November 14

So Marylin has been kind enough to send me the help tickets she gets for our school.  I have connected several computers to our printer network.  We finally got School Checkin up and working, so I got the printer connected for the front office.  
I also connected a printer for the ladies in our baby daycare.  However, when the ladies tried to log in with their passwords and such, the network would not let them in, so today I got to change out my very first hard drive all by myself.  I reinstalled the printer, the two network printers, and updated some software.  Tomorrow the ladies will need to download dropbox again, but at least now they can log in and get their emails easier.


Ms. Cindy, director of Tech, has given Marylin permission to let me install all the new teacher computers soon.  So Marylin is going to get the computers imaged and programed with their room numbers.  Then she will be able to drop off the computers and I'll install them when I have time (which will be after school).
So until next time......Tech on!!

November 7

So, for the last couple of weeks I've been doing some trouble shooting at the school on my "Spare" time.  We are still using the 260 model computers that consist of a huge 5 lb tower.  Over fall break we switched out the 260 with a smaller, faster model at Dickson County High School.  Ms. Marylin has been busy trying to get Charlotte Middle School teachers upgraded, but that leaves Charlotte Elementary with old towers.  Well, they have been "dying" slowly but surely.  Two teachers on my hall completely loss their computers because they would not let them log in.  So Marylin dropped off 2 of the newer, re-imaged computers and I switched them out.  The teachers love them.

Another teacher has a scratchy mic for her surround sound, so simply by trial and error I was able to determine that her cord is wearing out and she's got a bad connection.  We looked quickly for a price check on a new one and they are running from $69 to $300. NOT AN OPTION!!  So, I sent out an email to see if anyone else has one they are not using.

I also tried to set up the special education teacher with the capabilities to show movies or run her computer through the TV.  She did not have a TV card in her tower, and she is running on a 520 model, which doesn't line up with the ones we use in regular ed.  I was not able to help her, and she will have to go through special education to get an upgrade.  She is hoping that she will get a model classroom soon.
So off to more tech.......

Oct. 24 Professional Development

Starring.......Carla!!  Yes, I gave a two hour professional development "course" in 40 minutes.  I touched on and went over the wonderful options available to all teachers through Google Docs, which led to my Google doc presentation on Dropbox.  My principal, Malissa, wanted teachers to start using Dropbox so she asked Marylin, my mentor, to do it, but she figured it would be good for me to do so she could tell Dr. Luck all that I'm doing.  I love giving presentations and I get all excited while doing it.  Several teachers went to their rooms later and downloaded it and are already making great comments about it to me.  I've got an appointment with the 1st grade teachers for Nov. 17 to go over Google Docs more throughly.

On another note, I have changed out an ethernet that was tore up from being stepped on and jerked on while in the jack.  We are currently using some older 260 machines that are breaking down left and right.  I'm hoping they will upgrade us sooner rather than later.  Marylin took out two hard drives while with me Monday afternoon.  She is going to send the new hard drives to me when they come in and I'll replace them.  So we are back and working after our two week fall break and I'm feeling rested and ready for more challenges.  Tech on!!

September 29-October 4

I've been rather busy the last 4 days (not counting the weekend).  Thursday evening I worked with two Oakmont teachers that wanted to know more about Google Docs and blogging.  I went through Google Docs and showed them all the cool "stuff" available to them: Documents, Presentations, Forms, and Spreadsheet.  I even showed them how you can IM while collaborating on a document with someone else. They didn't realize that you could do that.  We also looked at Blogger and got one of them up and running. I haven't seen anything from her since then, but we are on our 2 week Fall break right now.  I hope she uses it when we return.

So, since we are out of school, I'm spending this first week with Marilyn Estes at the board tech office.  She chose to use this time when teachers are gone to replace the teacher computers at Dickson County High School.  We loaded, hauled, unloaded, and replaced about 45 teacher computers in a day and a half.  Simple job, just a lot of heavy lifting and hauling around.  After that was done, we had to take the old Dell 260's to the maintenance office for ewaste pickup.  More loading and unloading.

