Tuesday, February 10, 2009

OK Computer

A reader writes:




And why is that?



And that's when you step in and get a deal.




  1. Agreed! If you incorporate Web 2.0 tools, the actual computer hardware is not that important. The speed of your wireless network/cards is more important. I'm using eight Compaq laptops that are 7 years old. They are horrible for anything located on the computer (ie. MS Office). However, I have very few issues with Firefox for blogging and whatnot.

    Get your hands on some old laptops. Work on getting them connected to the internet. There are a wealth of Web 2.0 technologies that can be beneficial for your students.

  2. Perhaps... Perhaps not. It depends on what you're teaching. When your topics are technological (e.g. programming) then hardware does matter, and software matters even more. For example, your programming exercises may rely on a particular version of some compiler (so that installation instructions, error messages, etc., match the ones in your courseware). In other words, configuration management in the classroom can be a big pain in the neck.

    Over the years, we have devised clever solutions such as scripts that wipe each desktop clean and run a fresh install of all the needed utilities, and deliver them along with the courseware itself. Nonetheless, we don't expect the neck pain ever to go away entirely... It's part of why they pay us the big bucks. Heh.

    -- Dan Keller

  3. Point taken.

    I'm a Language Arts teacher. We use Web 2.0 apps to complete classwork, writing assignments and homework. I'm not teaching anything like programming.

    Your solutions seem to fit with your needs. For my teaching, as long as students log out of web apps, they can share computers hour to hour.

