Strappin’ Down the Laptizzle

Me in '02 with 1st laptizzle (Yeah, I used to rock the locs...)

  

 ________________________________________________________________________________________

 As we all know, the demand for laptops has increased. People are more mobile and sometimes get a little careless in their actions in public places with their valuable devices.

When I purchased my real (1st laptop was a joke) laptop in 2005 I don’t think that I ever let it out of my sight. I guess, stepping away from your laptop nowadays is kinda like leaving your car on when gasing up or running in the house for something you forgot. Brett Burney has a great blog post (back in 2005) that discusses the same topic and give additional tips.

I know for a fact that libraries make sure that if you’re leaving your belongings (including your laptop) unattended, you are at your own risk. If you do decide to seperate from your laptop for using the bathroom, telephone, or even take a quick smoke outside, I highly recommend all laptop users to invest in a cable lock to protect your investment in deterring theft. Better safe than sorry…

Senteo Madness

Due to the local & state budget crisis, there has been cutbacks on copier usage. Teachers have been running around looking for solutions to avoid making ditto sheets. The tech people at my school (me) are working on conecting our Dukane document cameras to integrate into SMARTNotebook.

Teachers are now diligently requesting to use the handheld interactive response systems from SMARTtechnologies called Senteo remotes. We have had these devices for months, however training was an issue. Teachers are eager to move forward to dare to learn how to use this technology on their own. However, due to the configuration of our school’s laptops, teachers cannot use the new Senteo Teacher software; however the Senteo Manager works like a charm.  This was the first roadblock discovered this past week.

I upgraded Senteo Manager to Teacher (version 2.0.97) on my personal laptizzle and have been creating assessments all week. Here are a few thoughts on the new software upgrade.

• There is a need to make Senteo more robust as a gradebook.  It would be a great feature to export class list (non-PDF file)  from Senteo Teacher. In other words, there is a need for the functionality to print class roster outside of the reporting feature - Creating PDF takes a very long time, well.. on my laptop anyway. 
• Import data from “on the fly” questioning into the gradebook is highly desired!
• Students need multiple representation of data. Cannot view data results as a circle graph – bar graph only.  
•  Privacy button was a great addition.

I will be going out of town this week to NCTM conference in DC. I will be looking for some great stuff to share…

 

 

IDK

In this day of the Information age, is it acceptable for students to use this or any text-speak language?

In Math… I have noticed the growing usage of IDK on student work. Sorry if I assumed that you know what IDK meant, but it stands for “I Don’t Know.” As teachers always reply, what is it that you do not understand?

Maybe when we think that we are getting ahead by being brief in communicating, we are really getting behind in how we clearly communicate. I am not bashing the Web 2.0 generation, but there is a proper time and place to keep it short. When it really matters, you need to be specific and to the point. I guess that’s the battle that English teachers deal with constantly – the students’ on-going text-speak usage when it is & not appropriate.

However, mathematicians or people that think logically may embrace the brevity of text-speak. SO LT ME END BY SYNG CHOOS YR WEAPN WSLY FR YR BTTL MY DPND ON HW CLEARLY U CMMNCT YR PLN OF ATTCK! THS WS TRNSLTD BY TH FLLWNG TXT-SPEEK TRNSLTR.

LBP & The Coordinate Plane

Blurring the Lines of Reality

As we continue in the millenium, I am not surprised in the latest technology and what will be coming to us soon. Holograms has already reared its beautiful head through the media via CNN and the Iron Man movie. The difference between holograms and augmented reality (AR),  would be that AR operates real-time which both previously mention examplars would qualify under this classification. 

I ran into augmented reality on, yes… Facebook, where GE was advertising this new technology for advertising its SmartGrid technology. GE has a demo for you to actually experience augmented reality. You need a webcam, microphone and a printer to print the marker for the magic to happen. The below demo is more realistic then the one from GE…

The above youtube flick demonstrates the real-time combination of real world and virtual reality! Think of all the real-world math problems one would dream with this technology! 

Please share your ideas how you desire to see this technology to be used.

#As(y) I was minding my own business on Twitter…

I ran into a twitter post by Wayne Sutton about this new site called tweetasy. The goal of tweetasy is write a whole story using only 140 characters including the #asy tag. I posted a few very short stories. On the website, you can also vote on the stories that you like, kinda like or don’t like. Check it out and give me some feedback on what you think!

There are only two school days in school….

…the first day and the last day of school. This idea actually came from The Wire. As I enter my Spring Break this weekend, I will continue to post some good content. Off the wall? Naaa… all of what I have to share is good stuff – To me anyway.

LittleBigPlanet Meets Mathematics

Here’s another YouTube video, not by me, though…