M.A. Hochberg’s Technology for Teaching

I just discovered the Internatioal Reading Association’s Student Materials webpage.

http://readwritethink.org/student_mat/index.asp 

They even have several lesson plans to go with each activity.

Once you click on an activity, it brings you to the teacher page which has more information as well as the lesson plans. The student link is also on that page.

There is a range activities for those in Kindergarten all the way up to grade 12.

ABC Match is a simple picture/letter memory game. It can be played, either timed or untimed.

There is a 5 paragraph essay map maker as well as a CD/DVD booklet and cover maker.

Check them out for yourself!

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.

I almost put the word “calibrate” in the title of this post. It is the correct term but it sounds so intimidating. Calibrating sounds precise and technical and that you need special tools and expertise to do it.

In this case, all it means is charging your laptop battery, letting it rest, draining it, etc. To keep your battery in good shape and extend its life, you should calibrate it every six months or so.

Here is a simple explanation of what to do. It’s from one of my favorite newsletters, Small Dog Electronics.

How to Calibrate Your MacBook or MacBook Pro Battery
By Dawn@smalldog.com

PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD), MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Pro (17-inch)

With these computers, follow these steps to calibrate your battery:

1. Plug in the power adapter and fully charge your PowerBook’s battery until the light ring or LED on the power adapter plug changes to green and the onscreen meter in the menu bar indicates that the battery is fully charged.

2. Allow the battery to rest in the fully charged state for at least two hours. You may use your computer during this time as long as the adapter is plugged in.

3. Disconnect the power adapter with the computer still on and start running the computer off battery power. You may use your computer during this time. When your battery gets low, you will see the low battery warning dialog on the screen.

4. Continue to keep your computer on until it goes to sleep. Save all your work and close all applications when the battery gets very low, before the computer goes to sleep.

5. Turn off the computer or allow it to sleep for five hours or more.

6. Connect the power adapter and leave it connected until the battery is fully charged again.

Tip: When the battery reaches “empty,” the computer is forced into sleep mode. The battery actually keeps back a reserve beyond “empty,” to maintain the computer in sleep for a period of time. Once the battery is truly exhausted, the computer is forced to shut down. At this point, with the safe sleep function introduced in the PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD) computers, the computer’s memory contents have been saved to the hard drive. When power is restored, the computer returns itself to its pre-sleep state using the safe sleep image on the hard drive.

From Apple’s Knowledge Base article #86284:
http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86284

Some projectors, such as certain Hitachi models, let you know when it is time to clean the air filter.

Others projectors, such as certain Epson models, simply tell you that it is overheating and past time to clean the air filter.

While projector manuals say to clean the filter after every 100 hours of use, it’s a good idea to check it every month, especially if your room gets dusty or if you have an outside door or keep your windows open.

How you clean the filter varies with each projector but the basic principals are the same.
1.    Turn off the projector and let it cool down.
2.    When cool, unplug the power cord.
3.    Find the filter. It is usually on the side or bottom of the projector. It looks like a thin, flat sponge, usually covered by a plastic grid.
4.    Remove the filter. On Epson projectors, the grid is attached to the filter. On other projectors, the filter and grid are separate pieces.
5.    Clean the filter by either vacuuming it or washing it under running water. If you wash it, let it dry thoroughly.
6.    Before replacing the filter, look inside the opening when the filter was. If it is dusty, vacuum it out also.
7.    Replace the filter. Plug in the power cord and you are done.

Let’s keep it simple. Here is a sample screen.

Skitch, a public beta release from the same company that produced Comic Life, is quick and easy to use.
Capture the screen immediately, use a countdown timer, or even use your webcam. Once the image is caught, you can draw or type on it, erase your mistakes, and quickly drag it into an email. It automatically saves your work & even has a history function.

http://skitch.com/

David, thanks for telling me about it!

Nothing is so frustrating as having trouble installing a program that you have used for many years. It took four tries to get Kid Pix installed recently. The reason? The hard drive had a blank space and a / in its name. The program was looking for a subdirectory called “blank space.”

Some programs warn you about naming conventions. For example, the current version of Apple’s Print Center warns you that some printers have problems with spaces in print queue names. Most, however, do not.

When naming things on a computer:

• Use a name that will help you to find it again
• Keep the name as short as is comfortable for you. While your computer may allow very long file names, you will run into problems with communicating with another computer or sending a file in email. 36 numbers, letters, and spaces is about as long as you want to use.
• Use numbers, letters, and underscores to name a file. Most modern computers do not have a problem with spaces in a name but that is not true of everything, including printers, scanners, external hard drives, etc.
• Don’t use special characters such as ?, /.|,\, “, -, *. Yes, some computers do well with them. The problem occurs when communicating with another person, computer, or machine.

