EduGuru

Project Halloween.

Project Halloween, teaching school kids to enjoy fright, is haunted. What else could explain being plagued by so many problems? Whatever possessed us in the first place? I would have spoken up sooner, but I was scared speechless.

Monsters are everywhere, and no coordination or planning is evident from the Project Mangler. All the Project Mangler seems to do is booby trap the path with GANTT Shards.

The scariest monster of them all is the Scope Creep. The Scope Creep is making giant problems out of the simplest tasks. The Scope Creep was unleashed by his evil master the Ogre Achiever. Everyone is being pushed over the edge by the Ogre Achiever. Gigantic fights have broken out between the Ogre Achiever and her nemesis, the Creature of Habit. Most of the battles center around the transition to individual student records.

The Creature of Habit is staunchly supported by his side kick, the Devil’s Aggregate, who condemns anyone trying to collect individual records over the Internet. I must admit that no one wants to be caught by the FERPA Cop, who disguises herself with a small cell mask.

The Data Freak has all the files held hostage. He’s threatening to parse them into little pieces until even their own parent files would not recognize them. As of now, no files can be trusted because viruses have caused Authoritative Data Sores. Any original documentation has been lost in the Relational Data Maze.

Not everyone is dumb and ugly. There’s the Data Model, who can be both logical and physical. Just watch out for her cat—Fuzzy Logic, the only cat that needs a network because she can’t LAN on her own feet.

The project’s Debugger is overworked. Any code written is crawling with bugs. Just to look at the code makes you want to ERP. We applied RAID everywhere, but still lost our data.

The portal is working. Microsoft assures us that ScarePoint is not causing users to stay away. But they say the Firewall is intimidating. With all the costumes, Identity Management is impossible.

The only actionable reports turned out to be gunfire that sent everyone running in a wild game of Cache me if you can.

We tried to teach the students tennis. Those cheaters used a Proxy Server. A wrestling match broke out between the Thin Client and the Fat Client. Actually, that was very entertaining. Of course the Thin Client was the first to be downloaded. The Fat Client had to be burned onto a CD. Oh that
MegaHurts. Everyone thought that was over kill.

We narrowly escaped a ridiculous idea by the Single-Minded Manager to ship the entire project to Boston and turn it into an Internet dating service to make better use of our Dater Warehouse. At least we have Single Sign-On.

The first application developed was stolen by the Software Pirate. Then he sold it back to us and added on a brutal maintenance fee. We had to pay it because once those software pirates get their hooks into you, you can’t get rid of them. Sue them, but that COTS both ways.

No one likes our data. We have BOOlean data.

No one trusts using the Internet because they are afraid of the evil Web Master. The Web Master constantly feeds the Resource Goblin who gobbles up all available resources. The Web Master wasted all of the project’s money developing a frightening Ghouly Interface to replace the Gooey mess that users got stuck in and couldn’t exit.

Then the Resource Goblin suggested a Halloween carnival fund raiser where kids could bob for Apples. At the carnival, a kid let some data from an Apple RAM down her throat. We administered CPU and the unit was upgraded. As in all these projects, getting data in is easier than getting data back out.

Attempts to assign student identifiers have been accompanied by shots being fired. This is nothing more than just sibling riflery among the directional witches.

The Wicked Witch of the East accused the Good Witch of the North of being annual retentive because she wants to keep longitudinal information in addition to tombstone information. No one knows what’s going on because of the self-annointed rumor control witch, the Directionally Impaired Witch of the NEWS. She rides her broom in all directions at once, and periodically flies off the handle trying to sweep problems under the proverbial data table.

Since NCLB, all the witches have been driven insane trying to follow the Spirit of the Law. The President cast Spellings upon every child in the hopes they would learn how to read the handwriting on the wall. USED’s guidance has been mostly cryptic messages about grave consequences.

Will the next President help us? OhhhhhhhhhhhhhBama freightens us with universal health scare. MccccccccccccccCain won’t torture our enemies, but is imPalin us. The project didn’t seem to have a ghost of a chance of being executed, and heads are expected to roll. Will this project be successful? Not bloody likely!

