Author: kathleen

In an effort to continue with my vacation and contiue having fun i did some touristy things in dallas.

after seeing my chiropractor – and my old one deserted me! – i made my way to the Woman’s Musuem at Fair Park. its very nice,good exhibits and good gift shop. i went because of their twitter feed and met their twitterer.

the i went downtown and headed towards the west end. downtown is harder to navigate with the trains. had lunch at favorite place spaghetti warehouse and gave my parking slip to the people who got my space when i was done.

i am hoping my waitress gets in touch with me, a cute kiddo who said she was interested in CS. i offered to help her and hopefully she will take me up on it.

i was good eating my protein first – okay i did have a few bited of sourdough bread first and had a few bites of spagetti and garlic bread.

now i am chilling and waiting for my sleep doctor.

This has been a fun and productive summer.

So far, I’ve taught summer enrichment camp — girls going into 8th grade – Alice, Web journaling, and movies without cameras.

I’ve worked on the district final (Computer Science I VB).  We call them ACPs.  I don’t know how many hours total I put into that, but will find out with the next check or so.  I think we wrapped it up today, but we might get called back.  I worked on that with another individual.  I was supposed to work with two, but she never returned my phone calls.

I went to a teacher workshop that paid money (I’ve gotten smart, they didn’t take money out of the check for taxes, so I’m taking an extra $25.00 a month out for the rest of the year).

Monday I’m taking a training session for a camp that I hope makes. 

Tuesday, I’m leaving for a workshop that is free, plus $200 for expenses.

Then the summer camp I was just mentioning that runs from August 3rd for two weeks.

Not much time off, but I did take in Washington DC when I went to the first teacher workshop.

Love the extra pay!  It’s not much but better than having to go through the process of looking for a job, though findiing a part time job that pays $20 a hour isn’t easy, even when times are good.

I have heard from both my students who took the AP Test – the AB student made a 3 – I wanted him to take the A test but you know teenagers….

My A student made a 5. That’s consistent with the results I’ve been getting the last few years, I don’t get a lot of students, but they do well on the test.

Got an email yesterday morning that the ATT Home Manager was on sale for $99.99.  SOLD!  Seriously.

This is a system I’ve wanted since it came out, but $299.99 and $199.99 were just too expensive for what you get.  And you get a lot.  The base station, a frame and a handset.  But $99.99 is definitely worth it.

It’s very easy to hook up.  You take the base station and plug it into your  network via ethernet, plug in a phone cable and the power.

Frame and handset are even easier.  They each have a base that plugs in to the wall.  It took a while for the frame and handset to see the system.

I also got an extra frame — and it was missing the March update but got updated in the night.

And an extra handset.  You can add two more handsets so I am going to get them and completely replace my old system.

The frames are great — they are a beautiful photo frame — best resolution and quality we’ve seen. They also don’t sound like a speaker phone and at $49.99 a piece a good deal. However, you can only have two frames on the system.

The handsets are good too.

There some things lacking — until July 13th, you could sync your mobile phone contacts with the system but since it didn’t work with the iPhone, ATT is eliminating the service — that’s a major fail.

It needs a web browser and a configurable RSS reader.

I would LOVE for it to do twitter and that’s just a software thing.  Same thing with Facebook.

But for a wireless phone system, it’s all good.

However, I haven’t actually done it with a participant and am hoping that the workshop I am going to next will embrace it, in fact I just asked them to.

What is it?  Backchannelling.  There is an article about it at http://pistachioconsulting.com/twitter-presentations/ and I would like to find a way to do this with my students.  I’ll need to look at our moodle site and see if there is a way we can this.

Here’s what I REALLY like to do at a workshop.  I like for the presenter’s notes to be made available electronically and I like to put them in one-note and put my own notes along side.  I find it make easier to pay attention and be focused.

I will often put a note on the screen for the person next to me and have even handed them my notebook for a response, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a “real” backchannel to discuss the goings on.

And yes when the talk is really bad, I’ll go do something else.

Found cardstore.com via the USPS site this morning in an effort to grow up. i know i have been a member of a card service before but did not use it, but i did this morning!

i felt the need to send thank you cards to the workshop organizers and my mother. later realized i needed to do the same for the lady who hired me for sujmmer camp.

i am not organized enough for sending cards. it means buying them, keeping them, writing on them, addressing the envelopes, putting stamps on them, and dropping them in the post office box.

this site does the whole chore for a fee and personalizes the cards. better yet people dont have to deal with my handwriting.

My phone — ATT Fuze

Twitter — to keep up with weather at home, what was going on etc.  Also to post updates on both Facebook and twitter for family to know where I was at.
Email – to keep up with husband
(I don’t think he does Twitter or Facebook)
ATT Navigator – to find "stuff". Invaluable

My Zune

Kept me entertained on the road
Helped me sleep at night – played music
Could show off my dogs and things, especially the video.

My computer – IBM Thinkpad

Kept me sane during the boring parts of the workshop.
Also all of the above on the phone.

Camera – Kodak Easy Share

Took lots of pictures.

Things I wish I had

Charger for my tweaker speakers.

Things I didn’t need

Emergency power for CPA (but that’s the point, and in truck you can’t over pack)
Second computer – but didn’t know that and there were times I used it.

Flip Camera

The bolded stuff is going next week, when I am flying and you CAN over pack.

If you ever get a chance to go to a Tapestry Workshop by the University of Virginia, GO!

I’ll warn you ahead of time, it is primarily a lecture workshop.  I wasn’t prepared for that, but it was okay.

Most of the presentations were good and either validated what I knew or I gained new knowledge.  Everyone made me think about how I teach and what I teach.

There is LOTS of walking.  Both knees are really bothering me now.  The UVA is not really accessible.  They are trying, but it’s a tough place to do it.

The food was out of this world.  The dining hall was a bit teenager / college student oriented, but that’s there job.  The university catering service is out of this world.  We had a different type of meal each time we ate their food.  The biggest surprise was getting our honorarium there when we returned our dorm keys..

Information for this years workshop is at http://www.cs.virginia.edu/tapestry/

There are several problems with Computer Science teachers

We know we are the smartest person in the room.

We are competitive

We have massive egos.

Over the years, I used to really stress out over teacher workshops because they would have us do stuff in groups and it would never work out very well.

So here’s how I deal with it now.  I try to contribute with the group, but if the other people shut me out, I just quit and walk away.

It’s REALLY cut down on the stress for this workshop and the previous ones.