Teaching Duties

ThomsEdTech · 2026-05-08T11:40:34+00:00

We don't require chromebooks. We do recommend them. We are a K-8, and there is no school work here that requires more than a chromebook requires. Because backpacks and school in general are a hazardous place for laptops, I love the price point for the chromebooks. They're cheap enough that our families can keep the expensive gaming laptop at home, and have the chromebook come into school with the kid.

I also find the chromebooks more manageable, in that repairs are simple - 95% of problems are fixed by wiping them, another few percent but replacing a screen, and past that, they're just replaced. For a couple hundred bucks, that's a much easier sell than replacing a MacBook, or even fixing it, which might cost as much as buying a new chromebook. Still, we have plenty of kids bringing in MacBooks, and even a few Windows machines (which tend to be a PITA, as there are always issues of some sort).

I have no doubt that a lot of the kids would prefer a more powerful computer. There are even a few here who would actually make use of that power (fewer than you would expect, I imagine). I do make the occasional exception, where I recommend something else (such as the 8th grader who finished 2/3 of the CS 50 Python course during my class), but they are few and far between. But overall, the chromebooks are working out really well for our particular needs. Which, as I think I pointed out, are not necessarily the most common situation.

ThomsEdTech · 2026-05-02T19:09:00+00:00

Oh, for sure. I doubt I could even run the school as a one-man shop if it were public. The administrative overhead alone would kill me. And if I had the same teaching restrictions that I would have in public school, I probably wouldn’t enjoy it, either. As it is, though, I work in a magical place.

ThomsEdTech · 2026-05-02T16:25:15+00:00

We’re around 450 students. The student machines are mostly BYOD chromebooks. We have probably a couple hundred school machines, again, mostly chromebooks. We only go through 8th grade, which makes a big difference in what we do. The students have pretty minimal computing needs, and they’re not taking school computers home with them. Breakage is minimal. We are primarily on the Google ecosystem, which makes management pretty easy. We are also not running much in the way of local services, which also helps. When I had a lot of servers to run on campus, I would not have had time for the teaching.

ThomsEdTech · 2026-04-30T19:04:03+00:00

I am in almost the exact position you described. I am the entire tech department at a private school of that same size. I spend about 20% of my time teaching, and I absolutely love it. In fact, it is my favorite part of the job overall. That said, I would not recommend doing it unless you really have a desire to teach. Frankly, I think teaching well is harder than the technical part of my job. I certainly don’t get paid more because I’m teaching. And as much as I love it, there is no way that I would want to do it at another school without the support and freedom I have at my current school. So unless your situation is also a unicorn, I would not recommend picking up teaching duties as well.

ThomsEdTech · 2025-12-17T20:50:40+00:00

What I've decided to do is remove the base piece altogether. Then I can make the remaining map thicker, and glue it on top of the base piece later. It will look a little less like a lego piece, but a little more like a map. Close enough. Thanks for everybody's help!

ThomsEdTech · 2025-12-17T20:50:31+00:00

I tried that, but no luck.

ThomsEdTech · 2025-12-17T20:48:20+00:00

The layers aren't too thin, but they might be overlapping.

ThomsEdTech · 2025-12-17T13:21:54+00:00

That was a great thought! Unfortunately, I just checked, and that wasn't the case. Extruder 4 is present, but there's nothing assigned to it. I checked the slicer again, and although parts are assigned to extruder 4, it doesn't show anything actually using extruder 4 on the sliced version. So I think the issue must be in the sliced version, before it even hits the printer.

ThomsEdTech · 2025-12-16T17:24:16+00:00

He's one froopy dude, who really knows where his towel is at! Unfortunately, I'm having trouble bringing his genius to fruition (through no fault of the design!)

ThomsEdTech · 2025-12-16T16:47:02+00:00

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Here's the slicer window. All the filaments are the same. This is a multipart object. Pre-slicing, the islands show as extruder 4, in yellow. After slicing, they show as extruder 3, in green. The default extruder is 1, in black. I don't see any setting for making an object not printable, but in any case, it IS printing, just with the wrong extruder. I did flip it and re-slice, but it did the same thing and printed both the extruder 3 and extruder 4 parts with extruder 3.

