Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Classroom Assignments, Keeping Laptops, Ethernet Cables . . . and You

Hello, everyone.

Four quick(ish) laptop classroom notes and queries.  

1.  Jama's just given me the list of spring laptop classroom teachers, and it's a good deal shorter this semester than last.  As long as you're making use of the laptops, however, or even just thinking hard about making use of them, I want you all to be able to hold onto them all year.  There are guest computer hookups in every writing program classroom, so you can make use of them whether you're in an official laptop room or not, and--more importantly--I want you to be able to continue to play with and experiment with them.

2.  We do have three new names on the list of laptop classroom teachers (David, Nicole, and Larry), though, and I'm looking at options for supplying them with laptops.  If one of you has a departmental laptop that you don't anticipate opening up next semester, either because you're using a personal laptop (Todd?) or because you and laptops don't much get along, please let me know.  (I've talked to Larry, but, David and Nicole, you should contact me and let me know if you actually have a personal laptop you'd prefer to use.  That would make my job easier, but it's *definitely* not a requirement that you use your own machine to teach.)

3.  IMPORTANT: Please make sure that this coming semester, as last semester, you make ethernet cables a required item for your students in laptop classrooms.  (Ethernet cables are the cables used to hook computers to the Internet.)  The computer showcase center on the first floor of RB has short ones on sale for $3-4, so it's not a huge financial burden.  (Also, it would be good for our relationship with the Showcase Center if we could sell out their supply.)  Though we have wireless all over, if every laptop classroom student logs in at once, UCS says we'll slow the building-wide network to a crawl.  So it's a matter of (n)etiquette.  (This, I hope, won't be the case in the future, but for now we need to do our part to keep the local network moving.)

4.  Most days, students won't necessarily need to use the ethernet cables; but make sure they bring them on big 'net work days.  In a pinch, there are spares--which should be stowed after any class when they're used--located in the teaching station cabinets in RB and in the little grey cabinets in LA 20S and 17S.

Fred

PS: If you've got some feedback for me on how the laptops and laptop classrooms are or aren't working for you, please send it to me.  (And, as I tell my students, positive feedback can be as helpful as negative for helping a guy do a good job.)  

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