Job Search List of Ten

Today at CIWIC, I participated with Cheryl Ball and Barclay Barrios in a roundtable on the job search. As I am known to do, I panicked that I wouldn’t have anything to say, so I created a List of Ten Job Search Tips. It’s not your usual list, but it’s well illustrated. I need to integrate it with the larger lists page, but for now the PDF is available. Cheryl is planning to share it at C&W 2005 in Stanford, so my baby pictures will be widely published before the month is out.

Tags: job search | tengrrl’s lists of ten

C&W Online Presentation

Finally finished posting (e.g., gave up on) my Computers and Writing Online 2005 presentation, “From Danny Dunn and the Homework Machine to The Secret Blog of Raisin Rodriguez.” It turns out that I made some major mistakes in preparing for the presentation—like not bringing any of the picture books with me. They are really important to establish some of the points, and I didn’t have them on hand as I was writing.

Another problem is that I just didn’t have time to do what I wanted to with social communication in these books. So many are now including e-mails, IMs, blogs. It’s a topic that I really want to explore in depth, but I ended up just giving up. There wasn’t time to go into the detail that I wanted to, so I decided it would wait for the future. I need to get the reviews on all of the books up to begin with I think. After that, I can go back and rewrite that section of the presentation. For now, this has to be good enough.

Tags: children’s literature |
computers in fiction |
juvenile fiction |
technological literacy |
technology

Pod People

Read about ways to use podcasting in the classroom in “Pod People: Teachers find cool new uses for Apple’s ubiquitous music player” from Edutopia.

Tags: podcasting

Gallery

A friend mentioned Gallery, a PHP-driven image album. Only took a few minutes to get it downloaded and installed. I’ve probably spent more time fiddling with settings and how I want my albums arranged.

I’m guessing it may come in handy for arranging and sharing images. In fact, I already sent my family the URL for the Daisi photos. Daisi gets around almost as much as Duck.

To be honest, the shared albums are a by-product. For me, the real benefit of this program is that I can find images more quickly. When I need a picture, it should be much easier to find this way—especially when compared to my old way of quitting pine, changing to the right directory, searching for what I think the file is named, testing it in the browser, and then repeating the search about 6 times before I find what I’m looking for. Online albums should be MUCH easier. And since you can hide albums and images, I can post various things that I use internally (e.g., wallpaper jpgs) so that they’re much easier for me to find later.

Overall, it seems like a very nice piece of Open Source software. I’m glad I happened upon it.

Tags: Gallery |
photo album

First Week’s First

Truth Goggles.

CIWIC now distributes truth goggles to all participants. Cindy has arranged for a display in the lovely glass case in the West entry way to Walker Hall that explains all.

“Step into the hermeneutic circle, my friends,” says Cindy.

They step. Oh my, do they ever step. In their Keen footware, they step forward, resisting the evil font of Mister Frisky and Uncle Stinky.

Members of the secret circle, they create threads. Their sense of embodiment glows in tides of rhythmic light. The intentionality of their commentary—typo crossing emote to say what is not that is.

They chant…. chant….. chant…..

“I respect everyone in this room. There is no lockstep technology, no pass-the-buck pedagogy.”

Memories mixing with desire.

Will got fresh with Jane over strawberry cookies, and Catherine didn’t even mind. Cheryl still likes those terrorists though. The coast guard better leave them alone or she will stop up someone else’s drain. Cheryl is a clogger. Watch those feet move. If you do not, Chopping. Cannot. Stop. The. Chopping. There. Must. Be. Chopping.

The voice of morality enters, interrupting memory. “Remember,” it says, “recycle your aluminum.”

It’s like walking through Jell-O, hearing words, knowing they are words, but having no idea what is being said.

“Don’t worry,” says Cindy. “You will understand. Just listen now. Later. Understand.”

Tags: tengrrl’s travelblog

Breaking the Fast at CIWIC

The first day of CIWIC is always a challenge. I am normally asleep at 7:30 in the morning, the time when the Welcome Breakfast begins. It is a frightening hour to be searching campus for the Alumni Room. Frequently there are bikers with rat-tails who hover about as you trek across the campus, dodging squirrels and boll weevils.

I’m late, of course. I’m always late. Really for me, being on time isn’t possible, so I guess I’m not really late, given that being on time would be early for me and late is normal. So really, everyone else was early, which we all know is in very poor taste. Alex was still having all of the machines in the lab ghosted. The CIWIC breakfast always coincides with the crash/ghosting/rebuilding of computers in the lab.

Even though the breakfast occurs at a completely unacceptable hour in the morning, it is vitally important to attend. It is at this breakfast that you learn the important details that will shape your entire CIWIC experience. The process is to grab loads of food and table up. Unfortunately, the food available is normally of the bacon and eggs and danish variety. There are none of the real breakfast foods like pizza, leftover spaghetti, or ice cream. Still, people are polite and they eat—though their eyes betray their longing for spumoni and onion rings. Oh, and cheese curds.

