Author: kathleen

So I have seen shows on Hoarders, both the material kind and the animal hoarder kind, but I haven’t seen any help for Digital Hoarders.

I am one.

The worst part is that it isn’t very well organized. I was looking for the applications for a grant that I reviewed last year, and did find them, all in one PDF file, but that’s okay. I’ve got what I need.

I’ve got something on the school computer that aren’t anywhere else, some things on the cloud, and some things on three servers, all of which I can access through the internet.

Can you imagine what it would look like if the files were actually physical files? Or worse yet, dogs.

This rarely happens, but I found something that I REALLY like about the new DISD Guest account at our school. You can’t see the printers! Totally a win, as I get tired of random documents printed on my printers. My favorite was another teacher’s resume and cover letter.

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There are some really good ideas here that I would like to implement.

As a teacher, students in my class were encouraged to use their cell phones as a tool to enhance the learning environment.

via justintarte.blogspot.com

There are some really good ideas here that I would like to implement.

Just got updated, and I’m liking that I can blog from it.

Haven’t found a real use, but then you never know…..

My presentation was on our robotics team.  I tried to make it very general, as I had a varied audience.  I had people who were doing the next higher level of Robotics, and had people doing the lower levels.  I had elementary students and middle school students.  I had parents.

I had a short Power Point on the Robotics program and brochures for both my computer science program and on the Robotics team.

I also showed a movie of the competition.

We were able to drive the robot the first two presentations and then RobotC stopped working.  I think I’ll probably have to download and install it again.

I asked the audience questions as we went and explained the problems of the competition.  I was talking about negative numbers to a group when we were able to drive the program since you use negative numbers to make the robot back up.

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There were lots of other presenters, and unfortunately with the format didn’t get to see them.  Met a few after, Zynga in particular, and they seemed happy with the situation.

It rocked!

We had a good representation of colleges and universities, industry and the local high school teachers.

We had over 300 DISD students attend, we ran out of sign-in sheets and door prize tickets. The families that attended were very diverse, and we reached the younger crowd and lots of girls.

The reason I have been quiet lately, is that my Robot Teams recently competed.  I mentor two teams at Hillcrest, Team 4866 and Team 5763. 

Team 5763 was asked to the alliance. The chief building was focusing on the Bowling Ball which got 48 points at least each time, and they were listed as #2 most of the time during the Qualifying Rounds

We have two major sponsors:

Team 4866 is sponsored by the Texas Workforce Commission

Team 5763 is sponsored by the Junior League of Dallas

We have some major work to do if we want to be successful, and I am having the kids work on that now. 

First is the engineering notebook.  I have a kid that likes technical writing, I just need to get him to focus.  I’m helping him a lot with that.

Second is programming.  The kids haven’t gotten enough experience programming and I am planning on getting all the drivers to learn programming well as the builders.  Leaving the robots at home, and learning just the Lego parts has helped.  Everything IS back at school, and I am letting one of the builders build when he comes in at lunch.

Another part is t-shirts, and I am seriously thinking of requiring money from each student to cover t-shirts.  So far, I’ve not asked the kids to contribute financially.

Our next event is the school’s Open House, and I am going to have some of the drivers come and drive.  I also need to get flyers together.

We’re also going to the district’s Computer Science Open House later this month.

There are two ways to help contribute to the team, we have a Café Press fund raiser at http://www.cafepress.com/hillcrestpantherrobotics and I always have a Donor’s Choose project at http://www.donorschoose.com/kweaver

It's funny how you learn as much as your students sometime when you teach.

We are working hard to stop bullying in the classroom and yes, most of the time bullying in the classroom occurs because students are insecure.

The part that gets me, is how much bullying I see in outside the classroom, among adults.

Also it gets to me, pretty badly, but the nice thing is I can talk about it with students and we all learn together. 

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Though I am a bit afraid to share, since there is only so much money to go around and so many things needed… and this is the basis of a talk I have proposed for an upcoming conference.

Donor’s choose at http://www.donorschoose.com is a great way to get small items for your classroom.  I started out asking for XBox Controller’s and have graduated to netbooks and XBox’s. 

Here’s how Donor’s Choose works:

• Sign up and get initial points.  Since I am doing Game Programming, I asked for XBox controllers.  It took a few months but I got donations and got them.
• Once you get a project funded, you get the item, and then you have acknowledge the award.
• They want pictures of the items being used.
• Signed permission slips from the students.
• Thank you letters.
• Once you’ve done the above, you can get more points.

Couple of hints: 

• Make your projects as small as possible. I find it easier to get Netbooks funded than it is for Notebooks. BTW, Netbooks are great for programming NXT Robots, with RobotC.
• Go back to your old projects so you don’t have to write everything from scratch.  Each project gets easier to write and to fund.
• Be creative in your writing.  Keywords are low income, minority, etc.  Also, my Game Programming and my Robots projects are hits with the techies.

I’ve also received several grants and have been on the evaluation end of a yearly reward given by my district.  To get a grant, work on it in pieces, don’t try to do it all at once.  If you need letters of recommendation, write the letter for the other person, email them and let them tweak it.  That’s makes it easier for them and lets them focus on the aspect you need for the grant or the award.

The biggest thing when filling out any form, is to give them only what they need and make it as clear and succinct as possible.  The reader will glaze over after the third sentence. 

In the past few years, I’ve gotten the following:

• TI Teaching Fellow and Innovative Teacher in STEM (first year it was awarded)
• 2 grants from the Texas Workforce Commission for Robotics
• 1 grant from the Junior League
• 11 projects from Donor’s Choose
• 1 student so far – Dallas Maverick’s Co-Captain

The biggest thing – FOLLOW AND READ DIRECTIONS!