Author: kathleen

Yes, I have a Chumby, http://www.chumby.com — did you expect anything less? Well, I actually have two and one on the way.

They have a mother’s special going on — will probably go away or become a father’s day special and I bought one which arrived last week.  It solves the clock problem in the living room, but still doesn’t solve the really dark pixels on the one in my bedroom.

I was really disappointed when the pixels started going dark and dummy me didn’t look at the warranty until it was too late. I would have replaced the first one long ago, if they had given me any sort of price break and so with the Mother’s day, I jumped for it.

So I bought another one, and it’s on its way.  I think the wireless radio is starting to fail on the original one. Considering it’s been on and working for quite a while — I got one of the first, I don’t feel too bad about replacing it and it will give me one to play with.   I’m just about ready to ditch the clock radio.

I also got back into Chumby development and starting to program in Flash.  I figured out last night, with the help of a person on the forum, that the graphics front end of Flash scares me and makes all my logical fly out of my brain.  Now that I understand that, it’s going better.

I now have my Chumby in the living room programmed so that at 10:00 pm it tells me to go to bed, and stops that behavior at 12:00 pm Wrote a little flash widget that displays "Go to Bed" text.

I have it working in CS3 but haven’t tried it again in CS4.

And this is freaky — the Chumby people even accepted it as a Widget!

One of my jobs, both as Campus Tech and as being one of the teachers in my district with long seniority is to teach technology classes.

Plus I get to take a ton.

When I organize a technology training, but it for non-CS teachers or for CS teachers, I focus on what the tool I am teaching will do for the teacher in the classroom.  I like for my training students to come away with a project that they have done and they can go back and think about it.

I try hard to keep my talking to the group to a minimum.  I’ll introduce what we are going to do, do a short demo and then walk around the room and help people do their own projects.  I also try to break things into as small as things as possible. Typical organize is:

• Introduce the topic in the morning.
• Demo 1
• Hands on activity
• Reflection time as a group
• Demo
• Hands on activity
• Reflection time as a group.

I try to get the group together to share what they have learned, what problems they had, etc.  I’ll often remember what I helped someone with and ask them what they learned from the experience.

I find when I’m in the classroom and it is organized that way, I learn more. I figure my brain works the same.

I don’t get to twitter as much as I would like to.  As a result, I’ve come up with some ways to organize Twitter so I can use it to the max.

During the school day, I’m supposed to be teaching, but since I’m project based, there is a 10-15 minute Window while students are organizing their work.  I use that to grade previous classes but sometimes I’m caught up on that too.

There is a key core of Twitters that I have been keeping up for a long time, they include @alfredtwo and a couple of other teachers.  They don’t twit a lot but when they do, they give me really good ideas.  I have them set up for device updates and get them as text messages.  I also keep a couple of news feeds set up the same way.

If I do want to twitter, I have to use my own personal account — I do that when I have TAKS hall duty, during my planning period if I have time, and during my tech period again if I have time.  I was using Twirl for that, but I’ve installed OutTwit.  One of the reasons I’m liking it, is again I can keep important Twitters in seperate folders and just check those.

In the past, I would look up them up individually using Twirl or using the website.  This seems like it will be more efficient.

By the way, have I said lately how much I love Twitter and the ideas I get from it?

Question to CDC: Who is going to feed and supervise students now that you have shut down the only means to do so?

Seriously. 

First, before I say any more, my mother’s family was HUGELY affected by the flu epidemic of 1918 and as a result, I’ve gotten every vaccination known to man, and every flu shot.  I’ll be lining up as soon as this one is available and I’m always at the doctor’s office the first week the flu shot is available.  Especially since everyone thinks its okay that their children cough and sneeze on me.

If there was a guarantee that we could contain the flu by shutting down schools, I might be all for it — though we should at least be able to feed the free and reduced lunch babies.

And in the same breath that the news media was recommending that the children be kept apart, the local news media was showing parents who were considering pooling their child care resources. Hey, I thought the point was to seperate the kids as much as possible.  <sigh>

Thankfully we have one case in my district and have only shut down 1 out of 283 schools.  Though I keep expecting the superintendent to shut down early to save money.

Alfred Thompson asked about PreAP Computer Science on Twitter.

I have been teaching PreAP Computer Science for a long time, I think we started a few years before C++ was on the AP Computer Science Exam.

We spend the first two six weeks making sure that students have a basic understanding of computers and how to use them.  I make sure that students know the components of a computer science, can go to a store and figure out what they want to buy and make sure they know how to use all the basic tools, include word processing, spreadsheets, and powerpoint.  I also make sure they can use the internet for research.

We also spend time with planning and flowcharting. I have been using Raptor to introduce programming for several years now.  Then we move onto the AP language.  I like to get through basic file handling and through arrays as those are the two topics that seem to make or break programming students.

I’ve been working on converting old computers into digital photo frames. Several of my co-workers have dubbed the project, “Student Work Kiosk”

This is the oldest computer and the simpliest:

It’s an old Compaq Preserio, runs Windows ME, and has no network card.  I do have a couple of USB devices I could use for networking, but why bother? Plugging this puppy in is against district rules.  The lowest row of keyboard keys no longer work.  The touchpad works fine, as does the display and the USB.  Personally, I think it serves a better purpose here than in a landfill, especially if it keeps me from buying a digital photo frame,

The plan:  I have it on a file cabinet facing the hall and will have it display things like my seating charts, my name, and other information students need coming into the room.   I am using TechSmith’s SnagIt to make the various items and outputing them at the same resolution as the screen.  This computer will probably also display student work. 

