Technology is only as good as the cords you plug it in with!

It is amazing how helpful technology can be when it is working and how traumatic the experience when it is not working. It was a bright Tuesday morning and we were about to begin centers. Now, something you should know, one of my computers is on a splitter so that I can plug the monitor and the projector into the same computer. If my document camera is on to show the display beneath it, it causes the computer monitor to be blurry. It the document camera is on to show what is being displayed on the monitor, the monitor should be clear and easy to see. The key phrase being "should be." This lovely Tuesday we did not have such luck. My students got on the computer for their turn during centers and it was very blurry. I checked the document camera and it was on to show the document. I hit the computer button, confidently as I had solved the problem, and sure enough... the monitor was still blurry. Therefore, I went over I checked all the cords. I pulled them out and put them back in making sure each was in secure and all the way and checked again. The screen was still blurry. Now I checked any cable that was behind the computer and nothing seemed amiss. At this time I had to give in to my desire to know what was going on and continue centers, but I would be back. After my students had left for the day, I looked again. Again, I unplugged all the connections I could find. Looked at the monitor and guess what? Still blurry. It was not going to beat me! At this point I unravelled the wires where they are wound on the projector cart, adjusted the location of the document camera on the cart start to rewrapped and alas, there is was! One last connection I had over looked in the coil of wires on the cart. The connection I had stood next to for the entire math class. The coil I looked at and shrugged off as unimportant. There was my weak link. I pushed the plug in securely and all the way. I looked at the screen and I never thought I would be so happy to see a clear screen. It looked even clearer that it had all the week before. I then walked to my desk got my tape and made sure that connection was extra secure. I was not playing this game again! So lesson learned, be sure all of your wires are connected properly and securely or you may just be driven crazy all day!