Web book in classroom
I’ve been using the EeePC with my t-mobile modem in class to show selected YouTube videos and slide share presentations about GCSE / level 2 maths. Individuals can see an exposition of a topic to remind themselves, but the main outcome is increased use of the access maths blog.
There is loads of stuff on YouTube and similar sites, enough to allow choices of approach for different students. Using the modem means that I can access YouTube in the classroom, like most UK Colleges, we block YouTube on the College network because of inappropriate content in the comments left on videos and some videos themselves. I am using pre-selected videos ‘embedded’ on a blog with mature students so there is little risk of misuse, and once students see the material they seem more likely to use the blog.
Update on Ubuntu 9.04 on EeePC: A stock install of Ubuntu 9.04 Beta is working great on the Asus 701 EeePC with most functions working. There is very little storage space left on the 4Gb SSD, and the 512Mb of RAM means that I had to allow for a small swap partition – Firefox and the OS take around 200Mb of Ram increasing as you pull in the flash player and multimedia functions. Running OpenOffice Writer on top of that puts you well into swap. Using a recent Ubuntu means that wifi and my t-mobile modem ‘just work’. I’ve not yet cracked getting the projector recognised by Ubuntu – others are having problems with this, and I need to spend a bit of time trying some xserver configuration.