Monday, November 5, 2001

Gary Smith has released a new math freeware for Macintosh, Going to School (287K). Gary wrote that he's used the application for four or five years with his 7th and 8th graders for graph-interpretation. He notes that "the learning curve for the program is rather steep," but the kids enjoy it once they get the hang of it. I played with Gary's new release for a few minutes yesterday and found that it indeed took a few minutes to figure out, but liked it enough that I'll add it to the folder of Polymath Love Software on each of my classroom machines. Gary now offers 26 excellent math freewares for download on his Free Programs page. He also has an order page for his entire collection of 250+ math programs on CD.

Other weekend updates of educational software include Periodic Table 3.0.2, RPN Calculator 1.4.7, and Math Flash 1.1.

Rachel Robbins has updated her Pixel Mountain Desktop Pictures site with five new, outstanding photos. All pictures on the site are by Rachel and are free to use as computer desktop (wallpaper) pictures. Rachel also says she will be adding five new pictures a week for the next few weeks.

A San Francisco Chronicle posting reports the Jordan Middle School program, reported here last Monday, that asked "parents in Palo Alto, California, to buy $2,000 laptops for their sixth-graders" has been put on hold. Some Jordan Middle School parents protested that the program "wasn't fair to families that can't afford the computers." Acting superintendent of the Palo Alto schools Bob Golton said, "The pause will allow for a re-evaluation of the program." One parent commented, "Hopefully, they can turn this elitist program into one that the rest of Palo Alto can afford."

A column on the New York Times site by Carl S. Kaplan, Ruling Sets Stage for E-Mail Trial (free registration required), notes that the Supreme Court's refusal to hear a case testing Washington state's anti-spam law may open the door for similar laws in other states.

The Chicago Tribune column, Deal takes Microsoft where it wants to go by Barbara Rose, lists some of the public outcry against the DOJ-Microsoft settlement announced Friday. Others, such as Wired News writer Declan McCullagh find OS Choice Could Be a New Option. I think MacsOnly's Bill Fox put it most succinctly, "It's Unanimous, M$ Skates." Web buddy Joe Taylor sent along a link to a great satire, Case Settled: Justice to Break Up Apple for Turning Microsoft into Monopoly.

Tuesday, November 6, 2001

The Philadelphia Inquirer has published a two part series in concerning the proposed state takeover of the Philadelphia public schools. In Lessons from school takeovers: Big change at districts, less so in classrooms, Inquirer staff writer Dale Mezzacappa states:

In the quest to reform urban education, no measure is as bold as the state takeover of a school system. It has been an effective tool, experts say, at rooting out mismanagement, balancing out-of-whack budgets, restoring crumbling buildings, and filling supply-room shelves. Yet rarely has a takeover had more than middling success at what counts most: higher student achievement.

In the second installment, In Baltimore, Edison fixes schools while facing critics, Susan Snyder takes a good look at the track record of Edison Schools Inc., the likely manager of the Philadelphia schools if the state imposes a takeover.

According to both a CNET/Reuters report and Computerworld, Massachusetts appears ready to reject the settlement reached by the Department of Justice and Microsoft. The CNET/Reuters report says that Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly said in a press conference in Boston that "he would ask the court for a national remedy that better controls Microsoft's market behavior."

This week the SchwabLearning.org presents two interesting columns about giftedness and learning disabilities:

• Priscilla Vail Speaks with SchwabLearning.org about Schwab the Decks, Make Whoopi, and Lightin Up
• LD and Gifted: A Homeschooling Story

Other new or updated items include:

• APD or CAPD?
• Central Auditory Processing - An Overview
• Assistive Technology - Listening Devices
• Accommodations and Modifications

Schwab also has prepared a booklet of 50 Fun Ways to Improve Reading (942K PDF document).

Wednesday, November 7, 2001

In the court case that just won't end, nine of the eighteen states involved have refused to go along with settlement reached by the Department of Justice and Microsoft. According to Associated Press, Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly has "scheduled a hearing to determine whether it was in the public interest to accept the settlement, and set a timetable allowing the remaining states to argue for tougher penalties."

• Nine states reject Microsoft antitrust deal; court fight continues -- Computerworld
• Microsoft Suit Splits in Two -- Associated Press
• Questions Remain Over Proposed Microsoft Settlement Deal -- New York Times (free registration required)

There's another interesting column online about textbook publishers frantic efforts to include information on the September 11 terrorist attacks, the anthrax threat, and the war in Afghanistan in new social studies texts. In The Historic Present: Publishers Rush to Keep Textbooks Up-to-Date Washington Post staff writer Emily Wax observes:

With history occurring as they wrote, publishing houses had to stop the presses, push deadlines to the last second and ultimately print books that they realized would be dated right away.

The Philadelphia Inquirer's Susan Snyder continues her coverage of the proposed state takeover of the Philadelphia public schools in Board cites 'risk' in schools proposal. Snyder quotes Philip R. Goldsmith, interim chief executive officer of the school district, as saying:

The risk of hitching the future of 200,000 children and their families to a relatively small, entrepreneurial and not-yet profitable company that has never done something like this - certainly at this scale - belies the fiduciary responsibility we have to our students, their families and our taxpayers.

