Chanatown

I've made it a goal to get more involved with lesson development using SMART Notebook with ETHS teachers that have the interactive whiteboards in their classroom. Several faculty members have taken me up on my offer to help plan, design, and implement Notebook lessons for their curriculum, and I'll be sharing our products here, though you can find all of the links with descriptions on  my website  or on  SMART Exchange . In Similar Polygons , we wanted to reinforce ratios and setting up proportions from word problems. I used the drag/drop capability to encourage students to see where the numbers were coming from when creating a proportion. We then used some of the measuring tools to discuss what makes two figures similar. Finally, we used drag/drop to label geometric figures and coupled with setting up proportions in traditional problems. For the lesson on Substitution , we had students drag values into variables, thus putting a hands-on approach to substitution. W...

Article first published as iPod Nano Accessory Review: HEX Vision Metal Watch Band on Blogcritics. HEX Vision in Gun Metal What may have started as a fleeting comment during a Steve Jobs keynote  has quickly expanded into a new industry. The iPod Nano watch market is filling up with many brands and styles ranging from a simple rubber strap to one with classic metal links. I had the chance to wrap the HEX Vision metal watch band around my wrist for the past few weeks, and I've found that I don't miss my regular watch much. Read on to find out why.

Article first published as Hardware Review: UClear HBC 130 Helmet Communicator on Blogcritics. It is generally not wise to listen to music nor talk on your mobile phone while biking, but let's face it, if one has a 3-hour, 50-mile ride, many bikers will don a pair of headphones or a bluetooth headset to allow for streaming media or short phone calls for the long journey. Sound quality can vary dramatically with headset microphones in general. Add the dynamic variable of Mother Nature into the mix and many headsets will be rendered useless when confronted with the elements. UClear has chosen to tackle this problem, and their military proven solution comes in the form of the HBC 130 Helmet Communicator . Read on past the jump to see how the device fared.