Challenges with Technology

And in this case, it's not even really a technological challenge, so this isn't really an accurate image. (But it's certainly more interesting than the problem we had.)

Because we have all of next week off for Thanksgiving break, our administrators scheduled a volleyball tournament this afternoon as a way to encourage students to be even more distracted and fidgety. As a result, our classes were shortened to about 2/3 of their usual time.

I'd reserved one of the laptop carts, but our librarian asked that I let the cart charge in the library for the first 15-20 minutes of the period. Not a big deal, because we start every period with writing time anyway. However, once we finally get the laptops, it takes ten minutes to get them all signed out and set up. And then of course we can't work to the bell; we have to shut down the laptops and sign them back in at the end of the period.

As a result, we really didn't get that much done. Some of the students forgot to check to see if they were correctly logged in to our website so that it would save their work instead of reloading and MRS KEYS MRS KEYS IT'S GONE! I don't know how many times I've told them - write one sentence and click save so that you can preview it and make sure it's doing what you want it to do. Then go back and finish your assignment.

Anyway, because of the shortened classes, today kind of flew by. I'd like to do more with tech in the classroom. The students seem to enjoy using the computers, for all they get incredibly frustrated when their failure to follow directions results in wasted time.

I try not to let them show how much I enjoy seeing them go through what I deal with EVERY DAY. ;p

Image thanks to http://www.maximumpc.com