Rough Start

Ugh, it was a freaking rough morning. First, I didn't get much sleep. I had a few stress dreams about going back to school. Then, I had to go in early to print out worksheets for my first period class. They took a long time to print so I wasn't able to get enough copies. On top of that, I didn't estimate correctly how many copies I needed in the first place.

I should have taken more time to warm up with the Ss since we just came back from a week long vacation. I didn't have time, so I dove into the lesson plan.

After that, I had problems with the DVD player. I had to wait for the FBI warnings, then I almost broke the plug after knocking it out of the socket, and ultimately had problems with the subtitling. The students were reading the "director's comments" in Japanese for about five minutes before I noticed that they didn't look right. I finally got the subtitles dialed in and we successfully watched the first part of the movie.

Finally, the Ss really dragged their feet on the classwork. All they had to do was look at a comic and write some dialog for a couple of the scenes from the movie they just watched. They weren't very creative and only a few Ss produced more than four out of six sentences. It was a bloody start to the final run to the end of the semester.

Using Firefox from KTC117

I just figured out how to use other browsers from room 117 in KTC. These wireless laptops are configured to use IE over a proxy.

The network uses an automatic configuration script for internet access via our proxy.

To configure Firefox...

Tools > Options... > Advanced > Network > (Connection) Settings... > select "Automatic proxy configuration URL" and paste this link in the field:
http://www.kanazawa-it.ac.jp/proxy-cf.pac

After that, you shouldn't have any problems using other browsers here in this lab!

Other browsers are necessary for Blogger Beta, rich-text edits on moodle, and perhaps even use of certain plug-ins and updating what's available as add-ons.

だめ！ Don't do it!

I found myself in a little bit of an ethical quagmire the other day with a student in one of my computer classes.

I was going through the students' "home folders" on the network to retrieve assignments from the previous week and found some dangerously offensive material stored there. I don't use those adjectives lightly.

I didn't know exactly what to do because I'm not officially authorized to directly access the students' home folders... however any teacher on the network has open access to them as well as materials stored by other teachers. The access is a little convoluted, but nothing is secured. It's truely an open network.

I have no idea what the decency laws are in Japan or at this school for that matter. He might have been disciplined, suspended, expelled, or even arrested. I have no idea.

After consulting another teacher confidentially about the matter, I decided that it would be best that I delete the materials and speak to the student without reporting the incident to the administration. (I'm mostly using "I" in the sense that I'm taking full responsibility for what might happen).

When I approached the student he didn't know what I was talking about at first. He only gave a slight indication of knowing at the end of the conversation. I addressed him as the adult he is, but let him know sternly that it cannot happen again.

He came up to me later and let me know that he did know what I was talking about, language barrier and all, and that it had happened a long time ago and was a joke. Mostly that he felt ashamed. And I'm going to take him on his word.

Students need to be educated about the perilous nature of freedom. I love America for the freedoms we have: speech, religion, even firearms.

I don't think the Japanese fully understand the concept of those freedoms at times. I don't think that I or some of my fellow Americans understand that fact either at times.

We have to pay a price for freedom. Is that price ever too high? Ask those grieving Amish folks, or others who've suffered from recent acts of violence in America. I would like to say "no", but I know that that feeling is probably circumstantial.

So, back to my student. I think this reinforces my role as an educator deeply committed to technology in the class room is to address media literacy in my classes. About how to do that... well that's another post.

Problems with the Computer Lab Audio

I just found out that I can't play certain audio file types on the laptops in rm117. I tried to play a PowerPoint with a WMA encoded at 960kbps and didn't get any sound out. It must have to do with the version of Windows Media Player. I'll have to check on that later, not that I'll be able to update the versions on those computers.

I also noticed that I have to be careful about which images I choose for my class blogs since not all will appear on those laptops (see example).


Note: next year, have the guys make their own (laminated) mouse pads; I hope the guys remember to bring their headphones in tomorrow!