Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Laptops Day 3: some days are diamonds
Already the day 1 lunchtime library laptop mayhem has settled down. As you would expect, the kids who want to run around at lunchtime and play ball are back at that. Those who have come into the library have learned that I am a regularly-patrolling, interested observer (so if they're planning mischief, the library maybe ain't the best place to be laptopping). I've had discussions with some kids about copyright (I'm sure this movie on my USB is legal Miss....No kiddo, I'm sure it's not!) and so forth.
Period 2, a teacher booked in to do a lesson we had jointly planned. It was based on a website - we'd had the website unblocked by the DET a month or two ago, so it was fine. The teacher had already had the students set up a notebook in One Note for this subject, and a page with the correct URL of the site.
The best laid plans...
Problem 1: about 1/3 of the laptops wouldn't connect to the internet. I checked the wireless bars on them - most were showing four white bars, which is dandy-fine. A couple had these red-x-ed out (hmmm, dunno what that means apart from it oughta find the wireless and it isn't). The class was the only one in the library using wireless, so there were plenty of access spots available (given that we have 60).
Problem 2: any of the laptops which could get onto the internet could not load the site properly due to a Java problem. All-righty then. Bit of a problem, this, since the whole point of the lesson was the Java-based application on the page. I've been loaned a pool laptop (ie. the same one, same configuration as the kids have, not a teacher laptop) and when I logged in to that, it connected to the internet with no problems and loaded the site fully. The teacher logged in on her teacher laptop and again the site worked, no hassles. Hmmmm. A tad irritating.
We called the TSO (Technical Support Officer) who was free and came down and spent the rest of the lesson tweaking individual machines re the internet problem. The Java problem is apparently one with Internet Explorer and we asked if this could be addressed as soon as possible. Which means that, for now, the lesson as planned is impossible to do.
[insert naughty word, said in the mind not with the mouth]
It took a little while to establish the widespread nature of the problem - checking the URL entered and so forth. Other parts of the site are still blocked, and google searches to get to the site (students tried this when the given URL didn't load properly) came up as blocked too. By the time we had worked out how badly things had gone awry, a number of students had switched their attention to other entrancing possibilities of their new red babies.
Plan B lesson - one always needs a plan B. We got the students to look up the artist we were focusing on, using Google images, to see his work. My laptop travelled around the class so they could see what they should have been doing and how it worked. Salvage work in progress...
But we really had done our homework before the lesson, and couldn't, as far as I'm aware, have anticipated a multiple failure of this kind. It was, as you can imagine, on the frustrating end of frustrating for the teacher, for the class, and for me.
So we'll have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start all over again. And make sure we always have a Plan B lesson (or two) up our sleeves.
Cheers
Ruth
Period 2, a teacher booked in to do a lesson we had jointly planned. It was based on a website - we'd had the website unblocked by the DET a month or two ago, so it was fine. The teacher had already had the students set up a notebook in One Note for this subject, and a page with the correct URL of the site.
The best laid plans...
Problem 1: about 1/3 of the laptops wouldn't connect to the internet. I checked the wireless bars on them - most were showing four white bars, which is dandy-fine. A couple had these red-x-ed out (hmmm, dunno what that means apart from it oughta find the wireless and it isn't). The class was the only one in the library using wireless, so there were plenty of access spots available (given that we have 60).
Problem 2: any of the laptops which could get onto the internet could not load the site properly due to a Java problem. All-righty then. Bit of a problem, this, since the whole point of the lesson was the Java-based application on the page. I've been loaned a pool laptop (ie. the same one, same configuration as the kids have, not a teacher laptop) and when I logged in to that, it connected to the internet with no problems and loaded the site fully. The teacher logged in on her teacher laptop and again the site worked, no hassles. Hmmmm. A tad irritating.
We called the TSO (Technical Support Officer) who was free and came down and spent the rest of the lesson tweaking individual machines re the internet problem. The Java problem is apparently one with Internet Explorer and we asked if this could be addressed as soon as possible. Which means that, for now, the lesson as planned is impossible to do.
[insert naughty word, said in the mind not with the mouth]
It took a little while to establish the widespread nature of the problem - checking the URL entered and so forth. Other parts of the site are still blocked, and google searches to get to the site (students tried this when the given URL didn't load properly) came up as blocked too. By the time we had worked out how badly things had gone awry, a number of students had switched their attention to other entrancing possibilities of their new red babies.
Plan B lesson - one always needs a plan B. We got the students to look up the artist we were focusing on, using Google images, to see his work. My laptop travelled around the class so they could see what they should have been doing and how it worked. Salvage work in progress...
But we really had done our homework before the lesson, and couldn't, as far as I'm aware, have anticipated a multiple failure of this kind. It was, as you can imagine, on the frustrating end of frustrating for the teacher, for the class, and for me.
So we'll have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and start all over again. And make sure we always have a Plan B lesson (or two) up our sleeves.
Cheers
Ruth
Monday, September 28, 2009
The happy life of teacher librarians: love your work
I know I bang on with the phrase, 'the happy life of teacher librarians'. I have of course all sorts of agendas for this, but one is to say, look, it can be HEAPS of fun to be a teacher librarian. An article by Charles Waterstreet in the Sydney Morning Herald on the weekend had an apt section quoting Kahlil Gibran:
...when pursuing a career, one should always choose one that coincides with passions, and not just with convenience, the wishes of parents or perhaps even financial security. If you have a job, then love the one you have.
