August 19, 2014

I spent most of my morning trying to figure out the Guest login problem for the student interns at school. And nothing came of it. I tried so many different things but it ended up just being a waste of time. When a intern clicks to join the Guest network a prompt should pop up, or in interstitial page, that asks them for the Guest username and password. But nothing ever comes up. There's a lot of thinking and then the computer tells you there is only limited connectivity or whatever to the network. I tried setting up the network with different settings on my computer, flushing the DNS, trying to find different domain addresses, three different web browsers, turning off the firewall and allowing pop-ups, disabling and re-enabling the wi-fi, and several other things.I even tried different things when creating the username and password. So, we're either missing a very important step somewhere in the process or something is wrong with the network. I want to say it is the network. When the Librarian emailed one of the techs he said he checked “it” and it worked for him. I think the “it” he was referring to was the username and password. Which is great news, but we can't get to the step in the process that allows us to use that information, so we need someone to come out and either point out what we're doing wrong or fix whatever isn't working correctly.

We got an email that students had been added/updated in various programs, including Type to Learn and Odyssey. It would have been nice to know that Type to Learn was going to be messed with before I put so many hours into it. Thankfully they haven't done anything more to it since yesterday when I changed a couple hundred passwords. The new troubling thing is Odyssey, with the new server and website. When I checked it last week all it had were teachers. After receiving the email, I checked again and now all the students are there, and when I tested logging in with student information, I was able to do so. The interface looks completely different until you actually open an assignment and then it is the same old thing. It looks like now I will have to go in and add all the students into the correct classes again. One student at a time. Hooray. I'm going to send out an email to the teachers tomorrow letting them know what's up. The old Odyssey site is still working but I'm not sure for how long and I don't want teachers to waste a bunch of time adding in assignments in case they won't be recognized on the new site. Then I will also need to go around to all the computers in the lab, and every classroom that uses their laptop carts for Odyssey, and change the desktop shortcut to the new address. Can't wait for that.

This afternoon I nearly finished my sub charts. I made one for each class, typed all the names in, and put in all the pictures that I had of students from last year. Sometime in the near future I need to go around and take pictures of all the new kids so I can add those in. Then I can print those out and distribute them.

Tonight I went over to my friend's mom's house to get dog sitting and plant watering instructions. It all seemed fairly straightforward. She wanted to go grocery shopping for me but that felt kind of weird because I don't like taking food from other people. After I wasn't giving her much to work with she ended up handing me a gift card to a grocery store and told me to buy what I want. I have no plans to actually use it. She's already paying me for the dog sitting. I would prefer just popping in and letting the dog out and going on the occasional walk, but she is more worried about leaving the dog alone overnight because she has never been left alone overnight, so I will be spending the night, Thursday through Saturday night. She gets back sometime on Sunday. I'm supposed to walk the dog in the morning, before dinner, and then a short walk before bed. That is a whole lot of walking. I need more exercise though so it is definitely for the best. Although I might reconsider that when it is a hundred degrees outside. I also need to water the flowers in the backyard every day and the ones in the front every other day, and refill her fountain with water when it is looking low. I'm kind of nervous about the spending the night part because I don't like sleeping in new places, and I haven't decided yet if I'm going to take a shower there or go home before work to get ready. She wants me to treat the house like I live there, what's hers is mine, but I feel more comfortable in my own space, not encroaching on others. We'll see how it goes.

When I got home I spent the next couple hours reading a textbook. Oh, the good old days. The book had a very dense start, filled with a bunch of facts and figures that I'm glad I won't be having to memorize for a test. At some point I might need to reference them in writing but I won't be tested over them.

One thing I realized tonight is that I need to figure out a good way to organize my classes so they feel more tangible. I think a good start will be printing out the syllabus for each class. Maybe type up a schedule with all the assignment due dates on it. I've also thought about getting a planner or something similar to write the due dates down in and put notifications on my phone. I need to get a better grasp of the scope of each class so I can get a nice pace going and don't get overwhelmed by stuff sneaking up on me. I want to go about it like a professional adult, not like a young college kid who takes a bunch of naps and works on stuff the night before it is due. That's the goal anyway.