Alvin's Educational Technology Blog

I’ve been observing my students as they work in our lab.  We have a nice setup with 30 new wide screen iMacs.  The machines have OS X and Windows XP.  The screens are big: 24 inches wide.  The screens are so big, if you have a document open using the full screen you literally have to turn your head from side to side to read it.

Most programs open full screen by default.  It is not uncommon for a user to have two or three programs open at once; all the details of an assignment are in a browser while Word is used to complete the assignment.  With each program filling the screen, the user must switch back and forth between different programs.  Most of them do not use the Alt-Tab cool switch, so add the time it takes to use the mouse to click on those small buttons at the bottom of the screen.  It especially annoying when Word is in full page view because the page only takes up the center of the screen.  Literally half of the screen is unused dead space on each side of the document.

During yesterday’s activity in class there was one student who resized two program windows so that each took up half of the screen.  One window was Word and the other was a browser.  Both were perfect sizes for working.  That student also was the first to finish the activity, finishing twenty minutes before the next student.

By the way, if you are working with multiple programs and you want to quickly maximize your screen usage without overlapping windows, try allSnap.

One of my classes has a test tomorrow so my office hours were busier than normal today. One of the students asked a fairly basic question which was followed by a, “because it’s completely different in Office 2007. I learned how to do it in Office 2003.”

If you haven’t used Office 2007, you may not know that it is radically different than Office 2003.  In fact, until Office 2007, the product interface was almost unchanged for ten years.  The new menu ribbon takes some getting used to, but is more intuitive than the old static menu bar (if you are a new Office user).

Once I showed my student where the setting was in the new interface, everything was fine.  Then I told him that he would be using a different program when he started his first teaching job in four years.  By then Office 2010 will certainly be out and everyone will be switching to it.

Learning how to learn has never been more important.  It is especially true in technology where one can expect a new office suite or operating system every couple of years.  This year we got both at the same time.

Last week John R asked that I do a post about how I use my tablet in the classroom.  Here goes.

I have a Gateway tablet that’s almost two years old.  This is an actual picture of my tablet (click for a larger version) taken after working with my daughter on trig homework.  Aside from the “Unit Circle” title, all the writing is my daughter’s.  I have lost my ability to write.

Which leads to how I use the tablet in class.  Originally I thought the tablet would be a great replacement for the whiteboard.  For most people it would be, but I have lost my ability to write. 

With a whiteboard, your back is to the class.  With a tablet connected to a projector, you can write the same way as you would on a whiteboard, but while you face the class. The tablet can also save your writing to a file so that a copy can be made available to your students. 

Since I have lost my ability to write, I find it much easier to type words than to write words with the stylus on my tablet.  In class, I have a wireless keyboard and mouse.  This permits me to use the tablet functions without losing the keyboard which is hidden under the screen when the tablet is in the configuration shown in the picture above.

If I need to draw a diagram or annotate something on the screen, I can do that with the stylus at any time.  The Windows Journal application included with XP Tablet is great for either typing or writing. The tablet also does excellent OCR without training, even if you have lost your ability to write.

There is also a “clip” program that can capture the screen and save it to a file and make that file available for annotation.  I use this when I explain objects on the screen.  I can clip the menu bar in a program and then write or draw more information on top of that picture.  The picture with annotations can be saved for student reference.

I consider the tablet to be my portable SmartBoard.  It does all the same things plus I don’t have to worry about casting a shadow over the information being projected.