Teaching, Technology, and Learning

Kenrick is an Associate Professor of Computer Science at the University of Alaska Anchorage. This blog is about his thoughts on technology with an emphasis on tablets, UMPC's, and other technologies applied to education.

I'm getting ready to head to Virginia Tech for the 2009 Workshop on the Impact of Pen-Based Technology on Education. I'll leave Sunday, Oct. 11 and return Wednesday, Oct. 14 and get to spend 6 hours in the Chicago airport on the way back :) I have a poster promoting PenAttention that I'll present at the conference.

I've never attended WIPTE but I've read the proceedings from previous conferences and have been impressed with the work, so I'm really looking forward to attending this year and being among a crowd of like-minded pen enthusiasts!

Matthew Dillon from GottaBeMobile started a meme on what computers have you owned, so here is my attempt:

Apple
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Apple II+
Apple IIgs (2)
Mac II
Mac IIsi
Macbook (Intel Core 2 Duo)

Intel-based
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Beige Box 286
Beige Box 386
Compaq DeskPro EN
Beige Box Pentium Pro
Custom Pentium II
Custom Pentium IV, Spiderman case
Custom AMD 64, NZXT case

Notebooks or UMPC
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Toshiba (386?)
Gateway Pentium
Sharp Celeron?
HP TC1100
HP TC4200
Lenovo X61T
Compaq LTE 386
OQO 02
Sony Vaio P

Not owned by me, but used for years
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Sun SparcStation 20
Apollo Computer workstation

I'm sure I've forgotten some, the beige-box Intel desktops all kind of run together.

This research prototype from Gizmodo looks pretty sweet:

UPDATE: I should have checked this first, but it appears that you can connect using IMAP/POP. Use ancexchange.uaa.alaska.edu as the server and your UAA username. For the outgoing server, use smtp.uaa.alaska.edu with authentication, not SPA. (not sure if this SMTP server will be going away eventually). This should work for Outlook and other email clients that support IMAP/POP. For Outlook, the approach outlined below is better though because it will integrate all of your folders (calendar, notes, etc.) while the former just gives you email.

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This 7" second Mimo touchscreen monitor looks kind of interesting:
http://www.mimomonitors.com/products/mimo-720-S

With my MSDN subscription I downloaded and installed the Release To Manufacturing version of Windows 7 onto my Sony Vaio P. It went smoothly enough that I went ahead and also installed it on my aging Lenovo X61T Tablet PC. Both were fresh installs, with the 32 bit version on the Vaio P and the 64 bit version on the X61T. Excluding backup time, each install took under an hour.

Both machines are notably zippier than Vista - windows and apps pop up right away. Programs are still slow on the underpowered Vaio P, but it's better than before. The computer pops out of sleep mode almost instantly too, with wifi and applications available in just a few seconds.

A few nice things about Windows 7 from an educational perspective:

Once in a while I rotate the screen on my Sony Vaio P, as shown in this image from pocketables:

On Windows machines with Intel graphics you can press Control+Alt+Arrow Key to rotate in one of four orientations depending on which arrow key is pressed. However, the mouse doesn't rotate with the screen. This always bugs me a bit when the occasion arises to use the mouse. There is the Sakasa Mouse program to rotate the mouse, but it's not nicely integrated with the rotate function.

I purchased a Sony Vaio P several weeks ago and have been enjoying it quite a bit. It's my favorite computer for meetings or trips when I have a table or desk available (for no desk, I still use my OQO 02, but it hasn't gotten much action lately).

The Sony Vaio P series was unveiled at CES in January 2009 and is essentially Sony's entry in the netbook market. I won't go into specs or the typical things you'd find in a review, because you can google the machine and find many excellent reviews already. I purchased the "peridot" green machine (since I'm a little tired of black/white laptops) with hard disk drive and extended battery.

A few comments I've gotten:

Just like a stock of a company can be delisted from the exchange for failing to trade above a certain price, our computer science labs were recently "delisted" by ITS for failing to meet a utilization threshold of 5%.

I'm not sure how the 5% was calculated (time spent logged in? number of logins?) but when our two labs were delisted one was about 4.5% and the other was around 1.5% utilization.

What this means for our labs is they are no longer supported by ITS. Supported labs get money for maintenance and machine lifecycle replacement every 4-5 years. The money came from student technology fees. This means we'll have to pay for upgrading the lab machines ourselves.