Another Snow Day and a Wonderful Tool

We haven't been back to school since we dismissed early on Monday.  That storm came in and dumped 3.5" of heavy white stuff.  The roads were a mess (as usual) and although they were much better by Tuesday, the National Weather Service was forecasting another round of winter weather starting Wednesday morning, so they canceled school for Wednesday as well.  It started snowing at my house around 10:00 am, and finished around 8:00 pm after dumping another 4" of the white stuff.  Again, the roads were a disaster.  To make it even more fun, the nighttime temperature dropped to -6 - and this in an area where our average temperature is 50 degrees! So today, Thursday is another snow day and who knows what Friday will bring?  Hard to say.

So, we've really lost two weeks of instruction already and I've been getting a bit stir crazy.

However.  Thanks to a Tech Geek at our district I have been test driving a new tool to use to keep my kids in the learning game even while they're home for a snow day. A few weeks ago the Tech Geek was out in our building working with some teachers and I asked her if there was anything she knew of that I could use to connect with my kids during a snow day - a social networking type site, a chat site, whatever.

She recommended Edmodo.

I'm going to sound like a commercial here, so apologies ahead of time, but this application just rocks!  It's a social networking site that is teacher directed.  I signed up, gave my kids the code to sign up for my class, and so far I have about 50 kids signed up and a number of parents as well (parents can get a code to monitor their child which is a fantastic idea!) It looks a lot like Facebook, but the one thing is the kids can't talk with each other, they can only talk to the group as a whole or to the teacher.

I have posted extra credit, I've linked to Brainpops, I've put in missing work for absent kids, and I even posted a video lesson this morning (my first video!).  The kids who are absent absolutely love it, and they actually are turning in work (that's a huge problem for us - kids who are absent tend not to make up their work).  I can send direct messages to kids ("while we are out on a snow day, please finish your writing prompt.") and to individual classes and to the group as a whole as well as to parents.

If you haven't had a chance to check out Edmodo, take a minute and do so.  I can assure you that this will definitely be something I start at the beginning of the year next year.

Nothing Like Waiting Until the Last Minute

Today was our first day back to school after a week off for fall break.

At 5:55 am I received an email from a parent (kid is in my homeroom but has been moved into Mrs. Eagle's inclusion class).  The parent wants to let me know that Baseball Boy did not do his worksheets over break because the log in and password I gave him for the online book was wrong.  (More likely, since I cut and paste this information from the textbook website, someone wrote the information down wrong, but hey, who's being picky here.)

It is obviously my fault that he didn't bring home his book and he didn't have the correct information to access his online book.

However...the parent and Baseball Boy have had all week - ten days to be precise - to email me to get the correct information.  However, Baseball Mom waited until about an hour and a half before school started back up to inform me of my obvious error. I would bet that Baseball Boy pulled the work out of his backpack sometime late the night before.  Or more likely, mom went through the backpack and found the worksheets.

I copied Mrs. Eagle on the email, again cut and pasted the correct information for the online book, and mentioned, without being too snarky, that I wish she had emailed me sooner during the week as I would have been glad to assist her with her problem.

What a great freaking way to start the new nine weeks.

However, I did, I suppose, get the last laugh.  Mr. Eagle copied me on the email she sent to Baseball Boy's mom informing her that she didn't assign any worksheets to do over break, that those worksheets, in fact, were due PRIOR to break and she has already finalized grades.

Oh well.

Down to the Wire

So tomorrow is the first day of school.   Actually it's a half day, but who's quibbling?

And no, I do not know why we go a half day on a Friday, have a teacher in-service on Monday and the kids finally show up for a full day on Tuesday.  It doesn't make sense to me either.

Anyhow, I'm not sure if it's because this is my eighth first day of school, or because I finally got a bit more organized, or if I got started earlier, but I had my room set up and ready to go about three days ago.  I got the bulk of it done Friday of last week, but started going in every morning this week (to get back on the getting up at o-dark-thirty routine) which enabled me to get a lot more done.  No last minute copying, no last minute poster-hanging (I hate that part), no last minute anything.  So it's a bit weird because everything is ready to go.

Except we have no homeroom rosters.

Seriously.

I sarcastically suggested we line the kids up in the theater like you did as a kid when you chose teams on the playground and pick the kids we want in our homeroom. (Actually, now that I think of it, I kind of like that idea.)

