Category: Blog

I sent the following email out to the teachers in my building:

I am now taking requests for Technology Assistance.  I have attached a word document of the form you need for assistance.  Save it, fill it out and email it back.  Keep a copy for your records.  Also, if you need help later, you can just change the form.

If you need assistance you MUST fill out the form — completely — I have to have all the numbers.

The following is NOT okay
a) asking me for help while I am still in my car (or even unloading it)
b) asking me for help when I am walking through the halls
c) asking me for help when we are waiting for a meeting to start
d) asking me for help when I am trying to teach a class (clues for that is that there are students in the room).
e) asking me for help when I am trying to eat lunch

I work off of an email list. That helps me keep track of what needs to done.  If you tell me in passing I will forget.  If you do see me in the hall, I'm on my way to help someone else and my mind is on that task.

If your email is not working, then come see me in my room and we'll get it taken care of.

So now they approach me with "I know you said in your email BUT" ….

<sigh> At least they are reading their email. 

Love the new computers.  One idiot child said he didn't like them because they were black.  Told him, next time we'd consult a designer, first.

Having problems with 2nd period child.  Stepped out, he pulled Bluetooth donger and USB cables that I had JUST put in the computer.  Wrote referall, he's been tampering with computers on reglar basis.  Will start checking at end of period and send him to ISS directly if he does it again.

Have to do some tweaking on the Java.

Here's the fun part, we can't give each others ACPs (Assessment of Course Performance, ACPs).  So I have to give the French teachers.  I left him color coded seating charts, already done, just fill in the test form.  I'm going to have to fill out HIS seating charts, but at least he left me names.  <sigh>

Finally figured out how to deal with paper.  New scanner files by month, so I am going to scan in every sheet of paper I get then, hopefully save it again in the right place, then toss.  Hate paper.  I always lose it.

I had to be at school for an 8:00 meeting.  45 minutes of being read to.  <sigh>  I have to fix that.

Send me an email with everything you want me to read about two days before the meeting.  Have the meeting, repeat the important stuff, answer questions, and then let us leave.  That's how adults have meetings.

The computers arrived at 11:30, which was great, because I got an email saying they were coming at 1:00 pm.

The room was full of people and boxes, and not a work surface to be found.  I ended up given up even my new table.

Wasn't allowed to touch the computers.  Was a good girl and didn't open the boxes that arrived yesterday, but I could have.  Of course, didn't have anything to hook them up to.

They finished at 4:00, and I was too sore and too tired to do anything, besides make sure they were set up to do logins.  Except that didn't work.

Here's the weird part — we use Novell.

The workstation only login said: localuser and did not show a password.  I could login fine that way if  I didn't change anything.

If I logged as admin, it showed a login screen with staff and no password.  That didn't work.  We don't have a user said up named staff on the workstation.

I tried logging in as localuser no password, like the screen said and that didn't work.

Come to find out the windows login is localuser password localuser.  Thankfully I figured that out before I went into full panic mode.

Jcreator and Visual Basic work fine, so I think things will be good for Monday

I haven't had computers in my room since 5th period yesterday.  I decided to use my new toy, my "Zune".

I showed my students some movies I made — one doesn't take a video camera and I used Camtasia to make it.  The other one I did with a digital movie camera and downloaded and made with WIndows Movie Maker.

I then pulled out one of my Flip cameras, shot a few minutes of video of the class, and showed them how to make a movie.  All agreed, that using it and making the movie was easier than using a word processor.  Okay, I said it was as easy and a kid in each class said "No, miss, it was easier!".  Kind of cool.

I also showed the "Day in a Life" series by University of Washington.

I ended each class with a podcast episode of "Dirty Jobs", just to end on a fun note.

Went well.  Kids were at least quiet and we did some accountable talk after each clip.  I had to do more with the afternoon groups as they were without computers for two days.

When somone in your building, has all of their stuff with them,has a coat on, and says, "I’m sorry, I’m late for a doctor’s appointment", they probably are, and probably don’t have time to deal with you.  It isn’t personal.  Even if they are lying, they probably have a good reason for it (okay, I wasn’t late YET, but I would be if I stopped and talked with you.

When you walk into a computer class room, and you see the students all roaming the room with pieces of computer equipment it is NOT A GOOD TIME TO ASK QUESTIONS.  The best thing you can do is walk out and come back another day.  Especially if you received an email saying that the Campus Tech office is closed as I am receiving new equipment.

Telling me in the hall that your printer is down, doesn’t help.  Filling out the technology form does help.  I will get a ticket in.  Right now, I don’t have to come to and fix things.  Remember, I did email everyone and tell them the office was closed this week.

I’m the Campus Technologist.  One of my best friends, whose been one calls it "computer janitor". I often feel that way.  Not only am I am the campus technologist but I teach a full load of computer science.  For those of you who don’t know anything about computer science, the further in the year, the more your brain cells are engaged, and interruptions don’t help.

My best teacher friend reminded me the following today: "You try to hard to keep everybody happy.  Just remember, you always DO get everything done eventually." 

The good news: all the computers are out of the room.  The chairs were stacked so the custodians could clean the floors well.  I’m going to dog and pony show all my classes tomorrow, and then let the librarians teach them Friday, and I’m going to hide in my room until the installaters come.

