Did you know that if you plug a regular old USB printer into the USB port on an Airport Express base station, it will show up on your home network? You need to turn on Rendezvous, which is built into the Mac OS. As soon as you do that, voilá! The printer shows up in your printer control panel and everyone on your wireless network can access it.
We hadn’t know this would work, but I noticed the USB port on the base station and had a chat with a friendly technician at the Apple Store on Orchard Road. He confirmed my suspicions and we were able to buy a Canon Pixma IP4200 instead of purchasing the more expensive wireless model or passing the printer cable back and forth when we need to print. Gotta like that!
Today I was amazed to realize that almost a month had passed since my previous post. I could have sworn I posted just last week. However, that is typical here. Each day rushes by and before I know it, another week has passed
As you would expect, my to-do list continues to grow each day despite my own increases in productivity. My new job is a fascinating mix of roles. Within my division, I am the web master, the first stop for all tech problems, head of technology-related professional development (especially in the form of just-in-time, one-on-one instruction). I am expected to provide vision, balancing he wishes of teachers, students, and administrators, with the need to keep the network stable and feasible to maintain. I am in charge of the tech budget and the tech inventory. I am the liaison between my division and the school’s tech department and other technology divisions. The list goes on and on. In addition to my coordinator duties, I teacher 15 student classes per week.
I am loving it, but dearly wishing that I were not new. I think that in the past, this position has most often been recruited from within. Since I am new, I have had to get up to speed while also getting settled in a new country and learning the structures and procedures in a new school.
On top of that, this is my first tech job in a Windows environment. It has been humbling to go back to step one. Now I am the person watching in awe as my tech colleagues zip through short cuts while I plodding search menus for needed commands. It has been good– helps me relate better to the teachers who are not comfortable with technology.
I love all the learning I am doing. With the help of an excellent team of assistants, teachers, technicians, web masters and engineers I am now proficient at using the Active Directory to manage user accounts. I’ve started receiving email copies of all the work requests, so I’m getting a handle on the range of tech problems in my division and how they were resolved. Our web site permissions problems are resolved and I am easily helping teachers with their sites and getting better at updating our division’s site. I am starting to get up to speed with our SmartBoards– we have six as a pilot program. Finally, I’m learning the quirks of students using Windows so I recognize what they probably did to cause a problem, giving me a clue how to resolve it.
All this learning, along with my own teaching, planning, meetings and such leaves me feeling chronically behind. The need to get settled in our home keeps me from working as late into each night as I would wish. I vascillate between relishing the progress I have made, and quailing at how far I have yet to go before I’m good at this job.
However, all things considered, we are pleased we made this move. This is an excellent school and we are both growing personally and professionally. We are loving Singapore. Who could ask for anything more?
Clickers, wireless presentation remotes – call them what you will, we unexpectedly gathered the following data when we borrowed 20 of them so that all our teachers could use their new data projectors on Back to School Night. You probably won’t ever use the exact same ones we had, but I suspect there are universal clicker truths to be gleaned…
- If the clicker isn’t working try the following…
- Check the batteries (many of ours didn’t have batteries installed)
- Check for an on/off switch
- Check the receiver. The clicker is wireless so it needs a receiver- this is usually a small USB device or a larger USB device. You need to plug it in before the clicker will work.
- If the clicker is working erratically…
- Unplug and then replug the receiver
- Click the “connect” buttons on the clicker and the receiver
- Put in fresh batteries
- Check for hidden force fields between you and the computer, such as things with motors or high voltage in the ceiling or floor or wall
- If the clicker’s forward and back buttons aren’t working correctly…
- Try other buttons. I think the clickers we borrowed were programmable but hadn’t been programmed, so on some of ours the buttons worked fine, on others, you had to push the pause or some other button to advance the slide show
- If your clicker also has a little trackball that enables you to use it like a mouse…
- STAY away from the trackball during your presentation — it might just open up other applications or do other things you aren’t expecting.
- And of course, anyone using a clicker needs to be prepared for Plan B: ask a parent to sit at your computer and push the forward key.
