Culling the weaker members of the herd

[pbray]

This week I'm taking a class on the new database tool (COGNOS TM1). There are twelve students, and as usual in any class there's one student who just isn't getting it. With every exercise we're all able to follow along with the instructor just fine, but this guy gets lost, so we have to stop and wait while the instructor does a personal tutorial for him, thus everything is taking at least twice as long as it should.

This guy is an experienced DBA, so it's not a question of not knowing how to use computers. The class handouts have written instructions for every step of the labs, plus screenshots of the intermediate and final results, so he should be able to follow along. At this point we're all losing patience with him-- if we were in a classroom he would have never made it back from lunch, but since this is an online class it's too far to drive and hunt him down in person.

And, of course, there's no way for any of us to take the instructor aside privately and ask that they address the issue with him-- our only contact is via a microphone that the entire class hears or chat window that everyone gets to read.

Sigh. Going to be a long week.

Comments

[jpsorrow.livejournal.com]

Would it help if I offered to cull him for you? Do you have an address? I could reprogram the satelite to nuke his house or place of work. Or we could just let Optimus out of the garage.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Yes, please, let us CRUSH HIM! I'll thought-beam you his location.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

Huh. Small world. I thought this guy was in a meeting I was in the other day; in fact, I swear it.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

:-) I think there's a quota, so whenever at least X people are gathered we get one of these.

[libwitch.livejournal.com]

sometimes, its just NEVER too far to drive nad hunt someone down. Or at least, use the time he is wasting during online classtime to use craigslist in a very productive manner.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

I'm hoping that classmembers who live closer to him than I do will have taken care of this overnight.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear. The synchronous online class :P

There's no option to e-mail or PM the instructor? They really should have that.

That, or an option to Google Map the guy's location and search for ninja assassins in the area...

[pbray.livejournal.com]

And the pattern continues today--with every exercise he'll make at least one typo, be unable to see the difference between what's in the book and what's on his screen, and need the instructor to fix it for him.

Sigh. Class will be over by lunchtime Friday, so I just have to stay strong.

[sylvia-rachel.livejournal.com]

Class will be over by lunchtime Friday, so I just have to stay strong ... and eat chocolate.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

And keep in mind that Friday afternoon jpsorrow and I are heading down to watch pretty boys on Broadway.

[mtlawson.livejournal.com]

Good thing this is virtual. At least you can do other things while you're waiting for Mr. Clueless to catch up.