Old Time Summer

Category: Latin

  • August 2012 Educational Preview

    A new “school year” is beginning. We have a new family computer to use for education. It’s a nice HP TouchSmart AIO Core i5 23″ beauty, though it doesn’t have any of the features I wanted to add on, in store we had no options, only this one. HDMI input, Bluetooth, Blu-ray … none of them exist on this model. It wasn’t super important, but I did want at least a Blu-ray player. Really want a Blu-ray burner and have thought for awhile that maybe I should just get a stand-alone version, so … the other thing is a Bluetooth module … I can get a dongle, but that’s not as nice as built-in on an AIO.

    My laptop doesn’t have Bluetooth nor Blu-ray. I hated that back when I got it. Guess what I feel now? I really hate that I STILL don’t have those features on a machine. I have a dongle on my laptop for bluetooth. It doesn’t work right unless I put it on the e-Sata port. It’s a special combo port, anyhow, it provides better power, and it’s the only port on my laptop that will run it correctly, troublesome, since my keyboard and mouse use it and I have an external sata device …

    So I have a job I need to finish and that is archiving all my photos and making something out of all my video footage. I need Blu-ray disc burning for that. I refuse to use DVD’s nowadays, so I do nothing at all. I have a lot of video that I need to process and this new computer can handle it better. Which means I need to put my Sony video programs on here (the machine I’m typing on is the HP AIO.)

    As for the educational things: I have LEGO We Do software which will work with this desktop, finally a desktop! Our other things never worked with it, only my laptop. I am actually missing one of the discs, I hope I can figure out which one and find it. I have Artes Latinae installed. I’m having them ‘start over’ again, for the 2nd or 3rd time. It’s been that long since I bought it and we’ve had so many computer issues … augh! Hopefully that ends here.

    I need to get them all started on more stuff, so the main topic is how to REALLY use a computer, use programs, and create things. Also they need to learn to use their cameras better, and how to really make the photos nicer, delete when necessary, organize like crazy.

    They will have a better time on this computer writing blog posts and other documents. We have OFfice 2010 Home and Student. I’ll upgrade this computer to Win 8 and have plans to upgrade to the new Office programs.

    Years ago I had Office 95 (actually still have it, just isn’t installed). I loved it, I loved Access. I really wish they had that in H & S … but they don’t. It’s just not possible for us to buy 2 or 3 licenses for Office Pro, but I wish I could. In the old days it was easier to deal with these things, You could put it on a laptop and a desktop both. No real life restrictions. So we have H & S since it’s affordable for family use, even though it’s a lesser product, but not so bad.

    I need to get more things going than ever, and it’s hard with limited funds. I’m hoping I can get some packages of somethings for my oldest two to rip through soon … it’s a high possibility. So we need to get on point and finish the Math-U-See levels they are on and go through more than one more before the end of the year.

    Well, that’s just starting peek into what we are planning and getting done, or need to.

  • The year progresses with less progress

    I’ve been working with my two oldest to get them using blogs to write things about their schooling. It’s not always easy to get them doing things, and I figured this would help them. Well, it did and didn’t.

    One thing it did that is BAD is makes them think they can be on the computer all the time, or whenever they want. We have two older laptops that aren’t “owned” by an adult, so in the a.m. they open them up and search for stuff, look on their kid’s forum I let them go to sometimes before, and for my daughter, 12, she’s claiming the computer that is a tablet laptop, and draws most of the time anymore. My 14 year old loves to search for all sorts of information, but doesn’t write much of anything. He has written several things about LBP2 though. What is that? Oh, a game, Little Big Planet 2.

    My daughter will write something if I get on her case, she’s not so bad, but given her own way, she rarely writes much of anything, may write a post, give it a title but no body, and save it. Or write such a nothing summary of something, that’s it.

    My daughter used to be the one ahead in Math-U-See, but my son is now quite a few chapters ahead. They gave themselves a haiatus on it for a few months, for some reason, but I’ve gotten the whip out lately about it. So they are both forging ahead again. My other son, the 10 year old, is reticent to do any Math-U-See, he’s on the older level all by himself and just isn’t wanting much of anything to do with it, or with reading or writing or anything that isn’t a cartoon, video game, outdoor something or other. He can read now, but it’s so difficult to get him to do it “I already read that” is his answer when I ask him to read something aloud, or to read it by himself and tell me about it afterward. “Yes, but I want you to read it again, it’s not a bad thing to re-read something.” is my response sometimes. Of course there are a myriad of responses I could give him. He’s different, I know. He’s not into books as much as electronic usage. Thankfully he’s not into the computer much yet.

