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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.
I will start out by saying that I am a traditionally trained teacher.
I got tired of being sexually harassed, mostly mentally but on a couple of occasions physically. I also got tired of working 24/7. I was suffering from sleep deprivation which in my case, looks a lot like rapid cycling manic depression.
I took almost a year off and did the dog thing, teaching obedience classes and bathing dogs for a dog groomer "friend". Evaluated and decided the things I liked the most and the way, I could get there the quickest was teaching Computer Science and Math.
I did try the alternative certification plan for Dallas ISD, but my undergraduate GPA wasn’t high enough. I also tried getting an emergency certificate, but like this year, that year DISD had too many teachers. So I went back to school as a certification candidate and as a grad student. I didn’t have the undergraduate grades to get in but I aced the GRE. I was on probation for several semesters.
I will proudly say that I earned a 4.0 in every class except student teaching, and got a "B" because I mixed my experiences (thankfully), I did half in Mathematics, Middle School, hated it but got an "A", and half in CS, high school. Since the supervising teacher was not certified in CS, she got even and gave me a "C". I think she was a bit afraid I’d take her job since I would end up certified.
The State Board for Educator Certification, or SBEC, which licenses teachers, is considering a new rule requiring alternative certification programs to accept only students who maintained a 2.5 grade-point average or better in college.
I can’t complete knock the AC program, but the percentage of quality teachers from that program seems low. I’m often surprised about who succeeds — one that comes in mind is one who has the most negative attitude I’ve ever seen, has an extremely high failure rate, and obviously would rather be home with her baby. I avoid this woman as she sucks the positive right out of me.
I’ve mentored and assisted in preparing quite a few. For several weeks while teaching summer school a few years ago, I had two follow me around and suck my brain out. Not sure what happened to them. The ones I’ve mentored in my subject area never seem to stay very many years.
I’m also a bit scared of online courses, though I will admit my Master’s Degree is a combo face-to-face and online course. It’s CECS, Computer Education and Cognitive Studies and a great deal of the focus was on teaching online, so it does make sense that at least part of our course was online. And hey, I have taught an online course for the district, and believe you me, that kiddo was prepared for the next course.
So I’m for the stricter rules. We tortured quite a few Algebra I students this year with a couple of AC’s that are moving on.
Alfred is going for the whole trip:
I’ll start on Saturday the 28th with the annual CS & IT Symposium.
Computer Science Teacher – Thoughts and Information from Alfred Thompson
However, I’m only going to be there for the above event. Hopefully, because I’ve got a flight via Southwest Airlines that should get me there for registration, and am taking the last flight of the day. I’m REAL busy, will be blogging on that soon.
Look me up there!
One of the biggest frustrations for me lately, is getting paid by the district. I get my regular salary just fine, and anything I do that is tracked by our biometric clock is fine. However, reimbursements and pay for non-clock work is a whole other story. Right now, the district owe me about $1500. Almost $500 is for a workshop that they paid for, but sent to the wrong address. They even got reimbursed by the state. My office manager put a stop payment on the check and it was never cashed. We sent in the receipts, and the department responsible gave us the wrong line item for the expense. Finally the school decided to reimbursement with building funds and I still haven’t seen the money.
The next problem is an extra class I taught last year, online. I had kids, one finished the class even and it took months to get a grade recorded on the transcript. However, we put the paperwork in last year, and I still haven’t seen the money. Frustrating because I have projects that are waiting on the money.
If you count the IRS rebate, and the workshop last week, someone in the world claims they are sending me somewhere $3500.00 Man is it frustrating!
I just finished the first full week of the summer break. If you want to call it that. Monday, was the ACP Kickoff meeting — ACP is Assessment of Course Performance and is our district finals. I spent some of that afternoon working on second semester curriculum.
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning was two and half days of staff development which I am getting $200.00 for. By the way, that’s part of a whole different post. It was interesting, a whole set of dog and pony shows about STEM. Unforturantely I am way past the dog and pony show.
Friday morning was: take dog to the vet (which I have put off for months because I’ve been too busy at school) to get pheno barb levels, appointment with doctor, planned for after the school year because of time constraints, and then spent the majority of the day working on the ACP. I’ve also spent a few hours through the week working on curriculum.
Saturday I also worked for the district, on the ACP, and then went to a Memorial for a friend who recently passed away.
Needless to say, not much of a vacation so far, but I have had time to organize things.
I’m in the ACP Kickoff meeting and just found out our first deadline is June 25. Also, just found out that none of my partners showed up! Oh well.
But right now, I’ve scheduled every single moment for ACP’s and leaving that with the coordinator.
Interesting piece — the program at our school is much smaller, but still alive. Several years back when we had a larger immigrant population, I taught English for Math which is mentioned as a beginning, non-credit course. Very interesting. In fact, I’ve had several of those students in Computer Science this year.
Quoted from http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spe/2008/immigrant_students/:
Local News: Immigrant Students | Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas
A big challenge facing North Texas’ public schools is immigration — particularly teens from rural Mexico.
People often think that teachers have an easy schedule. In fact, my own husband thought that until he witnessed my first year of teaching.
A lot of assumptions are made. First, the day. I get almost 30 minutes for lunch — I have to wait for the students to leave and be back as they return, so that cuts into that lunch time. Second, unlike my previous office job, I can’t take an extra minute or two, or even be late. If I am not in the room, no learning goes on. Sometimes they will have a security person sit in my room while I take care of something for an administrator (like fix a printer), but I really am not supposed to leave.
Bathroom breaks are hard too — we are supposed to maintain order in the halls, so we really can’t go then. And we really aren’t supposed to go during class time. There really isn’t any one to relieve us. Oh, we do duck out, but there is a bit of risk.
What about turning in attendance, paperwork, etc.? I don’t like sending a kid, because they are supposed to be working "bell to bell" And I do try to make that happen. Again, I get fussed at everytime I leave for something like that and an adminstrator comes by the room.
So in addition to this post, I’m also going to blog about this summer, so you’ll realize that getting a part time job really isn’t an option.
I’m lucky as I have the senority and the experience to do some district jobs — writing curriculum and finals, which will pay a little of $4000. Not bad, but not a lot either.
So I had one day off this week — first thing in the morning, I went by my doctor’s office to get blood work done. Not something I can really do during the school year, as there just isnt enough time — our official hours are 8:00 – 4:00.
I also did two hours of work on our curriculum.
I love this article as it supports my feelings about computers. I believe strongly that when you have a computer in the classroom, you have to have a teacher who is skilled in classroom management. I believe that you have to give the students more work than they can possibly do, but it has to be work that they can complete and be successful at.
I really do feel that the one laptop per child program will fail unless there are adults to monitor and direct.
Quoted from http://www.slate.com/id/2192798:
Why giving poor kids laptops doesn’t improve their scholastic performance.