Then, out of the darkness, came this extraordinary insight, “Why not use ESP to look into the future for a solution?” Incredibly, ESP saved Halloween for the kids by developing a Killer App. Of course, ESP also
suggested that Halloween is no longer a name that is acceptable to all sides in today’s politically correct world, so the project activities will be held in the “middle of the road” downtown and be called the Main Treat Festival.

There it is again. We hear groaning and moaning every time we talk about this project. The noose has been removed from around the project’s neck—No Noose is Good News!

The EduGuru speaks: Don’t turn to Wickedpedia for answers to this one. Oh, that leads us into the next depressing holiday crisis—Thanksgrimming. Then Christmess. Then Hauntukkah. Then New Jeers. Stop, please stop—you’re killing me!

Click below to find the print-ready text of the EduGuru's autumnal Insight on project management, data models, the U.S. economy, and presidential politics.  Warning:  This document is ripe with ghost puns, real groaners.

Download project_halloween.pdf

My Kid is in College. He’s Taking High School Math.

Remediation of college freshmen is a loud complaint heard on college campuses these days.  Roughly 40% of high school grads are deemed unfit for college work.  Last time the numbers came out, it seems about 35% weren’t even planning to go to college.  Taking five years to get a bachelor’s degree may have become the norm, but if the first year of college is really an additional year of high school, why pay college expenses for high school classes?.  Are high schools too easy or are colleges too hard. 

The EduGuru speaks: College seems to be the only business that complains when its paying customers need to buy even more of their services.  If you admit them and charge them tuition, then by golly teach them what they need to know until they meet your graduation standards.  That beam in your eye is the reality that most of your graduates pay for remedial and prep courses to pass their professional certification exams after they have met all of your graduation requirements. 

Sticks and Stones.

Seems companies are going out of their way to invent names for their products.  If you’ve read Blink or Making it Stick, you’d know that a product name needs to not only be clever but also high concept—easy to associate with the product’s purpose.  Good names?  iPod, Walkman, Mustang, Salad Spinner, Hula Hoop, Container Store.  Best of the worst grocery store names of all time?  Piggly Wiggly.  What’s that mean?  Microsoft gets kudos—Excel for a spreadsheet.  Word—perfect (actually WordPerfect is even better).  Access.  PowerPoint.  SharePoint.  Get the point?

Read these education industry product names out loud--to yourself.

• eSembler
• Transfinder
• Eduphoria
• Winsnap
• SchoolDude
• Moodle
• Winocular
• Parature
• NetTrekker
• RaizersEdge
• Starbak
• NutriKids

We’ve gone beyond acronyms, beyond descriptive names, beyond family names.  You are challenged to guess what each product really does based upon its name.  NutriKids wins the EduGuru's only annual award for the best made-up, composite product name in the education market.  The name actually makes kids sound like they are good for you.  The others?  ConfusiMonikers.  AnonaNames.  ForgetMePleases.  ComeAgains.

The EduGuru speaks:  Names will never hurt me?  Hearing some of these names hurts me.

Lessons from Dead CEOs.

The EduGuru just read Todd Buchholz’s New Ideas from Dead CEOs. The plot—learn from the strategies and tactics of famous corporate giants. Unfortunately, none was a state education commissioner, Secretary of Education, or district superintendent. But what if they had been?

If Ray Kroc of McDonald’s ran your schools…The playgrounds would be great. Every school would serve up the same curriculum, prepared the same way, with no exceptions. The kids would never want to bring lunch from home. A student entering any classroom anywhere in the country would be assured of the very same curriculum and quality of instruction. Schools would run ads during children’s programs on TV. Kids would beg to go to school. Every principal and teacher would have to graduate from the same university program. Every teacher would be successful and well paid before anyone at the district level would be.

The EduGuru speaks: We would have the best small fries in the world.

If A.P. Giannini of Bank of America ran your schools…Schools would value the students from low and modest income homes—even recruit them. Schools would have practices designed to satisfy the parents. Schools would be in the community and part of the community—not large, cold corporate bureaucracies.

