Well, we are starting our second year, and now that we have an encrypted wireless network we are having far fewer problems with access to the servers. We have 26 tablets in the hands of students and the archive on our Moodle site is working well. I still am having trouble with voice capture, with the bluetooth. . . but in comparison to year one, it is a dream.
Analytical Physics (PHYS 167) and a couple of labs in physics are also using tablets this year, Aaron Miller in 167 has a full class of 26, all with tablets.
Oh, and the local paper (Jackson Citizen-Patriot) ran a story on my class in today’s paper!! (See link below)
http://www.mlive.com/news/jackson/index.ssf/2009/08/new_tablet_technology_appealin.html
Well, this evening the extended desktop feature crashed on my tablet, it even told me it stopped working that it was going to try to find a solution. . . Did it find one? No. So that meant what I was projecting was my desktop, which meant when I tried to invert the screen to be in tablet mode to write notes for lecture, what was projected was upside down!! Which meant that if I inverted my computer so that screen one was right side up, when I went to screen two, it was upside down! ARRGGHH!!
Reliability, seems to be the key to success with this technology and I do not know why my vista computer keeps forgetting my presets, and that there are three different places you have to check because the HP Presentation button does not completely talk to the Vista Control panel for desktops. Coming up on the end of the second semester and I am still frustrated by these things!! Yes, this semester we have had only two crashes from students verses 8 last semester, and I have had difficulty only three times out of 35 lectures, but you know what? Chalk is reliable 100% of the time and if students and faculty cannot rely on having everything work every single time. . . .
Dog days of Orgo:
Well this morning it was clear that it sometimes does not matter what or how you teach, if the collective attitude of the class is that they don’t want to engage, they won’t. Students this morning clearly were NOT prepared, they “read”, they said, but they were NOT interested in being engaged. They wanted me to stand in front and lecture. Most frustrating.
I used group control for the first time which seemed okay, I wonder if the students just were so burned out by last weeks exam that they are trying to catch up on other classes or just wanted to rest from chemistry.
General Postings | Andrew French | 
September 1, 2009 9:33 am | 
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