OLPC Goes Windows

The love-hate relationship between MIT’s One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) and Microsoft has shifted back towards romance with OLPC announcing that its XO school notebook will soon have a Windows XP option. Microsoft has spent a year adapting and squeezing the Windows code base so it would fit on the limited resources of the low-cost notebook. On the downside, it is said that the cost of the Windows version will raise the price tag to $200, double what the group’s original goal. Nicholas Negroponte, OLPC’s founder, said that there will also be dual-boot versions that can run either Linux or Windows.

Teacher Picks: Our Reviewer Tests Knowledge Adventure’s Activity Builder

Our teacher-reviewer Diana Lawsky of Lincoln School in North Bergen, NJ, gives us her review of Knowledge Adventure’s Activity Builder. See more teacher picks on our Instructor website.

Description: The Activity Builder is an online product that allows teachers to customize activities for various subjects.  Teachers can create worksheets, games, letter cards, flash cards, puzzles, sentence strips, word wall cards, homework assignments, and tests.

Pros: I love the idea that the teacher can customize the work and the site is very easy to navigate. The home page is uncluttered and laid out in an easy to understand style.  The left side of the screen lists FAQs, Instructions, Manuals, and Contacts.  Under Manuals are sample activities to give you an idea of what the product can do.  This is a really helpful feature for the first-time user. The right side of the screen consists of buttons to take you to activity builders for Letters, Numbers, Pictures, and Words. There are also buttons that take you to your Saved Lists and Black Line Masters.

I looked at Pictures (which include math activities), Numbers, Words, and Masters.  Masters had pre-made, non-customizable activities that touched on various math subjects as bar graphs and base 10.  Under Pictures you could create an activity for lessons in shapes, clock, money, etc.  Selecting fractions in the Pictures section, I created flash cards and a cube for the students to make representing ½, 1/3, ¼.  The Words category lets you select Words students need to know in each subject.  What’s great about this category (and the picture category) is that there’s a district link included.  At the moment, there’s only CA and PA listed.  Within each state, there are links to grade levels.  This would be an amazing tool for teachers when all states are listed.  In the numbers category, a large number of activities can be created using 8 different math operations.  For subtraction, I created an old maid game, a write 3X each sheet, and a test.

Cons: As mentioned above, this product would be much more useful if it listed every state’s requirements (at least NJ’s!).   Also, using fractions as an example, I wasn’t able to create activities for anything besides ½, 1/3, ¼.  (Although I was able to create a huge number of activities for those three fractions.) But perhaps this has to do with the grade levels targeted.

How would you use this in the classroom? This is an extremely useful product.  I would use it for in class exercises, homework, to create flash cards, to create activities that students would enjoy, and to create tests.  It would also be good for enrichment.  Whenever students have free time, they could do a word search or a puzzle and reinforce whatever is being taught in the classroom.

Sky’s the Limit

If you’ve ever wanted to bring the sheer delight of astronomy and space exploration into your classroom, Microsoft makes it easy and free. The company’s Worldwide Telescope program uses Web 2.0 Visualization software to give classes guided tours of the cosmos. On top of explanatory videos, the site has a rich array of digital images of the sky taken by a variety of world’s telescopes. Just download the 20MB beta application (and Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 if you don’t already have it) and buckle your seatbelts because your class might make a quick stop at one of Saturn’s moons on its way to Andromeda and beyond. Like all software that’s still being developed, Worldwide Telescope has its quirks and at times it surprisingly slow, but when it blast offs, it can propel a class of kids into outer space.

Minding the Office

Drowning in paperwork and files, and what school isn’t these days? Hunter Systems’ School Minder can help digitize an entire school’s activities to streamline its operations. The software has modules for creating class schedules, tracking grades, attendance and even an extensive section on discipline.

Talking Wikis

It’s no surprise in the K12 2.0 world, wikis are a hot way to go when collaborating with school peers, whether it’s for professional development or sharing projects with students from around the world. Take Mr. Bartels, a high school teacher in NC. He says wikis are a great way to improve communication with parents and share student work. He uses the free Wetpaint wiki tool, but there are plenty of other free wiki tools like PBwiki and WikiSpaces. Mr. Bartels explains why he likes wikis.

