Monday, May 12, 2008

The Electric Company to Return to PBS

When I was teaching developmentally delayed kids in Indy in the 70's, I didn't recommend many TV shows to parents for their children. The one exception was the PBS series, The Electric Company. It presented a phonetic approach to reading much like the Project Read program we used in the classroom.

Michael Davis reports in today's The New York Times that the series will be remade and will return to PBS in January! PBS Revives a Show That Shines a Light on Reading tells about the new version of the series:

“It’s the old one mixed with ‘High School Musical’ and a Dr Pepper commercial,” said Linda Simensky, senior director of programming for PBS Kids, a block of children’s shows that will include “The Electricity Company.” There’s a touch of “Fame” to it, given its cast of culturally diverse city kids who sing and dance, as well as nods to the original series. (A cameo has been offered to Rita Moreno, a regular on the original “Electric Company,” remembered for her show-opening exultation, “Hey, you guyyyyys!”)

I'm really exited to see this old favorite updated and returning to the airwaves. There's also an excellent entry on Wikipedia about the old show.

Internet Archive

Since we're already traveling down memory lane today, let me add a note about a tool I ran across years ago. The Internet Archive Project has been archiving web pages since 1996. If you know the URL of an old site, you can enter it in their Wayback Machine and a copy of it may be there. I ran into this site years ago when I discovered that they had archived my old site before I moved to my own domain. Below is an image of the first day of publication of Educators' News from the Internet Archive.

Actually, all I could find was the first week, so I Photoshopped out the other days.

Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac

Speaking of Photoshop, I saw a link on Heng-Cheong Leong's MyAppleMenu site to a glowing review of the new version of Photoshop Elements for Mac by Glenn Fleishman. Glenn writes in Elements for Mac is the picture of simplicity, "If you regularly find yourself wanting to clean up, make a composite with or adjust photos, and the idea of learning Photoshop CS3 — or paying $625 for it — daunts you, Elements is the right choice."

I'm still using Creative Suite 1, so I've been giving Elements 6 for Mac a good look. Of course, Photoshop CS still works great on my Mac, so I'm not in a rush, but the new version does sound good. If you're on the hunt for a new photo editor and have a good, quick internet connection, Adobe's free Photoshop Express might be able to do the trick for you.

The new Photoshop Elements 6 for Mac runs about $80 from Amazon or $70 for an upgrade from previous versions from the Adobe USA Store. If you're an educator (Who else would read this site?), try the Academic Superstore ($65) or Journey Education ($69).

Longer School Days in Massachusetts

Boston Globe correspondent John Laidler had a good column yesterday about schools using a longer school day in More school time? Just what to do? If you had an hour and a half more instructional time per school day, how could you use it? Laider tells how schools involved with the Massachusetts 2020 Expanded Learning Time Initiative are making good use of the time.

Another New Science@NASA

Astronaut Suni Williams works with the LOCAD-PTS experiment in the Destiny laboratory of the International Space Station. Photo Courtesy NASA

Dr. Tony Phillips has cranked out yet another great posting on Science@NASA. This one came out Friday after we'd "gone to press." Space Station Tricorder tells about a new device in use on the International Space Station, LOCAD-PTS (Lab-On-a-Chip Application Development Portable Test System), that looks a lot like the old Star Trek tricorder. NASA scientist and an admitted Star Trek fan Heather Morris says, "LOCAD is like that tricorder in that it is portable, rapid, and detects a biochemical molecule." While the old Star Trek tricorder "could do almost anything from checking vital signs to finding alien life," LOCAD is a little more specialized. "LOCAD is specifically designed to detect and identify microbes on space station surfaces."

Need for Teachers

Daniel Meier, associate professor of education at San Francisco State University, contributed a good essay on the need for future teachers in the San Francisco Chronicle's Open Forum today. In Who will teach our children, he lists some of the reasons he thinks he's seeing less interest in teaching and offers some good suggestions. The first is really important:

If we are to attract the number of dedicated teachers that the state needs, we must as a society do an about-face and begin to see teachers as critical professionals for enriching our children's social and cultural lives, and contributing to the future safety and well-being of our communities.

Amen!

