Just Checking In

Okay, I was feeling all guilt-ridden for not having posted anything in a month until I saw that I was not alone. . .heh, heh. Actually I have been a little busy and a lot Internet disabled. I think I am finally calm enough not to use any really profane remarks to and about Earthlink's tech support, but I still intend to blister the virtual paper the email will be on with my comments. I was without my Internet connection for almost a week because Earthlink never passed on my new telephone contact numbers to Hughesnet, the satellite company. When I finally FORCED a supervisor to give me the Hughesnet numbers and contacted the local installers in Mussel Shoals, the very nice guy I talked to said they'd been using the old number all week trying to reach me; he then told me how to reset the internal surge protector on the modem and get back online. It took about five minutes. Needless to say, I was not a happy Earthlink customer!!!

I have been working on my AUP webliography this week; I am going to do library visits as well this coming week. In fact, I will be able to do the visit to my current school library on Friday, when my students are going to be using the library computers to type their papers. I'm also working on my practicum hours with Carolyn at the other High school after school; we started weeding her ancient fiction section last week; among other things. I found one book with a card in it that I signed when I was in high school, circa 1967. We figured that particular book was probably a good candidate to be pulled, since the last due date was sometime in the 1970's!

My students are beginning to get the idea that I really meant it when I told them they had to read for Honors English. They were not all that happy about having to read a book over the summer, and then the very day after the test on that book, I made them all check out a book from the library to read over the next two weeks! Honestly, I have a hard time relating to kids who don't like to read!

Information Overload

As you can see, Keira is ready for me to go back to school so she can have her computer chair back! She grudgingly lets me use it a few hours in the evening while she perches on the desk or the printer/scanner, and she has been most unhappy that I have spent so much time here over the summer!

Ah, well. On to more to-the-point discussion. Professor McGranahan asked that we each post once more to our blogs reflecting on our class experience. I find myself with plenty to say but must admit that finding the right words to express myself clearly on this topic is a bit of a challenge--and that is saying something, since I am a writer by preference and usually find writing both a pleasure and a relief. By far my favorite part of this course has been the blogging experience.

I know why I am at a loss for words; I am still feeling information overload from Information Technologies I. I really considered myself fairly savvy with technology before I started this class, and yet so many of the things we did were entirely new to me and frustratingly difficult. I am wondering if Technologies II is going to require as much time as Technologies I and dreading the outcome if it does. I am now back in school and cannot spend every waking minute on graduate work as I have done all summer. The prospect of trying to work and still spend the time needed on the MLIS program is daunting and worrisome.

Not nearly all of my thoughts about Information Technologies I are negative. What we learned was both pertinent and useful. Certainly being able to work with someone on the research project was a plus. Also, I have found that my classmates are for the most part both sympathetic and helpful in and out of class. I enjoy reading the blogs because they give us all a chance to become better acquainted and at the same time to share our frustrations and joys.

Overall, I would have to say that my second favorite parts of the class was the webliography assignment. I found the examination of websites useful in a very practical sense. I will not be a school librarian as I had hoped to be this year, but I can still use these websites to direct students to valuable sources of information. I would also like to see other people's lists, to find what they located that I did not. In the case of good websites, I do not think there can be too much information! Also, thanks to the assignment on spyware, viruses, etc., I have improved the security of my home computer by renewing my Norton Anti-Virus subscription and by scheduling my Spyware Doctor software to run more frequently.

So, on the whole, I feel that the class was both challenging and difficult at times but nonetheless worthwhile. I know that the rest of the program is probably going to be just as difficult, but I am hopeful that it is also going to be at least a bit less stressful.

New School Year, New School Building

Welcome to Room 274 of East Hickman High School! Actually, I have seince rearranged the chairs so the students can also see the white board in the back of the room and will be less likely to spend all their time staring out the window to see what's going on outside. The room is not so large as my old one, but it's adequate in size, though sadly lacking in bookshelves.

I have to relate the story on that. My friend and I moved our things from the old school last week; we took bookcases that we either bought or repaired and had them alll set up in the rooms. When the director of schools did a walk through before the dedication, he had a fit over the bookcases that did not match the furniture. They took the bookcases off to storage and crammed all my books into the built in cabinets and closed the doors.

They had not ordered any bookcases for the classrooms and seemed to find it odd that we would want any.

I have 20 dictionaries I didn't even move yet. The student desks do not have any book racks on them, and I have no bookcases. And I am supposed to be teaching English! Of course the director of schools IS the same person who once said in an evaluation of one of my college prep senior English classes that I had them doing an excessive amount of pencil-and-paper work.

Anyhow, we are supposed to get smartboard training next week. I hope that goes well.

Another Day at the Computer

As you can see, Keira has adapted to the rearrangement of the computer equipment. She can actually see better from this position than from atop the speaker behind the flat panel, so she is happy with the choice. She does tend to be startled when the system uint makes any noise other than the usual fan sounds, and she finds the cameral connection cord rather fascinating at times, but mostly she just snoozes.

