Teaching With Gadgets

How Technology Can Help Today's Teacher

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Back In The Saddle...

Well, after 4 months of not writing, I'm back again. It's been a wild ride for those 4 months with a change in schools, grades taught, and some new platform specific hardware to deal with in the upcoming school year.

I am personally looking forward to the challenge! My new school has opted to go with a Mac OS platform throughout. Having a Mac, myself, this actually made me excited. The features of iLife simply can't be beat, especially when you are dealing with media creation. That's not to say that there are not great programs on the Windows platform. I have used many different software packages with Windows and have thoroughly enjoyed all of them. However, when the Mac is coming bundled with this entire suite it's hard to look the other way.

I recently downloaded the Windows Vista Beta 2 from Microsoft. I must admit that I like what I see thus far. The interface is really quite beautiful in comparison to Windows XP. I'm fighting with myself right now as to whether I should install it on my HP TC1100 Tablet. I do not own a USB drive to connect to the tablet and, thus, install all of my software off of my network server. I have not, however, EVER installed an operating system from a network boot and am not quite sure how to proceed. Looks like I'll have to comb through jkontherun.com to see if they have the answer. James Kendrick and Kevin Toffel are an amazing resource.

On the PDA side I have switched away from my Treo 600 and HP 6320. I went out about two months ago and picked up the UTStarcom 6700. Simply stated it's an amazing device. The keyboard alone has made it worth the upgrade. I had heard all about the EVDO speeds but was still amazed when I watched IE load up a page in just a couple of seconds.

Now, my whole issue is: How do you integrate a Macbook, Tablet PC, and Windows Mobile PDA into your daily life without relegating one of those machines to the sidelines. Time will tell....