Follow these naming rules and you will have much less trouble with your computer.

Most of the time, it doesn’t take a long time to replace a computer. Most of it depends on the difference in age between their old computer and the new one. Going from OS 10.2 to 10.4 isn’t much of a problem. Going from XP to Vista has some quirks. But sometimes there is a big enough change that everything has to be reinstalled, tested, upgraded, and tested again.

With so many computers and so many different versions of the operating system, I use a lot of checklists to keep track of what I have to do. The current upgrade to Intel MacBooks and the Leopard operating system, the list to make new golden image for teacher’s laptops was huge. Take a look.

New System Checklist

Start up & register w/Apple
Fully charge battery
Rest in charged state 2 hours
Fully drain battery
Rest in discharged state 5 hours
Recharge battery & reset Power Option
Computer Name
Register device w/downtown & cow wireless
Turn Bluetooth off
Set proxys for Airport & Ethernet
Set time to ntp.lane.edu
Add Screen Resolution icon
ARD settings
Set up printers
Adjust Finder settings
Adjust Safari settings
Anti-virus
Install Firefox
Remove trial software
Adobe Shockwave
Adobe Flash Player
Adobe Reader
Flip for Mac
iWork
Real Player
Smartboard Software
Stuffit
Install Oaks
Kid Pix
Kidspiration
ATRT
Math Facts
Accelerated Reader
Read Naturally
Comic Life
MS Office Update
Add Servers to Dock
Clean up Dock
Open all programs in each account
Apple Software update
Create Master Image
Transfer files from old system

In addition, with a new operating system, there were lots of glitches, false starts, and waiting for companies to update their software. For example, the software to run the Smartboards with Leopard was not available until early January.

Thank goodness this doesn’t happen too often! Once the master image is created, I can skip most of the steps above.

When it comes to portability, laptops are unequaled. Unfortunately, they have quite a few drawbacks. One major drawback is how fragile they are and the lighter and thinner they are, the more fragile they are. Here is a new report on damage to MacBooks.

~~~
Portable Mac Damage
By Jon, jon@smalldog.com

Portable computers are lovely, but delicate. We see and service many machines with physical damage, and can often repair machines for literally $1000 less than Apple’s flat rate damage repairs; some of the most common damage we see is with pinched optical drive slots. This is caused when the user picks up his or her machine with one hand, gripping the computer tightly right where the drive slot is. This is probably the weakest area of the whole machine. The torque and force from lifting and holding the unit parallel to the floor is huge, and can result in a completely occluded slot.

This damage is not covered by Apple Care! For MacBooks, the entire bottom case must be replaced, as the bezel is not a separate part. This is quite labor-intensive, as all the guts of the machine must be transplanted from one housing to another. It’s often most cost- effective to use a flathead screwdriver to pry the slot open just enough, taking care not to damage the actual drive mechanism.

The moral of the story is simply this: portables are delicate and should be handled with two hands at all times.

~~~
Small Dog Electronics has several free news letters and I highly recommend them. You can subscribe at

http://www.smalldog.com/subscribe.html

If your MacBook or MacBookPro will not run using the battery, here are some steps to try:

1. Try this first.
   1. Turn off the power.
   2. Remove the battery.
   3. Remove the power adapter.
   4. Wait 30 seconds.
   5. Replace the battery and power adapter and restart the computer.
   6. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, move on to the next step.
2. Reset SMC
   1. Turn off the power.
   2. Remove the battery.
   3. Remove the power adapter.
   4. Hold down the power button for 5 seconds.
   5. Replace the battery and power adapter and restart the computer.
   6. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, move on to the next step.
3. Make sure that it is running OS 10.4.9 or later
   1. If not, run System Update and restart the computer.
   2. If it works, great. If it doesn’t, move on to the next step.
4. Make sure that Battery Update 1.2 is installed
   1. Go go the folder “System/Library/System Configuration”
   2. Click once on “Battery Update” and check the version number.
   3. If it is missing or has an older version, go to Apple.com and download & install it. http://www.apple.com/support/downloads/batteryupdate12.html
   4. If it is there, go to the next step.
5. Check the battery icon & power adapter
   1. If the adapter light is orange and the battery icon on the menu bar shows a jagged line in it, calibrate the battery. http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=86284
   2. If the adapter light is green and the battery icon is black with an X in it, the battery needs to be replaced. There is a special extended warranty replacement available. http://www.apple.com/support/macbook_macbookpro/batteryupdate/
6. While you are doing all this, don’t forget to check the battery itself. Press the button on the back of it to see how much, if any, power it has.