twentytreetings

boosting laptop wifi reception wherever you are

2008-04-29T10:47:00.000-07:00

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIY-WIFI-Antenna-Reception-Booster/

For those of you who are even marginally mechanically inclined, I have put a link up that directs you to a variety of cheap and easy projects you can create to boost the wifi reception capabilities of your antenna for your laptop. If you are stuggling to pull in a weak signal, these easy to do projects can boost your reception exponentially. copy and paste the link above into your address window. Try it it's fun! They really work!

The Digital Divide/Challenges and Solutions

2008-04-29T10:23:00.000-07:00

In examining ways to reduce the digital divide for students who do not have computers at home, I believe the answers come down to individuals. I have received no end of responses from businesses that would be happy to donate older computers as they replace them with new ones. However, here is the catch. Microsoft and Apple have proprietary rights to both their system and productivity software, which is licensed to the individual who buys their computers and pays for this software. Legally, we could (or a company could) be held liable for piracy/theft by donating these old computers with this software on them. I believe I have found a solution to this problem. As older operating systems become unsupported by the computer giants who created them, they no longer care about the sharing of this software. It is outdated and cumbersome to use.

I think if individual teachers donate older computers to students, that have outdated operating systems and productivity suites, we could increase the number of students with computers at home. Be sure to erase all of your previous information/data, so that the student starts with a clean drive. If they intend to use the internet, it is important to let them know that in order to protect their computer, they will have to invest in a good anti-virus/spam software protection system like Trend microvirus. they would, of course, have to pony up for their own internet service, and dial up is awfully slow, but it still works, and can be found for only $10.00/month.
This would at least get them into the loop, even though it wouldn't be with the newest technology. If on in two teachers in St. Paul was able to donate an older computer to a student, we could increase the number of computers available to students at home by 2,000 computers. Many of our students have siblings at home, so our penetration of 'have not' households would increase even more. It's just a tought-but it comes down to you, as an individual, making a difference in a student's life; and bridging the digital divide.

Metromili Slideshare

2008-04-09T15:21:00.001-07:00

| View | Upload your own

RPC

2008-03-12T14:42:00.000-07:00

I think this is a great resource, but it needs some upgrading. I think the reminders are something that won't work for my students because half of them don't have computer access at home. I also think the rubric generator could be more robust. It is limited in scope. The research i do is usually shorter in nature than science or social studies; and I think I've finally (after ten years) refined the process to lead my students to great success. I personally won't use the RPC because of accessibility issues for my students, but I can see it as a useful tool for new teachers. What I REALLY like is the citation machine attached to the resource links page on the highland website. I have found this tool to be hugely helpful in citing resources. I think the kids will use it all through college.
bc

Widgets - the last thing i need

2008-03-12T14:39:00.000-07:00

The last thing I need is useless technology that takes up more of my time. Sorry, but this was not helpful information.

Streaming Video

2008-03-12T14:32:00.000-07:00

With all of the hours I've spent looking for video streaming that would benefit my LA instruction I can safely say there is precious little available anywhere online that is useful for my needs. I think if I were teaching either science or social studies, there would be a lot of good stuff I could use - but not for English.
bc

Public Library

2008-03-12T14:24:00.000-07:00

So far, this has been my most useful tool. I've always had a library card, but being able to access the catalogue online and order materials I'd like, i find this extremely efficient. I've used my library access more than anything else we've covered in this class. I always said-"If I learn one more thing that can save me time and effort in this class it will be worth it.

RSS feeds

2008-03-12T14:21:00.000-07:00

This is not something I can use. I have a large volume of bookmarks that allow me to find whatever I need-but i find that the more technology I use, the more time it all takes-and for teaching English, I don't find that it is something i will use.

Delicious

2008-03-12T14:17:00.001-07:00

Learning about delicious today was something I can actually use. I am working from three different computers, and this is a nice way to combine all of my bookmarks in one place. Now I just have to bookmark delicious on all three computers.
bc

Mind the Gap

2008-02-25T15:49:00.000-08:00

In the most recent issue of NEA Today, there is an article entitled, Mind the Gap, which is an article about the very discrepancy we've been discussing between our students who have computers and access to the internet, and those who don't. While the things we are learning in this class are applicable in the classroom, I can't help but think of the 50% of our students who are being left further behind each day as technology continues to develop. It makes me want to really focus on how we can get these resources to our students who are on the losing end of this explosion in technology. I have some ideas about how we could help/like donations of computers from businesses who are upgrading-but I have no idea where we could get funding to support 'wiring' our students throughout the city. Does anyone else see this as an increasing difficulty in educationg our students?

