After some data gathering last year, we realized we were using a case of paper every 2 weeks in one computer lab (we have 4 in our school). That is 5000 sheets of paper every 2 weeks, or 500 sheets of paper per day in ONE LAB. My informal observation was kids would print out a webpage (10 or 15 sheets) and call that “doing research”. Blech.

We instituted much stricter print quotas this year - each student only has 250 sheet for the entire year. Now as we enter into our second semester, we are starting to get visitors into the IT office asking for an increase. We oblige them, but ask them to be careful about their printing needs.

I’m honestly surprised. Many of our teachers accept emailed assignments, and many students use turnitin for papers.

I’m keeping a careful watch on our heaviest users, and targeting those teachers with professional development for electronically submitted assignments.

Posted by Bill on 02/24 at 10:42 AM in Educational Tech, Support
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Naviance
Tuesday, February 23, 2010

I’ll be teaching parents about Naviance this Thursday. This is one of those “college information nights” activities. I’ll be teaching the parents how to use Naviance and get useful data. The really neat thing about Naviance is acceptance history data. So a parent could visit a college page, and quickly see how many students in our school applied to a particular school, and how many were accepted.

Parents can also see average test scores - so we can see out of all the students who were accepted to a particular college, what was their test scores. College information is quickly available, such as financial aid, demographic information, etc…

Naviance is a great resource, and allows parents and students to make data-based, informed decisions. I am a system administrator for our Naviance instance, and I love it - that it is a hosted web service just makes me even happier.

I’m not a shill, but I see how useful Naviance is for my school and parents.

Posted by Bill on 02/23 at 12:04 PM in Educational Tech
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Slashdot: Looking Back From the 1980s At Computers In Education
Friday, February 19, 2010

This is why I love slashdot.

I’m not sure how many different ways I can say this. Ed tech really isn’t about the technology, it’s about the teaching. It’s about focusing on learning first. It’s about understanding learning, defining outcomes, and knowing what good teaching is. Is technology fantastic? Of course. Am I an ed-tech evangalist? Yup.

Are we wasting SO much money, time, and people on technology that makes a marginal (if any) difference in learning?

Yes. The conversation should be less about what we have, and more about how we are teaching, and how our kids are learning.

Posted by Bill on 02/19 at 06:40 AM in Educational Tech, Design, Leadership
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Stunning: One-to-one computing programs only as effective as their teachers
Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Eschool news writes "One-to-one computing programs only as effective as their teachers".

Do you hear that thumping sound? That is me hitting my head on my desk. Repeatedly. The article should of said "study confirms what everyone in educational technology already knows: good teaching is more important than blinky-things."

To be fair, the article links to some nice research:

Laptops and Fourth Grade Literacy: Assisting the Jump over the Fourth-Grade Slump (PDF)
Evaluating the Implementation Fidelity of Technology Immersion and its Relationship with Student Achievement (PDF)
After Installation: Ubiquitous Computing and High School Science in Three Experienced, High-Technology Schools (PDF)
One to One Computing: A Summary of the Quantitative Results from the Berkshire Wireless Learning Initiative (PDF)
Educational Outcomes and Research from 1:1 Computing Settings (PDF)

Here's a choice quote:

Across the four empirical studies, it is evident that teachers play an essential role in the effective implementation of 1:1 initiatives and that the onus of responsibility for implementation often falls to the teacher. For example, Bebell and Kay (2010) concluded that it is “impossible to overstate the power of individual teachers in the success or failure of 1:1 computing”

What's my take away?

1. It's about the "how" not the "what".

2. Before we give teachers technology, they should have a a very clear idea about how they plan on using it - never push tech into a teachers face

3. Teachers should evaluate if teachers should use technology in their classroom, ala learning communities - so for example, a teacher would go to a committee of teachers and say "I want 25 iPads" and THAT group of teachers would hack through the proposal - what learning is happening? How is this different than what we are doing now? Will this materially increase student achievement? Does this make learning better? Is this a sound investment? etc...

4. It's always good to let a teachers play with technology before actually using it in their classrooms to teach. Teachers need to have a cognitive model of how they are going to use the latest widget to make our kids smarter

5. Clear outcomes are critical. Before embarking on a tech initiative, outcomes should be very clearly defined and understood by everyone.

