Technology and CS in Dallas

Author: kathleen

  • Day from Hell not as bad (Day 2 out of 19)

    I should explain the Day 2 out of 19.  We have 19 days – 3 weeks — before Christmas break.  I have to do technology inventory and get all new equipment in my lab by then.  Well, the equipment comes on the 17th.

    Today wasn’t as bad, but I decided to take out the huge chunk of non-working network cable.  It was on the floor in the way of my students.  I also decided to remove the extension cords.  I am a smart child, and since I couldn’t get the cords to go through the "speed bump", I decided to chop off one of the ends and pull it through.  Again, being smart, I cut them off at the plug, knowing they weren’t plugged in. 

    So I brought a set of wire cutters to school and preceded to chop.   The extension cords were a bit difficult but got there.  There were about 30 network cables in the harness, so I had to chop them one by one.  I started, got about 10 done and thought, huh, wondering if I am gong to disconnect my phone.  Sure enough it was one of the first chopped. 

    Thus, I had to stop at Home Depot and get telephone cable on the way home.  Not sure how much so got two 50 foot cords and a coupler.  But at least now I can put my phone where I want it.  Closet sounds good, smirk.

    On of my favorite department members sent me an email with a bunch on numbers on it.  He teachs subject that should be able to do spreadsheet, so I sent him his inventory back and told him to fix it.  He then put a request for network ports to be repaired, and it’s on my desk.  I’ll put a ticket in AFTER inventory.  Even ran into him in the hall, told him his inventory sucked (not in that many words), and when he asked about the ticket said, "oh, sorry, I have to have the inventory done first."  Hasn’t worked yet, but we’ll see.

    Second floor is finished.  I’ve got half of the portables.  I am hoping my student and I can finish portables tomorrow and start on the first floor.

    So 17 days to go.

  • Day from Hell (Day 1 of 19)

    I got to school having trouble breathing, partly because of the inventory, partly because of the new lab installation and the meeting after school and partly because of the 8:00 am emergency meeting.

    Emergency faculty meetings from this principal are never good, and I was expecting bad news.  They alway means someone is leaving, usually for a promotion.  It also means we aren’t getting a replacement any time soon.  By the way, we’ve averaged about 3 per year getting promoted out of the building, so it really wasn’t unexpected.

    My principal is now Superintendent of West ISD.  Somewhere around Waco.  You see, his dad was super in a small district and he got a lot of really good opportunities because of it.  He’d told me at summer school years ago, that this is why he was working towards the Super certificate.  I did do some major work on his final project.

    So I’m glad he went out and got what he wanted.  BUT he was one of three good principals we’ve had.  we had one bad one and one evil one. 

    By the way, someone sent the new guy to tell me that the evil principal was coming back as intermim.  I need to find out how sent him and kill them.  I also need to teach the new guy to stay out of my room, I don’t need the extra stress now.  I won’t actually kill them, but I will think evil thoughts their way and they really bad things will happen.  Sorry, but this has happened to a lot of people.  I figure the new guy is innocent and doesn’t know better yet. 

    So that’s my first couple of hours. 

    Oh and by the way, if anyone reading this is in on the conspiracy to keep me from eating during the day, would you please stop?

    4th period I worked on the inventory and found out one department chair told her people to send the inventories to HER.  I wouldn’t have a problem with that if

    a) she told me

    b) she had given me the science department inventories within a reasonable time period, but as of right now their inventories are not in my email and that is 1 week and 1 day late.  And a month after I asked for them initially.

    <snarl>

    She probably sent the new guy to me.  Don’t worry, I’m already thinking evil thoughts her way.

    Got through the afternoon meeting (please, I can read, don’t read your freaking handouts too me), but my biggest question which had been asked in advance had not been addressed until I asked it at the meeting <sigh>

    Even got to agility class in time to walk the course.  BUT after I got to the second class my feet were freezing and I couldn’t run any more.

    And that’s only the first day out of 19!

    The next three weeks are the weeks from hell as I do

    a) the inventory

    b) get the new equipment installed

    c) surviving without a principal

  • Computer Science Teacher – Thoughts and Information from Alfred Thompson : Thanksgiving Reading

    Dang, Alfred posts some really good stuff when I don’t really have time to deal with it.  This looks like something I need though, so I’m saving it in the blog.

    Functional Programming? Ever wonder about it? It’s getting a lot of attention in many higher education computer science circles.

    Computer Science Teacher – Thoughts and Information from Alfred Thompson : Thanksgiving Reading

  • Certification/Education

    Am watching CBS Sunday Morning and saw something that really disturbed me.  Cleveland has got someone running an Academy (small high school), who is neither certified or has education credentials.  At least he sees the value of standardized tests.  So many people with that background don’t.

    Now, I am not only certified, but have a Master’s in Education — Cognitive Studies and Computer Education.  However, when I first decided I wanted to be a teacher I tried to do it with out the credentials.  And I honestly don’t think I would have lasted or made it if I had gone the road I wanted to go — which was emergency certification.

    Emergency certification in Texas places someone in the classroom without the education and credentials.  I think I would have fallen flat on my face.  Though I will admit that that teaching certification didn’t do a whole lot for me when it comes to classroom management.  I mostly learned what not to do.  Teaching dog obedience classes taught me more.

    We also have alternative certification where the teaching candidate pays someone, often a district but Region 10 does that too, to get trained to be a teacher.  I’ve not been very impressed with the abilities of those who come in that way — there are missing a lot of skills and information that I had before the Master’s, much less after.

    Which also reminds me of a movie I saw this weekend — which is Freedom Writers.  They never explained where she came from — but man, oh man, was she not prepared those first few days.   It also bothered me that the actors were way too old for 9th graders, but beside the point.  I was glad to see at the end of the movie that the teacher acknowledged that she didn’t know if she could duplicate her success with another group of kids.

