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. :)