GENERAL, COMMON SENSE SUGGESTIONS

Although it is expected that each student to-be-teacher will display an excellent, helpful, and respectful attitude towards self, classmates, and the instructor, at times there is a need to remind ourselves of some general, common sense rules about proper, productive class attitudes in learning environments:

a) Never forget that what was created by humans, can be learned by other humans, sooner or later, if desired. Mathematics, science, and technologies are often such case. If you are having a hard time with any topic, particularly with computer stuff, please be as patient as possible, try again, ask nicely for help, give nice help to others. If the instructor is busy, or struggling with a stubborn piece of equipment, program, or perhaps a frustrated student, please try to be understanding and as possible, help too.

b) Learning things that are often quirky, such as new, evolving, often badly designed user interfaces in computer programs, and at times flaky products can be frustrating. You are not alone. If you feel like "everybody else understands everything perfectly", except yourself, you are not alone. Having the necessary patience and strength to learn what at first seem impossible is what differentiates effective from ineffective learners. In the end, getting to know more about things that can help us teach better and children learn better can be very rewarding.

c) If you feel like you already have understood something your classmates and/or the instructor do not, your consideration and help will be very much appreciated. Feel free to practice your teaching skills with others in this class. Things can run so much smoother when we help each other.

OTHER - IMPORTANT - SUGGESTIONS
When editing assignment documents, please save, resave your work in permanent computer files often, particularly when working on critical, long documents, and as you are investing a lot of work into them. If not sure about ongoing additions, save additional copies with slightly modified names (Save-as, with some text added to the name, e.g. "Assignment#4xx", so you can always go back to previous versions.

Make sure to work on machines free of viruses and other malicious threats to your documents. Although Microsoft Windows maintains powerful "Malicious Software" routines updated on-line in (legitimate) copies of their software, other protection software available (such as McAfee Viruscan, and Norton Antivirus) can be helpful.

If using external storage, such as Flash (thumb) Drives, make sure to close the device (green icon normally available in bottom task-bar) before removing it from the computer USB port. At times, early removal can cause directory disruptions and file losses.

As an alternative, when using Blackboard, you should also consider using the 50 MegaByte free storage available to each student in the "My Online Storage" option (blue tab on top). Use the "+ Item" to upload files, and click on the entries in the list for retrieval.