New job title

After a seriously bad losing season, the head football coach at the University of Minnesota was "released from his contract" not long ago. It took two million dollars to do so.

I put the bug in my superintendent's ear last week that I want my job title changed from Director of Technology to Head Technology Coach. I don't think he was terribly keen on the idea.

And unfortunately we seem to be having a winning season in the department so far this year...

• Teachers are loving the 73 SmartClassrooms we installed this summer. A recent PTO meeting had 60 some parents come to see the things in action. Teachers are already asking for applications for next year.
• After what seems like forever, we had a very successful data mining workshop this week. This has been one for the longest, most frustrating and complex projects we've taken on.
  
• Our new ASP web solution that includes pages for individual teachers to create threaded discussion, post online lessons, and materials simply and conveniently is picking up steam.

I take little credit for any of this other than that I have had the incredibly good fortune to hire talented people in my department. Johnson’s First Law of Effective Supervision: Hire people who don’t need to be supervised. (More rules)

But I still think putting coach in my job title is a good move. Maybe if I started wearing a whistle? 

Nothing says Christmas like...

Hey, I just made a total elf of myself. Check me out by clicking here.

Dr. Science

Dear Dr. Science,
I am a 26 years old and can't remember what it was like to live without the Internet. Do you remember what it must have been like?  ------------- Jerry Roberti from Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Just barely. I'm 47, and my memories are of a Webless[IB1] World as diaphanous as the seat of my old suit pants, but it seems to me that people used to read and write. They would hold pieces of paper in front of their faces and grunt softly in understanding, or sometimes imprint words on a piece of paper and then wrap that piece of paper in another, put a gummed picture of a dead president on it, and then place the whole arrangement in a box, waiting for someone to physically take it across the country, or sometimes even the world, to its intended recipient. I know it sounds crazy, but the antiquated system used to work, most of the time. Now that system is only used to sending bills and junk mail. But back in those olden days, that's all there was!

Yes, Dr. Science is alive and well at <http://www.drscience.com/> and he still knows more than you do!