Monday, December 3, 2001

Jay Lichtenauer of MacinMind Software has released Master Key 2.0. According to Jay's site, Master Key is "a straightforward typing tutor program written with the Mac in mind" that works well on school AppleShare networks. Master Key 2.0 is available for download in three Mac versions: Carbon for OS X (2.4 MB); Classic (2.2 MB); and 68K (3.1 MB). Single user registration is $15.

Blufire Software has released version 1.1 of their freeware math game GridX. Players race the clock trying to fill a 1-100 number grid by applying any combination of the four basic operations to three numbers displayed. The numbers change with each solve. It's easy at first, but becomes challenging as grid numbers get used. It's also a lot of fun! GridX is available in Carbon (731K) and PPC (620K) versions for Macintosh only.

It appears that full funding for special education is dead in President Bush's education reform bill. Senate Democrats had insisted that a plan to fully fund the federal portion of IDEA, the special education law, saw their proposal rejected by House-Senate conferees, led by Republican congressmen. The original special education law and its successors called for 40% federal funding. The high watermark of federal funding of special ed occurred last year with a meager 15% federal contribution.

• The Washington Post -- House Conferees Reject Fund Rise For Special Ed -- by Michael A. Fletcher
• The New York Times -- Special Education Increases Cut From Bill (free registration required) -- by Liaette Alvarez
• Yahoo (AP) -- Republican Panel Kills Special Ed Funds -- by Greg Toppo

The state takeover of Philadelphia's public schools is on hold for three weeks as Pennsylvania Governor Mark S. Schweiker and Philadelphia Mayor John F. Street "try to negotiate a compromise." While privatization of some of the schools has been the main issue, funding now appears to be a major stumbling block to any reform there.

• The Philadelphia Inquirer -- Schweiker, Street face deep-rooted funding issue -- by Dale Mezzacappa
• The New York Times -- Governor Puts Philadelphia School Plan on Hold (free registration required) -- by Jacques Steinberg

If you have some suggestions, news ideas, etc., please .

Wednesday, December 5, 2001

Mediafour Corporation released version 5 of their excellent MacDrive utility on Monday. MacDrive 5 is a Windows utility that allows Windows boxes to read and write Mac disks, "including floppies, CD-ROM, CD-R, Zip, Jaz, and even Mac-formatted hard drives. It also works with USB, SCSI, FireWire, Fibre Channel, IDE, parallel, and just about every other kind of disk you can think to throw at it."

MacDrive 5 adds Windows XP compatibility to this excellent utility along with all the previous features that originally made it my pick for file compatibility between Macs and PCs:

• Access to all popular Mac-formatted media
• Formats Mac disks
• Preserves long file names
• Automatically displays proper icons and file name extensions
• Accesses multisession Mac CD-ROMs
• Decodes downloaded MacBinary and BinHex files
• Simple to install and use

MacDrive 5 is available for purchase as a Digital River download for $49.95. Physical shipments run $59.95, with upgrades for previous users $14.95. The download is a long one, because it also includes a free, complete version of StuffIt for Windows.

I originally bought a copy of MacDrive 95 when I was swapping ClarisWorks shareware files and school files between my Mac and PC. I later became a beta tester for Media 4. This time around I tested on our ancient 150 MHz Acer Aspire under Windows98, a 330 MHz Compaq Deskpro under Windows Professional 2000 (NT5), and dabbled on my OrangeMicro PC card that still uses Windows 95B. It was really a pretty easy beta cycle, although the folks using Windows XP may have had more excitement than I did.

Several years ago I trashed my Mac system while on deadline for the column Older Macs. I was able to boot from a startup zip and copied the the files and graphics for the column onto the boot zip disk. I completed the column, with the Acer reading from and writing to the zip -- with a giant assist from MacDrive! I also wrote a bit about beta testing with Media 4 in another View from the Classroom column, Making Your PC Work With Your Mac. (Both columns originally appeared on Low End Mac.)

Gordon John Stevens has posted an update to his crossword puzzle compiler. Crossword Express 5.5 adds some new print and file conversion options to what I consider to be the best tool for making crosswords on the market. If you check the current Version Tracker reviews, you'll find that I'm not alone in my high esteem of John's work. I've written how I use Crossword Express in Teacher Tools 4: A Roll-Your-Own Spelling Program. While the shareware fee runs $35, that includes both Mac (921K) and Windows (931K) versions and free updates.

Central Connecticut State University has announced an online Master of Science program in Data Mining. John Tascheck noted in the recent eWeek column, Data Mining's Dead: Long Live Analytics, "Data mining is now called real-time analytics, and it's the hottest thing since Lotus 1-2-3."

Apple Computer has won the bid for supplying laptops to all of Maine's seventh graders if state economic issues don't spoil the deal. The Associated Press's David Sharp reports in Winning bid would put Apple iBooks on seventh-graders' laps next fall that "funding remains a thorny issue amid projections of a downturn in state revenues in the coming year." He continues:

If the state completes final negotiations, then the new laptops would be rolled out in demonstration schools in February and would be distributed to 16,000 students in seventh-grade classrooms next fall.

The Portland Press Herald's Mark Shanahan gives a good overview of the Maine laptop initiative and Apple's involvement in State picks Apple as supplier of laptops.

The Teacher Laptop Foundation has received nonprofit status from the Internal Revenue Service and reports in a press release that 133,558 teachers have registered for free laptops with the foundation.

While I try to list most of the new items presented each week from the SchwabLearning.org, I recently found that they provide a summary link each week on their site (link expires 12-9-01)! This week the SchwabLearning.org features Dr. Robert Brooks, writing about Nurturing resilience and developing islands of competence in children with learning differences. Also new this week are:

• Words Can Hurt: Teaching Kids Better Ways to Express Anger
• My Story: Building Self-Esteem

Friday, December 7, 2001

Travis East has released an update to his freeware Geometry application that "calculates volume and area of common geometric figures." Geometry 2.5 adds "Right Triangle Formulas" and "Midpoint Formula" and is available in a variety of versions for different operating systems: DOS (24K); Windows (554K); Power Mac (618K); 68K Mac (498K); and OS X (697K).

The Education reform act is still hung up on special education funding. Senator Tom Harkin threatened, "I don't see anything wrong with coming back in January, if we have to,'' according to AP Education Writer Greg Toppo in Special Education Debated in Bill.

Teacher strikes are in the news as AP's John Curran reports in More than 100 New Jersey Teachers Jailed. The New York Times Yilu Zhao writes Union Grievances Could Prompt Wider Strike at Catholic Schools as the New York parochial school work stoppage went into its fourth day.

This will be a short update today as...it's been a really long day. I also finally broke down and sent Apple a check for "shipping and handling" for the free OS X 10.1 update, and I really want to play with it a bit this evening. (Since Apple says the update is free, does that mean I don't have to deduct the $20.95 from my checkbook?) 

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