Yesterday a fifth grader asked me if I was married. It will be
easier to write out this conversation in non-paragraph form.
5th Grader: Are you married?
Me: I am not. Are you married?
5th Grader: No!
Me: Why not?
5th Grader: Because I'm only 10!
Me: That is a really good reason.
5th Grader: Why aren't you married?
Me: Because I'm only 30!
It was an entertaining conversation.
The morning once again started with testing. And once again the kids
were only able to take one section of the test. This time the next
section never showed up, even after forty-five minutes. It really
would have been nice to know this while coming up with the testing
schedule so we could have scheduled eight testing sessions instead of
four.
This afternoon there was supposed to be another test but right before
the class came into the lab I started getting emails from the other
schools in the district saying their tests were crashing. One of the
resource teachers came down and showed me the same issue on an iPad
and I got the same error on one of the computers in the lab. It was
like a flashback to two years ago when the test was completely
broken.
Right after I got that flood of emails, Outlook died on me. For over
an hour it said it was disconnected and even when that went away I
could receive emails but couldn't send any. It was a very
inconvenient time to lose email. I ended up having to communicate
with the principal about the testing issues via text message because
she was out of the building. And I couldn't respond to any of the
other emails I was getting. Hopefully that will be resolved by
tomorrow.
It was later determined that the test servers crashed because there
was construction happening at the university where the test servers
are located and they accidentally cut through the internet and phone
lines. Whoops. As much as it sucks for us having to deal with tests
crashing and scheduling issues, at least we don't have to deal with
the responsibility of the entire test breaking down. Due to that
problem they don't want anyone to test before ten o'clock tomorrow,
at which time they will update everyone on the current situation and
we'll see if testing can resume. Can't wait.
On a positive note to the test fail, it meant that the kindergarten
class whose regular lab time got bumped for the test, got to come
down for lab. Hooray. I also had time to go down and turn off the
beeps for that kindergarten teacher's printer, because printer
beeping is annoying. Beeping in general is pretty annoying.
After school I eventually read a textbook chapter. After dinner I
read through a conference PowerPoint presentation and an article.
Reading long PDFs on a computer is awful. I don't mind reading short
articles online but long journal articles are a literal pain in the
eyes. I also don't remember the information as well as I do when I'm
reading from a book or from paper that I am physically holding in my
hands. Most of these articles are for my class about managing
electronic resources, and those resources are obviously here to stay,
but paper is still the best medium for me.
Speaking of, I got The Black Book of Colors today, which I
ordered the other day after stumbling across it while getting
sidetracked by braille stuff, while writing my universal design for
learning paper. I'm going to have to join the reviewer opinions that
said the braille in the books is difficult/impossible to read with
your fingers because the bumps aren't raised enough. I also have no
training in reading braille with my fingers, however, so my opinion
isn't worth that much. I am familiar with braille after learning it
a few summers ago and making various art projects with it, but I've
never actually tried to read it with my fingers before. Maybe with
the proper training I would get better at it. I still think the
bumps in the book should be raised more. They need to use a thicker
paper so that the bumps can stand out more on the page. The concept
is really cool though, so I like that I have added the book to my
collection, even if I'm a little disappointed with the braille
aspect.
Soon I will be going to bed. Tomorrow there may be more testing,
there will probably be Chipotle, and there will most definitely be
more reading for school. I'm looking forward to Chipotle. That's
about it.
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