I love our guidance department. They are rock stars. They are some of my best friends. So, it's not really fair that they get blamed for the whole scheduling problem issue because truly, it isn't their fault. It's technology. We use PowerSchool (which I usually love for the most part) but they did some changes over the summer and for some reason it has not been cooperating. At all.

First problem is that we've gone from three seventh grade teams to two seventh grade teams. Our numbers are down this year (which is weird because they are building apartments and subdivisions all over our zone but alas, no middle school kids. Perhaps they're all elementary.) And the eighth grade has gone from three full teams to two teams plus a "mini-team". Some of the eighth grade teachers are going to be teaching one class of seventh graders to reduce the class sizes. So, since Mrs. Eagle's team is closer to the eighth grade hall than my team is, her team should be getting about 30 or so more kids than my team (and these kids will be the ones that have one eighth grade teacher). Confused?

So, for some reason that no one can figure out, PowerSchool wants to schedule all new seventh graders onto my team. And from what the Guidance Goddess said, yesterday and today was Scheduling Hell as parents and kids were lined three deep trying to register for school.

And then there's the issue of balanced class sizes. Although we currently don't have homerooms, we can see some of the kids that are in our other classes. My class sizes are quite a bit bigger - for the most part - than last year. Let's see, 3rd period has 29, 4th period has 23, 5th period has 22, 6th period has 37 and 7th period has 17. (Yesterday 6th period had 42).

All of this will probably change by tomorrow. I can cram about 34 kids in my room, with 7 lab groups of 4, one lab group of 2, and 4 flying solo seats. It should be interesting to see how many show up, and how it all shakes out.

Oh boy!!!

Happy Father's Day

First off, important things first...

Happy Father's Day not only to my very awesome dad who taught me a lot of things, not the least being how to love sports and how to install a new faucet, but to all the fathers out there who are doing their job. Biology doesn't make you a father...how you treat and raise those kids is what makes you a father. So good for you! Have a happy day.

And as for me...I've been out of town for several weeks, doing summer camp, and haven't posted in a bit. Sorry, if any of you were wondering. About two days before I was scheduled to head out, my hard drive crashed on my laptop (and it wasn't even two years old, but already out of warranty). Dang. Fortunately Mr. Math is a geek of the highest order, so he helped me buy a new one, installed it, and we're all up and running.

And I'm going to do a commercial plug here. I ordinarily wouldn't do something like this but when I find a product that rocks, I'll do it. Last year I got Carbonite for my husband's computer because it was old, he used it for work, he's writing a book, and quite honestly, I didn't want to have to deal with the fall out if something happened. Thank goodness I did. His ten year old (yes, I know) computer died, but we were able to salvage everything due to Carbonite and Mr. Math (the geek) who helped us when we bought the new computer. So, since I have lots of pictures and stuff on my computer, I thought I'd sign my computer up. Well, 45 days later I'm glad I did. It's money well spent. I'm sold on their product and their customer service.

Anyhow, I'm back, I'll be posting a bit more now that I'm home, and I hope you all are having a great summer.

Night Owls

Over the years as a middle school teacher, I've had my share of sleepy kids in class. It's not that unusual, especially among the boys, considering the amount of growth these kids go through when they hit puberty.

Sometimes it really impacts their grades and you have to get a parent involved. Usually we've discovered that our little Sleepy Heads have a television in their rooms and are staying up all night watching (usually inappropriate and very adult) television while the parents are blissfully snoozing away. Usually all it takes is the removal of the television from the room, and we see a much more alert and chipper kid in class. In some other cases, the problem is a computer in the room and the kid is up all night chatting or playing video games on line - sort of like Rip Van Winkle. Now, kids with computers in their rooms is another post for another day (can we say "online predators" anyone?), but it's still an issue, and, once again, once the parents figure out what's going on and remove the problem, we see a much better rested kid in class.

So, this brings me to a discussion that I had with my Fourth Period today. This is one of my smallest classes, and although there are quite a few of them that are, shall we say, a bit difficult in the personality department, they do have their moments.

Drama Boy, out of the blue, asked me if I'd every talked to a friend on the phone at night when I was a kid.

