Working from home gets harder . . .part 2

when your toddler has a fever and a cold and you're staying home with her. Poor Callen came home from yesterday with a fever and cold. Poor thing - she wouldn't eat anything last night except a box of raisins (don't ask me why this appealed to her). She's so strong willed now that she doesn't want us to take her temp. We finally got to take it once last night and it was around 101. I think it may have spiked during the night as her whole body felt really hot last night. We had her sleep with us as her breathing was labored.
Callen and I slept in this morning while Bo went to work. Her fever feels a little better today and she's been a little more energetic today, so I'm hoping the worst is past us.
Wish me luck in getting more work done today!

Working from home gets harder

when the university email server crashes! UGH... I'm trying to send some edits on a poster to a student and the server must be down at school. Please come back up soon server!!!

Yet another opportunity for us to ponder how important Internet connections are in our lives...

Update on XOs in B'ham

Turns out they may not be going to middle school students after all. This isn't definite yet, but seems likely. Hopefully we'll be surveying lots of elementary students if the middle school students don't receive the laptops! Stay tuned...

14,000 More XOs Coming to B'ham City Schools

As some of you know, I received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study the impacts of the XO laptops in B'ham City Schools. The School Board decided to begin with one elementary school this spring and then decide if they wanted to accept the other laptops. I found some additional funding to allow us to collect data at the pilot school. My team rushed to get pretest data from students at this pilot school before the laptops were distributed and we'll go back in the fall to do our posttest surveying. We planned to present our research findings to the School Board, hoping that it would help them make a decision on whether to accept the other laptops. It appears they've already made their decision -- without seeing any data from us at least.

The School Board voted yesterday to accept the remaining 14,000 XOs; they'll distribute them beginning in September. This is good news as my NSF grant is to study middle school students; so this fall we'll be really busy collecting pretest survey data on 2500 middle school students and then following up with them in the spring. We'll also be doing interviews with a small number of students and surveying teachers.

Here's to a busy fall semester collecting lots of data!

Juggling Becomes More Important

the longer I'm in academia. I have this whiteboard in my office where I keep a list of my various research projects and the 'next steps/status' of each of them. Yesterday I spent some time with my whiteboard - updating, reflecting upon the projects, etc. I have 10+ projects listed on my board. 10+ projects! I knew I was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed lately, but didn't necessarily attribute it to the 10+ projects that I have ongoing.

I told one of my research assistants the other week that I feel distanced from most of the data I'm involved with of late. With 10+ projects there is no way I can be the one who is actually analyzing the data. I miss this part of the research process as my intuition and prior experience often guide me in looking at the data, thinking about the best way to proceed, etc. Don't get me wrong, I have GREAT RAs - but I still miss getting my hands 'dirty' in the data and getting a better sense of what it all means at that level.

I think one of the things I realized yesterday is that I can't take on any new projects right now (especially as it looks like I will be getting another grant early next year which will take up a lot of my time), or at least not any that require much involvement on my part. Hopefully by not taking on more things, I can get many of the 8+ manuscripts that I'm a primary or secondary author on that are in various stages of progress out the door.

So, here's to knowing our limits and learning to say 'no' although we may want to say 'yes'...

New Rule: Don't Help People Move Something That They Bought From You!

We posted a secretary on craig's list a few weeks ago and had a few people interested that day. A couple came to see it, gave us cash, and asked us if we could keep it for a couple of weeks until they could get someone to help them move it. We arranged for them to pick it up today. They came -- without someone to help them. Bo said he would help. While the guy and Bo were trying to move it, part of the top half of the secretary came loose. They couldn't get it back on easily. They decided they didn't want it. They paid us for it 2 weeks ago. Bo and I discussed it and gave them back their money. I'm glad we took 'the high road', but it really annoys me that they even asked after they were supposed to bring someone back to help them move it. Our new rule: you buy it, you move it. Don't ask us to help.

Downside to Blogging about Your Kids?

I saw a recent posting about the potential downside to blogging about your kids on The Juggle blog (http://blogs.wsj.com/juggle/2008/07/01/the-downsides-to-blogging-about-your-kid/). As some of you know, I started blogging when some other new moms I knew started blogging about their kids, families, etc. I've never really considered the downside to this. What do you think? Are there downsides to this activity? Will you be more cautious in what you post?