Career & Technical Educators Connecting & Learning with Web 2.0
Rant warning!
For a week that already proves to be a busy one, already with the knowledge I'll be here most of Saturday, things aren't going well this morning.
Don't you love it when you think to yourself "This shouldn't take more than a couple hours", and it turns out to be a two and half day project? Yes, I know thats Murphys law kicking me in the backside and laughing.
I have an instructor that teaches primarily online classes - his students access Advanced Academics, helping them to get caught up on missing credits. Prior to Christmas break (in Oklahoma we still say Christmas break!) he mentioned that he had several machines not connecting to the internet, one or two not turning on etc. His lab was overdue for a "ghosting" so I set out to do this just last Thursday, before his online students returned.
Of the 19 PC's in his lab, 3 didn't power on, 1 had no video, one did nothing but beeped, and an additional 4 did not connect to the network. Another was missing a power cable to the monitor, one was missing a mouse, and yet another was missing the "mouse ball". 11 of 19 had some type of issue. Had he not had the fortune of a small class the first half of the year, he'd never have made it. Looking further into the issues, the connectivity troubles were due to the ethernet cables being removed. Clearly students jesting with him or each other. All of these machines originally came with optical mice. Half are now ball mice, none of which work without cleaning. The monitor missing the power cable is still missing it, I borrowed one from another machine to get it ghosted.
All of these machines had a protection software installed. None of them should have been in need of any kind of help beyond a flash update at the most, and yet here I am 2.5 days later, not quite done - still needing to corral a mouse, monitor cable and troubleshoot one that will not connect to the network, even with the ethernet cable in place, and found that the beeping PC had a bad stick of RAM.
While this is definitely a "worst case scenario" lab for me, it can be all too common where teen and young adult learners can be found near any of my PC labs.
Tell me I'm not alone!
Hoping your Monday mornings going better than mine!
Cheers,
Judd
Don't you love it when you think to yourself "This shouldn't take more than a couple hours", and it turns out to be a two and half day project? Yes, I know thats Murphys law kicking me in the backside and laughing.
I have an instructor that teaches primarily online classes - his students access Advanced Academics, helping them to get caught up on missing credits. Prior to Christmas break (in Oklahoma we still say Christmas break!) he mentioned that he had several machines not connecting to the internet, one or two not turning on etc. His lab was overdue for a "ghosting" so I set out to do this just last Thursday, before his online students returned.
Of the 19 PC's in his lab, 3 didn't power on, 1 had no video, one did nothing but beeped, and an additional 4 did not connect to the network. Another was missing a power cable to the monitor, one was missing a mouse, and yet another was missing the "mouse ball". 11 of 19 had some type of issue. Had he not had the fortune of a small class the first half of the year, he'd never have made it. Looking further into the issues, the connectivity troubles were due to the ethernet cables being removed. Clearly students jesting with him or each other. All of these machines originally came with optical mice. Half are now ball mice, none of which work without cleaning. The monitor missing the power cable is still missing it, I borrowed one from another machine to get it ghosted.
All of these machines had a protection software installed. None of them should have been in need of any kind of help beyond a flash update at the most, and yet here I am 2.5 days later, not quite done - still needing to corral a mouse, monitor cable and troubleshoot one that will not connect to the network, even with the ethernet cable in place, and found that the beeping PC had a bad stick of RAM.
While this is definitely a "worst case scenario" lab for me, it can be all too common where teen and young adult learners can be found near any of my PC labs.
Tell me I'm not alone!
Hoping your Monday mornings going better than mine!
Cheers,
Judd
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