Last Chance to Grab XP

eSchool News reports that Schools will have until 2009 to buy Windows XP. Dennis Carter writes:

Microsoft will stop offering Windows XP in retail stores June 30, but at least two major computer manufacturers say school districts, colleges, and universities will be able to buy machines with the older operating system until January 2009, as Windows Vista—released last year—remains unpopular with many consumers.

Maybe I'm showing my Mac roots, but that sounds like another reason to work on a Mac! Of course, I'm still publishing this site using Mac OS X 10.4.11 (Tiger), even though I bought the Mac OS X v10.5 Leopard Family Pack!

EarthShots

Today's EarthShots photo is one I couldn't pass up posting. Thomas Vignaud, a French marine biology student and professional diver, captured this shot of a hermit crab on coral while on a dive working with sharks. He commented, "Few of them were resting around, but this one had the nicer shell!"

EarthShots provides a great widget for displaying their Photo of the Day as well. It's great for classroom and school web sites. Just cut and paste the HTML code from their webmasters page. You can also embed individual photos by clicking on the EarthShot photo and then using the embed code on the next page displayed.

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Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Quick Posting

It's early Wednesday morning (12:15 A.M.) and the rain and lightening are rolling in, certainly to be followed by rain fade and an internet blackout (one of the joys of satellite internet). Without comment, I'll quickly post several things I found interesting on the net today.

• The New York Times - Teach for America Sees Surge in Popularity by Sam Dillon
• Sacramento Bee - Despite high school algebra focus, more students need remedial college math - by Deb Kollars
• InfoZine - Free NIH Teaching Tools Help Educators Meet State Science Education Standards - NIH Curriculum Supplement Series

Friday, May 16, 2008 - TGIF

Windows for OLPC Computers

Image Courtesy OLPC

The One Laptop Per Child organization and Microsoft have announced that OLPC laptops will be available with Microsoft's Windows operating system soon. The sturdy, low cost laptop designed for use by children in developing nations will also still be available with Linux operating system. Adding Windows to the XO computer will add around $3 to its current $200 cost according to Steve Lohr in Microsoft Joins Effort for Laptops for Children.

Supernova Found in Milky Way

A supernova in our own Milky Way galaxy has been discovered. Both Science@NASA, Galactic Hunt Bags Missing Supernova, and Science Daily, Baby supernova seen right in our neighborhood, have the story.

A Beautiful Day and Some Old Mac Lore

After days of rain and more of the same in the forecast, the weather today is beautiful. Looking out our kitchen window, it's nice to see the sun again on our soggy back yard and garden.

While the rain continued, I put the indoor time to good use, updating some old columns such as Illustrated Power Mac 7500 Teardown. That one had been a challenge, as the 7500 that I used in my classroom and for the column had gone home with a student as a take home computer. Fortunately, I was able to use my dad's old Power Mac 7300, which became surplus when we got him a new iMac, to redo the really poor photography in the original column.

Of course, getting into tearing down, photographing, and reassembling an old computer does have its dangers. You have to test the thing when done. It ran great, but as I put it away, there was my old Mac IIfx on the storage stack.

Firing up the old IIfx is always an adventure, as the machine was terribly advanced for its time but also could be a fickle beast. Apple used tin connectors for the ROM SIMM slot, so whenever I boot up the old machine after months or years of storage, I have to remove the ROM chip and clean it. Corrosion builds up on the connector, but is easily removed with Brasso and/or dry steel wool.

I was reminded once again that some older, Mac Classic operating systems no longer can connect to computers running Mac OS X via AppleShare, so I had a merry chase firing up my G4 QuickSilver in Mac OS 9.2.2 to bridge between my G5 and the IIfx. I was trying to install a reasonably "current" web browser on the IIfx that would run under System 7.6.1. iCab 2.9 (for 68K Macs) filled the bill, and by connecting to both the G5 and the IIfx from the QuickSilver, I was able to transfer several installers to the IIfx using AppleShare.

Since I was totally nerded out at that point, I couldn't resist firing up my old Mac SE/30. For years I've said that I was going to try to get it online, but never could find an SCSI Ethernet adapter. I think I found one on eBay, so who knows, maybe I'll be surfing the web on a glorious 9" black and white screen at a blazing 16 MHz!

Have a great weekend!

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