Reference: Bebell, D. & O’Dwyer, L.M. (2010). Educational Outcomes and Research from 1:1 Computing Settings. Journal of Technology, Learning, and Assessment, 9(1).
Retrieved FEB 16 2010 from http://www.jtla.org.

Posted by Bill on 02/16 at 09:36 AM in Educational Tech, Support
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Experiential Learning and Technology
Monday, February 15, 2010

I’m sitting here at work on Monday, February 15th. It’s a federal holiday, yet here I sit, cleaning up my desk, writing, and tending to some projects I haven’t had time for.

Why am I here, and not with my wife and 9 month old?

A robot.

In the room behind me, there is a group of students (who are here during their February break) working feverishly on a robot. They are partaking in the FIRST competition - and this reminds me why I love teaching and technology. They bought a drill press (with a laser guide) to make the structure of the robot. They are excited, motivated, and absolutely focused on building this robot. It is a truly delightful thing, to see kids lit up about technology. With very little experience, they have built wireless controllers, steering, and even coded a simple autonomous control. They have done a simply wonderful job of building this robot. They are fairly sure they won’t win this competition, but they are aiming for rookie team of the year.

I often talk about games in education because I see how motivated the kids are. It is amazing to see the energy a student will put into learning when it is something they really care about - and this is exactly why I love experiential learning - and the strange looking robot behind me.

Posted by Bill on 02/15 at 02:52 PM in Blogging, Teaching Diary
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Ed Tech and Elementary School
Thursday, February 11, 2010

Had another interesting question a few days ago.

What is your philosophy around elementary school and technology?

1. I think students aged 6 to about 10 shouldn’t use technology a lot. I think kids this age should explore and learn with their bodies. I think these kids should visit a computer lab about once a week, and when they do use a computer it should be linked to basic skills and their curriculum. For example, if the second grade is studying ocean life, we might find an online activity that let’s them practice mouse skills and explore under the ocean.

2. I believe teachers in grades K to 4 should feel very comfortable using technology. Teachers in these grades should show short videos about topical issues and then discuss. For example, perhaps teachers could show a short clip of an octopus, and then discuss the video with their class “why do you think the octopus moves like that?” . I also think teachers in these grades should use technology to showcase student work. For example, teachers could take a picture of their “dress-like-a-crustacean” day, and post these pictures on their blog or classroom website. It would also be neat to have the kids record themselves explaining what they thing whales think about, and then share those recordings with parents and other students.

3. Grades 5 to 6 (ages 11 to 12) present rich opportunities to begin project-based learning. These students can begin making appropriate presentations, web pages, and even documentaries (with the right support, of course). They can begin to create advanced documents, incorporating pictures and graphs.

4. I was part of a team that developed standards and benchmarks for our elementary school. Here is an excel file with our standards and benchmarks.. i is for introduce, r is for reinforce, and m is for master. If a teacher wanted to do a project, we would teach the requisite skills for that specific project.

Posted by Bill on 02/11 at 09:22 AM in Educational Tech, Design, Leadership
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Toolkits and tricks
Thursday, February 11, 2010

I “do” system administration. From servers to workstations, Windows, OS X, and Linux, I take care of technical issues at my school. To be honest, this is one of things I really enjoy about educational technology. I’ve always been curious, and system administration presents ample opportunities to look for problems and try to solve them. Along the way, I have learned quite a bit. In the interest of sharing, here are the tools I often use to understand / grok computers, servers, and networks:

1. Sysinternals
2. Wireshark
3. Ubuntu on a USB disk
4. ubcd4win
5. PUTTY
6. All the normal Linux tools
7. Cocktail
8. Carbon copy cloner

Of course there are many more utilities I use, but these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head. I’ll add to this page as time goes on. I’ve been meaning to write a cookbook for a while, so this post will probably serve as a start.

Posted by Bill on 02/11 at 08:35 AM in Educational Tech, Leadership
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Why ROI is hard to measure for school technology
Tuesday, February 09, 2010

I had an interesting question today: how do you measure ROI on a technology project for learning * ?

The answer? It's really hard. Suppose a school bought a couple of laptop carts for their 8th grade - 60 computers. The average laptop cart is about $30,000. If we add all the stuff (licensing, staff development, extra wireless nodes, etc) let's say the total cost for the whole shebang is $75,000. That's a pretty hefty chunk of change. How do we know if we are getting our monies worth?

