We’re supposed to be honest. I will be as honest as I can about this…

DSA’s science department has a set of laptops that were purchased when DSA was formed…in 1995. We’ve kept them going for word processing, general (basic) web research, and email. We’ve increased their RAM as much as we can and removed all of the superfluous software that we can so we can get some use out of them. They will barely run LoggerPro with our Vernier probes. It’s that bad. I/we do what we can. I will take the students to one of the computer labs to use newer machines when it’s appropriate, but much of the time, we need to be in a science classroom to do the activity that computer access could enhance!

We have a technology fund this year, so we should get at least one laptop cart for the department…if not two. I’ve only ever taught for DSA, so this is a hard question to answer. I’ve only been able to teach kids to create graphs in Excel and do very simple computer operations. Sigh. I can’t require a lot of computer use from my students at home because, even though they have access to newer computers in our labs and our media center, they might not have access at home.

So. I have no idea. I great deal of my fellowship relies upon my ability to teach students how to use statistical software, R. Can I answer this one during the school year?