MY THOUGHTS

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I have been in a rut here “My Thoughts” and just couldn’t get past my writers block that I have had for 3-4 weeks now.  I had gotten to the point where I was not passionate about the blog and didn’t really have anything good to write about that fit here.  Last night I got to thinking about what I could do to improve my blogging and regain my interest.

It came to me pretty quickly, start a new blog that is tightly focused on a topic that I am passionate about and have some background knowledge.  I went about the process of creating a new blog that will focus on Special Education, something that I am passionate about and have been involved with since about 1988. 

As a result of this decision, I had to figure out the name which actually took the longest amount of time and blog host.  I wanted something that I would just blog at, not get caught up in the backend management or tweaking HTML code so that I would get it “just right”, I have 3 other active blogs besides this one on Blogger and am always going in and doing something with the code, I thought seriously about Edublogs but “something” just didn’t feel right, some of the others were to expensive for my tastes, so I settled on WordPress.com and setup my own domain.  I plan to just write and not worry about the small stuff that always takes so much of my time.  I am satisfied with the theme (not crazy about it) and it will work for me.

My new blog is called: Resource Room 220

and you can access it by clicking on the quick link. 

Since starting the new blog, my writer’s block has vanished and I am ready to start blogging again.

Please take the time to visit my new blog and provide me with constructive feedback on how I can improve it or if you have some ideas on an entry or two that I should do let me know.

I have been searching for something to organize my Windows Desktop for years.  I have tried several different options:  Rocket Dock, Window Blinds to name a couple.  But the other night I found something called Fences by accident on CNET.

This is exactly what I have been looking for!  Before I found Fences organizing my desktop was catch as catch can and usually was not visually appealing to me.  This way I am able to find things quickly and easily and things “stay where I put them.  Which wasn’t my experience with the Windows Desktop.  So far Fences is meeting my desktop organizational needs better than other products have.

Disclaimer:  I have not received any reimbursement, gifts or other forms of compensation to write this review, it is simply my thoughts on something that I have started using.

This week has been a turning point in my relationship with many of my students – for the most part for the better or so it seems.  It seems that my room is becoming a bit of a safe haven…I am starting to have students show up in my room before school, at lunch, on their way to other classes and sometimes after school (very brief visits).  I know that kids at this age are very fickle and could change in a moment.  But I am starting to establish some appropriate student-teacher relationships.

One of the students who had been giving me the most problems the first 3-4 weeks, came in this morning smiling and worked hard all class long – this was the 3rd day that she has done this this week.  She stopped by after school this afternoon to get something out of her locker and I thanked her for her hard work and great attitude.  I then asked her what the difference was and she surprised me by saying “I didn’t know you before and at first I thought you were a real jerk, but when you took time to help me with my test last week, even though you were busy, I found out that you are not too bad”.  This was a small but significant victory to me and made me smile for the rest of the afternoon.

Does this mean that she won’t be a pain in the butt at times this year…NO, but it does mean that when she is, we both can move on much more quickly afterwards.  Besides as one Psychologist told me a long time ago, all teenagers are legally insane until they are 19-20 and then it is questionable, so expect them to act out and don’t take it personally.

My room is slowly becoming too popular at lunch and not just because I assign a lot of lunch detentions (I have a few visitors for that at times), but it is a lot quieter and and not as stimulating as the lunch room for many of my students who are easily overloaded.  It has gotten so popular that I have to limit them to 3 days per week, otherwise I don’t get any down time during the day…but still it is a way to connect with the kids.  If I find that they really need it will re-look at this one and make time to talk with other adults after school.

Now if I can just figure out a strategy that will work for one of my students who believes that his way is the only way to do things, when, where and how he wants to do them.  He also believes that he doesn’t have to do anything in class that he doesn’t want to and that rules are for everyone else not him.  This one is a particular challenge, but workable and I am not stressing about it like I was, due to the help of my peers and the vice principal.  We have some strategies in place, but I hate the idea that some of the solutions involve him having time outside of the classroom for him.  However, when his behaviors infringe on the ability of others to learn that is sometimes the best solution.  I plan to continue to look for solutions, things that interest in the classroom, individualizing as much as possible, while continuing to teach, positively support and model appropriate behaviors.

Now to get back to writing the four IEPs, Written Notice, correcting papers, and all the other stuff that teachers do at night instead of watching TV or playing computer games.

I have been using Windows 7 for over a week now and am totally impressed.  I can’t believe the difference between it and VISTA.  I had been relatively happy with VISTA, but Win7 totally blows it away!

The biggest difference is the stability, it doesn’t slow down and go into circle mode very often, it seemed as though VISTA was in circle mode all the time.  The other thing is when I am scrolling down a document or my Google Read it doesn’t hitch up, it just scrolls smoothly.

Another thing that is surprising is that I have gone back to using IE8 as my primary browser, it just works now that I have Win7.  IE8 is working so much better than Firefox (which I have never really liked that much) right now, it hasn’t crashed, renders everything the way it is supposed to and quickly.  The biggest reason I don’t go completely back to IE is the ability of having Twitter in a sidebar that I can in Firefox, if Microsoft or there is an add-on that works well, I have a feeling I might be spending even more time in IE.  I was pleasantly surprised by this unexpected benefit of switching to IE, because I had been a very disappointed in IE8 prior to this – I guess the OS is making a difference. 

Installation while time consuming was easy on both my wife’s and my computers (I picked up the family pack license) One was a complete reinstall and the other was just an update, both went flawlessly.  This is the kind of thing that I want from an operating system, easy installation and intuitive to use AND best of all on the update, I didn’t loose any software or anything.

I had been thinking about going to a Mac as my next computer when I update next summer, but after using a Mac for the past month in school and comparing it to how Win7 works, I won’t be moving to Mac…I plan to stay with the PC.  It simply does what I want and works better for me than a Mac.  I guess the Mac vs PC commercials is becoming more about preferences than actual differences…?  To me and my Windows background everything you do on a Mac is backwards.

So Microsoft did a very good job on Win7, it had come to the point where they needed to do it right this time and in my opinion they did.  If they hadn’t Mac or Linux would have been more of an option than in the past for many people including myself. 

Now if they just would not force you to use some of their programs, if you didn’t want to it would be nice (I am not crazy about Media Center and haven’t ever used it), I might use Media Player because it works (I use many of the Windows Live applications), but I just don’t like being forced to have things on my computer because they are part of the operating system, that I have to buy and I don’t have the option to not have it.  Others might look at it as freebie software, I look at as being forced to have something on my computer that I may or may not want to use.

Good job Microsoft, I think you hit a home run with Win7

Disclosure Statement:  I have not received any sort of compensation as part of writing this review, it is simply my thoughts on something that I have started using.