This is a very difficult question to answer. Why? All these questions are indicators, but none of them are definitive.

If all the kids get A's after implementation of the laptop carts, does that mean they are learning more?
If all the kids are using the laptops everyday, for every class, does that mean they are learning more?
If the kids produce stunning web pages, documentaries, and interactive applications are they learning more?
If the computers have a very low failure rate, does that mean the program is successful?
If the teachers report the kids are learning more, are they?
If the students report they are learning more, are they? This is especially tricky, because we know kids LOVE technology.
If the parents tell us they see a positive difference, is it working?
If we see increased attendance, is the program working?
If behavioral issues drop (which is common) does the program work?
If the students write substantially more, does the program work?

This question is also completely appropriate. If a school spends $80,000 on 2 laptop carts, they have every right to ask if this investment is worthy.

I believe teachers know best; when I want to know if technology is working, I ask a teacher. I also trust in "supervision of instruction" - so effective instruction is effective instruction is effective instruction. Part of being a school leader is supervising instruction to increase student achievement. If a teacher is using technology, or if a teacher is using dramatic arts, is the teaching making a difference?

The fact is learning is difficult to measure - and it's really hard to comparatively measure this stuff also.

Are we getting $75,000 worth of better education? I would need to look, ask, and assess the whole picture. I would want to understand the context, kids, school, and teacher. I would say, technology opens doors and windows that cant be opened in any other way.

* If you are using technology to increase operating efficiency or make your school run better, finding ROI is much simpler. This blog post is about using tech to teach.

Posted by Bill on 02/09 at 12:17 PM in Educational Tech, Design, Leadership, Support
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A disagreement on the iPad potential…
Monday, February 08, 2010

I got a nice comment respectfully disagreeing with my point of view about the iPad and education. For reference, the commented post was here, and perhaps he might of missed my pre-tablet hype post here). Trevor M, (who I haven’t met, but I suspect we are kindred spirits in educational technology) lists these ideas about how the iPad will revolutionize education:

1. Textbooks
2. Note Taking
3. Paperless Classroom
4. Studying and Reviewing
5. Student Interest Level
6. Individualized Curriculum

He then goes on, in another post, to talk about three concepts for iPad applications:

1. Note Taking
2. Studying and Reviewing
3. Individualized Curriculum

His enthusiasm and excitement is clearly evident in his writing. I wish he had been a bit more verbose when he discussed what he didn’t agree with in my post. Anyways, in the spirit of fostering healthy conversation about something that hasn’t seen the light of day yet, I remain skeptical. Why?

Textbooks.

iPads look like fantastic textbook readers - really great. I’ve even written a piece that they may be version one of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. But is that what we want technology to do? Just be a textbook reader? Thats not revolutionary at all - it’s just more efficient “same old same old”. So kids go online and look at ~~flash-based animations~~ Wikipedia, national geographic, and other fantastic resources. Then what? I would like them to be able to use the images and ideas they find to create their representations of knowledge. But without multitasking, how will they do this?

And there is the idea of support. Do textbooks break when you drop them? Do they need to be charged? Who fixes them when they break? How do we ensure they are all running the same version of the same stuff? What happens when one gets stolen (1 textbook = $70.00, 1 iPad = $500.00)? How long will they last? Textbooks are good for about 10 years. Same for iPad? Technology is, for all it’s coolness a high-maintenance spouse.

I’m not asking these questions to be a curmudgeon, but these exact questions and issues have stymied growth in technology education for years. I’ve always thought we should get away from textbooks and use laptops or full-blown tablets.

Note Taking.

You write “One of the largest complaints I hear from my students is that the lost their notes. They either don’t know where they put the paper or it got thrown away by mistake. The same thing goes for homework. Students tend to not be very organized, but how can you blame them? They have grown up in a digital world. They are used to having the things saved automatically on a computer or iPod. If they need to find something they just do a keyword search and it finds it form them.”

