Chris Hamady

Acknowledging the fact that current trends are moving in the direction of reducing or eliminating printing entirely, our primary teachers have asked for an easy way to mass print student Google Docs projects so that those examples of technology literacy can be taken home and shown to their student's guardians. After thinking about this and corresponding with NWOCA's John Mansel-Pleydell ( http://twitter.com/theohiobloke ) , there are a couple of solutions here. The first is detailed in Alice Keeler's excellent post entitled,  PDF my Google Drive Folder. You can find that post here:

http://alicekeeler.com/2015/08/16/pdf-my-google-drive-folder/

This procedure esentially converts a folder of Google Docs to a collection of PDFs that you can easily download and mass print to your computer using the procedure outlined at the end of this post.

We can remove a step in this workflow if we can show the students how they can convert their Google Docs to PDF, and then drag those PDFs to a teacher's shared folder (or turn in the PDF via Google Classroom).

Once a teacher has a collection of PDFs in a folder, they would download the folder of PDFs to their computer. On a Mac, they would then open the folder of PDFs and select all (command+a). They would then drag the PDFs to the print queue icon located in their doc. At this point, all of the documents would print automatically without having to open up each file individually.

The steps required to add a print queue icon to your Mac dock can be found here:

http://www.cranstonit.com/blog/files/printing-from-your-dock.php

Once that has been completed, any PDF, word processing, or text editing documents that you drag onto the printer icon will immediately print.

CH

Our son has been asking us for years to create a YouTube channel for him so that he could publish Minecraft tutorials and "let's plays" online. We finally aquiesed and setup his YouTube channel. That was the easy part (not really). The next thing we had to do was figure out how to capture his tutorials. Prototype 1 included putting a Firewire camcorder in front of the TV and recording the screen directly to iMovie while he demonstrated Minecraft. This resulted in a borderline bad video image and less than effective audio capture.

Prototype 2 had us routing the video and audio into an ElGato EyeTVHD capture box connected to a Mac computer. We used a Playstation AV component video adapter. My son would then control the Playstation while watching the action on the computer. The trouble with this was the gameplay was somewhat lagged. There was nearly a full second lag between his changing a setting via the Playstation controller and the video showing the change. He was extremely frustrated and did not want to record. I don't blame him.

Back to the drawing board. Prototype 3: I tracked down a cable that would split the component video signal from the Playstation 3 into two component video signals. The first video signal went directly to a component input on our television, and the second went to the Elgato EyeTVHD. A RadioShack lavalier condensor microphone was then connected to a Mackie 1202VLZ mixing board, and the audio tape outputs from the mixer were also sent to the Elgato box. Using this scenario, my son is able to watch the Playstation output flawlessly on the TV while he plays, and we simultaneously record the same video output as well as his audio commentary to the Mac computer using the ElGato capture box.

I've created a workflow in case anyone wants to see how this is all connected.

Here's a link to his channel if you want to see Episode 1 and Episode 2.

As Stampy says, Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

If you would like to download the presentation from our OETC session entitled, "Assessing K12 Classroom Needs to Prepare Your District for Technology Integration, click HERE.

Thank you.

Chris

It was fantastic seeing everyone at the BGSU M-Learning conference today. Here is a link to the slides we presented during our talk:

Slides

Thank you to all of you that attended today's event.

CH

Last night, while sleeping, I had a crazy dream. I dreamed that the Apple of old was back: taking risks, creating new markets, solving everyday problems. My dream went like this...

We had just purchased a Mac mini. Apple actually sells these computers as servers, we had a need and they are inexpensive, so I thought, "ok...we'll buy a Mac mini server for our district data office." Soon after purchasing it, we began to expand its storage capabilities. We started connecting all manner of external hard drive devices to it. In no time at all we had an amalgamation of jumbled pieces of equipment connected via a hoard of spaghetti-like cabling. Surely there has to be a better way that would serve customers and make Apple oodles of money.

This issue is not new. For years geeks have been asking Apple for an expandable computer somewhere between a Mac mini and a Mac Pro. The difference between these two is $2400.00. The need was so great, it actually DID create a new market, abeit a market that was eventually deemed illegal:

http://www.cultofmac.com/1897/miami-company-offers-low-cost-mac-knock-off-apple-lawsuit-sure-to-follow/

It seems to me that a market exists for folks that just need substantial storage connected to a modest, but competent Mac mini.

Why not create a Mac mini storage and expansion dock? Apple could create an all aluminum enclosure specifically designed for the Mac mini. Better yet, they could release it with the new Mac mini. The new Mac mini could have guide rails cut out of the bottom of it. To dock it, you would simply slide the Mac mini into the enclosure, open the back of the expansion dock, connect up all of the necessary cabling, and voila! You now have a Mac mini that can accomodate 4-6 SATA drives (connected via Thunderbolt) and maintains all of the external expansion capabilities if designed with that functionality in mind.

This idea oozes profits. How much would it cost to create such an enclosure? If you look at this RAID device as a benchmark, they retail for just over $100.00.

http://eshop.macsales.com/shop/firewire/1394/USB/EliteAL/PerformanceRAID

Assuming that a profit margin of 40% is built into the device, it isn't too much of a stretch to believe that Apple can build this new expansion dock for around $125-$150.00. Knowing that people for years have been asking for a Macintosh solution in the price range of $1500.00, they could reap huge profits for those folks that do not want or need a Mac Pro by selling this for $499.00.

The home theatre market alone would eat this thing up. In order to accomodate all of my movies and DVR content, I myself just purchased a three terabyte external drive for the Mac mini under my television. I would have preferred to purchase an Apple solution like the one I have just described, but none existed. Many of our friends now are using Mac minis as home theatre devices. Who wouldn't love to purchase such an enclosure designed by Apple rather than the designs of everyone else?

Here are some other profit creating ideas. I'm sure Apple could create "sleds" to mount the SATA drives to. Populate the expansion dock with two sleds initially and sell 2 others for $39.99 a piece. How about selling pre-formatted SATA drives mounted to sleds? How about pre-formatted SSD drives mounted to sleds? Maybe an enclosure for folks in small business/education environments that has a built-in UPS. Mounts for IT data center racks that hold three or four Mac minis tipped forward with the top facing the technician? Perhaps a second RAID enclosure that can be connected via Thunderbolt or over the network to automatically back up the first? Geeks would freak out. A cry would erupt from the basements of parent's homes everywhere, "Apple is back to supporting tech nerds!"

*calming down*

And then I woke up. Apple, where is your innovation? Where is your risk taking? Where is your support of geeks? Please do something, for the love of Steve.