The mood

So currently I'm in the mood to catch up on some of these blog entries, yet I don't know why. Its late Thanksgiving night but it seems like a good time to do a few. I realized that many people are on social medias late at night. I believe summing up your day makes you feel better as you're not holding in all those emotions you felt during the day. This is not the case for me and these blog entries but I see it as true for those using Facebook. I also see the same on Snapchat when people give a short description of there day before falling asleep. Its like a habit that most teens have, and don't even acknowledge it. Adults have a slightly different habit. Rather than venting their feelings at the end of the day, they post them on social media immediately after experiencing intense feelings. Teens also do the same but usually I see adults posts on Facebook during the day, and rarely at the end of the day. How does this effect us, I have no clue. But maybe its a sign that many teens seek comfort at night after a difficult day. Or that teens want a person they can tell their feelings to, and those feelings burst out at the end of a long stressful day. When do I post on social media? Basically never. I don't need everyone to see my emotions. Thats why I struggle with journal entries and blog entries. It just seems unnecessary to me, but some people like doing it, and I find no reason to judge them.

Blog Idea

I kinda hate my blog and it looks completely new to me since I haven't looked at in a long time. I haven't gotten any page visits either so I guess its cool. I don't like the idea of me having to explain personal thoughts and ideas that i come up with. Im not so good at it. Which is why I don't do good on journaling. I feel like our school should all have on blog that everyone can look at. The blog can have stuff like upcoming school events and news about the SWW community. This would help put everyone on the same page about things happening at school so no on will be left out of school events. But in the end my opinion doesn't matter. I'd need a group of people maintaining the blog but I can't think of anyone who would want to. Even I am busy with work and school.

Currently

I have not been able to come to class for a few weeks and I've fallen behind. I also haven't gotten an assignments to do for people with technology issues. I haven't even had anybody I know ask me any questions about anything technology related. I've recently joined another organization that takes place right before DS2 starts making it difficult to come to class on time. Luckily the school is in a peaceful period in which the help desk in not needed as much. This is because teachers have started the year printing out papers, rather than sending assignments via Google Classroom. This is already becoming an issues as the school has used a large about of paper. Over 10 "cases" according to Idonia the principle. I hadn't even realized that doing things "the old fashion way," is not only more physical work but a more expensive choice. The help desk will be soon needed again. Once teachers become annoyed with the physical work of the old fashion way, and the constant pressure from the principle. In the meanwhile I believe the we should be focusing on ways to make the helpdesk more organized and stable. We should familiarize all the teachers with the ticketing system along with other software systems we plan to take a part in. We should also take current inventories as it is the beginning of the year so we can really tell what has changed by the end. Overall this is the time in which the helpdesk can help itself and make sure when we are needed we can help other to the best of our abilities.

Burlington High School Helpdesk

I believe the website of Burlington's helpdesk is very impressive, but I also believe it is possible for us to create a blog of the same quality. One thing I see is different is the students and staff come to their helpdesk for help. Very few people come to us as a helpdesk for help. I also like how their blog is very professional and the entire helpdesk uses one website. This is a good way to bring everyone thoughts together. One thing that I also believe acknowledge is they have many tabs that seems excessive. I'm sure most people do not visit all the tabs making the work and time used creating and developing those tabs nearly worthless. Another good thing about their blog was it included descriptions of the helpdesk students making the readers gain a personal connection to each student.

DS1

At the end of the year, I believe the DS1 class was very simple and easy. The only difficulty is finding stuff to write about, which I'm never good at. But the assignments were simple to do, when there wasn't a weird problem that you couldn't fix, like no being able to turn in an assignment because there wasn't a "Turn In" button. Or not getting a copy of assignment that I can write on or edit. I believe next year's class of DS1 students will be able to complete the tasks assigned, unless they all disregard the class. I believe we should have learned how to fix more problems such as a student forgetting their password, and how to reset it.

Next Year

I believe next school will be very similar to this one if we get the same technological devices we did this year. The only difference will probably be the fact the the devices will be needed and used more often since our classes will be more difficult, and there'll be more we don't know and things we know and don't understand. I also think the technology will be more organized since our school will have a previous year of experience with Chromebook carts and iPads. I think one problem we may have next year is more students will want to take their iPads home since there will be more rigorous classes with more work. More people taking iPads home means a higher chance of something wrong happening. But I trust our students. Most of them.

Tutorial

In my opinion, creating a tutorial is simple. The only difficulty is dialogue. This is because you want to explain everything so every who watches it will be able to complete the intended task, but you don't want to over explain things everyone know, and or make a tutorial that's too long. A tutorial cannot be over 2 minutes, unless your explaining something complicated like origami. And you have to know your audience. A teacher will probably not watch a long tutorial but may not know the basics, which is ironic because it was their generation who saw technology evolve.  A student won't sit still to watch a 5 minute tutorial that explains everything knows. In the end you have to come up with a balance of length and explanation that's good for your audience.

How Our School Has Changed

I believed our improved technology art school without walls has made us a more academically efficient school. Those who need their work to be revised by a teacher can go through the process a lot easier by sharing documents on Google Drive. It was also easier to go deeper when learning things because of the ability to Google relevant topics. Students also loss the ability to blame untyped papers on the lack of access to a computer. But the abundance of technology has probably also made us more dependent of information obtain from the internet. Of all the research papers written this school year, most of the information came from a website, rather than a book. I would guess about 90% of the information. I know that's how it was for my research paper. An the document i used was also from the internet. But librarys suck. There always mad people there, surrounded by an awkward silence. And the last time i went to a library it was closed, for no reason I knew. I never went back their.

