Friday The 13th Of March 2020...
was the beginning of the end!
“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”
So, the rest of the school year was spent on Google Classroom and Google Meet. I made screencasts for all my classes on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays for asynchronous learning. On Wednesdays and Fridays we would meet live on Google Meet. Our daily schedule was just thrown out the withdow!
So the summer started out with the memo above. This worked out to my benefit as I had a summer class of Multivariate Calculus to teach remotely at the local Community College in July. So I used my own Samsung Chromebook Plus to follow my class notes, one of the new Lenovo Chomebook 500e's from Donorschoose to teach over Zoom and the other Lenovo to monitor the students over Zoom and Blackboard.
Then the memo above happened! I was trying to get Employee Accomodations (among other things) to teach remotely in the Fall at the High School with Doctor's Notes and everything. However, I was denied the Accomodation, so I retired as I did not feel safe going back to face-to-face teaching yet!
As you can see, they posted my job the day after I retired (8/12/2020). I was also required to return the Lenovos. My world just got a lot smaller. I wasn't planning on retiring with only 36 years of service....
I'm not gonna miss all the politics or the commuting. I am gonna miss all the fun I had with my High School students and all the traditions I came up with over the years!
No more weekly:
Multiple Choice Mondays
SAGE/Processing Tuesdays
YouTube Wednesdays (StarTalk, Nova, NGS)
Think/Pair/Share Thursdays
Free Response Fridays
Nor anymore yearly:
Star Trek Days
Tom Lehrer Days
Back To The Future Days
Ada Lovelace Days
Grace Murray Hopper Days
Hour Of Code Days
Calculus Carol Days
Math Sense Days
I Grok Spock Days
PI Days
First Contact Days
May The 4th Be With You Days
AP Movie Marathon Days
Game Days
Unfortunately, the begining of the end was actually several years ago. I just didn't see the writing on the wall. I was the Tech Dept before there was a Tech Dept in the 1980s and 1990s. Even when we had a formal Tech Dept, I was still in charge of my Linux boxes and servers in my room. So when the new adminsitration took over about 6 years ago and summarily fired the whole Tech Dept, I should have seen it coming. They didn't even consult me on the technology needs in my building. I was the resident expert with 30 years experience after all! Then during the 2017-2018 school year, they replaced all the Linux boxes in my PC Lab/Classroom with WinpDoze machines. I had been running Linux for my Computer Science and Calculus students teaching with SAGE, Octave and R for 24 years without a problem. Why then the change over to Windows? Then in 2018-2019 there was a fabricated parental complaint?? Then last school year (2019-2020) I was not assigned any AP section of after teaching AP CSA/CSAB for 30 years and AP Calculus AB/BC for 25 years??? And this year (2020-2021) I was not allowed to teach remotely????
FYI, I'm now in the process of posting my screencasts to Patreon. Please keep an eye out for my Math and Computer Science posts:
What follows is a memory dump of a pile of memos, in reverse chronological order, that I recently found in my Google Drive from the past 24 years or so! Most of these memos are very mundane and redundant. But you may find some good ideas you can use yourself in your classroom. Some memos may be a little more spicy? Hope springs eternal!
So, now you get an unfettered look at the behind the scenes goings on of a typical Math/CompSci teacher. Well, perhaps its not that typical. For instance, see the video above? That's one of many FILKs I encouraged my students to produce. I'm a STEM teacher, but I also emphasize the Art component in STEAM!
RANDOM CHESS CLUB MEETING 1999!
UnDated:
Rebuttals:
Generally Speaking,
2015 NYS Secondary Math PAEMST Nominee
Teaching with Technology,
pastebin youtube slideshare mathforum apcommunity sage
(IDEs & Code)
MATH 4H, AP CALC, CSH: SAGECELL
MATH 4H, AP CALC, CSH: SAGECELL
APCSA: sandbox.cs50.io
(Curriculae)
CSH: CodeHS
CSH: Coding In Python
CSH: Interactive Python
APCSA: Big Java
APCSA: CSAwesome
APCSA: Nature Of Code
RECOMMENDED AP COMPSCI REVIEW:
CRIB SHEET (given during exam)
REVIEW BARRONS BOOK (see me)
REVIEW BARRONS ONLINE
REVIEW APCENTRAL (past FRQs)
REVIEW EDX REVIEW MOOC01
REVIEW BARRONS BOOK (see me)
REVIEW BARRONS ONLINE
REVIEW APCENTRAL (past FRQs)
REVIEW EDX REVIEW MOOC01
REVIEW UDEMY REVIEW MOOC02
REVIEW CODING_BAT
REVIEW PRACTICE_IT
REVIEW RUNESTONE
AUDIT CS50
REVIEW RUNESTONE
AUDIT CS50
RECOMMENDED AP CALCULUS REVIEW:
CRIB SHEET (not given during exam)
REVIEW BARRONS BOOK (see me)
REVIEW BARRONS ONLINE
REVIEW APCENTRAL (latest AB FRQs)
REVIEW APCENTRAL (latest BC FRQs)
REVIEW APCENTRAL (older AB FRQs)
REVIEW APCENTRAL (older BC FRQs)
REVIEW EDX MOOC01
REVIEW COURSERA MOOC02
XTRA CREDIT FILKS RUBRIC
(1 video = up to 5 bonus points):
1) Use a recognizable tune.
2) Karaoke entire song changing up the words (about STEAM).
3) You are Singing, Dancing or Playing an instrument.
4) You upload your video to YouTube and provide the url.
5) YouTube Description includes the lyrics.
XTRA CREDIT ARTICLES RUBRIC
(up to 5 articles = 1 bonus point each):
1) Cover Sheet is a Summary of the article.
2) FullPage, 12 pt, DoubleSpaced, 1" Margin.
3) Article has to be STEAM related
4) Article has to be a current event.
5) Copy of entire article is attached.
Recommended your videos over the years to my students who missed
ReplyDeletemy lectures - they were quirky but well done. From one AP Calculus teacher to another, what a great group of "kids" we have inspired. Didn't make it to the AP Reading in Kansas City this year (and just could not handle to grade on-line after finishing the year "living on the computer" as you did). Best of luck, I am still teaching at our local college, but everything is synchronous and just not the same as high school AP on campus. Jan
Hi Jan,
DeleteThanx for the kind words! Yup, "quirky" is a good word for my screencasts, at least the "live" ones. I've been trying to redo a number of screencasts as "shorts" which are after class summaries and, of course, shorter than a full period live recording! I have to agree with you. Teaching at the college is a whole different vibe! I don't mind teaching college synchronously over zoom. It's a lot more effective than what we did at the high school the end of last school year! I won't miss the politics or the commute, but I will miss all the fun I had with my high school kids! Thanx, A. Jorge Garcia