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I swear, Obama quoted me, as I have been saying this for years.
NCLB (No Child left Behind) is a wonderful idea, poorly implemented and funded.
Oh, THAT’S why Japan had a earthquake. Sorry.
Honestly, I was even saying this to my mother – fine for the state, national government etc impose standards, I’m into teaching to imposed standards, but you must fund them.
Not funding them means they can’t be implemented.
First, let me start out by saying I have an iPod Touch. In addition to all my other toys.
Thus, I found that there wasn’t anything I wanted to do with an iPad, that I couldn’t already do on any of my devices.
I found it big and clunky, and I don’t think that the iPod2 is going to be any better.
I did find it easier to read a magazine on it, but I can do that with one of my netbooks. Or a laptop, or a desktop. And only ONE magazine, since I have a kindle and that magazine doesn’t come on the Kindle.
I like my netbooks much better than I like the iPad, because they have better keyboards. If I don’t want a keyboard, I’m back to my Windows Phone 7, or my iPod.
Your mileage may vary.
There is an interesting app for dog agility for the iphone and other devices. It is expensive, crashes, though that seems to have been fixed and extremely inflexible.
I was going to write an app for the Windows Mobile phone, but I’m finding that One Note works tons better.
Here’s what I do….
When I get any type of correspondence in relation to an upcoming trial, I send it to a One Note Notebook folder called upcoming trials. On the day of the trial, I take a picture of each of the maps with the camera and put all of a single’s days runs information on one One Note Notebook page. At the end of the trial, I get trial results from the secretary and again, send it to the One Notebook.
I move everything from the upcoming trial into the completed trial section and when I’m done I have all the information needed.
Blogging about the trial become easy – I go to File – Send to Blog, make some updates, and I’m done. Results are at http://www.kweaver.org/adventures_in_training_th/2011/03/dawg-sunday-march-13.html
If you want to see one of my One Notebooks, email and I’ll share it with you for a while.
Actually I think we are making good progress.
I got an email from an engineer I had met last year, she is involved in FIRST Texas, and told me that they were looking to get grants to 6 North Texas Teams for FIRST Tech Challenge. I didn’t realize we would have to compete on April 16th though.
We’ve had the kit for 1 1/2 weeks and in that time, we have an object that rolls and that I can drive. I’ve had several kids that come in on a regular basis.
My next goal is to get the kids how to figure out how to drive the robot. Wish my furniture luck!
Actually I don’t have much real furniture in the room.
I currently have 2 apps in the Windows Phone Marketplace. If you do a search on the Windows Phone Marketplace on kathweaver, you’ll find them. Both are very simple — one plays a sound when you tap your finger on the screen, the other is a very simple accumulator. I have even updated the accumulator so have been through the process twice. Shockingly, there have been 28 downloads of that app.
First, you can find most of the resources you need by going to the App Hub at http://create.msdn.com/en-US/
You can find some more at Dreamspark. https://www.dreamspark.com/
I’ll start with Dreamspark. You can sign up as a teacher on Dreamspark, and get codes for your students. This gives them access to Visual Studio and lots of other good software, including everything you need for the Window Phone. So of course, you want to test the experience for your students. Create a code for yourself, and sign up as a student. This will give you a developers code (and it will also give THEM a developers code), so you can put apps in the Marketplace. That’s how I did mine. By the way, it only costs $99 to get a “real” developers code, which I plan to do soon.
There is a really good program called My School App, that takes very little changes to customize for your own school. I was able to set it up in about 30 minutes with lousy art work. It’s at http://myschoolapp.codeplex.com/ and has very good directions. It also is well documented and comes in a C# version and a VB version. It shows how to write apps that display web pages, use locations, and Bing Maps. It’s very cool and has already been submitted through the market place so does things right. I am leaving it alone right now as I want one of my students to do it.
Windows Phone does things in two ways: You can either program applications in Silverlight or you can program in XNA. Both are pretty easy to pick up and both are free. VB limits you to Silverlight. C# which looks just like Java, allows you to do both.
There are lots of tutorials, do a search on WP7 Dev and you’ll find stuff.
Why does Microsoft make this and XNA (Xbox programming) free? So people will buy hardware.
Ask questions!
I love it. Just about every year, one of my Computer Science students comes to me rather sheepishly and admits they have changed their major. I had one that is in his sophomore year that just came to me and told me that he switched from Chemical Engineering to CS.
Not that there is anything wrong with Chemical Engineering, but he groked CS so well.
Makes me happy.
And I question the dark side part – as it really is a good way to make a living, but not sure how to describe it otherwise….
Principals fire teachers on whims. Been there. Unfortunately it is no longer on the internet, but one of my former principals detailed how she got rid of teachers she didn’t like. She did exactly those things to me.
Here’s the problem, I am certified to teach computer science and it’s my favorite subject. There is usually one per school, and at the moment, I do not believe there are any openings. I would have to wait another school year to find a job, if there is one then.
Teachers just can’t jump from job to job.
I’m lucky, I’m also certified in math and can do a really good job as a math teacher in a traditional classroom, and I like teaching Geometry and Algebra I best, so I could probably find an opening. The only teacher who can probably find an opening right off are math and science teachers. The rest of the curriculum is going to have to wait a school year like me.
We have a union in Dallas and I’m a member. They have been very helpful to me. I am a diabetic, and I go to them periodically to find out what I need to tell the TAKS testing monitors about my insulin pump, testing and eating.
I had a really difficult situation with an special education parent and the principal, and I spoke with the union lawyer on a frequent basis. It never came down to that, but they keep lawyers in house ready to advise people. It was very helpful in this situation for moral support if nothing else.
We don’t have collective bargaining, and I am against any teacher walking out of the classroom to strike. I certainly wouldn’t do it.
However, I do like the fact that there is someone I can go to if I have a building or district issue and that there is someone looking after my interests.
My district values experienced teachers and until recently had longevity pay. I got it for two years.
Once you have established pay, benefits and pension you have to honor that. Reducing those, especially pension is WRONG. That is part of compensation. I made hiring choices, day to day budgeting choices based on that.
There is also a promise implied in giving me a contract. Finding a teaching job is difficult. Especially middle of the year teaching jobs. As long as I honor my contract and do my duties you don't have the right to fire me.
As I tell my kids, the only way I can be fired is if I have sex with you or beat you, and I am not having sex with any of you.
My husband's company has turned to a good model of compensation, which is, instead of giving raises and having to give that raise from then on, the give periodic bonuses depending on when they are making money. Win, win all around.
I go back to my previous post. It is fine to cut pay and other compensa
Sent from my Windows Phone
First, I will give that we are probably paying new teachers too much because we are having no trouble hiring.
I also know that because of NCLB and because of attendance changes, that we are scrapping the bottom of the barrel when it comes moving personnel.
In other words, I am not pleasantly impressed with the new people in my building.
I have a completely different impression of our veteran teachers. Both as a group and individually we have our students interest at heart and do our best.
The above is why I am so much against Teach for America. Your average new teacher needs a three year period before they are a good teacher. We usually find the pedophiles in the first year (yep my school has had a few come through and they are found and asked to leave fast).
The people who cannot tolerate dealing with teenagers are usually out voluntarily pretty fast.
I really do think we need to start by reducing new teacher salaries. And guess what, when I started teaching they had reduced new teacher salaries and I have been "paying" for that every since. But that was my choice.
Sent from my Windows Phone