Once it is certain that everyone has a full mouth, the introductions begin. The breakfast room is designed so that it is impossible for a speaker to see everyone. Large support beams cut through the space. Michigan Tech is an engineering school, and that means that it’s important to show engineering feats everywhere. Who would realize that a building has a support structure? Thank goodness for these designs that show the great work that went into their building. But I digress. Cindy, our hostess extraordinaire, begins the introductions, asking various people in the room to say a little about who they are, what they do, and, most importantly, their specialities.

This is the time when we learn the real and important information about CIWIC. These important observations were all shared during this first meeting. As you can see, they are all drastically important to the success of anyone in the field:

• Michigan’s motto is “Something something, look around you.”
• Beware of morning trips to the dumpster, for there are bears inside. Big bears. Fortunately, they are scared of trash. This might lead one to ask, “why are bears who are scared of trash in a dumpster, which is typically filled with trash?” If one thinks this, one needs more coffee. One is clearly not of the Yooper mindmeld yet.
• If you rob a bank in Houghton, the best escape route is not to head north across the bridge into Hancock.
• Nascar is a French scientist who is well-known for pottery-based car forms.
• In the morning, there is rarely enough ketchup.
• People who come to CIWIC buy lots of things: warm fuzzy jackets, walking shoes, bug spray, sunscreen, more bug spray, new bikes, and houses.
• Dickie announces that it would be great for someone to buy a house this year.
• Cindy frequently sentences participants to “death by additional readings.”
• The only way to avoid “death by additional readings” is to keep Cindy far away from any and all texts. If she reads it during the two weeks that you’re at CIWIC, it will show up on your reading list the next day.
• Alex passes out copies of a vodka label, three billboards, and a newspaper article on the best time to plant coconut trees. Cindy has been reading for hours already.
• Italy is in a different time zone from Houghton.
• Everyone likes semi odd ticks. The semi odd ticks of the great UP are not so bad this year however. In a truly symbolic gesture, the semi odd ticks have been assigned to another portion of the northwoods.

After these important life lessons, everyone goes to Walker Hall for the start of the sessions. Wisely, I go back to my room and take a nap. After all, I am tengrrl. And more importantly, I am a helper this year, and I don’t need to be in the lab till 3 pm, a far more reasonable time.

Tags: tengrrl’s travelblog

The contest

Every year at CIWIC there is a contest to see who will do it. It’s a secret kind of thing, discussed only by the inner circle of the inner circle. It will happen. It always does. The question is when…….and who. In the meantime, they wait.

Tags: tengrrl’s travelblog

Another busy day

Today, despite Duck’s interruptions, I managed to get some reading done. Okay, so it was just a magazine. I went over to campus and found Cindy. It’s important to get your Cindy hug as soon as possible.

One of the problems with Houghton this year is that they’re getting a SuperWalmart. I don’t really like Walmart, but options aren’t very wide up in these parts. The problem with the forthcoming SuperWalmart is that they are still greatly in construction mode. The parking lot is a mess, and the store is worse. Even the employees can’t figure out where things are. And some departments are spread around in three different places. I never did find some of the stuff I was looking for. I finally decided that there was no price the EconoFoods store would charge for an air freshener that would be so high that I would spend another moment in Wal*Mart.

EconoFoods is a little mixed up too, but it’s boatloads easier than Wal*Mart. I’m still befuddled on some of the items they do or do not stock. Like canned fruit in juice–good luck. It’s all in syrup. Oh well, they have romaine lettuce and fresh fruit. That will have to do.

When I got back, the “Deluxe Suite” was blazing hot. I was totally confused. I had left fans on and windows open. I didn’t have time to investigate though because there was DSL to deal with. See arranging for DSL in advance here apparently just means that someone takes your money and puts it in some (presumably interest-bearing) account of their own. After multiple phone calls and e-mails, I was assured on May 5th that DSL would be hooked up and ready when I arrived on the 29th. I got here to find nothing but a phone. No DSL.

So I shot off another e-mail and late this afternoon got a response that said, “oh, you have to come to EERC B24 and pick up the equipment.” They closed in 20 minutes, and I had no idea where I was going. I ran and rushed, and ultimately, pantingly, managed to get there minutes before they closed. They handed me a DSL modem, told me to sign something, and said, “She still has to turn it on but she’ll do it before she goes.” So much for the “on or before May 29th” that they promised.

