Finally got my Mac back after an extended visit to the IT technician (thanks again Bob). It is now running both MacOS X and Windows xp (after a few wee difficulties that had to be ironed out) . It all seems very stable, and I should now be able to run all the software I...

Having been in teaching a while, I've taught quite a few pupils over the years, and been in quite a few schools. I've been at Hermitage for about a year now, so thought I'd have faded completely from the memories of any former pupils. To my great surprise, some have been in touch recently, probably...

Had a short play with an E-beam interactive whiteboard today. Blimey! It's fab! Teeny tiny sensor and touch sensitive pen mean incredible portability - it uses any surface at all for projecting onto - whiteboard, wall, anything firm really. And it seems just as usable as both Smart and Promethian boards I've used in the...

I've been familiarising myself with MacOS and various mac packages over the last few weeks (since taking possession of my first Mac just before Xmas). Having only briefly used macs whilst at college in the early 90's and spent the last 15 years using PCs (almost exclusively running Mr Gates' products), I can now see...

I've been spending some time of late doing investigation work with my S3 Physics and S4 Science Standard grade classes. Those of us lucky enough to be involved in this exercise walk a tight rope between giving enough instruction to enable pupils to carry out the required tasks and telling them too much, thus contravening...

Having reinstalled my webcam to show pupils demos on the projector, it failed again this week with my Higher class. It was working perfectly as they were coming into the room, I told them what we'd be doing and asked them to get their jotters out whilst I did the register. No sooner did I...

Almost without exception, everytime I tried to use a bit of technology last week it went wrong. S1 Science revsion using Web sites - links disappeared or wouldn't work for one class, internet connection died for the other class S5 Physics using flexi cam to show how to connect circuit - camera died, wanted the software to...

I tried a small ICT exercise with my S2 science class last week - producing a simple data sheet for a given chemical element. With an unusually high rate of successful first log-in attempts (16 out of 17), we got off to a flying start. The pupils were given a good staring place for information (www.webelements.com) and...

Having reached the end of a unit with one of my S1 science classes, I thought I'd try a mind-mapping exercise for revision before their test. Having read about Inspiration on Christine Gray's blog I thought I'd give it a go. With only 10 minutes to play between the ICT technician installing it (thanks Bob) and the...

My last posting - about being hobbled by paranoid IGear security - should now be withdrawn, as it seems that the .ppt restrictions have been lifted. I'm not deluded enought to think my blog, or my email to John McPhee has had any bearing on this reversal,  just glad I can post some more of my work. There...