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I meant to write this yesterday.
On Monday I showed my powerpoint preview of the year to the 7th graders, to two classes. No problemo. LCD projector loved my laptop for both periods.
Yesterday morning I set it up and all is well. I go off to morning duty at the front of the school, come back and the LCD display has lost its signal from my laptop. I reboot, reconnect, redo everything I can think of. Nope nope nope.
Luckily the students had started a worksheet the day before and I just had them finish that and gave up on the technology.
This is why, as adept as I am with PowerPoint and other stuff, I don't use much in class or at conferences. Give me an overhead projector. The worst that can go wrong is a lightbulb can burn out and that can be remedied with sending a student to get a new bulb from the librarian.
You can't trust computer equipment. And you MUST PLAN for it to fail. You have to. You can't sit there looking at the students and saying, gee whiz, I'm so sorry guys. I have nothing else planned for today.
I have the PowerPoint on the web so people can see it and I checked yesterday to see whether I can run it on one of the computers in the classroom. I can. I'll have to have everyone sit close together on the floor in front of the computer to see the screen, and even then that might not work too well, but at least I have a backup for today.
I am determined to show this to the 8th graders because I'm tired of fighting them on mastering their endings. If they can see they have more difficult concepts of noun/adj agreement, relative clauses/pronouns and participles ahead that rely on the endings having been mastered, then maybe, just maybe, they'll take this more seriously.
So, be careful if planning cool PowerPoints... they EAT UP YOUR TIME in creation and can be a total bust.
Remember this: SIMPLE IS BETTER.
Overheads and chalk. Maybe some well-designed posters and handouts. Hard copies.
One or two PowerPoints a year is all I want to test the technologies gods with.
And in other news, my little 6th graders all made A's and B's on their first quiz. No failures. My exploratory classes are not difficult, mind you, but I still get failures from kids who refuse to participate in class. Doing names with them today, bullae tomorrow.
On Monday I showed my powerpoint preview of the year to the 7th graders, to two classes. No problemo. LCD projector loved my laptop for both periods.
Yesterday morning I set it up and all is well. I go off to morning duty at the front of the school, come back and the LCD display has lost its signal from my laptop. I reboot, reconnect, redo everything I can think of. Nope nope nope.
Luckily the students had started a worksheet the day before and I just had them finish that and gave up on the technology.
This is why, as adept as I am with PowerPoint and other stuff, I don't use much in class or at conferences. Give me an overhead projector. The worst that can go wrong is a lightbulb can burn out and that can be remedied with sending a student to get a new bulb from the librarian.
You can't trust computer equipment. And you MUST PLAN for it to fail. You have to. You can't sit there looking at the students and saying, gee whiz, I'm so sorry guys. I have nothing else planned for today.
I have the PowerPoint on the web so people can see it and I checked yesterday to see whether I can run it on one of the computers in the classroom. I can. I'll have to have everyone sit close together on the floor in front of the computer to see the screen, and even then that might not work too well, but at least I have a backup for today.
I am determined to show this to the 8th graders because I'm tired of fighting them on mastering their endings. If they can see they have more difficult concepts of noun/adj agreement, relative clauses/pronouns and participles ahead that rely on the endings having been mastered, then maybe, just maybe, they'll take this more seriously.
So, be careful if planning cool PowerPoints... they EAT UP YOUR TIME in creation and can be a total bust.
Remember this: SIMPLE IS BETTER.
Overheads and chalk. Maybe some well-designed posters and handouts. Hard copies.
One or two PowerPoints a year is all I want to test the technologies gods with.
And in other news, my little 6th graders all made A's and B's on their first quiz. No failures. My exploratory classes are not difficult, mind you, but I still get failures from kids who refuse to participate in class. Doing names with them today, bullae tomorrow.
overheads
Date: 2005-08-31 12:13 pm (UTC)dm
Re: overheads
Date: 2005-08-31 09:12 pm (UTC)Yes, and that's such a good point. Sometimes you've got to admit that the techno gods are against you.
I tried *again* today to get the equipment to work. No dice. Called techie in and even he couldn't fix it. Must be my laptop. (It's relatively old...but only relatively.) So I did the presentation from the website, which did not support the fly-ins and such, but was good enough for focusing the conversation and previewing the year.
And this is why some days I just like a nice piece of chalk.