"Drama Boy, you need to remember that we didn't have our own phones back in the dark ages when I was a kid. We had phones attached to walls in the kitchen and everyone heard our conversations and there was no way I was allowed to use the phone after 8:00 pm."

This brought a chorus of "ohhhhhs" from the kids. They can't believe how tough life was for us in the old days.

"Oh yeah," he said, as if remembering that, yeah, teachers are old. "Well, I was texting this girl this morning around three, and..."

"Wait a minute," I interrupted him. "Three in the morning?"

"Yeah, three in the morning," he continued.

"You were on the phone texting a girl at three in the morning this morning?" I asked incredulously. "Seriously?"

"Yeah, and well my Dad caught me and busted me out on it," he said.

"Well, thank goodness," I responded. "I hope he took your phone away as well."

"Well, no, he didn't"

Idiot.

Of course the entire class is listening to this conversation and start putting in their two cents' worth.

"My mom took my phone away after my last progress report when my grades tanked and she found out I was up texting 'til two in the morning," said one of my girls.

"Yeah, I usually stay up texting at least until midnight," said another.

I was floored. I was hoping that Rip Van Winkle and Drama Boy were the exceptions to the rule, but the more I talked with this bunch, the more I found out that they aren't getting any sleep! They're too busy playing video games and texting all night long! Here they are, in the throes of puberty, when they need, oh, eight to ten hours of sleep a day and they're getting maybe, four? If they're lucky!

A few of the kids in this class admitted that they had set bedtimes and were usually in bed by eight or so, which is a good thing since we start school rather early (at 7:30). Interestingly enough, any guess on which group has the best grades?

Yeah, you got it, the ones getting to bed earlier are more successful academically.

So my big question is...where are the parents? Asleep? Do they not check the bills to see that their darling cherub is up at all hours of the night and day texting away? What's so hard with taking that phone away over night and giving it back in the morning?

There are times I just want to beat my head against a wall.

Shovel Ready

You know, there are times I just have to laugh when I read yet another article about how savvy, and wired, and technologically advanced this generation of kids are. Yeah, so they can text faster than I can knit (and that's pretty darn fast) but there are times they just don't have a clue about the power of technology.

Case in point.

I send out a weekly email to my parents letting them know what we're doing in the upcoming week, what the homework is, what's due, any special projects or assignments, and any generic school news they need to know. I've done this for about three years now and the response has been universally positive. Parents love having this little email in their arsenal because seventh graders lie just aren't the most honest creatures on this planet.

In short, if I had a dollar for every parent that told me that "X tells me that you never assign homework," I'd be bailing out the government.

So I get an email yesterday from the mother of one of my laziest students. Skater Goober was non-academically promoted as he apparently did nothing in sixth grade, and is again doing nothing in seventh grade. What's truly astounding is that if he put as much effort into doing his work, as he does in trying to avoid it, he would probably be a good student. In any case, SG's mom tells me that she noticed that my weekly email indicated that 24 vocabulary cards for this unit were due on Friday and when she asked SG about it he said that he didn't have to do the cards because he just wrote them in his science journal. She wanted to know if this was true.

Oh definitely NOT true. So NOT true. I wrote her back and explained what, exactly, was due and asked, by the way, asked if she'd seen the vocabulary study log that SG was supposed to give her every night to sign after he'd studied his vocabulary words. Any bets on whether or not she's seen this log?

Yeah, that's what I thought too.

Later in the evening I get another email from SG's Mom. She apologizes for bothering me and wanted to check on something once again. It seems that she READ MY EMAIL to her soon and now he'd changed his story and said, oh, yeah, he did do the vocabulary cards but he'd already turned them in. Again, was this true?

You know the answer to this don't you?

Again...definitely NOT true. NOT, NOT, NOT. The whole idea behind the vocabulary cards was to use them to STUDY the words every night so when the test rolls around (which is tomorrow, by the way, any guess on how well my stellar students will do?) they know the words inside and out and can actually PASS THE TEST. It is the ONE thing I do not accept early. Not only did SG NOT EVEN ATTEMPT TO TURN THEM IN EARLY, if he had, I WOULD HAVE GIVEN THEM BACK.

So here's what cracks me up. Skater Goober obviously KNOWS that mom and I are communicating because she's reading him the emails. She's telling him that she's going to check with me and HE STILL LIES. He puts forth so much effort in his attempts to avoid work, that he actually starts digging himself a deep, deep hole that he's going to be hard pressed to climb out of. And here this "technology-savy" kid sits, not realizing the full potential of parent and teacher email communications.

