As the saying goes, if it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Don’t gasp at my pessimism. I feel like being in a pouty mood. What the crap? Everything went so well last Thursday! Let’s start with the warmup for today:  keyboarding.  Right now the students are using the keyboarding component of LearningGamesForKids.com.  I am trying to get the students to practice keyboarding during warmups or if they pull the ole, “Miss, I’m finished with everything! What do I do now?” Granted, they won’t be doing a whole lot of keyboarding, but it would be nice for them to know how to properly type.  Someday, when they’re assigned huge papers to write, they’ll thank me. Or it could just be wishful thinking.  Today our objective was to finish doing the Edmodo Scavenger Hunt, for the students to familiarize themselves with the components of Edmodo that we’d be using throughout the year.  I thought I had learned my lesson last time they tried retrieving it. Just a quick recap for those of you just tuning in:  my MentorMob playlist that was embedded into Edmodo had told my students the videos were no longer available when they really were.  Some last minute thinking had them go onto the YouTube playlist version of it, which took me a while to figure out and set up for the class.  After figuring out shortly after that the YouTube playlist couldn’t be viewed via Edmodo (and I couldn’t locate it anywhere in a regular YouTube search), I purchased and installed a YouTube player app 6 times for all of our iPads.  Purchased. With my own money. Six times. At $1.99 each.

You’re probably thinking, “So what? Twelve bucks for an app for your class?”  Well, here’s the kicker: when they went to access my YouTube playlist for the first time today, the videos didn’t load.  I have no freaking idea why.  It worked last week on my iPad when I was testing it; that’s why I bought the %$#@ app.  I don’t know if it’s a glitch in the app or if it was because my students were all trying to get on that one app at the same time.  I have no clue.  All I knew was that minutes were ticking away and I could feel the Freak Out slowly creeping in my body.  So, once again, I had to go to Plan K and have them do a YouTube search of someone else’s version of basically the same scavenger hunt.

Twelve dollars down the drain.

That’s a night’s worth of Hot and Now pizzas and Crazy Bread from Little Caesar’s for my family.  I don’t take that lightly.

Anyhoo, long story short, I narrowed it down to the four videos to watch before the end of class, since they were the most important to learn.  Tomorrow they get their Edmodo badges awarded to them and will get to come up with their player names for our class, known as Operation X.  Avatars will be created once they finish their tech packets.  I’m hoping by reminding them of the gamification aspects of the class, they’ll keep their motivation to push on.  Also, since it’s Tuesday, it’ll be a Core Class Review day.  More science review and finishing of homework.  Those who’ve finished can watch the rest of the Bill Nye video on volcanoes and finish the accompanying worksheet.  I’m also planning on reviewing English vocabulary with them by using their iPads as whiteboards. Seems like it should be foolproof.  Seems.

On that note, I’m signing out.  If at first you don’t succeed, right? *heavy sigh*