Well Laid Plans

I had planned to get to school early this morning and get some things prepared for today's math lessons. I was going to try out a new computer program called Noteshare. The way that works is that I prepare some notes ahead of time (in this case a chapter from a mystery that goes right along with our current Math module) and I can electronically "share" those notes with my students. They can all see the exact same thing on their laptops as I have on mine. I had the pages all ready to go, except I needed to use the morning to make sure it worked properly.

I arrived at work at 6:30 this morning, had just quickly photocopied some papers and was getting my laptop out, when the cell phone rang. It was Cara; her car would not start.

I rushed back home (about a 12 minute drive) and tried to jumpstart the car. After several attempts, no luck. It was not going to start. At this point we only had one choice. I would have to drive Cara to school (25 minutes in the opposite direction), then take the car to work. Or she would have to drive me to work and take the car. Obviously, choice number two was the only logical choice. As we started for Searsport, I looked at the car clock. It said 7:17. Students start arriving in my homeroom at 7:15. I called Milaine, our wonderful school secretary, and explained what had happened and that I was ten minutes away. Meanwhile, Cara had already let her school know she would be even later than that.

I arrived at school (for the second time today) at 7:26. My first class started at 7:28, giving me just enough time to take attendance for my homeroom. I did not even try to use Noteshare with my first class. I ended up reading aaloud the part I was going to "share" with them. I explained the predicament and they understood, even though they had been looking forward to trying Noteshare.

During my prep period following my first class, I checked to make sure I understood how to use Noteshare, so I could try it in my next class. I re-familiarized myself with the basics of Noteshare. I wanted to test it, but could not find anyone to test it with, but everything looked like it was working okay. When I tried it out in the next class, it would not work. My computer said I was sharing, but none of the students could find me on their Noteshare network. I'll have to find one of our computer guys and see if I'm doing something wrong.

All in all, it was not a very productive day. But things like that happen. That's life. You have to learn to go with the flow.