Technology and CS in Dallas

Author: kathleen

  • Price Comparisons

    One of the reasons I am not sold on the Mac Mini is the price.  Right at $800 after VGA cable and Apple Care.  Okay, I rarely buy extended warranties so that might not be fair.  I need to see what I get with it.

    Recently have been playing with a Lenovo Laptop which was priced right at $450.  For my $450, I got 4 meg of memory, a 64 bit operating system, 260 hard drive, a keyboard AND a display.  A wide screen display, but yeah, I can't use that display for anything else.

    It came with some software not a lot.

    However, the MacMini comes with:

    • iTunes — whole business model I dislike
    • iPhoto (most cameras these days do that)
    • iMovie (which is above the equivalent of the various versions of Movie Maker
    • Garage Band
    • Time Machine
    • Front Row (which I think plays trailers)
    • iDVD
    • chess

    Everything else is pretty comparable between the two.

    By the way, as an internet device, the Mac Mini works very well, but the old Mac Mini's still do that too.

     

     

     

  • VGA Annoyances

    To get the Mac Mini to work in VGA mode, you have to have only the VGA cable plugged in and your monitor in VGA mode (this is a Not a monitor but a TV).  Samsung, small LCD screen that does HDTV, HDMI and other fun stuff), worked great out of the box in HDMI mode, but then have to replug cables, never my favorite.

    It gave me horrible default resolution but after tweaking a bit I got it to work.

    Have to try it with a projector next, since that would be the main reason for keeping it.

  • Email

    Email, calendar, etc was a no brainer, opened up the post card thing, entered my email address and password and within moments had my email, calendar, tasks, etc. on the machine.

    Still like Outlook 2010 better.

     

  • Playing with a MacMini

    So far, the whole Mac experience has been interesting.  I went by the Apple Store after I finished with camp, and left about 10 minutes later with a Mac Mini, a converter to VGA, which I haven't gotten to work but didn't spend a lot of time at it, and stickers on everything.

    Not entirely convinced it is something I want or need, but I may very well keep it.  I'm doing a presentation on Saturday for the Apple Corps: http://acd.us/emailblast_august14.html

    Haven't seen the receipt yet in my email, hope the sales guy got it right.  I guess as long as it is in their system.

    I'm making some movies on it and getting familiar with the whole setup so I am ready for the presentation.

    Oh, the presentation — Camtasia for the Mac which is similar but not the same for the PC.

    FYI:  Love @Camtasia not sure about @macmini

     

  • Recruiting

    I’ll say I did a pretty good job recruiting, I’ve doubled my student load. 

    Here’s how:

    • Early Start camp – this is an opportunity we’ve been doing for two years now.  We bring in ninth graders and expose them to their core curriculum and to electives.  Since I don’t teach 9th graders, this is a way to put the thought in their head early.
    • School web designer – I’m the school web designer – see http://www.hillcresthsdallas.org – actually wrote the website in Visual Basic, which I don’t teach but show.  I have a huge number of students taken web design this year.
    • Teaching web design – I have three sections of web design and they are full – that’s an opportunity to recruit for CS.
    • Attend every open house, etc.  I attended every open house I could last year.  AP Open House, etc. 

    The biggest thing is to be out there so students meet you.  Also teach cool stuff in your classes so that friends want to try it.

  • Getting Ready to go back to School

    Today is the first day of Office Depot’s discount for our area so I plan to go by and stock my classroom. 

    I am good when it comes to my favorites:  paper and white erase stuff. 

    So my plan is to get the following:

    • Pens – regular gel pens are my favorite in colors
    • Sharpies – especially silver and gold for writing on black things
    • Dry Erase Markers and Pens
    • Glossy paper for the color laser printer.  I am thinking of making signs with objectives with those.   That kind of paper would be nice for a word wall too, since the administrators seem to think that is necessary.
    • CDs
    • DVDs

    Not sure what else, will see when I get there.

  • Computer Science solves problems

    We’ve traditionally mailed out a summer packet before school starts.  I think this year’s is about 20 pages.

    In the past, this was printed and mailed out to all the families.

    This year, it’s been posted to the school website and available electronically.

    Saving paper, saving mailing (sorry post office), saving a parent from spending at least a day getting the physical part done.

    Wonder how many copies don’t get there, get lost and don’t get used?  Probably as many electronically but we saved a parent a day, a ton of paper, and energy.

  • Early Start progress

    We’re in Day 2, and we still have twice as many kids as we did last year.  They are VERY cool kids.

    I started with Alice (www.Alice.org) and had the kiddos do the 4 tutorials.  Some finished yesterday.

    Today I started out by showing the school website, especially calendar and how to find it (we’re the second hit on a Bing search using Hillcrest High School Dallas and 3rd on a google search).

    After the tutorials, I have them look at the same worlds and then let them loose to explore.

    Tomorrow, I’m going to show them how they can do a web page in Word, Powerpoint and then show them Dreamweaver.  Then I’m going to cut them loose and see what they come up with.

    Last day, movies.

    The other elective teacher and I are swapping kids next week.

    The beauty of my “curriculum” is that I can go with the flow, give them a taste of my courses, and a feel for how I teach – basically give them a set of assignments and let them go.

  • No longer Campus Tech

    Probably the responsibility that has driven me the craziest.  Yes, I freely admit that.

    It involved making sure that reports of down equipment were entered, including phones.  Involved making sure dead equipment was removed.  Make sure Novell passwords were reset, etc.  Also responsible for online testing, required surveys, etc. 

    It was a lot like herding cats.

    I’m still responsible for the school website, that was a volunteer aspect of it.

    Losing some of the abilities is going to be worrisome – people needed me.  Plus anything that was needed for my classroom was done immediately.  Especially things like Novell passwords, etc.

    Oh, and they haven’t filled the job for my replacement.

    It will be nice to be a teacher again.  I’ve been teacher tech for the majority of the 18 years at my school, and backup for the real teacher tech when I wasn’t.

    Oh, and losing the $1000 a semester isn’t good.

  • Early Start started

    I think we have twice as many kids already than we did on our biggest day last year.  Over 40!  The building is hot – when people ask me about the A/C, I point to a window unit on the floor, and we are all punting.  I’m in my room, which is relatively cool since it has a window unit.

    Relative, mind you.

    We’re doing Alice, and I’m having them go through the Alice tutorial.  Which I am doing too, though slowly.