Teacher covers copy costs with ads
Ads on tests add up for teacher - USATODAY.com
“Tough times call for tough actions,” he says. So he started selling ads on his test papers: $10 for a quiz, $20 for a chapter test, $30 for a semester final.
Interesting way to deal with cost cutting, but I don’t know the sustainability of the model. Right now the ads are pretty tame:
About two-thirds of Farber’s ads are inspirational messages underwritten by parents. Others are ads for local businesses, such as two from a structural engineering firm and one from a dentist who urges students, “Brace Yourself for a Great Semester!”
We already have sponsorships in the schools with Pepsi and Coke vying for exclusivity contracts, but once teachers start advertising, where does it end? Is there oversight of his ads? What happens and a religious organization wants to advertise?
Coming soon to a test near you?
HIW (How I Work): The Apple MacBook
I am asked quite often how I can keep up with everything in regards to educational technology, software, and hardware. After some reflection, I realized that it would make a good series of articles, so I’m going to write up How I Work.
First up is probably the most important component of my technology arsenal, my Apple MacBook. During the spring of 2006 I was researching upgrading my 17″ iMac to a new MacBook Pro. The plan was to buy a beefy enough MacBook Pro that I wouldn’t want to upgrade for awhile. I specc’ed out the MacBook Pro that I wanted to be almost $2,500! I wasn’t happy being stuck with getting such a large laptop, but I was in luck that Apple then announced the MacBook. After realizing I could buy a MacBook and an iMac for the same price as the MacBook Pro, I ordered my MacBook. After using it, I realized I didn’t even need a desktop at home.
With my MacBook and VMware Fusion, I get the best of all worlds. I run OS X 10.5 mainly, but have a Windows XP and Ubuntu virtual machines also installed on the machine. Since the original purchase I’ve bumped the memory from 1GB to 2GB and the hard drive from 80GB to 200GB.
Unfortunately, come summer 2009 when I’ll be looking at upgrading I don’t know what I’ll do. The new MacBook’s lack of firewire is almost a deal killer for me.
When I am at home I hook my MacBook up to a 17″ LCD monitor and use a cheap $30 Micro Innovations wireless keyboard and mouse I purchased from Wal-mart (mine is a dark grey, not the hideous color from the picture). The combo works pretty well, except sometimes I have to unplug and re-plug the USB dongle that works with the set when I wake the MacBook up from sleep. That’s also where I keep an external hard drive to maintain my laptops backups using OS X’s Time Machine.
New page: About Me
I’ve create an About Me page that gives some background information on how I got to where I am today.
Portable blogging
I’m testing out a mobile blogging client for my Windows Mobile 5.0 Smartphone, MoBlog. It appears to work ok, including allowing me to insert an image from my phone. I’ll post a longer review once I’ve had more time to play with it.
Next fall, every school district in Florida is required to set up an online school for K-8
In Florida, virtual school could make classrooms history — OrlandoSentinel.com
A new law that takes effect next fall requires every district in the state to set up an online school for kindergarten through eighth-grade students.
This is fascinating to me, and I’m surprised that this didn’t get more news coverage when the legislation was being passed in Florida. Each district still gets the $6,000 per student, and most are going to buy the services of a couple of companies that provide online education instead of create their own online curriculum. Even the computer and Internet connection are provided to the students.
I could see this being a watershed moment in the aspect of educational technology. Can education be provided digitally and will students learn just as well as they do in a classroom of 20 students? The pitfalls are enormous, mostly centering around socialization skills, although this should be a solved problem with the years of home schooling that have taken place. In the spring of 2003, 1,096,000 students were being home schooled in the United States.
(* Thanks to Kevin Jarrett and his tweet! *)
Codeweavers Crossover Pro and Games for Mac and Linux Free today only!
Codeweavers is offering two of their products for Mac and Linux free today only. I’ve only played around with Crossover when it was still in Beta, but this is some exciting news. I’m hoping it can run VMWare’s console application so I don’t have to start up VMware Fusion on my MacBook.
Posting from my ipod
Showing off the Wordpress app for the iPod.
Firefox 3.0 to be released at 10 PDT (1:00pm for those on the east coast)
Go and download it! (At the proper time, of course. 
)
Test post from TypePad's Blogit
This is a test, posting from my iPod Touch.
Would a rose by any other name smell just as sweet?
According to a recent study, names really do make a difference:
Parents are being warned to think long and hard when choosing names for their babies as research has discovered that girls who are given very feminine names, such as Anna, Emma or Elizabeth, are less likely to study maths or physics after the age of 16, a remarkable study has found.
Fascinating research. They even examined twin girls and found that what they were named could put them on two entirely different career paths. Also, naming a child with a ‘lower-status’ name, spelled in an unusual way or including punctuation, lowered exam scores by 3-5%.
One more thing for new parents to worry about.