Sometimes I feel like I get writing
anxiety every time I open this up and type the date. It's like
sitting down for a test and immediately forgetting everything I've
ever learned. Throughout the day I will think of things to write
about and for some reason I don't write them down in the notepad I
always have in my back pocket. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Anyway.
Today was the 100th
day of the school. I didn't do anything special but I did print off
the last few pictures of kindergarteners that one of the kindergarten
teachers had taken using an app that made them look old. And not
like an old photograph but like little old people. The app worked
surprisingly well and produced the thing of nightmares.
This morning I set up Guided Access
on twenty iPads in anticipation of the state assessments which start
soon. One of the sixth grade classes plans on using them and if all
goes well one of the fourth grade classes also wants to try it. I've
heard good things so we'll see.
When one of the first grade classes
was in the lab I witnessed two meltdowns. I missed how the first
started but I think it was because a kid had to repeat something in
Compass Learning and then was taking his aggression out on the
headphones. The teacher stopped it and I think was going to have him
sit by the door but then he refused to walk and as the teacher was
slowly getting him across the lab he kicked her, so she kept on
walking him all the way to the office. They called his mom and she
decided to come pick him up rather than having him in the office.
The second kid was definitely related to having to repeat an activity
in Compass Learning. They have a thing where you'll go through a
lesson and then there is a quiz. If you don't score high enough on
the quiz it will make you redo the lesson. This makes sense because
the goal of the lesson is to learn something, and if the quiz shows
you didn't learn that thing, then they try again. This tends to
frustrate the kids to no end, especially the ones who are happy
clickers and don't actually pay attention to the lessons. This kid
also refused to walk and while he was sitting by the door he kicked
my paper ream doorstop. He didn't end up in the office for that but
later on he through a chicken nugget at the teacher (or the skin of a
chicken nugget) and that landed him in the office. And he was also
picked up by his mother. It was a rough day to be a first grader.
Along with having classes in the lab
throughout the day, I got one of the SPED laptops works, got Reading
Counts working on one of the fourth grade laptops, figured out a
formatting issue in Word for one of the sixth grade teachers, and
worked on my MAP spreadsheets. I think I made it up to the last two
classes, so I might actually get it finished tomorrow.
One of the second graders asked me
today how old I was. So I asked him how old he thought I was. He
looked me over for a second and replied “forty....seven.” And I
responded with “Yep, I'm forty-seven.” So I guess I'm
forty-seven now. One of the paras who overheard the exchange came up
to me later and said he's never had the guts to ask the kids how old
they think he is. It's probably safer not to.
After work we had a small meeting to
figure out testing accommodations for kids. Or rather, figure out
where these kids would be testing and who they would be testing with.
My presence isn't entirely necessary but I type up the spreadsheet
with all the information on it and I'm a big part of testing so it is
nice to be in the loop.
When the meeting was over and I
picked up Chipotle and headed home. My burrito bowl was good and
more filling than last week because I remembered to ask for extra
rice and beans. The videos went well and ended in time for me to get
online for my class meeting, which I didn't actually remember until
about two minutes before it was supposed to start. And then I
couldn't find the link for the video conference. I would think it
would be posted in a prominent location but alas it was not. I ended
up finding it in a message referring to the meeting last week and
thankfully it was the same link. But then all the struggle ended up
not being worth it because the professor's internet connection is
crappy. Kind of ironic for the professor teaching a technology
class, but she does live out in the country and she's not really in
control of the internet. The video was pretty laggy when I got in
the room and not too long later she dropped out entirely. She came
back and tried to continue but it was still laggy. She was trying to
show us stuff in Photoshop and that was kind of pointless with the
lag because she was doing step-by-step stuff and we were missing
steps. She finally called it and said she would record a video
instead. I was okay with that because I'm not really sure I was
going to learn anything. I'm fairly decent at editing photos in Gimp
and don't have any plans on using Photoshop, unless I can get it for
free through school, but even then I'm not sure. I'll still watch
the video when she posts it though, never know what I might learn.
I spent the rest of the night not
doing a lot. I watched YouTube videos and Twitch streams, and I
played a little Castaway Paradise.
I really need to pick up my 3DS again and jump into Animal
Crossing. It has been forever
and the place is probably covered in weeds.
Now I'm going to go to bed, because
why not.
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