My upgrade to iPhone quandary

To upgrade or not, that is the question…

I am currently a Blackberry Curve user. I can do a lot on my smart phone already, so… do I really need to hand over my hard earned scrilla to Mr. Jobs? There’s a recession going on, son!

I am quite hesistant to go sans qwerty keypad. Since the 25th officially marks the end of my AT&T year (of 15 months), what will I really gain besides crossing over to the National iPhone Geek Society.

Math w/Sports Jerseys

If you get the opportunity, check out the latest issue of  the above ESPN Magazine (Jun 09). It has a great article that has the jersey numbers of great athletes of all sports in numerical order from 00 to 99. Great opportunity for math in action, and test some sports knowledge. I have contemplated in blowing up these two pages and add it to my classroom collage by using rastorbator!

Happy Juneteenth!

This is a great start of father’s day weekend! On this day, for the record, the Emancipation Proclaimation was signed in this Great Country. Signed to do what?

For more info on this non-federal little known very historic holiday, please google or bing ‘Juneteenth’. Have a great weekend!

Turning of the tassel

Yesterday (6/15)  I had the opportunity to attend the 2009 commencement of West Charlotte High School. This occasion was special to me because I had the opportunity to see a few of my 7th grade students from 2003 that actually crossed the stage. Unfortunately, I saw very few students that I knew.

I heard that there was actually over 300 seniors but only approximately 100 march?

Something is definitely wrong.

Maybe virtual high schools will make a difference. What do you think?

16% have been approached by a stranger

Sixteen percent of who? Our children that have access to the Internet. This can be quite disturbing especially for parents who are aware of cyber criminal activities.

Parents, educators, and concerned citizens should be proactive in learning how to protect children from the dangers that the web present.

We cannot continue ignore such issues.

If you have the opportunity, please read what the FBI has to share about children and cyber crime.

Hip Hop Division

This week I started teaching summer school. One of the few imperative items I go over is basic math terminology. When I discuss the terms of arithmetic problems, I always share this video by 3Xdope with my students to remember the true meaning of dividends in real life and how the video relates to math. Enjoy!

Bing Bing, baby!

Yesterday, I got word of Microsoft’s new Internet search engine called Bing.

I tested out Bing.com and it seems to be a worthy competitor of Google. Its even lightweight enough to work great on my smartphone.

Check it out and let me know what you think.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T

What tha heck is a comptometer?

Here is one of my rainy day posts.

 A few weeks ago, I had a enlightening discussion about calculator usage with one of my fellow mathematicians. She stated that we were actually considered software to the contraption to left. 

This image is identified as a comptometer. Being the nerd that I am, I though I knew of every vintage calculating machine that ever existed to man. However, I learned something new that day. You actually had to be a trained comptometrist to touch this machine; and if you were trained, you were in high demand due to its high learning curve.

My collegue, a trained comptometrist, demonstrated the arithmetic operation manuevers; which to me seems to require great manual dexterity to crunch numbers with speed this way. I recorded it and have it here to share with you. In regards to calculator technology, we have really come a long way. This would be great to share with students to see how easy they have it now and we should not take that calculating device for granted; or even let them do research on this device and other vintage calculators.

 

 

Senteo Smenteo…

This will be my first post via email. No excuses now for the lack of updates.

I will briefly discuss my latest experience with SMART technology. One of the teachers at my school that actively uses the Senteo noticed that the Senteo teacher program not functioning correctly. I checked it out and noticed that the 30-day licence had expired. I attempted to register the software as directed by inserting the usb receiver… nothing.

So, long story short, I called SMART to solved problem, to be redirected to upgrade the software again. Found out that the company is rebranding all of their products which includes the Senteo which is now known as Smart Response. Anyway after upgrading, the software will still not recognize the receiver. So I gave up for the time being.

I will try again with Smart on the phone with assistance maybe next week when school is officially out. Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T