Category: Blog

I have spent the last three days playing with VmWare’s Player and I really like it for development.  I have a Ubuntu machine setup for Android development now and working on a Windows 7 machine.  Earlier this morning I blogged about setting up a Windows XP machine so I could work with my insulin pump.

I see a lot of good in having a Virtual machine for development.  You can do whatever you want and don’t have to worry about screwing up your REAL machine.  That is especially cool is you are working on anything server related.

Here’s the cool part.  You can put the virtual machine on a drive and move it from machine to machine.  That is really powerful if you need to work on a school network.  I don’t like dragging my home computers back and forth, but don’t mind dragging a drive.  In fact, that’s how one of my laptops got broke.

Cool stuff.

Week well spent.

Thanks again IBM.

I’ve spent of this week at the IBM Summer Innovation Camp, and had a wonderful time learning about Android stuff.  So much so, that I’ve downloaded VMware, and am setting up a Ubuntu machine, and installing all the software from camp.

There is a facebook page at:  https://www.facebook.com/events/313435835415338/permalink/325916130833975/#!/IICDallas

and

https://www.facebook.com/events/313435835415338/

They took us through installing Ubuntu, Ellipse, and other tools, and had labs on setting up a HTML, CSS, JScript page to several different phone apps, all of which could be expanded on.  I have all the stuff here at home, so I’m going to keep working on it and see what I can bring into the classroom.

IBMer’s were great.  Kids were great.  UTD was great.  Overall good experience.

I’ve been recommending this for a while, but ran into something this weekend, that really impressed me, and that’s the fact that he’s put all of his quizzes in Moodle.

You can get most of what you need set up pretty quickly as a result.

Website is at http://www.apluscompsci.com and the pricing is reasonable.

He even does Moodle hosting if you need that.

Dallas school employees must receive gender equality training after a U.S. Department of Education investigation into the district’s boys-only field trip in February to see the war movie Red Tails.

Dallas ISD must provide gender equality training after boys-only field trip to see ‘Red Tails’ | Dallas-Fort Worth Education News – News for Dallas, Texas – The Dallas Morning News

Not a bad idea.  I’ve been through gender equity training a bunch of times, and it doesn’t hurt.

Last year, the district sent out a story that offended several women on my campus and our poor principal was quite confused, as a woman had given him the materials. 

I’m going to present a workshop on using RobotC to program Lego Robots to do autonomous stuff at TCEA

§ Details of Session

Session Number:  133149
Session Title:   Using RobotC to Program an Autonomous Robot
Track:  Technology Applications
Date:  2/7/2013
Time:    1:30:00 PM to 4:30:00 PM
Format: PC Workshop

Will be putting it on my staff development Moodle so if you sign up for it, email me at kathleen @ kweaver dot org and I’ll put you on the moodle.

Starbucks just finished up another Donor’s Choose project for me.  That’s 4 projects this summer.  Two for my classroom, two for the Robot Team.  The last project was on the site for two weeks and was for almost $300.00

I really urge other teachers to join, and I really urge you to look at my projects and see what I’ve done.

I’m not sure what my magic is exactly but it works.

Email me at kathleen at kweaver.org as I have a Staff Development website where I discuss fundraising.

I have two friends that don’t, but I do.

Especially during the school year.

Monday is when I get to see my kids again.  I get to find out what they did on the weekend and we usually start  usually do something new on Mondays.

I miss school Mondays.

Right now, Monday is just when I don’t see my husband again for 5 days.

And I just posted this to make them mad.

I got an great phone call this morning.  One of the members of the Junior League of Dallas called, and she let me know that they were funding the Robotics team again next year.  It's not ALL the money we need, but it's a major chunk!

She said that they really enjoyed helping us last year, and wanted to again.

Please join my Moodle group, and I'll be happy to share my Junior League experiences.

You'll find the posting here:

https://bl2prd0410.outlook.com/owa/redir.aspx?C=vV8AOwh1bU6-HuqUXHkJirR4pTsXN88IUN9Tya9geRQlAZiS-Kga1pBCCOM8OMJBnjSZPk1xz2Q.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.applitrack.com%2fdallasisd%2fonlineapp%2fdefault.aspx%3fCategory%3dCentral%2bStaff%26subcategory%3dCoordinator

I like my job, and god and my boss have told me to stay there today.  (Long story for another post).

This could be a game-changer for the right person, if you are patient.  This could be a position that will allow you to make computer science more important to a major district.  However, there isn't a lot of money in Texas for education.

Email me at kweaver at dallasisd dot org if you have questions, and you will have my full support, in changing the game.

Things I’m liking about him:

From the DaMN (my favorite way to spell Dallas morning news):

– What he expects from parents: “We want no excuses around three things” : 1) Get their kids to school on time, every day. 2) Have their kids read every day, even if it’s not in English and even if it’s a TV Guide, comic book or cereal box. At every age. 3) Get them to do their homework. Set up a quiet place at home for study, the kitchen table for example.

DISD Superintendent Mike Miles on finances, teacher pay, top worries

Yep, I’ll go with that.

– On whether he expects each teacher’s evaluation grade to be publicly available: “I try to do things that help the education institution, that helps kids. I’m not sure that the public always understands the numbers. … That’s a lot of information for the parent to absorb. If there’s not a good explanation, data is misused, the teachers get hurt for no reason. …”

On of the issues with my numbers, is that my sample size is so small.  I have about a 33% passing rate of students who take the AP exam without taking PreAP.  Sample size of 3.  I have a 100% passing rate of students who take the AP example with taking the PreAP.  Sample size of 30 over 20 years.  Not really useful numbers.

The thing I don’t like is the expectation of teacher turnover.  I am really proud of the fact that I’ve taught in the same room for 20 years.  However, I’ve changed my curriculum and adapted to my students, and I certainly haven’t taught the same subjects in that room.  I’ve taught:

• AP Computer Science A (three language changes)
• AP Computer Science AB (now dead)
• Pre AP Computer Science (three language changes)
• Computer Science I (two language changes)
• Computer Math (now dead)
• Algebra I
• Geometry
• Algebra II
• Lots of different type of remedial math
• Webmastering
• BCIS I
• BCIS II

Next year I’ll be teaching:

• AP Computer Science
• PreAP Computer Science
• Computer Science Fundamentals
• Game Programming
• Web Mastering