Wednesday, September 7, 2011

If Technology Hurdles Provided Real Exercise...

Day 2.  Issue 1.

New technology in a new building...well there are bound to be some bugs, but we can work through them.  I'm not ready to give up just yet!

I have previously blogged about BYOD. I am a tireless cheerleader for the cause.  I had great success last year at the high school. However, being back in the middle school for most of the day, I realized that it was quite possibly built as a bomb shelter, because there are very few places where wireless signals can penetrate.  Another sigh.

I am not sure yet how I will resolve this issue.  Today, we texted (even though some did not work) just to practice using polleverywhere and then when there were reception issues, students shared their responses aloud.  I also got feedback from one student that she preferred raising her hand and answering orally -- who'da thunk it?  That actually make me think that perhaps the polling activity in some situations might be better done given student choice of how to respond -- with or without tech, at least when I'm looking for background knowledge like I was today.  I definitely still have some thinking to do on this.

Issue 2

Gmail.  I referenced this issue yesterday, and I figured out the problem with students setting up their accounts in school. In order to avoid creation of spam email addresses, Google restricts the number of gmail accounts that can be created from one location.  So, when my entire class tried to create accounts simultaneously from the same location, we had no success.  Unfortunately, after I created a certain number from home (not nearly enough) I encountered the same issue.  Google Apps is not a possibility because I do not own my own domain, and it is not supported at my school.  I am not willing to make waves on that at this point, because I just got an OK to get Evernote on all of the computers, and I am so thrilled that I don't dare ask for anything else for at LEAST a week.  :)

OK, so this one isn't really too crucial.  My students really can create their own gmail accounts from home, and it will be OK, really it will, this one is just a personal letdown because I had wanted things to go smoothly, and planned, and tested it, and.....time for plan....C

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