Archive for September 2011
How to Save Money on College Expenses
The cost of college can be astronomical and includes tuition, fees, room and board, books, etc. Follow these simple steps to make college much more affordable. Even if you try just one or two tips, you’ll save money.
Go to a State School
State schools are considerably less expensive than private schools, and many are superior to quite a few private schools. The only reasons why state schools are less expensive is because they don’t get financial assistance from the government. Do your research on schools in your area and find a better school while still paying less.
Start at a Community College
If you just can’t say not to your life-long dream private college, start at a community college for 2 years to cut costs. You can save thousands of dollars by doing this and you still get the degree from your favorite school. If you start at a community college and then go to a state school, you’ll save even more because community colleges cost even less than state schools.
Commute
The cost of room and board can sometimes be just as much as tuition. If you live at home and drive to school, your living expenses don’t change but you save on room and board. You may have to spend more on gas, but it’s negligible compared to room and board.
If you go commute to a community college and then commute to a state school nearby, you’re entire degree could be under $20,000. Many students pay more than that for one year of tuition, and in most cases, their degree isn’t any better than yours.
Get Scholarships
Scholarships are a great way to relieve a lot of the burden of college tuition. Get scholarships from your community, the college you plan to attend, and find some online. If you do the above plan, scholarships could potentially cover most or all of your costs, even books and gas.
Get a Job
Having a part time job during college is nothing most people can’t handle. During school, you’ll be able to use it for things like gas, cell phone bill, books, food, etc. Get a full time job over the summer and you can save thousands each summer to go toward tuition.
SMART Board – Pros and Cons of Using a Digital, Interactive Whiteboard (In the Classroom)
We used a smart board to teach with in the computer lab at school. Essentially, a SMART board turns your digital projector / LCD Projector image into an interactive whiteboard that you can write on.
The SMART Board itself is a touch-sensitive giant screen that is connected to your computer. You use your digital projector to display your computer screen onto the SMART board and the software allows you to touch and interact with your computer.
As more and more school boards and teachers are investing in data projectors, it begs the question whether SMART Boards are a good investment. After all, an intuitive touch interface plus the ability to write on digital documents (with digital ink) would help us to move beyond blackboards, flip chart paper, and overhead projectors.
Pros
With the SMART Board, you can control any application through the touch board. So instead of working from behind the computer keyboard, you (or your students) can be at the front of the classroom physically interacting with the display. You can use any of the 4 colours of markers or the eraser to write in digital ink over applications, web pages, or moving video. The SMART board still works if you lose the pens. (There are 4 coloured pen holders and one eraser. When you lift the pen out of the slot, it selects the colour or the eraser. When you touch the screen, it uses the selected color or the eraser.) Like other digital ink software applications, you can save your work into a notebook file, and you can convert handwriting into text. Cons
Hard to write. The biggest disappointment with the digital ink comes from the fact that a SMART Board is a front-mounted projection screen. This means that your data projector is set up in front of the screen (like an overhead projector). Which means that when you stand in between the projector and the screen, you cast a shadow on the screen… right where you are trying to write. Sure, it was cool to interact with programs by touching the screen, but, it was hard to write notes because you were constantly blocking the image. Hard to write neatly. To be perfectly honest, it was a little disappointing how our handwriting turned out on the SMART Board. Better than our experiences with the other digital pens (i.e. the i-pen), but the handwriting was still large, blocky, and messy. One of the things you have to train yourself to do is to not lean up against the SMART Board. When you write on a blackboard or white board, you typically rest the edge of your palm on the board. If you do that on a touch screen, the cursor jumps to your palm and it doesn’t work out. You have to train yourself to just write using the tip of the pen. The marker worked fine if we wanted to underline or circle key ideas, but if you wanted to edit or revise a 12 point, double-spaced Word Document, you’d have a hard time getting the control required. You still have to move back and forth from the keyboard to the screen. We could start up our web browser by touching the SMART board, but when it came time to enter in the website address, we had to go back to the desk to type in the URL. Expensive. The Total Cost of Ownership of a SMART Board can be prohibitive for the classroom teacher. Retail cost of a 77? (195.6cm) front-projection SMART Board Interactive whiteboard is $1399 (USD) with a grant from the SMARTer Kids Foundation of Canada. (www.SmarterKids.org) You need to supply your own data projector. A new, decent projector will cost around $500 – $1000. The SMART Board is just a giant touch pad. Your need to provide your own projector to display the image onto the smart board. (Software, connection cables, and stand are included.) You may want to upgrade to a wireless connection ($199 USD) to eliminate the cables and the tripping hazards in the classroom. The screen image and the SMART Board touch screen may get knocked out of alignment. This means that when you try to click a button, the mouse pointer appears a few inches to the side. You’ll have to realign your hardware which would interrupt the lesson.
Smart Board – Interactive Whiteboard (IWB)
The smart boards are replacing the old blackboards, flip chart pares and over head projectors in schools, colleges and universities. But we are still not sure if it is really a good item to buy. We are going to discuss and show some of the advantages and disadvantages of such boards found in the market today.
Advantages:
You can use the board to control the applications of the computer or laptop without having to use the keyboard while physically interacting the screen shown on the display to the students.
There are also four colored markers and an easer provided with the board. These markers have four individual colors and it can be used a pen to write on the boards the help of digital ink.
The things you write with these digital pens can be saved like a notebook file by converting your handwritten words into computer text.
Disadvantages:
The biggest problem is writing on the board. As the board is a front mounted screen, the image tends to get blocked whenever you come between the projectors. This is a great disadvantage as your shadow blocks the view of the projector making the board almost useless.
The next problem is that it is hard to write neatly without leaning on the board. As the board is a touch sensitive screen, the touch of your palm as you try to write creates a disturbance by changing the position of the mouse cursor. So in order to write neatly on the board you must learn how to write with the tip of the pen without touching the screen with your palm. Even after intense practice, it is hard to write as the words still get large, blocky and untidy. It is easy to underline or circle key points with the pen but it is hard to edit and rewrite as the controls are difficult to get.
Even with the touch sensitive board you have to go use the keyboard of your laptop or computer as there are places where you cannot write with the pen. Like, after opening a web browser you have to back to the keyboard to type the URL as the boards writing does not support such applications.
The SMART boards are very expensive. The cost of such boards of length of about 195.6 cm is about $1399 is way beyond the price any school teacher can afford.
You will also need to buy a projector to project the image of the computer or laptop screen and other accessories which are also expensive.