Fizzics

I had a disaster just before Christmas.  My destructive pup, who had already half-eaten my firewire webcam for the iBook, wagged his tail a little too hard and tipped a drink into my laptop.  I’ve been using a school laptop since the start of term but have now finally got round to ordering a new macbook.

I can’t help thinking about it’s aluminium unibody being machined to order as I type.  I went for an upgraded hard drive and the option of preinstalled iWork09.  I had iWork06 on the iBook and, although I didn’t use it much, I loved the way Keynote could be used to export into so many different file formats.  It made uploading of files that had started out as PowerPoint presentations to my website so much more pupil-friendly.

From what I have seen, Office 2007 for Windows is awful and so I am reluctant to buy the Mac version, even at LTS prices.  Wonder if I can get by with a combination of iWork09 and OpenOffice.org?  The order status page says it will ship in 3 days.  I’m not going to tell you how long they think it will take to reach me up here though.

With so many assessments scheduled for the end of term, it’s not been the best time to try to work with the N810.  However, I put it to good use today with a pupil who needed some help with a section of work that had been missed through illness.  I updated the tablet with all of the screencasts I had uploaded to my site by resynchronising the tablet’s RSS reader with my feedburner feed.  Then a quick run through the controls of the default media player was all I needed before letting him work through the solutions he had missed at his own pace.  He used headphones to get the running commentary as they work progressed.  

Now, I could have set him down in front of a laptop.  The problem is that you can’t be very discrete with a laptop.  The tablet sits half hidden by a jotter and allowed him to catch up on work without feeling self-conscious.  Seems like it is a great tool for personalised learning.

Well, I’ve had the N810 from Nokia for a week now, it arrived last Friday evening.  I’ve spent quite a lot of time just “playing” with it to see what it can do for me.  It took a wee while to figure out how to take a screenshot but I finally managed to install something that would do the job for me.  Here are my inital thoughts.

The desktop interface is quite nice.  It has a taskbar down the left side of the screen and there is a widget facility that allows tools to be set out on the desktop for easy reference.

As you can see, there are also some handy icon along the top right of the screen to inform the user about wifi signal strength, battery life, etc.  The green circle in this shows that I am logged in to Google chat in the background, this is the chat service supported by the system as delivered.

The left menu provides access to a comprehensive series of options, as shown in this next screenshot.

The tablet runs OS2008, a Maemo linux based OS and has Firefox as it’s default browser.  The Firefox interface is clean and does not have the usual screen real estate loss due to menu bars.  These features are accessed via the lined button in top left of the browser window (the same button exists in most applications).  

The address bar lies at the bottom of the window and has minimal navigation controls alongside.  Crucial for such a small screen, there is a zoom facility available by tapping on the magnifier icon next to the navigation controls.  I’ve found the browser to be very responsive and the wifi system is good.   It will pick up a signal anywhere in my house, including places where the stone walls prevent wireless access from my windows and mac laptops.

I need to point out that the N810 is an internet tablet, not a mobile phone.  That said, if you have a network connection, voice calls can be made via a VOIP service, such as Skype.  Installing Skype for the N810 was a simple two-tap process once I had arrived at the Skype homepage.  Shortly afterwards, I was enjoying a chat with Lisa.

I was disappointed that the Skype port for Nokia tablets does not yet support video calls. Hopefully, this is something that Skype will be able to offer shortly.  During our call, the audio quality was good at my side.  However, Lisa reported that there were instances when the quality of my voice dropped noticeably.  She described it as sounding as if I had “put a huge sticky toffee in my mouth”.  This seemed to coincide with the blue corner LED lighting up and I think that this indicates power saving mode.  The only way to maintain call quality was for me to make frequent taps on the screen to keep the tablet fully active.  This was a bit of a nuisance and requires further tweaking to see if the power saving can be adjusted to fit the circumstances.

There is a RSS reader already installed.  

I found it very easy to use, my first move to was remove the subscription to BBC Sport and my second was to subscribe to my own Feedburner feed to see if I could get by classroom blog on the tablet.  It worked without a hitch, as you can see.

