They Didn't Call

This morning, I went off to work as I had scheduled. We had a snow storm, of sorts, which was predicted, but there is a lot of uncertainty in weather predictions, and the snow didn't frighten me, so I just went on in. I checked my phone, but no one had called or texted.

When I got to work, one of my colleagues asked me if I know about the schedule changes. I didn't. It seems there was an email sent out at 4:30 am saying that final exams were delayed, and mine didn't start at 8:30, as previously scheduled, but at 11, and was in a different room. Yeah, so now I was three hours early for my final exam.

I did have to put together a Practical exam, and there was no time between the written final and the Practical to do that, so I had something to do in the morning, before my rescheduled exam. But it would have been nice to know before I made the drive in. I could have rested a bit. My wife decided to go with me because she didn't want to walk all those blocks from her parking place to her place of business, but going with me meant getting to work an hour early. Unnecessarily, it turned out. Why didn't someone call? Last time we had a snow delay, someone called. They, whomever they might be, know I, and most of my colleagues, don't check email in the early morning before driving in to work. Important information, or at least urgent information, is sent by phone, a call or a text. Until today.

It wasn't a disaster for me. It meant I was working on grading exams later in the day than I had planned. It meant I am writing in this blog journal at night instead of the afternoon. But we are supposed to be getting better at this. Sharing information is supposed to be getting easier and more efficient. So today seemed odd. Maybe I'm giving the information revolution, and the rising data gods, too much credit.

A colleague told me that students can hack our computer test software, and check out tests ahead of time without detection. I hope it's not as easy as he said it is. I wonder if I should check into that. I wonder if I should try to learn how to hack things. Not with that rusty machete in my garage, but online. Find out what the software actually does under various conditions. Because loss of control just makes the growth of the data gods less predictable. Do we want unpredictable gods?