    A major thing that I’m including in their education is chores (Home Economics for ALL!)  More fun than “chores” is actual helping with cooking, and it’s a great help for me. My daughter can make a few things for dinner by herself, aide me in other things, is learning along the way. Right now she’s learning why drop biscuits are better when I make the exact same recipe as she does.Mine are light and fluffy … good really good, her’s less good, more dense, much less good.

    My 14 year old helps more than cooks. Helps with prep and taking care of some things that I’m cooking, breaking up ground meat as it browns, for example. Also gets pre-cracked spelt or kamut into a dish with the right stuff to soak it overnight for hot cereal in the morning, I pre-crack the grain and keep it in the freezer. He gets it prepped and cooks it the next day.

    The examples above are not all they do, they are becoming very capable about the kitchen, and will both be able to feed themselves and others when they are adults. That’s something that everyone, no matter what their sex is, needs to be able to do. Gender Roles aren’t so great all the time. In my case it’s exactly that. I can cook. I love to cook. I don’t love to cook all the time though. I get weary of it fast when I feel I’ve been cooking a lot. No set amount, it just is part of who I am, I enjoy it to a point, then need some time off. I would LOVE to do Dinner’s in the Freezer, but I haven’t been able to get it planned out and get the help I need to make it work at the right time to do it. It’s exactly the kind of thing I need, but I also do have lower energy than a lot of people and it is OVERWHELMING to do even three meals in a weekend to put away in the freezer.

    Sometimes I get all into it and make double of what I would for just a meal (to put half away for another day) and then it doesn’t work out, like part of it gets ruined, or my bigger guys eat more than usual, or … I’m so tired by the end and don’t get it put into the freezer, then ….

    Then I can’t cook for a couple of days and … it’s just frustrating.

    So, Spring is here. Trees are blooming early, way early, it’s been hot, chilly, warm, chilly, hot, nice, hot, chilly … just not COLD anymore. Hot and warm I could do away with. Our A/C isn’t working (not the first time) and it’s bad on the hot days. I don’t function at all when it’s hot.

    I need to function more to get more educational things done. I’m awaiting building a new desktop computer for me to use, and once that is in place I can sit at a desk with a keyboard and do much more than I can manage to do with my laptop. It’s a matter of many things, my laptop is capable of much, just not as much as my desktop will, and with a desk and desktop I’m more functional. My laptop could be on a desk, but it still doesn’t go as well for me as a desktop computer on a desk.

    I’m guessing this is the same thing as the children. The old desktop is monitorless now. I have it connected to the TV and it’s nowhere near a place to sit with a mouse and keyboard, have to stand and weirdo do stuff, so the laptops … well they need to do their Latin on the desktop, math-u-see videos … and maybe they’d be better with writing more …

     

     

     

     

  • First use of Artes Latinae I

    On Friday I did use the Artes Latinae Level I program through 108 Frames at least. It is a nice program. My eldest, Russell, worked on it also. On Saturday my second child, Victoria worked on it.

    I’m an adult and found it easy to understand and had to force myself to pay more attention to it so as not to have to go back to find out how an earlier frame had an answer to a later frame and I couldn’t remember what it was. I have relaxed my brain over the years some with study methods, so this is a nice program to make one THINK about that and solidly apply themselves forward from there.

    Russell turned 13 just in the last couple of weeks, and was slower than me advancing through the frames, but did understand them easily and get faster as he went along. Victoria is 10 (and almost 1/2) and struggled a bit here and there, but eventually was on-board and going through it faster. She is the one I was most concerned about using it, and I was hopeful it would motivate faster thinking for her, and already I’ve seen progress.

    The point of the first section of Artes Latinae Level I is to get the user familiar with how the program works and to start using better study skills (remembering what you have read). One does learn some facts of Roman origins and some other things along the way, but they are not to be tested on.

  • Installing Artes Latinae

    I’m currently installing  Artes Latinae – Level I on our desktop computer. It looks to be quite a heavy install, saying 30 mins. to an hour for installation, depending …

    This computer isn’t the most modern, it’s not bad,  just not super recent, an Athlon 64 processor, no dual or quad … but it’s faster than a lot of peoples computers, probably. At any rate, it took about 1/2 an hour, I got taken away from writing this post for awhile.

    Something that DOES bother me about this program is that now it says that it runs under a specific version of Mozilla-Firefox and that if I use the currently running version it I could have problems with bookmarks, playing sound clips, etc. … so I have to re-start … hence finish this post to be able to shut down this instance of Firefox to start the Artes Latinae program. Just a little quibble here, if it’s only … if it doesn’t interfere with using Firefox generally day in and out. FWIW I just think the wording is not explicit enough and only talking about instances, but doesn’t state that.