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But need to adapt your lessons to work with the technology. I work as a Technology Facilitator at a large high school and its a fact that many classes / subjects benefit from judicious use of technology and multimedia. If you can hook up a PC/Mac to the projector you can now use interactive websites (math - physics) to add depth / spice to your lessons. Our math dept makes heavy use of digital projectors - Elmo's (document cameras) - and programs on PC/Macs that can be projected up to the white screen. Many teachers also use a Mimio ( http://www.mimio.com/ ) to make any white board into an interactive white-board. You can do an entire lecture while capturing the content of the board to a digital file that you can print out for students or post on your website.

The goal here is to teach math (pencil + paper) - but also to draw the student into new experiences or ways of seeing the problem.

And keep in mind that most of these Slash-Dotters are either geezers or pre-geezers and haven't sat in a room full of 15yr olds ..... since they were 15.

IR and ultrasound, like eBeam or mimio? Some background discussion.

I used to use a laptop in class, but found it ultimately more trouble than it was worth. It worked fine for the English elective (waste of time) or the History of Science courses I took, but not for my core Math & Science classes.

Basically, by the time you copy out a diagram or complex formula, it will take you so long (especially if you have to switch to Symbol to make half the characters), that it's simply not worth it.

Now, some profs distribute their lectures in PDFs/Word Documents/HTML files, which makes it much easier, but then many students just download the lecture notes and skip class, which professors tend to hate.

I think a great solution would be for all students to have wireless laptops, and have the prof stream the lecture to students as he goes. That way, there's an incentive to go to class still, and laptops become a worthwile tool.

I'm thinking along the lines of a custom program that feeds one page at a time into a PDF or something.

Alternately, documents with blanks spots to be filled in during the lecture can also work.

Or, finally, something like the Mimio would also be very cool.

I agree that peer "Code Review" is a very important process. We've implemented a code review where I work, and it has been very successful. In fact, I'd recommend using a similar process to developers in almost any situation.

Attendance to our code review is not mandatory (unless you are submitting code), but we really encourage any developer who isn't in "crunch time" on their particular project to attend. Our code review really incorporates all these ideas:
1) Peer review of code going into the testing environment.
2) "Idiot check" testing by peer developers to try and break the code while still in the development environment.
3) A place to showcase new, cool code - code that accomplishes a new goal, or accomplishes an old goal in a significantly better way.
4) A place to describe new processes and/or methodologies that are being put into place for development. (For instance, one of the first things I did when I arrived was spearhead the use of source control software through this process.)
5) A place to fawn over and discuss the latest software and hardware gagets. (mimio started showing up everywhere after one of these)

The only thing that does not go into code review that makes it into the testing environment is "copy n' paste" code - code that is almost identical to another piece that has already been written. (A lot of our ASP pages are like that - call some stored procs, has a form, dropdowns)

I can honestly say that code review has made me a better programmer. First of all, it puts extra sets of eyes on your code - and that makes a difference - I guaruntee people will spot things you did wrong. Secondly, it gives me a chance to see other code that is new and well written. Then I can incorporate those ideas later on in my own code.

Furthermore, it prevents inferior code from going into the user acceptance testing environment and, consequently, the production environment. Every company has a few developers who write second rate or below standard code, and this weeds that code out before it can get in and screw up or slow down the system.

Now, obviously, every developer does not have time to step through the logic on every piece of code that comes through. Thats not really the idea though - thats the developers job. Mostly readability, the use of standard naming conventions, and obvious problems are the sort of thing that is looked for. "Can I debug and/or modify this code if I need to without your help?" is a question I ask myself when reviewing. Generally, the only stuff looked at in heavy detail are pieces that are experimental, bottlenecks, or intricate.

It only takes up about 2 hours of my week, and it makes all the code that goes into our system significantly better, as well as improving our programming skills. All in all, I'd say its a very worthwhile use of our time.

For clarification, the files created through this use the RealPlayer VirtualInk plugin. The board system used by this teacher is actually Mimio (by Virtual Ink (redirects to mimio.com)), not smarttech.

Retaliation appreciated with humor. But, on that issue, we've got several different versions on the way, each of which is less graphic and code intensive.

I think what they mean is that you can use your own projector to project web pages, PowerPoint, whatever on a whiteboard. Then, you can use the mimioMouse software to "click" on the projected image. It's like having a huge touchscreen that you can also write on.

I think there's also some competitor in the $300 range.

I attend Guilford college in Greensboro, NC and after a few discussions with my macroeconomics professor, I started thinking about using a "smart" whiteboard to show developments which are drawn on the board to be played back later from a computer. After looking into many different options, most of which were $2-3k and up, and consisted of small boards which were pressure sensitive, I stumbled across something which left them all behind. The Mimio board.

The mimio board is a capture device that sticks onto (or can be mounted on) the upper left hand corner of any existing whiteboard. By inserting stantard markers in the jackets which go along with the capture board, the software captures every stroke along the way, step-by-step. This alone was something that few of the devices which I had investigated could do, but there is more. They also have a plugin available for it that allows you to record audio as well and create a realplayer simultaneous stream (smil file). The entire presentation can be played back by any machine with realplayer (when you play the file it downloads a plugin. I have tried it on windows and macintosh, I have no idea whether it works with any other platform, but I would assume not.) The file size created is very reasonable (example: selectble audio bitrate + 157Kbytes for a 1hr board intensive lecture). We have begun using it so that students may re-experience a class which they have missed or need work with. I am by no means a representive for mimio, there product just worked really well for us.

Total Cost: $775 + Shipping
$499---->Capture Device, 4 Marker Sleeves, Eraser and software
$249---->BoardCast Producer Plugin (So we could create the real streams with synced audio/board)
$25----->25ft Serial cable (So we could have the computer half way across the room)

Hope you enjoy it, if you end up buying one, or have any questions, I'd be interested to hear from you, feel free to email me at AptrippA@AguilfordA.edu (Remove the A's) -Peter Tripp

Indeed a good question to ask before purchasing anything...

And remember that not all learners are /. readers...or are yours? And will all of them be? I say this because someone suggested IRC for example. I wouldn't want to use IRC for an average distance learner...and think of the requirements you just layed on.

Distance learning has usually been a failure, and probably will be until technology changes drastically (like really fast broadband access in all the students' homes).

There's some truth to this, but it's also a bad generalization. All teaching/learning involves an instructor, resources (texts etc.), tools for delivery (your voice, a microphone, the web etc.), and an objective. I have had correspondence courses that I deemed useless. My 1,000 student section of history 202 was pitiful while I learned a great deal out of the independent study 201 course where I read at my own pace and did everything correspondence. Teaching and learning is about leveraging the tools and resources to meet your objectives. In some cases, clear objectives lack...and no matter what tools you use, you're screwed! Oh...and then there's learner motivation...which can be killed by too-hard-to-use technology/delivery systems, boring professors, dull material, immaturity etc. Hence the reason technology alone or 'distance learning' alone shouldn't be blamed. Check this out.

Anyway...technologies...especially for Linux?

• WebCT - A course development, delivery and management server. Linux version available
• Sorenson - Desktop video conferencing...Sorry, No Linx though.
• Mimio - Whiteboards etc. Linux...Dunno
• W3C - They do web stuff

Galego