While doing all that switching, we did come across several computers that were still good enough to keep and re-image.  So Tuesday afternoon, we used the air compressor and "blew out" the old computers dust.  Some were a MESS and others weren't so bad.

I also switched out 3 DVD-Rom's that were bad and then re-imaged them so they could be finished for another switch out at DCHS.  I helped Marilyn switch out a motherboard and troubleshoot "the yellow light of death".  We think it was the memory chip.  After changing the processor chip, motherboard, and memory stick, only the memory stick switch worked.  So we will boot the computer again tomorrow and see if it stays up and running.

Marilyn was asked to do a presentation at my school Monday, October 24 for Dropbox.  She asked my principal if it was alright for me to do, that she would be there, but let me present it since I also use it regularly.  So we have been talking about what "how" we want to present it.  I figure I will work on  that some time next week between helping Marilyn and relaxing.  Til next time.....Tech On!!!

September 23

Today was a good day!  The northern half of Dickson county had a 1/2 day of school for CreekWood's homecoming game.  That meant that I was done with 3rd grade at 11:30 and could go work with the tech department in Dickson.  It didn't take long for Scott to find me some "stuff" to do.  My first task was to hook up 16 computers that were to be re-imaged.

Then Scott showed me how to do the re-imaging.  That took about 30 minutes.  Then we moved on to unloading a palet of "new to us" computers.  We moved 74 computers from the truck to the building.

Once done with that, I switched out the 16 re-imaged computers with 16 more that needed to be done.  I did another batch of re-images and called it a day.  I really enjoy spending time with the tech department, they are always kind and supportive. 

September 19

I so desperately want to get a full time tech job.  I really enjoy the trouble-shooting and the thrill of a "fix".  This week I've had calls concerning projectors, printers, and iPhone emails.  We don't have full time techs in our building, so word is out that I need any and all tech problems for this class.  I'll occasionally call Marilyn when I'm stuck or need parts.  She usually guides me and sends me stuff through school mail.  


Mrs. Greer, one of our fourth grade teachers, is "technologically" challenged and asks me to do any and every thing that deals with computers.  This week I installed her printer for her.  Simple task, pop in disk, run, click, click, plug up, and done!  You would of thought I hung the moon!  


I've worked on 3 different iPhones for teachers in the last 3 weeks.  Again, a simple job, but they really appreciate the ease of getting their personal and school emails on their iPhones.


My last project was for a teacher who's projector kept locking up when she tried to switch from document camera to computer.  I went in and investigated, called Marilyn and we diagnosed the problem with the Tripp-Lite switch.

I happened to have an extra in my room so I did the switch and Viola' it worked.  The teacher was thrilled and I was pleased.  I think Marilyn was pleased too, that was one more thing off her plate.  I mentioned to her that if she could bring me another one to keep for backup again it might help and yesterday she showed up in Charlotte with another working switch. I have to give her kudos for putting up with me and my phone calls, she's a great lady.  I'm looking forward to working with her over Fall break for a week, I'll have great things to post then!! 

Week of Aug. 29

Everyone at school seems to be getting into their routines and everything is running smoothly. I was asked by our Math and Reading Interventionist if I would look at her document camera because it was not projecting. That was a quick fix, she had just plugged the cable into the wrong output slot. I have found that this is a common error that I'm asked to look at quite a bit. My other big "Ah Ha" moment was after my 3rd grade team kept complaining about how hard it was to use Google Docs. Our principal likes our team to turn in ONE lesson plan together, so I have gotten the 3rd grade, 4th grade, and 5th grade teams to work on this through Google Docs. So they kept coming back on Monday saying they hated it, typing was slow, it took forever. It was when I went to check something else in a teammates room that I noticed that they are still using Internet Explorer. Scott Malugin has already downloaded Google Chrome on ALL Dickson county computers, but no one is using it. That's when it Clicked, IE is not compatible with Google Docs. So I sent out a mass email, explaining the difference and what they need to try and gave them a link for their home computers. SUCCESS!! The girls were thrilled with the ease and now LOVE GOOGLE DOCS!! So the lesson I learned: Don't assume everything is going to be hard or difficult, start with the basics and work your way up!! Thanks for reading, Tech On!!

