Netbook Project: Part 1

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Over the past few months I have been thinking about purchasing a

netbook

to use as a note taking device at meetings. I had been looking at the

ASUS

and the

Acer

and liked the form factors. Then one day while I was doing some netbook research I stumbled upon this

article

from

jkOnTheRun

and was inspired.

A few years back my department at work had purchased a few of the

HP tc1100

tablet PCs for faculty to use in the classroom. Eventually our campus added tablet PCs to the computer replacement program so as faculty replaced these machines they found their way back into our office. They were still usable machines so we decided to try loading linux on them to see if we could breathe some life back into them. A few people tested them out but they were never really used much and just started gathering dust.

So after reading the article I decided to try a tc1100 as a netbook. I asked our IT department to image the machine with Windows XP Tablet Edition, the HP apps and nothing else. When I got it back in the office I installed

Evernote

and

ritePEN

. My plan is to use Evernote at meetings and sync using wifi so all the notes will be on my main machine right away. I did all this over our break week. I haven't had any meeting yet since this is the first week of the quarter, but plan to document how this all works once I have my first meeting of Spring quarter.

Elluminate in Action

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The new Elluminate install for the State of Washington came at a very opportune time. All state agencies were asked to reduce travel because of budget cuts. Several State groups have decided to run their quarterly meetings in Elluminate. It has been working quite well. We just finished our eLearning Council Orienation meeting today and will use it for our Fall eLearning Council meeting tomorrow.

Echo360 and Elluminate

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We had an interesting training session yesterday on Echo360.

About a week and a half ago we had our Echo server and appliance installed in one of our multimedia rooms. The tech from Echo360 was unable to make the trip (through no fault of his or the company) to Tacoma for the install so we did everything remotely.

He was also unable to make it (again not an issue with him or the company) to the training yesterday. To accommodate for this we set up an Elluminate session so everyone could participate remotely. Once we were all in the Elluminate session I granted him control over the PC in the multimedia room through Elluminate. Once he had established control he brought up the server application and trained us on it's use. In addition to all of that he also kicked off a capture with the Echo appliance and we got everything recorded. It was pretty awesome! I am sure that we caused a rip in the spacetime continuum somewhere in the universe, and for that I apologize.

Sometimes I Feel Like a Noob

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We have a handful of faculty on my campus that are interested in learning everything they can about every piece of technology that we have available in my department. I am extremely happy when I get the opportunity to interact with them.

Yesterday I had one of these opportunities and the instructor wanted to delve into the inner workings of Blackboard. Now, I have been working with Blackboard since version 5 and can get around the system with relative ease. But when she started asking about features of the Early Warning System and Manage Chalk Title I started to feel a bit like a noob. This wasn't a bad feeling because I like to learn new things and play with tech, so it was actually quite fun.

My typical strategy, when it comes to technology, is to play around a bit with the tool first and then show faculty/staff/students. Now I am thinking it might be more fun to bring in a new tool and learn together.