M.A. Hochberg’s Technology for Teaching

Making technology easier for people

Friday
11/30/2007

1:55 pm

Digital Cameras, easier but still not there for the average user

I set up 4 more digital cameras yesterday. These are Canon PowerShots A460. Better than the earlier models but they still are a bit confusing for the average user.

One particular annoyance was the size of the memory card that came with them—only 16 MB! Even when I shrink the default picture size, they will only hold 26 photos, which is not enough for most classes.

The next challenge will be getting the photos to a folder where the students can use them. Depending on the student’s age, teaching them how to retrieve a photo from one place on the server and save it on another can be confusing. Worse, iPhoto does let you change or choose the default storage location. That means the student’s photos are tied to a specific computer or they have to save them in iPhoto, & drag a copy to the file location. For most, it would be easier to drag it to the desktop, then to a folder.

The other, simpler option, is to let them do all their editing in MS Word. It has decent photo editing tools and the students can save the file where ever they want.

I wonder what kind of photo tools Pages has?

Friday
11/16/2007

2:07 pm

My Own Tech Bookmark Site

After setting up bookmark sites for the students & the staff, I finally set up one for myself. These are the links that I use most often when setting up a golden drive.  I’ll start moving in more links as I use them.

My new bookmark site is:

http://guest.portaportal.com/mlbvtech

Thursday
11/15/2007

11:10 am

Mac viruses finally arrived

I’ve been wondering when we would see our first Mac virus. It showed up last week. The funny thing is that the way we found it was by a Windows computer. There are a few Windows machines on site and the good news is that they spotted the Mac virus too.  That gave us the impetus to find out when the anti-virus the district ordered would arrive. It turns out that there are so many orders that the purchase has to go out to bid.

In the meantime, I borrowed a copy & cleaned both the source of the virus and my own laptop. The other computer was easy to do: 3 infections and all deleted easily.

Of course, mine wasn’t so easy to do: 7 infections and 4 of them could not be deleted by the program. I ended up deleting them manually.

Since the anti-virus the school district is purchasing only covers staff computers, not student or “public” computers, I’ve been thinking of installing a free anti-virus on them. Clam X is getting a lot of good public support.

http://www.clamxav.com/ 

For now, I may just scan the golden drives before I roll them out.

Thursday
11/08/2007

10:11 pm

Another free newsletter that is not just “For Dummies”

Okay, so I hate the name of the “for Dummies” book series. The trouble is I love the content. They are funny, smart, and written in easy-to-understand levels. You can read as much or as little of each section or book as you want and still learn a lot.

In addition to the books, they also have free “etips” on topics from computing to pet care. The newsletters are spam-free and include links to more tips.

One thing I like about this kind of newsletter is that I can read them if I have time or just delete them unread if I’m not interested or too busy today—a bit like the books themselves.
To learn more about the newsletters, go to
http://etips.dummies.com/optin.asp?sid=97YC6Z9F55VM5KT4R3TV&id=28

Saturday
11/03/2007

10:22 pm

Not YouTube—TeacherTube!

No wonder I couldn’t find many educational or training videos on YouTube! They’re all over here at TeacherTube!

http://www.teachertube.com/index.php