Hi Everyone,
I hope this finds you well or at
least winning the battle with these nasty colds! Here’s a snapshot of how
we’ve been using technology for teaching and learning in the past two weeks.
What’s working:
-
Yesterday I had a chance to sit in on Jen
Kulik's Applied Theatre class as they skyped with
Danial Maposa from Zimbabwe. He talked with the students about his work to
promote human rights and creative expression using applied theatre. The Protest
Arts International Festival is an example of the work they do in Zimbabwe (http://www.comminit.com/governance-africa/event/4th-protest-arts-international-festival-oct-25-27-2012)
and Daniel also mentioned the Drama for Life organization - both
inspiring, activist arts programs: http://www.dramaforlife.co.za/
-
The new document cameras are set
up in Fisken, Sprinkler and Feynman. They have some impressive and easy
to use features:
·
Use the dial on the
right of the camera to zoom and then push the round button on that hinge to
auto focus.
·
If you are using Smart
Notebook software you can automatically add an image using the document camera
by clicking on the little “document camera” icon at the top of the Smart
Notebook file… it pulls in a photo of whatever is in the document camera’s
field of view.
·
For teachers like Wynn
who might have students come in with SD cards full of photos… you can slide the
SD card into the little slot on the left of the Document Camera and then push
the button for SD card view(third button on the machine, below the image of the
laptop and the camera). This will let you pull images from the SD card
directly – could be useful for Yearbook.
·
Smart boards can now
used SMART Mixed Reality Tools – this little video gives you an idea of
how to use these cool new cubes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sYRVaPPmrM
What’s wonky:
-
We’re seeing a few
people reporting issues with opening files with Adobe Acrobat Reader – the
files do not open unless you specifically choose the Adobe Reader application.
It seems an Adobe update may have caused some problems with their own
software. If you’re seeing this problem please submit an email to helpdesk@northwestschool.org and
we’ll sort things out.
-
We’ve had a few issues
fall through the cracks – laptops left in carts with post-it notes explaining a
problem but no other communication sent. Please do submit an email
to helpdesk@northwestschool.org
if you are having a problem, or call the HELP (4357) number, or grab us in the
hallway, or whisper to us across the lunch table, or stick a post-it note on my
shoulder… you get the idea. Thank you in advance!
What you wish for:
- From the remote access/VPN logs we can see that almost 60% of
teachers use Macs at home….(myself included). Do you have any
requests for Macs (iPads etc) to use here at school? Please email me
so we get an idea of interest as we finish off budgets.
-
At students request, Stencyl
software will be installed on the computer lab machines so they can create
their own video games – we have a Game Design interest group
emerging! Check out this very cool little program that makes programming
fun and straightforward: http://www.stencyl.com/
or come join our interest group!
Wild card:
-
The NCCE
(Northwest Council for Computer Education) conference is happening February
26 – March 1 in Portland next year, we have money available to
send people to this inspiring and exciting conference. Please let me
know if you’re interested and we can organize a group trip. The program is
here: http://www.ncce.org/advance-program.html
Thanks so much for reading and I
hope you all have a wonderful holiday.
All the best,
Catherine