The EduGuru speaks: Students would receive credit in every course. 

If Mary Kay Ash of Mary Kay Cosmetics ran your schools…Principals would recruit teachers and be paid according to their performance. The superintendent would host parties and give rousing motivational speeches. Lavish incentives would be awarded to top performers.

The EduGuru speaks: U.S. schools would be the Cadillac of schools (pink Cadillac, of course).

If Thomas Watson, Sr. or Thomas Watson, Jr, of IBM ran your schools…Relationships with the parents and taxpayers would be strong and nourished daily. As much emphasis would be placed on “selling the value of the schools” as on delivering quality education. Schools would be slow to see the changes occurring in their industry, but would have the resources and client base to survive until they could change.

The EduGuru speaks: School colors? Blue—that’s it, only blue—true blue. 

If David Sarnoff of RCA ran your schools…Unlike the Watsons, Sarnoff would always be ahead of the technology. Great effort would be put into beating out the students in other countries. Tireless energy would be expected from everyone. Instead of one outstanding teacher instructing a classroom of students, that teacher’s lesson would be broadcast to millions of students.

The EduGuru speaks: Live from New York, it’s Mrs. Watson’s fifth-grade math lesson.

If Akio Morita of Sony ran your schools…Everything would be smaller. Students would use a PDA to listen to or read about books, no longer hold and read books. All the electronic gadgets used would be reliable but not cheap. Every once in awhile, an Apple would fall on everyone’s head and get their attention.

The EduGuru speaks: “Students, put on your headsets and stare at the screen. No personal interactions today—again.” 

If Estee Lauder ran your schools…Tireless public relations and lobbying would ensure widespread acceptance and use of the public schools. Innovations cooked up at home would prove to be revolutionary—at least educators would believe they are and use them. Estee would walk right up to a set of parents and teach them something—free. Even the educated like freebees.

The EduGuru speaks: The complexion of public education would improve. 

If Sam Walton of WalMart ran your schools…A retired teacher would greet everyone at the door. Schools would offer the same instruction, but for less money. Publishers would have to guarantee that the schools were getting the lowest price on everything before it was purchased. No supplies would ever run out because inventories would be automated and replacements ordered and delivered just in time. Sam’s Alternative Club Schools would provide a restricted curriculum, great deals on tuition (after paying an annual fee), but students would have to take lessons in large quantities rather than one at a time.

The EduGuru speaks: Small private schools couldn’t compete. 

If Walt Disney ran your schools….School would be the happiest place on Earth—or else. Students would only see the teachers at their best—never out of character. The best curriculum would be released, then removed for years, only to come back digitally enhanced and with great fanfare—for a limited time only. Millions of dollars would be invested for every minute of instructional delivery. Years of production would go into about an hour and a half of class time. Of course, class size would be large--theaters. For high school students 17 and older, the curriculum would be very dramatic and adventurous.

The EduGuru speaks: Every teacher would be animated. 

Project Halloween from the EduGuru.

Warning! This post is ripe with ghost puns, real groaners.

Project Halloween, teaching school kids to enjoy fright, is haunted. What else could explain why it is plagued by so many problems? Whatever possessed us in the first place? I would have spoken up sooner, but I was scared speechless. 

Monsters are everywhere, and no coordination or planning is evident from the Project Mangler.  All the Project Mangler seems to do is booby trap the path with GANTT Shards. 

The scariest monster of them all is the Scope Creep. The Scope Creep is making giant problems out of the simplest tasks. The Scope Creep was unleashed by his evil master the Ogre Achiever. Everyone is being pushed over the edge by the Ogre Achiever.

Gigantic fights have broken out between the Ogre Achiever and her nemesis, the Creature of Habit. Most of the battles center around the transition to individual student records. The Creature of Habit is staunchly supported by his side kick, the Devil’s Aggregate, who condemns anyone trying to collect individual records over the Internet. I must admit that no one wants to be caught by the FERPA Cop, who disguises herself with a small cell mask. 

