Time Flies, Christmas Break, the RESA, and Procrastination!

I am a terrible blogger! I haven't posted anything since the end of last school year and here we are in January of the next year with the new school year half over! My trip to Alaska was awesome, but coming home in August left me little time to think much about blogging or really anything at all before school started.

It's been a pretty good year so far. Somewhat different classes than before but for the most part my students are pretty great. 

Christmas break is coming to a close. I still have the weekend, but this is my last official day off, since I get weekends anyway. Some schools in our area went back yesterday, but many of them ended up dismissing early and canceling today, so I'm glad that we were still on break... We can't afford to use any more snow days at this point! (We've already had 3!)

I just completed my RESA Task 1... The "Resident Educator Summative Assessment." It was no fun at all and I majorly procrastinated. I won't comment much on this for I have nothing nice to say to the state of Ohio except perhaps, "Thanks for extending the deadline!" I have not yet hit the submit button. It makes me nervous!

Well, that's about all I suppose. Don't feel much like ranting about the RESA right now... don't want the department of education people in Columbus hunting me down! 

Thanks to those of you who actually read this! Happy New Year!

80 Days

Have you ever seen the show, Phineas and Ferb? I have a brother who is ten years younger than me, so I watched Disney channel for much longer than most! Anyway, their theme song goes like this,

"There's 104 days of summer vacation
And school comes along just to end it
So the annual problem for our generation 
Is finding a good way to spend it"

Well, that's crazy. There is absolutely no way anyone has 104 days of summer vacation. I did some quick math, and I guess it's possible, but think about it:

School days:       180
Summer:             104
36 weekends:       72
Total:                   356

So you'd have 9 days left for Christmas and Spring Break. THAT'S RIDICULOUS.

My summer break is 80 days long, I counted! But they did get something right... the 4. Because for students, it's 84. But seriously, where did those extra 20 days come from?! Anyway, here's how I'll be spending my 80:

Days 2 is my cousin's wedding shower.
Day 3 my friend who is going to house sit while we're gone is moving in after church.
Days 4-7 will be spent planning an epic road trip to Skagway, Alaska and packing.
Days 8-10 are for going to camp with middle schoolers.
Day 10 is also when my friend is getting married.
Day 11 is for REST!
Days 12-19 will be spent on the road trip.
Day 19 is also take a ferry to Juneau day!
Day 22 is when we will meet the college students we will be leading this summer.
Day 66 will be the day we take a ferry back to Skagway and start the long trek home.
Day 79 my brother graduates from nursing school!
Day 80 I will whine about going to bed early.

Lots of excitement in the midst of all that, but those are the starting and ending points!

Laziness

Yes, LAZY seems to be the theme as of late. My students don't want to do ANYTHING. Thank goodness tomorrow is the last regular day of classes. We'll just be going over their final review packet in every class.

It's gotten really hot in my un-airconditioned building these last few days, but the lazy kicked in about a week ago. Last Thursday I gave my freshmen a test, and after grading the larger of the two classes, the majority failed. They knew it was difficult, but instead of giving it 110%, my students decided that they just didn't care anymore.

There are a few A's floating in the sea of F's.

Oh well. There's not really any time left to do any remediation or corrections, so I'm going to be nice and curve it, but for some, they still won't pass this test. And those few A tests... they're going to be getting LOTS of bonus points. :)

It's frustrating.

Just 15 tests to finish grading, and then I can go to bed!

Apple v. Windows

Yes, this is an age old debate, I know. And really, I don't care what you use. Use whatever works for you. There are definitely situations in which one is better than another for doing some particular thing. But I'm a Apple person. I have a MacBook Pro. I have an iPhone. I want an iPad (someday!). So yeah, I'm going to suggest the Apple products over an alternative.

But I wasn't always a Mac user! (gasp!)

I used to not even like Apple products! (Shocker, I know!)

But I've been totally converted.

So... why? Why do I think Apple Products are superior? Well, there are a ton of reasons, but since this is my blog about teaching, I'll start with a story about school today.

We'll call this, "One More Reason I Hate Windows."

My work email is through Office 365. So yeah, it's Outlook Web Mail. Online. It's actually pretty good. Before I discovered my love for Apple, I had a love for all things Google. And I still like Google (hello Blogger), but my Mac love has replaced some of my Google love. But, I digress.

My work email. Yes, back to the topic. Over the weekend sometime, Microsoft decided to upgrade our email server. You see, Microsoft has two forms of email. There's Outlook Live (@outlook.com, @hotmail.com, @live.com), and then there's Outlook through Office 365. What's the difference? Well, Outlook Live is free to anyone. They've been advertising it like crazy lately and it seems pretty good. But my email NEVER looked like those commercials. :( Up until today, I went to live.outlook.com and I would log into my email. Well today when I tried to do that, BIG FAT ERROR MESSAGE.