Week of August 15-19

I've been busy working on "little" stuff for the tech department.  Word got out that I was "fixing" some teachers surround sound and their computers audio.  So I've been going from room to room trying to determine what each class needs to get their surround sound done.  I got some good news, I'm suppose to get a "model" classroom this year, when I don't know, but my projector will be mounted from the ceiling and I'll have surround sound, too.  I'm still struggling with the school check-in program.  Passwords aren't working and we are all very frustrated with the whole thing.  I hope to have that resolved soon.  I love doing the "work" but it's hard to juggle with my regular classroom and 23 students.  I end up spending a lot of time after school tweaking out the bugs and fighting passwords.

Random Repairs

So we have started our 2011-2012 school year and I've been helping Marilyn Estes with the simple repairs as everyone shows up and tries to get their computers working.  Yesterday I replaced a video splitter so that the teacher's computer screen would show up through the projector.  Not a difficult fix, but the teacher was relieved to get it done.  Ms. Estes has FB me that she is sending a speaker cord for another teacher's room which has surround sound, not sure why we are replacing it.  I have had problems with the cleaning crew stealing my 1/8 inch headphone jacks from classroom speakers. I also tried to get a TV and computer connected with an S-video, but the computer did not pick it up and I've asked Ms. Estes to look at it for me.

Thursday, July 28

This morning I had inservice, but this afternoon I was with Mrs. Marilyn Estes at Charlotte Elementary.  We replaced 3 computers in the office, and worked on 2 in a classroom.  What surprises me is although that does not sound like a lot of "work", it is very time consuming.  Putting the hardware together is easy, it's the software that Mrs. Estes has to load and "tweak" and register.  She does some of that and then has to restart the computer (at least 5 to 10 minutes of waiting), back to more software tweaking and then another restart to make sure all comes up right.  Time seems to fly by and we haven't done very much WORK.  I did get another computer for my room out of the deal, she let me have the slower, less memory computer from the office.  I think the best part of this 6000 class is the relationships you form with the technology people.

Tuesday, July 26

Today we had our school in-service orientation.  Once we got through with that I ran into one of our other tech's Mrs. Marilyn Estes.  She was troubleshooting how to get a computer to show up on the TV with an S-cable.  Most of the televisions have been equipped with the proper "boxes", but this particular classroom had not been done.  Once we finished with that, we looked at another room and why the computer will not show on the monitor via the video transfer box.  We could not figure out what was going on, so she is going to ask some of the other tech's what they think and bring in a new box to try.  Our final fix it was a 3rd grade class room that the towers were mixed up and one was not coming up.  She determined that one computer "died", we had the flashing yellow light of death.  I'm hoping to run into her again tomorrow once I'm done with the New Evaluation Training and help do some other troubleshooting.

Wednesday, July 13

Today I helped a new teacher set up her computers in her room.  We originally did not use the room she is in, but now need the 5th fourth grade teacher.  She was having small, easy for me, technical difficulties getting internet up and computers working.  I did some simple troubleshooting and was able to get all 3 of her computers up and running.  I did have to turn in some "helpdesk" inquiries for Scott and the tech team to troubleshoot for me.  Those requests concerned passwords and S-video capabilities for her room.  I would LOVE to do this daily with pay if they would hire me.  I like troubleshooting and finding the easy fixes that others don't know.  (They think I'm brillant!!)

