PowerTeacher

I just sent an email to the PowerTeacher people to see what was going on and whether or not the issues that my colleagues and I have been bringing up are being addressed. While not a very positive message, I offered my input to help make this something better. We'll see what happens, whether I catch more grief for reaching beyond my bounds or putting my nose in where it doesn't belong, get nowhere, or make progress is yet to be seen. I'm hoping that something positive will result. I have no problem taking time to make this a better product. I know that not all teachers are like me...but when there are none that are in favor of this mutant series of code, there's something wrong with it. When even those intended to sell this bastardization to us (my administration) can only say how "powerful" it is and not show us any proof, something is definitely off kilter here, and more that a bubble off plumb!
The web page says that I should get a response within one business day, so I'll see where I stand tomorrow...making progress, or continuing to irritate and getting no where, but someone has to try! Most others aren't willing to make any noise and prefer to gripe in private...not me I guess.

Improvement?

This week I have a little improvement. Whether it's intentional or not I don't know, but, my students can access the wiki through some of the library computers, but not the regular student computers. I'm not sure what's up there yet. The tech department appears to willing to help, but nothing has happened yet. We'll see what happens.
On a positive note, I have a student that is now signed in to edit the wiki and the usage shows that there are a few using it. I posted the next test on the wiki to entice some, and that will make a GREAT case for students not caring about their grade when the parent teacher meetings start soon. They have access, in at least on location now and have no excuses. I'm hoping that this grows and becomes something more useful than it is right now. In any event, it's about the easiest way to get a web presence!! SOOO simple and easy to use in all ways.
Another teacher found a way to get through the filter and use blogs in school too! It turns out that our filter does not block the "edublog.org" pages, so I'll be tapping that market soon too. I might use this for something different, and might send a newsletter home to parents to get them involved too...might be fun and worth while.
If anyone has any say in the grading/attendance programs that their school uses, steer way clear of "Powerteacher"...what a bum steer this is!! I keep hearing from the administration how "powerful" the tool is, but have yet to find anyone to show me how it even comes close the the old SASI and IntegradePro. The basic things are gone and lengthy, time-consuming multiple step processes replace the simple click and go of the old. The only real benefit I've seen is that it makes the mandated state reports easier, which is not much of selling point for the anyone, other than the couple of people involved with that report at the end of the year. I (and many others) are really hoping that someone is hearing our requests and thing about updates. So far 1.0 really blows! Maybe 1.1 will gain ground, but I'm not holding my breath. If you have ANY say at all fight like hell to keep this thing from entering your district!!! What a pile it is!!!!
That's my advice for the evening...hope all is well in your district!

Changes

Things aren't progressing too well as of yet. The speed of the educational process is sluggish to say the least. Right now I'm fighting for the life of my wiki. It's blocked from student view in school right now. Today, I showed my principal what I was doing, but didn't really get the feeling that this was going to survive the computer gestapo. While I do not particularly like the reference, it's soooo appropriate. Someone of little intelligence gained complete control of a country, so why not someone of lesser intelligence with complete and I do mean complete, control over what my students can do with the computers in school. I can understand the fear of access to the blog and the POSSIBILITY of something inappropriate getting through, but the wiki is totally controlled by me. So far I have granted editing privileges to one student that requested it, but I spoke with the student to verify that it was him that requested permission. Others have downloaded assignments and others the notes. It's a GREAT tool! To bad it's not available during school hours!!
Even though things aren't progressing well, I'm finding allies in some very unexpected places. Maybe we can break through the line and propaganda of fear perpetuated in my district. One of the best control tactics is to separate and isolate. If I can gain enough support and get more people interested, maybe something will happen. My other option involves going in front of the school board to plead my case and possibly get something done. THAT will ruffle many more feathers, but at this point I really don't have all that much more to lose here. My free trial of the wiki without ads runs out in early Oct. After that I have to pay...I'd really like to have this solved by then...I don't mind spending the $50 to help the kids, but to do so and still not have access in school would be nuts. Maybe I'll get on the agenda for the end of the month meeting and see what happens. It wouldn't be the first time I irritated people and most likely wouldn't be the last. I guess the other option would be to bring a formal complaint against the person creating all this trouble, but the problem there is the 'the good ole boys network' that turns a blind eye to what's happening. At least with the board, I'd have some people that are really interested in the district and MAY not be quite so willing to support what's going on.
I guess that I have some thinking to do. As far as changing schools goes, it doesn't seem worthwhile. The bulk of the administration is great, although may not so computer literate, which is where the scare tactics and BS comes in. I'm quite well supported in everything except the technology end of teaching. Not that long ago we couldn't have the Google bar installed on any computer because it was 'spyware'. Now, without doing anything, I have two Google bars up every time I fire up Explorer and yet I can't load Firefox to browse or Netscape to manage and edit my homepage from work. No reason given, just NO. That's just life I guess.

