not surprising.

The biggest chunk of my day was spent working on practicum stuff. I started by grading the ten responses that we are using to calibrate the data for the assessment project. For the actual project I'm going to have to grade well over 100 responses and I'm going to need to step up my game. It took me way to long to look at those first ten. They weren't nearly as cut-and-dry as I would have hoped and there is the worry about whether my grading will match with my supervisor and the other librarian. But that is the whole point of the exercise. I think it will go a little faster after we meet and discuss our results because I will have a better idea of how they're grading and whether or not I'm being too hard or two easy in my grading. It's still going to take forever. It was multiple hours just for ten. I don't know if I'll be able to finish the actual assessment before the semester is over but I should easily get my hours just on grading alone.

It isn't evident by the current product but I also spent several hours creating a project based on the scavenger hunt using Twine, the open source program, not the string. I think I have a solid beginning narrative and I give the user five directions to choose. The fifth is the option to exit but the following screen just says “Booooo! That's boring. Try again.” The idea is that it doesn't really matter where they start because eventually they will go through all the questions, just not in the same order. I am hoping to string it all together so they progress through the library in a somewhat straight line without a bunch of zig-zagging or doubling back. I know that I would be annoyed if I had to go up to the fifth floor, then down to the first floor, then back up to the fourth floor, then all the way to one side of the building, before going down two floors and all the way to the other side of the building. They will have to go all over the library but hopefully there will be some order to it.

I spent the last part of the day getting a start on capstone stuff. I'm trying to divide all my assignments up based on what program outcomes they satisfy. By Tuesday I need to have one example, each from a different class, for each program outcome. I also have to write a brief paragraph about the example. I am a little disappointed with how little effort I have been able to devote to this whole project so far because it is supposed to be a portfolio of my work throughout the program and it should be well thought out and attractive looking. I just have so much other crap going on.

The goals for tomorrow are to finish dividing up assignments and hopefully have at least one example for each outcome from different classes. I also want to have the descriptions written. And despite how long it took me to write the first two blog posts for my conference class, I want to get the second two written tomorrow. I also need to put some serious hours into my practicum, while somehow getting everything else done. Even if I put in five hours tomorrow and five more on Tuesday, I still have to get three hours every other. That is a tall order when I'm at work for nine hours a day. And it doesn't really leave any room for all the other schoolwork I need to do. My adviser is coming for a site visit on Tuesday so I'll be able to talk with her about everything. Hopefully that will be a load off my mind rather than add more stress to my life.

It's now after 1:30AM and I plan on waking up really early so I can get the maximum number of hours out of my day. That will either end up working exactly as planned or it will fail miserably and I'll spend the entire day fighting drowsiness and getting nothing done. Let's cross our fingers for the first outcome.