Trying to be impressed...

Part 1 - I tend to be a teacher who tries to give my students the benefit of not comparing them to other classes of students. I mean, hey, come on! Every group and the dynamics of each group are different. But being the first Honors Science teacher here, I can’t help but keep all the classes that have come before going through my mind as the year goes on. I remember my first class especially... which to most is probably not a surprise (and if you’re reading this Rachel that was YOUR class.... Make me proud with your life choices!).

And so I am in a bit of a bind. I don’t want to compare my students this year with other years (or even class periods to each other) but it inevitably happens... And I am not impressed with the bunch this year. That DOESN’T mean that I don’t like the kids that make up this year’s class; they are a pretty nice bunch. But as for mental acumen and desire combined with curiosity... I’m trying to be impressed. Now remember, there will always be students who as individuals will impress me... But I’m waiting for the group to live up to the title of Honors Students.

Part 2 - I am a technophile. I freely admit loving machines and technology... But sometimes it can drive me nuts. I’ve come to the conclusion that you have to treat the computer(s) you have like the car(s) you own. First incident today was not being able to get my iSight camera which watches the backyard to work. I unplugged and replugged the camera into the computer, restarted the application, restarted the computer.... Nothing. I finally gave up and hope to handle the problem later. Before that I had taken my older PowerBook G4 into the Apple Store and the Mac Geniuses to check the hardware. They tested it and it passed. Why do that? Because the sound had stopped working. So I do the typical trouble-shooting and get it working again... But only temporarily before it does it again. As the Genius said at Apple, “Time to Archive and Reinstall the OS to fix the software issue.” I love technology... But SOMETIMES.........

New Ideas in the Year of Light

One of the great joys and burdens I have in being a technophile is that I’m always in a learning mode. I discover new applications and new technologies to make my abilities expand, my job better, and give me greater creativity and enjoyment... but the time requirements are tremendous. Luckily I have a few tricks up my sleeve such as Twitter, Facebook, Mac New Network, and other various video and text blogs that I run past each day to help keep me abreast of happenings in the technology world. Still, every time I have a new application to use I have new abilities I have to train myself to master or at least become competent at doing. This can be such a hassle. For instance, I am typing this blog on my new MacJournal app so that I can do it when I have no internet or when getting on the internet is a hassle (such as at work - no way in hell I’m gonna use their network and be bound by their restrictions of internet usage... no way in hell). I’m doing the typical Mac user thing of just trying it out without reading about it much... I’m sure that I’ll have to find a tutorial or a user’s guide and dissect it when I get to the more powerful parts of the application but so far it seems to be a great journal... so far.

I also hope to have a personal website built in the next few months. I’m not going to go fast as I wanna make sure I do it right, plan out each page well, and take the time to learn how to use iWeb. It seems pretty straight forward (as are so many things that Apple produces). But going quickly and producing a piece of shlock is just not my style. The I have a new scanner (Neat Scanner... way cool) but I have to take the time to get all my bills together for this year, scan them, and then learn how to organize them and export them to things like my TurboTax. It’s a lot to learn.