Patience? That is what I am starting to have short of. Especially, on the eve of the release of Win7. Here is my issue.
As we all may compatibility issues in the coming months especially if you finally decide to finally upgrade from WinXP, Win2003, Win2000, Win98, WinME, WinNT, or even Win3.1. However, with the mission critical applications that I use in the classroom, I cannot afford compatibility issues.
Pressure needs to be placed on educational software developers to ensure the reliability of their products through OS upgrades by immediately producing software upgrades/patches without drama to help with the growing pains. What drama am I referring to? That will have to be in another blog post…
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!
If you thought that I was going to talk about Clifford Joseph Harris Jr., I apologize in misleading you.
However, I just briefly wish to share what I saw at the Texas Instruments booth during NCTM09. The photos below seemed to be all that really caught my attention.
On the left, I got my hands on the new TI-73. This model was designed for the middle school. The updated version of this calc has an increased space for memory to load more apps – where the previous version did not allow. Also, it is officially now sexy like the TI-84s.
To the right, you have the Navigator system designed towards the TI-Nspire. As you can see, the wireless hubs are actually attached to the back of the calcs instead of having the calc hooked up to the wireless hubs. That data cable is gone! Click on the image for additional information and to find out when this system will be released.
T.I.’s theme apparently was “Math Rocks!” I had the opportunity to take a picture beside an autographed guitar signed by the Jonas Brothers. Woo hoo!
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…
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…
It would be great to have Second Life to work in an OFF-LINE version. This stand-alone VW engine would enable me to explore my own world for the classroom (just like I would be able to do in LittleBigPlanet). I know that Edusim is available, but it is very limited its functionality; especially online interaction is not there yet.
Today I ran into Moove Online. Looks like this VW allows you to do just that-create your own world and access it offline. Only if SL allow you to do the same plus control access online, it would make it more of a resource versus an entertainment tool.
Digital Natives as coined by Marc Prensky are students that we teach that inherently have integrated technology into their lives. On the other hand, digital immigrants are somewhat new to the technology scene and are usually described as archaic educators that struggle in the attempt to “get on the edtech bandwagon of the 21st century.” Apple has a great article on the comparison of the two groups.
In my humble opinion…
I feel that there exist another minuscule elitist group of students (feared by school technology assistants) that go beyond the status of digital natives.
Why?
They are consumed by the love of technology and intrinsically pushed to go where they are not permitted either on or offline. Curiosity of computers or even electronic is not enough for these students; they are also not satisfied with the current established boundaries by parents or schools. So they defy or cross the designated boundaries established for them.
For many years and somewhat still today, these students when caught are labeled as hackers. Instead, please consider them as digital aliens. Pioneers such as Stephen Wozniak , Linus Torvalds, or even Kevin Mitnick are great examples of this breed of student. Let’s not be afraid of them, but instead direct their focus to a constructive direction. Also, here is an interestingly comical-to-me and very outdated (2001) satirical web treasure that shares how to detect if your child is a digital alien.
The Content Creation Seminar is its first to be conducted by official sMARTIANS on the campus of UNC-Charlotte. It started today (2/6) and will continue until Sunday (2/8)! By the end of the seminar, it is expected for participants to create ten notebook artifacts in order to be a SMART-accredited content developer.
I will attempt to briefly summarize the main points of the first day. Unfortunately wifi was not available, which was not an accident. Also, it was asked to not have laptops available due to their “distract-ability”. The first presenter broke down all of the new features of notebook version 10. Yes, even I the SB master learned something today! The following cool techniques were also demonstrated and may be found on TeacherTube. (I may later explain these techniques in future blog posts!)
The last presenter demonstrated all the features of the Lesson Activity Toolkit. He further stressed the following in creating great SB lessons.
1. Efficiency
2. Interactivity
3. Engaging
4. Sizzle must have substance!
Unfortunately I will not be able to attend day 2 of the seminar because I will be taking some students to a MathCounts competition. However on Sunday I will be able to wrap up the workshop. Wifi will be available on Sunday, so I will be tweeting further updates.
I must apologize for sitting on this challenge for some time. I did have the pleasure of actually doing this with a digital video camera in the classroom. Once the students got past the Hawthorne effect in recording during my lesson, they were actually productive.
On the following day I allow the students to view the video. Next, I had them to write a reflection on their experience seeing themselves in action learning. Unfortunately due to the restrictions of my district (and the lack of time of my behalf) to have students to sign photo release forms, I cannot post the video.
However, I will try this again for it is good for students to see themselves in a form of visualmetacognition (wow, did I coin a new term for this activity)!
Patience? That is what I am starting to have short of. Especially, on the eve of the release of Win7. Here is my issue.
Digital Natives as coined by 
