581 How a computer works

In order for a computer to work everything must go through the CPU or Central Processing Unit. It is easiest to think of the CPU as the brain of the computer. It is in the CPU that electronic circuitry executes stored program instructions. The CPU executes a sequential set of instructions that ultimately makes or runs a program.

The next important component of a computer is the motherboard. The easiest way to think of a motherboard is the component that ties everything together. Motherboards contain memory slots that act as an interface between the CPU and the peripheral components such as the keyboard, mouse, or monitor. Motherboards also contain non-volatile memory chips (memory chips that retain their memory without power) and a clock generator, which helps synchronize other system components.

Memory is critical in understanding how a computer works. The hard drive is what a computer uses to store large amounts of non-volatile digitally encoded data. The hard drive uses this digitally encoded data to transfer information to the CPU. Another type of memory that is critical for the CPU is RAM. RAM is volatile and requires power. The most frequently used RAM information is duplicated in the processor cache of a computer. This allows for faster and better computer performance. Both volatile and non-volatile are types of memory that are used by the CPU in running programs.

Another important component of a PC is the BIOS. The BIOS is the first code of instructions that is sent to the CPU when the PC is turned on. The BIOS is designed to identify, test, and start the computer devices. These devices include everything from disks to the hardware. The BIOS also sets the machine hardware into a known state, so that software stored on compatible media can be loaded, executed, and given control of the PC. This entire process is known as “booting up”. When all of these things synchronize the computer is ready for operation.

Week 2 581 Pirates of Silicon Valley/Tec Talk

The Pirates of Silicon Valley was a great movie!!! Besides the acting it was very well done. What captivated me the most was the story line. It was really interesting to see how Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak created apple. Prior to watching the movie I had no idea that Steve Jobs was such an interesting person. Not sure that he was the greatest guy, but very charming and dynamic. Steve Wozniak struck me as the most centered person between Paul, Steve, and Bill. Another idea that struck me was the amount of luck that was involved in the creation of Bill Gate's empire. Crazy how Bill Gates dealt with IBM and Steve Jobs. His drive to be number one was truly unstoppable. Bill gates happened to be in just the right place at the right time. It adds considerable credibility to the book Outliers. Very hard to believe that Bill Gates lied to IBM about having a DOS. Then sent Paul Allen to purchase a version of DOS for $50,000. Even more amazing is that they transformed the DOS to a QDOS and made the whole thing work. This was ultimately what made Bill Gates. Poor Tim Paterson who sold out for $50,000. The last thing I wanted to comment about was the dishonesty involved between all parties. I guess it was a little disappointing to see how how much they stole and copied each others ideas. Prior to seeing the movie I thought Bill Gates and Steve Jobs came up with the technology individually.
For my Tec talk I choose to talk with my dad who is an engineer. He is always upgrading and working on computers. He primarly works on his own Mac. Anyway, as we were talkng he told me how he upgraded his memory on his Mac. He gave me the web site that told me th type of memory I would need and he gave me a link that showed a demonstration on how to take out your old memory card and how to install a new memory card.

Week 2 581 MAC OS X (Snow Leopard)

For this part of the assignment I choose to look at Mac OS X (Snow Leopard) as a possible alternative OS. Currently Snow Leopard is advertised for $29. Not sure if we will upgrade on our home computer yet. My dad is a huge Mac guy and he has Snow Leopard and he really likes it (my Dad is an engineer and really does his research so I put a lot of stock in his opinion).
HISTORY:
Mac OS X Snow Leopard was preceded by Mac OS X Tiger and Mac OS X Leopard. Tiger was released in April of 2005 and advertised 150 new applications. Mac OS X Leopard was released in October of 2007 and included 300 new applications. What I found interesting about this is that when Snow Leopard was released it included no new features. This was very strange for this industry. The rational for this was that Apple improved all 300 applications and streamlined all of them. This was an interesting risk and gamble considering the competitiveness of the industry.
FEATURES
According to the write up Mac Os X Snow Leopard won't get viruses and it automatically provides updates that protect against malware. Also, I watched the tutorial on parental controls. This is another great feature and I was amazed at how user friendly that application was. Mac OS X Snow Leopard is built on the UNIX foundation. It runs off 64-bit, multi core processors and GPUs. Also, I was very impressed at how compatible Mac OS X Snow Leopard is with other systems. It is compatible with most window applications, can convert most files including PDF, JPG, ZIP, MP3, and PSD. It will also hook up to almost all Digital cameras, printers, hard drives, mice, and keyboards with USB connections. Finally, Snow Leopard uses OpenCL 1.0, a framework that allows for the use of cores inside your graphics card. This means that for "gamers" Snow Leopard would be a great choice. I was impressed with all that Snow Leopard had to offer. However, what impressed me most was that Snow Leopard included no new applications over the Leopard version. That leads me to believe that Mac OS X Snow Leopard really has worked out most of their bugs in their OS system.

