Category: Blog

Probably going to jinx everything BUT yesterday I left school with all the pressing issues completed.  There are always projects I could work on — inventory, for example. I think this is the first Friday I’ve left in that condition.

I know that the Campus Technology job is going to explode after Spring Break.  We’ve got TELPAS testing to prepare for. We’ve also got some new computers coming into the building.

I also need to come up with a good process for doing the inventory as people check out and as people check in at the beginning of the school year.

Ever since I finally went through some documentation on Office 2007 and the changes, I’ve gotten fired up again when it comes to using Techsmith’s Snag-It. Weird, isn’t it? But Snag-It uses the ribbon and now that I’ve gotten use to it, it makes editing easier.

So here’s the document I created:

Save paper and better use Groupwise

And I discovered after I created my "Don’t" artwork that they have a stamp for that.

I have no idea why they aren’t making anything similar to this anymore but….

I wore them today on the way to school, at school and again working out at home.  The sound with the Zune / Sony Transmitter is super.  Of course, I’m missing some frequencies so your mileage may vary.

The neat part is that I can pair the phone AND the Zune with the headphones, which freaked me out a few minutes ago.   I turned off the TV with the remote and at almost the same instant the headphones stopped working.  Turns out that I had received a phone call – one I really needed – and was able to answer without breaking my neck – the phone was in the kitchen in the back of the house and I’m in the gym in the front.

Okay the real reason I did this, as I am trying out a new feature in Snag It.  The form above is our “ticket” system for technical assistance requests.  This system sucks.  I forget the Room number half the time.

My savior is Snag-it is a really cool program that lets you take screen shots and edit them in really cool ways. I am slowly getting better at it.  It’s from Techsmith and worth every penny, especially at educational pricing.  And it seems they have an output built both for TypePad and for Microsoft OneNote.  I used the TypePad to do this.

Someone on twitter started a #goonline tweet where people are describing when the first went online. I twittered stuff until I realized that I really needed a blog post.

I have been teaching CS for 16 years, so you can probably imagine I’ve been involved in computer for some time.

Since I am a ham radio operator, etc. Most of my computers have been home built.

My first real computer though was a TI-84 computer (real meaning it plugged into the wall, had a monitor, could save data, etc).  Primarily because I was working for TI at the time.  My second was a TI PC, company issued.  That was when I really first went online but only to the company computers.  There wasn’t really any where else to go.

My first real online experience was Prodigy as it had a fixed price.  I couldn’t afford AOL.  Once Prodigy realized they were bleeding money, I left to be online with FIDONet and became a node on FIDONet.  I was pretty active with that group.

I had the second private internet account in the Dallas Fort Worth area with Texas Metronet.  They were the first here that allowed private accounts, not associated with a university or with a business.

Most of my computers have been home built until recent years.  Now I buy refurbished computers at Fryes, usually under $300.  My philosophy now is that cheap and more than one is better.

So nice of the commissioner to allow restroom breaks.  Have they been in the schools and seen what their rulings have done?

Our district and/or school has interpreted the restroom break rule to mean that only one student can be in the restroom at a time or that they have to be escorted by an adult.

On the second floor, the hall monitors kept track — there is a boy’s room and a girl’s room clearly visible to the monitor.  If a student needed to go to the restroom, they stood outside the testing room door until the hall monitor gave them permission to go, and the hall monitored couldn’t if someone was already in the restroom.  By the way, that makes my head hurt.

We have a worse problem on the first floor, we only have two sets of restrooms and 4 sets of halls.  So on the first floor, the students stood with the hall monitor until they were picked up by the restroom monitor.  The restroom monitor would rove the school picking up all of the appropriately sexed students and then stood in the restroom with them while they went.  Of course, no one was allowed to talk.

Right now, with the restrictions we have, we barely have enough adults to go around to supervise students.  We have to have one crew to monitor the test, one crew to relieve the test givers, one crew for hall duty with relievers, and now a crew to do the restroom breaks — which takes at least 4 people.

<sigh>

Maybe I’m naive but I don’t think there is rampant cheating going on.  The only kids who really care are at Exit level.  The rest of the kids don’t care about their results so we really don’t have to worry about them cheating.  I also don’t think the teachers are cheating.  At least not in our building.

Every year I’ve had a class that drives me crazier than most.  It’s usually an afternoon class and it’s usually a large class.

This year its my 6th period class.  There are 26 students in the class.  They are loud and they have the largest number of students who are not passing. 

I have also had a few students transfer from other class periods in to that class, and they all agree I’m a different teacher during this class period.  I’ve yelled at these kids, I’ve slammed doors, and thrown packs.  I don’t do things like that during other class periods.

Every other one of my classes come in, sit down, turn on their computers and get to work.   The only people who get up are those who want to go to the restrooms, and they do it one at a time.  The other classes all wait to quit until the bell rings.

