Computer Hardware CyberInquiry
1) When it comes to printers, I
decided to talk to our tech guy. He had a few good points to make. When buying
printers for a large amount of people, it makes sense to buy laser and a larger
output machine. Ink Jet printers may be cheaper to buy- or even be given away-
but then you need to buy ink and that money adds up in the end. A laser, while more expensive to begin with, could be hooked up to
several machines and you do not need to keep up with ink purchases.
Therefore, I would buy a few large output laser printers and hook them up per
floor or per 
department, depending on school size.
2) I can’t see me really
using scanners in my curriculum. The ideas given on the link were cute, but
very much for elementary school. In Middle and High School I would have a hard
time justifying the time for scanner use. There are possibly some small
pictures my students draw I could scan and place on my
WebPage, but otherwise I don’t think I would
use it.
3) Digital Cameras are a resource
I would definitely use more of if they were available to me. I use them now to
take pictures of my students doing projects or on Field Trips. Then I can show
them on Back-to-School night or to my students as a slide show. We also use the
7th and 8th grade pictures in house for the Awards
Ceremony and the 8th grade graduation. I would use them academically
for our experiments. Before and after pictures included in a lab report would
be very enlightening for my students and allow them to apply technology to some
very dry subjects and lessons. We could use them to take dissection pictures
and include them in the report. I also encourage use for Science Fair Prjects to enhance the display.
ISTE
standards can be reached using digital cameras. Students could demonstrate
introductory knowledge and skills of technology. Teachers could plan for management
of technology lessons and apply the technology to increase understanding.
4) Of course I could apply many
of the Assistive Techology products to my non-special
needs students. These should not be limited in their use. Every student can
benefit from new strategies. I think Speech Recognition could be used for a
dialogue to record an interview for research. Any student would benefit from
the touch screen when they are working on an experiment and their hands are
busy. An added bonus is they would love using it. Most students could also
benefit from Text-to-Speech programs to pronounce difficult words or be able to
hear and read. It is proven that the more senses one uses, the better chance
they have of remembering the information.
5) I would suggest purchasing the
CD-RW drives for the computers. They would probably be less expensive overall,
and teachers could write to disk if they wanted to
take something home with them to work on. They could also use email to send it
home. These computers still work with pen drives, so teachers could have the
option of purchasing their own. Alternatively, the district could purchase the
pen drives for the teachers who want them since many will not. Purchasing the
pen drives for all teachers could be a waste of money since many may not use
them.
6) Troubleshooting Tips
These
are what I find to be the most common problems I have with my computer use at
school. Many of our teachers call our tech guru for simple things like a frozen
screen. Just yesterday I had to help a teacher with the CTRL+Alt+Delete command. It was like I’d struck gold!
So, my favorites on the given link were:
a) If everything locks
up, or you get the dreaded Blue Screen of Death, try ctrl + alt + delete twice.
Go get a cookie or do something that takes three minutes.
·
If it still does not
respond, turn off the power switch and go get another cookie. If Scan Disk runs
when you restart, say yes to everything.
b) Check all cables and
power cords.
c) Rebooting cures most
Windows ailments.
d) Make sure your
speakers are connected correctly. Soundcards are not helpful, having cryptic,
nearly invisible markings. When you find the correct
connection on the soundcard, mark it with a laundry marker. If you have
program sounds but no CD sounds, your CD drive is not connected to the
soundcard. This is an internal connection: a cable runs from the back of the CD
drive to the soundcard.
e) Backup your data! No
excuses!
**All from http://www.etwebtools.org/trouble.htm***