Day 59

I am at the end of my rope with some of my students. That is really bad considering there is the second half of second term still. We haven't reached semester yet and I already want some of my students out of my classes.

There are times I wonder if I give them too much time to complete things in class instead of giving homework. I thought I was being nice by giving them time to finish stuff in class, but apparently they are taking advantage of me because of that. I'm to the point of giving a deadline and only giving them a day or so in the lab to work. They just end up playing online instead of working. I'm watching my class right now; half of them are actually working on the assignment and getting a good start on the assignment. The other half are just talking or surfing the web and my program that kills the web in this room isn't working. I can't just go and pull the plug on the internet in here either because it is connected to the rooms adjacent it. I'm really going to love it when I have my control over the computers again and I can take snapshots of their computers, shut them off, take over their computers or turn off their ability to go onto the web.

I love being a technology teacher at times because I am learning things from my students as well as them learning something from me. But there are times that I am sick of all the technology available to the students and the way that they take advantage of it. The few students who are actually interested in this are the ones who are working and those are the ones that I tend to get the best work from. They are willing to ask me for my opinion and for my help. Then I have the other half of my class that just want to play on the internet and then they wonder why they get poor grades on assignments and overall.

But I'll say that I had a good time yesterday during my last computer technology freshman class. It was really quiet. They all worked. I didn't have to ask any students to get back on task. And this class is usually the class that I have a hard time with because they are rowdy. I think it may be because 2 of the Giggle Girls weren't there yesterday and the Strutting Senior didn't have anyone to strut his stuff to that would actually pay attention to him.

The football team just got into the final game so I am hoping that the school can sell enough tickets to warrant getting out of class next Friday for the state game. If they can then we have an abbreviated schedule and they go to the game and I have the day to myself. It would be nice to be able to have a day of planning and getting things together and then just being able to have my weekend for myself instead of planning.