Happy Holidays

In the Theme of Robots and the computers needed to run them:

Happy Holidays !!!

Can you say "Tangled"?

As anyone that owns a desktop computer knows, sometimes the wires get out of control.  You've got the monitor and desktop and printer with at least two cords from each.  And then start adding your network/Internet cable and the mouse and keyboard.  The Headphones and Ipod and any other usb devices and it becomes quite a tangled mess.  It is usually well worth it to take time out, when you can, and try to add some order to the chaos.  I use a couple different tools when organizing computer wires.  The first item are the zip-ties.  These are of many sizes and should be used for the items that will not need to be adjusted anytime soon.  Like power cords or network connections.  For the wires that might need adjusting I use a very thin strip of double sided Velcro.  I've seen a lot of variations of this from the homemade to the expensive color coded store bought.  The final items I use, mostly in the school, are little 1"x1" self-adhesive plastic tabs that have a small hole I can slip a zip-tie through.  I use these to secure wires to walls or furniture when I need to travel a distance from port to desktop/printer.  With a little time and some minor organizational skills you can clean up your work environment in no time and get back to work or fun with a little elbow room.

New Internet Safety Bulletin Board

Internet Safety is very important.  To at least know that there is a danger is half the battle.  Here is the latest bulletin board I have put up in my lab about Internet Safety.  I use the cartoon characters as the eye catcher to at least get the students to take a look and ask what the message is about.  I'll probably leave this one up for a while.

Below are some of the good Internet Safety Links I came across while researching for the B-Board:
Disney Online
Kids Health Online Safety
SafeKids
Federal Bureau of Investigation

PosteRazor; Generating Posters from Regular Sized Pictures

One of the things I have found most challenging is coming up with ideas that are computer related to cover the cinder block walls of my Computer Lab.  Over the last couple of years I have slowly but surely accomplished this and one tool has helped quite a bit.  PosteRazor.  PosteRazor is a Freeware software download that enables you to convert almost anything you have into unlimited sizes using 8x11 paper.  The PosteRazor wizard leads you through 5 steps to convert almost anything into a multi-paged PDF that can be printed and then put together to make a great looking poster. 

The only drawback is that the original picture needs to be a really good quality picture.  Otherwise it'll get blurrier the larger you go with it.  My latest poster is an over-sized keyboard.  There are instances everyday where it would be great to have a large keyboard on the wall to demonstrate specific keystrokes to the Students.  It took a while for me to get this done though because of finding a good quality picture.  Any picture I would take would be too shiny or too grainy.  I lucked out the other day and found a great image online that came real close to matching our keyboards.   I took this picture and ran it through PosteRazor to create a poster 10 pages wide (portrait) and three pages high.  I was very happy with the results.  So if your looking for a great utility, this is it.  Check out the link and have fun.

Our Digital Microscopes are Really Fun to Use

On the whole, the job of a Computer instructor is fun on it's own.  However, there are peaks.  Learning how to use these new digital microscopes was defiantly a big one.  I love gadgets and these are great.  The QX5 Computer Microscope was obtained for our school by one of our second grade teachers last year.  I was asked to set them up to be used with our Laptop cart.  We at first had some issues using these with MAC OSx.  windows was no problem at all.  After some hunting around we were able to find some MAC friendly drivers.  The microscope itself looks very cool.  It has three powers of magnification, 10x, 60x, and 200x.  They are really useful in that they have overhead lighting and underneath lighting also.  The software package that comes with them is pretty fun to.  There are options to save your magnified picture or video along with ways to record observations or even draw on the magnified pictures.

The microscopes were used pretty exclusively by second grade last year.  I have heard interest from fourth and am hoping more levels will try these microscopes out with their lessons.  Here is a video demo of the scope I found online. 

Google Art can be Really Amazing

Google is a really good search engine.  One of the items a lot of us take for granted is the amazing artwork that Google uses on special occasions.  For different occasions, they take their normal Google logo and wonderfully modify it.  Today is the 50th anniversary of the cartoon the Flintstones.  Very cool logo.  Last year Sesame Street had their 40th anniversary.  I was able to download these great Google  Logos and have posted them on the walls in my Computer Lab. When you have a chance please take a look at this LINK and look at the great art work that Google puts out for us.  Their work outside the United Sates is very impressive also. (FYI, after posting this I tested out the link and their art work is not only immpresive but truly inspiring) Here are the Sesame Street logos. 

Getting into a Routine

After almost three weeks it seems to have calmed down a little bit.  I wanted to catch up and go over what we have been up to in the Computer Lab.  I also wanted to post some pictures to give you and idea of the lab itself.  To keep busy, other than classes using the lab, I have been creating classes in Odyssey.  For those that don't know Odyssey is a great on-line tool that is used in school and at home.  We had a great summer time program set-up utilizng Odyssey which was well recieved.  With each year and the students moving up, the Technology Aide, me, will re-set the classes in preperation for the new year.  Along with Odyssey we use Type to Learn 4.  This is a great typing program for all ages.  It is really good in that it is smart enough to detect the students skill level and then present activities to match all the while teaching typing.  I have set up classes in this program.  We also have poster boards on the lab walls to show progress for the 4th grade.  That is still to do. 

Another of the tools that Upper Merion provides to the Elementary schools are laptops.  We have a total of 51 laptos that can be used by the students.  26 are housed in what we call Cart A.  This cart, based on a schedule, will travel to the student's classrooms.  We also have another cart of 25 laptops known as Cart B.  The name is not too imaginative, but it works.  This cart is broken up and teachers are loaned laptops to be kept in their classrooms.  Most teachers have one or two at most.  Another nice option is the wireless printer on Cart A.  It gives the teachers a really close printer resource where their students can print from.  Otherwise they need to take the hike to the lab.

Speaking of the lab, here it is.  I consider it a work in progress as to the machine organiztion and the wall coverings.  I am always looking for new ways to show how important computers are and how they are everywhere.  I just recently added a computer themed Alphabet and would like to begin working on getting a really big keyboard graphic that I can blow up and put on the wall.  I found this great program last year that will take any picture and en-large it on regular paper.  You then put the paper together kinda like a puzzle for the large design.  Really usefull.  It is called PosteRazor.  Well worth the free download.  That's it for now.  I will work on getting my wall displays up next.