I think I can make it.

I'm not sure this would work for the elementary or middle school students, but I would love to see offsite testing of high school kids.

Right now, we end up shutting down for over a week for standardized testing (TAKS tests).  We cannot teach anything those days as they are untimed tests.  Worst yet, we are mandated to watch the students.

It puts teachers in a hard spot — we are responsible for those test scores, and because of preceived cheating, we get blamed and requirements get tougher each year.  Right now, the kids are placed in room randomly and so are teachers.  Wall decorations have to be removed, we have to stare at the kids the entire time, can't use phones, etc.  It's a real hardship for me because I have medical devices that beep — we've got to record that as an exception.  And we have to take up all the kids electronics.  I get it, I don't like to be away from my cell phone either, but most teachers don't.

So here's my solution:

Online testing at a central location. 

Kids are scheduled randomly, they show up for the test and they get on with their life.  They can take the tests in any order and still take as much time as they want. 

It would work for any size district — in the smallest district where the entire district is in one building they could reserve a room with computers and network.  The largest districts like ours could have more than one center and those centers could be used for staff development or other training through out the year. 

We already have a GED testing center, so it probably won't be that hard to put up others.  I could even see them using our existing staff development labs — we have 3 in one building at the same site as the GED testing. 

By using completely different staff it would solve the preceived cheating problem.  It would also solve the problem of not having enough computers — instead of testing all the students in one week, we could do it over several.  Rescheduling would be as big an issue either.   I see it as a win-win for everyone, and takes the entire burden off the school.

I love Twitter and have since it came out.  Since it is blocked at my school, I can't use it to its fullest during the school day but it sure has come in handy this break.

1) I got to get one of my books autographed by the author.  I have a whole set of shelves that are signed by the author when I personally got to meet them.  Often, and this one was the case, I was providing airport transport, something I honestly don't mind, though I miss the times when you could sit down and visit with the passenger while they were waiting for their plane.

2) Got some good hints for activities for my students.

3) Interacted with some fun people.

4) Won a copy of Microsoft Office in a contest.

1 and 4 were of course the most valuable.

So you have find me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/kathweaver and I only follow people who look interesting.

I have a new 120 gig model so mine still worked all day Wednesday.  But I've written date code and it sucks.  I figured that was the issue as soon as the posts started.  By the way, I've always debugged that way — just have known sort of intuively what is wrong.

Speaking of which I do have a bit of a hardware issue that started with the Zune.  I have a refurbished Compaq and I get a blue system of death sometimes when I connect my Zune to it.  Happens with a few other USB devices so I think it might be related to disk size.  Doesn't always happen.  I like the Wireless sync anyway.

I have listened to more music on the PC then on the Zune but that's pretty normal for me.  What I really like on the Zune is audiobooks and podcasts.

I have a subscription to Audible books and have for a long time.  I do a lot of driving — once a week to agility class, and every few weekend to trials, so I really like the Audiobooks for that.  Right now, I'm in the middle of the Ann McCaffery "Freedom Series" so have been listening to it even during short trips.

I have also started listening to Zune Marketplace Podcasts. I am a huge fan of Scott Hanselman and have read his blog for years — just started listening to the Podcasts, and so far they rock.  Yeah, I'm a geek, I'm a fan of both Scott and Clint Rutkas (i've gotten to meet him) and some of the other Microsoft engineer types.

Can't wait to take it to school.  I already have a spare set of speakers, so we'll see how it goes.  In years past I've played my own music softly while the kids listened to their own with headsets.  I don't think I should be using a headset, especially our noise blankers.  In fact, I got really ticked off at a teacher using my room who did use them.  Don't see how you can know what is going on around you.

I think many of you who are ustude will notice that I tend to buy as the next generation of devices come out.  For example, I got my HP Media Server just as the new ones have come out.

There are lot of reasons why.  Yes, I like to be on the cutting edge sometimes, BUT first releases tend to be a bit buggy.  Also you can usually get a good cost reduction.  I have on each of the major purchases, my phone and the HP Media Server.

I recommend purchasing this way to both my coworkers and my students — in fact when it comes to OS's, I alway recommend purchasing AFTER SP1, or if you can be patient, SP2.

So far, I'm really liking it.  I've got all my computers backing up to it each night.  Also have all the updates, etc. installed.

I'll admit having a server at school has spoiled me.  I literally do have computers all over the house — I usually keep a laptop and a desktop downstairs, and the two main computers upstairs, plus another floating laptop.

I've got it set up so I can get to it from the outside world — another plus, as it keeps me from having to keep up with too much data.  Things I want to get to each day, yes, I keep with me, but long term projects etc. I like to keep in a central place.

I have had home servers before — I had a cute little device that took two drives until it finally died — it was by Linksys and they replaced it with even cutier device that you can hook up USB drives too, but it was never that reliable.  You couldn't do a backup with it for example, without them overheating and crashing.

I bought a Terastation from Buffalo with my STEM money but it really should stay in the classroom, and I do like to have huge amount of data on it.  I do take it home on breaks and it's home now.  I'll probably keep it here at home until I get the new lab up and running just to keep from complicating things.

I would also like to learn how to write some add-ins for it, and maybe install some other stuff, but I'm taking my time on it.