A Way Around

Well, I guess I've done my complaining and whining about my now canceled activity for the coming school year. Now I have to start finding ways around all of the blocks that have been appearing. I need to get some new ideas and ways to do what I planned in some format. Without the blogs and no Publisher, it won't be the same for sure. Ideas are welcome here :)

Blog Issue

Today I write about a little issue that occurred this week. When I was in my school checking out the new computer and seeing what things I needed that were not yet installed, I found some problems. The big thing was the lack of access to my UF class pages and the blockage of the blogs by our school filter. I had some plans for utilizing the blogs this year. When I talked to my principal, he was now concerned that there is a legal issue here, using the "social networking" pages in or for school is potentially illegal. I'd really like to here from some others that are using these in the school setting to see how they are dealing with this issue. I remember reading about some schools that were using the MySpace to communicate with the student body and maintaining a presences there. The other issues are pretty minor really (I don't have Publisher on my computer yet and none of my stuff was backed up from my old computer. There was a simple button to click that was to back up all that was contained on it, but somehow mine wasn't even though I clicked the button and waited a PAINFULLY long time for it to complete it's work. It's fortunate that have no trust in my tech coordinator and backed all of the stuff up myself on my portable hard drive for just such a happening :) ), but losing this blog aspect will greatly hamper my ideas for this year...at least my wiki is still not blocked. Hopefully that will stay too!
If you or someone you know is currently using blogs as part of school, I'd like to hear from you. I'm looking at defending my request and would like to have some positive examples to help with my own vision of their usage. Thanks,
mark

Back Online

Things were nuts last week, leaving me very little time for work online after Tuesday. The annual invitational shoot that I work every year was put on. I had roughly 60 hours in this shoot Wed-Sun. I was non-stop beacuse things were "scaled back"---which meant 3 people instead of the normal 5, but with the same amount of work as usual. It was rough. I write this in the Ed. Tech blog because it really brings up a good point: This online stuff can really make life easier.
Learning about, and using RSS, has made it easy for me to catch up on the news that I missed last week. The online bookmarks would have helped me to keep up a little bit better on my class work, but doing the UF work on dial-up quickly proved to be too time consuming for the few 20 minute breaks that I could work in. I did show others some pages that I had at delicious for some parts customers were looking for. While I'm still not proficient in the creation of web pages and using CSS, my second job is patient and waiting for me to get them a decent web presence, which I'll most likely work on now that classes are over.
The more I learn, the more things I can do, and the more time I can save. Other than starting the last class 3 weeks late, I think it went well. Advancing in the tech realm is helping me in places other than my teaching and really proving to be worthwhile. I hope the classes I have coming up will be as useful!
For now, I'll most likely not be posting here much for the next couple of weeks and will be starting my summer now. I think I'll pretty much take a week off and not do much that I don't want to and enjoy myself.
Good luck in the Ed Tech adventures!!

Home

Well, I'm still struggling with some CSS use, but I think I have a decent home page, using some of the CSS commands. I still have work to do, but this seems to be OK. After this class is over, I'll remove the last link in the table as there is really no reason anyone else will need to see what's there. I'll use what I've learned, but not that page. That brings up the question of methods to remove some of my stuff from the sever. I still don't know how to approach that yet. The latest, but not the last, rendition is located at my Team Viking Science home page. At some point, I imagine that this will have to be housed on my school's server and monitored through their system. If that occurs, I'll pass that new page on down the line.
Now it's time to fight the last of the CSS assignment.