Author: kathleen

But having a bit of trouble uploading to Screencast and don’t have time to deal with it right now.

Probably going to use my anniversary money towards a Windows 8 Tablet, depends on their feel.  Will be going by Best Buy Friday evening.

Here's an image of my Start Screen from SnagIt. Love SnagIt and it works well.

I live Live Writer and it’s my favorite way to blog.  I actually was able to download Live Essentials and install them on my Windows 8 Machine.  The only thing I haven’t figure out how to do is to have more than one app showing on the screen at the time, but it may be due to the screen resolution.

I have my beta version of Wheel of Wealth, KeepPass and Filezilla installed and can get to my email accounts.

One of my absolute favorite machines is a Lenovo X61.  Unfortunately it's aging.  I think I have had it for 5 years.

I just put Windows 8 on it and it's running decently.  A lot of features aren't working, but they don't work in Windows 7 either.

I'll have to see if Lenovo is doing any drivers for any of the buttons.

I'll let you know what I think of Windows 8 as I go.

Something I had seen but hadn’t really done anything with in recent years until the IBM summer camp.  They had the students download the VMPlayer and do all their development there, in an Ubuntu box, which was brilliant.  Even more brilliant to is set up the machine in advance, that way you don’t have configuration problems – an issue I had at an SMU workshop on developing Android apps.

The cool part for me, is that I can almost duplicate the computers at school so that when I make videos at home, the computer looks more like the lab computers.  Not quite as confusing for the students.

VMPlayer is free.  At http://www.vmware.com/products/player/  I did break down and by the educational version of VMWare Workstation.

Oh yes, you can play with Windows 8 now without breaking your PC.

Another thing I like it for is software development.  You can set up and save your whole development system for a project on a virtual machine and then put it on a USB drive and carry it around.  Wouldn’t put it on the cloud,but they do have servers for that.  Download time is a bit slow.

Depends

On the student and on the teacher.

I have had students come through my AP Computer Science program, pass the test, major in computer science and do really well.

I have had more not do as well.

I keep up with the local colleges and I keep up with the training as much as possible. I have even graded.

My kids don't pay full price for the exams and they get an incentive for passing, as do I. So they personally are not impacted by the costs. 

I do recommend that they use the CS credit as elective and as an opportunity to be ahead of their classmates. Being in the introductory class of the major is invaluable and gets you contacts. However, having spent two years with me gives them an edge and
it should be an easy A an and opportunity to make tutoring money.

That's how I got through and ahead of college. If you are the kid that knows the answers and does well, you are first in mind for part time jobs, internships and other cool opportunities which has happened for me and my former students.

So I say take the class, most high school CS programs are AP driven but only take the test if you can afford it.

Sent from my Windows Phone

Really?

Do we really have time for that?

One thing I’ve really liked about my administrators over the years, is that we don’t let clothing or hair, or earrings get in the way of the educational process.

We reverse t-shirts, we put sweat pants on people, whatever it takes to get a distraction covered so we can get on with the school day.  We put ban-daids over earrings, we have the school nurse take them out, we find a way to deal with them (don’t look at me while it’s in your face is one of my favorite expressions, and don’t ask to go anywhere, especially the restroom.).

I dare say I’ve seen every single possible hair style and every possible hair color, from bald, to fades, to patterns, to braids, to elaborate braids, from white to black, to purple, pink, green, and multiple colors.

I’ve ever seen a couple relatives of Cousin It (all hair).

WHO CARES!

Get that child in a chair and learning something.

One of the reasons I haven’t been active on the internet is that this is the most hectic school year I have had in a while.

My students are also at the lowest level I have seen in a while.

Posted with BloghuB for Windows Phone 7

You’d think so, wouldn’t you.  For a year, I watched someone who was an experienced middle school math teacher teach computer science.  He had a degree in Computer Science and I think he went through the alternative certification route.

He wasn’t a good teacher.  On his good days, he might have been equal to my bad days, my first year.  Maybe.  I always thought I was being generous.  However, he spent too much time talking and not enough time letting students do.  The mistake that most teachers make in a computer lab.  His classroom management technique was to pick on the whitest kid on the class and make the rest of the kids think they were next.

I might go too far the other way.  I think students stay engaged longer, if you talk less and let them work more.  I tend to let them stay in their holes too long.  I need to work on getting them to ask for help.

By the way, the reason he wasn’t teaching middle school math – he wasn’t very good at it – and he left teaching after trying computer science.

I certainly wish I had the breadth of knowledge in the field a CS degree would give me. If I had the CS degree, though, I don’t think I’d teach. I think I’d be working in industry. The money’s certainly better. And this is the argument made by many about why there aren’t more CS grads teaching CS at the K-12 level.

via www.geekymomblog.com