The Age of Faith: Byzantine Civilization
September 27, 2005
I'm catching up entries from a couple of chapters now read. In Chapter Six, “Byzantine Civilization”, Will Durant covers Byzantine culture from 326-565. We hear of the philosopher Hypatia and her brutal death and are introduced to the historian Procopius. Durant cites Procopius throughout the early chapters of The Age of Faith, but he is careful to indicate the bias Procopius seems to have brought to his subject. St. Sophia is described as Justinian's “supreme achievement, more lasting than his conquests or his laws,” and in art, “the mood of the age preferred color to line.”
Tablet Update
September 11, 2005
I've added more software to my tablet. I was waiting for the time when labs could load the official image onto the tablet, but it's been so useful I want to get everything set up. So in addition to Microsoft Office 2003, Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8.1 and Firefox, I've added Dreamweaver MX 2004, Flash Professional MX 2004, and the Oracle 9.2 client software.
The tablet's doing a good job. I tried some dictation with Dragon, and the computer is quicker than my first-generation tablet. I find myself switching constantly between tablet and notebook modes. I don't know that I've figured out how and when I want to use it in different ways. But it's far and away a better tablet than my Gateway slate model.
The Age of Faith: Justinian
September 11, 2005
I just finished chapter 5 of Will Durant's The Age of Faith. Justinian was, in Durant's opinion, the last of the Roman emporers. While his actions were often less than exemplary, his Code was a significant attempt to bring clarity to justice in the early part of the middle ages.
It was interesting to read how much Theodora, Justinian's wife, had an effect on the affairs of his empire. Hers was an interesting history that I may have to research more in the future.
Now I'm on to Chapter 6: Byzantine Civilization
Blackboard 6.3? No.
September 9, 2005
Blackboard's Application Pack 3 for Blackboard 6 has several new features that might make our faculty happy. Some of those new question types might resolve wishes that our faculty discussed in this week's PETE lunch. Con Beausang was wishing for a fill-in-the-blank response that could be evaluated within a mathematical range. From the feature list I saw recently, this may be in AP3.
Another interesting feature is adaptive release. The idea is that students are directed to content based on their answers in assessments. Get an answer wrong? Adaptive release will put the resource in your hands to help you understand the subject better.
Unfortunately, AP3 has problems. The discussion lists have had many posts about problems here and there, and Blackboard has just published a list of known issues in AP3 that will keep us from going to the version anytime soon.
Version 7.0 is coming someday. It sounds like beta tests are already under way. Some members of the discussion lists have seen screen shots they like. At this point, my guess is that we won't take advantage of the winter break here to upgrade to AP3, and unless 7.0 is out along with the first Service Pack, we won't try that either.
We'll stick with Application Pack 2, Service Pack 3 for the school year, and consider 7.x in Summer 2006. Stability is the best feature in Blackboard as far as our faculty are concerned, and it seems we're in a good place right now.
The Tablet Is In
September 2, 2005
My Lenovo tablet is here. Not much on it yet, but it's fun to play with. My first tablet is a first-generation slate tablet, big and heavy. This new one, the first convertible ThinkPad, is much lighter. And I really like being able to go back and forth between notebook and tablet modes.
I even got my networking staight on my first attempt. It recognizes my home wireless network, but switches well when I connect to either the wired or wireless networks at school.
The problem is that I don't have any software installed yet. It doesn't come with Office installed and it'll be a few weeks before the lab group is ready to put the lab image on it. So I'm hoping Melissa can loan me the Office disc. I've got Studio MX 2004 from my old DevNet subscription (may it rest in peace). And I did just load Dragon NaturallySpeaking on. That's the program I'm most interested to test. It was too slow on the old slate. My new machine is faster and has three times the RAM. We'll see if it makes a big difference over the weekend.
Hey You - Get Off On My Cloud
September 2, 2005
Okay. Entry two and Sue has guided me through the tricky world of adding a cloud to my blog. Not sure if I like it, but I thought I’d give it a whirl.
If you haven’t played with clouds before, it’s the collection of odd-sized words in the lower right-hand corner of the page. Each time I make an entry I’ll add some tags. Those tags are added to the cloud and the more I use those tags, the larger the tag will appear in the cloud. So it’s a quick way to see what I’m talking about most. Get it?
It may be too jazzy for me in the long run. But it’s worth trying out for now.
