M.A. Hochberg’s Technology for Teaching

Laptops that get handled as much as those in elementary schools do get a lot of grime and fingerprints. Most fingerprints will come off the screen with a soft, water dampened cloth. Dirt and grime, as well as crayon marks come off the outside with a damp Mr. Clean Stain Eraser.

The one thing that doesn’t come off, though, is clear tape. Ordinary clear “Scotch” tape can stick on there as solidly as a barnacle. It even shreds the Stain Eraser to bits.

While searching for something stronger than my fingernails, I found a hard plastic eraser. A white Staedtler Mars plastic eraser does a wonderful job of removing tape from a laptop without harming the case. With just a few strokes, it was all gone.

Yeah for clean laptops!

On the laptop:
When the light on the plug is green, the battery is full charged.
When the light on the plug is orange, the battery is being charged.
When the light on the plug is off, the batteries are not charging.
In a COW:
If all the laptops in a row of a COW show a green or orange light on the power plug, they are charged or charging.

If all the laptops in a row have no lights, they are not charging.

If only some of the laptops have a light and the others are dark, then the plug is not pushed in all the way. First check the plug going into the laptop. If that is tight, then check the power plug in the back of the laptop.

The lights on the battery itself
The lights on the bottom of the laptop shows approximately how much power the battery has.
4 lights = 100% charged
3 lights = 75% charged
2 lights = 50% charged
1 light = 25% charged
no lights = battery has no charge and must be plugged in.

Keep in mind that a “full charge” does not mean it will last 3 or 4 hours, especially if the battery is more than a year old. After 2 years, a “full charge” may only mean 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

Finally, how long a charge lasts has a lot to do with how many and which programs you are running. Word processing and programs that do not connect to either the Internet or network use less power than searching the web or working with graphics.