How's Your Day? Archives

Yeah Hollywood, it's piracy that's killing you.

On another note, anybody seen this?

 

what a waste... see... see there, that is why I don't bother with most movies anymore.

Yup... I have seen itty bitty PC before, but that is one of the smaller ones. too bad they are basically impossible to upgrade...

 

where are we going and why am I in a handbasket?

 

I tried to get in on the Betas, but wasn't quick enough, I'm running the release candidate. I was about to back up all my data on my laptop (nothing I didn't already have if I didn't, but you know me...well, maybe you don't), and I popped the DVD in the drive to make sure it would read it, it came up and said it could do an upgrade - I almost never do upgrades, pretty much always choose to do a clean install, but decided to go with the upgrade, since it would be heck of a lot easier. Good bye and riddance vista, shiny Win7RC! I'm really liking it, although it's more similar to vista than XP, visually/GUI-wise, I like it better than Vista.

It's running tons better than vista, with sp2, did. It's as fast booted in the 7 partition as when I boot in XP or Ubuntu partitions, if that'll give you an idea

great minds? yes, I've heard of those....weak minds? are you thinking what I'm thinking?

before trying it, or hearing all the praises of it, I was ready to dig 7 a grave, but I could get used to it. gonna try it out this summer on the network, try out AD and GP on it to see how it does to prepare for when it starts rolling out

I got some of the Old Spice balm from Dollar General I believe, I like it a lot, get you some. I can't remember if I got it there in town, or here in Linden, but if you want I can pick you some up here instead of you having to run all the way to Daingerfield.

yeah, the arrogant ones are like that

happy102:happy102 happy097:happy097
and how perfectly it fit in with the discussions yesterday is truly mindblowing!
now, what about the facebook stalkers? that's the ones I guess I'll be dealing with....

 

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5422245676397466022

 

now now, if everybody switched to mac (or linux), we'd just trade one set of problems for another, and then react in horror as everyone talks about how great microsoft is, and how their stuff works so much better than the current mainstream version, because fewer people use it, so it's less susceptible to attacks etc, etc, yadayada....
everything would be the same, only the names would switch

yeup, too expensive, and too "hip" will always drive me away from a product.
I've nothing against macs, but in all honesty I don't believe they're the end all be all of computing. They seem to work better because everything is made/designing by apple, therefore it absolutely will work. IBM compatibles have so many kajazillions of 3rd parties, there are going to be issues - heck,when you think about it, it's amazing there aren't more issues honestly, it's amazing how well it actually does work

anyway, Linux

 

My biggest complaints about Macs are mostly about their marketing strategies, I find it too agressive, as is the Microsoft campaign. Both camps seem to feel like theirs is the only solution to my problems. When you get into a car, it doesn't matter if it's a Buick or Hyundai, it's pretty much the same OS-- Big wheel on the left (or right for our British friends), two (maybe 3) pedals underneath... One for stopping, one for going (one for making the car lurch and sputter while going "GGGGGRRRRRRRAAAAAANNNNNGGGGGG!!!!") Why haven't computers reached this level of usability yet? They're getting there, but they haven't quite made it.

I'm seriously thinking about doing a book about how to teach without technology. It'll be all about how to use a regular whiteboard or chalkboard, and an overhead projector. That's all they had when I was a kid, and lo and behold, I figured out the tech side mostly on my own... I learned the concepts, not the hardware/software.

 

Sleepy hungry Jen is tired of upgrading shiney new lenovos from vista to XP. At least it's just a lot of staring at a screen and swapping CDs out. It should be lunch time

 

There is no way in hell I'm going to try to fix my mom's computer over the phone if she were using linux, so I think I'll stick with Windows. Linux is my choice for server stuff, but it's not quite ready for prime time desktop and I'm not sure it will ever be. I think the biggest thing hobbling linux is the hate that a significant part of the community has for proprietary and non-free (as in beer) software. It's too hard to support commercial software on linux and there will always be a need for at least some commercial software. I had a copy of Corel Draw and Word Perfect for Linux years ago, but it never gained support and stopped working with the next version of the linux libraries.

Windows 7 is great though. I've been running beta 2 for a while now and I really have no serious complaints. I should probably get the RC going, but I'll need to do a clean install, which takes a while (reinstalling all of my software mostly). One sort-of complaint is the changes to UAC. Everyone complained about it so they gave it autoelevation of privileges for signed software. That makes the security system exploitable and no longer a security system. The solution is to do like unix and never run in an administrator account, but as that's not the default situation for a clean install, they're going to have security problems again on the majority of computers (not run by tech savvy types). It's definitely lighter weight than Vista and even XP. (The installed size is huge, but the memory footprint is slim.)

