[FUL-0H8] Roobie

I'm not talking about the Taiwanese brand of computer supplies. I'm talking about iTunes 8 newest feature. Genius scans your library and compares it to the iTunes Store catalogue. This is intended to let you create coherent playlists, not based on search terms but in "songs that sound great together".

I must say that I didn't have much faith in this, but after several tries and some dumped lists, I got a couple of nice playlists that I thought were actually good.

Talking about upgrades, the lab at work finally was upgraded in RAM and we even got our own IP address where a weblog created using ThinkJot can be accessed from the internet when the server is up (not the case right now, but if you're curious, PM me and I'll give you the address). The interesting point is that we were using (for tests) 40 IP's and after I figured out the correct configuration, we dropped 39 and kept one, the other 39 are subnetted within the intranet!

Tomorrow I'll install SP3 on the XP boxes that -believe it or not- don't even have SP1 installed!

Today, some students began their social service at the school's civilian protection department. However, they have to be trained. In their first day, they failed to evacuate a hurt person in time so I was asked to pronounce her dead at 2:55 pm.

After watching them perform, in case of accident, I'd rather save myself than waiting for those guys to assist me!

Today we worked very hard: social service boys were playing PlayStation, I was watching Lost in Translation on my iBook, Alice and Paty were having breakfast and Gus was at the bank.

I feel so productive!

Last Monday, Federico called me and told me that the lab server was sending a Blue Screen of Death message at boot, I told him to leave it alone and that I would check it today. Today I found that the server had a printer port error and that several machines (including the server) were infected with the VB.vob.1 virus.

So I cleaned everything up with Avira and finally got the server up and running again, and now that the semester is over, we need a new screensaver, the countdown was really a hit and the students loved it ^_^

In the end, everything worked out right and it wasn't as difficult as I expected. The best news is that they promissed to upgrade my server during vacation

Right now I'm about to finish a lesson with Frank's students using the Self Access Lab and my new IP address.

I still have another hour to go but I think that this will be swift. This is really working, students are really getting the hang of this New Tech stuff and I think that it will be successful when fully implemented.

Score me with yet another achievement.

Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools. The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task.

And this is specially true this week.

I have been in charge of SXXI for the last week and I still have one week to go and I have come to realize that infrastructre really really blows.

It doesn't matter, we have to deliver numbers, so numbers is what they'll get... whatever it takes.

I know that there a better teachers than me around the world, so to those three or four people: Happy Teacher's Day!

At school, my blog is becoming quite popular among both students and teachers (and by popular I don't mean that they actually love it, but they know me and the blog all too well because of how I'm using it). I use my blog to upload homework, news, reports and even useful downloads for the students and I have been asked to do a couple of presentations on how to blog.

As a part of a long term project, we expect to have not just one, but three English Labs (which would be at my charge) so every level could have practices every week. So I would like every lab to have its own blog but everything within the same site.

In order to achieve this I downloaded the open source version of MovableType that unlike Wordpress, allows me to create several blogs within the same installation (WP requieres an installation per blog) and has better templates. In fact, I think that it's the most powerful blogging platform I've ever tried.

So right now I'm playing with MT and I'm liking it so far, I just hope to get the chance to use it as I intend ^^

Ok, I know I should have uploaded the practice before today. I didn't, so deal with it. I forgot the book, I could have come to get it on Monday but I was on vacation and since I still haven't got my check... I didn't see the point in going the whole nine yards.

So it's up now and one of the teachers is really upset because (obviously) their students didn't bring it. I don't blame her, I would be pissed off if someone else costed me a free hour or two. What really upsets me is that no one lets me print... No, wait, if I had a printer I would protect it as well and I wouldn't let anyone else use it.

What really really upsets me is that in the places where there *IS SUPPOSED* to be an available printer, there isn't. For instance, S.XII is closed because there's no one there (not even the person in charge), at IT services they have no toner and Academic Network has no priner (or so the person in charge told me).

My boss told me that I'm about to have a lot of trouble with the aformentioned teacher, but I really don't care, because my free time outweights theirs, so if there isn't an available printer in the whole school, is someone else's problem because my responsability ended at 8:43, when I uploaded the practice. It was my fault not to upload it earlier, or yesterday, or last week. But it certainly isn't my fault that there's no printer.

Hey, I've already brought my own memory chip, keyboard and eventually (laptop) computer, even Eric's tape recorder is here! I'm not about to bring my own printer too (but if I did, I wouldn't let anyone else use it either).

My career in teaching has been absolutely of luck. It all began with an invitation from Eric to teach on Saturdays and it served to me as a way to make myself useful on weekends and to make some extra income. Just after a couple of courses I was drafted for an internship with a few possibilities for a base job. It eventually became my only job (even if I get payed every few months and I still haven't received part of my last year's salary).

This week, everything can change. I was offered an administrative position at school, which means better salary, bi-weekly payments and the possiblity to triple any teacher's pay. That would mean that I wouldn't stand in a classroom again but I will (eventually) become chief of Selfaccess.

Yay for me!

I'm writing this rant because DEMS is -luckily- going to ask us for feedback about the Diagnostic Exam applied to 6th graders during the week.

The idea is really good: to apply an on-line test to find out the English level of the students before they go to college and, if the level isn't the expected, find solutions to level them. The exam is in three parts: Use of English/Reading/Writing in part 1, Listening in part 2 and speaking in part 3.

The problem is that the bandwith isn't enough, I don't know if it's DEMS' or V2's fault but we've been having a lot of trouble because some students can't even finish the test because their time runs out while they're trying to reload the 404 error pages that the exam throws.

Actually, I think (know) that the problem is ours, cuz even during a high load time I took the exam at home and had no problems, however, I have my doubts about the grading system.

Anyway, tomorrow It's my year and a half troutversary and I'll ditch them early but I think that maybe this information can be useful ^.^