Category: Blog

I’d love to see a fully funded NCLB program, but I’m sure that won’t happen in my fifetime.

I know, most teachers seem to be against, but I’ve lived under some form of NCLB since I started teaching 17 years ago.  Back in the 80’s, Ross Perot chaired a committee that was charged to fix education in Texas.

While it isn’t perfect, it sure is better than if we hadn’t done it.  Ross Perot committees did some very fair reaching things — and you guys think Laura Bush invented NCLB, as I snort.  Nope, it was Ross Perot and his buddies.

They came up with "no pass, no play."  Yes, a bit of a PITA, as periodically I have to sign off that my students involved in extracurriculum activities are actually attending, passing their classes, and even behaving themselves.  If they don’t, they don’t get to practice, much less play.  That goes for athletes, choir members, chess players, and even academic UIL competitors.  I love it, because coach gives them a bit more practice if I complain.

They also came up with the concept that teachers should actually be qualified to teach.  They made all the teachers back then, pass a basic skills test, and yeah, a few shop teachers failed.  Then anyone who wanted to go to school for a teaching certificate had to pass the test too.  Yep, even me, with a BS in computer science, had to prove that I could read and write.  And boy howdy, was it easy.

They also came up with the concept that you had to pass a test in your subject area and have a certain number of hours in your subject area.  I went after a traditional certificate after earning a BS, so I had to have a deficency plan and even had to take 3 hours of CS.  I choose System Analysis, which I had been doing for 10+ years and yep, I’d learned to do it the way the textbook taught it.  I also had to take 3 hours of speech (not a bad idea), 3 hours of Texas Politics (again, a good idea, since I was educated in annother state, a bunch of hours in pedogy and a bunch of hours of Math, since i figured the dual certification might come in handy (it does — I’m seriously think of cashing in and teaching in a reconstituted school for the extra bucks)  and I really like teaching math, it makes me feel useful (more on that some other day).

The next concept was making sure the kids were learning.  We have various forms of tests which get progressively harder, if I remember right, the first was TABS, and the kiddos had to be really be bad off not to pass. Then we went to TAAS, now we’re on TAKS.  The next progression is End of Course, which we’ve been preparing for around 15 years, if not more.  Each version required high school students to pass to graduate.  It wasn’t until TAKS and a few years ago, when the lower grades started being held accountable.  Someday soon, we’re expected to get children who can read. A few years after that, we’re supposed to get kids that can do math.  The bad news, is that they can take it in Spanish until they hit 8th grade.  I keep wondering what that poor kid from NIgera does when he’s in 3rd grade, and has to pick between reading in English or Spanish.  I keep thinking we need a Swahilli version (no, I am NOT kidding, I’ve taught that kid, okay, his older brother who has to learn English in two year).

There are a lot of things that happened as a result of Ross Perot (and some funding issues).  One thing is that we’re pretty agressive about making kids come to school and even more aggressive about making teachers teach.  I do now that it is lacking in your neighboring state of Louisiana, because 3 years ago I taught Katrina kids, and they didn’t recognize either event.  Now, I can understand that when you’ve lost everything in a hurricane and are living with relatives, that the going to school everyday night be hard, but I’d think you’d know how to sit down and listen in a classroom, but apparently a teacher that actually does classroom management and makes you do that is foreign. 

So no, I’m for a properly admisisted NCLB program.  Who knows, maybe all the kids will actually get taught? 

Last week was pretty calm.  I spent most of it working on curriculum, which I am tired of now. 

I’m hoping to finish up the tests this week.  I put semester 1 into word processing today and hoping to do semester 2 tomorrow. 

Frankly, I am tired of summer.  Part of it is that I am in a beagle emergency and it doesn’t look good for the beagle.

There are two types of teacher workshops I’ve attended.  The first type I call the "Dog and Pony" Show, and the second type you actually learn something new.  There are also conferences which can be both — I’ll also explain why I don’t like conferences.

A "Dog and Pony" Show is usually divided up in small sections.  Both the CS&IT Symposium and the STEM Conference I went to a few weeks ago were dog and pony shows. Basically someone gets up for an hour or so and demonstrates something they’ve done.  Usually they give you a list of links for more detail.

These exhaust me.  They also frustrate me because I want the details. 

The workshops I like best is where you learn new skills.  AP Workshops are usually this type, though there are often short "dog and pony" shows thrown in them.  The Alice/Media Computation workshop in Las Vegas should be a working workshop. 

These are also exhausting, but I feel good afterwards because I’ve left with a new skill or two.

Now I really hate conferences, especially TCEA.  I went several years on DISD’s dimes, and let me tell you, I always lose money on those.  One reason is that I am really not comfortable sharing a room with someone and making them put up with my CPAP machine.  The old ones I had made me sound like Darth Vadar while I was sleeping.