Our teachers, being consummate professionals, all tested their clickers before hand so we were able to learn and pass on this information prior to their parent meetings. I hope this information saves others some frustration– or at least gives them a laugh as they envision 30+ teachers discovering these “truths”.
The pace keeps getting quicker as I figure out more of my job. One interesting thread this week has been data projection. Over the summer, data projectors were installed in the classrooms. The classrooms already had Touch Media boxes. Those allowed teachers to order video on demand from a central location and display it in as many classrooms as needed. For example, all the grade four classes could watch an oceans video at 10:00 from their homerooms. The new data projectors are tied in with that, so teachers are able to display their television or their computer through the data projector. It is a slick set up and I can see it getting lots of use.
Of course, being good teachers, they immediately began pushing at the edges of the situation. Before the first day was over, I had requests for wireless mice and keyboards. That seems like a logical request, since their computers are in a fixed location and in most classrooms that location is not near their projection screens. All teachers know how effective it usually is to be standing behind the class while trying to interact with students– many of them want to watch you rather than the screen.
I brought up the request at a department meeting and was told that a different division had done a pilot project with Bluetooth mice, but the signal bleed through into the next classroom. I can imagine all sorts of merry mishaps when one teacher is inadvertently controlling the computer in their colleague’ room.
Since Bluetooth was out, we decided to test a few radio frequency mice. In a highly scientific study that involved me roaming around the room and down the halls with a wireless mouse and my teammate sitting at his desk watching to see in which situations the cursor moved, we determined that the wireless mouse worked all over the classroom and into the hallways but not into the next room.
My next step is to find a good price for a bulk purchase on wireless mice. The price here seems significantly higher than it would be in the US. I need to see if that is indeed the case or if I’m not yet getting the “best price”, as we ask for here when bargaining.
(Anyone know a good place in Singapore to buy a lot of wireless mice? I’ll get quotes from Parasilk and Challenger. Anywhere else I should be checking?)
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It’s been a really fast three weeks.
The school has taken great care of us. We’ve been wined and dined and toured around town. They set us up with Lilian Lim, realtor extraordinaire who, despite the competitive real estate market here in Singapore, found great condos to show us. We decided on one that’s just a fifteen minute walk to work. It’s across the street from HDB flats so we have a grocery store, ATM, and hawker stalls nearby. The MRT station is just fifteen minutes away as well. And it’s only a ten minute taxi ride from the quarantine station where my poor cats are waiting for August 20 when I can spring them from kitty jail.
We spent last week taking part in new teacher orientation. In my division, that meant lots of classroom time for teachers. I still need to get my brain around the teaching side of my job. I find it more than a bit unsettling that all the returning staff that I’ve met have made comments to the effect of, “Oh! You are the new tech coordinator? You’re going to be really busy.” — All right; I’m not too unsettled. I knew I was stepping into a big job and I’m following someone who did it extremely well. I hope I can uphold his high standards.
One of the delights of this job is all the resources. In my previous tech position, I only dreamed of being able to offer my staff resources such as BrainPop and United Streaming. This school has all that and much more. They even use Conversar to stream videos directly into the classroom. Teachers are able to preview the videos and bookmark them so that they can jump directly to the desired sections. They all received data projectors and six teachers are piloting Smartboards. I love seeing technology used to support teachers so well.
I have a ton to learn but my department has been wonderfully supportive, and good fun. We feel a bit amazed that we’ve landed in such a good school. Now, to get some sleep so I’ll be awake for a day full of meetings…
Brian over at Bump on a Blog is making it REALLY easy to contact your representative regarding DOPA. He has a nifty little thing in his side bar. You select your city and state and it pops open your default email program and addresses a well-crafted letter to your senator.
And then he goes one step further and gives you the code to paste into your own blog template so that you can offer the same service. I’ve pasted it in my sidebar for your convenience, but I’ll have you go to his blog to get the code.
I may be half way around the world, but I’m still heartsick that DOPA has gotten this far. Please take the time to contact your representative.
Blogged with Flock
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