Category: Blog

Found cardstore.com via the USPS site this morning in an effort to grow up. i know i have been a member of a card service before but did not use it, but i did this morning!

i felt the need to send thank you cards to the workshop organizers and my mother. later realized i needed to do the same for the lady who hired me for sujmmer camp.

i am not organized enough for sending cards. it means buying them, keeping them, writing on them, addressing the envelopes, putting stamps on them, and dropping them in the post office box.

this site does the whole chore for a fee and personalizes the cards. better yet people dont have to deal with my handwriting.

My phone — ATT Fuze

Twitter — to keep up with weather at home, what was going on etc.  Also to post updates on both Facebook and twitter for family to know where I was at.
Email – to keep up with husband
(I don’t think he does Twitter or Facebook)
ATT Navigator – to find "stuff". Invaluable

My Zune

Kept me entertained on the road
Helped me sleep at night – played music
Could show off my dogs and things, especially the video.

My computer – IBM Thinkpad

Kept me sane during the boring parts of the workshop.
Also all of the above on the phone.

Camera – Kodak Easy Share

Took lots of pictures.

Things I wish I had

Charger for my tweaker speakers.

Things I didn’t need

Emergency power for CPA (but that’s the point, and in truck you can’t over pack)
Second computer – but didn’t know that and there were times I used it.

Flip Camera

The bolded stuff is going next week, when I am flying and you CAN over pack.

If you ever get a chance to go to a Tapestry Workshop by the University of Virginia, GO!

I’ll warn you ahead of time, it is primarily a lecture workshop.  I wasn’t prepared for that, but it was okay.

Most of the presentations were good and either validated what I knew or I gained new knowledge.  Everyone made me think about how I teach and what I teach.

There is LOTS of walking.  Both knees are really bothering me now.  The UVA is not really accessible.  They are trying, but it’s a tough place to do it.

The food was out of this world.  The dining hall was a bit teenager / college student oriented, but that’s there job.  The university catering service is out of this world.  We had a different type of meal each time we ate their food.  The biggest surprise was getting our honorarium there when we returned our dorm keys..

Information for this years workshop is at http://www.cs.virginia.edu/tapestry/

There are several problems with Computer Science teachers

We know we are the smartest person in the room.

We are competitive

We have massive egos.

Over the years, I used to really stress out over teacher workshops because they would have us do stuff in groups and it would never work out very well.

So here’s how I deal with it now.  I try to contribute with the group, but if the other people shut me out, I just quit and walk away.

It’s REALLY cut down on the stress for this workshop and the previous ones.

I love Twitter and I love Outlook.  As a result when I heard about TwInBox, I knew I would like it.  TwInBox is free and written by a company called TechHit. The TwInBox website is at http://www.techhit.com/TwInbox/

Here’s why I love it.

TwInBox lets you treat Twitters just like an email.  You can read them, search them, delete them, file them, etc. just like any email.  You can also do searchs on topics or usernames and have them filed automatically.

You can also do something else really cool if you have OneNote — you can send your Tweets to OneNote.  Why?  So you can go back and refer to the Twitter later.  And yes, I do that.

By the way, they also have a pay Outlook application I like called SimplyFile.

I have been reading several of the blog posts on teaching Computer Science Education and want to chime in.

I have a Master’s Degree from the University of North Texas called Computer Education and Cognitive Studies.  I worked towards this degree for a long time.

I got my teaching certificate while doing course work at Texas Woman’s University which is down the road.  I only had to take one CS class while doing that — and it didn’t have anything to do with teaching.  I did have to take several math courses which DID help me towards teaching both math and computer science (and I am certified in both).

When my district transitioned out of teaching computer math and into computer science, we brought in a professor from UNT who designed a course for us which was a CS pedagogy course. I think I’ve blogged about it before, but as a group we developed the original scope and sequence for our computer science course and a lot of the lessons.

I’ve gone from that point and evolved our district course offerings from there — yes, I’ve been on every committee which has shaped our current curriculum and actually spent last year writing the current CS and PreAP CS curriculum.  I will probably work more on the CS, and have asked for another person to work on the PreAP, hopefully she has time.

The master’s degree focused on just about all phases of CS education.  While working on it, I earned my Tech Applications certification (we didn’t have a test at the time), so we worked on teaching things like web mastering, multimedia projects, but very little of that was directly applicable to Computer Science Education.  However, whenever I was able to define my own projects, I did focus on CS.  Found quite a bit of interesting research towards teaching CS, but there could certainly be more.

Another facet of my degree focused on online education and I’ve even taught CS online.  It’s tough and it takes a very self-directed student, and those are hard to fine.

I think we should have more CS Education programs.  I also think that if it not directly available, the programs can be found.  I do believe UNT teaches the CECS program online — I did take two courses completely online and was very successful.

I’m heading to the Tapestry workshop on Wednesday (with many stops on the way) and have been doing a trial run of my technology.

(Don’t worry, dogs and husband and security system will all be at home, and the police are by our house about every 2 minutes as we are on their usual beat).

I’ve just checked the following:

• Cable and software to connect mobile phone
• Cable and software to connect Zune to both Zune and Audible Books
• Cable and software to connect digital camera and download pictures to Flicker
• Cable and software to connect to the internet via the Air Card.

Yeah, a bit excessive BUT it is a computer science workshop and I will be gone a while.

I am not sure I would ever be able to completely finish clearing out my office but it’s pretty good.  Here’s the trash bags:

As I’ve said before, the room is in a small bedroom.  Here’s one wall of desk:

And the other wall.

It’s perfect work working on large projects, like curriculum as I have two computers and a TV in it — and the TV can be a third monitor when I need.

I can write curriculum on one computer while looking up stuff on the internet from the other.  In lots of ways, especially since everything is networked with a HP MediaSmart Windows Hom Server, it works better than dual monitors on one desk top. 

I thought this sale had ended.  I’ve gone to it was ham radio only and we sold each other our boat anchors.

The sale started as a once-a-month swap meet for ham radio enthusiasts in 1969 but has evolved over the years, adding PC users and another monthly meeting, on the third Saturday of each month.

Computer vendor shot dead at sidewalk sale in downtown Dallas | News for Dallas, Texas | Dallas Morning News | Latest News

I have a small bedroom that I use as an office.

I have been really bad about not throwing things away so I’ve decided to purge.  I had an old server case, several broken monitors, and old analog TV, etc.

The good news is that we live on a fairly busy street and if I put out old electronics they are gone in less than 20 minutes.  Seriously.

So far, I have pulled out 5 trash bags off stuff — one trash bag is just a mass of old cables I ditched under the philosophy if they haven’t been touched in a while I don’t need them.

I also found the best solution of storage.  Since it really is a bedroom it has a clothing rod in the closet.  I wanted to store bags in such a way I could get to them easily.  Container Store had the perfect solution:

Those are designed to hold sweaters and they do the bags just find.  The velco off the top of the rod — it isnt’ quite a bit enough space to fully extending the shelves but the bottom shelf is still usable.

I’m also pulling all the files off my old E-Machine computer — that will take a while, I’m pulling over 13 gig off of one drive and 50 gig off the other.