Forgot to Mention Book Bytes....

I completely forgot that last week I completed my Book Bytes form for the students to use. Kids will fill it out for a favorite book, and the best of those will end up podcast and available on the school website. I have high hopes of getting a few good ones up this year, and maybe getting into it more heavily next year. While I was out for training last week, I had all my language arts students fill out a form for a book they've read this year. I was sorely disappointed by the results, but there are a very few (3 or 4?) that are potentially usable. My next form to invent or procure is the one for getting permission from parents to post students' voice recordings on the web.

Then again, I wonder if I could use something cuter for these? Like a Voki? I bet my kids would LOVE designing their own talking avatars, recording audio, and letting the characters "read" the review aloud. That would maybe entice some of my shyer kids into participating.

Here is the Google Docs form of the Book Bytes paper. The formatting is all munged up, since it's originally a word document, but it lets you see the form the script would take.

General Network Maintenance

Spent a couple of hours working on what Curtis called "general network maintenance." We checked a misbehaving SMARTboard (I figured out what was wrong!), took the server down and brought it back up, rebooted all the switches, found and removed a broken Ethernet port, and checked a computer in a CTE classroom. It wouldn't let students access the share drive, so Curtis showed me how to tell if it was accessing the network at all (blinky lights where the cord plugs in), then how to figure out what tree it was accessing. All that stuff was fine, so Curtis shared with me a time-saving philosophy. He explained how he could potentially spend three hours going through the computer a step at a time until he found the one thing wrong and fixed it--or he could reimage the computer in a matter of minutes. I'd never really thought about how much easier reimaging is, but it makes perfect sense. I also talked to Curtis about all the images he has made, individual ones for each computer model and year of purchase. He said that's part of the reason why the technology donation policy is in place in Gaston County--if each computer model has to have its own image created so it can talk to the network, then it would potentially be a severe rear-pain to accommodate a bazillion different kinds of donated computer models.
After Curtis and Marti left (by which time it was dark), I helped another teacher who couldn't log in. Okay, maybe "helped" is too positive a word. I was able to figure out, based on what Curtis showed me, that the computer was talking to the network (blinky lights), but that it wasn't switching to the right tree. Unfortunately, I have no clue what to do about that. :) I also went back in the server room and confirmed that yep, there were cords hooked into all the switches for this teacher's classroom. He was able to log in to the big computer lab across the hall, so at least whatever it is isn't a school-wide problem.

Setting up new lab computers

Last Monday, I lucked out. I had no meetings at all, and I knew Curtis was coming to set up the new computers we got to replace the old skeezy ones in our CTE lab. Twenty-five of the little guys, all stacked in boxes inside the library. So...I had all afternoon to help Curtis and our sysop unpack, connect, name, and reimage the lab.
Here's what I learned: setting up the first two computers is fun. Unpacking and connecting the third and fourth computers is annoying, especially since every single component is wrapped in at least three different kinds of packing material--twisty ties, heat-sealed plastic bags, taped-on foam, cardboard supports, and the ubiquitous styrofoam among them. Everything after computer four becomes a sort of exercise in Zen boredom. Squeak out the styrofoam, pull off the tape, stack the boxes, cut open the bags, untwist the twisties, plug in the component, repeat. Om....
Setting all the computers up for a multicast session after we'd assembled them was more complicated. I'd never messed with a computer's setup menu before, at least not since DOS was the operating system of choice. It had also been a long time since I'd told a computer to do anything at the command prompt, but we had to go through a multi-step routine to set each computer up to "listen" for a multicast session so it could be reimaged and thus compatible with the network. By the last computer, I had the routine down--but the first three or four were utterly frustrating. "Um, Curtis, what's the name of the Networks editing program again? And what keys to I press to interrupt it again? Um, Curtis? I've never seen this screen before. What did I do wrong? Um, Curtis...?"
It took several hours, but we finally got the lab set up and functioning. On Tuesday, I walked past the lab during planning and saw all the students working busily away on their spiffy new flat-screen computers, blissfully unaware of how much effort had gone into the setup process. It made me feel like I'd made my first significant contribution as assistant sysop.

Okay, so here's the deal....

