First Graded Blog Post–Observations

Mechanics and Grading Issues

• I’ve set up BbLearn to drop the lowest graded post in calculating the term GPA so if you had a problem on this first post you should be OK for the rest of the term.
• Not everyone turned in the URL to BbLearn – I found only 15 to grade.  I searched in the blog for the others this week and deducted 3 points from each.  In future I will not search.  BE SURE TO SUBMIT TO BbLearn.
• Source Quality – Many of you used general web sources.  I reserved “High Quality'” for those that in some way addressed the technical literature in at least one source.
• For those of you who lost points on commenting on other posts I’d note that it’s important to make your efforts visible to the grader (me) when reading your post.  If you have used the “comment” capability of the blog please mention in you post the other posts (link them) where you have made comments so I can give you credit.  It’s also OK to look at the work of people in other groups – you may find some interesting cross-links even though their topic was different.
• Labels – Please be sure to include at least your group,name labels and week-due labels.  I didn’t deduct points this week, but will in future if they’re not included.

Content Comments

• Overall these were an interesting group of posts that I hope you enjoyed reading as I did.  I learned of several new developments that intrigued me and was pleased to see you all contemplating the many implications of this information technology.
• Sensors – As I attempted to say in class, it’s worth differentiating the sensor from the device it’s in.  As an example, I’d argue that the Nest thermostat is a “system” and that the sensors in it are what should be considered when addressing the topic “sensors”.  This logic is true generally.
• Hardware – A number of you took the attitude that the advances in hardware aren’t going to be very important, that they’re only background subjects.  I’d argue that hardware and software go hand-in-hand, with advances in hardware making possible software efforts that weren’t possible previously.
• Analysis – Most of those addressing this topic dealt with the results of analysis.  I’d argue that it’s also important to think about what analysis methods (e.g. Finite Element Analysis or neural network modeling) will be enhanced and perhaps changed in the future.