July 6-7

WOW!  I've been busy.  Scott and I worked at CreekWood Wednesday adding new switches and shortening the CAT 5 cables.  Same as we did at Centennial Elementary.  My jobs are to screw on the "ears" or brackets on the new switches, hold switch boxes while Scott tightens them down, and keeping the are clean by hanging up old cables and picking up trash.  It's been enlightening and Scott has been really patient and kind about me following him around.

Thursday was busy working with three of my fellow teachers.  We have created blogs for each of them and rearranged their rooms.  The three new blogs are the library, a fourth grade teacher, and a fifth grade teacher.  Two of the three made voki's for their blog.  I've really been enjoying my 6000 this summer, I've learned a lot and made some good "connections".  I'm not done, I have 24 days until the kids show up and then I'm sure I'll blog during the Fall when tech happens!  =)

Thursday, June 30

We have been busy little bees.  This is what the switch room looked like at the beginning of our "project".

All the blue CAT 5 cables ranged from 3 feet to 7 feet.  The bottom portion are the switches and the top portion are the links to the classrooms.  There are black "cable organizers" between the classroom links that hold all the blue cable.  We took all the cables out, removed the organizers, and moved the switches so they are right under the classroom links.  Scott did have to purchase more switches so we alternated the old with the new.

So now that the switches are closer to the classroom links we are able to use the 1 foot CAT 5 cable and "clean up" the look of the room.

Our final steps include the colored cables that link all the switches to the main box which is the bottom right above and below.

The final step was Scott hooking up his lap top and doing a sync with the system and telling it "what to do", (I've learned alot, but it's a lot to take in and remember....sorry for the untechnical terms!)  This all took place at Centennial Elementary School.  Our next project is CreekWood High School which is twice as big and will take twice as long.  I'll keep you posted!!

Monday, June 27

I had the opportunity to do more "grunt" work today with IT.  Scott Malugin is preparing to update the switch boxes at several of our Dickson County schools.  Today we took the 1 foot CAT 5 cables out of their packaging.

We grouped the cables into piles of 24 and tied them together.  Scott was telling me about how the switches are grouped by 24, so it makes it easier to do the "change out" if they are pre-counted.

Wednesday I'll be helping him change out the old switches and put in the new ones.  This has been a great experience for both Scott and me.  We talk about how our different views and priorities conflict and how we can make communications between IT and teachers better. I'm amazed when he tells me something that a principal was suppose to inform teachers about and we never get the information.

Friday, June 10

Today I sat down with one of our older "seasoned" teachers to upgrade her computer skills.  This young lady is in her mid-sixties and struggles to do anything on the computer.  Her biggest fear is "messing up" the computer.  I've reassured her that she alone could not completely shut the internet down.  Today we set up a delicious bookmarking site for her and practiced using it.  She was so excited to find so many sites to use in her classroom.  That is ALL we did today, and I'm sure I'll have to work with her and Delicious again, but I'm awful proud of her enthusiasm and willingness to sit down and try to learn something completely foreign to her.

I also worked with the older students during computer lab time today.  They are enjoying Storybird and Isle of Tunes right now.  I've introduced them to my 19 pencils page so they have access to all the good sites anytime, home or school.  I'll share if they finish a project they are proud of.

Tuesday, June 7

I had a quick impromptu "lesson" today.  Mr. Pat Semore was walking through my building today, I was preparing my library lesson for Thursday, when I spotted him.  I asked him what he was up to, he told me he was replacing a power source for a mounted projector.  He suggested I follow along and watch, "You can do this next time there's a problem at Charlotte!"  So, yes, I watched, climbed a ladder, and now can replace a power source if necessary.  Not much to tell, but I put in my 30 minutes!! (hehehheehe)

Friday, June 3

Physical Labor
So, you mentioned that we are suppose to be free labor during 6000, well you'll be happy to know that they put it to full use.  We have a new technology supervisor coming to our school board and she wanted to rearrange the main tech office.  Scott Malugin (security and programmer for Dickson County) and Tammy Spicer (tech person) invited me to start my shadowing Friday during the move.  For the record, I WORKED HARD!  We moved computer towers from one side to another, we moved a counter top that was mounted to the wall from one side to another (still needs to be mounted again) we pushed shelves around, I even vacuumed.  We moved old towers from the office to the truck to be transported to be recycled and destroyed.

