I forgot to mention that at my volunteer meeting yesterday at the
library that the lady asked me if I was looking to stay in the area
once I got my degree. She asked this because in the near future
there will apparently be three openings in adult services. I'm
leaning more toward reference, and in an academic library, not
public, but I've got to start somewhere. She said they like to hire
from within and being a volunteer would probably help my chances.
Something to think about.
Today was picture day and I got there with plenty of time to spare
this morning for the staff picture. I can't say that about everyone
however. We got all lined up, took three pictures, and then someone
else walked in. We took two more pictures and another person walked
in. I think it happened three or four times but we eventually got
the picture taken. Hope I didn't blink.
After my first two classes in the lab I went up to the third floor to
set up their iPads for the state assessment. That turned into a big
thing and I wasn't able to finish. The first two carts belong to the
school but the one on the third floor belongs to Boys & Girls
Club. This means it wasn't involved in the update when they put the
software on all of the iPads. I thought I could do it by using the
laptop in the cart but not so much. First I couldn't log into the
laptop because I didn't have the password. The teacher whose room
the cart is in had a bunch of different usernames and passwords but
none of those worked. I eventually just signed in as a guest, which
seemed to work, although getting onto the Wi-Fi was tricky. After
some time I got it to connect and was able to sign into iTunes using
one of the usernames and passwords I was given. Then I had to
authenticate in order to get around the firewall so I could download
the testing software. But it turns out the download process involved
going to website that the parental controls were blocking and I had
to provide an admin username and password to allow. I tried all the
usernames and passwords the teacher had, and all the combinations of
them, but nothing worked. I went down to talk to the librarian to
see if she had one I hadn't tried yet so we went to the principal and
she ended up emailing the girl who is now in charge of Boys &
Girls Club at our school. Haven't heard back yet so we'll see. I
may be able to manually install it on each iPad but that would be a
pain and probably unnecessary. I think we'll be good with two carts
ready to go.
This afternoon the second grade Khan group was not having a good day.
I sent two of the boys back early because they were going back and
forth with each other the whole time. It boiled over when one of
them complained to me that the other one had called him dumb. The
other boy clarified that the first boy had actually called him dumb
and that he responded by saying that boy sucked. He pretty much
announced this to the whole lab and it was met with oohs from the
third grade class in the lab at the time. So I pulled the plug and
sent them both back to the room.
This left one boy up front and two girls in the back row. Several
minutes later the girls in the back row started giggling and messing
around, not even pretending to look at their computers. I went back
once and told them to stop and work on math. I hadn't been back in
my seat for more than thirty seconds when they were back at it again.
I looked over at the boy in the front row who was actually behaving
and thanked him for actually doing his work and then I sent the girls
back to the room. I had actually just finished writing an email to
the teacher explaining why the first two boys were sent back so I
added a line for why I had sent the girls back. She responded later
saying that the first two boys would be writing apology letters and
that she was going to have a talk with all of them, reiterating that
going to the lab to work on Khan was a privilege. In the future if I
have to send them back to the room they won't be able to come back
for the rest of the week. We'll see how long the threat remains
present in their minds.
When I wasn't engaged in other activities, I worked on editing baby
pictures. I finally finished the one I've been working on for days
now and was able to start another one. I nearly finished it and
should be able to make more progress tomorrow. I've got several
digital pictures so I might switch over to those just to take a break
and gain a sense of accomplishment from actually finishing something.
After work I went to Chipotle and got a Powerball ticket before
heading home. Tonight my sister's husband's mom joined us for dinner
because she is in town for a few days. Dinner started late and I had
to duck out early for a class meeting, so we didn't have a lot of
interaction but she seemed like a nice lady.
The class meeting was a bit of a fail, to use the professor's own
words. She wanted to show us some apps on her iPad but couldn't get
the connection working so the meeting mostly consisted of people
asking her about her London trip, which she recently returned from.
I learned some interesting things about public libraries in England.
They were apparently voted to be considered a right of the people but
at the moment they are undergoing the budgetary issues all libraries
are experiencing, which is cutting into the quality of the service
and the collections. She said one library the students visited was
in a state of disrepair and they were considering getting rid of all
the staff due to lack of funds. So it would be a library without any
librarians. That sounds like a horrible idea. The professor also
said that you aren't allowed to donate money to the public libraries
over there. The one library that they went to that was really nice
was only like that because it was entirely funded by a grant or
private fund. Most of the public libraries are reliant on funds from
the government and can't take private donations, even though the
government isn't able to support their current needs. Seems a bit
ridiculous.
After the meeting I made a little progress on my group assignment for
the week. I'm going to email the librarian I interviewed earlier in
the semester and ask her a few questions. She might not be able to
get back to me in time but it is mainly for my own curiosity. I want
to know if kids are actually using image databases that libraries
subscribe to or if they are relying mostly on Google and images found
freely on the internet. I'm also interested to know if libraries
actively seek out subscriptions to individual image databases or if
they only have them because they are part of a package. I would like
to be able to find this information online but it searching for
information about image databases is kind of difficult. At least for
me at the moment because I don't know exactly what I am searching
for.
I also have my paper about databases due this weekend (or maybe on
Monday) for my technology class. Again, it is kind of hard looking
for information about databases in general because you get a bunch of
information on specific databases. I'll get it figured out. That's
a goal anyway.
Now I'm going to go to be because it is after eleven o'clock, I've
got a headache, and I'm tired. All perfectly good reasons to stop
typing and go to bed.
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