Computer News Week Ending 11 January 2013

The seniors are on exam leave for prelims but I though the third years still deserved a Computer News spot. So here it is: lumpy flat-screens!

At least one girl was unimpressed with this but I thought it was a really interesting idea. I love using my iPad but would love to try entering text with a tactile, on-screen keyboard like this one from Tactus. The only problem from a teaching point-of-view is that it may make it possible to send texts while the phone is in your pocket again.

As before, there are some brief speakers notes which you can see if you click the wee cogwheel icon in the presentation.

What do you think? Better way to type on a flat screen or useless gimmick that will never take of?

Computer News

My friend Mags told me ages ago that she had started a weekly computer news spot with her classes and that the pupils enjoyed it so much that they started creating their own news spots when Mags didn't have time to prepare them herself. I always liked the idea, so I stole it... and I've been delivering a weekly news spot to my senior classes all this year.

Each week, I have put together a four slide presentation on an item of news that caught my eye, and after I've shown it to my classes, I've been printing it out and posting the pages on the wall outside my classroom. I was pleased one day to overhear a second year pupils saying to his neighbour that he'd forgotten to read the computer news.

For some time though, I've been meaning to publish the presentations online... And at last, I got around to doing so:

If you click on the Options icon (looks like a little cogwheel) and choose "Open speaker notes" you will be able to see more information about the topic.

I made the mistake, at first, of starting the lesson with the computer news but I found it was getting longer and longer each week as the pupils realised they could keep me going for ages by asking questions and making comments. So now, I end the lesson with it instead!

So far, it seems to be going well. I enjoy picking the topics and putting it together and recently, the pupils have started suggesting topics themselves.

What do you think? A worthwhile exercise or a waste of time for all concerned?

Fun On Friday #86: Presentations

Another Friday, another YouTube video.

I was talking about presentations this week, so I went looking for Life After Death By Powerpoint. I discovered that Don McMillan has updated it, for example, he's added a section on graphs at the end:

The sad thing is, I have seen many of the things he criticises used in "real" presentations.

{Apology: Another week and another Fun on Friday with no posts in between. Too much to do, too little time. (Or rather too little organisation and self-discipline!) I will try to do better.}