Category: Blog

One of the ways teachers are compensated is through pensions. Yes, I know a lot of teachers who work well beyond retirement age – many of the really good teachers in our building are in their late 60’s and 70’s. A few years back, we had a teacher die just before her retirement date. In fact, we had her visitation on the day her retirement party was scheduled. She’d been with our district for 37 years. She was a dynamic teacher who had a lot of students who were very much attached to her.

The whole pension thing is a gamble on both ends – the entity provided the pension is hoping I will die before they have to pay me. I’m gambling that I will actually get that pension and that the money will actually be there.

What really bothers me though, is when the rules are changed mid-stream – it’s happened here in Texas – so far, most of the rules have been grandfathered, but not always. It is not fair to tell me when I am 24 that part of my compensation is a pension and then change that pension when I’m 35, 45, or worse yet, in my 60’s.

So yes, it’s very bothersome to see that pensions maybe affected by government entity going bankrupt. It’s bad enough when it is a private sector business. Another reason not to have your pay and retirement coming from the same place.

It is a full computer in a tablet form factor. $299 price point without a keyboard. It is definitely an ipad killer, probably a Surface RT and maybe Pro killer. I would still like a pen with this form factor. I also think it is a Chromebook killer.

I think it would make a nice option for elementary and middle school 1:1, I would spend a bit more for high school and give them a bigger screen and a real keyboard.

Cons: no real usb ports, need a micro hub and battery power.

Pros: Small, we will on battery life, they claim 8 hours. Runs real programs. Touchscreen but I would buy without.

I’m lucky enough to be doing an online staff development with St. Scholastica – it’s a course on teaching with App Inventor – and this is the college I went to last summer for Tapestry.

I love the model and really wish the AP College Board people would take a look at it. I hate, HATE, HATE, the 1 week and even 2 day College Board Workshop format and I’ve even taught it once. Way too much material in too short a time frame and no way to absorb it all. Gridworld has been done in a similar fashion but not quite as well as what I am seeing so far.

They have combined a traditional online course with Google Handouts and have assigned us to PLN groups of 10 for discussion. We haven’t had our first group yet, so I can’t tell you how that works out. They are also having weekly large group hangouts – and if you miss it record it for later viewing.

I like the interactivity they have done so far, and the fact that the material is spaced out over a long time period rather than expecting us as teachers to learn an entire year’s material in one week. I have trouble with that concept and I’ve been teaching this stuff for 21 years, gone to over 10 of those workshops and taught one.

And yes, I’ll keep complaining about staff development until it gets fixed.

CSTA’s annual conference has no exhibit hall. It does have industry sponsorship
though and that has generally meant that there were some industry speakers.
There was not a specific quid pro quo though.

via blog.acthompson.net

Alfred is blogging about conferences, and his perspective has been as a paid "booth babe".

As a teacher, and one from a poor school district — I usually have to foot at least half my bill, if not all of it — I have to be reallly choosy when it comes to professional conferences.

I've been to CSTA twice, and like it the best.  I went last year when it was in California and when it was a one day in San Antonio — flew in the morning and out that evening via Southwest Airlines.  Both on my own dime.  Very low key, packed with good stuff.

My next favorite conference is Grace Hopper, been once and came back very optimistic and recharged.  Wanted to go last year, but my principal nixed it and he was right.  Too early in the school year.  

TCEA is my next favorite, but there is a huge problem with it — too many days, not enough computer science and expensive.  However, I'm trying to fix the not enough computer science and put in proposals for a Robotics and a CS talk.  Last year I did a robotics one and a bunch of years back did a CS one.  (Remember, I've been doing the CS teacher thing for 21 years, I should be contributing).  Whem I've been lucky someone has foot part of the bill — district had scholarships for about half twice, and Lego Education paid room last year.

SIGCSE is at the wrong time, usually right before our spring break whih my district won't let us take off.  It was even in Dallas and I couldn't get away for it because of that.

I have been to SIGSCE once.  It was good.   

TCEA isn't at a great time either.  Most CS teachers don't go to it precisely because of the timing.  More would go if it were in the summer — but then the ones that say that don't make it to CSTA either.

My biggest problem with CSTA, is the price point, though I could probably find some place near to the conference center to stay at and commute.  Just didn't work out this year.

A RigRunner is a cool little device that allows you to make your ham radios plug and play. Here is mine:

And it’s actually pretty small.

I had to connect it to the existing cable that I had powering my mobile rig, then connect the rigs and USB to it. I was lucky, Texas Towers had an MFG power cable that already had the power poles on it, so that a) saved a step, and b) showed me what I was shooting for.

I added power poles to my cable for my HF rig, and now have two mobile rigs in the car powered up, while charging my cell phone.

I can take any DC power cord now, and power Anderson Power Pole on it and plug into this thing, and might very well do that.

One added plus, is all I have to do , is pull the red DC cable and I know the power is off.

