Your Name: Katie Schilling

Today’s Date: 2011/3/4

Day(s) worked or described: M, W (11-2) F (1-3)

Total hours for week: 8

The School: Dumas Technology Academy

Kind of Work: Keyboards, Random Tech Problems, Liquid Damage  &gt;.&lt;

Main Report or Narrative:

I started off the week fixing some random tech problems for teachers.  I helped set up for and train a teacher in INsight.  I also fixed a printer (just needed a full reset).  I also talked with the science teacher about tech development for her students and different physics simulators available through university websites (phet.colorado.edu is fantastic and I know the developers).

On Wednesday, I found a keyboard that would type "weU" when the "w" key was pressed.  Similar combinations of letters happened when other keys were pressed, and some didn't work.  After popping off the keys and cleaning the connections, I determined that there was possible liquid damage.  This is especially likely because of the delightful sticky black substance pooled around the space bar.  I cleaned it and tried manually pressing the pads to no avail.  That is when I appealed to Mitch and Sara for a tool kit.

I picked up the tool kit on Thursday and attempted to open the keyboard on Friday but found that the bits were ever so slightly too big.  I examined the other keyboards in the lab and found several others that had clearly had contact with soda.  I talked to the librarian and Ms. Allen, and, though they presented somewhat conflicting information, it appears that there are students in the library with food and drinks.  I'm not sure if there is supervision, but it is clear that even if there is supervision, it is not adequate.

If anyone has any ideas as to how I can bring up the issue to bring to light this lack of adequate supervision without stepping on any toes, please let me know.  Also, I'm not sure if I should try to fix the damaged keyboard or not.  What do you think?

What's playing:  "I'm a Cuckoo" by Belle and Sebastian