The great Lebanese-born philosopher and poet Kahlil Gibran said it best:
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
If you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
If we show by our actions and words and the atmosphere we create in our libraries every day that we are happy to be there, it cannot but make our libraries better places to work, better places to visit, more effective in our schools (and it kills off the disappointingly persistent cliche of the cranky librarian). One of the most important things any teacher brings to a classroom is their enthusiasm for being there. I know I'm not perfect on this - it's something I have to remember every day.
And thus one can continue working on the happy life of teacher librarians.
(Here endeth...)
Cheers
Ruth
...when pursuing a career, one should always choose one that coincides with passions, and not just with convenience, the wishes of parents or perhaps even financial security. If you have a job, then love the one you have.
The great Lebanese-born philosopher and poet Kahlil Gibran said it best:
Work is love made visible.
And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.
If you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.
And if you grudge the crushing of the grapes, your grudge distils a poison in the wine.
And if you sing though as angels, and love not the singing, you muffle man's ears to the voices of the day and the voices of the night.
If we show by our actions and words and the atmosphere we create in our libraries every day that we are happy to be there, it cannot but make our libraries better places to work, better places to visit, more effective in our schools (and it kills off the disappointingly persistent cliche of the cranky librarian). One of the most important things any teacher brings to a classroom is their enthusiasm for being there. I know I'm not perfect on this - it's something I have to remember every day.
And thus one can continue working on the happy life of teacher librarians.
(Here endeth...)
Cheers
Ruth
Forks High School Twilight Cheerleaders Learn The Basics of Cheerleading
1. Base - A person who is in direct contact with the performing surface and is supporting another person’s weight.
2. Basket Toss – A stunt in which a top person is tossed by bases whose hands are interlocked.
3. Bracer – A top person that is supporting another top person in a pyramid.
4. Cradle - A dismount from a partner stunt, pyramid or toss in which the top person is caught in a face-up, piked osition before being placed on the performance area or remounting into another stunt, pyramid or loading position.
5. Cupie/Awesome - A stunt in which both feet of the top person are in one hand of a base.
6. Dive Roll - A forward roll where the feet leave the ground before the hands reach the ground.
7. Double Based Suspended Roll - Dismount or transition with a foot-over-head rotation.
8. Elevator/Sponge Toss – A stunt in which the top person loads in to an elevator/sponge loading position and is then tossed into the air.
9. Extended Stunt – A stunt in which the entire body of the top person is extended in an upright position over the base(s). Chairs, torches, flatbacks and straddle lifts are examples of stunts where the bases’ arms are extended overhead, but are NOT considered to be extended stunts since the height of the body of the top person is similar to a shoulder level stunt.
10. Hanging Pyramid – A pyramid in which the top person’s weight is primarily supported by another top person. Examples of hanging pyramids are: a person being suspended between two shoulder stands; a "whirlybird" stunt where one person’s weight is being supported by the legs of a top person in a shoulder sit; and a "diamond head" where two persons are suspended from one shoulder stand.
11. Helicopter Toss - A stunt in which the top person is tossed into the air in a horizontal position and rotates parallel to the ground in the same motion as a helicopter blade.
12. Inverted – A body position where the shoulders are below the waist.
13. Knee Drop – Dropping to the knees without first bearing the majority of the weight on the hands or feet.
Continue to read at all star Promdressesrock Twilight Cheer Squad at Forks High School, Washington
2. Basket Toss – A stunt in which a top person is tossed by bases whose hands are interlocked.
3. Bracer – A top person that is supporting another top person in a pyramid.
4. Cradle - A dismount from a partner stunt, pyramid or toss in which the top person is caught in a face-up, piked osition before being placed on the performance area or remounting into another stunt, pyramid or loading position.
5. Cupie/Awesome - A stunt in which both feet of the top person are in one hand of a base.
6. Dive Roll - A forward roll where the feet leave the ground before the hands reach the ground.
7. Double Based Suspended Roll - Dismount or transition with a foot-over-head rotation.
8. Elevator/Sponge Toss – A stunt in which the top person loads in to an elevator/sponge loading position and is then tossed into the air.
9. Extended Stunt – A stunt in which the entire body of the top person is extended in an upright position over the base(s). Chairs, torches, flatbacks and straddle lifts are examples of stunts where the bases’ arms are extended overhead, but are NOT considered to be extended stunts since the height of the body of the top person is similar to a shoulder level stunt.
10. Hanging Pyramid – A pyramid in which the top person’s weight is primarily supported by another top person. Examples of hanging pyramids are: a person being suspended between two shoulder stands; a "whirlybird" stunt where one person’s weight is being supported by the legs of a top person in a shoulder sit; and a "diamond head" where two persons are suspended from one shoulder stand.
11. Helicopter Toss - A stunt in which the top person is tossed into the air in a horizontal position and rotates parallel to the ground in the same motion as a helicopter blade.
12. Inverted – A body position where the shoulders are below the waist.
13. Knee Drop – Dropping to the knees without first bearing the majority of the weight on the hands or feet.
Continue to read at all star Promdressesrock Twilight Cheer Squad at Forks High School, Washington
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
