Report: CIS Sandbox makes people smarter
Okay...the headline might be embellished just a little. We cannot prove that the Sandbox makes people smarter. On the other hand, what we can prove is that visiting the Sandbox…
Don’t forget to chat with us!
We at the CIS Sandbox are trying our best to serve you in as many different ways as possible. We already have an excellently trained tutoring staff, but we realize…
Successful First Week in the CIS Sandbox
The CIS Sandbox was buzzing last week with all kinds of activity as a number of First-Year Students participated in some fun, technological activities. We had students set up their…
Introducing Soluto
Soluto is a multi-functional application that analyzes your computer’s boot (start-up) time and provides suggestions for how to decrease it. Recently, it added functionality to track application crashes and lighten…
Win an iPad and Learn about your future in IT!
The event can be found on BentleyLink here: Future Potential in IT or by clicking on Events and searching for "Potential in IT."
Tutoring vs. helping students with an assignment
Students often enter The Sandbox looking for help on a particular assignment. It wasn’t until Finals Week that I noticed students coming in for general questions and study help; and even then, the number of students was sparse. This presents a particular puzzlement for our talented staff of tutors: there is a thin line between helping a student finish an assignment and allowing the student to understand the concept that is required to finish the assignment.
My personal experience tutoring Java comes to mind. All of our Java tutors have completed CS 180 or an equivalent in some reasonable fashion and have programmed with Java in the past. Therefore, their knowledge of Java is quite respectable. When a student comes in and asks why their program is not working, they are essentially asking us to debug it for them, or, occasionally, to figure out the entire logic of the assignment. Of course, it is not as cut and dry as, “Hey, can you finish my assignment for me?” Yet, this should not be considered an attempt to belittle the amount of effort that students exert on their work. In fact, I don’t believe that students who are astute enough to visit The Sandbox would be the ones who are conniving enough to trick a tutor into doing their homework for them. Therefore, it is the job of the tutors themselves to find the balance between tutoring and helping the student with an assignment.
Field F/X and your next job
If you’re like me, you can’t get enough about baseball, technology, and the economics of baseball. You probably watch over 100 of your favorite team’s games per year. You know…
Why I Prefer Android to iOS
Forgive me if the timing of this post isn’t quite right. In no way, shape, or form should this take away from the legacy of Steve Jobs.
I, however, am biased. I have been an Android user for the last 18 months, and I love it. As with most competing technologies, there is an ongoing debate as to which mobile operating system is better: Android or iOS. I can’t answer that question. Realistically, nobody can answer that question. Each operating system has its strengths and flaws. In the end, it all comes down to what you, as a user, want from the experience.
Here are a couple of things I like about Android:
Smith 212 Google TV up and running
Kind of. See below. It's a start!