Teknoids - classroom tech

U of Chicago Law Cuts Wireless in Classrooms

Thu, 3 Apr 2008 07:46:06 -0500

Well, not to poke this tiger with a stick too much, but it seems that the Dean of the UofC Law School emailed students announcing that wifi in classrooms was going to be turned off. The news got out to a wide audience at http://www.abovethelaw.com/2008/03/hey_teacher_leave_those_kids_a.php and hilarity ensued:) Actually the comments are worth a quick read. A couple of things bubble to the top: chronic class surfers hold the faculty in low regard; those who opt to pay attention and not surf find they do well; most agree that they tend find little value in the endless lectures since they can just cram for the one exam that determines their grade.

Of course this discussion is old hat for teknoids, with threads in the archives going back to at least 2001. And I don't think much has really changed in the past 7 years. For instance, see http://www.teknoids.net/node/4241 where Gary Moore, at Hofstra, noted "[Faculty] who I have discussed it with say that they know if a student is using the wireless in class, and they make sure to call on that student. :) Another faculty member said even if we eliminated the wireless in the

Laptop Requirements in Law Schools 11/2007

Sat, 10 Nov 2007 06:54:37 -0600

My law school requires incoming students have a laptop computer.

29% (27 votes)

My law school strongly recommends incoming students have a laptop computer.

34% (31 votes)

My law school suggests that incoming students own a personal computer of some sort.

15% (14 votes)

My law school has no policy regarding student computer ownership.

21% (19 votes)

Other (please describe in comments)

1% (1 vote)

Total votes: 92

Projector gives a dark purple shade

Tue, 23 Oct 2007 20:41:57 -0500

Hello,

We have a ceiling mounted NEC GT1150 projector. It gives a dark purple shade that makes it difficult to read the projection.

Does anyone have any ideas? We replaced the bulb and cleaned the filter already.

Thank you.

Is there a wiki that is not icki?

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:21:03 -0500

Hello - we are looking or a wiki at our campus/law school.

We have these loose requirements:

Easy editing - we don't want to have students learn wiki syntax
Easy file attachments - an easy way to attach files
A way to organize content
LDAP Integration if possible
An straightforward way to have separate wikis per class
Reasonable costs
or if Open Source reasonably easy to support, train and maintain

We looked at MediaWiki and I think its out.

SocialText looks great but we can't persist data per semesterand it is cost prohibitive

Now that I think of it I think Drupal with Organic Groups (1 group per class could work well). Thoughts?

On an unrelated note, any Mac users notice you can use emacs shortcuts in Firefox and Safari html form text boxes. Works in Apple mail too!

live video casting

Wed, 1 Aug 2007 11:36:22 -0500

The School
of Law the University of Kansas
is looking for a way to live cast orientation. The incoming class is too
large to fit in one room, so the idea has surfaced to have them split into 2
different rooms with a live video going in the second room so the students see
and hear the orientation speeches in real time. Every room is networked with
a SmartCart Sympodium PC, projector and drop-down screen. Has anyone
implemented something like this?

Laptop requirement

Wed, 30 May 2007 09:52:14 -0500

Accordent Capture Station

Tue, 29 May 2007 17:27:37 -0500

The Accordent Capture Station™ is an easy-to-use, room-based appliance that enables virtually anyone to webcast and record high-value presentations that take place every day in the world's meeting rooms, classrooms and boardrooms.

The Accordent Capture Station enables organizations to offer, TV-like online broadcasts, by using cost-effective IP bandwidth instead of costly satellite communications, phone lines or high-cost video production. This award-winning is used by more than 150 of the Fortune 500 as well as many government and educational institutions for creating dynamic and engaging corporate communications, training and educational programs.

Available as a turnkey appliance that includes Accordent's award-winning rich media creation software, IBM Lenovo hardware and video and VGA capture cards, the Accordent Capture Station seamlessly records and synchronizes audio, video and data output from any presentation device and instantly creates an online multimedia presentation. Presenters simply plug any VGA-enabled device (including laptops, projectors, smartboards and document cameras) into the Accordent Capture Station and click "Start" and the Accordent Capture Station does the rest.

Wed, 31 Dec 1969 18:00:00 -0600

n/a

Video capture and Plextor M402U

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 10:48:16 -0600

Hi,

We are setting up a video capture computer to record classes for our
students. What we are looking for are cheap video converter boxes that
can take composite and s-video input and convert it to a file,
preferably to wmv so we can use the windows streaming server, but we're
flexible. The idea is that we can just swap the cheap boxes in and out
as needed or if something goes wrong.