I told my latest hardware adventure on the discussion board site for "Hardware Review," so I won't repeat it here; if you are interested, you can read it there. I have spent most of this day reading on Angel and proofing the final copies of the webliography and my third escan before sending them. I am off in a few minutes to read more about plagiarism, and I am REALLY hoping tomorrow's work will not be nearly as hard to get TO as the lecture on evaluating websites was!

Moving Day Moans

Don't get me wrong based on the title here; I am moaning because I am SORE. Luckily the principal was in the building and not only let me choose my own room (YAY!) but also gave me my schedule for the year. I am not thrilled with the two levels of English, but I know they are between a rock and a hard place; he's still got teachers to hire and we start in-service on August 1! I told him he needed clones!

I am going to launch into a rather scary little adventure in one of my classes, though; I am going to be the newspaper advisor, and I told the principal I want to make it a digital newspaper; we might print out a few copies just to show what we're doing, but this is a high tech school, and I think it's long past time to go to an online newsletter rather than an expensive printed version that costs far more to print than we can possibly make on sales. The principal is 100% in favor of putting it online, too, so that part of the battle is already won! (Professor McGranahan, I would like your advice on software; I really don't see the students doing all the html coding). I figure a good software package and a decent digital camera and we will be in business.

Moving things into the school was just half of the fun, though. I had taken my old CRT monitor to school when I got a new home computer in 2005, because the monitor at school was small. My Dell Triniton 21 inch flat screen is one honkin' big monitor, (as you can see!) heavy as lead, but I just love the size of it, so I brought it home and rearranged my whole computer set up after moving all those boxes and book cases into the new school. I had the system unit on the floor, which was not ideal, and the printer on the other side of the monitor/keyboard, but I think I am going to like this arrangement better. I still have to do some minor moving of the speakers, but as I rarely listen to music when I am working, they are okay for now.

Prof. McGranahan, you would be so proud of me on the hardware--it took a great deal longer to take it all apart than to reconnect it, and I could name all those cords I was hooking up! My cat will have to adapt to using the printer/scanner all the time if she wants to help me conpute now; she was getting a bit big for the big speaker anyhow. She would get up there and fall asleep and fall off now and again, and she always looked SO put out!

Hardware Review

Well, I do understand the need to know about hardware, but I think I would have preferred to do this section a bit at the time rather than all in one massive effort. It would have been more useful to me to examine the hardware itself for the pre- and post-tests, because, although a picture may be worth a thousand words, the pictures left something to be desired. One of my problems is that my vision problems interfere with some aspects of power point presentations, even when I am able to look at the slide on the professor's laptop. The smartboard is problematic because my eyes are light sensitive to a degree. The bright background just washes out the picture for me in some cases.

When it comes to hardware, there is so much to know that time to absorb the information would have helped me. By that I mean that we might have done a good overview in a previous class, had time to read the chapters and, if possible, go examine those hardware items we did not immediately recognize in more detail, either online or preferably in a computer store, then done the more detailed work of identifying the parts. When I have to do hands-on work for a grade, I like the chance to do hands-on study before evaluation time.

Reading Story

I wanted to put this in a separate post because it really does not involve information technology, but it's a wonderful and positive story about the power of reading.

My nephew teaches at a "wilderness" school for kids 11-17. Many have been sent to this school in North Carolina by the courts or by school recommendation because no other school program has worked for these kids. Most are on probation for one thing or another, almost all are in academic trouble. They are assigned to this school for a 10 month period; the goal is that they will advance one grade level in each of the core courses that they study. Basically, because of the diverse ability levels, the students work on individualized programs, but one of the curriculum requirements for English at all levels is that the student must read at least one book and write a book report.

Recently---within the past couple of months--my nephew Brandon told one of the boys in his group that he had to finish the book report assignment or he would not be able to "graduate" from the program. This boy has been through all kinds of school experiences--private schools, military schools, public schools--without marked success, despite what my nephew describes as "great" parents. The boy gave all the usual "I don't wanna, I ain't gonna" sorts of responses, but Brandon persevered. Eventually, he gave the boy the first Harry Potter book "just to try." Well, six Potter books later, the boy wanted "something else like that," so Brandon gave him The Hobbit. Two days later, the boy brought it back and asked if Brandon had the trilogy. . . which of course he did.

The kids are all out on vacation just now; the boy's parents had agreed to take him to a midnight bookstore Poter Party to get number 7 as soon as it came out.

The boy told Brandon at one point that he needed to read all these books while at the wilderness school because he probably wouldn't read once he left. My sister and I are both betting he's wrong. What do you think?

Catching Up

So, I know I have not made an entry here is a while. Really I have been working on other things related to our Info Tech class, really I have. . . well, okay, so I read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows straight through. That's library related, isn't it? Anyway, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

In all truth, I have been working on the webliography today. I had already found the websites, but I have been going back to look at each one more carefully in an effort to eliminate those that seem less useful. In actuality, most of the ones I have looked at are useful to some degree, but some are just better than others.

