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andros_rex

@ andros_rex @lemmy.world

Posts

299
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2950
Joined

2 yr. ago

2w ago

Parents opt kids out of school laptops, ask for pen-and-paper
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andros_rex @lemmy.world 2w ago
Canvas has a very neat “annotation” tool, where the teacher can upload a document and students can write on it and submit.
I also see a lot of canvas assignments where the answer is in an auto graded quiz, but the teacher has the students take a picture and upload to show their scratch work. This can be added as a “question” to the assignment.
There are good ways to use the tools for sure - I did really like that the auto graded quizzes on canvas could use randomized numbers. Eg, when I did speed/distance/time, I could write a word problem where it would randomize the quantities so each student got a unique quiz and couldn’t cheat.
Tools like PHeT/CK12/other simulation programs are also a godsend. Even working with college chemistry, being able to show visual representations of acid/base dissociation or how to balance an equation makes things so much easier.
The platforms are great - the work flow problems are more consequent to the way the school system is set up, especially in the Title 1 hell schools that are left to fall through the cracks.

2w ago

Parents opt kids out of school laptops, ask for pen-and-paper

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andros_rex @lemmy.world 2w ago

White flight and a state that hates education.

The rest of the science department were “emergency certified” - eg, random bachelors degrees.

I know for the fact the district has put teachers in without BACKGROUND CHECKS.

2w ago

Parents opt kids out of school laptops, ask for pen-and-paper

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andros_rex @lemmy.world 2w ago

Also spent several hundred just on vinegar and baking soda for labs.

But yeah, I actually had to quit teaching after my divorce because I could no longer afford to do it!

2w ago

Parents opt kids out of school laptops, ask for pen-and-paper

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andros_rex @lemmy.world 2w ago

The most I dealt with was around 36. I had around 28 chairs.

However, the feeder middle school had class sizes of 60+. There were literal riots, with multiple teachers injured, that the district covered up.

Stocks would absolutely not be allowed. I had a student that spent fifteen minutes screaming and cussing me out, straight to my face in front of a principle. When she said “I wish I wasn’t in your class” and I said “me too” - I got in trouble. (She was mad because I wrote her up for literally just walking into my classroom to sell snacks. She didn’t attend classes, she just did whatever she wanted.)

2w ago

Parents opt kids out of school laptops, ask for pen-and-paper

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andros_rex @lemmy.world 2w ago

There are multiple such platforms - Canvas, ClassDojo, InfiniteCampus. Heck, you can even go with the free and open source Moodle. Most of these also integrate with useful online tools, like Desmos (graphing calculator) and PHeT (science simulations.)

This can help with workload, because you can often set up things like multiple choice quizzes that grade themselves (but how often should that be your primary way of assessing students?)

The problem is that some skills simply need to be learned with pen and paper. I have taught and tutored chemistry for years - balancing equations and stoichiometry are skills that you can’t really learn on a computer.

There’s also evidence that computer based notetaking is less effective - that students remember less.

2w ago

Parents opt kids out of school laptops, ask for pen-and-paper

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andros_rex @lemmy.world 2w ago

Yeah. The system in the US works on exploiting, crushing, and discarding young teachers. Almost none of the other teachers I met while teaching are still in the profession. You are expected to martyr yourself for the job - I usually didn’t get to eat lunch, because I was busy. I stopped drinking water, because I ended up pissing myself one day when I couldn’t get to the restroom.

2w ago

Parents opt kids out of school laptops, ask for pen-and-paper

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andros_rex @lemmy.world 2w ago

They also have to be paying for the software that tracks how many prints you use. It’s fucking stupid, and it’s just one of a million little ways that they make sure to punish anyone stupid enough to teach.

I ended up buying my own printer. Printing alone got me to the maximum $300 of classroom expenses I was allowed to write off on taxes.

2w ago

Parents opt kids out of school laptops, ask for pen-and-paper

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andros_rex @lemmy.world 2w ago

My first year teaching I was encouraged to do everything on the chromebooks, because the district wanted to save on printing costs.

If you have 100+ students, and are limited to 500 pages/month (I could print 500 more, but had to purchase my own paper…), you have to use the laptops.

