As I sit down to write this I am finding that due to some digital glitch on Blogger's part I cannot comment on my classmates blogs. Lovely, now how am I to get my credit for participation? Digital pen-paling is failing me right now due to technological glitches and I'm just a bit more than peeved about it. So technology be damned! To make me even angrier, many of my student's research paper's were rebuffed due to my limited load on my email. What bogus bunk is that? And I no sooner clear it out and it fills back up, so I'm running around looking for spare thumb drives for my kids and hoping they bring them back, because goodness knows those things aren't cheap. And then there are the kids who don't have Word as an operating system and I'm now forced to search the net high and low to find a download so that I can convert their paper from whatever it is their parents have to a a word document, which is time consuming and frustrating, especially when the madness doesn't convert correctly. So no, I'm not impressed right now and then I read chapters four and five and I just want to pull my hair out.
Honestly, I am full on this material and I'm ready for this course to move on and be over. My school district will never have the technology or hardware required for the materials described in these chapters. And with Texas having just made a MAJOR educational budget cut and our campus about to receive a rating of UNACCEPTABLE to which we will carry for the next two years, I just don't see us getting it anytime in the near future. So these chapters both anger and sadden me at the same time.
We do currently use Skyward as our electronic grading system...and to be honest, they just got that five years ago! Right about the time they finally decided to buy AESOP for subbing. See how far behind we are? Skyward gets no props from me....the last two grading sessions it has messed up the OA on all the students' grades and forced many reentries and downtime for upgrades and fixes. This year in particular forced me to return to the old paper book due to the fear if the thing actually crashed I would be screwed.
I've never used a test generator for the simple fact that the ones that I have reviewed are insulting to the mind. They ask all book questions and rarely if ever raise to the level on Blooms where the student is forced to connect, synthesize and create (infer).
The one software I have been dying to get my hands on and we do not have is Inspiration...I do see a great deal of educational and classroom value in that particular programming with story webbing. I would kill to have access to that licensing.
Hypermedia and e-books are also something I would LOVE to see at my district. Although the accountability for them scares the begeezus out of me. E-books would do away with the frayed and torn books that I am forced to perform CPR on each year and also do away with the wonderful art work my babies often leave behind on some of the pages. To pay a one time licensing fee for copyright would in the end save thousands in budgeted funds on replacing old book and would loosen up money to purchase other e-novels. Oh, the books we could read!
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