You're busted, goober!

I think I'm going to take one of my extra yard shovels in to school one day. These kids are digging some amazing holes and probably could use the help.

When Thoughts of Wine and Bailey's Get You Through the Day

The. Absolute. Freaking. Day. From. Hell.

Coming back from three days away from the classroom just is not a good thing. At all. Coming back on a day when chaos reins sucks even more. It's 5th grade orientation where they bus the 5th graders over and show them all the glory that is middle school and you hope like hell they aren't in the hallways when two hormonal bitchy 8th grade girls get into a girlfight and try to beat the snot out of each other. This means the band kids are out, the club kids are out, the good kids who are doing the tours for the little cherubs are out, and then they come strolling back at various times. Whatever. That I could deal with.

What I could not deal with is that Someone Messed Up My Computer And I Wasn't Able to Get My PowerPoint Jeopardy Game To Show On the Screen.

This is seriously bad.

First off, I noticed that everything on my desktop was smaller. Hell, I could barely read my email! Good gracious I'm in my late 40's with glasses and I need all the help I can get to see what the heck is going on and now I was practically putting my nose to the screen to see what was there. Not good. Then I put together my morning homeroom PowerPoint, and went to put it up on the screen, and noticed the document reader was dead. Not off, but dead. Holy Crap. I ran over to the tech Geek's office and grabbed him (who, of course is in charge of 5th grade orientation and had a zillion other things to do), and he managed to wiggle some wires, found a short and got the document reader working.

But the PowerPoint wasn't showing up. I was getting, at first, no signal, then a signal, but it was showing a different desktop than I had, and all sorts of weird stuff. Tech Geek comes back fiddles with it and then becomes obsessed. He can't figure it out and he thinks some kid or someone messed with my computer big time. By this time my homeroom kids are wandering in, I end up having to do paper attendance, and then we had a meeting about the camping trip, an IEP meeting, and finally I come back to see if it's fixed...and the Tech Geek has put in a work order for the Big Deal Tech Geeks to come fix it. Maybe the Aide who covered for my classes did something but the general consensus was if she did, she didn't do it on purpose because she's, well, just not that bright.

And I have 20 minutes before class starts to figure out what in the hell I'm going to do since my lessons just went out the window.

Finally, little Miss Reading, bless her heart, suggests that perhaps we can do a system restore back to Monday when I knew everything worked. Praise the Lord! It worked, and I was ready to go 1 minute before the kids came in.

And they were awful. Awful beyond belief. So awful that I almost wanted to leave and go back to The Rich School Across Town.

Third period wasn't too horribly bad. We got through two rounds of the game and they did pretty well. The Fourth Period Class From The Very Depths of Hell Itself was another story. Not only could they not decide what damn question they wanted to answer (I swear, they were arguing over whether or not they wanted Igneous Rocks for 15 or Metamorphic Rocks for 20!) but when it came time to answer, they couldn't get a single one of them right. I think after the entire game was done (and I let them have 90 seconds to decide what the answer was which was a minute more than any other class), we had three questions right out of 25.

Their test is Tuesday. The questions came from their homework packets.

Which this class, for the most part, refuses to do.

Two kids from Fifth Period got into a screaming fit along the lines of "He touched my stuff! No I didn't! Yes you did!" I separated them, blasted the class and said they had a choice, they could all get along and we'd do the game, or I'd just print out a copy of their test and give it to them right then and there. They decided they could behave and we did the game.

By the time seventh period rolled around, I was so ready to be away from kids it wasn't funny.

Interestingly, the classes all wanted to know what happened over at The Rich School Across Town.

And I told them.

In three days only one kid asked for a pencil. (I have probably 2-5 kids per class who never have something to write with; I can give a pencil out to a kid at the beginning of class and they'll lose it before the class is over.)

In three days no kid asked to go to the bathroom. (My kids can only go if they have a pass, which they all used up the first week of the semester, and now they whine and fuss that they have to go although they spent the entire time between classes goofing off in the hallway.)

In three days I didn't have to move a single kid to a different seat. (I must move kids daily as they can't get along with each other.)

