We have units!

First the time zone, now units of measurement ... it's an embarrassment of riches. Thank you, EdX engineers, for responding to our requests.

Now I won't have to say, "Calculate your answer as a percent, but please don't enter the percent sign," and other clunky stuff like that. 

It's a new platform, and we're one of the first math classes on it, so we're pioneers. At least that's what I tell myself when something unexpected happens, e.g. "The solution for Problem X of Set Y doesn't appear!!" That would be because I entered an = sign as the first entry in a line of the explanation, and the platform didn't expect that ... Who knew? Well, we know now.

That's the kind of thing students never see and shouldn't have to see. But every now and then there's a forum post that I have to walk away from or I'll say something I regret, like the 2.1X post that started with, "What do you have against a clock?" This student wanted a running clock next to each due date and time, so that the platform was keeping him/her informed about the amount of time remaining.

I have nothing against clocks. I have one next to my bed. I just don't have one in EdX.

Should I? Well, it's not on the request list I sent the engineers. Students have worked out when things are due, just as they've worked out (I hope) when to pay their rent or pick up their kids. The engineers are doing a superhuman job and must do what's really essential.

Such as maintaining the platform so it doesn't crash. That's been remarkably successful; tens of thousands of students, many of whom access the materials right before assignments are due, and very rarely have we had the system freeze.

And now the video people are fixing that wretched power of 3 that should be a power of 2 in about the third minute of Lec 2.2. Mercifully everything else on the slide is fine, including the audio, so I don't have to re-record. I'm surprised by the very small number of typos, actually. I'm often doing this work at 2 or 3 a.m., and you'd think I'd be pretty zonked by then.

But then there was that experiment that the Optometry department had us participate in when we were graduate students. To test the sharpness of our eyes at various times of day, they had us come in a few times each day and do some proof-reading. To their surprise, we did better in the afternoon than in the morning.

Why on earth were they surprised? Are grad students expected to be sharp in the morning? My friends and I didn't really get going till the sun was quite high in the sky and the coffee had done its work.

Maybe 2 a.m. is my peak productivity period. And if I mess up, I have our wonderful engineers who come in with mops ... so kudos and virtual chocolates (mostly dark) to the EdX engineering team, especially Robert without whom there would be no Stat 2X.