Another pat on my back, is I did a NASA splice, just like I make my robot kiddos do.

Alfred “interviewed” me at http://blog.acthompson.net/2013/06/cs-educator-interview-kathleen-weaver.html?spref=tw and I thought there would be more back and forth but maybe this is the way to do it.

Texas has TEKS for every course, a list of things we are supposed to address. The Tech Apps and CS course TEKS are listed here: http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter126/ch126c.html

Our district has curriculum planning guides but they are going away. That means they won’t be updated, but that also means that they can’t make me throw mine away. Two other teachers wrote a document that is worth about 4 weeks’ worth of class, maybe more that is mostly social networking. I took our old CPG, took out the software and aligned it to old TEKS and made it available to the rest of the group.

We also have a final exam that is provided by the district that is used to assess the principals and the school, and I spent some time on about 10 years ago. I’ve been vetting it, and complaining about questions but haven’t been listened to in a while. That makes up 15% of the semester grade. It is also supposed to be used to evaluate me next year. I am supposed to be writing questions for it. We’ll have to see if any of my input is listened to. So far I am not optimistic.

Do I sound frustrated?

The way I teach the class, and the way I have designed the class, is that we have students design web pages while teaching them HTML, CSS, and the software that is available to use it. Last year, I used Expression Web and Adobe CS 4. Why Adobe CS4? There are massive test questions on it. Also Flash. Why Flash? There are massive test questions on Flash.

The part that frustrates students, is that we have them write web pages that they can use. Here is a list:

• Write an About Me web page
• Write a Greeting Card web page with images
• Create a vacation website using a common external style sheet
• Write a Client Web Site for a client you pick
• Create a logo for yourself
• Create a banner for yourself
• Create a Portfolio showing all the work you did in the course

The part the hate the most is coming up with original ideas. They really just want to copy something that someone else did, but then isn’t the course, just a weird typing class?

Oh, and guess what I get – 5 or 6 of the same web sites – pounding head against wall.

Hopefully I’ll feel better in August.

I’m running Windows 8.1 RT – was a painless, but extremely long update process. All my data is still here. Not that I really cared if it was gone.

So far, I’ve noticed the Start Button which I don’t really need, and Outlook which is nice to have back. Just wish the people, mail, and calendar apps were unlinked.

Basically it’s a giant Nexus Tablet with a keyboard. I hate the fact that it doesn’t have a touch screen.

I got the ASUS version which isn’t bad. I have a ton of ASUS’s netbooks around – 2 in my classroom for Robots, several here around the house and what I really like about them is that I can download the Microsoft programming tools (Visual Studio, etc), or the Java tools and write a program. I like the Netbooks

AM NOT seeing how to do that – and not seeing that in a Google search. I’ll try Bing in a bit.

I know I can do web pages – there are plenty of text editors, plenty of tools that let me do WordPress and Typepad.

Good news:

• I can do Scratch – it’s in the browser now.

Bad news:

• I can’t do Alice.

Useless for computer science, could live with for Web Design but would like to be able to do Adobe stuff with it.

I have taught computer science and web design for more than three decades.  I retired as of May 2025.  I’ve decided to take advantage of Texas’s Senior Waiver and am taking classes at my local community college.

I currently have three other blogs:

• Living with Diabetes and Lapband
• Adventures in Training the Beagles
• Fitness

I enjoy sharing what I am doing, so see my posts in the sidebar.

You can find me:

• Linkedin
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One of the summer projects I have taken on is to convert my breeder’s website from Front Page to Word Press. Don’t laugh, its’ been working for her.

It’s a win-win for both of us. We have known each other for years, back when she worked for Richardson ISD, and I wasn’t even a teacher yet. Neither of us knew what we knew today, especially about dogs, but we love beagles and have our hearts in the right place.

She got lucky breeding and ended up with some really nice dogs. I got lucky training and have ended up with some really well behaved dogs. Yeah, they are beagles.

Anyway, she’s been asking me questions and right before school was out, laid the project out for me. Came at a good time – I’ve finally decided to stop fighting the Web Design / Tech Apps teaching thing and embrace it.

I was talking about it to a friend last night – I would have loved this class when I was a kid – and I would be rolling in the dough. Instead, I get kids like M.A. who claims he wants to learn the stuff, but spends his time doing one of three things: napping, playing games or watching movies. While his mom is supporting three kids working at Wal-Mart. ARGH!

His younger brother want to take the class next year, and boy oh boy am I ready for him. Yeah, I knew my stuff before, but now, I’m practicing what I am preaching.

Oh, the website: http://www.tesorosbeagles.com and we have it looking that way for a reason, but will be branching out to other stuff soon.

And the other part of the web design summer – taking the district final (ACP), from a software specific test to a non-denominational test where we can pick and choose wat we teach.

Want to spend the year teaching Word Press? GO FOR IT!

And if you know anyone who wants a customized Word Press site….