Teacher Tech Resource

In preparation for the Math Dept's weekly use of the ALEKS online math curriculum with their new iBook laptops, I installed the new ALEKS plug-in with the assistance of my Technology I class on the 40 iBooks in the laptop carts.

The previous plug-in had been installed with the original image, but the new version, 3.4.7, came out this week and was recommended for the new version of the ALEKS program.

Four iBooks would not open the browser, and they would not download it either, so I reimaged them off the Kangaru firewire hard drive. Three iBooks worked perfectly after that while one would not recognize the firewire port.

I'm assuming the original image must have been corrupted during installation since both the browser was not able to be installed and the firewire port was not able to be detected. I was able to image this particular machine off my server, however, and the problem was resolved.

Today was the first day of testing for all students with the ALEKS online math curriculum.

All students will be assessed by the system prior to the implementation of the program in the math classes. Labs A, B, and C were booked to test three teachers' math sections for a two-day period. All math teachers will be booked in to the lab for a two-day period with all classes finished by the end of next week. Students who do not complete the test in this time will finish their testing during the regular ALEKS schedule.

All students logged into their Spurgeon XServe account with their names and ID#s. After logging in, students opened a browser, and logged in to the ALEKS program. Using the same log in IDs for the ALEKS program as for their XServe accounts helps to avoid confusion for the teachers and students.

This procedure for initial ALEKS testing allowed the immediate creation of server accounts for new students. If the student did not have an account, I created one at that time, with the subsequent ALEKS account created afterwards.

Testing went very smoothly, and now all students have been oriented as to how to log in to their server accounts, how to open a browser, how to open a web site, and how to use the ALEKS online system, all in only two 40 minute sessions!

Math teachers will use the laptop carts to use ALEKS, with each teacher reserving the carts one day per week. Four math teachers will continue to use the traditional eMac labs.

Was able to name 60 of the 80 iBooks with the Tech class today. Also verified wireless access, printer configuration. Only 20 more to go!

Laptop carts will then be able to be checked out the week of August 22nd.

Started a new blog this past week for communicating with staff members about technology-related issues. Spurgeon Staff Technology Updates will be updated continuously to assist staff with "all things tech."

Got the Airport Extreme Card installed today. I wasn't sure how to open the iMac G4 and the Tech Room technician told me I simply needed to unscrew the base. The iMac is so well designed that the screws do not fall out of the cover when it has been removed. The software was already installed, so I just had to insert the card, plug it in, restart, and I was wireless. I'd already added the MAC address of the card to our access points, so it worked right away.

Tech Room came out today to rebuild eMac D13. The technicians (Mike & Aaron) from Tech Room are fantastic, professional and very knowledgable. This eMac needed a new power kit, display, logic board and supporting equipment, so it is basically a new machine; all of it covered by the AppleCare Protection Plan. The AppleCare Protection Plan is probably one of the best purchases I've made for the lab, other than the machines themselves!

Got the 60 iBooks back in the carts after re-imaging, now all 80 are ready to be re-named and checked one last time before classroom use. The multicasting worked with no problems. Even machines that stated a 5% packet loss, and did not restart after imaging booted up with the new image. My Tech students got all of the plugs re-connected to the carts and inventoried all the newly labeled machines. We had to re-connect the power cords and ethernet cables to the eMacs since we needed them temporarily for the iBooks. The entire class helped clean the two eMac labs and logged in each machine to make sure they connected to the Internet.

All was going well in my Keyboarding class today until...

My students were excited to begin typing after several days of reviewing class procedures and the "Introduction to Keyboarding" lesson. However, when they attempted to open Mavis 16, (running Tiger on an eMac), they received the error "Could not create file for system settings HD:Users:Shared:The Learning Company:Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing 16:System.mys" and the program would not run. Not to worry, we moved on with more review and I remembered having the same issues with last year's eMac image and the Sharing permissions required to run Mavis 16.

Relief was not to be had during lunch, though. The permissions were already set correctly in the GUI "Get information" interface. I took a deep breath, crossed my fingers and called Tech Support at Riverdeep and the wonderful tech "Chad" pointed me to the help file on the Riverdeep website. He said it would be straight-forward to fix, but to call him back if it did not work. After attempting to correct the permissions as sudo in the terminal, the program still did not run, so I called him back. Thankfully, he was not worried. We had to add a few more steps but it would work:

1. Delete the .msy file in Users:Shared:The Learning Company:Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing 16
   
2. Open Mavis to create a new .msy file in the Shared folder
   
3. Open terminal and type the sudo command to fix the permissions as found in Technical Note 41563
   
4. Modify the command by navigating to the Shared MB Teaches Typing 16 folder and dragging it into the terminal window in place of the /Users section of the command to make sure the path is correct
   
5. Continue following the directions of Technical Note 41563

Fortuitously, one of my former Tech students, Jorge Cortez, came by to visit and volunteered the next hour to assist me in completing this task on my 35 machines. Hands stuffed with Hershey bars as he left, he promised to return for a future visit to get a DVD copy of his class project from last year. Thanks Jorge!

Re-imaged 60 iBooks today-Multicasting off the XServe with the iBook image. For some reason imaging from Net Boot and iBook.dmg via AFP did not work and defaulted to the eMac image when I restored them last week. My tech students hooked up all 60 machines in the eMac lab, plugged in power and ethernet cables, and labeled all machines by cart. Multicasted after school so as not to inadvertently disrupt the network. All machines imaged with no problem; even those that stated a 5% packet loss and did not restart automatically after imaging. When rebooted, they had the new iBook image.