year two (the final one) of star grant begins
Actually, I am already almost six weeks into the year. Even though each day seems to creep by agonizingly slowly (some periods I can feel each second as it drags on), overall things seem to be flying by.
Here are my initial impressions of my star goodies… I really do like the macbook. I think I have maybe drunk the Apple kool-aid and am about ready to swear allegiance to the company. The largest issue so far is having to boot into widows to show the kids what we are doing in Excel. Boot camp and Windows XP are installed on the Mac and I am grateful for that, but it is a pain to have to switch over to the Windows side. I find myself longing to be back on the Mac side almost immediately after booting into Windows. I guess the upside is that the need to have Excel onscreen is a semi-rare occasion. Anyhoo… I have no other complaints about that piece of equipment. It frustrating to a certain degree of having to relearn how to do some things, but I am always amazed at how simple the tasks seem to be in Leopard.
The projector: I think that a projector is almost a necessity in my classroom each day. O.K., yes we could have class without it but I really really like having one. It would be nice for every classroom to have one.
chalkboard: So far I am under whelmed. This piece of technology seems really neat on the surface. In reality, I haven’t found a whole lot of use for it yet. I’m still looking and thinking about ways to use it more often.
Elmo: Maybe the sleeper surprise of the goodie bag. When I was told we would be getting one I understood the concept, but wasn’t foaming at the mouth for this piece of equipment. I got to use mine two days before it died (actually two one half days.) My Elmo is currently in New York according to UPS, the Elmo company can’t confirm this. I sincerely hope I get this piece of equipment back. The district (Karol? Sam Rayburn?) might want to think about some sort of plan for repair for these.
Almost daily now I find myself thinking “I could use the Elmo for this”, but of course it isn’t in my room at the time and even though Craig, and grudgingly my wife, have both offered me use of their Elmo the moments of use pass and I trudge on.
I’m guessing this is all of the equipment we’ll receive and it certainly is a decent list. Now we’re in the payback phase. I still like the idea of sock-puppet theatre and am planning on getting started with that soon.
September 27th, 2008 at 7:21 am
Ah yes, the sock puppets. I’m reading.
September 27th, 2008 at 10:54 am
What’s up with sock puppets LOL?
Have you thought about using google docs spreadsheet instead of booting into windows? If you are not using macros the basic stuff is there. You could actually create the original in excel if you are more comfortable and then upload it and have it sitting there ready to go.
There is a bit of a learning curve, but not too bad and google docs blog and the help pages have tons of documentation.
Good luck!
September 27th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
looking at making some short videos for technology instruction. thought the sock puppets might could add a bit of humor to the whole thing. I’ll send you a link when the first episode is ready.
I am fairly comfortable with Apple’s numbers (Excel semi-equivalent) software. The things I do with the kids require them to be using Excel and I would rather be able to show them a mirror image of what they were looking at on their screen.
September 28th, 2008 at 7:56 pm
ahh - understand on both counts. I like the sock puppets idea. Will anxiously await. It has to be better than what is on tv these days!
October 16th, 2008 at 6:31 am
Instead of sock puppets, we’re thinking of using Barbie dolls on a future BlueTube. We had one left in the studio from a piece we did last year. To make a long story short, one of the guys took possession of it along with some plastic ties and duck tape. I’m not sure if Barbie in Bondage would fly with the censors.
The only app I ever used in Parallels was PageMaker, and it was such a hassle I quit PageMaker entirely (PageMaker is a dead app anyway — Adobe has packaged it in a new high-priced toy). I’m content in my Mac only world, but, of course, I have the luxury of having students who reside in that world, too. My iMacs are showing age, however, resembling Windows senility. Technology doesn’t age well, despite brand names.