Week 1 581

I enjoyed our first class and discussing our first memories of computers. It seems that we live in a world now where without the computer civilization as we know it would come to an end. I also really enjoyed the video that we watched in class. I found it very interesting and it made me think about computers a little bit differently. At the time the video was produced I did not own or use a computer (with the exception of at school). In fact the first computer I purchased was with my wife in October 2006 and it was a MAC. Prior to that I was either given a laptop with my job, or used my roommates computers. I must say that I am very unaware of how computers work. I knew prior to this class that they ran off millions of "on" and "off" switches and that silicon was the element that made all of the electrical impulses possible. However, beyond that the inner workings were a mystery to me. I feel far more comfortable poking around under the hood of my car then under the hood of a computer. Today for the first time I poked around the inner working of a computer. I was surprised at the overall simplicity of such a complex machine. Everything had a place and was very well organized and very easy to find. However, this is where the simplicity stopped. Each of the major components were extremely complicated and unbelievably small. The central processor being the most impressive with it's small size. I look foreword to learning more about how computers are actually but together.

534 Week 5 Blog

This week I have been adding too and cleaning up my Wiki. Of all the things that we have covered so far I feel that a classroom Wiki is probably the most useful tool we have discussed and learned about. They are such a great way to manage content and give information to my students. I had not used them or really even heard of them prior to taking the masters program. About the only thing I knew was that "wiki" meant fast or quick in Hawaiian. The biggest use for a Wiki I see is for managing assignments with my students. I am a special education teacher and many of my students miss a great deal of school for a variety of reasons. This would allow those students who are gone to access missing assignments and even some content while they are absent from my class. This would also be an additional way to communicate with parent as well.
The last thing i just want to briefly discuss is the use of PodCasts, as an additional resource for my students. I was very impressed with the ease of which I was able to upload my recording on "Gabcast". This would be an excellent way to get information to my students who are out of my classroom. I really liked the idea for pronunciation of words too. Some of the students I work with struggle with phonics and the podcast would be an excellent way for them to hear vocabulary pronounced correctly.

534 Week 4 Blog

For this blog I want to comment on the video that Louis sent me on on Twitter on rethinking education. The video featured a gentleman from New England discussing his views on education in America. Besides some of the "cheesy" lobster scenes I took some thought provoking knowledge away from the the video. The video starts out in a harbor town in New England and discusses how back in the day people took ownership in their education. In other words their education had meaning and people could see the results and reasons for the education. Everything they did was tangible. He goes on to say that much of our education today is so obscure that many students have difficulty finding relevance in what they are doing and thus become disconnected. This is especially true for me as I teach EBD students. The next thing I wish to comment on from the video was how teachers need to be willing to give up some of the control in their classroom. Our current model for education is based on an outdated industrial model that is centuries old. What a revolutionary and powerful idea to give our students choices to study things that are relevant and meaningful to them all the while preparing them for a future. It seems to me that we are generating students that can do what we tell them and spit back information and score very well on standardized exams. However, for many of our graduates when it comes to making decisions they lack the skills as they are told what they need to do and what is supposed to be important their entire educational carer. The idea of giving up some control as a teacher is a powerful thought and one that I had not pondered till watching the "Tweeted" video.

534 Week 3 Blog

I first want to comment on how I really enjoyed the video we watched as a group. There were some interesting ideas and concepts discussed in the 30 minutes. One thing that I will take away from the video is that education is going to have to be relevant and meaningful in the 21st century. Most of the men on the panel agreed with this and felt that we are stuck in a late 19th century version of education. In order to compete on a global scale we are going to need to re-think our ideas on education to fit our current time period. This is something I feel real passionate about.
I also want to comment on RSS and bloglines. I really enjoyed exploring the Bloglines and feel there is a real use for it in my classroom. I teach an American Institutions class and I am embarrassed to say that we are still using newspapers for our current events portion of the class. Bloglines offers so many more opportunities for students to get involved and understand current events. As I mentioned bloglines is currently blocked at our school but I am confident that we will move past this decision as a school district. Besides my American Institutions class I also Co-Teach a Biology class. I am very excited to share this with my co teachers as there are some great RSS feeds that we could potentially share with our Bio students too.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

534 Week 2 Blog

This was an interesting week as I learned a great deal more about blogs and how they could really be an effective tool in my classroom. I guess what I found most interesting about blogs is that they give you the ability to help connect students to the world literally on a global scale. As I have mentioned before I am a Special Education Teacher and one of the classes I have taught in the past is Geography. I would love to get a blog started with a school from overseas. Specifically Africa as we spent a great deal of time studying Africa the last time I taught the course. It seems that many of my students fail to realize there is a world outside that of Wisconsin. Another cool resource would be to reconnect with some of the teachers that I taught with in Hawaii. I spent three years teaching there and could get some dialogue going between my class and some of my former colleges classes. Anyway, there are some really cool relevant resources that could come out of using blogs. I will also take away the idea that I should practice more on my own with blogging so I am even more comfortable teaching blogging basics. The only issue I have with getting started is that all social networks sites are blocked in my district. However, as an active member of my schools technology committee I feel like I could present a well thought out argument about the positives of using blogs in my classroom. Also, and probably most important I feel comfortable discussing the safety issues surrounding blogs.

