Paul Alex Briseno

Kanex has just released the US$59 ATV Pro HDMI to VGA adapter. This little video adapter may well be a hit with teachers and presenters who want to mirror their iPad screens to VGA projectors — without tethering the iPad to a clunky VGA cable.

Up until now, if you intended to display your iPhone or iPad screen on a projector without HDMI inputs, your choices were few. First, you could use an Apple or third-party Dock connector to VGA cable. That, of course, limits your mobility to the length of the cable you’re using to connect to the projector; the Apple VGA dongle is also prone to falling out if you’re wandering around.

Putting an Apple TV into the mix (and an accessible local WiFi network) lets you can leverage Apple’s AirPlay mirroring, making it simple to send iPhone or iPad screens to a big screen with no cable clutter. Unfortunately, a lot of legacy projectors out in the field aren’t equipped with HDMI inputs — and it’s a bad moment when you show up at your meeting without the right connections. If you have your Mac and a copy of either Reflection or AirServer, you can mirror your iOS device to your laptop… but that’s a lot of gear to lug around if all you want to do is present and/or demo from your iPad.

[In theory, if you wanted to show a Keynote presentation from your iPad and control it while walking about, you could connect the iPad to the VGA projector using one of the aforementioned cables and then use Apple’s Keynote Remote app on a handy iPhone or iPod touch to run Keynote remotely. That doesn’t solve the mirroring issue, though.]

Now Kanex makes it possible to grab a $99 Apple TV, attach it to the ATV Pro and then to a VGA projector, and pump anything on an iPad or iPhone out of that projector. [Note that Monoprice sells a similar HDMI to VGA adapter for slightly less, but it’s much larger and clunkier. –Ed.]

Unlike the Apple TV, the ATV Pro doesn’t require a nearby power outlet, so you don’t need to worry about having more than two plugs available — one for the Apple TV and one for the projector. There’s also a 3.5mm audio connector that splits out the HDMI audio signal so you can play it over your analog speakers.

So, how does it work in reality? Very well, thank you. I taught a class last night at a nearby community college using an Apple TV and ATV Pro, and I zapped all of my content from an iPad to the big screen as I walked around the room.

Setup was drop-dead simple; the classroom has a VGA cable that I normally connect to the Mini DisplayPort on my MacBook Air using an Apple adapter. Instead, I plugged the VGA cable into the VGA port on the ATV Pro, plugged the ATV Pro’s HDMI cable into the HDMI port of the Apple TV, and just plugged the Apple TV into the wall. A little bit of simple configuration of the Apple TV to join the college’s network, and I was ready to go.

[Be aware that some enterprise or educational wireless networks use captive portal authentication, which does not play nicely with the Apple TV’s connection setup; others may block mDNS or ZeroConf/Bonjour peer-to-peer communications, required for AirPlay’s magic. Be sure to test in advance of any critical presentations. –Ed.]

Until projectors start arriving on the market with the ability to accept AirPlay input directly from iOS devices, the Kanex ATV Pro is definitely the way to go. It’s a well-made and reasonably-priced product, and the setup is a no-brainer. The ATV Pro is currently on pre-order from Kanex, and should be available starting next Monday (May 14, 2012).

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Source: http://www.kanexlive.com/atvpro

via tuaw.com

“Kanex makes it possible to grab a $99 Apple TV, attach it to the ATV Pro and then to a VGA projector, and pump anything on an iPad or iPhone out of that projector.”

Our Technology Department will be hosting an inaugural Education Technology Summer Conference for our district teachers, librarians and administrators that I named EdTechPalooza.  I want this to be a fun day of learning and sharing in our district and expecting to host around 100-150 people.

Along with the different sessions that will be going on I want to provide music at the beginning (30 minutes), the end of the conference (15 minutes) as well as during the lunch break (one hour).  This event will be taking place on school grounds so I can’t play anything too crazy.

EdTechPalooza 2012 Playlist

What music would you add to the list?

teamteachers:

Teaching with Love & Logic: Taking Control of the Classroom by Jim Fay and David Funk

Please purchase or borrow this book by June 15th.

Darn…I was hoping it was the other one….hmmmm.

May 8, 2012 No Comments ›› leoniehaimson

Here is a powerful letter reprinted from today’s Syracuse

Post-Standard.

This week is the annual celebration of Teacher Appreciation Week. Politicians of every stripe and school superintendents everywhere will write letters and make proclamations stating how much they value the service and dedication of teachers everywhere. All of these words are empty and merely paying lip service to something they do not believe. By their actions, these ”leaders” have made it obvious that they neither appreciate, admire, respect nor comprehend the jobs of the people who spend their days with the nation’s children. Nor do they understand the first thing about the children in those classrooms.

On every occasion possible, they talk about incompetent and ineffective teachers as if they are the norm instead of the rare exception. They create policies that tie teachers’ hands, making it more and more difficult for them to be effective. They cut budgets, eliminate classroom positions, overload classrooms, remove supports, choose ineffective and downright useless instructional tools, set up barriers to providing academic assistance, and then very quickly stand up and point fingers at teachers, blaming them for every failure of American society, and washing their own hands of any blame.

They make children endure things they would never allow for themselves: nine hours of testing over two weeks, with no breaks during each session for children as young as 8; reading tests for English as a Second Language students who have only been in the United States for one year; math tests for those same ESL students, eligible as soon as they set foot in the school; testing for children with severe learning and physical challenges. And when the scores for these children are not at the top, it’s the teachers’ fault.

We are taught as teachers to value the individual, that each child learns at his/her own pace, that we should vary instruction and testing to accommodate all learning styles, that all children have differing talents and all are equally valuable. But our ”leaders” think of children as parts on an assembly line. If we plug in A, and tighten screw B, all will be well, and every child will be a carbon copy of the other — on the same date all children of the same age will get the same score on the same test.

Well, folks, education is not a product, it’s a process; a school is not a factory. Children are not identical machine parts, but complex human beings coming to school with a whole variety of baggage, both good and bad. So, stop blaming the teachers and setting up roadblocks to keep us from doing what needs to be done. And keep your empty words to yourself. Your actions have already shown us what you really think.

Corinne Driscoll lives in Syracuse.

via parentsacrossamerica.org

Remember this:

I am so stressed right now. Due in the next two weeks:

• 10 page Public School Law paper
• 5-10 minute presentation on that paper
• Interview a principal or superintendent
• 10 page Critical Assignment paper on that interview
• Final for two of the three courses I am taking.

Done.