Technology and Learning

IT HAS STARTED!!!  The madness of the typical end of the year activities in addition to iPad collection again!  Some MAJOR things are different for us this year, so we will see where that takes us. #1 - We have to redo ALL iPads by hand - UGH!  That's right - manually plugging in 900 iPads!  That DARN RANSOM VIRUS!  When it knocked out the server, it also knocked out me!  When we first enrolled iPads last fall, we enrolled them so they would talk to our server.  WELL, when that server was HIT with the virus, I lost the ability to talk to the server, as we switched everything over to the new server.  However, all of those iPads were enrolled using the OTHER server, so when we connected to the new one - BAM!  No ability to talk anymore!  So the ONLY fix is to completely wipe them all - unscope ALL the apps - and then re enroll them into the NEW server.  However, we will also set up a proxy now so the kids iPads talk to the school's ...

I have blogged before about Raspberry Pi - but one of our science teachers, Mr. Goering, is having some of his AP Physics students working on it now.  They have programmed it to take the temperature and record it multiple times throughout the day.  They have also figured out how to get it to print, email and many other commands by scripting it.  Here is what is going on "visually," which might not seem like a lot from the photos but OH THEY ARE LEARNING:)!! Mr. Goering had to order a little weather pin - so track that - he also ordered the white breadboard as that makes connections SO much easier than trying to use the pins on the actual Raspberry Pi.   The simply connected the Raspberry Pi to a monitor, keyboard and mouse and then started scripting and figuring out different " Python " language to run it:)!!   Finally, this shows some of the coding they had to do to force and talk to the Raspberry Pi to get it to perform the desired outcomes...

Our math department went to the state math convention this past week, and Mr. Hermes share this TED talk with us.  I watched it and LOVED the concepts here! Conrad Wolfram is the director of Wolfram Research, which is a company that is trying to understand and find new uses for Mathematics technology!  He believes that we are too focused on "hand calculating" and we need to start teaching MATH!  He says there are three reasons to teach math: 1. Technical Jobs 2. Everyday Living 3. Logical Thinking Wolfram further questions, "What is Math?"  He again, comes up with four steps - 1. Pose the right question - what are we trying to figure out? 2. Real world - math formulas 3. Computation - answers 4. Math formulation - real world and then verification He explained that why are we teaching and doing 80% of computation by HAND - Step 3 - when we have computers and technologies that can do it for us?!  Students should be focusing on Steps 1, 2 a...

Windows recently came out with a NEW Surface Laptop that they are aiming for college kiddos.  At only 2.5 pounds and 14 hours of battery life - it's definitely something to look at!  This laptop runs Window 10 with good performance and security.  Here are a few things that I learned today on CNBC: 1. The Surface Laptop costs $999 and runs Windows 10S 2. Windows 10S is targeted at education and will be on a variety of laptops 3. The Surface Laptop can be upgraded to a full version of Windows 10 Pro 4. It's going to be appealing to everyone, not just students  SO -  maybe something to check out for those jumping to college.  You still get all the benefits of Office 365 if you area  district that is using this - AND some of the "new" laptops come with Minecraft and coding programs on there - THAT is something ALL schools need to keep pursuing!! Happy Tuesday all, Mrs. I:)