Author: pbeens

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2018 OCTE Survey

(posted on behalf of OCTE)
This is a last call to help complete the 2018 Technological Education Survey before you leave for summer!
Thank you to all of you who participated in last year’s Technological Education Teacher survey!  We have used the results of the survey to move a number of new OCTE initiatives forward and to develop an OCTE Multi-Year Plan 2018 – 2021.
Here is a link to last year’s Technological Education Research Report.
We have once again partnered with the Ministry of Education to continue this research, inform our new and ongoing OCTE initiatives and to create a baseline of data to measure improvements.  We are asking for your help and your voice once again to complete this year’s Technological Education survey, which should take about 10 minutes to complete.
We appreciate your help in sharing this with other Technological Education teachers who are not here at the conference.
Thank you very much!  Your feedback allows us to keep OCTE relevant and addressing your current needs.
Dave Lewis
Chair of OCTE
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Beyond Compare Utility

Beyond Compare is, for me, one of those essential utilities I cannot live without. I have used it for years to manage the marking in my classroom as well as for managing backups of files at home.

Beyond Compare is, as the name implies, a program for comparing files.

This screen shows how I use it for marking. The panel on the left is the handin folder where students submit their assignments. The panel on the right is where I copy the files to after they have been marked. At the top you’ll see that I am using the “All” view so I can clearly see all submissions. Any folder or file with a coloured icon is something I haven’t marked yet. The greyed out icon are the folders or files that have been copied over. (Student names have been blurred out) Continue reading “Beyond Compare Utility”

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Presentation: Turtle Graphics Using Python

Today I co-presented at the OSSTF Embracing Technology Conference. Our topic was Turtle Graphics Using Python: A Gentle Introduction to Programming.

The audience was mostly teachers new to programming, so I’m really pleased that most of them were able to keep up. It was also great to see them working in groups to solve the challenges together.

Note to self: Nested loops is a challenge for beginners. Re-think that for the next time I do this presentation!

To view the presentation for yourself, visit this link:

https://www.beens.org/osstf-2018-python/

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Self-flying Cormorant

This is a great idea. I can see lots of applications for it once they’ve made it more stable.

https://twitter.com/pbeens/status/1000373046602092544