Why wikis & education?
With the current generation of students being more technologically savvy than ever before, digital space has become a viable and important tool for educators. Wikis supply digital publication without needing to have knowledge of coding or private server space. In other words, incredibly easily published web space.

It’s hard to explain to a parent why a student got a “B” on an essay when they can’t see the “A” students’ work. Well, now they can and they can see for themselves how students compare. It’s a real eye-opening experience for parents. The conversation then turns into, ‘how can I help my child versus why is he getting this grade.’ That’s huge.

Why Wetpaint wikis?
Creating and editing my Wetpaint classroom pages is just as easy as creating and editing a simple text document on my desktop. Wetpaint allows the user to decide how "open" he or she wants his or her page to be.

Finding Those Pesky Photos

Ever spent the better part of a class period searching in vain for a particular image you need for a lesson? Anyone who’s integrated digital photos into their classroom knows well the frustration of losing or not being able to find a specific photo. HP’s Simple Save Photo software can help by cramming as many as 2,000 pictures on a DVD rather than filling up your computer’s hard drive. The software finds and copies every photo and puts them on a DVD for safe keeping. A five-pack of SimpleSave DVDs costs $15, but the program doesn’t work with Macs.

Up to Date Mac Office

Why invest in expensive software and miss out on getting the latest version of it? The first thing I do when installing new software is to set the major programs to automatically download updates at night when students are (hopefully) sound asleep. A few weeks ago, Microsoft offered its AutoUpdate 2.1.1 for Mac, which funnels new Office software to Mac computers. Today, the company adds the first Service Pack for Mac Office 2008. The software is meant to improve performance, security and stability to the software suite. The download details are available at the Mactopia site, but if you use the AutoUpdate program, it can be done while you're snoring.

Meet the E-Learning Queen

We spend a lot of time searching the Web for the best resources for teachers and Susan Smith Nash’s E-Learning Queen site is a real winner. It’s appropriately named because she writes about such diverse topics as creating online courses and using cell phones to enhance learning in a clear and informative style. Check out her recently-posted tips for getting the most out of an online Webinar and don’t miss the photo of her friend’s Corgi, whose name is Gizmo. Very fitting.

Teacher Picks: Our Reviewers Test Kidspiration 3

Every issue of Instructor magazine includes a section called “Teacher Picks.” Our teacher-reviewers test these products in their classrooms and share their feedback. Here, our reviewer Diana Lawsky of Lincoln School in North Bergen, NJ, gives us her review of Kidspiration 3.

Description: A cross-curricular software program that allows students to understand subjects (reading, writing, math, social studies) visually.

Pros:  The interface is beautiful and colorful.  As you mouse over something, such as the tool bar, a woman’s voice reads what it is.  A student can highlight anything he/she wants read and click an icon that looks like an ear to have it read.  This way it could be used by kids who do not read yet or who are poor readers.  The toolbar also has a dictionary, undo and redo buttons, and buttons that let kids see their work in a picture view or writing view.  They can save their work, export it or even send it to a hand-held device.  It is very intuitive.  I tried the reading and writing activities first.  When a student is finished with a lesson he can type his name into a box and print out his work.  There’s a great clipart selection.  They can choose fonts, background colors, and more.

Cons: Visually it is stunning but the voice is a little tinny and stiff-sounding. Also, it didn’t seem to correct student work.  This is not necessarily negative.

How would you use this in the classroom? Much better than boring old worksheets or workbooks! If students could connect to it at home or work with it in a school lab, it could be used to create some really attractive reports.  ANY kind of practice work in ANY subject could be done in this program.

AntiVirus Upgrade

Administrators that use Symantec’s Norton AntiVirus 2007 to protect their schools’ computers will get a surprise free upgrade. All systems with up to date subscriptions will be able to download the 2008 edition of the program at no charge. The latest edition of Norton AV adds faster virus scans and one-click access to an online security expert if there’s a problem. The 60MB download automatically installs itself, although you might need to update the subscription information manually.