When I returned, it was still blazing in the “Deluxe Suite.” The thermometer read 87. I decided to try to put a fan actually in the window—ah, there’s the problem. This morning there was a great deal of annoying loud mowing. I’ve never known it to take so long to mow such a small amount of grass. Well, they closed the windows when they were out there, presumably for access. I must have been in the shower, because I never heard them. The M in MTU may sometimes stand for Monkeys. I finally had to close the windows and blast the window A/C again. And I stripped and took a very cold shower. I think it was that or heat stroke. After things cooled off, I opened the windows again.

I still had to figure out how to make the DSL work. They provide no cables and no instructions. Where are the instructions? Oh, they’re online. Sort of a chicken and egg setup. You can’t get online to get the instructions because you need the instructions to get online. So using my own cables and a modem connection to find the instructions, I finally got things set up. They have a strange system where you can’t use a wireless setup, which is not making me very happy; but I’m online for now and it’s no longer dial-up.

Duck did ask me to post his pictures from yesterday. Well, actually only one of the pictures. There is another that he’s trying to bribe me to lose. I’m stubborn though. That picture will eventually go online, my little Duckie.

I also posted a new ReadWriteThink lesson: Naming in a Digital World: Creating a Safe Persona on the Internet. Still a lot of work that I need to do. I’m behind on e-mail and other things; but I’m tired and going to bed. Breakfast tomorrow morning is at 7:30, and I’m so not a morning person.

Tags: tengrrl’s travelblog | English language arts |
K12 instruction | ReadWriteThink | technological literacy

Note to Self

Earlier in the frustration process, be sure to check whether the media card has been formatted as a Mac disk rather than a Windows disk.

Tags: tengrrl’s travelblog

Back where we started

I think furniture rearrangement is now complete. The sad thing is that I’ve ended up putting everything essentially back where it started. It’s still not an ideal set-up, but I think it’s the best I can do without the crew from Changing Rooms.

Once I got the room rearranged, I finished unpacking the writing supplies, which consist mostly of books and other technologies. I managed to get the pictures off of my cell phone, since I can’t seem to mail them from Houghton. I decided that I might as well switch to the real camera, since I have to hook it up to the computer to download the images whether I use the cell phone or not. Problem is that I have spent the better part of 8 or so hours trying to get the darned pictures off the camera. I hadn’t ever tried to attach the camera to this particular laptop, so I didn’t realize that the cables are all serial. But this machine doesn’t have a serial port. It only has USB. No problem, I figure. I’ll just use the card reader. But the computer will not recognize the little smart card. I have installed and uninstalled and reinstalled and shopped online for other options. The thing is that I have a perfectly fine card reader. I just can’t get it to read. Windows sees the reader, just not the card. I am not amused.

When not being frustrated by technology, I have pretty much just been lying about. The thing about the UP is that the sunlight lasts so much longer in the summer. Between the sun and the fact that I’m really still on the Central timezone, I have no idea what time it is. My body is totally confused, and I’m not helping by being in a semi-depressed napping place. Sometimes there are just too many echoes. Sometimes it’s a sappy commercial. Other times I’ll happen on a news story or something. I think of all the things I didn’t do soon enough—and the things I’ll never be able to do. Sometimes it doesn’t seem worth trying, and technology is not helping my mood today.

I have so much that I need to get done, and I’m not really accomplishing anything. I feel like I need to make this massive list and somehow figure out how to get it all done. I have essentially 20 days to create a 125-page manuscript. 6.5 pages a day–plus the other things that I need to accomplish. Like I apparently need to fight with the MTU telecom people because there is no DSL in this Deluxe Suite, and I paid for it on May 5. It was supposed to be here on my arrival. Cable options are horrid. I never knew how truly depressing basic cable could be. If you have any questions about the area, the cable line-up will help you figure it out. There are four ESPNs and Fox Sports. There’s an MTV channel that today seemed to be offering a tribute to 50 Cent. No Turner Classic Movies. No Penn & Teller tonight because I don’t have Showtime. At least I have Comedy Central, though with my luck it will be all repeats in a special celebration of summer. I think it would cost me $20 to get them to turn on HBO and Showtime. When faced with the fact that I just finished watching Small Soldiers on TNT for the second time, giving up $20 seems a minor sacrifice. My brain cells will be burned out if this keeps up.

I know. You’re thinking something like why doesn’t she just turn the darned tv off. It’s my habit. I write best with the TV on in the background and my diet brown soda within a few inches of the mouse. There’s no way I have enough music loaded up on the iPod to last 20 days, so that’s not really an option. I think 1/3 of the files are audiobooks anyway—and I’m certain that I can’t listen to a book being read while writing. Odd really. My literacy skills let me watch tv while I write, but I don’t think that I can listen to a book while I write. Somehow, that requires more concentration.

I guess I should taken another of my many naps. Who knows what time it is. I’m sure it’s at least an hour later than I think. Maybe tomorrow I’ll finally figure out how to get today’s papparazzi photo of Duck online.

Tags: tengrrl’s travelblog