techtocktoe

Ok, I had to get creative with the name, I tried a zillion of them, but you know how it is, great minds think alike. It was hard to find one I wanted to use that no one else had thought of. This will be my blog for this year as I start teaching technology. I have taught it before, I spent three years teaching it at a local charter school, but I also taught many other subjects as well. Seeing as this is a new experience and a new district for me, I thought it was only fitting that I get a new blog. I want my students to blog and I hope they do. Blogging affords us an opportunity that texting, facebooking, myspacing, and twittering do not. We have as many characters as we want to tell a story, share our work, and keep in touch. I have been blogging for about 7 years now and I have to say that I am pleased when I look back on the years of posts. They are a map of my life and what I was thinking about at that moment. I could journal, but I prefer to type. I can access my blog most anywhere and add to it at any time, even from my blackberry, or ipod touch. That works for me. Today I am getting my eboard ready for this year and debating if the entire curriculum should be posted there or not. I think not, who is going to read it anyway? It will take up too much of my alloted 500 mb.
As I make the sign-up sheets for the teachers in the computer lab, I know that we need an online option so teachers can see the availability of the lab from anywhere. It is a pain to run down to the lab just to check. We sometimes write our plans at home, you know. After trying 6 different calendar programs that share, I have concluded that I will just use google docs. It will be simpler and if the server goes down, as it occasionally does, we can still access it. Teachers will still have to sign up on the printed sheet in A-7 because I do not want anyone to mess up the online document, I will change that myself. I will probably hate this either way. There is NO good way ever for this type of thing unless it is ALL online, offline, or on the server. I am sure I will regret it.

Exam Avoidance

I thought I had seen it all. It is exam time and kids are faking sick, converging on the nurse's office en masse and conveniently "losing" their study guides. I was wrong, today I was treated to the sight of kids stuffing each other into lockers. There was no bullying involved, the "victims" asked for this treatment, they wanted to stay in a one foot by 4 foot space instead of writing an essay. When they were handed scantron sheets during social studies, they blanked out. One teacher reported that the students asked what to write on the subject line and said " And people wonder why I am retiring?" Our exam team of at-risk students were no better the students just circled any answer, thinking they were going to get away with it. They wouldn't even fill out their study guides appropriately unless we were policing them. One student wrote for the Social Studies term Lexington, that it was a small town in the middle of nowhere and the town of Concord was a small town in the middle of nowhere, next to Lexington. I really don't think that information will help him pass his exam.

What is with the Chair?

I went for an important job interview yesterday and when I sat down, the chair tipped back. Every time I leaned back, just a little, the chair almost tipped over. I felt like I was being punked by Aston Kutcher. It was a rocking-type office chair that seemed like the back had lost its ability to stay upright. I could not relax and my concentration was severely affected. I even had to ask them to repeat a question.


I do not know if they do this just to see how the applicants respond. I won't mention the school, since it is local and I am TRYING to get a job there, but I thought that since they KNEW that the chair tipped back and told me not to lean back after my first tipping incident, it would have been nice to have been offered a different chair. Since there are many more applicants they need to see, I hope they have a heart and change out the chair. I hope I don't see myself on youtube.

blogging time

I was having a conversation last night with my friend about blogging. Obviously I haven't been writing much, I have been too busy to deconstruct things that are going on in my life in written form. She says I am busy living life instead of writing about it and she is right. I am lucky if I get to talk to my friends on the phone. Twitter is not as fun as it used to be, I have to drop a lot of people I am following because they are not talking about anything that interests me, but I don't have the time to go through and see who is saying what all the time. I have to be honest, I met a lot of great people through twitter, and now I read their blogs, but I do not have time to always check their tweets. Seems like writing for me is best done in the winter, it kept me from going into my yearly blahs. All spring, summer and fall, I am usually running my tuccous off. Did I spell that right? I don't know. So if I seem sporadic, I am. Sorry, there are a lot of drafts waiting to be finished, and I will get to them in time.

Millimeters count in hard drives and Knitting

kjfv;df;oggkn

google video uploader discontinued

I am so bummed. I knew just what to do, we could play the videos in school because Youtube is always blocked and google video wasn't. What a blow.