Marc Weil has updated his Mac freeware gradebook, NP Grade, to version 1.5. Improvements include unlimited numbers of students and various new exports and bug fixes. NP Grade is available for both Mac Classic (3.1 MB system 8.6 and later) and OS X (5.1 MB).

The Mac freeware calculator for PowerBooks and iBooks, nCalc, has been updated to version 1.2.2. Note: At this writing, links were down.

Russ & Ryan Software have updated their School Maestro II "teacher productivity tool" for Windows to version 2.4.8. School Maestro II includes a gradebook, seating charts, subjective grade recording, reusable lesson plans, report cards, honor rolls, gpas and transcripts, along with attendance, appointment, and contact information tracking.

MacMinute has a good discussion of some of the "quirks, bugs, and missing features" of Apple's updated iTunes 2 in iTunes 2 pleases some, disappoints others. Since I don't burn a lot of audio CDs, or even have a compatible Mac, I sorta blew it on the iTunes 2 for OS X disk corruption story.

Talk about blowing it, I just stumbled across an August Wired News story that says, "In the fall of 2002, all 17,000 7th-graders in the state [Maine] will receive their own laptop."

Friday, November 9, 2001

While conservatives talk about not wanting to throw more money at old problems, inadequate funding dominates today's education news. A column by Associated Press education writer Greg Toppo is headlined School Group Won't Back Bush Plan. "A group representing the nation's school superintendents says President Bush's education bill places too many demands on schools without providing enough money for those with low-income students."

In Buffalo, New York, Some schools may be closed to save money. No, it's not a January paid vacation. School officials are out of money and are exploring midyear school closings, layoffs, multi-grade elementary classrooms and the like to make ends meet.

In Connecticut, Added Millions Sought For Education In State. From Cleveland, Ohio, the Plain Dealer headline reads High school busing, trips to be cut after levy failure.

Whoa! In five Bay area California counties, "voters approved more than $750 million in new money for school facility construction and renovation." San Francisco Chronicle writer Mark Simon notes, "We have been starving our schools to death, whether it's community colleges or elementary schools." Simon describes how a few movers and shakers in the San Francisco area got the ball rolling.

Stepping down from (or more likely, falling off of) my bleeding-heart liberal soapbox, some other education columns are worth a peek this weekend. Science teacher and Low End Mac columnist Jeff Adkins continues his series on planetarium software packages for the Macintosh. In this week's Mac Lab Report, Jeff gives good marks to Syzygy Research and Technology Ltd.'s The Digital Universe, "if you're in the intended target audience."

Sue Hutchinson, writing for San Jose Mercury News, adds a new twist to the previously reported Jordan Middle School program that asked parents in Palo Alto, California, to buy $2,000 laptops for their sixth-graders. In Teachers Get Burned In Palo Alto Debate Over Laptop Computers, Hutchinson states:

In the end, the people who got burned were the teachers. They spent months developing a program that may finally be a cure for "dog-ate-my-homework'' syndrome, only to be scolded for being naive enough to think making the program "optional'' made it fair.

One of the Evil NT Techie and my favorite conversations at school is ways Apple Computer has blown it. The Apple II and the early Mac were sooo far out in front of the pack, only to have corporate high pricing schemes, arrogance, infighting, bad management, etc. relegate the platform to a niche role in the big computing picture. Now, enter the Apple Up-to-Date program with its contribution to the proverbial Apple 'shoot yourself in the foot" syndrome. The "free" Mac OS X 10.1 update has already caused enough confusion and resentment from users who had already paid for the "complete" operating system, only to be told they had to pay $19.95 for shipping and handling for the update or go to an Apple outlet in hopes it might have a copy of the update. Thursday, the Macintosh News Network carried an email from a serviceman stationed overseas who was denied the update because he was not in the U.S. and therefore, did not qualify for the "free" update.

There appears to be a happy ending for the serviceman, as readers at MNN seem to be vying for his address so they can burn him a CD and get it to him. It's too bad the "Macintosh spirit" is mainly a thing of the users and not the company that produces the product.

I actually uploaded the early version of the Friday update (done Thursday evening, as usual) before realizing that I'd actually made an update without using the name Microsoft! Just to make sure I hadn't missed anything really earthshaking, I nosed around a few sources before hitting on MacSurfer's general computer links page, TechNN. The PR Newswire posting, Windows XP Is Flying Off the Shelves! assaulted my weary eyes. Of course, it was just a typical Microsoft hype press release, in contrast to the many articles that have reported just so-so sales of the new operating system.

On a more objective level, the Sacramento Bee's David Hoye penned After painful installation, XP users. It still appears that the best way to upgrade to XP may be to buy a new box with the OS preinstalled.

An Associated Press posting, Brazil Ministry: Fine Microsoft, notes the Brazilian finance ministry has accused Microsoft of overcharging for software in Brazil's federal district. The posting notes that "the price of certain Microsoft products was as much as four times higher than in the rest of the country."

Ah, yes, Apple is still Apple and Microsoft is still Microsoft.

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