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This is something I’ve known as a teacher for a long time.  If students are not properly supervised, they will not use computers for educational purposes, but use them as time wasters.  Computers alone, do not teach students or reach them.

Digital Domain – Computers at Home – Educational Hope vs. Teenage Reality – NYTimes.com

I’ve been adverse to most of the 1-1 and non-teacher directed programs for a long time.  AND a lot of teachers are really bad a properly supervising.

You need a program like Lanschool to monitor the students and block sites, and you need a program like Deepfreeze to keep them from putting programs on the computers that you don’t want.

I’ve owned the domain click-l for years.  The purpose of it is to promote clicker training.  It’s a really good way to train dogs.

It started out as a mailing list, and when spamming made that impractical, I tried different forms until I hit Ning.  Now I have a completely love/hate relationship with Ning, and the new pricing plans don’t help.

Back in January, I decided to experiment with writing my own website again, and just found that it takes too much time and energy, especially when you are dealing with weird stuff at work.

So even with the new pricing plans, I am going to go back to Ning.

I decided to go ahead and set up the domain to go straight to the Ning network this weekend, as I am going to be a little tied up this week. 

So I asked myhosting tech support some questions, and I didn’t completely get the answers.  However, last night I got click-l.com to redirect correctly, then asked them to turn off the domain.  Well, myhosting turned off the whole domain, even the forwarding but I managed to actually read the directions correctly this time and get it set up.

Moral of the story:  take a deep breath and read the directions about 8 times.  My biggest problem is that I refuse to understand DNS stuff.

Last year was rough – by the way – the issue that made it rough came back to haunt me this week.  I needed more weeks than usual to get back into the computer science groove.  I think the workshop I took in June did as much as the year to turn me off.

BUT – the Hillcrest website has been updated – the faculty page was completely broken and the HTML/CSS courses this week helped me fix it and get it back up.  I had basically deleted some tags I needed, put them back in, and it’s back up.

And I’m looking for some good projects.  I still want to make PreAP more user friendly for students.

Actually NOT a big deal.  I actually usually keep my last phone around – just in case.  However, a few weeks ago (and I blogged about this), I picked up a ATT Pure at less than $40 plus a new sim card.

Had them laying around.

Worked out just fine.  Called ATT, and they turned off the old SIM.  Called Assurance Insurance, and for $50.00 they are sending me a new Tilt (hey, I have been paying for insurance FOR years, and have had two claims, not bad).

So sometime next week, I’ll have a new Tilt 2, will have to set up everything yet again the way I like it, and I’ll be good.

By the way, the Pure isn’t bad, especially if I am traveling light, but man or man, do I miss the keyboard on the Tilt2!

Good news — he didn't drone, he hasn't talked about Vietnam, his wife, his children, or his accent.

It is very hands on.

I'm taking Photoshop CS4: Web Design.

So far, pretty good course.  I really like the fact that we have a beginner in class and next to me, because she's doing stuff the kids would do.

I am stuck here all day though…..

Sort of literally.  This time it was at the park across the street when I was walking the dogs.  He graduated in 1997, and is doing HVAC and managing some properties.  He lives a few blocks away, and apparently got an award from the mayor because someone broke into his house.  Trust me, the guy picked the wrong house.

Very cool.

Love to run into old students and especially like to hear they are doing well.

Just came home from one of the best classes I’ve ever taken.  Come to find out, my instructor was out sick, so they let me take the course as a “mentored” learning course.

Really enjoyed it – it was Webdesign with XHTML, CSS, and other stuff, Level 2, and it filled in a lot of holes.  Everyone at New Horizons was very nice.

That’s hopeful, since I have another class this week, and several more coming up.

So I was between appointments and near an Apple Store.

Looked at an iPhone and can upgrade for the regular price.  It’s pretty, but I’m still not sure it’s something I want.  If I decide I want to give it a try, I’ll buy one at an ATT store, closer to the house so it’s easier to return.

I also looked at an iTouch.  They are really behind the Zune HD hardware/software wise.  Price is the same as the iPhone.   Not sure why anyone would want it.

Also looked at the iPad.  Yes, it’s pretty but since it doesn’t work with Flash, I think I’ll stick with the netbook, which I am using now. 

Here’s my issues with Mac products:

Expensive.

Don’t work with Flash – a big deal for me, being someone who writes stuff in Flash on rare occasion and since I like the Screencast/etc. over the other products.  Odd that they have YTube though, isn’t it?  Because isn’t that Flash driven?

Cost of development is hiring, face it, you can write software for the current devices for free, when you are talking Microsoft.

Interesting side trip.

When I exercise, I like to measure it.  That’s one reason I like my treadmill, even though we live in front of a big park.  However, one of my dogs is very overweight, and is out of shape, so I have been walking her.  My solution for walking her is a Windows App/Mobile website called Endomondo at http://www.endomondo.com/ 

It’s a very cool app.  You tell it what kind of exercise you want from the options – I’ll admit it took me a while to figure it out, and it posts your workouts on their website.  It was a free app, available through Microsoft Marketplace.

It works with Blackberry, iPhone, and Android along with Windows Mobile phone.

And as always these days, you can share with Facebook and Twitter.

It’s summer, and part of computer science for me is enjoying technology and how it works.  Example, my Zune player and purchasing music.  Sadly, an album I wanted isn’t available yet on the Zune.  But it’s an artist I really like (Bret MIchaels), don’t always like his music, but like how he handled himself on Celebrity Apprentice and he is raising money for Type 1 Diabetes, and doing that well.

Anyway, here’s the tech part.  I’ve got my Amazon MP3 downloader files linked directly to my Zune files, so when I buy music on Amazon, in about two minutes it downloads and is on my Zune, with a pretty much no-brainer.  I did click on the Sync Now button, so that it would get loaded faster.

On the other hand, downloading Audible books isn’t quite that easy and I wish it was.  I have to manually tell the Audible Download to download stuff and manually since it to the Zune, and have to get out of the Zune software and into the Audible software to do it.  Awkward.  Especially since I like to download the NY times audible digest daily.