Thursday: technology

 Today was the last day of classes!  I wasn't there because we still don't have results, but they were pretty small.  Review days often are, especially when the review is now on-line.

Anyway, remember a few days ago I complained about not being able to get remote desktop working for Mac users?  Well, it still doesn't work.  So we're getting creative.  Two students in quarantine are borrowing old laptops that the department still has.  The rest get to use their zoom skills.  We join a zoom meeting and then they take control of my laptop and do what they need.  (There's nothing important on laptop and I don't really pay much attention.)  But here was the cool part.  Today one of the students in quarantine needed the PC for a tutoring session.  So they both did a zoom meeting with my laptop and I gave the student control of the laptop.  It seemed like a super weird way to get around the problem, but it totally worked.  It's the small victories.  I need all the small victories right now.

In other news, we also had parent teacher conferences.  Video conferences this year!  Joshua is doing great and we actually finished before our time was up.  (Although I'll admit, there isn't quite as much to talk about because I'm much more involved and there aren't as many social skills to discuss.)  Joshua is coming out of his shell though in the smaller meeting that they have.

Isaac's teacher is really pleased with his progress too.  She said that he needs to slow down a bit with ELA, but based on everything I think they really need to tell him to use more words.  He is a boy of few words but we've been talking about it for the last few weeks and it's getting better.  She also said that the help that I'm giving him is appropriate.  Sometimes she very clearly directs a student what to write (minus actually giving it to them word for word) so that made me feel better.  It's a fine line between making them do it on their own and doing it for them sometimes.  She's also going to start giving him slightly harder math, which will be good.

Well, still no pictures.  Sometime I should take a picture of Joshua's desk.  I now understand why teachers want 48 pencils and two of everything else.  Joshua drops them all the time and then "can't find them"!  It's a treasure chest under there.