Whirlwind of activity

My car is fixed and it did not damage my wallet too terribly. I am getting ready to buy a new car though; I am tired of pumping money into my old one. All I need to do is line up the insurance and I should be ready to go.

School is winding down faster than I can keep track. I am trying to decide what final activities I would like to do for the end of the year. I wanted to try Type to Learn 4 before next year; however, I am experiencing technical difficulties getting it to work on all 32 of the identical in every way computers in my classroom. It is rather bizarre. I plan on calling tech support sometime this week. I had to take a cell phone away from a student during class today. The student was a third grader and she said it fell out of her pocket, however, she changed her story when I explained I saw her take it out, turn it on and start checking her call log. Who calls a third grader during school? This was the first time offense so she got to take it home but I assured her that next time her parent would have to come in to get it.

I am experimenting with Microsoft Office 2007. I decided to upgrade (thanks to a wonderful education discount) and apparently I can post to my blog directly from word. I am curious if this will work at school seeing as the filter tends to block EVERYTHING. I was amused to hear at a meeting that the high school students of a colleague technology teacher are using Proxy Servers to bypass the filter. I made the mistake of saying, "That's awesome" out loud. Frankly, I admire the creative efforts students take to get around teacher roadblocks. I am not saying I think they should be breaking the rules constantly but that same creativity can be harnessed to solve other problems. It is no small task to figure out how to consistently bypass the content filter. If I wasn't so afraid of losing my job I would consider it. I know that when I was in high school I was trying everything I could to find loopholes and I honestly think that has helped me to be the problem solver that I am today.

I understand the reasoning behind having a content filter for the internet at schools but I think there has got to be a better way to manage it. I think schools should have more direct control over the sites that are blocked as opposed to these global lists for the entire district. I think my main issue is that I hate having matters outside of my control and I would rather be able to choose what sites to block and when rather then have them blocked for me.