Complete Booklist for IB English now avaiable

2008-02-25T06:46:00.000-08:00

This post is for my colleagues at Highland and any other school in the district teaching IB English classes. We finally received a complete list of books and authors for IB English. It seems many schools were using books not apprved by the program, and were therefpre not in compliance. Highland has been in compliance, but we have been charged with the task of coming up with new curriculum to update our program and make it more accessible for the students. I will copy, and distribute these book lists so we can begin our discussion of changing books for the upcoming years.

Final Word on Accessing Blogger With Dial up

2008-02-25T06:40:00.000-08:00

I finally got an email from Mozilla regarding the issue of difficulty connecting to Blogger using the Firefox browser with a dial up connection. Mozilla DID design Firefox for MacIntosh computers, and it does not support dial up connectivity with many sites well, if used with a PC. They suggested using Explorer as a browser, as I discovered, if having these issues.

IB Training ELA Updates

2008-02-25T06:34:00.000-08:00

For anyone interested in IB training, or is thinking about implementing it in their schools, I just came back from level 2 training in New York, and have a great deal of materials that explain the various written and oral exams students need to do in their junior and senior years in high school. I'm not going to put the link for their page on this blog because it is very confusing and hard to navigate-but if you are interested in the information on testing outcomes I would be happy to share some materials with you.

battery problems with your laptop?

2008-02-02T19:13:00.000-08:00

Has anyone else noticed that battery life in your laptop goes from full to half after just a half hour? The bottom of my laptop also gets so hot I have to put a magazine under it so it won't burn my leg? Is this normal? Is there a problem with the heat sink? I know that is how the heat is dissipated instead of using a fan. Our ex-building tech sent me a page for uploading a battery check and a 'fix' for the problem, but it turned out to be a blind link to an inoperable page. Does anyone have a link that works?
bc

Are there any free wikis out there where we can uploand folders?

2008-02-02T18:55:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to create a wiki at PBwiki, but it appears yu can't upload folders, only create individual pages. Does anyone know of anything available to use where we can uploand entire folders for sharing? The PBwiki folks say that is coming soon-but will we have to pay for a premium service to take advantage of this? So far, this is not conducive to creating a shared cache of lesson plans. It seems we can still only upload one document to a page. Just to upload curriculum for one class, there would be well over 100 pages that would have to be uploaded separately. There has to be a better way. What have others found out?

District H.S. English wikki

2008-01-17T17:19:00.000-08:00

Now we're talking. This was the most useful piece we've done in class, as far as I'm concerned. They are still not as easy to use as bulletin boards, but they are simpler to set up. What they did with Central's English is exactly what I've been trying to do at Highland. Unfortunately, I'm not getting much buy in from the rest of the English Dept. What if we take things one step further? Why not create a wikki for the entire district for high school English that anyone who contributes can access? We would be able to select from a wide variety of lessons and units for all the literature we teach, including IB and AP. Why should we continually have to reinvent the wheel each year when we get assigned all new classes? The work has been done numerous times already. How handy would it be for all of us to access pre-written lesson plans, unit maps-and all aligned to the standards? Is there anyone out there who is interested in trying this? I think it would be powerful in so many ways-and it would help us all to standardize the high school curriculum as the district is pressing us to do. Who's with me?
b.c.

Online Resources for ELA

2007-12-29T07:47:00.000-08:00

I have been looking more thoroughly at the ELA resources in our resource links page. The pickings seem rather slim. I am having my 11th graders research an American poet as part of a multi-pronged poetry unit. They will have to analyze two poems from the author they choose, present to the class, and finally, there will be an opportunity for them to write their own poetry. However, in researching sites for information on American poets, I found six excellent sites that I have included in a document for my students to use. I will copy and paste them here for anyone interested in accessing the same information. These links are very complete, with direct links, in most cases, to complete works by each author.

http://famouspoetsandpoems.com/country/America/American_poets.html

http://www.americanpoems.com/

http://www.americanpoems.com/poets

http://www.poets.org/page.php/prmID/361

http://www.poetseers.org/the_great_poets/am

http://www.kyrene.org/schools/brisas/sunda/poets/poet.htm

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets.htm

I hope this helps others. Why recreate the wheel, when we can all share?
b.c.

ENOUGH!!!

2007-12-25T13:40:00.000-08:00

I will be out of town until New Years, so if I don't get back to blogging after that I hope others can use what I discovered with the different browsers and dial up connections.
b.c.
Peace

Definitive answer #1

2007-12-25T13:32:00.000-08:00

OK kiddies-here we go
In switching to the IE browser, I found page loads to be much quicker, and the pages loaded completely. So here we have the first part of our answer. When connecting using DIAL UP/use the IE browser for quicker and more problem free access to blogspot.

This still does not answer the question about whether or not Firefox was designed to be used with the Mac platform. I shall endeavor to find this out for all those out there who are restricted to dial up access. After all-if we want our students to be able to use this technology, we must be able to tell them how it will work best with dial up access.

