My brain is fried at the moment. Let's see what I can remember.
The testing schedule for the day involved two classes testing in the
lab this morning and one on the iPads. This afternoon there were
going to be two classes on iPads and one in the lab. The first test
in the lab and with the iPads went well and we discovered that
students could directly from stage three to stage four on the Reading
test without a delay like there is between the other stages. That
means students will only need six testing sessions all together
instead of eight. So that's something.
With several kids left to finish in the second testing session of the
morning the test crashed. Some of the kids still testing got a
pop-up telling them not to close the test and the ones that made it
to the end of a section got a seemingly perpetual “Processing”
screen. Most of these screens eventually resulted in error messages.
With a little patience and a lot of perseverance most of the kids
managed to at least make it to the end of the section they were on,
in between error messages.
By the afternoon we were told the system was back up and running.
This turned out to only be partially true because with a few kids
left to finish the test crashed again. One of the fifth grade
teachers testing on the iPads said several of her kids ended up
having to redo a section multiple times because every time they got
to the end and tried to submit it, the test would go back to the
beginning of the section and all their answers were erased.
At this point KU and the state of Kansas need to cut their losses.
KU needs to stick to basketball because running a state-wide test is
obviously not their forte. The kids already miss out on actual
learning opportunities because they have to take four major tests
every year, rather than being taught new things by their teachers.
Having to put up with all this state assessment crap only eats
further into the time when they should be learning. Teaching
students shouldn't be a novelty in schools but it is turning into
that.
With the rest of my day, when I wasn't watching tests fail, I had
classes in the lab and I came up with a couple t-shirt ideas for one
of the office ladies. She is annoyed by the school fun run, which
happens once a year, involves poorly designed t-shirts, and is really
a pub crawl, not a fun run. She doesn't like that they are
representing us (although very loosely because the school name isn't
anywhere on the t-shirts). I think it was last year that they were
out until late into the night, most needed rides home, and one of the
teachers threw up on a couple other teachers. So not the best
role-models. I'm more offended by the poorly designed shirts,
especially this year. It should have taken place earlier in the
month, but it is taking place on the first of April. Despite that
the shirt is green and there is a shamrock on it. A group of people
in St. Patrick's Day themed shirts way late is definitely one way to
draw attention to yourself, wanted or not.
After work I read most of an article and finished it after dinner
along with a textbook chapter. Then I spent the rest of the night
writing one of my discussion posts for this week. I still have two
to go, along with all the responses. I need to get at least one of
those written tomorrow, hopefully at work but it might have to be
after class tomorrow night. My post tonight involved a lot of going
back and re-reading bits of articles and a website and watching part
of a video in order to pull references together to make it look like
my answer to the question was more than just opinion and BS. I think
it turned out well.
While working on that I think two spiders entered my life. I say I
think because I can't confirm either. The first may have been
another little one descending from the ceiling I had an itch on the
top of my ear and when I scratched it I felt something. When I
brought my hand down there was a small dark thing that looked like it
may have been a tiny spider before I inadvertently squished it. The
second possible spider was much larger and I saw it out of the corner
of my eye running across my floor toward me. It was moving so fast
that I didn't actually have time to look away from the article I was
reading to see it. The speed makes me question whether or not it was
a spider, or actually existed in real life. I immediately put shoes
on and got up to see if I could see it anywhere but I couldn't. It
was at that point I decided I would not be sleeping on the floor in
this room tonight. Nope. Not going to happen. After finishing my
discussion post I went and put the sheets back on my bed.
And now I'm going to go to bed because it is late and I have to get
up in the morning. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. My only real
goal is to not forget to pack anything for my trip out of town this
weekend. Especially my shirt for Saturday.