Category: Blog

There are days I wonder why I got into education.

I got an email that said that the proposal to allow students to take Computer Science instead of a foreign language passed. <sigh>

In my opinion and I said it before – it’s wrong and against any ethics I can think of. I’ve asked two people who supported and they said: it will attract students who don’t want to take a foreign language. Frankly I’m a proponent for foreign language education but high school is too late. Of course, high school level courses aren’t taught for people who want to be fluent, they are taught so people can read literature in the original language.

Never a bad thing.

Attracting students who don’t want to take a foreign language – not a good thing.

Several states are looking at proposals that allow Computer Science to be substituted for a foreign language.

I’ve looked at this from several points of view.

First, as a curriculum designer, and I have looked at both the Language TEKS and the Computer Science TEKS and I see that the share very few objectives.

Second, as a former foreign language student and as a computer scientist. I took 4 years of Latin in high school, my choice. I thought it would be cool to be able to read some of my favorite literature in their original language. It was. I also majored in computer science. Learning 4 years of Latin did not help my ability to write software. While it makes it easier for me to spell, and I understand the rules of language better.

I have challenged advocates of this proposal and they support it to increase the enrollment in their classes, as students don’t want to take a foreign language. Personally I find this offensive that anyone would want to take away from someone else’s program to promote theirs.

I don’t expect that most students take a language in order to read a book in its original language, but most students don’t take 4 years of a language, they only take one.

And if you click here , I get a free month.

I teach XBox programming but don't do a lot of gaming myself.  When I first got my XBox, I bought some games I didn't like but I couldn't return them.  I could resell them at a loss.  That really bummed me.

So I found Gamefly.  It's great, because you can rent games, try them, and even buy them, often at a reduced cost.  My students were meh, about it, but I think it's because of the credit card policy and most don't have access to them.

What I really like about Gamefly is that I can put my membership on hold if I don't have time to game and come back to later, like in the summer, when I do. 

Buy One Month, Get One FREE!

They finally made the Media share plans available to their old customers, saw I to the Twitter and jumped on it. I have two devices now, a phone and a hot spot and was wasting data. I also don’t like not having unlimited talk.

I have yet to use all minutes but still.

I am at 6 gig data, unlimited talk and text and still get my 15% discount so I think I am saving about $20 a month.

Unfortunately not an affiliate. But have been a loyal customer for 3 decades.

Nicole Curtis – Rehab Addict — January 16

PERFECT PBL!

She presented a problem, told them there was no right or wrong answer and left them to think — Urban Garden.

On the job site, she appointed a kid that had been working on the project for a while as foreman.  She stopped and showed them certain tasks — how to plan mum for example — and then let go.

Here's the win-win on this — cheap labor, kids are out getting Vitamin D –AND the kids in the neighborhood have sweat invested in the garden — are they going to tear it up?   Are they going to stand by and let other people tear it up?

No way, no how.   If you are interested in PBL, look up the episode, it just moments, but it's exciting.

I'm in my 2nd period web design class, and I am showing my students how to blog.

I've been using TypePad since they opened business.  They are not free, but I always free you get what you pay for and I have with Typepad.  It's easy to use.  There are lots of different ways to post entries. You can do it on the web, with your mobile phone, with the ipod with an app, (probably with the iPad's, but I haven't tried it). 

There may be an android app, I will have to look but you can certainly do it in Chrome on any Android device.

There are lots of Window's clients and you can even blog in Word, but we're not real happy with it.

Typepad is at http://www.typepad.com and also linked to my site.

New Year is starting – didn't get things rolling in time for kids to have dual credit this year for Web Design L so I'm going to do some new stuff with them this six weeks. Traditionally they are supposed to get a client and make yet another large website, which I know they will hate from past experience. So I think start out with some social networking, based on some stuff I did over break, do some movie making, and expand on what we've done on the past.

Game programming will have to be a quick review, will probably get some new students and I know a lot of the students haven't been thinking about XBox programming

PreAP will be keep on keeping on.

Not sure what I am going to do with CS Fundamentals. Better group that last year, but attendance is spotty with that group. Hard to do anything when you don't have students in the room.

Just glancing at the New York Times article on ADHD and I have been wondering this for a long time. The single biggest problem my children have is focus. Which is a bit crazy as we have short class periods.

The worse group is been my robot kids. I continually have to remind them to pick one task, think about it only, and finish it. They wonder off to other robot tasks, other tasks, and then to completely inappropriate conversations for the classroom. Makes me nuts.

Wish the lower grades had taught them skill before sending them to me.

Well, I might have my own students do something, but our class periods don’t last a few hour.

I really dislike it when people take up my class time for their own agenda. Ask my husband.

It doesn’t matter if it is “Take Your Daughter to Work Day”, someone else’s field trip, etc. I want my students in my classroom each day doing my work.

In return, I am very careful not to take students out of other people classrooms. I have signed students out of their class once, and may have to do it again this year, but at least I’ll plan it in advance this time.

I also think it is too little too late for the upper grades. I wouldn’t mind a program for elementary kids, as long as it is incorporated with other learning. Just don’t hijack other learning.

Oh, and after seeing the look on my principal’s face after mentioning his learning programming recently, I know better than to ask. It looked like my face when you mention the dentist.

We lost power at approximately 4:00 am and again at 9:20 am. When we lost power at 4:00 am we only had part of the pole come back. We were missing completely power for about 3 hours after the 9:20 outage.

My Kindle Fire HDX 7″, HDX Display, Wi-Fi, 16 GB
has been wonderful. Great battery life and very little drain to charge.

My Microsoft – Surface 2 with 32GB – Magnesium
has been even better.

I have Prime and I have been catching up on some TV, alternating between the beagle version of Star Trek: Enterprise and Rehab Addict.

Hey, I’m a nerd, but you knew that.