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I have been curious about MySpace after all the media reports and what my fellow teachers have said.  Plus several of my students requested that they learn about MySpace.

After the walkouts, my district has blocked MySpace so we can’t do anything in the classroom, but I do plan to talk about it soon.

The good news, is that Safari just made a book availabled called “My Space Unraveled: A Parent’s Guide to Teen Social Networking from the Directors of BlogSafety.com”

By the way, BlogSafety.com is worth checking out.

I like the book so far, and I like their approach — don’t try to control your teenager but do teach them to act responsibility.  That’s what I try to do.

I personally prefer leaving the websites on and getting onto kids when they go to the wrong place or at the wrong time.  I don’t get to make all those choices, as the district does use Websense to block things.

By the way, I absolutely love this service.  I like to read, BUT I just don’t have the room to store all the books, especially technical books and lets face it, they are obsolute at least a year later. 

I hate wasting paper!

My evaluator thinks I should go.

My Dean of Instruction doesn’t.  She agrees that it is a bad time to be away from school and that we should do it in the summer.  She also agrees it costs a lot.

I haven’t run it by the principal yet.

We had “Meet the Teacher” night Thursday night.  I had a good turnout, about 20 parents.  I gave them all my email address and asked them to record theirs, though I haven’t done anything to contact them.

I have given a few parents links to their children’s progress reports.  In some cases it was good, and in some, the parent started nagging both me and the child.

Apparently I have been invited to go to China.  See http://www.ambassadorprograms.org/upcomingprograms/education/clarence_ellis.asp

I’m not sure if everyone gets invited to it, or why I was picked.  I looked up the person who invited me, and I do not recall ever being at a conference or workshop with him, but I could have been at the same workshop several years ago in Austin.

I’ve shown the link to my husand and he doesn’t think going to China is a good idea.  (Actually he said getting a 6 week old beagle puppy was a better idea).

My mother also doesn’t think it is something I can handle, and I’m inclined to agree.

First, it would take me away from my classroom for week.  I am very disinclined to be away from my students that long, unless there is a very substantial reason for it.

Second, I am diabetic, insulin dependent and on an insulin pump.  Traveling right now is problemic for all diabetics, since we really need to travel with liquids, not just our medications.  Plus I am on a CPAP machine, and while mine travels very well, its emergency battery can be a problem.

Third, it cots $4,195 to go from LA.  While Dallas to LA flights booked this far in advance will probably be cheap.  I really can’t afford it.

So I really doubt I will go, but it is an interesting idea.

Oh, and I have never had any desire to go to China.

This year is going better than I can remember any year going so far.

I have just under 120 students.  Last year I had 180.  Makes a huge difference.

I’ve got my A* CS I kids programming.  I’m having a bit of a problem getting my A* CS II kid going but he has always been that way.  He’ll go days without working and then turn in EVREYTHING.  Drives me nuts, but that’s the way he is.

A* stands for two words that are copyrighted or some such by the college board.

I’ve decided that I have to let my PreAP kids fly and let my Webmastering kids plod.  I don’t have many webmastering kids, but 2 of them can’t speak English, much less type it, or read it.

At any rate, I’m really glad I waited out last year, and I have things the way I want them now.

I even have a printer!

All four of my online students showed up for our kickoff — face to face meeting.  The main reason we met in person, was to give the kiddos their laptops.  That makes things very nice.  I have set up — and need to publish, a movie on how to download and install Java, but it is much nicer that we gave it to the kiddos done.

Two of my students have completed their first assignment — email me.  One sort of has, but is having issues installing his ISP.  I haven’t heard from the fourth yet.

I’m really excited about this.  Each student is from a different high school which means we’ll get good word of mouth.

I’m actually hoping to teach AP CS online next year.

I did something new this year (and remember, I didn’t teach CS at the beginning of the year last year).

The District Acceptable Use Policy form I gave to students had a place for parents to put their email address.  So as I got each of the permission slips back, I emailed each parent that included that the form.

I got nothing but positive responses, and I have placed all the responses in a seperate folder in my email account, so if I do need to contact a parent, I can check for them in that folder.

Basically I just put each child’s name in the subject heading.  In the body of the message, I introduced myself and  told the parent that they should contact me if they had quetions or concerns.

I did get several questions, all easily answered.

I can’t remember if I posted this — but I got my AP results, though I didn’t get ALL of them.  My alternate tested passed too!

So I had two AP Computer Science A students pass and one AP Computer Science AB students pass.  Unfortunately my alternate passer misproved my theory — she did not have me before, but one of the students I taught, taught her.  So that is almost as good.