Right now we're looking at the Plextor Convertx M420U, but we're having
some problems with it. Even though MythTV is supposed to support it,
the scheduled recordings don't grab the sound for some reason. With
Windows Media Encoder 9, we had sound for a day and then somehow I
managed to lose it. On one computer we get video but no sound and on
another computer (exactly the same model, a Dell 620) we only get the
left half of the video and that is just jaggy and still no sound.

Of course on both of these computers the Plextor tools do work and I can
capture sound and video beautifully. But the interface for the Plextor

Ports blocked by firewalls

Wed, 6 Dec 2006 14:40:34 -0600

Folks,
Quick question. If CALI began offering a service that ran on say TCP
port 9090 ( or any other random port ) would we get blocked by your
firewall? How do you handle ports through the firewall? Would UDP be a
better bet than TCP? This would be firing chunks of XML around.
Thanks,

--
Elmer R. Masters
Director of Internet Development
Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction
emasters@cali.org 404-712-2211

Exam Software Seating

Wed, 6 Dec 2006 13:58:18 -0600

Another exam software question. Are schools that offer exam software such as Examsoft or Securexam making any special seating arrangements to separate the laptop users from the writers? Other than noise, are there any concerns with combining these groups?

Thanks.

Keith Walton - Manager Network ServicesWest Virginia University College of LawPO Box 6135 - Morgantown - WV - 26506Phone 304-293-8556 - Fax 304-293-6020Keith.Walton@mail.wvu.edu

Classcaster development site

Wed, 4 Oct 2006 14:46:09 -0500

Folks,

I'm taking the wraps off of www.classcaster.net which is intended to
serve as a community site for those interested in deploying their very
own Classcaster systems. The site includes detailed instruction on
putting Classcaster together, links to info about Classcaster and a
forum to discuss the deployment and use of Classcaster.
Please note that this is not intended to be an end user support site,
but rather a site for those interested in deploying their own
Classcaster system or learning more about how Classcaster works.

So, if your interested in running your own blogging, podcasting empire,
check out http://www.classcaster.net/.

Elmer R. Masters
Director of Internet Development
Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction
emasters@cali.org 404-712-2211

denying internet access in classrooms

Tue, 27 Jun 2006 12:01:20 -0500

Hi guys,

Howmany of you are denying wireless internet access
in your classrooms per faculty request and how.

Thanks

Kasra

IT Director
St. John's University
School of Law
New York

Remote Proctor?

Mon, 5 Jun 2006 10:55:32 -0500

Troy University is looking to technology to solve a problem created by
technology. Working with a company called Software Secure Inc., officials
at Troy are directing the development of an electronic proctor to oversee
distance students when they take exams. The device, called Securexam Remote
Proctor, sits next to a student's computer and connects through the
Internet to the host campus. Students verify themselves by using a
fingerprint reader in the device, which also includes a camera and a
microphone that let instructors watch and hear students remotely as they
take tests. " The device is expected to cost about $200, and multiple
students would be able to use the same device for different exams. Some
said the device is unnecessary. Brian Douglas, chief technology officer for
UMass Online, called it "an intrusion into a student's life." He said the
incidence of cheating among distance students is often overstated, noting
that his institution relies on the honor code and tests that make cheating

Height-adjustable multimedia podia?

Wed, 31 May 2006 10:15:13 -0500

We're working on upgrading the built-in A/V technology in one of our
classrooms this summer, and one of the sticking points is the podium. We
have a faculty member who might be five feet tall, plus several faculty
members over six feet tall, so you can see we need some adjustment here.
They cut down some of the podia for the shortest faculty member, which
conveniently moved them out of the range of one of the taller faculty
member's bifocals. I'll leave out the obligatory reference to a certain
Randy Newman song... ;-)

You wouldn't believe how difficult it has been to find a
height-adjustable multimedia podium that will accommodate a document
camera, a computer, and a DVD/VCR. Nomad Technologies comes the closest
with its ADA Series Multimedia Podium (
http://www.nomadonline.com/adapodium_ov.php ), but that doesn't quite
fit the decor or teaching styles of our faculty (particularly the styles
of our faculty who don't use the technology).

So...we're still looking for height adjustment. Any ideas? I've been