Right now, I’m loving being able to post things like “SERVER IS DOWN!”

It is a simple process to pull the thumb drive, put it into another computer, upload the files and plug it back in, especially since it’s near the door.

The next oldest computer:

This is a district issued laptop — given to us on the first distibution so it can be put on the school network. 

It has Windows XP, everthing works on it, and it’s extremely slow.  I’ve created a dummy student account for it, so I can add files to it as I go.

I’ve installed Tight VNC so I do not have to physically touch it to accomplish things with it.

I have installed VLC media player so that I can play movies on it.  When I am grading and I come across student work I like, I use TechSmith’s Camtasia to record the program.  I place the file in my Video directory of the Student Account and it will be picked up automatically.  I also decided after I took these pictures that the display is too small but since I have an extra LCD display, I’ll be putting that up there.

So this machine is truly a student work kiosk.  Again, I like this idea better than a digital photo frame, plus it displays vidoes and most don’t.  I also like the idea better than filling up either a landfill or my closet.

I have also done the same tasks with my old teacher workstation.

This is sitting on a file cabinet also.  Process and software identical to the laptop.

Server Kiosk:

The final Student Work Kiosk is our testing server, only though we use it for a few days each year, they want it up and running most of the time.  Probably so we don’t lose our IP address:

I also installed Tight VNC on this computer but since it is the testing server, I am only displaying screen shots.  I am using TechSmith’s Snagit to create the screen shots and I am saving them again. on the Novell server, on a dummy student account.  I am using the built-in Screen Saver “MyPhotos” to cycle through the screen shots, and use the Novell server to store the screen shots in.

So links to the software used:

Tight VNC is at http://www.tightvnc.com/ and is free and open source.

VLC Media Player is at http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ and is free and open source.

SnagIt for screen shots and Camstasia for movies are both at http://www.techsmith.com, available with educational discounts.

It probably isn’t more “green” then printing out student work, but computer programs, especially Windows applications, make no sense, printed out on paper.

It’s also a good way to repurpose old equipment — or in the case of the testing server — making it do something purposeful when it has to be up and running anyway. 

Making an image with SnagIt for the still image Kiosks is an absolute piece of cake.

• Retrieve the resolution of your computer.  (Right click on any part of the screen, select Properties, go to the Settings tab and it is on the slider).
• Open your document, it can be created in Word, Excel, Publisher, doesn't matter as you are going to print your document to the SnagIt "printer".
• Print your document to the SnagIt printer.
• SnagIt editor automatically opens and then resize your image, keeping the aspect ratio so that it is no bigger than your screen resolution. 
• Save your image to your directory as either gif or jpg.  I've numbered my files and sometimes the kiost runs them in the order I want to run in.

Right now, I have duplicated all my "door" signs.  My class schedule, my tutoring hours, my seating charts, and my "no food or drink" signs are all scrolling through.

Best yet, if I have to make an emergency sign, maybe saying the Novell server is down, I can easier just move my normal signs to another directory and put the emergency sign up and it will display only that sign.

Making it flash would be easy too, because you could change the color of your background.

An additional idea is to work with your campus art teacher(s).  In fact, I was just approached by our art teacher to do some work with me on animations next year.

Quoted from http://www.google.com/reader/view/#stream/feed%2Fhttp%3A%2F%2Fblogs.msdn.com%2Falfredth%2Frss.xml:

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They are used to very high level graphics. Often when we talk about helping them to create games they get disappointed with what results they get. This leads to boredom and frustration and students leaving the program.

I’m a big proponent of getting them hooked with cool user interfaces and cool graphics.  It’s why I love languages like Visual Basic and C#.  I know you can do Java that way but it is SUCH a pain in the rear and it is so easy with VB and C#.

Still REALLY wishing I was there!  Next year!

TAKS Testing sucks.  We have to shut down the whole building for the majority of the day.  This year, the state is finally letting us do it right, and letting the babies who are not testing sleep in.

Some of our babies can’t stay home — and after their behavior I wouldn’t let them stay home either — but that’s another story.

So as teachers, we have a lot of different jobs to do this week.  Some of us are monitoring tests — something as a diabetic I can’t do well.  First, my medical equipment beeps and on really bad days, lets off sirens.  Second, the stress is hard on my blood sugar.  I always end up having a bad diabetes day.  Some of us relieve the monitors, and they were able to pair us up this time, so again, that’s hard on me and the kids.

Other duties include supervising the students who aren’t testing.  That wasn’t a bad gig yesterday, we’ve got the 9th graders in the auditorium and either the 10th graders or 11th graders in the boys gym. They scheduled a large group of teachers for both gigs and we were able to alternate every hour.

Right now, I have my favorite duty — hall monitor.  My job is to sit in one spot and make sure no student goes by me.  It also seems my job is to remember which administrator went through and which direction they went.  I’m not real good at that as they move around a lot.

We’re only on day two but it seems to be going well.  And we were told that our security couldn’t have been better during the last time of testing.