This week's announcement, where I apologize a bit

My dear students,

It's Week 2 and we are hitting our only grammar-intensive unit of the semester. My suggestion is to watch those Schoolhouse Rock videos, especially if your learning style is visual or musical. Call the Help Desk if you have trouble opening or viewing the videos. If you wish to have a quiz reset, please call me or email to set up a WebEx appointment to talk. We need to go over the material to find out what you need to correct, and I may retest you over the phone / WebEx.

It has come to my attention that the Help Desk hours were not posted in the classroom until late last week. This affected your ability to find information for your Scavenger Hunts. Please accept my apologies! They are Monday - Friday 8:30am to 8:30pm and Saturday 8:30am to 7:30pm. In the future, if you cannot find something in the classroom that you need to finish an assignment, please call or email me immediately so I can fix the problem. I may award some extra credit points for this help!

Speaking of the Scavenger Hunt as well as Extra Credit, make sure you can locate the Discussion Board under Classroom Tools. You can earn up to ten extra credit points this week by responding to the two Bell Ringers there. This is the last week I will have more than one available at once. After this, I close all Bell Ringers on Friday evening. Check it out and submit your thoughts!

Each week, a different English IV teacher will host the optional Back and Forth session. Get a new perspective of what we've covered and look ahead to what we're doing next! This week's Back and Forth host will be Ms. Dark. Join her tonight at 7pm in the usual place. I may stop in to say hello!

--Mrs. Fiddle

Till We Have Faces

It’s weird. When I start developing a rapport with a student and have no visual, I create a mental avatar for him or her. I don’t mean it’s like a game figure or anything like that, but I somehow decide, “I think Shelby has brown hair that’s very straight and that she dresses in rock concert t-shirts.” Whether or not these mental images are true is something I usually don’t find out until they hand in their final portfolio and include a photo. Even then, seeing the students walking and talking at graduation is a revelation in itself.

I don’t even have those avatars. I have 155 students (whoa, it was 153 this morning) who are names on a page and little else. I’m hoping to start reading more into their personalities and see what happens from there. Right now, they’re a chain of paper dolls, strung together in my gradebook. I need some crayons so I can start drawing in some details.

Gradebook update

It was repaired as of 9:30 this morning. Whew! I think once we did the troubleshooting and narrowed down where the problem was, it was an easy programming fix to go in and remove the one line of code, but it had to be done in Programming, not IT. I'm telling you, we may not have student behavior issues, but we definitely have our unique set of challenges.

UPDATE: NOW we know what happened with my Gradebook. I had 1st semester and 2nd semester open in different tabs in my browser. Somehow, one assignment JUMPED from one semester to the other, locking everything. Oops.

Topsy Turvy

It's the first day of the semester, and I only wanted to shoot my computer a couple of times. Thankfully, not because of the students.

There is a twofold dilemma in working on a semester basis. Not only do we completely change students, but we also change virtual classrooms. This means that all the work I did tweaking and perfecting my web pages from last semester has gone out the window and I have to start from scratch. Unfortunately for me, this has created a major computer glitch and I am locked out of my own grade book.

Here are the basics of what happened. On Tuesday, our Ed Tech gurus loaded our course (reading, assignments, etc.). They then found a bunch of errors and reloaded the course, but didn’t get rid of what was originally loaded. Meanwhile, one of my students decided to turn in a bunch of assignments but sent them to my Semester 1 class (the guidance department placed her there as a holding spot because she enrolled in the last week of the semester). Sure enough, I tried to enter her grades in the wrong places. Our IT department cannot repair this glitch and has kicked it up to the company that designs and runs the classroom software. Now things are completely locked up and will be at least for the rest of the day.

Fortunately, only one student so far has asked me to look at her assignments. The students I’ve been able to reach have been incredibly polite and keen to understand the workings of my class. One student has already looked ahead and started reading her independent novel, digging into Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in between her current assignments. Another has called me three times in ten minutes for help. I’ve told her that she’s working on a Scavenger Hunt and she needs to scavenge a little for the answers. She agreed with me, which was a relief because my phone has been ringing like mad all day with other calls.

It’s a brisk, topsy-turvy start to the semester.

My opening email to the new class

There are a few edits involved and links removed, but you get the general idea. If I could figure out how to attach my PowerPoint here, I would.

My Dear Students,

Here are a few quick items to get you prepped for your final English class of high school:

• I've attached some basic tips for how to truly succeed in this class. They're also in the classroom if you forget, but I think it's all common sense information.


• You have two teachers to call for help and advice! Mrs. D will primarily be grading students with an IEP (if you don't know what that means, most likely you don't have one), but we are both here to make sure you thrive in this class. If one of us doesn't know the answer, the other probably does.


• If you don't have Microsoft Word or Powerpoint, you will need to grab a copy of Open Office. It's free and extremely similar to Microsoft Office. Have I mentioned it's FREE? Go to http://www.openoffice.org/download/ and follow the directions.


• The first live session will be at 1pm on Thursday, January 19th. There are three other English IV teachers who will be sharing the session, so you'll get to work with students and teachers you wouldn't be able to otherwise. All sessions are recorded, but this is a chance for you to meet the English IV team, students in other English IV classes, and get a head start on your first few assignments.


• Check out the other features of the classroom! There is a Creative Corner where you can share some of your non-classroom writing. The Bell Ringers in the Discussion Board are worth extra credit points each week if you make the Friday evening deadline. Writers Read is an school club that will be starting up in February (I am the sponsor and would love for you to participate).

I am here with any questions or concerns. This is going to be a grand finale to your high school career if we work together!

--Mrs. Fiddle

I'm feeling old

Two of my students from last year got married yesterday. Technically they were Linda's students, but they were regular participants of my writing club, so they count us both as their English teachers. They never met in person until Graduation. By the summer, he was going to her church. By the fall, she had moved out of her parents' home and in with his family. They are expecting a daughter in June. I am easily old enough to be a mother to either of them. While I have plenty of students with children, this one seems to be affecting me more because of my deep affection for both of them. I'm worried for them but am hoping for nothing but the best. His family is providing a ton of love and support. They will need it but I think they'll be okay. I hope.

It's official

My class count for the upcoming semester is down to 154. Considering I still have the DEC students who will be working in self-contained classes (I'm just recording their grades), I suddenly have the promise of more time to give attention to each student. Frankly, I've never had this before. My class count has never been below 180! Considering one of the reasons I created this blog was to journal how an online teacher can form bonds with students who are distance learners, this creates a whole new window of opportunities. Well, at least until more students enroll and I'm flooded again.