The Data Freak has all the files held hostage. He’s threatening to parse them into little pieces until even their own parent files would not recognize them. As of now, no files can be trusted because viruses have caused Authoritative Data Sores. Any original documentation has been lost in the Relational Data Maze. 

Not everyone is dumb and ugly. There’s the Data Model, who can be both logical and physical. Just watch out for her cat—Fuzzy Logic, the only cat that needs a network because she can’t LAN on her own feet. 

The project’s Debugger is overworked. Any code written is crawling with bugs. Just to look at the code makes you want to ERP. We applied RAID everywhere, but still lost our data. 

The portal is working. Microsoft assures us that ScarePoint is not causing users to stay away. But they say the Firewall is intimidating. With all the costumes, Identity Management is impossible. 

The only actionable reports turned out to be gunfire that sent everyone running in a wild game of Cache me if you can. 

We tried to teach the students tennis.  Those cheaters used a Proxy Server. 

A wrestling match broke out between the Thin Client and the Fat Client. Actually, that was very entertaining. Of course the Thin Client was the first to be downloaded. The Fat Client had to be burned onto a CD. Oh that MegaHurts. Everyone thought that was over kill. 

We narrowly escaped a ridiculous idea by the Single-Minded Manager to ship the entire project to Boston and turn it into an Internet dating service to make better use of our Dater Warehouse. 

The first application developed was stolen by the Software Pirate. Then he sold it back to us and added on a brutal maintenance fee. We had to pay it because once those software pirates get their hooks into you, you can’t get rid of them. Sue them, but that COTS both ways. 

No one trusts using the Internet because they are afraid of the evil Web Master. The Web Master constantly feeds the Resource Goblin who gobbles up all available resources. The Web Master wasted all of the project’s money developing a frightening Ghouly Interface to replace the Gooey mess that users got stuck in and couldn’t exit. Then the Resource Goblin suggested a Halloween carnival fund raiser where kids could bob for Apples. At the carnival, a kid let some data from an Apple RAM down her throat. We administered CPU and the unit was upgraded. As in all these projects, getting data in is easier than getting data back out. 

Attempts to assign student identifiers have been accompanied by shots being fired. This is nothing more than just sibling riflery among the directional witches. The Wicked Witch of the East accused the Good Witch of the North of being annual retentive because she wants to keep longitudinal information in addition to tombstone information. No one knows what’s going on because of the self-annointed rumor control witch, the Directionally Impaired Witch of the NEWS. She rides her broom in all directions at once, and periodically flies off the handle trying to sweep problems under the proverbial data table. 

Since NCLB, all the witches have been driven insane trying to follow the Spirit of the Law. 

The President cast Spellings upon every child in the hopes they would learn how to read the handwriting on the wall. USED’s guidance has been mostly cryptic messages about grave consequences.  

The project didn’t seem to have a ghost of a chance of being executed, and heads are expected to roll. Will this project be successful? Not bloody likely! 

Then, out of the darkness, came this extraordinary insight, “Why not use ESP to look into the future for a solution?” Incredibly, ESP saved Halloween for the kids by developing a Killer App. Of course, ESP also suggested that Halloween is no longer a name that is acceptable to all sides in today’s politically correct world, so the project activities will be held in the “middle of the road” downtown and be called the Main Treat Festival. 

There it is again. We hear groaning and moaning every time we talk about this project. 

The noose has been removed from around the project’s neck—No Noose is Good News! 

The Eduguru speaks: Don’t turn to Wickedpedia for answers to this one.  Oh, that leads us into the next depressing holiday crisis—Thanksgrimming. Then Christmess. Then Hauntukkah. Then New Jeers. Stop, please stop—you’re killing me!

Whole Foods Fails to Slow the Free-Ranging Eduguru.

John Mackey, CEO Whole Foods, got caught posting anonymously to his own blog.  Derided a competitor.  Praised his own good looks.  The Eduguru has been asked if my anonymity is a sleazy trick.

The Eduguru speaks:  John wanted to buy the other company at a better price.  I don’t intend to buy your schools.  My identity—and good looks—will remain mysterious.