534 Week 1 Blog

So far I have found this class to be very relevant and interesting. I enjoyed our discussion in class on "Shift Happens". For me watching this is a real motivating force as I want to give my students all the skills they will need to be successful in the future. It is strange to me to think that for many of my students we are preparing them for jobs that have yet to be created. This brings me to the focus of the blog and that is what type of technology will I use that I have been introduced to in this class that I was previously unaware of only a week ago. Well, in doing the blog comparison assignment I am very interested in edublogs. The reason is that I teach in a very conservative community and I want to have a blogging host site that will ensure maximum security for my students and their blogs. It is my hope that as one of the first teachers to use blogs in my district I can do so in a a very successful manner and build off the positives of blogging in the classroom. I hope to do this while showing the skeptics in my district that it is safe. The other thing that I like about the edublogs is that there is no advertising on them. It is my opinion that my students are bombarded with enough advertisements and that more advertising could lead to more distractions. Finally, I like the idea that edublog was set up and founded by educators.

527 Weekly Blog 6

With the conclusion of our class I am much more aware of what it means to be a leader. I am also much more aware of the process of making change within my school. In the past I have often been frustrated why change did not occur more frequently or often in the districts that I have taught in in the past. Now having played the "Change Game" I am much more aware of the process through which change should occur. On Friday in my district we had an RTI speaker on how we were going to implement RTI change in our school. There were several times when I smiled to myself as our district seemed to be following the same steps we took in our change game. Another concept that I will take away from the class is the importance of getting people involved in the change process. As we painfully discovered in our group during the change game you will never get everyone on board and spending an exorbitant amount of time trying to get every last person on board can be counter productive. Finally, I want to comment on our last class and the 2 million minutes. I thought that was really cool and sparked some great discussion. It will be interesting which direction we will go as country when it comes to how hard we want to push our math and sciences.

527 Week 5 Blog

I wanted to take some time on my blog to comment on the change game we played last week. I enjoyed the game and learned some things from the experience of playing the game. First, I will take away the idea of getting people on board with change first. As a team we kept trying to design the change we wanted before we had the support of the the majority of the people in the school. Once we had most every ones support the change was much easier to implement. I will also take away the idea that not everyone needs to be on board for effective change to occur. I was guilty of this in my group as I kept trying to get Pat, Irene, Wilma (I think those were the reluctant three) to buy into our change. When we had extra money at the end of the year or if we wanted to make a quick move we would spend money trying to get those three on board. All of this was to no avail and eventually I think just through assimilation they were able to move into the the next phase. Finally, I want to talk about the monetary aspect of the game. The idea of using money or loosing it was foreign to our group. We are all used to getting the money back that you don't spend. So each year we spent more money then the previous year. In conclusion I thought this was a great game and enjoyed playing it.

527 Week 4 Blog

This past week was interesting as we discussed Who Moved the Cheese. I had read the book over the summer for my own enjoyment. While I thought the book on the whole had some good points I felt that I did not get as much out of it as I have on some other readings. However, I guess the thing that stuck out most for me was the need for change in all areas. I have been told the only constant in life besides death and taxes is change. Therefore I feel it is important on both a personal and professional level to embrace change and to not fear change. If you never change as we saw in Who Moved the Cheese or if you stay in the same place the proverbial cheese will eventually move. We then have basically two choices: we can let it go and sulk about it, or we can go after the changes/cheese. I am not sure why so many people are reluctant to change. I have been told we are creatures of habit, but it seems to me on personal level I have experienced the greatest transformation in my own life when I embrace change. On a personal level the greatest changed I embraced was to move from Minnesota to Hawaii. The experience could not have been eclipsed in my wildest dreams. So to take a personal point of view and turn it into a professional view I feel that I am more reluctant to change in my professional career then in my personal life. In reflecting on this I think it has to do with job security. As we all know these are tough economic times and nobody wants to "rock the boat" with change in their districts for fear of potentially alienating themselves.