Being the tech savvy person that I am, I was able to read the error message, realize that I needed office 365, google it, find the new login page, and login. No big deal. But to some of the less tech savvy teachers, they just thought our email was lost forever. Or temporarily down. Or something. I had it bookmarked, so I just needed to change my bookmark, then no big deal. But most of the teachers in our district go to the school district's webpage and then find the link to their email via the "for staff" menu. Our tech guy at school changed the link pretty quickly, but he had NO WARNING from Microsoft that this was going to happen, so he couldn't do anything until angry mobs began to scream at this morning (okay, so maybe it wasn't quite that dramatic, but I imagine it was close).

So now you're probably asking yourself, "if it's fixed now and wasn't really a big deal, why is she being so dramatic about this?"

Yeah, it's fixed. Yes, our email is PRETTY MUCH the same. Supposedly it's even an upgrade. But I'm still further annoyed. Why? Well about a month or two ago, I discovered SkyDrive. It's Microsoft's version of dropbox. And you know what, I actually like it. Yeah, I know. Again with the crazy talk from the self-proclaimed Mac girl. But here's the thing. For my school files, which are pretty much all Word documents or PowerPoint presentations, it's the most seamless thing to use. No worries about file types and I can edit anywhere, even if I for some reason would find myself working on a computer that doesn't have Word. And here's the biggest thing...

Until today, there was a link to my SkyDrive right in my email. And today, yeah, it's GONE.

Yes, I did find my documents. In a couple of places. But the convenience factor that got me using SkyDrive in the first place has been completely lost. So now I need a separate bookmark for SkyDrive. And I had to log in again because it's back over on the outlook live server that doesn't like my login for email. And now when I'm in SkyDrive and click on mail it doesn't work. So basically the whole point in using SkyDrive was to seamlessly put all of my school stuff together, and now it's a royal mess. And while my SkyDrive looks exactly like all those fancy Outlook commercials you've been seeing every time you watch Hulu, my "fancy" paid version of Outlook email doesn't have that great new look, nor does it have the seamless functionality they brag about.

Basically, Outlook sucks.

But it's what I have to use for school, so I use it, and in just 3 weeks I can just forget about Outlook for 2+ months!

We'll talk more about why I like Apple some other time since you're probably sick of this rant by now.

Pet Peeves

Got my papers out to grade a few minutes ago, and started through the first page of a test. It was fill-in-the-blank and matching (just the first page). I told them EXACTLY what would be on this section. So I made each blank worth 2 points, so this whole easy part of the test ends up being 30 points, or 30% of the test. I feel like that's generous, since I told them exactly what was going to be on it. I'm being completely honest here. I told them.

And yet even though I still have 5 that I haven't even looked at, already there was more than one person that did not get a perfect score on this part. And it's not like I told them about it the day before. I told them in advance. 

But this isn't even the thing that prompted this post. Oh no, it's something much worse. And as a disclaimer, this test is not the first time this has happened. It's not just a particular student, or even a particular class. There's always going to be kids that do this...

What is it you ask? Is the anticipation killing you yet??

Well...

Okay fine. I'll tell you.

My Biggest Pet Peeve:

When students write, "I don't know how to do any of this" on a test, quiz, or anything really.

WAS I TALKING TO THE BRICK WALL IN THE BACK OF THE ROOM FOR THE LAST 2-3 WEEKS?!

That's just so unacceptable. Do students really think I'm going to feel bad? If you don't get something, then you're aware of it. And you're aware of it before test day. So ask questions. Come in and get help before or after school. Ask your friend who is really good at math, and a huge sweetheart to boot, to help you! OH MY.

Teenagers.

And no, I don't think this makes me a bad teacher. I offer help before and after school. I stay until five freaking o'clock two days a week for night school and I'm available to help them during that time. I'll come early if someone asks me to. I have a study hall and a prep period, which I've been known to give up to offer some assistance. I've introduced students to awesome websites Khan Academy that are great for extra help if the times that I'm available are not convenient for their schedules. And there's often time to ask questions either during a lesson or at the end (I give them time to start their homework for this very reason!)

I'm done. I still have these tests to grade. I could have sworn they went smoothly last year, but maybe I was wrong...

Hiccups

I get the hiccups ALL THE TIME. Really. And they're terrible. And usually loud. Luckily, they tend to go away quickly, but they usually come back.

Why post about this on my blog? Well, because I often get them at school. Never while I'm standing up and teaching, because the excessive talking seems to scare them away. But at the beginning and end of class? Yes. And during tests and quizzes. Definitely.

That's the worst. Having hiccups and having your students just sit and giggle at you. Or if you have a good sense of humor, it's entertaining and something you laugh about later.

But still. Hiccups. Seriously?!

Monday, just go away already!

Posted the following on my Facebook a while ago. If your Mondays are anything like mine, you may find this to be awesome. You also might need to be a foodie and a total geek...

How to cure the Mondays in 3 easy steps:
1. Walk home on a gorgeous day, sit on the porch playing Fruit Ninja for a while, then when you get too cold go inside and do the same until you fall asleep.
2. Order tons of cheap but delicious sushi.
3. Watch 3 episodes of Dr. Who.

In other news, I'm finding a hard time finding motivation to grade things. I've got spring fever worse than my students!