March 31, 2014

From everything I had heard, testing was supposed to be horrible. But for the most part, everything went smoothly this morning. Although it was all probably a fluke.

When I got to work this morning I uncovered the computer (because I put sheets over them for the weekend), turned all the computers on and logged into them, folded the sheets, got my testing signs ready, picked up testing tickets from the principal, and then went to help one of the kindergarten teachers with a survey she had to fill out. From her room I went up to the resource room and installed the testing software on a laptop before heading back down to the lab and laying out the testing tickets at each computer. There was one kid testing up in the SPED room and that presented the only real trouble during that first test. The software wasn't working on the laptop so I ran up and reinstalled it and all was well. Until a little while later when I was called back up because the actual test wasn't showing up, just formatives. There was nothing I could do but it was eventually solved by the principal who had to reactivate the student. There was also one kid missing tickets but the principal was able to print those off in time for the kid to finish both sections of the first test. Only one kid wasn't able to finish but that was mainly because he spent most of his time not even looking at his computer screen.

There were a few minutes between tests which gave me enough time to set out their testing tickets. That test also went smoothly except for the kids that were supposed to test in the SPED room because the rest of the laptops up there had the same issue as the one I had already fixed. Luckily there was enough room in the lab for the kids to come down and test with supervision. And all the kids finished.

Right after that test I went back up to the SPED room and reinstalled the testing software on all of their laptops before taking my lunch break. The morning really flew by. During lunch I was able to sit down and catch up on emails and there had been several about testing during the morning. The main one was saying we needed to run a small program that would change the path of testing information, so instead of going to our server first and then to the university, it would just go straight to the university. This is supposed to solve some of the issues people have been experiencing. I was reluctant to do it because everything worked fine for us but I went ahead and did it on all of the computer in the lab. And then went up to the SPED room again to do it on those computers but I have no intention of doing it too all the laptop carts I installed the software on because those probably won't be used for testing anyway. While in the SPED room I also reinstalled their printer on all the laptops because at some point during the weekend the IP address changed and the printer was showing as offline. But I got that resolved.

This afternoon I worked on the spreadsheet I made for one of the fourth grade teachers to track the math tests she is giving for one of her Masters classes. I made it awhile ago and I should have left myself notes on some of the formulas because there was one (sumproduct) that I was at a loss to explain. I'm not entirely sure what it does or why I used it but I was able to tweak everything and get the results the teacher was wanting, so I'm not going to think too much about it.

I also messed around a little bit with slideshow stuff. I'm still trying to figure out how I want to put the name of each kid on their slide. I've got ideas but I need to actually take the time to run through some tutorials and mess around with stuff and hopefully get something that looks good.

On my way home I stopped at Target. Going in I knew I needed gum and peanut butter, but I also knew there were things I was forgetting. I ended up getting a lot more stuff than I was expecting but all of it was stuff I had thought about at one time or another over the weekend.

Tonight I played on my keyboard for maybe an hour. I didn't really make any noticeable progress but practice is practice. This attitude won't get me anywhere but I know the keyboard thing won't last too much longer. None of my hobbies do. They are all ephemeral in one way or another. But I do enjoy them while they last. I'm thinking of maybe finding some bass clef sheet music to print off just so I can label the notes and work on getting better at actually reading bass clef for what it is, not just moving treble clef notes down a spot.

And now I am going to go to bed because today was kind of exhausting and I didn't sleep very well last night. After an hour of laying in bed and not getting anywhere I got up and read a chapter in a new book, rather than picking one of the several books I am currently in the middle of. Tonight I plan on falling asleep shortly after my head hits the pillow.