18 September, 2007

You teach me wisdom in the inmost place (Psalm 51:6)


All right, I'm totally going to brag for a moment. The video is of my new room. As you will see, it is decked out with 19 computers, 13 of which are equipped with PhotoShop and InDesign along with the usual Microsoft Office fixings. The last computer you see is the laptop issued to me by my school. I can carry it to any classroom and access the school's drives through a wireless network. With the wireless setup, I also can find open networks around town, which has been incredibly helpful as I still struggle to get a phone and Internet line in my home. I hoped to filch off a neighbor's wireless modem, but so far, no luck. And my lab is not the top one in the school. Next door is the photo and video lab, which students can use to create podcasts and webcasts. Unfortunately, this means my lab often gets co-opted by other teachers, but despite that, it is still more of a newsroom than my last school's and even my university's. After all, I got to set up the lab myself. I hooked up all the monitors, plugged in all the hard drives, installed all the printers and scanners, and added RAM. I am learning a lot about computers, both technically and philosophically. Right outside my room is a biodiversity area. There is a pond that is supposed to contain algae and other water plants to sustain dozens of fish. A few pits for trees, which were supposed to create the water cycle environment for the pool, remain empty, because some bacteria got into the pool and killed all the fish. I'm sure this had nothing to do with the fact that there was no protection for the pond, so in the beginning students were throwing trash and rocks in. In the attempt to be technologically-savvy, some common sense was lost. Better the fish than me, though. Natch.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So you're saying this is better than the Post's newsroom? WTF?

Anonymous said...

Yes, I do believe that is what she is saying. Good, bad, anyone? I wonder what year this is in reference to because sometimes I couldn't type my name without freezing a computer for a good hour while another time I wrote a 20-page short story in one night. Good times...

Anonymous said...

Ahhh, The Post ... nothing better than a Mac with a 9" monitor! You're classroom sounds amazing Kim. In fact, could you send me a laptop? I'm working on one so old and huge that it contains no battery and is too heavy to transport.