As a teacher, you always have that little voice that reminds you to do certain things. Don't forget to make copies of the math worksheet. You have a staff meeting on Wednesday. Sam needs to take his time when writing out his spelling words. Be sure to backup your files!
Wait a minute! I've heard that voice before. Oh, yeah! It's telling me to backup my files because you never know what can happen to your hard drive. Six months ago, the little voice reminded me. I sit here six months later regretting tuning out that voice and paying the ultimate price. The two scariest words in computer lingo "fatal error." I went from having a fully functional hard drive to having two Trojan viruses that stormed all over my files. If I had only listened, then I wouldn't be recalling that fateful night.
I lost school lesson plans, class newsletters, personal files and photos. Each week, I re-type my lesson plans for the week and think of how much easier it would be to simply update my plans from last year's. Then, I re-create my newsletter and remember how easy it was to copy and paste from the previous school year. Be sure to backup your files!
I learned my lesson the hard way and have a collection of flash drives. I make sure to save anything that I do in two places. I have a flash drive for my master's degree documents, one for my personal files, and one for my teaching files. Like a good teacher instructs his or her students to learn from their mistakes, I have learned from my big one. When the little voice speaks to me, I make sure to listen!
I have experienceda similar situation as far as losing my files thanks to my hard drive crashing. It is the WORST feeling and of course you feel like an idiot for not backing up your work. I too have learned from my mistake and I use flash drives for everything! As students get older I believe that we should teach them this important computer skill as well. Technology is wonderful but errors and casualties may still happen.
ReplyDeletePatrick:
ReplyDelete“Be sure to backup your files!”
Such good advice! I totally agree that it is so much easier to edit last year’s plans rather than re-create them.
And, aren’t flash drives great? You can have everything for the entire year (and more)stored on one flash drive. Like you, I also have a flash drive for my master’s documents and a separate one for my teaching files. However, I think I like your advice of having my documents stored in two places – just in case. Not only can hard drives crash, but flash drives can be misplaced or damaged. Frightening thoughts!
Linda