The other problem is that they never have enough sessions or seats in those sessions.  What you usually have to do, is stake out a seat in a room where your session that you really want to hear and stay through the boring stuff. 

What really made me quit going to those was the last one I went to, can’t even remember what yet, but I ended up losing a small fortune and getting frustrated.  Someone stole the cord on my laptop during the presentation.  I know I very carefully packed everything, but didn’t realize that my laptop cord was not there!  I checked later with the people who were responsible for making things go smoothly and they didn’t find it either.  Back in those days, your laptop turned into a brick in about two hours without the cord.  So I had to order one, and that was before the ebay days when you could get one from an OEM and had to order them at the manufacturers price.  It certainly wasn’t worth the trip and haven’t been back since.  I think I ended up losing about $500.00 total between the fact that the district didn’t cover all the costs AND the cord.

The only thing wrong with this, was that it was too short!  The keynotes were all great, the message is that enrollment is close to an all time low, especially girl enrollment. 

In my opinion, it is our job to get them into our classroom doors.  The good news is that all the sessions I went to focused on that. I went to a session on using Games (of course), one on using Dot Net Nuke which might be good for the new class, a sesson on Alice, and a session on using Open Source

Dan Reed was the opening speaker and Maria Klawe was the closing speaker.

Finally food was great, we were fed breakfast, lunch and two snacks.

Definately worth the $40 registration fee and the cost of getting there.  By the way, I did it as a day trip and it worked really well, I had booked the first flight of the day and it got me there 10 minutes earlier than scheduled.  I hopped in a cab, and got there in no time.  At the end of the day, I hopped in to another cab and made it back.  There were flight delays due to weather, but I was able to get my reservation booked to an earlier flight, so got home about 20 minutes before my flight actually arrived in Dallas.

Made it to CSTA Symposium!
Keynote:
Claims liberal arts as it solves problems.
Challenge: adds more concepts without eliminating old concepts.
Numbers of majors and female in field is dismal.
Why?
Make money and fun things to do.
CS is about problem solving. money is not the primary issue.
Liberal arts of 21st century.

Made it to CSTA Symposium!
Keynote:
Claims liberal arts as it solves problems.
Challenge: adds more concepts without eliminating old concepts.
Numbers of majors and female in field is dismal.
Why?
Make money and fun things to do.
CS is about problem solving. money is not the primary issue.
Liberal arts of 21st century.

I ended up in the hospital Saturday through Monday, then sent home and not able to drive for two days.  My first day out was Thursday was which a full day of staff development.  I had a meeting scheduled at my school but only two other people showed up.  Then I went to work on my final, writing questions all day, and I turned in the Spring Semester exam.  I also went over the output of the Fall semester exam on Thursday and discovered they lost half of the questions.

Oh, and the most exciting part, is that I was assigned the Spring semester of our curriculum.  That means more money, but I spent Monday through Wednesday working on it.

Almost forgot to blog about this — I just went through a district required staff development in my subject area — and taught a lot of it.  We spent the morning on curriculum and my specialist went through the background.  Then he showed off my curriculum and let everyone have a chance to edit it.

I did the afternoon, showing Raptor and giving everyone a chance to use it.  Then had a discussion on some of the harder parts of the TEKS  to teach and test.  Then I showed off some of the programs I’ve written lately using Visual Basic.

Alfred Thompson and Microsoft was the biggest hit, he gave everyone there access to the MSDN High School program.

CSTA = Computer Science Teachers Association

I’m at Love Field waiting for the plane to board.  They have some really nice chairs that provide both regular outlets and USB outlets.

Also,since I have ATT Uverse, I get the Wifi for free.  Nice deal.

TSA was great, they actually brought my bins off the line and put them with me when they wanded me.

So far, my plan is working — that is fly in for the CSTA Symposium, for the day. 

I don’t use it enough.  My usual use is to record a classroom demonstration so students can look at it later.  Its nice, as they pause, etc.

I’ve also used it to do some power point presentations for the other teachers in my building, I have no idea if they ever look at them, but oh, well.

So here’s the deal, I’m in the hospital, flunked a nuclear stress test, have to have a catherization done, and while I’m waiting, I’m working on my Computer Science curriculum.

So I already have it installed on my notebook.

I started out by created a couple of Power Points and then used Camtasia to record the presentation, like I’ve done for our staff.  Piece of cake, but then I got real adventurous and created a whole movie with Title slides, transitions, etc.

Hopefully you can see it here.  The nice part, I’m using the built-in microphone and it seems to only be picking up my voice, not hospital noise.