With screen area at a premium, a nice feature of the RSS reader is that you can swap to a single pane view to allow more space to read feed content.

The next things was to see if the files inside the enclosure could be viewed.  Tapping on the pdf icons allowed me to view them in the tablet’s own PDF Viewer, with the option to save to the internal memory card (micro SD).  The PDF viewer is pretty good, with several viewing options available.

There is the same minimal navigation that we saw earlier on the browser.  There are some extra options that allow you to focus on the text of your documents.  The first of these is the zoom option.

and a further option is to remove images using the small blue icon in the bottom right corner of the viewer pane.  This leaves you with just the text of your document on display.

You might have noticed from the RSS screenshots that some of the posts in my classroom blog contain mp4 files.  These are also no problem for the N810.  Tapping on the icon gives the option to view (stream) or save the file for later viewing.  Streaming worked well across my home wifi and saved files have the advantage of appearing in the library of the built-in media player.  I had hoped to show how clear the video playback looked but you’ll have to take my word for it as the screenshot tool was unable to capture running or paused video output from the media player, rendering the video panel green instead.

I like the size of the controls on the media player, they are large enough for fingertip control rather than forcing you to use the stylus all of the time.

The other application for looking after your audio, video and podcasts is Canola.  I downloaded this from the maemo.org community.  The Canola interface is beautiful, see the full screen screenshot below.

The player within Canola is intuitive, with simple controls.  The player picked up my iTunes podcast art and displayed it while the video file was downloaded.

Unfortunately, Canola was unable to play the mp4 video although audio performance was satisfactory.  

In terms of other applications, I hap a play around with the Maps feature.  The tablet contained a default map covering the west coast of the USA & Canada and it was straightforward to replace this with a downloaded map of UK & Ireland.  Here’s my town up close

The N810 also has GPS capabilities although it took some time to find a signal, I was finally able to get something to register.

Best of all though was the discovery of Numpty Physics.  I think it is a clone of Crayon Physics and it is very addictive!

I’m still working on how to integrate the tablet into my classroom and will write some more once we’ve had a play.

Now that I am geting settled into my new room, I thought I would try to practise using the Smartboard.  It’s been playing up since I moved in, the internal walls of the building are plastic-covered sheets of steel and they seem to have caused an earthing problem inside the Smartboard 660 model that was fitted in my room,  The room next door has a 580 version and it is unaffected as it hangs from a bar rather than screwing to the wall.

Yesterday afternoon, I got the all clear to start using the IWB and I set about trying to make a screencast of a worked solution to this week’s Higher Phsyics homework.  I found that the files generated by the SMART recorder were enormous (>40MB for a 3 minute clip) and so I set about working on ways to reduce the file size.

First of all, I reduced the capture rate to 1 frame per second.  That seems slow but I find the response of the board quite slow when I am writing anyway.  Then I set the recorder to “no audio” and drew a capture area on the board rather than having the entire workspace captured.  All of these changes brought the files down to around 5MB each, a much more reasonable figure.

I was going to send the video to Voicethread.com so that both myself and pupils could add a commentary but the site didn’t want to accept the file.  Instead, I imported the .mov files into Apple’s Garageband to dub a commentary over the top.  GB lets you do this as long as you agree to ditch the default podcast track at the top of the screen that is used to sync still images to podcasts.  Then it was a simple case of recording commentary as I watched the clips playing through before exporting them to the hard drive and uploading to youtube.  

I’m pleased with the results.  Whether this is a justification of the costs in another matter.  I suspect that the same result can be achieved with a more portable resource such as a tablet.  Here is a sample screencast.

I wouldn’t have bothered but Tom Barrett started it!  I moved into a new room this week, here are photos of my old and new classrooms.

I stole this title from a post earlier today by Tom Barrett.  Tom has set out his stall, having identified the technology he will be using with his class over the new school year.

What about me?  All I know right now is that I need to up my game in terms of classroom technology this year.  Unlike Tom, we’ve been back to school for 2 weeks now.  I’m moving into a new classroom next week (photos to follow) and will have an interactive whiteboard for the very first time.  One of the challenges I will face is how to integrate this new tool into my predominantly senior school timetable without patronising the 16+ age group.  No doubt I will be drawing heavily on the IWB tips that Tom and others have compiled.