527 Week #3

I have really enjoyed all of the discussions and the two videos this week. I think they brought up some important ideas and philosophies. I really like the idea of viewing our schools as a system ultimately within a system . It seems so much of what we do in our schools is compartmentalized. The issue of compartmentalization is something our department is dealing with right now. There are differing views between the regular education teachers and special education teachers in the amount and type of modifications that students need and are receiving. Neither one of the two sides see themselves as working together in a system but rather as an isolated unit geared solely for student success. To break this issue down more simply the question is how do modifications help special education students function in the system of our school? More importantly how will these modifications affect the students success once outside the shelter of the school environment? To answer these questions effectively one must consider what the students plan on doing after graduation. If they plan on going to college at a competitive four year school then the modifications should be geared to help them have the most success in that environment/system. If they plan on going to a trade school or Tec College then the modification should be designed for that type of system. I really like the idea of viewing things as a system in which we are only on small part. I give each of my students one of my favorite quotes on my syllabus regarding systems. The quote comes from Joseph Campbell and is as follows: "Is the system going to flatten you out and deny you your humanity, or are you going to be able to make use of the system to the attainment of human purposes?"

527 Week #2

I have thought a great deal about leadership this past week, and what my style of leadership seems to be. I have also thought a great deal about how I like to be led and what traits I look for in a leader. So to begin I feel most confident leading in areas that I feel most comfortable. I have had many leadership opportunities in my life and the ones that I felt I excelled most in all took place in the outdoors. Having been both a wilderness canoe guide, and a kayaker who took Japanese tourists to swim with dolphins I found these two leadership opportunities the most challenging in regards to my leadership, and the most rewarding. When dealing with peoples safety and well being in a strange environment the will immediately look to you for leadership. Therefore it was paramount to have confidence in my work and my decision making abilities. This made my decision making process much easier as people were unable to second guess my decisions as they knew nothing about the environment they were in. Thankfully I always errored on the side of caution and all of my groups had safe trips into the wilderness. On the flip side I look for qualities in a leader who does not get rattled when things become stressful. I like a leader who is confident in their abilities to make decisions and then to stand by those decisions. Finally, I like leaders who are respectful of my time. Our current department head is great with this as he will only call department meetings when necessary and not simply call meetings for the sake of meeting.

Class Blog Week 1 527

How do I lead in my school?
I believe I am a leader in my school. However, that being said I am not as much of a leader as I would like to be. I would like to take on a bigger leadership role in my school. However, being a 4th year teacher in my district I am confident that my time will come. The area of my school where I feel like I am the best leader is in my classroom. When I am in my classroom I am doing what I love and that is teaching. Where this branches into leadership is that I am open to teaching new and different classes and attempting and always working on new lessons and ideas for getting my instruction across to my students. I am more then willing to share all of my ideas and thoughts with my colleges. When it comes to leadership in my department I feel I lead by taking on responsibilities that know body else wants to take on. I also feel that I lead in my department by being the person that people can count on to listen to their frustrations or to vent with. This is a dangerous thing as it can sometimes cut into the time I spend getting my own work done. However, I feel very comfortable telling my colleges that I need to get work done and finding another time to vent or share ideas. Communication is one of my greatest strengths and I work hard to communicate with my colleges. It is through active communication with my students and colleges that I am best able to lead.

533 Weekly Blog

Well, I just put a few of the finishing touches on my website. I want to comment on the process. First, the site I choose to use was Weebly. I tried the google site and eventually went to weebly and was more pleased with the Weebly site. I found it easy to use and more user friendly then the google version. I was able to put several of the extras in my web page. Some of the extras I included were uploading images, video clips from youtube, creating a classroom blog, and linking my webpage to other sites. This website has many practical uses. Even though all blogs are blocked at our school there still are many use for the website I created. One use that I should have done was to update my parents on information as I have been out on paternity leave recently. This would have been a wonderful way for me to post information and examples of study guides for finals that my students will be taking. Also, the blog would be a great way for me to give my students up to date "walk in" questions, and to give them real time responses from home. I am currently serving on the Cedarburg Technology Committee and am considering bring up the usefulness of blogs not only for communication with students, but also with parents as well. I thought this was a very worthwhile assignment and found this the most relevent final I have yet taken.

533 Weekly Blog

This past week I worked on my web page using basic Java and Cascades design. I enjoyed the assignment and as I got into it further I began to modify it to meet the chapter we are currently studying in my inclusion History class. We are currently studying WWII and I modified the assignment to reflect that chapter. I made a quiz with four questions that dealt with the reading. I did not make the questions real hard but it should give me an idea if I were to use it weather or not my students are graping some of the basic ideas. I feel like this is also something that I might use too if I were to create a wiki page. This a great tool and is an easy way to do basic reading assessments for my students. It is also a great way to see if my students are doing their readings. I also played around with several links on my web page. I linked several important people from the chapter to the web as terms. I decided to link it to wikipedia for starters. However, I can see using terms and linking them to more specific sites besides wikipedia (I am aware of the stigma of wikipedia, but it often provides a good overview for some of my students). I played around with possibly placing some pictures but felt that if I were to put pictures in it might take away from my content. Plus the textbook is filled with pictures.