Thursday, May 19, 2005

How do you say USCOTS?

Today it starts … but we have not yet decided the most important thing about USCOTS. How do you pronounce it? Amongst the most popular pronunciations are three styles that reflect three different ways to say the first two letters.

Since this is the first U.S. Conference On Teaching Statistics. I often hear it pronounced like U-S-COTS with the first two letters said separately. An advocate might say: This is a conference for those just embarking on a teaching career and I like to think that the waters will seem less rough while cruising on the good ship U-S-COTS.

A second method is to pronounce the first two letters together like in the word they form: US-COTS. An advocate might say: This is a conference about us, the teachers and learners of statistics. Hence it should be pronounced US-COTS.

A third method is to remember that the U.S. stands for United States so we should pronounce the "U" like we pronounce it in "United". This makes the name of the conference sound more like "use – cots". An advocate might say: This is a conference that provides things you can use in the classroom so it should be pronounced like Use-COTS.

I like the idea that this conference can be different things to different people. As our delegate from Edinburgh says: I will see you later today at U-SCOTS!

Sunday, May 15, 2005

Crunch Time

People who come to my office at OSU often comment on the sign I have on my bulletin board. It says:

"I do not do things at the last minute ... I always allow 7 or 8 minutes minimum."

There are now no more weekends till USCOTS. Registration is now closed. Conference materials are with the printer (as usual my stuff was the last to go in). Room assignments have been made. Software has been loaded at the computer lab. Exhibitors have had their many questions answered.

Now to relax and only work 18 hours a day until the conference on food orders, preparing for my breakout session, ...

Then there's the non-USCOTS stuff: a site visit on a major grant on Monday and speaking at an Ohio Board of Regents conference on Tuesday.

Anyways, please forgive me if I don't respond to e-mails quickly. That is, until 7 or 8 minutes before the start of USCOTS.

Sunday, May 08, 2005

The uscots blog begins!

Wow! They said it would only take 10 minutes to set up this blog and I was able to do it in 20 minutes. That 2-to-1 ratio is the best I have ever seen in the world of computing.

USCOTS is now less than two weeks away. We have 310 people registered, but only 300 seats in the ballroom. The airlines tell me that's okay.