M.A. Hochberg’s Technology for Teaching

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?

I’ve always played classic music when the students are doing their typing lessons. After talking with our music teacher, Chris Dobson, recently, I’ve replaced the general classical music with Bach and Vivaldi.

Looking at some of the research, it is amazing how much music affects our ability to learn and remember. Check out any of Oliver Sack’s books, especially “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat.”

With all the changes in our classroom configurations, we created new room folders on the school server. It certainly made it easier to get folders for everyone but…..

you also have to change the permissions for the new classroom folder so students can save their work in their folders. Here’s what to do:

1. Connect to the server and open the Rooms folder.
2. Select one of the classroom folders (i.e., mlrm20).
3. Press Command-I to see the Ownership and Permissions.
4. In the Owner field, after “4jNET\” type the user name that students use to log in (i.e., mlrm20).
5. Click on “Apply to enclosed items.”
6. Repeat for each class folder that is having problems.

Thanks to Peggy for teaching me this—and thank goodness it was only one class that couldn’t save their work!