One hundred boxes, six baskets of clean laundry and eight or nine computers

I have moved. For thirty years, my office was in an old, historic farmhouse in Brighton. I started with a telephone dialup, then upgraded to Ethernet and Wi-Fi.

Moving requires change

Years old, the new CEO at COMSHARE ordered everyone to move their desks so that they all faced north. On the surface, it was a loyalty test. The second objective was to disrupt all of the project piles and create new priorities.

How many boxes?

Charlie bragged that he could compile all that he needed in 15 boxes, not counting furniture. As I packed up the office, I wondered if I really needed all 40, 50, 60 boxes of ….stuff.

A year of preparation

The downsizing took a month of Saturdays. We cleaned, boxed and labeled many historical artifacts and collections. We recycled 13,500 lbs. (that’s right, over six tons) of metal that was collected in 11 years of building and repairing computers. Charlie and I recycled the Honeywell tape drive last week. Bye-bye!

Three hours to implement

The move took about three hours to load everything in the trucks and unload at the new location in town. The office was back online by noon. Hello, new office!

Here’s to all the people who move and upgrade! To those who called to find out if I dropped off the face of the earth: I am back! And my desk faces south, now.  

Happy Halloween, from the Computer Mamas

Pumpky Pumpkin is a happy pumpkin.
And do you know why?
Cuz he's a Jack-O-Lantern
Instead of being a pumpkin pie.

eBeth

Hello, Asia! Live, on SkillBear

Developing Courses on SkillBear: 

I enjoyed creating the online store. The SkillBear Course Builder includes a very good Library, so developers can upload all of the course objects: videos, eBooks and sample files into one folder. 

We were able to create our Microsoft Office certification training as short lessons as well as compiled into chapter books.

From the SkillBear website:

"We at Skill Bear have put together a strategy to integrate education and technology, and to make learning more accessible and affordable especially to the less fortunate.  

"We have a training marketplace accessible globally and most importantly, affordable to everyone and anyone who is keen to learn a new skill."

We are Proud to Offer our Microsoft Office Certification lessons on the SkillBear Website

https://www.skillbear.com/course/microsoft-powerpoint-2013-beginning-every-picture-tells-a-story/

Live: On TES!

The Joy of an Excellent Online System: A good system is simple to use. The commands work as expected, without errors. Alex measures software by how often it makes him repeat a meaningless task, such as reformat text that has been copied. Bad software creates a lot of <sighs>

The TES system is excellent: I enjoyed the User Interface and the Online store. Every aspect of the website was well designed. The screen layout was simple. The Author’s Tools were easy to find and figure out.

From the TES website:

"TES is dedicated to supporting the world’s teachers. Our mission is to enable great teaching by helping educators find the tools and technology they need to excel, supporting them throughout their career and professional development. 

"We’re home to the world’s largest online community of teachers with 7.3 million registered users and this network is one of the fastest growing of any profession globally, helping support, guide and inspire educators around the world. "

We are Proud to Offer our Microsoft Office Certification lessons on the TES Website

https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/thecomputermama  

Because Women Match Socks

Study Suggests Women Code Better Than Men This article supports what I have learned in the classroom. I have seen women programmers far exceed what men programmers can do…. because women match socks. Programming is all about On Event Clicks: does the button do what the user expects? The event matches the expectation. Women are very good at matching which kid gets which socks. Guys, not so much.

http://www.techworm.net/2016/02/study-suggests-women-code-better-than-men-they-hide-gender.html

Computer codes written by women get higher approval ratings than the code written by men – but only if the gender of the coder is being hidden

I am the one who knows how to teach Microsoft Access! I have developed and deployed robust, commercial databases. I have also learned what it takes to teach database programming.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJJNQ4bqIpA

Join us at World Education.net for outstanding Microsoft Access certification training.
We know how to match socks. We'll see that you get the right course and ship the books immediately.

http://www.worldeducation.net/courses/1066248000002615021

O, Look! We Do Books

Another researcher has discovered that students want books.  Our students have asked over and over and over again: “Does this course come with books? “Can I keep the books? “Can I write in the books?

Digital isn’t the same as print. I have worked in both industries over the years. You can see my posts here and here. This study at least validates what my students already know: we need books.

With her new book, Words Onscreen: The Fate of Reading in a Digital World, Naomi Baron, a professor of linguistics at American University, brings more data to the case for print.  Baron and her colleagues surveyed over 300 university students in the U.S., Japan, Germany, and Slovakia, and found a near-universal preference for print, especially for serious reading. (She finds that the format doesn’t matter so much for “light reading.”)

When students were given a choice of various media—including hard copy, cell phone, tablet, e-reader, and laptop—92 percent said they could concentrate best in hard copy.

Please join us at WorldEducation.net

We’ll ship the books immediately!

http://www.worldeducation.net/courses/1066248000002615021