I did a project that involved coloring some cell pictures on Wednesday, bringing the pictures back on Thursday and then assembling the project. Not one kid left his pictures at home, in his locker, on the floor, in his book, etc. They all had their work from the day before. (I have kids who constantly lose work. They are usually the same kids who won't put their names on their work so we can get it back to them when we find it on the floor in the hallway.)

Every kid had their agenda opened and was filling it out when I walked in the room. (My kids need a personal invitation each and every day to do this, and then they sigh and fuss and act like I'm asking the impossible.)

I gave these sixth graders (and there were a lot of sped kids on this team) the same assignment my seventh graders took two and a half days to do. These kids did the project, and did it well, in one and a half days.

I told my seventh graders that I was stunned - stunned - that these little sixth graders could, quite honestly, Kick Their Butts, when it came to doing school.

And why did these kids do so much better? They listened. They followed directions. And they Shut The Hell Up and didn't talk constantly.

My seventh graders were, for once, silent. It sucks when sixth graders are better than you are.

Of course, I had to have at least one who whined, "But they're always better than us, they have money."

"Yeah, they do," I replied, "But having money doesn't mean anything when it comes to listening, following directions, and doing your job. Poor people can listen just as well as rich people. You could all do just as well, and as better, if you so much as tried."

But they'd rather just talk than try.

Fourteen and a half days with this bunch.

One Down, One Hundred Seventy-Nine to Go!

We had our first half day of school on Friday. Don't even ask why we start with a half day, then have a weekend, then have a full week beginning Monday. I have no idea what the thinking is behind this plan. All I know is that at 7:05 Friday morning over a thousand kids showed up and we just prayed we had schedules for most of them.

The new system we've put into place for grades, scheduling and all sorts of cool things (PowerSchool) tanked on Thursday, but was up again on Friday morning. I think most of the guidance department was putting in 20 hour days just to make sure we had a smooth opening.

Those folks rock.

In the meantime, I was hoping I'd covered all the bases with my new team. I have one returning team member, Miss Reading, who will be starting her second year teaching. The others are Mr. Math who transferred from another building, Miss Language, a brand new teacher, and Mrs. Social Studies, who was on Mrs. Eagle's team last year. As a new team leader I was just hoping I wasn't forgetting anything.

We did have a bit of a case of nerves when Mr. Math lived the nightmare all teachers have. He woke up that morning and asked his wife (also a teacher) what time it was. The clock said 5:00 am so they had a bit more time. He didn't think that seemed right as it was a bit too light outside. He checked his watch and it said 6:00. I can only imagine the chaos that ensued as they both raced to get ready, get the baby ready, drop the baby off at the sitter, and power on to school. Mr. Math rolled in about 2 minutes before the buses unloaded and was a bit rattled, to say the least. Fortunately, he's a pro and everything was ready to go so there weren't any lasting problems.

We put all the seventh graders in the theater and each of us called out our homeroom class and marched them off to our rooms. My roster had shrunk from 37, to 32, then up to 35 by the time Friday morning arrived. The problem, apparently, is that the advanced math, reading, and language classes are 4th, 5th, and 6th periods. I teach 8th grade during 7th period, have planning 1st and 2nd, so the only period they can take science is 3rd. So, most of these kids are advanced, but that also means they can be quite a talkative bunch. In any case, 29 showed up, so I did have enough seats for everyone although it meant I had to use isolation seats just to get a kid in a chair.

In the past, we've kept our homerooms for about 2 hours, then have them rotate through their schedules for 10 minute periods until it's time to release them to go home. This year it was decided that we'd keep our homeroom kids for the entire time.

I don't know how you elementary teachers do it. The thought of keeping 29 7th graders busy for a solid 3 hours and 30 minutes is daunting.

So, we handed out the ream of paperwork that needs to go home. And went over it piece by piece, and reminded them which needed to be signed and returned and which needed to be kept. I figure half of it will end up in the trash. I was astounded at the number of free and reduced meal letters I sent out. Well over one third of my class was apparently on free and reduced last year.

I did a PowerPoint on important things like lockers, and behavior, and lunch, and behavior, and supplies, and behavior, and so forth and so on. We took a bathroom break and I realized, as they were marching back to the room, that I have about 20 boys in this class. We did a group activity. We did a learning style inventory worksheet (which they thought was pretty cool). We did a word search and we did a vanity license plate drawing....and we kept them busy until it was time to send them to the buses.

