Friday, April 28, 2006

HQ - At Last!

It was the last, long day of a VERY long week - the upperclassmen were testing, in SC's version of an exit exam. Which meant, for the 9th grade, extra time in some of their classes, with no ability to let loose some steam roaming the halls.

Yesterday, it came to head - about 20 girls cut loose with a water balloon fight just after lunch. Today, the 9th grade is on punishment - escorted to lunch like toddlers, no privileges.

So, when I checked onto the state certification site, I fully expected to see that I'd still not been approved for a full professional certificate in science.

And I really needed it. The deadline for applying for National Boards is Monday. Without a change from temporary permit to certificate status, I couldn't apply.

Whoopee!! Hot diggity dog!!! It was approved, and I'd been marked an HQ - a Highly Qualified teacher. Which also made my principal and district very happy.

I got online as soon as the kids left, and finished the application. Then, I filled out the paperwork for the state payment of the processing fees.

Right after I left, it was off to the bank to get the papers notarized, and then to the post office to have them postmarked in time.

Sometimes, life is good. Very good.

Sunday, April 23, 2006

Web Word Processor

I found an interesting new application. It's one of the first web applications that has the potential to be a Microsoft Killer.

AjaxWrite. I've been playing around with it, and come to a few conclusions:

  • It's still in the early development stages. I tried using it to create a sign for my door, but I had difficulty getting it to print in the enlarged font correctly. The font displayed correctly, but the text ran off the edge of the page. I finally added some hard returns, and it printed fine. So, it's not fully WYSIWYG yet.
  • I can see the utility, particularly when you're not at your home machine, but need to work on something. You save your work either to a website or a jump drive, and can theoretically work on it whenever, whereever.
  • At the moment, it's a stripped-down version of the old Microsoft Works. Some of the "functions" are greyed-out, indicating that they're not available. Not sure why.
  • It only works in Firefox, version 1.5 or higher. Fine for me, I prefer Firefox.
  • No spell-checker at the moment. No way to change page layout. No insertion of images, yet. So, it's still a VERY baby version. Ajaxwrite needs to ramp up, soon, if they don't want to get clobbered by The Evil Empire.

I'll probably continue using it for a few months. I'll be traveling part of the summer, and it would be nice to have compatibility with my Open Office files. In addition to a word processor, there are other applications shown. Don't know how good they might be, I couldn't get the Image editor to load. It may have been a network thing. The Spreadsheet Viewer is just that. It only allows you to see, not edit.

My evaluation? Not ready for prime time. But promising. I'll check back at the end of summer.

Web Word Processor

I found an interesting new application. It's one of the first web applications that has the potential to be a Microsoft Killer.

AjaxWrite. I've been playing around with it, and come to a few conclusions:

  • It's still in the early development stages. I tried using it to create a sign for my door, but I had difficulty getting it to print in the enlarged font correctly. The font displayed correctly, but the text ran off the edge of the page. I finally added some hard returns, and it printed fine. So, it's not fully WYSIWYG yet.
  • I can see the utility, particularly when you're not at your home machine, but need to work on something. You save your work either to a website or a jump drive, and can theoretically work on it whenever, whereever.
  • At the moment, it's a stripped-down version of the old Microsoft Works. Some of the "functions" are greyed-out, indicating that they're not available. Not sure why.
  • It only works in Firefox, version 1.5 or higher. Fine for me, I prefer Firefox.
  • No spell-checker at the moment. No way to change page layout. No insertion of images, yet. So, it's still a VERY baby version. Ajaxwrite needs to ramp up, soon, if they don't want to get clobbered by The Evil Empire.

I'll probably continue using it for a few months. I'll be traveling part of the summer, and it would be nice to have compatibility with my Open Office files. In addition to a word processor, there are other applications shown. Don't know how good they might be, I couldn't get the Image editor to load. It may have been a network thing. The Spreadsheet Viewer is just that. It only allows you to see, not edit.

My evaluation? Not ready for prime time. But promising. I'll check back at the end of summer.