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Showing posts from September, 2012

Sponsored Post: The Impact of Instant Replay in Professional Sports

NFL Sunday is here again, this week with the replacement refs back at home and the real ones on the field. Although the official refs' calls will be the subject of much discussion throughout the day and a story on most highlight shows, another topic that will continue to pop up across all sports is the use of instant replay. In this guest post, we hear more from one fan's perspective of using instant replay.

Updated Google Drive for iOS Finally Brings Docs Editing to the iPad

Yes, I know that we were able to edit Google Docs through Safari, and the process was a bit better through the Chrome native app. However, during the first few weeks of our iPad cart rollouts, I have been hesitant in recommending Google Docs as the main word processing option, which is a huge shame since all of our students already have accounts and they have gotten used to using them in many of their other classes. With a Galaxy Nexus phone in tow for the past few months, I have had the luxury of using the Android app and desperately wondered why the developers could not bring a similar experience to the iPad. Well, Apple vs. Google battles aside, the day has come and I was so very excited to test the updated (9/10/12) app on my iPad this weekend.

Macbook Air - Waking From Sleep Issue Resolved

I purchased a 2012 Macbook Air over the summer, my first new personal computer pickup in quite some time.  I considered getting a shiny new Retina Pro, but the 15" form factor not to mention the steep $2K price tag got me back from the ledge, and I have been thoroughly enamored with the razor thin profile of the Airs from day one. There has been little buyer's remorse since, though I have noticed a few issues (battery life decrease, slow wakeup from sleep, and a potentially loose hinge), especially after installing the Mountain Lion upgrade. There are forum discussions for all of these topics, but the one that got resolved for me this past weekend was the slow wakeup from sleep. A review of the forum thread here  followed by a reset of the System Management Controller (SMC)  has allowed me to wake from sleep with a password without having to wait a few seconds. Anything to get this blazingly fast machine running even faster, right? For more thoughts on Teaching and Learning

Clicker Support and iPad Cart First Looks

Today, I visited two classroom teachers who have deployed iPad carts and it will be interesting to have us meet as a cohort (five carts in total) next week. Day-to-day maintenance and some introductions to using the tablet devices have varied, yet all has gone relatively smoothly thus far. Some early highlights include using a web clip to link to a teacher's website as well as our Google Apps login, and completing an intro survey Google Form on the iPad. We also realized that connecting the iPads after each class may be optional since syncing may not be necessary in between periods and the battery life of the iPad allows us to go for potentially several days without ever needing a cable. Solved By Searching: Turning Point Clickers I started out the day assisting with clickers and was able to fix a channel issue as well as automatically set Turning Point to open when clicking on any PowerPoint file . For more thoughts on Teaching and Learning Technology,  please consider subsc

Day Two - Staying on the Move

I was able to sneak in a 15 minute lunch, but other than that, I was again on the move throughout the building working in a lot of different classrooms. More setup on the iPad carts working with a few teachers, and then we successfully used the Chromebooks with three classes today. Coupled with Hapara's Teacher Dashboard, we've got a powerful solution for Google Apps and one that makes it very efficient for teachers to stay organized with their students' documents. Here are some of today's SBS moments. (I'm changing the acronym to Solved By Searching - . I just couldn't live with WILTs!) Burning a Data Disc on Mac/PC I need to make a quick copy of a DVD for backup purposes.  First, I looked up a free solution for PCs ( CD Burner XP - works for Windows 7 as well), but then realized that I needed to do it on the Mac.  Apparently, OS X does this through Disk Utility, so it was a quick and easy procedure . Screen Capturing on a Google Chromebook Lastly, I wan

Day One - Back to School

I'm finally able to take a breath after a day's worth of running around helping teachers with everything from doc cam setups to clicker troubleshooting.  It's really exciting to see so many of our faculty and staff eager and excited about their technology and going full steam from day one. Tomorrow I'll begin meeting with our iPad teachers as well as supporting day one for our first full Chromebook cart.  More on all of that to come.  A quick WILT (what I learned today) for the new school year: Setting Up Line Spacing in MS Word 2010 This was simple, but Microsoft is always changing their products. Office is so widely used throughout the building, yet we have users on 2003, 2007, and now 2010.  For the newest version, I had trouble finding the double spacing options, but learned that it was under Home, Paragraph.   More info here . For more thoughts on Teaching and Learning Technology,  please consider subscribing to the RSS feed or through email . Facebook fan