Gravity

Gravity is probably the biggest problem when handling technology. Other than carelessness, recklessness, and a absolute lack of care. And the weirdest thing is when you drop things you'l  never know if it'll be broken or not. Sometime when you drop things of something high its completely fine. Then you drop something from a low spot, or on something soft, the screen is shattered. I haven't seen anyone drop their iPad, even though I've seen a few cracked screens, and have almost dropped my own. I've dropped my phone before. And it already has a crack on it, that didn't come from it falling. It might be the type of glass. I know iPhones have a different glass. Or at least i believe so. iPhones crack a lot easier than Android phones. Chromebooks don't crack. The screen is like a strong, durable plastic. Which is great.

Online Shopping

I recently tried online shopping for the first time a few days ago and I have found myself amused and amazed. I bought a bunch of stuff that in all was probably about $150. But it was so simple and easy, yet complicated and unknown. So you give the site your card information and it automatically takes off the correct amount of money. And the order is sent to the shipping part of the company in which you decide to order from, and there the information is given. And it's so specific. There's codes for each item and each box deliver. Online shopping to me is another one of the things we do not take in to consideration since to us consumers it's so simple, but it's so simple because the complexities are simplified through technology. Imagine shopping for things at home. You'd probably have to call a store, who's already busy with costumers who showed up in person, and tell them what you want. Then they'd type it in to some sort of system, just before you learn the total of your orders, But then how would you pay? Mail money? Make a promise to come and reliever it person? I think it is true that the online world has created a network in which we are all connect very closely, allowing a very simple and relaxed lifestyle.

Inventory Post

For my first inventory check I checked Janet's room. It was very simple and easy since that's my extended class and I'm in there at least once a day. Janet's room also had new computers installed about two months ago. Janet's room had 5 of the new Dell computers installed. There has been times where the computer wouldn't log on to accounts but currently, (or when i checked) they worked great. There's also a document camera, a projector, and some other device I have never seen outside of Janet's classroom. The device is like a special computer. Or a computer tablet. Janet also has her teacher laptop. I also examined the Chromebook cart that was placed in their that day. The science Chromebook cart, which can now be found in Karen's room had most of the numbers rubbed away. It was difficult to figure our which number belonged to each Chromebook in it, but did it. The process probably took me about 45 minutes to an hour. A few numbers were obvious, but on others you could barely see any trace of the original number. What I had to do was write the numbers I could see, and use the process of elimination for the rest. I'm happy I got to use my problem solving skills.

Central Office

Last Thursday, Pete took me, Christeva, and Marckly, to the central office building to scan 10 Chromebooks into a spreadsheet, so DS1 students could take them home. (So if you have a personal Chromebook, you know who to thank). The scanning process was pretty easy once we got situated. Just like how a librarian scans books, I had the job of scanning the service tag bar code. Then I imputed the names and the 890 numbers of those students in to the spreadsheet. I did most of the work.

*cough* *cough*

The building itself is a plain building that you would probably just ignore going through downtown. It looks normal, and like the rest of the buildings. The floor with the technology personnel is somewhat strange. Its the basement. There's a hallway and a few rooms, one of which contains cubicles where the RCSD technological personnel completes a large percent of their work. Inside a few of the cubicles were a pile of some technology devices. I believe one of the cubicles was full of Chromebooks. The only space clear from Chromebooks, was a path to the chair and space for the chair to spin. That seems like a lot of hard work. There's also a shelf that says something like stuff needing repair, and there's devices there. But overall, for all of our technology to cycle through that one basement, it is pretty neat and organized.

Me

How did I start a blog without introducing myself and my goals? Sorry. I Larry M. Williams III, am an 11th grade student at School Without Walls. I get good grades and am a diligent worker, if I'm not extremely tired. And I like technology and interacting with people. The Help Desk is a great way to combine both, and help other people, while the Digital Solutions class is a great way to learn how to do so. By the end of the year, my main goal is to be able to say I've given assistance in nearly every classroom in our school. I've already helped in a few classrooms, assisting a few teachers and students. Not to say I'm famous, but I'm well known and a lot of people come to me for help. Helping them boosts my reputation and credibility, thus creating more clients. I believe with my outgoing and helpful personality, I'll be able to spread help and knowledge to nearly everyone.

-LMWIII

Which is better??

 So far, in the 2014 - 2015 school year, our school under went a change that increased the technology available to the students. 2 iPad carts for juniors, 4 Chromebooks carts with 25 laptops each, and new computers in each classroom. With a variety of options many people have different preferences. iPads is a mobile technology with a flat keyboard and a bright glass screen, but it doesn't have features like Adobe Flash such as the Chromebooks do. It's also easier to write essays on the larger keyboard . And for the computers, they're huge screen is good for watching videos and seeing larger images. But there's negatives to everything. What would happened if you dropped an iPad? A cracked screen and bleeding fingers to go with it. Or will you send it to central central office? And wait. The same for a Chromebooks. A paper falls, you just pick It up and start again, but what if your pencil breaks or pen dies out? You're technology can be slow, and you'll be stuck waiting. But in the end it's good to have updated technology. You can't Google anything with paper. Personally, I prefer an ipad or a Chromebooks. They're small and portable. Plus I don't have to be able spell everything correctly because of the spell check feature. And if I have a question I can Google it, without wasting time and interrupting the teacher.


-LMWIII