Technology in the Classroom

Soooo….still playing and have discovered a multitude of  – useful programmes onboard for teachers and students to use ! …and some great resources online.

* http://www.curriculumsupport.education.nsw.gov.au/  Curriculum support has a lot of useful units of works (although some assume knowledge the majority of teachers would ssimply not have.

RESOURCES for Premier Elements 7

Fundamentals of PremierElemnts #7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK9Kn097Cqc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jnx-5T3u5AM –  Forays into Animation

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81QT4e0dCPs&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NgtkdwvQ7Q&feature=channel_page
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EHzREx5a82w&feature=channel_page

http://www.animationsforvideo.com/html/adobe_premiere_elements_tutori.htm

 ADOBE TUTORIALS
http://www.adobetutorialz.com/categories/Creative-Suite-Family/
http://www.adobe.com/products/psprelements/explore/

DREAMWEAVER

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/dreamweaver/

Well, I was sititng down to talk some more about the u software that is proving interesting yet unstable as it keeps crashing every few minutes….but when I tried to log onto the laptop today I found I may have succeeded in the challenge of the techie boys and finally broken it without even trying to !!

I have discovered a couple of annoying little problems:

1) Windows 7 does not come with Windows Movie Maker as part of the operating system — ironic considering it gives us Windows DVD Maker, and no disk drives, but extremely disappointing as WMM is a really handy free piece of software. Apparently you can edit with Windows Live but this doesn’t appear to be on it either. Really disappointing especially if like me you do lots of Video Production, stop motion, digital poetry etc….. We do however have Adobe Premier Elements — the dumbed down version of Premier.  I meet alot of teachers who claim to use Premier with Yr 7 and above but doubt they would use the to its full capabilities as the full version is a high end professional use software that teachers have no real need for. It will be nice to have software I don’t have to beg for and and works well  (I hope). If this is on the kids laptops it will be fantastic (see my other posts about the frustrations of digital video editing at school. (You can download the movie maker for Windows Live here: http://download.live.com/moviemaker

2) After successfully using the wireless connection at home for several days the wireless finder seems to have given up the ghost and no  amount of trouble shooting will repair the problem  – it appears to be  a Windows 7 problem and we get the message below:

As I type this at the dining room table watching Meerkat Manor we have bypassed the wireless by plugging in the ethernet cable – disappointing as it takes the portability out of a wireless laptop !

I have tried updating through the windows website but get this error message:

So….still playing with the Rudd Laptop and haven’t broken it yet although this morning I crashed Windows and the cute little music programme destined to give Finale notepad a run for it’s money (twice) !

Resolution is little hard to gauge — the super fine resolution (1026×728) is too small to read and although you can combat this with the magnifer or view in 125%  but it means you can’t fit as much n the screen. Obviously this will be better plugged into a data projector and rumour has it that the next rollout will have full size screens !

The laptop has USB ports on either side of its tiny body which is cool especially if you are right handed and want to use the mouse on the other side. My Mac was obviously design by a left hander as its 3 usb ports are on the left hand side so you either need a wireless mouse, or a long cable, or use the touch pad which I always revert to anyway.

The  windows activation screen — “contact administrator” is an annoying little popup as apparently we aren’t allowed to administrate our own laptops which is a little understandable — I wouldn’t trust most of us either but there are more than a few who know what they are doing.

Also, the flash player appears not to work (possibly due to Windows 7 — there is no download for Windows 7 on the Adobe website and it ain’t on the laptop that I can find) and there is no apparent popup stopper or adblock on the IE7.

So …. MUSE SCORE (http://musescore.org) – apparently a free programme but clearly unstable as I have just crashed it a second time and I had almost finished inputting my 16 bar melody and written the simple accompaniment to it — DAMN !! Lesson learnt — save often ! Doh !!

The programme is similar to Finale Notepad (which you have to now pay for)
* note entry is easy –  you use the keyborad, and changing note values s as simple as typing in anumerical number
* chords are simple to make (alt3 for a 3rd/alt4 for 4th and so on) but you need to know how they are constructed
* you can begin with a template or create tour own and add extra instruments as you go
* laptop on board sound is ok but not great — I will see if I can uload the xg-synth from Final Fantasy
* shortcuts are easy to use and simple alphnumerical entries — adding 3rd/4th etc
* there is an online manual and one in the programme — kids would benefit from a handout
* you can save as xml, midi, bitmap, and Lilypond (http://lilypond.org/web/index) the linux based msuic software — but not as a wav or mp3 for burning to cd or putting on your ipod.
* adding lyrics is fairly simple once you get the hang of it and editing it is simly hilight and delet or double click, adding space or a hyphon
* you can apparently plug in a midi cable and therefore a keyboard — but my adator is not usb to midi so I can’t test it yet ! (if it reads the piamo keyboard input better than finale I suggest you all chuck out finale !!)
* oh and I didn’t need to install fonts to look like notation — it seems installed already !!
* there doesn’t appear to be an import function for bitmap/jpeg or scanned music — but it did open the midi I downloaded and allow me to edit it, and print !!! NICE !!!!

All in all very user friendly !

Oooh — I just found the new paint in windows — very pretty !!!

Oh and “Print Screen” is FN+(Del)PrtSc !!

Now having said all that I have had to dump the laptop as it neared battery dump and come upstairs because the wireless connection decided to go kaput !! This may be our booster box or the laptop onboard wireless….hmmmmm !!

POSTSCRIPT — if you see lots of typos its cause the keybaord on the laptop is tiny and the screen tinier so I couldn’t see half of what I was typing…. yes I was wearing my glasses thankyou very much !!

So ….. I have just recieved my Rudd Laptop — or should I say notebook as the thing is tiny with a miniscule screen that is sure to send most of us not already vision affected by students crapy handwriting further vision impaired !! In fact if I am wearing my contacts I doubt that I will be able to read the screen at all. 

I have ranted and raved about he things for a while but I have to say that now i have got it up and running (a feat I am positive is beyond most teachers) and am sitting here on the first nght of the hols, at home, in front of the TV playing with it – it appears not too shabby.

Rumours about what they will and won’t do abound — the onboard software is actualy impressive — free stuff as audacity, some free music notation software, a stack of adobe stuff, itunes, some cool presentation software, Activ, and the Smartboard Notwbook software (thank god — activ is for babies), and heaps more. They are running Windows 7 (the one after vista) which is ok, but they only have 160g harddrives, and 2 gig off rsm which  am thinking is good for a little machine but we will see ! ooh and you can get stickers to change the colour of the outside — I am going to make a label for mine that says “I wish I was a mac” !

Mind you for those of us that have been using our own laptops for years — there is just the luxury of using a DET paid for one instead of spending our own money for them.

The techo boys have set me a challenge — “see if I can break it” so stay tuned and I will see how quick I can fry the insides !!

Apple must be smarting from not getting this gig!