Help

Another Beginning

Life is unexpected. Just when you think you’ve crested a hill and can look long at the path stretching before you, opportunity arises and you find yourself taking a road unanticipated. I won’t say I’ve taken the one less traveled by, but I have taken another.

Today, I officially began my job as the Director of Technology and Communications in Oak Lawn-Hometown District 123. It is a role about which I am incredibly excited. Because there’s great opportunity here. And I earnestly believe I can seize it.

I’d like to say I’m beginning this position with a long list of answers sitting at the ready for implementation. But that would be a dishonesty. Because at this point, I have more questions than answers. I’m hoping, however, that the right questions can prove more powerful than me thinking I have the right answers. I’m hoping such for what it could mean for our students, our staff, and our community. And what it could mean for learning.

It seems to me as I’ve observed the advent of modern technology increasing in utilization in education, there has grown a rift between those in the Director of Technology role and many of the others in an educational institution.  Somehow the two sides seem to be at odds.  Neither understands the other. As it is most often manifested, the one side is prone to thinking in terms of restricting what takes place in the technological environment, while the other side believes those running the technological environment know very little about education. I know I’m speaking in broad generalities, but it is what I have observed in many places.

I don’t want that to be my case.

I was a classroom teacher for eight years before I left one of the most incredibly rewarding professions in the hopes of making a difference on a broader scale. However, I learned quickly that there is little more rewarding than directly investing in the lives of students in a classroom each day. It is simply an amazing endeavor. I left that not to take a position where my actions matter little to the experience of students and those who are working so hard to help them learn how to learn. I left teaching with the hope that I could make a difference in a different way.

It is now, standing once again on the edge of great new change, that I begin with questions. I’m hoping these are the right ones. Or at least the ones that will lead me to the right ones. And the right ones are those that will make a difference in the lives of the students, staff members, and community where I have the privilege to serve.

As is always the case, your input and help in crafting and molding both these questions and my potential to make a difference is extremely important to me. Here is my beginning.

1.  How is what we’re doing with technology making a difference for learning?

2.  How can we support teachers and do everything we can to help them help their students learn?

3.  How can we support teachers as they continue to learn?

3.  Does the environment we create build trust?

4.  How can we communicate more effectively and better meet the needs of our community?

5.  Are we reliable?

6.  Are we making a positive difference?

I hope these questions guide the work that I have ahead. And I hope I keep questioning the questions. And I know I will keep learning.

I Think I Killed My Mac-Day 2

This has been quite an experience.  I should probably clarify one thing quickly before I update where I’m at and where my iMac is at.

I’m not cheap.  Really.  I know it might seem like I’m trying to get out of this without spending any money, but that’s not the case at all.  I’m trying to get the most knowledge out of this experience as possible.  If I wanted to go the cheap way, I’d just take the machine in and have it fixed.  There’s no risk in that.  If I ran a risk vs. cost analysis of trying to fix the machine myself, the results would prove that I’m not taking the fiscally responsible path.  But, I can’t resist.  It’s like when you were a kid and you took apart the toaster to see what it looked like on the inside.  It’s a completely inquisitive, problem-based learning opportunity.  I could probably write five different posts on the relationship of this experience to the way learning happens in the classroom.  Maybe I will in the future.

On to the update.  It got gory last night.  I opened up the iMac and began pulling out its innards as it yelled out “Freedom.”  I’ve gone past the point of no return.  Here’s the proof.

I have a friend who is going to let me borrow a SATA connection interface so I can see if I can connect the drive directly to my MacBook Pro and retrieve any data.  Thanks to Jay Blackman for that suggestion.  Also, Adam Christianson from The MacCast sent me a very helpful email recommending I give DiskWarrior a try.  If I can get the data off the drive, and since I already have the computer in pieces, I think I’m going to purchase a higher capacity hard drive to replace the old drive.  See, I don’t mind spending some money.

Well, that’s where we’re at right now.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I will once again get to see the pictures, listen to the music, and work on the graphics projects that I fear may never be seen, heard, or worked on again.

I Think I Killed My Mac

Let me start off by stating one very important fact.  I am an idiot.  If we can all start from here, I think this will go much more smoothly.

So yesterday morning I realized it had been quite a while since I ran a software update on my 24″ iMac that is still running Tiger.  There were several updates that needed to be downloaded, including the Intel security update.  Of course I didn’t run a backup before doing this, why would I do something so logical?  After all the updates downloaded, I restarted the machine, and that’s when the fun began.

The machine froze up during the reboot, and I had to restart it.  Not a good idea.  The second time it rebooted, I got the wonderful broken folder icon that told me things were going downhill quickly.  I hunted down my install DVD, and booted up from the disk.  I tried to run a disk repair, but was told I have an invalid node structure.  I thought that was getting a bit too personal.

I went ahead and continued to make things worse by restarting the computer again, and the iMac automatically booted from the cd.  I decided to try an archive and install installation in the hope that I wouldn’t lose all the data I haven’t backed up in far too long, but when the installation process got to the volume to install selection screen, my hard drive wasn’t listed.  In fact, nothing was listed.  I then tried to boot into target mode to see if I could access my files from my MacBook Pro, but the only thing my MBP could find on the iMac was the install disk.

The short of it…I’m in trouble.  I can’t access my hard drive with any of the means I am aware of.  I know the logical thing to do at this point would be to bring the machine into Apple (of course I don’t have Apple Care on it anymore) and let them have at it.  But the thing is, I don’t want to.  I got myself into this mess, and I’d kind of like to get myself out of it.  Or at least have people tell me how to get myself out.  So here’s my request.  I’m begging for help.  Does anyone have any idea how I can get back to good?

I’m thinking the next thing to try would be to disassemble the iMac and reseat the hard drive in the hope that it will once again come up as available so I can try the archive and install.  WIth my luck, I’ll end up breaking everything.

Can anyone help?  Or does anyone know anyone who can make a suggestion?  I’ve already established that I’m an idiot, so that suggestion won’t help at the moment.  I’ll just go ahead and post this and hope.

 Scroll to top