And we waved them goodbye, went out to have our last sit-down restaurant lunch for a long time, and realized that it went pretty well.

We had seats for everyone.

All but four kids - in the entire school - had their schedules.

The system didn't crash.

Every kid knew what bus they got on to go home.

And no one cried or threw up.

Success.

Where's an Expert When You Need One

I've been working in my room a bit the past week or so mainly because we get paid a stipend for spending a day outside our contract doing this, and because it takes me forever to get everything together. Every year we pack everything up so that the maintenance folks can empty our rooms, strip the floors, wax the floors, and, if needed, paint. Since I'm in the old part of the building that means I have no built-in storage units, so everything is in rolling cabinets and bookcases. So, every August, I stroll in to the building and start unpacking and sorting. The plus side is that it gives me a chance to go through everything and to get rid of stuff I don't need anymore. The downer side is that it's a bit time consuming.

When I showed up a few weeks ago I discovered that my room had become the dumping ground for this part of the building. There were tables, cabinets, chairs, and more that did not belong to me, or in my room. I found one of the janitors, explained the situation, and discovered that all that had been put in my room when they'd remodeled the speech teacher's room. That's fine, but I needed it put back in her room so I could get mine put together.

By last week, most of the extra stuff had been removed, but I still ended up putting at least ten chairs, a table, and a file cabinet out into the hallway - my subtle reminder that this stuff needs to go somewhere else.

On an aside...it is stated clearly in The Principal's end of the year letter, that we are to label everything in our room with our name and room number. Why most of this extra stuff (and I later found out it belonged to not one, but three other teachers) was not labeled is beyond me.

And then there was the tech issue. (Isn't there always a tech issue?)

Before I left for the summer, I drew a map of my classroom on my white board so any of the maintenance staff could see where things went. Everything was put into its place except for my tech stuff which was apparently set up by "experts" sent to us by the district office.

Anyone remember our "experts" from last year? Well, they were back, apparently.

Although the room map was directly in front of where they were working, they didn't bother to read it. Consequently my desk and teacher stand (that holds my document reader and computer) were not where they were supposed to be. My printer was smack in the middle of my desk (my, that would be efficient, wouldn't it?). It was supposed to be on a table in another part of the room. My phone wasn't hooked up correctly. Nothing worked.

And someone had torn off all the labels I had put on every single wire and plug and outlet and hub and put them in a nice, neat pile on my document reader.

So...Mrs. Eagle and I had to unplug and rearrange everything. Which took an extra hour since all my labels were removed.

What a waste of time. I wish they'd just let us set the tech stuff up ourselves. And leave my labels alone.

Oh, and just in case you're wondering...they managed to crash the system - again - this year.

The Trials and Tribulations of Technology

One of the first things I learned when I stumbled into the world of education (after a stint in the world of corporations) was that when you have a 42 year old building and 21st century technology, things don't always work.

And that's being nice.

The District is building a lot of new buildings, due to our regional population explosion, and all these new buildings come with what they term Model Classrooms. They're awesome. They have document readers, sound systems, DVD players, big fancy screens, you name it. These work wonderfully in the new buildings because the buildings are designed to handle this equipment. Last year I was one of ten teachers in our building to get a Model Classroom (because I happen to be one of the ten teachers that was considered a "tech head" by the administration). This meant that they had to fit all this fancy technology in a room that not only wasn't really wired well, but wasn't even square.

When I came back to my room that August, I discovered that all the wires and hook-ups for the Model Classroom were on one wall, and all my network wires and hubs were on another wall. This is not an ideal situation. No one has ever been able to tell me why this was done this way and everyone that walks into the room, and sees this comments on how "this doesn't make any sense." This meant that my phone and printer were on one side of the room, but my computer and document reader were on another side of the room. In addition, the only way I could get my computer hooked up to the network, was via an airport.

I put in a work order to have a network cord run through the ceiling and dropped down next to the Model Classroom wiring so I could hard wire my computer. I was told by our tech person (who shared us with 3 other buildings so you saw her maybe once a week) that "there' s no way I'm messing with that Model Classroom stuff because I don't know anything about it." Not the answer I needed. I would put in a work order every month or so and was always told that "we don't mess with that Model Classroom stuff, we'll have to contact the vendor." And it never happened.

