April 30, 2008

I had to work on budget requisitions, troubleshooting, and copying audiobooks, etc. The requisitions will allow me to do more things with my students. I am still having trouble with the node even though I have restarted it several times. The audiobooks are a project in elementary. I also had to be the Oracle at Delphi today dealing with several matters, and I will be meeting with the middle school teachers tomorrow. I plan to talk about Google Earth and Inspiration--if I have time, I will also deal with Office 2007. These are all solid programs, and I have tutorials for each. Again, each teacher must realize that I will supply them with the basics, and they need to explore from there. Discovery is an important tool for students and for adults. I also have to get ready for next week; I will be out three days for conferences. Don't you just love it, now. I am ready to pack it in for a day. I cannot believe that April 2008 is gone forever. I am of the philosophy that time is relative to the constraints that man has placed on it, but it can be bent and altered by the same people who have put the constraints upon it. I love doing that.

April 29, 2008

I'm back. Okay enough of the movie quotes. I feel one of the wireless nodes we placed in the school is malfunctioning. One room of laptops will only let a few students log on. I have contacted the disrict network administrator to bring in the group to check it out. Other than that, I helped a teacher with PowerPoint Jeopardy. It is working well. The students are having a good time with it and using it to review. I am finding out more and more the different ideas the teachers are using to help parlay information. By engaging the students, they will learn. I also spent a tremendous time working on embedded learning. A lot of teachers are completing the course. There is also some controversy with respect to Wilkes. Wilkes is now offering those teachers who did not take it for credit to do so by writing a paper. Those teachers who chose to take it for credit had a minimum of eight weeks to finish the course and are upset at the fact that others can get credit with a longer period of time. I do not know why Wilkes is doing this, but I do have my thoughts. See you tomorrow.

April 28, 2008

I was here early, of course, and the floodgates opened by 7. Fixed that problem. The internet went down. Laptops would not connect. Saw some awesome flip books made in PowerPoint. Taught a class. Did Dean work. Solved the gas problem (oops, that is tomorrow). Worked with Active Directory. Worked on embedded learning. Copied DVD's for student. Worked on audiobook for elementary. I am sure I am forgetting something, but I forgot what that was ( I know that delves into a redundant redundancy). It sounds like I am complaining, but I am not. It is great to broaden my own horizons and see how all of this is working together. I am just amazed at all of the things I get into in a day, and I vowed to make a list today of everything that invloved me. Well, half way through, the list went by the wayside. I must commend the teacher who used PPT as a flip book. It is fantastic, and she told me how much her students were engaged in the topic. I saw the results, and it took me back to when I used to doodle and make a flip book with a tablet. I thought it was creative and allowed the students to think logically and sequentially. Teachers are expanding their comfort zones to incorporate old ideas with new technology. They are starting to, as they say, "Get It!" Keep up the great work. What a great day to be involved with all of this. I will be updating you tomorrow. Oh, check out the wiki http://cffflick.wikispaces.com/ It is expanding every day. I found some great software for the music people. Reflect with you tomorrow. Oh, I did forget a big concept today. I found an article that dealt with teachers on social sites. There have been problems across the country with some teachers forgetting their professional side and posting inappropriate content on MySpace and Facebook, etc. Although these items are not governed by most districts, everyone needs to remember when these are put online, anyone can read them and look at the pictures. I gave them a copy of the article so they could be aware of the ramifications. Like this blog, anything put online is accessible by someone. Curiosis scriptor -- loose translation --be careful writer.

April 25, 2008

It seems like my days are a myriad of concoctions that would make the Wizard of Id proud to be an accomplished alchemist. It is mainly a feast of so many different items that I sometimes I feel I need to break things into categories. Okay, enough, I really want to commend most of the teachers to kicking out some great work. I still am marveling at walking around the school and watching some great engagement. This is the best. I also have been working on facilitating the course. There is a lot of work with this, but more and more teachers are completing the course well. I guess one has figured that this blog is mostly a scattering of ideas that have been moving around the cranial cavity. I am looking at the schedule for May, and I wonder how everything will get finished. Okay, okay, I am done, next week will be a good one....Have a great weekend.

April 24, 2008

Well, this is the second time I am trying to blog this day. Our IP provider is doing some upgrades to the internet. I wish the group would use a different time other than school hours. Yesterday was a half day for me. I spent most of the time facilitating the embedded learning course. three more teachers have completed the course, but I must go in a check their work. Cassie says "hi" to everyone. I have several more hours working with the course, and I will do that tomorrow. I also had to troubleshoot several problems....Tasher says "Hi!" They were all successful. Talk with you tomorrow.

