I was sitting at my desk at home grading Excel projects for one of my classes. For some reason, I kept forgetting what my students were supposed to do with the project. I couldn’t make sense of how any of the project files was supposed to match up with grading rubric criteria. I looked away from my computer screen in frustration and dismay, and realized there were cats sitting all around me on the floor, and on the table and bookcase behind me. Just then, a very large, gray-striped cat jumped up on my desk beside the keyboard and stared at my screen.
At that moment, the assignment became crystal clear. The students were supposed to teach their cats Excel and the project was an assessment of the cats’ abilities to use Excel. I realized that the cats were watching me grade their papers, they could see each others’ project work, and this was most definitely a FERPA violation. I panicked and began fumbling around to turn my laptop off....and woke up.
Comments