Technology and CS in Dallas

Author: kathleen

  • An Open Discussion for Gifted Education: Bragging

    Quoted from http://rcmsgifted.blogspot.com/2009/04/bragging.html:

    An Open Discussion for Gifted Education: Bragging


    When is it okay to brag about being super smart?

    I get aggravated at some of the really smart kids at our school because they don’t want anyone to know they are smart.  I’ve had discussions about it both privately and individually when it hit me a few years back, I tend to hide my smartness myself in order to get along with other people.

    Let’s face it, I teach computer science, when it comes to technology I am the smartest person in the room.

    So I make a concentrated effort to model proper "smartest person" in the room behavior. Being helpful, and demonstrating cool technology stuff to as many people as I can when I am NOT in my room.

    I also model good sports bragging behavior, as I am an active participant in dog agility.  I do this by displaying my ribbons and sharing my accomplishments with people who are interested in such things.

    I think modeling behavior is very effective with students — though it takes a long time for it to have an effect.

  • Zune – Perfect Gift for Grads, Mom and other special events

    I have come up with perfect gift for prom, mother’s day, etc. A Zune, but not just any Zune, but a preloaded one.

    For Prom, load it with some of the songs from Prom night, load it with the Prom pictures.

    Same type of thing, for mother’s day, especially if you’re an adult and have children.  Load it up with the children singing, maybe even some videos along with the pictures.

    Best yet, take it somewhere and have the back laser etched with something meaningful.

  • Blending Blogging and Twitter

    I love Twitter.  I’ve used twitter for a long time and I use it a lot.  I’ve gotten a lot of good out of it and have posted about it in the past.

    What I have been doing is blending my blogs with Twitter.

    If I feel something I want to say takes more than 140 characters, like this post, I go to one of my two blogs and blog about it.  I have both blogs set up so that when I make a post, in a few minutes the post is tweeted by Tweeterfeed (http://twitterfeed.com/)

    Also, if you go to my blogs, both of them have a twitter feed going on the side, so anything I post to twitter appears on the blog.

    It works really well for me, and I get a lot of good interaction that way.

  • TELPAS Reading Testing

    I hate online testing.  Especially since we only have computer labs for computer classes.  Nothing that isn’t being accessed most of the day by an assigned class.

    Today was the first day of testing and we got through it.

    However, I had installed the software as soon as we returned from spring break.  It was fine in one room but all of the icons were missing in the other room.

    I punted, installed the testing software over Deep Freeze in my classroom, we tested the first group in my room, and sent my students to the original testing room which gave me time to figure out what happened.

    Found the software, and used Lanschool to fire it out over the room.  Worked okay but there are some additional problems with that lab.

    I pushing hard to get Deep Freeze installed in all the labs since the business teachers not only don’t supervise their students but teach the students how to use proxy to get to blocked websites.  <sigh>

    The bad part, since I manage my lab and students well, MY students suffer for it, were without a teacher most of the day because administration decided they didn’t really need a sub for me. I should have called ofr a guard each time I left the room but there really wasn’t time.

  • Love my HP MediaSmart Server BUT

    it crahsed last night!

    I needed to reboot it, and so I did, and then it got stuck in the boot up process.  Cycled it through the boot cycle server times and got no where.

    This morning tryed a System recovery and got no where again.

    Called HP, gave them all my information and they walked me through a recovery.  It’s looking a lot like one of the drives went bad.

    Oddly enough they want me to do the factory restore on the biggest drive which I am doing now. 

    Hopefully I’ll have good news, but I’ beating that the Seagate 500 gig drive that came with it went south and is one of those that need the firmware patch.

  • HP Media Server – Final Resolution I hope

    So now my server is restoring itself.

    Whew!

    I got what I thought was all the updates, and tried to restore my backup to the server but there was no place to do that and no place to setup the external drive as a System Backup.  Everything I had said that if I added the drive to the server it would reformat.

    NOT GOOD!

    I also had discovered that the drive that shipped with the server has failed. 

    Decided to get both resolved.

    Tech support looked up my S/N and sure enough it was a bad Seagate drive so they are shipping out a new one.

    And why I couldn’t restore?  Hadn’t installed all the service packs.

    So I am happily restoring now.

  • HP MediaSmart Server – Rebuild

    I’m in the process of doing the rebuild.  The first step is scary as it just ends.  Seriously — it gives you a message that it is going to reboot a few times and it does it thing, and then the box disappears.

    You are left however, with a purple health light and a purple drive light.

    I’m currently installing updates and it seems to be going well, though I still can’t get into the server itself to try to restore my data.

  • Mesh

    I love Microsoft’s Mesh service.  Seriously.

    I keep my curriculum stuff there and the projects I am working on . 

    It’s at http://www.mesh.com and although the website is blocked by the district, the client still downloads and works.

    Basically it syncs your files between computers, allows you to share those files with others and gives you remote access to the computers you have it on.

    It’s cool, it works, what more do you want?

  • Presented at teacher event today

    I enjoyed it.  First session was better than the second.

    My district’s instructional technology department put on an event today to teach technology.  Called it 21st Century Technology Conference.

    They had on hands sessions in the computer labs – I did two, repeating the same topic – and they lasted 1 1/2 hours.  They also had regular sessions that lasted 45 minutes.

    I was asked very early to present and I think I am getting paid for it.

    I gave them the choice of two, and they accepted Snag/Camtasia.  TechSmith sent me some freebies which were a real hit.  I covered Screencast.com, Jing, SnagIt and Camtasia, which was probably too much and gave everyone time to play with each part.  I think they enjoyed it – one teacher complained to the workshop coordinated that I didn’t spend enough time on Camtasia so I did it at the beginning of the second session and mentioned it again at the end.

    One of the teacher unions (ATPE I think) provided lunch, but oddly lunch or passing periods were not put in the schedule.

    It was about equal to teaching the AP kids last week (face it, it’s hard to get over children saying thank you!)

    Right now I’m hanging out waiting for the closing session / door prize session (okay, I’m waiting for a door prize but didn’t get one, not that I needed anything they were giving – I already had one of everything they were giving).  A teacher from my school won a Smart Board.

    And as I just told the director of the department – right now I have the best of both worlds.  I still have my own classroom but I get to influence the rest of the district through curriculum design and teacher staff development.

    And it looks like I’ll be doing the middle school camp.  Was warned about that today also.

  • Office Depot Brand Mobile Folding File Cart 16 H x 18 W x 15 D Black Gray by Office Depot

    Mine broke today, primarily because our elevator hasn’t been working all week and I’ve been dragging it down the stairs. Note to self don’t do that.

    Last time I had one break, local Office Depot replaced it for free so I thought I would try that again. Didn’t work but did one almost as good — a blue one for $3.18 with tax. I swear the shelf said $24.95 but may be they are on sale.  I paid for it quick and left fast!

    I like the Blue much better.

    And sadly they have REALLY cut their hours, opening two hours later than before.  Means I can’t hit them on the way to school any more. <pout>

    Quoted from http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/987304/Office-Depot-Brand-Mobile-Folding-File/:

    Office Depot Brand Mobile Folding File Cart 16 H x 18 W x 15 D Black Gray by Office Depot


    Office Depot® Brand Mobile Folding File Cart, 16″H x 18″W x 15″D, Black/Gray