    Here’s the deal:  when you teach high school you are influencing lives.  If you screw it up, you can screw up someone for life.  To this day, there are two teachers I remember the most: one is the idiot who taught Algebra II in Jackson, MS who claimed I couldn’t do Computer Science because I couldn’t do word problems.  The other is the Physics teacher at the same school who held an extreme prejudice against me because I was a Yankee.  He also wouldn’t induct me into the National Honor Society even through I was in the top 10% of the class.  I have viewed NHS with suspicion ever since.  Both have added to my academic insecurity.

    The whole point of my rant again is to explain why teaching without certification bugs me and while Freedom Writers bugs me.

    An successful educator can duplicate their results.  Also successful curriculum has to work for every student, not just a few.   I think both the principal in Cleveland and the Freedom Writers’ teacher have stumbled on a technique that is only going to affect a few.  Granted these are a few students that really need help, but if the technique depends on the educator’s personality meshing with the personality of the students we’re not accomplishing the task.  What happens if something happens to the teacher? 

    Also the Freedom Writer’s program was extremely impractical.  Who has the time and energy to work two jobs to support the main job, and why should you?  At lot of her funding issues should have been taken care of by the school — books for example, but she had a lot of expenses that just were not practical no matter the neighborhood.  I love Randy Pausche’s line from his book — airline attendants give the best advice, put on your oxygen mask before you put on someone else’s.  That’s why I am taking off next Friday, I’m going to take care of myself.

  • This is kinda of sad

    Seems there are more teachers than learners for programming.Schoolofeverything

  • I hate Tech Apps especially Web Mastering

    I am certified in Tech Apps, and I have can also teach web mastering as I taught it before you have to be individually certified in it.  In other words, I’ve taught a lot of web mastering.  I really hate doing it though.

    First, I’m not an artist.  Yes, I can look at a website and know it sucks.  I can even design some elementary graphical art if I can find a tutorial that does what I want it to do.

    Second, I’m a programmer.  HTML coding is not programming.  It’s doing what I am doing now, typing.  It’s got a simple set of rules but so does desktop publishing, etc.  Code is at a much higher level and is much more fun.  HTML coding is boring.

    Third is projects.  High school students are horrible at long terms, as a rule.  There are exceptions, but the kids that are attracted to a web mastering course do not have the attention span for a long term project.  In fact, CS kids do better if they can finish an assignment in a class period, and thankfully most of the projects in my CS courses are one day projects.

    I really admire the people who can teach web mastering and multi-media, BUT give me a math class any day over the tech apps courses.

  • Update Your Feeds!

    I’ve decided to go for it, so if you want to keep up with the blog with an RSS reader, you’ll want to update your feed.

  • Moving Sites

    First, I am seriously thinking of moving to TypePad.  It is the easiest way to migrate, and frankly I’m tired up hosting my own website.  I need to find out if I can move my email address to one place and the blogs to another, and how.  It would cut down on expenses too.

     

    I’m also not interested in keeping up with Linux/Unix stuff, it is REALLY a pain.  And it seems once I get everything working again, Movable type does an upgrade I have to install.

     

    The nice thing is that Adobe Contribute works REALLY well with Typepad.


  • Working on Tuesday

    I am teaching staff development on Tuesday.  And yes, I will know acknowledge that probably doing staff development during the school year only is probably going to save the district money, as I am teaching this session for only 3 people and did the rest of the computer science teachers last summer.  They would not have to pay me Tuesday if they required us to do the staff development on the same day.

     

    Here’s how it’s been working — they offer staff development in the summer — my session was only one day since there was about 12 computer science teachers in the district.  If we do the staff development in the summer, we don’t have to do it during the school year.  Thus, I have Monday off.

     

    So what am I planning to teach:

    • The first part will be done by my specialist. It will probably take two hours.
    • Raptor
      • How to download
      • How to do a basic flow chart
      • Details in graphics and animation.
      • Short hands on assigment, probably bounce a ball around the screen
    • Alice — will be loaded on the new computers
      • Overview on Alice and how to set it up so it does Java code
      • Short Alice assignment
    • Java —
      • Overview of A Plus materials (probably not needed) since we’re using them
      • Do a A Plus lab
    • Java – Computational Media – where are the resources
    • Visual Basic
      • How to download VB Express
      • Coding For Fun – Cowbow on the Mobile phone assignment
      • Creating Websites – my personal and Hillcrest Website
    • C++
      • How to download C++
      • combination of Visual Basic and Java
      • Allows Zune and Game development

     

    Probably won’t get through EVERYTHING but its better to overplan and if I guess correctly on how is going to show up, a lot of this will go fast.

  • Coding Horror: We Are Typists First, Programmers Second

    Quoted from http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/001188.html:

     

    Coding Horror: We Are Typists First, Programmers Second

     


    Coding is just typing.

     

    He’s right.  First, at one point in my life, I typed over 150 words a minute and was even faster at 10 key.  Why?  Because I wanted to know what my program was going to do.  I’ve have lovely ideas, but I couldn’t see them come to fruitation until I got them entered.  I was also extremely accurate because we were doing punch cards.

     

    Worse, yet, I’ve often described my programming classes as a really bizarre typing class.  It takes a LONG time for students to get programming and start writing their own programs. Its’ more than just typing though, they have to read and follow the directions and let me tell you 9th graders are horrible at it. 

    By the way, I just got a lovely email telling me my passing rate is over 20% and I have to fill out a ton of paperwork. Sadly, I let a lot of kids get by because a) they were trying things, and b) it cuts down the paperwork.