See, when I set up this whole "assistant sysop" thing,I was operating under the assumption that I would have a planning period almost every day. HA! Talk about naively optimistic. What actually happens is that we have PLC (professional learning community) meetings for each subject, every week. To begin with, we had LA on Mondays, Math on Tuesdays, Science on Wednesdays, and Social Studies on Thursdays. Friday was reserved for grade level meetings. Which was fine for the people on four-man teams, who had only one subject apiece. My partner and I, however, had two meetings each week, along with the prep and data analysis that went with them. I thought it would work out, though--I mean, my teaching partner was unavailable two days a week, so I thought I'd do the internship stuff then, and meet with her in any remaining time. Problem is, there wasn't any remaining time. Even though the PLCs are supposed to be 45 minutes, they always ended up stretching for 80 or 90 minutes--or longer! Several times I've had to leave a meeting at the bell to do my bus duty, and the meeting was still chugging blissfully along without me.

Then they changed the PLC schedule, putting math and LA on the same day, and science and social studies on the same day. In theory, that freed up two days a week for our team. However, it turns out that we had about sixteen 504 / PEP meetings we had to set up with parents, so that took all of our "extra" time for about five weeks. Whew.

Then I thought that maybe I'd have some time during planning occasionally to go down and work with our sysop. Turns out that a whole passel of required inservices and trainings (including training on PLCs!) got scheduled during those supposed free times.

Then I got sick.

Then my mother got sick and had to have surgery.

With all that, plus switching subjects, switching grade levels, switching team partners, adding 35 minutes of active teaching time along with the need for an additional prep, and having to cram in TRICKS make-up training after school for many days--well, let's say my available time has been greatly reduced. Since the library doesn't open until 7:50 (the time of the first bell), and since the librarian/sysop has no reason to stay past 3:30 most days, there has been a severe limitation on the amount of time I could actually spend in Mrs. M's presence.

Now, this is not to say that I have done nothing. I have spent a good chunk of time doing the things that a good little assistant sysop might do at our school. I snagged Curtis one day after school, and followed him around for perspective on the hardware end of our network. He took me into the server room, and we figured out why the ethernet jack in the front of my room has never worked. (The fact that there was no cable in that spot on the server was a big hint.) He fixed it, I tested it, and happiness abounded. I have solved any number of small, irritating tech problems that our librarian/sysop would otherwise have had to deal with. It is a rare week when nobody stops me in the morning as I arrive to ask, "Hey, can you take a look at this [whatever piece of technology is misbehaving]?" Sometimes the call for help goes out several times in one morning. I have been called down to other teacher's rooms during planning (and once during class) to try to fix whatever's gone wonky with their SmartBoards or projectors or clickers or printers or presentation TVs or whatever. However, none of this has been in long, sustained clumps of time.

Soooo...as a result of this time crunch, our sysop and I agreed that maybe our interests could both be served if I took on some task related to our network and worked on it during my own time. I remember seeing a presentation during one of our App classes in which the teacher set up podcasts of book recommendations, linked from the library website. I thought that was pretty cool, and since I have not only language arts students but also drama students this term, I decided we could very nicely provide Holbrook's students with a series of Book Bytes (or Literary Minutes, or whatever)that might help them choose a book to read. I'm working on getting up to speed on our web page thingy (SharePoint), and my kids are working on scripts. Kyle has given me advice for the podcasting end, and I'm working out layout and hosting right now. It should be interesting.

On the hardware end, Curtis, one of our county tech guys, has told me that I can "stalk" him any day during my planning. I'll call or email him when I have a day free, and at 1:40 I'll simply go to whatever location he's working and shadow him through his work.

Of course, I'll still meet with Mrs. M whenever I can during our overlapping hours. I've just rediscovered that, as a middle school teacher, once again the watchword is "flexibility."

For a non-blogger, I sure have a lot of blogs...

I have never blogged of my own free will. I just don't have that kind of personality, I guess. Frankly, I don't have much to say that I think the rest of the networked universe needs to know--or cares about. I signed up for Twitter, and tweeted...once. I've created at least five blogs and two web pages over the last three years, all for purposes dictated by other people, and I've let every one of them shrivel and die after that purpose was nominally fulfilled. And yet here I am again, creating another blog. Thanks, Amy! :P