Jpg5

Entry

May 25, 2004

On-going technical glitches lead to a lesson on "scumware" which is an eye-opener for the students, as well as for me!! With Art's help, I hope to resolve this issue...at least as much as we possibly can!!

Art:

I have been working on my pages. I have a new start page. It's called rigginsjune. It's the one you get to when you go to "teachers" then "Mrs. Riggins". Only problem is that it needs to be linked to all of the other pages, down the left menu bar. I wonder if you have a way to do that easily. (I didn't think about that issue when I changed the page.)

OK, next. I made a new "Classwork Bonus Choices" page. I searched for educational games and activities and found a number of new things which I'm pretty happy with. Give them a brief review. Problem is...while I'm searching around and reviewing sites...I, of course, open certain pages. Now, I realize that certain "game" pages may have that "scumware" but I have to look at the page to see if it's worthwhile. I had a few pop ups, but got rid of them w/ the new "alt+F4" method you showed us yesterday. OK, so then, I make all of these updates using Contribute..and it's going just fine, a little slow, but no big deal. Then, I try to close out all of the open programs because I'm finished for the time being. So, I try to close Contribute. It gets all jammed up. I try "Ctrl+Alt+Delete" and it seems to work. I try to close Explorer, and I try to close Word. No luck. Nothing. It's all jammed. I resort to a force shut down.

Next, I reboot. I double click on the Explorer icon. Nothing. No dice. I try again. Nothing. I see a pop up re: Dell updates. I click on that down in the lower right hand menu bar. Nothing. No connection.

I decide--Uht Oh!! I better run Spy Bot!! So, I start it & run it. In the middle of running it, Explorer opens--twice (because I had clicked it twice!) and then, my Yahoo mail launches as it usually does upon booting up. And, in the end, I found & fixed 17 things.

So....what is going on? Is something now in my computer?? Is this a never ending cycle of headaches??

We'll see how things work for the remainder of the day. At least I made it further with troubleshooting than I would have been able to accomplish last year at this time! :-)

TTFN.

Janine

I haven't added to my journal in quite a while but I am always working on new things. Lately my students have been learning more about Power Point and developing individual projects on the National Parks. (See my page on this project for more details). I also met another STAR-W teacher, via cyberspace, who happens to teach in Chicago! Funny thing, and I thought STAR-W was a grant from the state of NJ. I didn't realize it's a national thing! Here's what I wrote to Art following my email conversations w/ "teach4th" in Chicago.

Note: Of COURSE it turns out that Art knows the technology teacher at the same school in Chicago!! Small world!!

Date: Tue, 15 Jun 2004 05:49:50 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Janine Riggins" <jrigginsmlk@yahoo.com> Add to Address Book
Subject: re: starw/new pal
To: awolinsky@3dwriting.com

Art:
Hi. How are you? I have come into contact, very accidentally, with a 4th gr. teacher in Chicago. She said they are a starw school. ?? (I thought that was a NJ program??) Anyway, here is her school's link:
School page: http://collaboratory.nunet.net/hayt/home/home.html

It looks very good. I love the way the links are arranged, and so organized. (Yes, that's my learning style speaking again!!) Anyway, see what you think. As always, I'm looking for good sites that I want to "copy" from!!

I am talking to her (her name is Judy) about possibly doing some collaboration next year. Maybe poetry sharing, or pen pals, or who knows! She seems interested. So, we'll see. I hope to keep in touch w/ her and develop some ideas later in the summer...after we both recouperate from this year!!

Talk to you later.

Janine

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