October 2003

Ouchie

Well, the "Wifey," as a certain friend of mine likes to say, is doing much better - may even be going to work on Saturday, we'll see. The rest did her a world of good.

I hope I have some more good news to write about soon so this journal becomes more than a "My life is crap" rant space.

As for me, spending all day at home helped ease my chronic back pain .. until the end of 1st pd. today. I don't show it much at work, but it's really annoying - even more so because I know it's my own fault for having such poor posture over the years. Dangit, I'm too young to feel this old!

Obstacles to Technology Implementation

Like most guys, I like toys. Lots of toys. Fun toys. Expensive, flashy, fun toys. Naturally, I try to find ways to play with these toys all the time. The easiest way to do that is say that I’m incorporating technology to meet state standards. Uh huh, right. I do it because it’s fun!

Not everyone has my point of view, unfortunately. (We’d all be using PDAs & e-books if they did.) There are several obstacles that keep me from my precious toys ... I mean, the technology I wish to integrate. It has been suggested that these obstacles can be divided into five categories: “Time, Expertise, Access, Resources, and Support.” (Leggett & Persichitte, retrieved 10/22/03)

Time
Ah, time, my ancient enemy. You move so slowly on the last day of school, yet fly by on a Sunday night when I haven’t yet finished my lesson plans for the week.

Time can be a hindrance for technology integration as well. When will teachers receive training? How long will your students have to stay in the computer lab when you have other lessons to teach? You’re getting a new network installed? Wonderful! Now how long will you have electricians running cable in and out of your room because a major hub is in your storage closet? (Guess which one of those is happening right now? Yup, all my art supplies have been rearranged.)

With careful planning time is less of a problem, but it is something to be kept in mind at all times. (No pun intended.)

Expertise
I have often said that I know enough to know I don’t know everything, but I’d like to. Unfortunately, many teachers have come to think that they do know everything, at least when it comes to teaching. In other cases, teachers are asked to use technology that they don’t quite understand enough to use. I’ve had other teachers ask me how to use PowerPoint or Word. Embarrassingly, I’ve sometimes had to say “I don’t know” when they asked me those questions. I later found out, but it took some digging.

Here’s another example: Last year, my school started using a program called MicroGrade in lieu of paper grade books. It’s a great program that does all the math so you don’t have to, but there are still teachers that swear it doesn’t work because they don’t know how to use it.

Access
I recently acquired a G4 Mac for my room, which is pretty neat and helps me enhance my curriculum. There are only two problems I have with it. First, the black & white networked printer is on the other end of the hallway, thus preventing me from using spur of the moment printouts or color examples. Don’t even ask about what I have to do when that room’s teacher isn’t there to open the door for me.

More importantly, I have one G4 Mac. My class size might be small, but it’s not that small. Any lesson where the students use hands-on technology must be done in the computer lab.

Now I’ve been very lucky – the Mac lab has always been available for me every time I’ve wanted it. Some teachers aren’t always as fortunate. Lack of funds or lack of space can often limit the amount of computers available for use, and this is assuming that your network doesn’t go down at a crucial moment.

Resources
This one’s closely related to Access and Expertise, of course. If you don’t have the budget, you can’t get the hardware, software, or training you need to integrate technology. Really like that Inspiration program? Good for you, but it won’t run on a Comodore 64. You can have fun writing programs in basic, though.

Support
Remove the supports in a basement and the whole house comes crashing down. The same can be said for tech integration. If the teachers don’t support the program, all the shiny G5 Macs in the world won’t do you any good. If the administration doesn’t give you the thumbs up for your lesson where students put their own web sites online, you’re up the creek without a paddle. If the money isn’t provided by the county, state, or federal government, the question is then “What technology?” Lastly, if the students don’t support the technology all they’ll do in the computer lab is print pictures of basketball jerseys and sneakers.

These are all problems that can be overcome with some effort, of course. Planning, fund raising, and advocacy can all be used to get your technology program where you want it to be, if a little bit later than you wanted. These obstacles are speed bumps, not brick walls.

