A Reply to David....

David,

I agree with you. Apple provides high value in what you pay for. Simple case in point, when I was connecting my Mac to a home network, it was very easy. The Mac found the network within seconds. As for my friend’s PC, it required much more leg work (identify the network etc.).

On a different topic, for Assignment #5 I was very tempted to use MS Power Point or even Google Documents free online software to hand in this project. The reason that I did not use this online software was due to my slow internet connection (uploading audio/video would be a horrendous task), as well I was unsure if these online versions would let me export a final project to hand in. Something I will definitely experiment with in the future. Just curious if anyone else was also contemplating this idea, or will experiment with these online programs in the future.

Google Earth Extended

Google Earth is very impressive. They have actually extended this program to be even more detailed. Google Street allows you explore places at a real street view. The street view allows users to rotate 360 degrees and zoom in on real digital pictures of certain locations in the States. I'm sure this will eventually extend to many different locations across the world.

Take a look for yourself, it's really cool.....yet scary that they can do this.

http://books.google.com/help/maps/streetview/

A Reply to Christine....

Hi Christine,

From my experience with the Hamilton Boards (Catholic and Public) they have been using PCs. However Apple integration into schools have been growing over the past decade, so I'm sure that eventually more schools may choose to "switch sides" soon enough.

Basically Macs have many user friendly programs for: presentations, video editing, audio editing, photo editing/display, conferencing, web creating, and DVD creation.

A Reply to David....

David,

Very insightful view of PP vs. Keynote. I firmly believe that Keynote, and just Apple as a company, is far more user-friendly, innovative and dynamic than Power Point (MS), however Apple’s problem lies in its overall price. More people have PCs than Macs, because they are cheaper. I promise you, in a couple years the debate won’t just be between PP (MS) vs. Keynote (Apple). Google will have it’s whole suite to content with (give it a couple more years to really develop).

As to why inserting a chart launches Excel……like you mentioned it’s all about the marketing ploy. They want to establish how “easy” their suite performs in terms of integration of one program into another. Their defense is, why should we create chart features in Power Point, when we have built an entire program to handle charts etc. Apple also does this tactic in their programs.

A Reply to Keethai...

Keethai,

That's a great find. I wish there were slightly more options for your font, as it sort of gets lost with the background. I'll def. save this in my favourites folder. Thanks for the link.

A Reply to Mark....

I'm glad you also found the link useful Mark. It sounds like you already do a lot of creative technology aspect projects for your students. I would have loved to have that available to me back when I was in school. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly the curriculum has evolved over the years. I could just imagine what it will be like when these current students enter the work force.

A Reply to Shane

Hi Shane,

Sorry to hear about your problems with sound. I know it has to be frustrating. The best way to get rid of that “scratchy” background noise with your sound clips is to use the software that came with your microphone/web cam to record the sound clips, and then insert this sound clip into your Power Point Presentation. I'm sure the audio quality would greatly improve. To play this presentation on another computer, you would have to include the linked sound files as well as your power point file, and possibly relink the sound files onto the new computer. You are absolutely correct; power point has to get a better audio recorder.