Also, when parents and students increasingly treat attendance as a suggestion, keeping up with paper assignments is hellish. There were days I showed up with 1/3 or more of my class missing - with online class work, I at least could say “the work is available online.”

The technology is a problem, but it’s a problem that’s arisen because class sizes are out of control and admin has zero idea what is going on in the classroom. It’s a bandage that’s been left on so long the skin is starting to get infected around it.

2w ago

Rage for the machine?

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andros_rex @lemmy.world 2w ago

I’m sorry that the Israeli governments murder, torture, and genocide of Palestinians is so abhorrent that people point it out occasionally. That must be very hard for you to be reminded of the fact that the IDF bombs hospitals and uses sexual violence as a tool of terror. It must be awful knowing that children are dying so that Bibi can keep his dick hard.

2w ago

W for Uncle Ted

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andros_rex @lemmy.world 2w ago

The boy who was in charge of my robotics club believed that girls can’t program and refused to teach or help me (I remember that I “looked too confused” to be helped out with enums….) . I remember once, I was playing with some Java code at lunch, and him and the other coders all stopped to mock how shitty a programmer I was because they saw a bunch of squiggly red lines (hadn’t loaded in all the libraries, just was curious what mobile video game coding looked like).

It was so goddamn isolating as a high schooler. Being a weirdo computer geek, but not welcome with the other weirdo computer geeks because of my sex.

2w ago

Father faces no charges for fatally shooting daughter after fight about Donald Trump

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andros_rex @lemmy.world 2w ago

Also assuming that mental health care even exists in your state…. Oklahoma doesn’t even have providers to get that expensive evaluation from…

2w ago

W for Uncle Ted

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andros_rex @lemmy.world 2w ago

I’m wondering why he had a job to begin with. Being against women in the workforce should preclude you from being allowed to teach women who might enter the workforce.

With professors like that, it’s no wonder that there’s a dearth of women in CS.

2w ago

Paxton calls Jett ‘Karen’ following Senate drinking allegations

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andros_rex @lemmy.world 2w ago

This bill is simply making it so Oklahoma state lawmakers cannot drink while on the job. Which apparently is a problem.

(Our First Lady has crashed two state vehicles under the influence. No blood test, no loss of license. Governors son was drinking and caught with guns he wasn’t supposed to have. There were no consequences.)

2w ago

Paxton calls Jett ‘Karen’ following Senate drinking allegations

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andros_rex @lemmy.world 2w ago

There was stuff stronger than 3.2, 3.2 was just the limit for grocery stores and gas stations. Anything else had to be from the liquor store, and couldn’t be cold. So you were out of luck if you wanted Dogfishhead or nicer brews that needed to be refrigerated.

3w ago

The Actual Gavin Newsom Is Much Worse Than You Think

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andros_rex @lemmy.world 3w ago

I tutor, and I’ve ran into lots of rich boys with disabilities who learn that they can get their parents to pay for their homework to be done for them (or the mom does it herself…). Fired a client because he had too much of a “reading disability” to do the required reading for the paper we were writing - previous tutors would write his papers for him!

3w ago

Top Democrats re-introduce trans bill of rights

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andros_rex @lemmy.world 3w ago

The DOJ has had a moratorium on pursuing any Title 9 claims related to gender identity for several years now. The EEOC has not been investigating claims of discrimination related to gender identity in several districts also for several years now.

These are specific items that need to be addressed. I’d like there to be separately pushed, because “Trans Bill of Rights” already sounds like it’s going to be nuked from orbit.

I had more than one job offer explicitly revoked because of my gender identity, including a federal one (cited Trump’s EO.) I sought help and did not find it. Living in a red state gives you zero recourse.

3w ago

'This case is about two of the richest corporations who have engineered addiction in children’s brains' — lawsuit against Meta and YouTube could decide the fate of social media

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andros_rex @lemmy.world 3w ago

Facebook also makes it very hard as an adult to monitor a teens social media use and protect them. I was working with a teen who was joining dating groups made for adults, and the tools wouldn’t let me see the messages being sent. Wouldn’t let me report the groups.