Add to that the new Intermediate 1 Electronics course, where I am having to get up to speed with packages such as Crocodile Technology 3D to teach circuit design & simulation before letting this class loose on their SQA projects.  

That’s a steep enough ICT learning curve for this term.

I’ve been trying to clear out the hard drive on my laptop. I cleared it back in May but it seems to have filled up again. Lots of video podcasts have been transferred over to the science folder on the school server, photos transferred on to a portable hard drive, hundreds of old email attachments have been binned and I have been ruthless in reviewing my iTunes subscriptions.

Then I found something half an hour ago. It’s a folder that takes up a whopping 15GB on my mac. Inside, there is an iMove file for a video I started with a S2 science class back in April. I was half way through the editing process when we changed timetable and I must have forgotten to finish the editing job for them after they moved on into S3. It was a great plan to have non-stop practical work, building light-proof plant propagators, assembling different coloured light sources (see the blue light source below) and all to see if plants responded differently to red, yellow and blue light. I liked it because it allowed me to combine biology and physics – we don’t get to do that very often!

What should I do? Finish the editing or just leave it on a hard drive somewhere? It’s going to be hard to find the enthusiasm when the pupils involved are no longer in my classroom.

I’ve been working on other things recently and the RSS feeds have been building up a little higher than I would like. One of the sites I caught up on today was Kairosnews, where playpus matt has blogged about his discovery of a template within Office 2007 that makes it easier to complain about a teacher.  Microsoft go that extra mile to help their customers, especially when that means complaining about teachers.  You can tell this by the presence of additional templates for complaining about a teacher to the Principal of the School and even writing to the school board to complain about a teacher.

Thanks, Microsoft.  You’re just the kind of Partner in Learning that we need.

Pi and a bit
You mean 3.15?
Yes

You’ll understand if you watch this film.

I’ve noticed some strange behaviour with one of my senior classes lately. There seems to be a desire to get me to say unusual words as I model answers to problems on the board. For example, whenever the number “2″ appears in a problem, I am asked about the weather. The number 10 produces prompts about Europe.

It’s only now that I realize the kids are playing Numberwang with me.

As a newly qualified teacher, I’m really determined to lift the image of physics at my school. The old labs are being replaced this year and should resemble a trendy MFI kitchen by the time Christmas arrives but there is very little ICT within the department. For example, the introduction of Standard Grade some 20 years ago was accompanied by a proliferation of Physics software for the BBC microcomputer. Unfortunately, other subject areas have since blossmed into PC-savvy, interactive whiteboard wielding technology warriers, leaving the physicists on the Luddite side of the ICT divide.

This is where I thought I might be able to make a difference. My department has a single digital projector and nobody else uses it. I might not have my own room but with an Apple iBook under my arm and a digital projector to go, there’s not a lot to stop me trying to inject some 21st century course delivery methods into my lessons.

I learned on my final PGCE placement last year that PowerPoint is a powerful behaviour management tool. Provided you are prepared to do the work in advance, PowerPoint can be used as a means of displaying course material without taking your eye off the pupils, very handy if you teach a class like my own 4.2! An additional “coolness” factor to this approach was my use of the Apple Wireless Mighty Mouse. This little beauty lets me wander around the classroom without relinquishing control of slide transitions, allowing me to check each pupil’s workrate as I go.

It’s a pity that these little technowarriors realised that the mouse functionality was achieved via Bluetooth connectivity. Before I knew it, they were attempting to communicate with my iBook and brought chaos to the lesson. Messages such as “Please may I go to the toilet, Sir?” flashed up onto the screen and brought gales of laughter from the kids. After 20 or so messages I conceded and brought the lesson to a close.

I have since discovered that Apple computers do not have to remain discoverable to operate with a wireless mighty mouse. Instead, open the Bluetooth preferences and add the mouse (or any other device) to your Bluetooth favourtites menu. Then turn off the discoverable option on the main Bluetooth menu, this ensures an automatic connection to your mouse when it is turned on but prevents kids from assualting your laptop with their mobile phones.