The unfortunate thing, is that now, every time I need to access the district network, I have to go into my control panel and change my default browser to Firefox, because no other browser allows us remote access to the Campus server.

b.c.

See how I'm spending my Xmas?

2007-12-25T12:47:00.000-08:00

Here I am, trying to figure out something when I should be having Xmas dinner with my family. Never fear-I shall slay this dragon, and have a definitive answer to this conundrum (not the Xmas one). My next attempt at creating a blog will be using the IE browser instead of Firefox. I will let you know which is more dial up friendly in a short while.
b.

Firefox may be a major culprit

2007-12-25T12:40:00.000-08:00

I am going to try using internet explorer as a browser instead of Firefox to see if the dial up interface with bloglines is any better. I have had difficulty with Firefox on many other sites that worked smoothly with either the IE browser of the Netscape browser. I have two theories:
1. Firefox is designed for the Mac platform and doesn't interface well with the standadrd PC platform
2. Firefox has many redundant security features that render it all but useless with a dial up connection, using up all of the time to load a page with passing various security tests.

Someone else should already have an answer for this. Why am I trying to do this on my own, when I have more important things to deal with? Oh well.
b.

Poor workability with dial up and firefox

2007-12-25T12:27:00.000-08:00

Well, this page finally loaded, so now I'll go back and see if the previous one actually posted. This is a very mickey mouse way of doing things, and for the majority of my students who have dial up connections at home, I think using this way of posting information would be as frustrating and valueless for my students, as it is for me. Not everyone, including myself, can afford $60.00/month for high speed internet access, so blogger will work properly.
bc

Who else is experiencing this?

2007-12-25T12:15:00.001-08:00

I don't have the luxery of high speed internet at home. I don't know if you are aware of this-but blogspot doesn't work worth beans with firefox on a dial up connection. I can't even get any of my pages on blogger to completely load. It stops loading before finishing, so I don't know if what i blog is even getting posted.

2007-12-25T12:15:00.000-08:00

rubistar

2007-12-12T13:06:00.000-08:00

Rubistar rubric generator. Have used this to compare to my own. Don't like it-but now you can create your own rubrics based on their grid template. The big restriction is still that you can only create four rows of rubrics. Mine usually are 8-10 seperate criteria. Check it out. It may work for you.

library book checkout

2007-11-14T09:22:00.000-08:00

Today I learned how to check books out through the library system for spps. This should make tracking books easier, and especially collecting for damaged or missing books. Thanks Janet.

Moving forward in English

2007-11-14T03:54:00.000-08:00

Last week we counted books, got a list of who has what books in what rooms, and began creating an English folder for the senior high English Dept. for common assessments, lessons, etc. to help create more aligned curriculum. Hopefully, this will make things easier for new teachers like myself.

LA Dept. to put lessons on building server

2007-11-03T13:24:00.000-07:00

At last week's LA meeting we decided on a group PDP to formalize the course offerings at each grade level so as to standardize curriculum. The best part about it was that we agreed to put all of the materials on our building server so that any of the English teachers in the building could access lessons, vocabulary, tests, projects, etc. I hope this really takes hold. I think it would be an invaluable tool. It would provide us with multiple approaches to each piece of literature, and a framework from which everyone could work.

web page

2007-10-16T16:49:00.000-07:00

does anyone know if there is a way to make more dynamic pages on our web page for school?

also, how can i take my picture on the pc side of this laptop?

Let;s hope this sticks

2007-10-12T14:54:00.000-07:00

I have finally been able to reset my password to get back into my account and post new blogs. Let's hope this continues to hold true. Yesterday I met with the Prism staff at Highland to discuss the upcoming literary magazine. I began thinking about how the technology could be used to enhance the magazine submission process and promotons process. I'm hoping that Janet and I can use this to our advantage. Why can't we set up an email account just for submissions to the magazine? Only the staff would have access. We could even do it as a blog, list our guidelines and an email link for the submissions. I could put a link on my school web page for submissions of any work students would like to send. What do you all think?
brad

bulletin boards are far easier

2007-10-03T18:41:00.000-07:00

Is it just me-or is this a whole lot more work than creating a bulletin board? On a bulletin board we can all respond to each other's comments without having to log into another account. We can have an ongoing dialogue with as many people as we want as though we were sitting at a table talking. I still don't see the advantage to this if we are trying to make communication easier.

twentytreetings

2007-09-12T16:34:00.000-07:00

This blog is designed to allow for easy access to online resources for language arts. I am asking all of my colleagues to submit websites and resources for L.A. that are rich in information, dynamic in design and hopefully include some multimedia elements so we don't bore the kids.
brad