References
Leggett, W. R. and Persichitte. Blood, Sweat, and TEARS: 50 Years of Technology. Retrieved on October 22, 2003, from http://www.saskschools.ca/~parkland/obstacles.htm

Emrys, Part I

The red haired man shoved the screwdriver into his back pocket and opened a box of assorted books that was sitting against the wall with a dozen of it's brothers. A quick look-through showed that they were mostly chemistry textbooks, so he went to a bookcase labeled "Science" in bold, construction paper letters.

Starting a used book store is often a risky endeavor reserved for the retired or those with alternate incomes. The exception to that rule is when you set up shop in a college town and offer to buy and sell textbooks. By moving in right at the end of the Fall semester, Eric had guaranteed that he would be able to buy more books than he had the space for. At this point he was almost done setting up for his first wave of customers that would be giving him money - not the other way around.

*Ding! Ding!*
"Daddy!"


Eric's head snapped towards the open door in time to see a short red blur barge through and barrel into him. With a practiced twist he managed to protect his assailant from the Chemistry books that were now raining down around them. "Ack! Nice to see you, too, Fay. How was your first day back?"

The blur was (as Eric had suspected) now a red haired girl that looked to be about ten years old. Her jeans and PowerPuff Girls™ t-shirt had done little to restrict her movement as she used her patented tackle-hug, much to her father's dismay.

"Schoolwasgreat! Welearnedhowmummieshadtheirbrainstakenoutoftheirnoses (whichwaskindagross) andthattwowrongsdon'tmakearightbuttwonegativesmakeapositiveinmath *GASP* AndBillythrewupandhadtogotothanursebuttheysaidhe'llbebacktomorrow. Howwasyourdaydaddy?"

Eric blinked. Of course by now he was used to Fay talking like she'd just won a sugar eating contest, but it still took a moment to process everything she said when she was excited.

"Um, well, I'm almost done stocking the shelves. Howabout you go upstairs and get a snack, then I'll help you with your homework?"

"Ok, but don't take too long, okay?"

"No problem there. Now skeedadle, ya rugrat!" Eric took a playful swing at his daughter as she giggled and ran upstairs. Over the winter he and some friends had converted the second floor into a somewhat more than modest living space, including two bedrooms, a kitchen/dining room, a living room, a storage room, and a small dojo. Eric made it a point to spend at least an hour in the dojo every morning practicing his katas before Fay woke up.

Eric was finishing up the last box when a now familiar bell rang.

"Sorry, we're not ope-" Eric stopped talking when he saw who walked in.

Hubble

I admit it, I'm an eye candy addict. If I'm not finding aesthetically pleasing shots taken / made by others, then I'm making them myself. In this case, I stumbled on to a nice set of Hubble photos while looking for pictures of mice.

Yeah, you read that right. Mice.

And I found pictures of planets, stars, and galaxies. Thank you, google!

Seriously, they had one image named "mouse.jpg" and it sorta snowballed from there.

If you're looking for some nice wallpaper or even to find more information about the Hubble, check this site out.

http://hubblesite.org/

Archive.org

They've got it all. Literally.

Ok, with the death of MP3.com many of us have been looking for other sources for free yet legal MP3s. I've found a few places, some of which are listed on About.com's mp3 page, but one site deserves special attention.

I'm referring to Archive.org. This site is maintained in an attempt to record the entire internet, and they're doing a great job. In addition to archiving every web site to ever be indexed by a search engine, they have a variety of film clips and audio files. Believe me, it's worth checking out.

http://www.archive.org/

Sooooo Sleeeeepy!

Pass the coffee, please.

I started nodding off around 9 last night, and I still feel like I haven't slept in days. I guess all those nights of staying up to watch Inuyasha, Trigun, & Cowboy Bebop are starting to catch up with me.

Darn anime addiction...

In any case, I'm hoping I'll be able to get some R&R this weekend. I'm also hoping to put some shelves together and unpack some stuff, but I'm not too confident that it'll get done.