Velsoft offers some free K-6 classroom activities in PDF format that are updated monthly.

The headline, Lack of certified teachers hampers special-ed classes, is specific to the Boston area in this column by Scott S. Greenberger, but it easily could be generalized to the whole country.

MacWorld UK reports that the Mac OS X 10.1 update will be "the focus of Apple's keynote presentation on Tuesday at the Seybold Conference and Expo in San Francisco."

Tuesday, September 25, 2001

NorthSoft Productions has updated their NP Grade freeware gradebook. Separate versions are available for Mac Classic (3.2 MB) and OS X (3.5 MB) with a Windows version promised soon.

According to MacMinute.com, the Mac OS X 10.1 update will be announced today at the Seybold Conference with distribution beginning on Saturday. The posting notes, "The update will not be available for download." Apparently, Apple plans to go ahead with its controversial plan to charge $20 shipping and handling for the "free" update.

The SchwabLearning.org has begun a seven week series in which they will present their updated online Assistive Technology Guide. Other highlights this week include:

• Kids and Computers
• Rick Lavoie on Fairness: To Each According To His Needs
• Susan Hall Speaks with SchwabLearning.org about Learning About the School's Instructional Approach
• Learning Disabilities - An Overview
• Sibling Issues and LD

The Book Adventure site has announced its first annual Book Adventure Week October 1 - 7, 2001. Book Adventure is a free online reading motivation program sponsored by Houghton Mifflin, Sylvan Learning, and others. Along with the reading motivation program for kids, the site also has a good source page for teachers.

While not at all educationally related, I can't help sharing Does anyone actually keep up with Apple anymore? Times Record News (Wichita Falls,Texas) editor Carroll Wilson has more one liners designed to ignite the easily-inflamed Mac faithful than almost any column I've read recently. For example:

It is an Apple tradition to expect to get too much for a product that's not that much different from the competition and it is an Apple tradition to then sit back and wonder what went wrong.

The funny thing is, I find myself pretty much in agreement with Carroll.

Wednesday, September 26, 2001

The House-Senate conference committee yesterday reached agreement on a number of issues on the education reform act. Two key items, President Bush's Reading First and Early Reading First initiatives both received ratification. According to U.S. Newswire, "Federal funding for reading programs would be tripled from $300 million in FY2001 to $900 million in FY2002," under the Reading First provision. The Early Reading First provision is supposed to "enhance reading readiness for children in high poverty areas," although parts of it have previously been pretty hotly contested.

The New York Times (free registration required) reports that the U.S. Supreme Court will rule on an Ohio voucher case in its coming term. Times reporter Linda Greenhouse notes the importance of the case beyond just the Ohio case:

Although there are only a handful of tuition voucher programs in operation around the country, a decision to uphold the Ohio program would have an immediate national impact by removing the constitutional doubt that has kept the concept from spreading. In addition, anything the Supreme Court says about the boundary between church and state could affect the outlook for the Bush administration's religion-based initiative.

The Seattle Times Keith Ervin reports that Seattle schools are poised to reverse a policy adopted in 1996 that "endorsed advertising and corporate sponsorships as a way to raise money for cash-strapped schools." The elimination of Channel One would be the most visible change if the school board adopts the new commercialism policy under consideration. A draft of the new policy also forbids "commercial advertising targeted at children...advertising on scoreboards, readerboards, school buildings, Memorial Stadium and other athletic fields."

As expected, the 10.1 update for Apple Computer's Mac OS X operating system was announced today. According to an Apple press release, the update "will be available in stores this Saturday." The new release is reported to vastly improve performance and includes support for playing DVD movies and burning DVDs.

The Mac OS X v10.1 retail package is available for a suggested retail price of $129 (US). Current Mac OS X users can upgrade using the standard Mac OS Up-to-Date program for $19.95 (US). A free Instant Up-to-Date upgrade kit for existing Mac OS X users will be available through October 31, 2001, or while supplies last through Apple's retail stores and at participating retail outlets.

An update for Mac OS X Server was also announced at the Seybold Conference with immediate availability.

Thursday, September 27, 2001

Yesterday's Astronomy Picture of the Day (archive index) was appropriately the shot at right of the comet Borrelly's Nucleus. This shot, along with a host of other photos and information, is available on the NASA-JPL Deep Space 1 site.

While poking about some NASA sites this week, I ended up following a link to the SpaceWeather.com site. It currently has some great shots of the "coronal mass ejection" (I think that's a solar flare to the rest of us.) that occurred this week. I think I got there from a link on today@nasa.gov.

NASA also announced an improved (and may I say, much needed) search engine yesterday.

LuckyMe Software has released Mom's Calendar b3.0.2 (564K). Mom's Calendar creates a 640x480 pixel printable calendar to which users may add notations. Having watched folks at school labor to create respectable looking calendars in various spreadsheet programs, I suspect this freeware may find a home on many classroom Macs.

Apple Computer has updated their iMovie digital editing application to version 2.1.1. The 7.7 MB updater requires some version of iMovie 2 to be previously installed. While iMovie is available as a $49 download from Apple, the iMovie page notes, "iMovie 2 is included on every new iMac, iBook, PowerBook and Power Mac G4. And now, iMovie 2 is included with Mac OS X v10.1." I was fortunate to get my copy of iMovie 2 for free...with the $999 iMac we bought for a college bound daughter:-).

If you're on a really tight budget for video editing software, Strata VideoShop 3 is on the MacAddict Discs 27 (Nov., 1998) and 39 (Nov., 1999). I still use it occasionally under System 9.1 with no problems.

If you use AppleWorks 6 and are planning to upgrade to Mac OS X, there's an AppleWorks 6.2.1 updater available. Currently, AppleWorks 6 for Classic OS 9 still tops out at version 6.1.2.

Friday, September 28, 2001

ComputerWorld reports that there may be a resurgence of the Nimda worm beginning today. ComputerWorld quotes Oliver Friedrichs, director of engineering at the Attack Registry and Intelligence Service, as saying, "We rechecked the code base to Nimda, and we found a code set that is supposed to respread Nimda through e-mail systems starting 10 days after machines were first infected." Recommended actions for system administrators are include checking patches from Microsoft, insuring that antivirus software does block Nimda, stopping exe files and attachments at email gateways, and telling users on the system not to open attachments named "readme.exe."

Symantec has posted October virus definitions for both Macintosh and Windows.

Satellites help pinpoint Lewis and Clark journey tells of how NASA is assisting researchers trying to "uncover Lewis and Clark outposts."

Saturday, September 29, 2001

I've updated the Freewares on Educators' News page with the freewares posted here over the last two weeks. This isn't a column or even a review. It's just a simple cut and paste of most of the freeware postings that have appeared on Educators' News since last April for your convenience.