Yes. In fact, I do blame them. One of the many tasks we need to teach our kids is to be organized and responsible. It is utterly foundational. I repeat my systems argument above: a lost notebook is $5.00 an iPad, $500.00. And are iPads really better? Digital devices are just as prone to failure and data loss as losing a notebook - but far more catastrophic. Do the kids bring the iPads home with them? Really? I live in New York City and I’m not sure how I feel about 100 7th graders toting around an iPad…

Paperless Classroom

I’ll stop with this one, because I’ve always thought the “paperless classroom” was some kind of Nirvana we should all aspire to. But it isn’t. You can’t draw on a tablet like paper (try shading), tablet handwriting recognition is an oxymoron, and flipping through pages isn’t the same as a paper notebook. You cant easily draw a table or venn diagram on a iPad or incorporate all those yummy meta cognitive skills into normal note taking. My point? An iPad isn’t paper - it cant do the same thing as paper. Why are we trying to bend it to do the same thing as paper.

Just so you know Trevor, I’m not knocking you here - I would love to have an iPad for my hour-long commute. But for my classroom? I just don’t see it. At least not yet.

Posted by Bill on 02/08 at 08:41 AM in Educational Tech, Design
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Do you need more money? We need to win this thing!
Friday, February 05, 2010

We are embarking on our first year in the FIRST (more) robotics program at our school. Because we are a “rookie” team, we have been showered with help from people, organizations, and our alumni. FIRST is an expensive proposition for our school, and we have been truly, truly blessed with gifts from corporate organizations (yes, Credit Suise, we love you).

The activity is a case-study in experiential learning. The students are fantastically excited about this, and seeing their drive, passion, and energy is truly inspiring. This project has, in many ways, “woken up” our students. When a group of 17 year old kids get energized and focused, it is truly an amazing thing to behold.

Funny thing about alumni, though. When there is a competition, and school pride gets in the mix, they get excited. The quote above is real, and reminds me why I love being in education.

Posted by Bill on 02/05 at 10:15 AM in Games in education
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A day in the life of an instructional designer….
Wednesday, February 03, 2010

This is the second time I’ve posted an average day for me at work. I haven’t padded this with anything weird - this list is representative of what I do on an average day.

1. System administration for Linux system (read logs, checked system health, etc).
2. Learned more about netstat.
3. Long term substitute teacher didn’t know how to change desktop background. Now she does!
4. Posted an announcement on the web for our assistant principal in the High School.
5. Finished patching up a new teachers laptop with the newest version of Office.
6. Developed response strategies when we heard a dept head saying power point and smartboards are a “waste of time”.
7. Helped instructional technology specialist and new Spanish teacher configure and setup a smartboard.
8. Looked at dead printer in elementary school science room.
9. Added dead phone in science lab to our trouble ticket system.
10. Major news: “technology ambivalent” 3rd grade teacher asked me to help two of her students make a powerpoint presentation about haunted houses. I was in her room for 2 hours yesterday configuring a new computer. Are these related? I think so.
11. Taught counseling staff how to backup their computer onto network file server.
12. Taught counseling staff about file servers.
13. Talked to counseling staff about my mother (oh my God, I wish I was kidding).
14. Sent faculty email about PBS documentary Digital Nation. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/.
15. Wife called to tell me refrigerator is fixed.
16. Helped our HR person add a video link to power point.
17. Realized our HR person is using IE 6. Fixed to Firefox.
18. Oh dear. the HR persons computer doesn’t have anti-virus and isn’t configured to run automatic updates.
19. Told the HR person to back up everything, and we are going to re image her computer.
20. Discussed upgrading MS Office with secretary. She’s sticking with old version.

21. The robotics club is holding a luncheon. Lunch for $4.00!

22. Fairly long conversation about Spanish sherry and exotic cheeses with math department.
23. Prepared for Advanced Applications class: created user accounts for students and made basic template pages.
24. Elementary school report cards. Grades 4-6 have agreed on unified standards across disciplines, so all teachers will assess kids the same way in grades 4 - 6. Now I need to convert this information into something powerschool can understand.
25. Blogged up a digital nation entry with a great teacher response.
26. Met with counseling again. Didn’t talk about my mom this time, but did install Naviance eDocs.
27. Fixed building and trades teachers scanner.
28. Wrote this list through the day.
29. Made appointment with science chair to discuss concerns about wireless smartboard access.
30. Had discussion with elementary school computer teacher about a teacher - we discovered the teacher was telling us 2 very different things!!!
31. Helped social studies teacher submit senior grades on powerschool.
32. Met with science chair to discuss wireless access to smartboards. Wow! there was so much he didn’t know. Sounds like there should of been a meeting prior to this pilot so all these questions wouldn’t come up. We discussed how broad brush technology solutions don’t work, but specific solutions work best for departments.
33. Met with student athletic association to get photo’s for Wikipedia. Explained public domain.
34. Taught an after-school class, advanced applications to a group of eager students.