Mental Labor
So between the moving and hauling, we did have some great conversations.  Scott is upset that Microsoft is  now charging a yearly fee of $35,000 to license the program for the county.  We talked about moving our system to Linux, but the change in program layout would be very overwhelming for many teachers.  We even talked about how some teachers in this county REFUSE to use their computer and one guy won't even let them put one in his room!  How do you address this?  In one way, it's complete insubordination to refuse something the principal has told you to have, and the side of the coin, he is not comfortable with technology and chooses to flee from it.  


Scott showed me how he has been working with the high school on their elearning program for the summer and next school year.  The high school has many students who are completing elearning programs, but teachers are struggling with cheaters getting on the Internet or opening other tabs to cheat or play games during their lessons.  Scott has developed a security program that he calls "kiosk" that has totally eliminated the whole issue.  When student computers are turned on at the high school, they automatically boot up and log in.  What appears on the desk top is a single screen with 5 icons.  NO START BUTTON AT THE BOTTOM, AND NO OTHER ICONS ON THE DESKTOP.  2 icons are the elearn links, one is volume, and two others we did not discuss.  Students can click on their elearn icon and it takes them directly to their lesson, no World Wide Web available.  No instant messaging, no hacking, just good old American lessons without the distractions.  Teachers have to be loving that!


So this week, Scott is in Nashville at a computer security and other stuff conference.  Tammy is technically "off" for the summer, but with all the changes she has been coming in to help arrange and will be compensated during regular school hours.  Anyway, I told her to let me know what day she is working this week and I would help her out and learn some stuff from her.  We are planning on Friday.  I'm also working with our summer daycare program this week, helping students to use the computer lab for more than game playing.  OR at least show them other educational games they can play.  I really want to introduce them to Storybird , Boomwriter, ebooks, and Little Bird Tales.   For those students who want to be more creative I'm going to introduce them to Scratch, Isle of Tunes, and Fraboom.  So til I have more to tell, have a great week. :)

May 5, 2011

I conducted my first technology seminar today.  Dickson County is investing a lot of money into 21st century equipment for the classrooms, but we have NOT had any formal training on HOW to use this new technology.  Mrs. Cook is one of our exceptional Gifted/Challenge teachers who wanted to develop and progress with her technology.  Today we set up her iGoogle page with the following gadgets: dropbox, google docs, and google reader.  I showed her how to search for blogs she would be interested in, and how to subscribe to those blogs.  We started a Delicious account to help her bookmark her websites, and explored LiveBinder.  She CREATED her first blog site for her students: DicksonChallenge.blogspot.com
We spent 2 1/2 hours and we had a blast!!   I encouraged her to send any questions to me via Google Docs so she could practice using her new collaborative resource.

It was very rewarding experience and I enjoyed watching her eyes light up with excitement when we talked about what each gadget could do for her.  She finished our time together  with, "I'm feeling overwhelmed, but excited.  I'm going to play with this for awhile and then we'll meet back and learn more."  (Sigh)

May 2011

Hello!
I'm starting my Practicum 6000 class this summer and through the Fall, if you don't want to receive my updates, please "unsubscribe" now.


I'm really looking forward to this experience and I have my first one-on-one seminar with a fellow teacher tomorrow.  We are going to get her PLN all set up and begin her interactive blog for her past and present challenge classes. I have five other teachers who are interested in learning more about becoming a 21st century classroom.  I've also been asked to conduct some computer classes with the summer daycare program this summer, so I'll blog about that too. 


So off I go into the world of technology.......