Not this group, they are screaming and they are running around the room. They quit 5 minutes early and start running around the room again. They interrupt me and each other.  Yesterday one of the students took another student’s iPod. 

I’ve been working hard to get them to behave as well as my other classes — it really does affect passing rate.  My passing rate is lowest in this class and highest in 5th period, who truly are my best behaved. 

Besides I don’t like being a crazy woman.

My latest technique has been to have a Power Point presentation on the wall, and have their screens blanked out and start with the Power point presentation immediately as soon as they are quiet.  However, they then tend to quit a bit earlier, but I’m working on it.

Right now, I’m listening to a Jimmy Buffet album – using my Zune pass and Zune software on my PC.  All day today I had my Zune plugged into my speakers at school, and while my students were working I was listening to music I’d downloaded on the Zune.  It’s great because I can keep it near to my keyboard and just press a button to turn it off.

I thought using one device was a really good idea for a long time.  I was using Napster To Go with my phone, and the quality of the playback sucked, selecting music was a pain, downloading was a pain, and finding the music to play it was a pain.

The Zune works SO much better.

Though, if they come out with a version that has bluetooth so I can use bluetooth speakers, I’ll be buying a new one and this one will be for sale.  In fact, I’ve just ordered a bluetooth transmitter from Amazon (Sony) and I’m hoping it will solve the problem.

I have some Jabra Bluetooth stereo headphones that I bought from Buy.com and really love them.  They are light weight, no wires, and very good quality play back.  I like them much better than any of the earbuds I’ve tried or even the over the ear type.

My pass renews this weekend and I’ll be able to “buy” more music which will be nice.  I am hopeful that the renewal process will be smoother – last month I got to school without “renewing” my music and very little of it was available for play.  That was a bit disconcerting.

And … almost forgot … really wish that Audible.com worked wirelessly like the Zune software does.  Or that the Daily subscriptions would work more seamlessly.

One of my twitter follower’s commented he thought this story was stupid:

Student Arrested For Classroom Texting – February 17, 2009

As a teacher I applaud it.   Here’s why.  I’ve been there.  I’ve been the teacher with a kid that wouldn’t behave and I believe it was handled exactly the way I would handle it.

a) kid is texting in my class

b) I tell kid to stop – they don’t – I ask for phone

c) I don’t get it, so I call security and have them deal with it

I finish teaching and no longer have problems with that child.  I have no idea what the consequences are because I’m no longer involved.

Now that sort of thing happened when I got the lovely position of teaching repeating Algebra I.  A special set of Algebra I classes for students who had failed it before.  Oh, and I had 30+ students in each class.  Blame Katrina for that part of the problem. 

That school year I held the record for the number of referrals.  Oh, and by the way I have the reputation of being a very strict and very good teacher.  I usually write less than 5 referrals a year.  I think I am at two now, and both times the kid walked out of the class on his own.

Here’s what happens now:

a) kid is texting in my class

b) I say: please put the consumer electronics away (avoids the not a cell phone argument).

c) kid puts it away and I get on with teaching.

Difference:  I am teaching Computer Science and my largest class in 28.

And by the way, I had the highest Classroom Effective Indexes in the school with the above group.

As a past winner of the STEM award for my district, I have to read this year’s applications.  I have done this for two years and I am always discouraged.

Please read the instructions.  I did.  And I was very careful to follow the rules.  If you want an award, follow those rules, and get someone else to help you read them.

I don’t know how the other evaluators handle this, but if you don’t follow the instructions, I’m automatically going to give you a low rating. 

In fact, two of the applications were from people who didn’t teach a STEM course.  Guess what, you got a 1.  One applicant single spaced their application.  Guess what, you automatically lost two points.  Worse yet, you didn’t answer the question correctly so you ended up with a score below a 5 on each count.

I also took off if you wrote past the one half page and what you wrote didn’t add to your essay.  Also, have someone else read the essay and use the spell check and grammer check provided by the word processing programs. I also took off for typos.

The good news is that there were several outstanding essays and best yet, one of them is a guy I know and really respect.  I think he’ll make the top 5 cut because he DID follow the directions.

When I wrote my essay and they asked what was unique about my classroom, I focused on the technology tools i used.  I was looking for that in the essays and that’s what got people points.  It’s a STEM award, and its to encourage innovation in the classroom.  Show you how you innovate!  Don’t tell me you use the principals of learning because we always do.

Here’s another question that the answers all dissatisfy me. It’s about evaluating students with tools beyond standardized test courses — I like to emphasis the tools that use the standardized test scores precisely because we and the students live and die by them.  Especially if you teach an AP class, you darn well be better using those scores to improve your teaching!

The moral of the story:  read the rules and follow them carefully and you’ll come out ahead!