April 23, 2008

Happy Shakespeare's birthday and Happy Secretary's Day (Administrative Assistant)--I have to watch out and politically correct--yeah. I have a teacher working on a Romeo and Juliet unit. I researched some sites and downloaded a Jeopardy game for her. She is trying hard to integrate the technology into her unit. I also have a math teacher who is working on a nonlinear powerpoint so students can construct their own quizzes. I also have another teacher who wants his students to blog on line. The list is continuing. With all of the IT thangs and teachers broadening their scopes, it does make for a busy day. I am concerned about next year's grant with respect to the fact that my time will be limited. It will be difficult to teach and integrate the grant, but I believe strongly in the program; I will make it work somehow. I also had a request from the administration to present something on in-service day. I am not sure what to do so I am going to poll the teachers and find out what they might want. Hi ho, Hi ho, it's off to work I go. Thanks Walt.

April 22, 2008

Happy Earth Day to all!!! This is a time when I reflect on some of the technology and the good and harm it does to our planet. I am still the eternal optimist because I say that there is more good than harm, but with the ever burgeoning technological advances, I wish that more people would recycle their old technology the correct way. Enough of the soapbox. I spent most of the day troubleshooting. I did do some collaborative teaching, but most of it dealt with IT issues. I have also noticed that some students want to play with taking the keys off of the lappys. This creates two issues. One is the plastic breaks easily under the keys, and two teachers need to check the computers while they are being shelved. I did have my meeting after school and warned the teachers who were there about this problem and asked them to check the puters before being shelved. I also talked about the wiki and office 2007. I gave them a handout on word and nonlinear ppt's. I also told them that I have a wiki posted. Another teacher is interested on doing some online blogging with his class so I will get that ready tomorrow. We will see what tomorrow brings. adieu.

April 21, 2008

Since the IT guy left last week, today became the day I had to run interference with IT problems. I still have not solved the printing problem with CFF 1; I cannot figure out why the lappys keep dropping the printer. I will have to do some consultation. I will also have to figure out why a board stopped working. I have a meeting after school tomorrow with the CFF teachers, and it will be devoted to Office 2007. I will not be here for the next meeting in May, and I asked Eddie (CIU 10) to come in and work with them on nettrekker. I need to keep the meeting schedule and have the meetings meaningful. I have also placed some tutorials on my wiki http://cffflick.wikispaces.com/ to help teachers with the most popular programs. I plan to do this for most of the programs we use. I keep reminding the teachers of the resources there, but I am unsure of how many avail themselves of it. One must keep trying. I looked at my schedule for May, and it looks like it will be oot and aboot. It seems like organizations love to put a lot of conferences at this time. I do need these to help delve deeper into things I have to know. It seems that this job is more in line with the function of the Oracle at Delphi. I will write tomorrow............

April 18, 2008

I spent the day sitting in meetings and learning about some new software and hardware. The software deals with streaming video and its uses. I thought it was quite good. I also thought it was quite pricey. I see the benefits of this service, but I really think we need to get things in order here before venturing into this area. I could see implementation in a year or two. I like the concept of linking classes and doing lectures on line, but all of this can be accomplished with what we have. It will not be the greatest of quality, but it will be functional. The next aspect dealt with a hardware company in Syracuse called Seneca. I thought their presentation was good and viable for schools. I like their services as well as their ability to tailor a product for each individual school. I feel this is a company we need to look into and possibly avail ourselves with their products. Then we had a presentation dealing with using the Macintosh active directory. If we integrate Macs into the system next year, this will quite useful. A very productive day. Have a great weekend. While I was away, there were a few problems that i will have to deal with when I get back...All in the life.....

April 17, 2008

I guess the old adage "when it rains, it pours" is very appropriate for the day. Who could believe finding one driver for a laptop could cause such dismay. I know that it is rhetorical but true. From there, it just went downhill in that a whole class of CFF puters just did not want to log on or work properly. Then I moved to a raid boot issue, etc. I had to put all of this down today, or I would have forgotten about some of this. I put the mileage on the old shoes today. I also finished the tutorial on ppt 2007 and gave it the instructor. That is about it, and I will be out tomorrow at a TIG meeting. I will be back and ready.