It's been a while....

It's been quite a long time in between posts and I have to be more vigilant when blogging. The new semester has just begun and things are fresh and new again. Students and teachers are always ready for the change come end of January.

I teach in a computer lab with 25 desk tops. For what ever reason, there were 27 students registered. Thankfully, things change and I'm back down to 25. All three of my ICT classes are big, 25, 25 and 21 students. Computers break down and IT can't come immediately to fix it and you are in a pickle and fast. My lab has been pretty dependable and rarely do we need tech support. The other lab however, houses a different model of towers and there have been a total of 9 computers go down this year. Mother boards were replaced on the first 7, but new towers are being looked at now. These towers just came off warranty this past August and they started crashing in September.Not sure what we are going to do just yet. Part of the problem is that only one class a day is actively scheduled and the other 4 periods are available for booking. There is no constant supervision in the room. I power off my lab every night. I don't think the other lab gets powered off because no one is guaranteed to be there at the end of the day. Maybe that is something that I should be doing.

Some of my geeking is starting to rub off on others in my school. One of the math teachers now has an active wiki where he posts units, videos and helpful websites. He recently came to my room and showed me some things the mimio can do when writing on the board and saving notes. I had a brief sit down session with an English teacher showing her how to utilize google docs, and had a how to session with the Art teacher on setting up a wiki. The science department has a new teacher that uses pbworks so most major departments have some kind of technology integration occurring.

I am in full half marathon training mode right now.Long runs are getting up there but all is going well. I just finished a bootcamp last week and happy to be done that. Three days a week at 6:30am, busting my butt. Good workout but super tough.I am in my last class of my Masters program and which is also lots of work that usually kicks my butt. Come May I will be coasting into the summer with nothing on my plate but lying on the beach and golfing. Can't wait :)

Once a geek...