Wednesday, March 1, 2006I helped place a shortcut onto Mr. Hodge's dock. This allows him simple access to the WinO3 server. Now he will have the option to back up his data to this server in case of an accident. He simply must click on the Dock, and then he will be presented with a list of folders. he will only have access to his own personal folder, however. posted @ 03:42 PM MST [link] [22 Comments] Tuesday, February 28, 2006Today I changed the computers in the lab so that only I and the system have access to the Applications folder. I did this so that I would be better able to manage what applications the students were using. With the Workgroup Manager application, I can alter the applications that appear in the dock. The students can still use the applications in the dock. They cannot, however, open the applications folder and launch them from there. I did this mostly out of an effort to get the Gimp to be launched from a student account. I do not know why, but for some reason the Workgroup manager was unable to recognize the Gimp in the allowed applications section. So I have allowed the students to launch any application from the local drive. Currently, however, the only way they will be able to access these applications is though the dock. I altered the permissions to the Application folders in the lab using a combination of the Terminal application and the Script Editor. These two in conjunction can streamline many lab management tasks. I have not successfully implemented the distribution of applications though this process. I have, however, successfully transfered other files such as .dmg and .txt files. Mostly I use it to perform command line tasks on the computers at one time. It is not fully automated, but it takes away much of the grunt work. Mrs. Montono's Fifth graders were introduced to the Gimp today. I would like to keep their instruction similar to the instruction I will be providing for Mr. Hodge's class. She mentioned a website that she would like to direct the students towards, but we could not locate it. While we talked, her student teacher helped take the reigns for a bit. She has some experience with Sisco training. She talked to the students about the USB, Firewire cable, and the OS. To enhance that discussion, I showed the students the inside of the G3 tower I have on my desk. It is possible to quickly open the Mac towers. I have used this technique before to illustrate various pieces of the computer hardware. In discussing the parts of the computer, I tried to illustrate how they were similar to parts of our body; brain = cpu, RAM = short term memory, USB = sense of touch, etc. Mrs. Montoono's class was given the same brief introduction to the Gimp that Mr. Hodge's class was given. I then allowed them to explore the program. My discussion with Mrs. Montono about the website took a lot of time away from their hands on experience, but I feel that a discussion of the parts of a computer was a useful discussion. posted @ 02:50 PM MST [link] [6 Comments] Monday, February 27, 2006Restarting blogRight, so here it is.. Today for Mr. Hodges class I showed them "The Gimp". I want to prepare them to be able to create multimedia to go along with their weather presentations, and I thought that the Gimp was a great vehicle to get this started. I went through the basics and showed them a few tricks. Next time, I hope to have it compatable with their personalized accounts so that they can use it in their presentations. If not, then it will be a little dissappointing. I need to search online to see about Mr. Hodge's erased data on his hard drive, as well. I get the feeling that there will be a user forum for the Gimp somewhere that will discuss the problem to some detail. Raquel Lopez's class and Brian Horan's class were virtually the same, so I'll list them here together. We again talked about the Gimp, and I introduced them to some of the basic potential of the program. I am trying to interest them in the Internet. Specifically, I would like them to understand its inner workings. I feel that if I can give them the experience of expressing themselves and sharing that effort with each other that they will be better able to appreciate the content. As such, the gimp is means to create documents that they would like to save and present. I would also like to get them weaned from the need to print something that they create, or to only keep it for personal enjoyment. Mrs. Lortz class went on a different tack. I started off the class by reviewing a few of the terms that we went over that year. I felt the need to cover the basics. We talked about the different things that can be done with windows. I demonstrated how a window can be very large, small, thin, or thick. They seemed to enjoy that. I then demonstarated that a computer could hold many many windows in the dock without breaking. This was an opportunity to emphasise that computers can store a lot of information in a way that doesn't take up very much space. I then led the class in practicing some of the things that we talked about in class today using Microsoft Word. I also introduced some basic formatting techniques. They seemed to be very interested in getting the words to look just the way that they wanted them to. I generally shy away from saving work. Mostly this is because of the hassle involved in keeping every kid in every exact same computer seat. Also, I feel like the beginning steps require some repetition in order to be grasped. I think that knowing what can be done drives them to do it again. Ultimately, their understanding will be sufficient enough that they will take far less time to do the same tasks. When I see that happening, I will introduce another layer of complexity to keep the sharp students interested. I am also able to go into greater detail with them about a particual aspect or capability of a program when on a one to one basis. I feel that I am better able to command their attention at this time. posted @ 06:11 PM MST [link] [No Comments] |
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