I will be moving my loads of school related materials to our new school building tomorrow, so I doubt I will be doing much work on information technology. I only HOPE when I get there someone will be in the building who can actually tell me wat I will be teaching and where my classroom is! I have 20 years of accumulated materials, and I would really like NOT to need to move them twice.

Internet Explorer Is Not My Friend

My classmates have already followed the saga of the Nightmare On Angel Page over the weekend. Internet Explorer is STILL not my friend, though I did manage to make it work most of the time today.

For the unaware few who might be reading this tale for the first time, Angel is an online instruction vehicle used by Trevecca, where our assignments are posted and turned in. For this week's meeting, we had work posted online in several formats, the most important of which was a sound and slide lecture presentation which required IE but which IE refused to open for me in any shape, form or fashion. After repeated attempts to open the lecture, and several increasingly frantic and frustrated e-mails to the class listserv, I finally had to give up and leave the computer for a while. When I returned after dinner, I tried everything I could think of, still without rousing success before I finally gave up around 11:30 and went to bed.

I still don't know what it was that I finally did, but this morning the file finally opened for me, so I spent the day catching up on what I should have done yesterday. One thing my frantic search for a way to open that lecture file was add to my arsenal of evaluation tools. I have now not one but three browsers installed on my computer, so I was able to compare browser compatibility as well as other aspects of the websites we were inspecting.

I wish I could say I had learned a great deal more than I actually have from this experience. I did so darn many things in my attempts to get IE to work that I am not really sure what actually worked.

And Dell never called me back as promised. Tomorrow I intend to call and yell at them a while. For now, I am ready to chill out for a while!

Textbook Reflections

Just for Carolyn

Actually the cows are staying where they belong for now.
I am staying put as well, having bent the wrong way to put a glass in the dishwasher and being rewarded with the same old pain that grabs me now and again. I am SOOO very glad we are doing our meeting online this week; my computer chair is the most comfortable chair in my house right now, and much more so than the ones in the lab at Lawrenceburg.
I have also been reading in the textbook. Reading, but i can hardly say comprehending. I will take Professor McGranahan's word for it that we really need to know all this technical information, but I can assure you all that I will NOT be adding memory cards, changing out processors, or putting any sort of expansion board in a computer. I can hardly get my TV and DVD player and satellite boxes all hooked together; I am not mechanically talented, and I think I can hear our system tech chief now if I even TRIED to make some sort of serious changes to my classroom or a library computer! Since this is a family-friendly blog, I will not reproduce any of the names I expect he would call me!
My other problem with the book is the size and floppiness of the thing! It's like trying to read the Sears catalog! I prefer to read in my recliner, but this thing just does not cooperate with such a relaxing position. Anyway, I need to read some more if I have any hope of getting it done by next week.

I am playing with all these blogging tricks and am going to try adding an image of my helper, Keira. . . And there she is!

I keep trying different fonts, but I guess I like Arial the best so I will just stick with it. I have been trying to get my computer updated for the past couple of days. I finally did get Acrobat Reader and Adobe Flashplayer successfully installed. Then I had to upgrade my AIM, which was having allsorts of problems. I have also weeded my email and posted a couple of funnies from my sister's many funnies on the "just for fun" discussion board.




The computer has been nothing compared to the new towel bars and paper holder in the bathroom I have been remodeling, though! There is a set screw in the bottom of the base pieces that was almost impossible to see, much less move with any mormal screwdriver! I was lucky on that--my mother happened to have a set of tiny little tools for working on a sewing machine, and one of those worked at long last.





I have been looking for web sites for the webliograpny and have found a good few. I still need to find good web design sites, though. I wonder how the rest of the group is doing?

Sign-in Blues

Well, that was most frustrating. Between Saturday and Tuesday, I managed to forget the password I used for this blog. In general, I use one of a set of passwords on everything, but I must have used a different one on this blog page because none of the others worked so I had to reset the password today in order to get here at all.

As this is an Info Tech blog, I will enter the latest chapter in the aaga of my computer's quirks and my discussion with Harry (I wonder what his name really is, as he was definitely Indian) and the Windows Defender marathon. First he first took remote control of my computer and I watched in some amusement as he went through EXACTLY the same steps I had already tried on Sunday with no results at all. He reached the same point I had and then no further action occurred. He kept asking me what I was seeing on the screen, and apparently not could not believe I was seeing nothing happening. Finally, he gave control back to me and had me follow the same steps not once but twice more. Finally, we reached the crucial "run" or "save" step and this time I saved it to the desktop and was then able to install what I guess is the updated version. In any case, the error message is no longer popping up every time I restart the computer. It only took 2 hours and a good deal of patience!

First Things First!

I have heard much about blogging but never tried it before. This is a new and rather interesting adventure. I think I will like it, but I can't be all that sure yet. The most comforting aspect of this experience so far is that all my classmates are relatively new to blogging as well, so we can commisserate with one another when things go strange. Goodness, everyone else is typing a great deal more than I am. I wounder what that signifies???