Starting with chess. I played chess with a couple of my robot kids at lunch. I “handed them their asses”, but ended the game with a quick lesson in why I bet them. Also in how to get better at chess, study end games.
Today, favorite song, “Bye, Bye Miss America Pie”, the long version, which sadly, I know all the words. Ending with playing Rudy Valence and Buddy Holly. I spared them the Big Bopper, but only because the bell rang.
The battery life seems to be better. Not sure, yet. One of the problems I would have with the old Surface is that I would swear I put it away charged, and pulled it out uncharged.
Like the power thing better, the light is on the side rather than the tip so it’s easier to tell if you have power.
It works well with my VGA projector but I ended up with a way smaller screen and icons with it. For a while I was stuck with it but now it is back to normal. The resolution said it was the same each time. Very weird.
Using a Java server I set up on Azure I’ve been able to grade some Scratch assignments. It’s easiest to run Scratch 2.4 (the one we have at school) , and grade that way. I’m hoping to grade other assignment too.
Having the larger screen, and the ability to run programs on a server and remoting in solves most of the grading issues. I’m fastest grading on my school computer with both monitors but I am at least productive with this option.
Thanks @shanselman for the idea.
Can run both Scratch and JCreator with this option.
I loved my Surface RT. It was great. Due to @shanselman and having already seen one, I upgraded to a Surface 2 RT at Best Buy. Love the extra screen resolution.
I had bought my original Surface at the local Microsoft store right after they came out. Good place but almost in Oklahoma. We live a good 30 minutes away. They have always given me good service though.
I went to the Best Buy this time which is only an exit away. Did have a bit of mixup and glad the Geek Squad discovered it. The sales guy got me an old Surface, not the new.
I already had a Type Cover – don’t like the Touch Covers and Best Buy wouldn’t take it as trade in. I did check and it does work fine. I also have several other keyboards that would work fine also. I also have two additional power bricks.
I had the Geek store put a Zagg screen protector on the Surface 2 as I always regretted not getting one on the original surface, however, right now it has a ton of bubbles, I’ll let you know how it works out. I also haven’t been happy with Zagg in the past but Best Buy swore they would be good. I have the one year service agreement too, for damage and will move my theft coverage in the morning.
My original sleeve works – it’s great and I keep my hotspot in it for when I go to the gym and out and about.
I also got the Bluetooth adapter for the type cover, and it is quite awesome.
I only got $100 for the old Surface, but it was worth it. Didn’t have to look for a buyer. I think I could of sold it to a student but don’t like doing that.
I did a presentation on “Why Should you Teach Computer Science” today and it was easy. Could have walked in with my purse and done. Didn’t need my two computers, etc.
AWESOME!
Have my powerpoint on Skydrive.
https://d.docs.live.net/56252342e14c6ba5/Documents/Why%20teach%20Computer%20Science.pptx
I did add quite a bit of information on fundraising, specifically on www.donorschoose.com
Years ago I quit presenting at the local regional because I had to bring everything I needed for the presentation, including the projector. Parking was miles away from the group gathering place. The presentation place was miles away and there was no one to help setup. I quit the regional TCEA stuff all together.
I’m back and all in because of this group! Good job!
I think I’m finally figuring it out, but I still am not sure about one.
I ended up with a bunch of domains, which I probably should have already started getting rid of. I want most of them to point to the same places. I thought I could do it with the Office 365 DNS but it only partially did what I wanted.
I finally ended up doing it with my web hosting service which proves WHY I went back to them.
At one time, and now, my blogs were at blogs.kweaver.org
I’ve got to do a lot of link fixing, but, I just figured out how to move them. I might even do away to www.kweaver.us now. Who knows.
It was simple, I just went to the admin section of my Office365 account and added a CName record and it works immediately.
I’ve finally gotten complete fed up with the people who host kweaver.net and who have most of my domains because of their lack of ability to do any type of DNS service.
Sometime in the middle of the week, my kweaver.us domain is going to disappear, but you can still get to the blog at http://kweaver.typepad.com/
It shouldn’t be gone long.
Back in the day, I wanted to do some asp.net coding, which I did, and was pretty good at. Myhosting.com did a good job of hosting that, but I’m back to plain vanilla websites. So I have moved back to http://www.techark.com Family business, good uptime and good prices.
Also, they know what they are doing. Myhosting.com had some good people but they are gone and took the knowledge with them.
Was just reading an article about how wonderful a local school districts 1 to 1 computer program was in a tech journal. Then talked to a parent who has children in the school mentioned in the article.
Not only does his children not have the district issued laptop, but when the parents ask about them, they don’t get a response. How many other programs are based on similar lies?
One thing we have to do as teachers, is that we have to engage our learners. I don’t think that sending them off to watch a video does that.
Here’s why.
I’ve had to take a bunch of online courses with videos. I zone out on them unless they are really short and really dynamic. Even videos that show me how to do something I want to do. I usually end up fast forwarding to the part I don’t get and skipping the rest.
If I, an advanced learner who is dedicated to learning, zones out, why does our average un-invested learner do? Or worse yet, our limited English speaker (and listener do?) I bet they don’t even turn them on.
Even if you have them do it in the classroom, how does that substitute for a teacher who cares about them in their face?
The answer is to reduce class sizes and get more teachers in the classroom who care. Oh yeah, that’s a problem too.