Difficulties with funding and tech.

I have three computer carts that I'm really concerned about at work. See, we don't have a computer lab, and therefore we depend on rolling carts for our technology needs. We're trying to put at least five computers in every single classroom, and we're doing really well with that. However, with the possible advent of online statewide test taking, I am concerned that we will not be ready in the long term. I have two carts on the second and third floor that are especially of concern to me. They have iBook G4 laptops in them, not even intel macs. They are old, they desperately need updating, and they are maintenance intensive at this time in their operational life. There are approximately sixty five of them.

Sixty five computers probably need to be replaced.

At an average cost of $700 each...that's about fifty thousand dollars.

I'm looking into grants, and I'm not entirely unhappy. There's definitely money out there, and we definitely could get a chunk of it. Probably enough to replace the library cart, the other one I'm concerned about.

The difficulty? I'm not an experienced grant writer. I have books, I have samples...but I don't have success in writing grant proposals.

The answer to that? Well, here goes!

Changes in Office 2003 Vs Office 2007.

With the changeover from Windows XP to Windows 7 in the city schools happening as we speak, there's another wholesale change taking place. We're also moving from office 2003 to 2007/2010. This is going to require some adjustment. The big issue, in my opinion, is that we're changing file formats. We're going from .doc to .docx, .xls to .xlsx, and .ppt to .pptx. The important issue is that you can't read .docx files in office 2003. This has already taken some people by surprise. There is a compatibility pack from Microsoft that you can download and install, which is good in the interim, or if your PC can't handle 2007. This pack will automatically convert 2007 files so you can read them in 2003.

The other big change is in menu structure. Up until now, Office has featured a standard drop down menu structure; that is, if I click "file", the menu drops down and you can see all the choices. Now, all these choices are packed into a horizontal ribbon. All the choices are still there, mind you, but some are not where you'd think, and you may have to poke around to find them. However, you can bring up most of the choices you're used to by clicking the arrows at the bottom of each choice. Check this out.

Those arrows will bring up menus that you're more familiar with.

Also-most of the functionality we're used to being part of the "file" menu will be accessible using the Windows symbol in the top left corner of the screen.

First real post.

My intention for this blog is to provide guidance and access to useful tech websites and insights to my colleagues. I find that I take things into myself and fail to show them to other people far too often. time to change that.

Hello World