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I have heard from both my students who took the AP Test – the AB student made a 3 – I wanted him to take the A test but you know teenagers….
My A student made a 5. That’s consistent with the results I’ve been getting the last few years, I don’t get a lot of students, but they do well on the test.
Got an email yesterday morning that the ATT Home Manager was on sale for $99.99. SOLD! Seriously.
This is a system I’ve wanted since it came out, but $299.99 and $199.99 were just too expensive for what you get. And you get a lot. The base station, a frame and a handset. But $99.99 is definitely worth it.
It’s very easy to hook up. You take the base station and plug it into your network via ethernet, plug in a phone cable and the power.
Frame and handset are even easier. They each have a base that plugs in to the wall. It took a while for the frame and handset to see the system.
I also got an extra frame — and it was missing the March update but got updated in the night.
And an extra handset. You can add two more handsets so I am going to get them and completely replace my old system.
The frames are great — they are a beautiful photo frame — best resolution and quality we’ve seen. They also don’t sound like a speaker phone and at $49.99 a piece a good deal. However, you can only have two frames on the system.
The handsets are good too.
There some things lacking — until July 13th, you could sync your mobile phone contacts with the system but since it didn’t work with the iPhone, ATT is eliminating the service — that’s a major fail.
It needs a web browser and a configurable RSS reader.
I would LOVE for it to do twitter and that’s just a software thing. Same thing with Facebook.
But for a wireless phone system, it’s all good.
However, I haven’t actually done it with a participant and am hoping that the workshop I am going to next will embrace it, in fact I just asked them to.
What is it? Backchannelling. There is an article about it at http://pistachioconsulting.com/twitter-presentations/ and I would like to find a way to do this with my students. I’ll need to look at our moodle site and see if there is a way we can this.
Here’s what I REALLY like to do at a workshop. I like for the presenter’s notes to be made available electronically and I like to put them in one-note and put my own notes along side. I find it make easier to pay attention and be focused.
I will often put a note on the screen for the person next to me and have even handed them my notebook for a response, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a “real” backchannel to discuss the goings on.
And yes when the talk is really bad, I’ll go do something else.
Found cardstore.com via the USPS site this morning in an effort to grow up. i know i have been a member of a card service before but did not use it, but i did this morning!
i felt the need to send thank you cards to the workshop organizers and my mother. later realized i needed to do the same for the lady who hired me for sujmmer camp.
i am not organized enough for sending cards. it means buying them, keeping them, writing on them, addressing the envelopes, putting stamps on them, and dropping them in the post office box.
this site does the whole chore for a fee and personalizes the cards. better yet people dont have to deal with my handwriting.
My phone — ATT Fuze
Twitter — to keep up with weather at home, what was going on etc. Also to post updates on both Facebook and twitter for family to know where I was at.
Email – to keep up with husband
(I don’t think he does Twitter or Facebook)
ATT Navigator – to find "stuff". Invaluable
My Zune
Kept me entertained on the road
Helped me sleep at night – played music
Could show off my dogs and things, especially the video.
My computer – IBM Thinkpad
Kept me sane during the boring parts of the workshop.
Also all of the above on the phone.
Camera – Kodak Easy Share
Took lots of pictures.
Things I wish I had
Charger for my tweaker speakers.
Things I didn’t need
Emergency power for CPA (but that’s the point, and in truck you can’t over pack)
Second computer – but didn’t know that and there were times I used it.
Flip Camera
The bolded stuff is going next week, when I am flying and you CAN over pack.
If you ever get a chance to go to a Tapestry Workshop by the University of Virginia, GO!
I’ll warn you ahead of time, it is primarily a lecture workshop. I wasn’t prepared for that, but it was okay.
Most of the presentations were good and either validated what I knew or I gained new knowledge. Everyone made me think about how I teach and what I teach.
There is LOTS of walking. Both knees are really bothering me now. The UVA is not really accessible. They are trying, but it’s a tough place to do it.
The food was out of this world. The dining hall was a bit teenager / college student oriented, but that’s there job. The university catering service is out of this world. We had a different type of meal each time we ate their food. The biggest surprise was getting our honorarium there when we returned our dorm keys..
Information for this years workshop is at http://www.cs.virginia.edu/tapestry/
There are several problems with Computer Science teachers
We know we are the smartest person in the room.
We are competitive
We have massive egos.
Over the years, I used to really stress out over teacher workshops because they would have us do stuff in groups and it would never work out very well.
So here’s how I deal with it now. I try to contribute with the group, but if the other people shut me out, I just quit and walk away.
It’s REALLY cut down on the stress for this workshop and the previous ones.
I love Twitter and I love Outlook. As a result when I heard about TwInBox, I knew I would like it. TwInBox is free and written by a company called TechHit. The TwInBox website is at http://www.techhit.com/TwInbox/
Here’s why I love it.
TwInBox lets you treat Twitters just like an email. You can read them, search them, delete them, file them, etc. just like any email. You can also do searchs on topics or usernames and have them filed automatically.
You can also do something else really cool if you have OneNote — you can send your Tweets to OneNote. Why? So you can go back and refer to the Twitter later. And yes, I do that.
By the way, they also have a pay Outlook application I like called SimplyFile.
I have been reading several of the blog posts on teaching Computer Science Education and want to chime in.
I have a Master’s Degree from the University of North Texas called Computer Education and Cognitive Studies. I worked towards this degree for a long time.
I got my teaching certificate while doing course work at Texas Woman’s University which is down the road. I only had to take one CS class while doing that — and it didn’t have anything to do with teaching. I did have to take several math courses which DID help me towards teaching both math and computer science (and I am certified in both).
When my district transitioned out of teaching computer math and into computer science, we brought in a professor from UNT who designed a course for us which was a CS pedagogy course. I think I’ve blogged about it before, but as a group we developed the original scope and sequence for our computer science course and a lot of the lessons.
I’ve gone from that point and evolved our district course offerings from there — yes, I’ve been on every committee which has shaped our current curriculum and actually spent last year writing the current CS and PreAP CS curriculum. I will probably work more on the CS, and have asked for another person to work on the PreAP, hopefully she has time.
The master’s degree focused on just about all phases of CS education. While working on it, I earned my Tech Applications certification (we didn’t have a test at the time), so we worked on teaching things like web mastering, multimedia projects, but very little of that was directly applicable to Computer Science Education. However, whenever I was able to define my own projects, I did focus on CS. Found quite a bit of interesting research towards teaching CS, but there could certainly be more.
Another facet of my degree focused on online education and I’ve even taught CS online. It’s tough and it takes a very self-directed student, and those are hard to fine.
I think we should have more CS Education programs. I also think that if it not directly available, the programs can be found. I do believe UNT teaches the CECS program online — I did take two courses completely online and was very successful.
I’m heading to the Tapestry workshop on Wednesday (with many stops on the way) and have been doing a trial run of my technology.
(Don’t worry, dogs and husband and security system will all be at home, and the police are by our house about every 2 minutes as we are on their usual beat).
I’ve just checked the following:
Yeah, a bit excessive BUT it is a computer science workshop and I will be gone a while.