Archive for October 1st, 2007

Dumbest thing I’ve read all day

Monday, October 1st, 2007

Rant up ahead. You were warned. 🙂

I regularly read the Internet, which means that I’m constantly bombarded by stupidity. So, sometimes it’s hard to determine what the silliest or stupidest thing I’ve come across actually is. But sometimes, something jumps out as so … dumb … that it just begs for comments.

Remember when the Iranian president came to speak at Columbia University – where he didn’t exactly receive a warm reception? In fact, he was introduced as “a petty and cruel dictator” and “astonishingly uneducated”. He then proceeded to make himself look quite foolish with his ideas about the Holocaust and homosexuals. It’s very doubtful that he made any friends among the faculty or students of Columbia University that day.

Despite this, the very fact that Iran’s president was invited to a university to be heard at all has made one second-tier Republican presidential candidate – Duncan Hunter, a representative from California – wet himself all over the Congress. He’s introduced HR 3675 – the “Restore Patriotism to University Campuses Act”. See for yourself:

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Teaching with technology – on a shoestring budget

Monday, October 1st, 2007

It’s an unfortunate reality in education that if you want to use modern technology to teach, you’re quite likely going to be on your own. You can get some help from grants – if they’re available. You might be able to get some technology from all-too-eager textbook publishers, but these come with a price. Your students will likely foot the bill, and if you live in an economically depressed area areas like I do, your students can’t afford it.

So what do you do if you want to use technology, but you’re on a limited budget. You can’t, for instance, shell out the cash for a Sympodium. (Especially if the funds come out of your own pocket!) If you’re willing to put in a little effort, though, you can bring some modern technology into your classroom with relatively little cost. That’s what I’ve been doing this semester with my (used, but new to me) tablet PC.

At the beginning of the semester, I decided that I’d purchase a Tablet PC for classroom use. Since I was unable to get one through the school, I decided to scour Ebay for a used model. My choices were between a Toshiba PortegeM200 and a Thinkpad X40. Since the Toshiba was cheaper and sported a higher-resolution display, I went with the Toshiba. At the time, the Ebay price for a Toshiba M200 was around $500. I added another $100 to max out the memory so the system will run its fastest. Since I was due for a laptop upgrade anyway, this wasn’t such a bad cost to absorb. The problem was – that was about all the cost I could absorb. (Education salary, you see. 🙂 )

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