Category: Blog

I don't check my personal email until 9th period. (Yeah, we have that many now).

Started out with a parent conference called by the parents.  I jokely said "Oh, this is torture, Jane today!"  Yeah, it was (oh, and her name isn't Jane, and her parents aren't the Does).

When I finally tracked down her counselor, I told her, if I had been alone in the room with just parents and girl, I would have taken girl to my house and called CPS.

Couselor assured me it was being dealt with.  And one of the other teachers followed me upstairs and was equally upset.

Then technology period was supposed to be set up the new website but

I got grabbed in the hall and drug into a portable — seems a kid had uploaded a Trojan horse and the teacher couldn't take attendance as a result.  I thought I fixed it but nope.

So I downloaded my old standby, Spybot Scan and Destroy and I think it's gone now.

Fun day.

It's been an interesting 5 weeks.

I started out with less than 10 students in each of the three classes.  We have severe behavior issues, and they sure didn't want another study hall.  Neither did I.

Then I woke up and there were over 20 kids in each class.  ARGH.  I got smart and asked that the class be closed and I haven't had any more.

Oh, and I ended up in the principal's office over one child's behavior.

There is no way on earth I can have these kids work in groups and work independently.  They can't sit still in a chair for 5 minutes.  Some of them can't do it without hitting the person next to them. 

My first bright idea was to have them make a movie.  I think 10 of have been turned in (yeah, do the math).

I finally decided to have them do Alice and started it today.

The good news, once I kicked one kid out for 10 minutes, 2nd period was absolutely quiet.  7th period had moments of pure silence, and 8th period wasn't bad, but at one point I yelled at one group and said I was sick to death of them acting up.

Yes, some kids drifted off to the internet occasionally, I drifted them back, but we did something without driving me nuts.

First assignment — have two characters talk about a math assignment.  I picked the husky and the wolf for my example, and made a version with some talking and some bubbles.  You can talk in Alice by recording sounds in Alice though some times it crashes.  You can also have your characters 'say' something and they come in bubbles.

The best part, if you don't do the tutorial right, it won't go forward.

Twice this morning I had questions that only Camtasia could really answer for me.  One on the phone, one an email.

The phone one?  The main office was convinced we could take attendance as a Pep Rally day.  Well, we couldn't.  Pulled on the headset, did a screen recording and narrated what I was doing, produced it,  uploaded it to my ScreenCast account, emailed the link and was all good.  Not only that, but the email could be forwarded to anyone who needed to see it.

The email?  Was a question about Alice — and where a photo might be worth a 1000 words, a movie is certainly worth more.  Again, pulled on the headset, and in less than 5 minutes, solved the problem.

We may be sick of each other by the end of the year, and I wouldn't mind haven't another kid (and have one in mind).

The kid I have is really awesome.  I've sent him to two classes to hook up printers this week and he came back and he was done.  I also didn't get a note about his attitude. 

I also think the two of us might be able to get the inventory until control but with 5x some new computers…..

The best part, he's playing with the Scribbler Robot I bought this summer.  Yes, another project I have too little time to do.  I've got lots of other little programming/EE projects.  And yes, he wants to major as an EE, which I'm beginning to think is a good fit for him.  He's really not the CS kind of kid.

The fun part is that he was in my room as a 9th grader and as a 10th grader.  I really want him to take AP CS, I really think he can handle it this year, and I think it will look good on his transcript.  He was pretty immature as a 10th grader, but it's too week later.  I love how he has been handling the Robot project, very EE type.

I also can't wait until I see his parents again — some of my absolute favorite people.

Had a bit of a breakthrough — one of my math/study kids handed me his homework assignment after I asked if anyone had some.

Scanned it into the computer, showed it on the white board and we worked on solving it.

Did the same with the second class — kid asked if I would help with geometry too, but they don't have homework yet — we'll get it tomorrow.

They fought a bit on word, but most of them went through the first tutorial.

It was good.  I like my classes sizes == my first period class is full!

None of my other classes is over 15.  This will change.

My AP Student has started his work — he already had a login from last year.

My coworkers have calmed down — we still have a group of people who can't take attendance on the new system but we're getting there.

Long day — got there at about 7:20 and left at 4:30.  But I shut the door at the beginning of 5th period and had lunch.

The Micromedics repair site is showing that they ordered three parts for my tablet.  Hopefully it will come back home soon, they have had it since 8/6

My CS Enrollment is down — which is crazy as it is one of the few professions not only hiring students out of college, but their starting salary is up!  Of course, the low enrollment helps.

Anyway, I'm teaching three sections of math/science study skills.  They are all doubly described, and I suspect if I look up my students on My Data portal they haven't been successful on the TAKS tests in the past.

My job – to change that.

One of my first missions, is to make these students comfortable with computers.  One thing the research shows on this type of students is that they are on the wrong side of the digital divide, so the first thing we're going to go to is to become "computer literate".  Word, Excel and Powerpoint are my goals.  I'm going to use the Baycom tutorials at http://www.baycongroup.com/index.htm, they work with my other students.

Next I'm going to teach them Alice. 

I want to use Alice to illustrate their math problems, and have the computer do the math.  I've found once a kid writes a computer program to do something, they don't forget how to do that something again.

I'll let everyone know how it goes.

I am the campus technologist for my building.  I went into this year thinking it could be nearly as bad as last year when I had to get everyone in the building fingerprinted.  WRONG!

This year, everyone has to take attendance online. 

I've got people who can power up the computers in my room without being told how.  And the new computers are exactly like mine.

I honestly believe I have been abused by about half of the people in the building.

Okay, the principal didn't want me to have my netbook or my phone on.  Sorry, but I don't use paper and pen and like to take notes.

One of the custodians stole money from my room.  At least the campus police officer believes it wasn't my fault as he knows I don't leave my room unsecured.

It has not been a good week.

And I almost forgot, my Dean called on Satuday at 4:40 looking for passwords for the registrar.

About two week ago, I got an email from TXU (our utility company) about a program called iThermostat.  For $75.00 they install a thermostat that is controlled through a web portal (or the buttons on the unit itself).  They also do an energy assessment when they come out.  There is a catch, now TXU can turn off the unit at peak load times.

I bit and they came out yesterday (Friday). They were late to the appointment but were VERY nice.  Two men came from a local HVAC company, installed the thermostat — loved the fact we had Uverse and loved the fact that I knew what I was doing.  They even offered me a job.

Told me that yes we could do zoned A/C — a question I’ve had since we bought the houe and didn’t know the answer, and that we needed to add a 2 ton unit to the attic.  That’s now on the list.

Any, I love it.  I was away from house all day, set the thermostate before I left to 85 and set it to 70 before I left for the house, with the handy dandy Acer notebook.

When I got home, we were at 76, and the house very pleasant, so I changed the thermostat to 76.

We spent $2 on electricity today as opposed to $7.00 yesterday (but i know that will be higher, we still have some hours to go).

And the house was comfortable when I got here.