 

You might be interested in a couple of books by a guy named Cliff Stoll. He's an astronomer from Berkeley and actually uncovered some KGB espionage back when the internet was DARPAnet + MilNet. He wrote a book called Silicon Snake Oil and later High Tech Heretic: Why Computers Don't Belong in Schools which are both critical of the effects of technology and the internet. Silicon Snake Oil was written way back in '95, long before the hysteria and subsequent crash of the no-business-plan internet boom, but that's exactly the sort of thing it was critical of. High Tech Heretic is aimed directly at the idiotic computers in the classroom thing.

 

I think computers and technology do have a place in the classroom, but I don't think they're being used right. They are filled with incredible potential and can be used to reach students who have trouble with certain traditional teaching styles.

There are a few problems, IMHO, that don't seem to be addressed. For one, there seem to be a glut of teachers who still have little more than a basic grasp of how to use a computer. The students in the classroom still have far more experience. The second, more prevalent problem, is that the teachers and administration are trying to make the computer and all technology the defacto teaching tool. They're excellent when used properly, but there still needs to be good teachers who interact with their students. They can't just be plopped down in front of a student, and run some completely lame ass Power Point presentation and be effective. In those cases, they're nothing more than expensive slide projectors. There are plenty of ways to play to the strengths of the technology, but I don't think that the administration knows how to approach it, or they are tied down by limited budgets.

That was nice and overly verbose.

 

That's exactly my thought, Corey. The current state of computers and technology in the class room is, "High tech is better! Throw money at the problem!" which is, of course, a typical government solution (to the wrong problem no less). When I was in grade school, my mom (a teacher) would write directly on the transparencies with those vis-a-vis pens and it worked fine. Now she makes a bunch of crappy power point slides. Thousands of dollars worth of equipment. Benefit? Zero.

When I was in 5th grade I would set up all of the Apple IIe computers for my mom's teacher friends. They thought I was some sort of computer genius. It was a square peg - round hole problem in my mind... all of the plugs only fit in one place.

 

I totally agree.

That would be more or less my point. What I'm proposing is getting back to actual teaching. Far too much time, money, and effort is expended on shoehorning technology into the modern school. Perhaps we need to pull back a bit, and sort out what actually works. Too often, teachers aren't very good teachers. Give a bad mechanic a set of expensive tools, and he's still a hack.

This should be your new sig line.

 

Hah! Apple IIe computers! There's a memory that totally buried itself in my head. We used to play math games and Where in the World is Carmen San Diego on those things. Those were good times.

The funny thing about power point is that it's a completely useless program for teaching everyone, and in every situation that I've been forced to sit through a power point presentation for a school, the teachers have ALWAYS printed out each slide and given them out, defeating some of the purpose of using the awful program in the first place.

 

but I like his current sig line!

 

Short, simple response to your post: Exactly.

Someone needs to try these out: http://www.cupcakeproject.com/2009/05/honey-baked-ham-cupcakes.html

 

well, since we're on a powerpoint rip....

powerpoint has its place, it is a useful program, but as already mentioned, expensive tools + poor mechanic, but it always irks me when someone gets in to make a powerpoint and says "ooh, transitions!", "ooh, sounds!", and Every. Single. Slide. Has. A. Different. Transition. And. At. Least. One. Sound. Effect.
Urrrrggghh. !.

 

Just to toss another potential perspective into this subject, I graduated high school in 2006, in 2005 we put smart boards into most of the rooms at my school and I personally saw a lot more people willing to go up to the board and do stuff because it was cooler then just a chalk board, it was also a new toy to learn about it while learning about english or chem or whatever the class was. I know my little brother's history teacher uses her smart board to show the class youtube videos of cartoons relevant to history that they can relate to (lil'hitler from robot chicken for example). I feel like using new technology like touch screens, smart boards, youtube and other popular websites help kids want to do their work. Technology is also an absolute must in my school. I don't know if you were only directing your argument to k-12 but at UB we have 28,000 students, that makes for 500 person lectures. Without a giant projector and powerpoint and a mic nothing would get done. An advantage to digital presentations over those clear sheets on an overhead is that digital lectures can go online. My bio 201 class last semester had all the audio and slides from my class online. My Sociology class had the video and audio AND the sides for the class online, all of that helped me a lot.

 

YES!
someone make this and bring them to the office next week, or somebody's getting fired!

 

don't forget superfluous graphics! "Ooh look, we're talking about something that has a vague connection with money, so here's an animated picture of George Washington doing the Charleston!"

And please, be sure and verbally point out the annoying animated graphic as it appears on the slide, the "Ka-ching!" sound effect didn't quite sell it.

Oh and guys, guys, guys, you gotta see this!!!!!!
http://botd.wordpress.com/growing-blogs/