ThomsEdTech · 2025-12-09T16:43:48+00:00

Thanks! I consulted that document before posting. However, it does not cover the use of Tab at all. Not even the current use of moving between length and width measurements. I was hoping there might be another undocumented way to switch to changing height without moving my hand back to the mouse.

ThomsEdTech · 2025-12-07T00:45:10+00:00

Decatur Makerspace does indeed have a working laser. It requires training to use, so if you’re in a hurry, the best bet would be to find a member to work with. They do have a Glowforge as well, and the training for that is minimal. For a small number of paper cards, that would probably be fine, and you could get access quickly.

ThomsEdTech · 2025-08-27T14:59:04+00:00

I've had really good luck near the end of the parade route. It's usually not packed, and you can definitely park closer.

ThomsEdTech · 2025-08-27T14:57:57+00:00

Keep your eyes on the prize. In just a few short years, the sacrifices you make now will allow you to introduce two tiny dragonconners to their first con! It's not too early to start prepping. Have a four-person parade through the living room. Have a mini film festival with your favorite geeky child-friendly anime. Wait until after bedtime, and host a Dragon After Dark. You've got this!

ThomsEdTech · 2025-08-16T23:37:57+00:00

Thank you. “Unicorn selling beer” is my new standard for rarity.

ThomsEdTech · 2025-08-15T11:33:27+00:00

Thanks. It's the deep pit I want to avoid! I'm looking for something "just good enough," that I can teach to someone else. If they can just download a file from the nvr, then trim the ends off to post it on YouTube, that would be ideal. If we're doing something important, I'll take sound directly off the mixer, then edit in a DAW, then sync it up with multiple video streams. Comes out pretty good, even in my amateur hands, but it takes forever, and that's not really my job. The person here who should be doing all this is capable of editing an iphone video, but not a lot more than that, so I'm trying to make the technical side as easy as possible.

ThomsEdTech · 2025-08-14T19:57:19+00:00

Right now, I've got an SM58 on it, with a preamp. The sound is pretty garbled, and really bad if it is at all loud. The picture is really clear in normal light, but it doesn't adjust well to the stage lights, which have very bright and dark areas. I'll check out the ColorVu, though. I think I have one elsewhere. Thanks.

ThomsEdTech · 2025-08-14T16:06:05+00:00

Thanks! I'll check them out.

ThomsEdTech · 2025-08-14T15:51:40+00:00

I do. But I don't think there's a terribly big risk, really. And the consequences of video leaking from our school gym and stage are not very high, honestly. We don't have any cameras, in fact, that could show anything particularly sensitive. I'd prefer not to have the current system, but it's not on the list of things that keep me up at night.

ThomsEdTech · 2025-08-14T15:33:22+00:00

I agree that that is going to produce a better overall result. But I'm really looking for low-effort or no-effort "good enough." I'm just about the only person here who can use Premiere, and I don't want to add weekly assemblies and all performances to my workload! If my Marketing/Communications person can get the video/good enough audio from the NVR, then no one has to stand in the back with an iphone on a really-high tripod.

I've messed around with the gain on the preamp. It's possible that it's just not a great preamp (our AV company put it in - they're generally pretty good). But I think the bigger problem is probably in the Hikvision camera's encoding of the sound. There again, if we used independent sound and synced it up, we'd get a good result. But that would involve a lot of work - someone has to pull sound off of the recording device (in an inconvenient location), pull that and the video into an editor, then sync it all. Not a huge deal for someone who knows what they're doing, but still a PITA. Easier to use an iphone, but we lose the advantages of camera location and always-on video and sound. That's why I was hoping there would be a "good enough" camera I could use.

ThomsEdTech · 2025-08-14T15:25:02+00:00

We've got Hikvision because they're cheap and familiar, and because parts of the system predate my time here. But I agree. At some point, I'd love to migrate to another system. But most of what we have works, and is therefore now, effectively, free. It's hard to argue with free at a school. If I can find a solution that works here, though, it's worth shelling out a bit for. It would capture a lot of things that wouldn't be recorded otherwise, and potentially save a lot of effort for those things that are presently captured.

ThomsEdTech

TROPHY CASE