TeacherScribe

Well, my classes at the ALC are quite good. They always seem to start that way, but so far I’m familiar with many of the kids and they seem to be willing to work, which is always a bit of an issue. But it’s early. However, I’m hopeful.

The only problem to arise, and that is always bound to happen, is that the portable lab (10 imacs) here is not set up to allow students to use many of the applications I initially wanted them to use (namely comiclife and keynote). Keynote is a big one since I was going to have my accessing information class develop a research presentation. I mean it’s absurd to think you can have kids write a research paper in 16 days. My College Comp kids could pull it off, but that is an entirely different set of kids. And I don’t know that even my College Comp kids would be all that inspired in the middle of summer. I hope our tech guys can take care of these issues.

I’m crossing my fingers because we would be able to do some pretty cool thinks on the labptops (create imovies and comic strips in addition to the presentations). This throws a monkey wrench into things so far.

I guess with Science Fiction and Creative Writing, these are not really big concerns. In Sci Fi we can always fall back on films and analyzing those. In Creative Writing, we can, well, write, so as long we can type, we’ll be fine.

But the Accessing Information class is severely limited. We may have to do a very bare bones approach. Good thing the kids seem to be very good.

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I couldn’t get to sleep last night. Part of it was being anxious for summer school. Part of it was my mind’s fascination with the patio.

I kept going over my lessons in my head. I even had to spend an hour or so this morning coming up with some back up plans, and I thought of another really good assignment on the way to work.

As far as the patio goes . . . my mind was conjuring images of a foot deep 16 by 12 foot hole in our backyard. Then I began worry about how to make sure I get the bottom of the hole level. Then I began to dread how to determine the correct depth of my fill. Do I use a screen, rope, a level, pipes along with a screed? Finally, I got up and spent an hour on the internet researching it. This gave my mind a little peace, for there was no uniform way to construct a patio.

Some sites said just to dig and fill with sand. Others advised using gravel first and then sand. Others talked about using mortar. Others still advised using edge stones to form an initial pattern. All sounded complicated. However, I figured – what is the worst that can happen? At least we can say we gave it a shot. If we have to spend a fall and winter with an ugly hole before hiring someone to do it before Casey’s graduation, then so be it.