Posted by Bill on 02/03 at 02:41 PM in Educational Tech
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Frontline’s digital nation documentary
Wednesday, February 03, 2010

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/

I sent this email to my faculty - in the high school and elementary school:

Last night PBS aired a remarkable documentary about digital life in 2010. I found the documentary truly, truly, exceptional. I would really appreciate if you could take the time to watch this - perhaps this evening or this weekend.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/

Last week I sent you a link to a study that stated the average child spends 10.4 hours a day using some type of media. I think we could all benefit from a discussion about how technology is changing the way our children learn, think, and see the world.

I hope to lead a more thoughtful discussion about computers, media, and learning this year. Until then, I would really appreciate if you could watch this documentary.

Here is a reply I received from a teacher:

I did watch the Frontline documentary, “Digital Nation,” last evening, and I must say that it was, as is customary of Frontline, very incisive and comprehensive. Many parts of the program, particularly those addressing the effects of technology on young people, were very unnerving. The situation in Korea should be seen as cautionary to the western world, particularly to us here in America with our almost idolatrous love for all things technological. That poor Korean mother has already “lost” her son to computer games, as far as I’m concerned because the son as lost his soul to the machines. I felt both sad and angry when I saw that part.

For my part, as an educator and specifically as a language educator, I have very mixed feelings about the use of technology in the classroom. On one hand, it has made it possible to access, literally, the world with the click of a mouse. But I am equally concerned about the “losses”: the loss of true attentiveness; the loss of the printed word; the loss of community and relationships and the increase of anonymity and the impersonal. “Digital Nation” posed many, hard questions about this but offered no easy answers. That’s where we come in. But it is very important that those questions get asked.

Posted by Bill on 02/03 at 12:37 PM in Games in education, Practical Advice, Educational Tech, Design, Leadership, Teaching Diary
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Linux security
Tuesday, February 02, 2010

Why I love Linux:

I was doing some simple system administration yesterday, and realized someone (most likely a bot) was targeting my server.

1. more /var/log/auth.log revealed several lines that looked like this:

Failed password for invalid user user from 211.155.227.171

2. so I tried grep invalid /var/log/auth.log which revealed this:

Feb 1 20:57:06 grue sshd[5222]: Failed password for invalid user oracle from 211.155.227.171 port 39871 ssh2
Feb 1 20:57:10 grue sshd[5224]: Failed password for invalid user oracle from 211.155.227.171 port 40085 ssh2
Feb 1 20:57:14 grue sshd[5226]: Failed password for invalid user oracle from 211.155.227.171 port 40337 ssh2
Feb 1 20:57:18 grue sshd[5228]: Failed password for invalid user oracle from 211.155.227.171 port 40555 ssh2
Feb 1 20:57:26 grue sshd[5232]: Failed password for invalid user admin from 211.155.227.171 port 40958 ssh2
Feb 1 20:57:30 grue sshd[5234]: Failed password for invalid user admin from 211.155.227.171 port 41160 ssh2
Feb 1 20:57:34 grue sshd[5236]: Failed password for invalid user admin from 211.155.227.171 port 41357 ssh2
Feb 1 20:57:38 grue sshd[5238]: Failed password for invalid user admin from 211.155.227.171 port 41559 ssh2
Feb 1 20:57:41 grue sshd[5240]: Failed password for invalid user admin from 211.155.227.171 port 41749 ssh2
Feb 1 20:57:45 grue sshd[5242]: Failed password for invalid user admin from 211.155.227.171 port 41917 ssh2
Feb 1 20:57:49 grue sshd[5244]: Failed password for invalid user admin from 211.155.227.171 port 42119 ssh2
Feb 1 20:57:53 grue sshd[5246]: Failed password for invalid user admin from 211.155.227.171 port 42321 ssh2
Feb 1 20:57:57 grue sshd[5248]: Failed password for invalid user admin from 211.155.227.171 port 42511 ssh2
Feb 1 20:58:01 grue sshd[5250]: Failed password for invalid user test from 211.155.227.171 port 42721 ssh2
Feb 1 20:58:04 grue sshd[5252]: Failed password for invalid user test from 211.155.227.171 port 42924 ssh2
Feb 1 20:58:08 grue sshd[5254]: Failed password for invalid user test from 211.155.227.171 port 43093 ssh2
Feb 1 20:58:12 grue sshd[5256]: Failed password for invalid user test from 211.155.227.171 port 43291 ssh2
Feb 1 20:58:16 grue sshd[5258]: Failed password for invalid user test from 211.155.227.171 port 43489 ssh2
Feb 1 20:58:20 grue sshd[5260]: Failed password for invalid user test from 211.155.227.171 port 43700 ssh2
Feb 1 20:58:24 grue sshd[5262]: Failed password for invalid user test from 211.155.227.171 port 43889 ssh2
Feb 1 20:58:28 grue sshd[5264]: Failed password for invalid user test from 211.155.227.171 port 44092 ssh2
Feb 1 20:58:32 grue sshd[5266]: Failed password for invalid user anda from 211.155.227.171 port 44295 ssh2
Feb 1 20:58:36 grue sshd[5268]: Failed password for invalid user jb from 211.155.227.171 port 44493 ssh2
Feb 1 20:58:40 grue sshd[5270]: Failed password for invalid user cvsuser from 211.155.227.171 port 44679 ssh2
Feb 1 20:58:45 grue sshd[5272]: Failed password for invalid user cvsuser1 from 211.155.227.171 port 44885 ssh2
Feb 1 20:58:49 grue sshd[5274]: Failed password for invalid user mana from 211.155.227.171 port 45087 ssh2
Feb 1 20:59:01 grue sshd[5280]: Failed password for invalid user vicky from 211.155.227.171 port 45713 ssh2
Feb 1 20:59:05 grue sshd[5282]: Failed password for invalid user setup from 211.155.227.171 port 45927 ssh2
Feb 1 20:59:09 grue sshd[5284]: Failed password for invalid user setup from 211.155.227.171 port 46143 ssh2
Feb 1 20:59:14 grue sshd[5286]: Failed password for invalid user print from 211.155.227.171 port 46359 ssh2
Feb 1 20:59:17 grue sshd[5288]: Failed password for invalid user print from 211.155.227.171 port 46580 ssh2
Feb 1 20:59:21 grue sshd[5290]: Failed password for invalid user raul from 211.155.227.171 port 46773 ssh2
Feb 1 20:59:25 grue sshd[5292]: Failed password for invalid user user1 from 211.155.227.171 port 46983 ssh2
Feb 1 20:59:28 grue sshd[5294]: Failed password for invalid user user from 211.155.227.171 port 47173 ssh2
Feb 1 20:59:33 grue sshd[5296]: Failed password for invalid user user from 211.155.227.171 port 47370 ssh2
Feb 1 20:59:37 grue sshd[5298]: Failed password for invalid user user from 211.155.227.171 port 47584 ssh2

3. Looking at the time stamps, it certainly seems like a normal “guess the user, guess the password” attack. Out of curiosity, I poked around for information about this IP address. Oh look! China!

Location of the IP address
211.155.227.171:
Hangzhou in China.

This IP address is also on several blacklists for brute forcing attacks (of which this is one)

4. Now it simply a matter of blocking this IP address:

iptables -A INPUT -s 211.155.227.171 -j DROP

5. And of course, consistent monitoring and REALLY STRONG PASSWORDS!

Posted by Bill on 02/02 at 07:49 AM in Educational Tech, Security, Linux
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The Many Hells of PDF’s and PHP
Monday, February 01, 2010

If you want to create a PDF from PHP you use a fairly simple PHP library. The benefits are obvious: you can have ubiquitous PDF generated from dynamic data, which is fun and nice - especially for report cards.

But, because PDF’s are PDF’s, you have to EXACTLY specify where you want text to go - on an X - Y coordinate grid. This makes creating complex reports exceedingly painful. Once the report is done, you can dance your “I’m so happy THIS is over” dance. But until then, you need to place text, test, change, place text, test, change, yadda yadda yadda.

Here’s an example:

PDF_set_text_pos($p, 50, 700);
PDF_show($p, “Hello world!”);

This is a simple example, imagine a full page with tables, descriptions, etc… It really is a pain in the neck.

Three guesses what I’m working on today, and the first two don’t count.

Posted by Bill on 02/01 at 09:58 AM in Blogging, Educational Tech
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Bill MacKenty

Technology strengthens, deepens, and broadens our learning...