I ran all of last year on an airport which worked okay (not great, but okay) because I had a Mac computer. It was an Apple airport. They seemed to communicate fairly well. The lab I tended to use was all Macs, so there wasn't any huge problem. Mild problems, yes, but major, no.

And then we got a new Big Wig in Technology and it was decided that we needed to be weened off of Macs and go to Windows systems and all of a sudden there were Dell computers everywhere. Our team got a lab assigned to us (which means one lab for 6 people as we share it with a special ed teacher) and it was a Dell, so when some of us with old computers were issued new ones, we could go with Dells or Macs, our choice. Mr. Social Studies and I, who were both used to Windows systems, went with the Dells. We quickly learned that most of our technology staff knew nothing about Windows operating systems or Dell computers, so we were left hanging quite a bit of the time. Not a good situation. About the only good thing I noticed was that our former tech rep apparently refused to work on Dells as well and was no longer with the District.

Keep in mind this is the same technology department who told us not to plug anything in at the beginning of the year because they'd send around "experts" to help us...and they screwed up the network.

It rapidly became apparent that running these Dell computers off of an Apple airport didn't work very well at all. Getting an internet connection was tricky in the first place, and then it tended to drop off several times during a basic 45-minute class period. This drives the kids absolutely nuts. They'd be working on something like Study Island (which is an awesome program) and they'd be in the middle of a game and they'd lose their connections. When you only have 45 minutes to do something, and you spend well over half of that trouble-shooting technology, even the kids tend to not want to use the computers. We were told by the Tech Department that we needed Cisco routers and they were on order and they were coming.

In the meantime, I was having major computer issues with my Dell. Because I was still running off an airport I was losing connections every period. My email wouldn't work. I couldn't use some of my favorite websites that I teach with, like Brainpop because the connection would be so weak, even though the airport was in my room. In order to get anything to work, I had to reboot my computer at least once a period, sometimes twice. And, yet again, I was putting in work orders to get a network cable run through the ceiling and dropped down to where I have to have my computer station because of the Model Classroom wiring. This time I actually had new tech reps who said it could be done, but it had to be done by an outside vendor and they'd put me on the list.

And then they'd close my work order saying the work was completed.

And no one ever came and fixed the problem.

So, I did another work order. And they'd close it. And another, and they'd close it. (See the pattern here?). One of them finally told me to stop doing the work orders because I was "on the list." I found out from Mrs. Talladega, who teaches our technology kids (groups of students who do some computer repairs and maintenance in the building and who, in my opinion, know quite a bit more than the tech reps actually hired by the District) that the reason they kept closing my work order was because they get in trouble when there's one there for more than 5 days. Considering I've been issuing work orders on this same problem since August of 06, I'm sure they weren't happy. Mrs. Talladega had seen all my work orders (she reviews them to see if we can solve it in-house or bump it up to District) and she was as frustrated with the situation as I was.

Finally, last week, I lost it. I couldn't show a Brainpop video for a review, I couldn't get my emails (was expecting one from a parent that was pretty important), and I had just had it. I sent Mrs. Talladega an email telling her to find a 40 foot network cord and I'd wire the damn thing myself.

The next morning I arrive at 6:15 to find the Guidance Goober (the biggest computer geek head I know) in my room, running an network cable through the ceiling for me.

"I got sick and tired of waiting for the Technology Department to do this, so I'm doing it myself, even though we aren't supposed to," he said. He had me hooked up and running by the time the kids rolled in that morning, and now I even have a phone on my desk (and not across the room). I have a good connection. I haven't had to reboot my computer a single time. I can show a Brainpop.

The Guidance Goober is a treasure. I know he's frustrated by the limitations we currently have with technology as we've both discussed blogging and wikis for the kids which is something we'd like to do in the future once we have the capability. He's actually testing out some things along these lines (on his own, mind you) and hopefully we'll be able to get something in place soon. Of course, my kids, as long as we don't have the Cisco routers which are supposed to solve all the world's problems, will still have the same connection issues I had with the airports, so I guess it's all a moot point until we can actually connect. It's frustrating.

Mrs. Talladega, The Guidance Goober, and I, however, have a little game going. We're placing bets on when the District tech people get to their "list" and actually come out to wire my room. I'm guessing April.