6/20/00 Greenville, TX. Mileage 59.06 miles Max. 24.3 mph Avg. 12.95 mph

UK Alumni Association Hat Presentation Ted Eiden & Greg Brock

Greg briefing the folks Greg, Susie McDonald, Bill Shaffer, Connie Fagg

Last night's dinner and meeting with UK graduates meant a great deal to me. Everyone was so supportive and interested in the course and the trek as well. The club gave me an UK hat and tee-shirt.

We all talked about the influence of distance learning on higher education. In fact, while the trek intrigues most people, they can't empathize with me because what I'm doing is so extreme but they do know about the Internet. I find that they easily understand the overall structure of the course I am teaching and even some of the implicit differences between an Internet course and one that is lecture driven.

Evaluation is a case in point. The midterm and final for my introductory family science course are open book. They also don't count for much in the total grade. The discussions and the papers are the most heavily weighted. There are options such as proctored exams and time limited exams but my thinking is that students learn and retain the material better by spending the hours puzzling out the answers rather than cramming.

Right now, we are still in the early stages of the course. Students have just submitted their first paper and we are beginning our second discussion--Is marriage good for you?

The day began with a terrible error on my part. I mailed back to UK another batch of stuff that was just weighing me down. Cheryl and Phil Feigel returned me to Texas Woman's University so I could continue where I left off yesterday. While unloading I discovered the phone was missing. I had left it the mail store. Phil said to call the number and the store owner answered.

Cheryl and Phil bailed me out by driving back to pick up the phone while I went on about 25 miles. They spent over two hours driving as a result of my lapse in attention. They deserve the extra effort award.

The plan for the day was to get going around 11 am and to limit the mileage by stopping at Greenville. Winds were from the south and stiff at times. Temperature was in the low 90s. Humidity is climbing.

Other than another flat, the ride was uneventful. I think I was so pent up by the phone incident that I just got out of Denton and on to Greenville without taking in what was between them.

I attribute leaving the phone error to lack of sleep--I stayed up past 1:00 am working on the course and this journal. Getting to bed earlier is something I can fix.