Artistic Vision
Art Education. Straight Up.Archive for Technology
Multitasking: You can’t pay full attention to both sights and sounds
One of the issues I face in my classroom as an art teacher is when my kids tell me that talking to their friends while working is okay for them, actually critical. A 2005 Johns Hopkins’ study, which specifically addressed cell phone use while driving, would also seem to speak to my classroom situation.
Professor Steven Yantis states,
“Directing attention to listening effectively ‘turns down the volume’ on input to the visual parts of the brain. The evidence we have right now strongly suggests that attention is strictly limited — a zero-sum game. When attention is deployed to one modality — say, in this case, talking on a cell phone — it necessarily extracts a cost on another modality — in this case, the visual task of driving.”
Again, the implications from this would seem to indicate that concentration in any one modality is compromised when another is introduced. So, I guess this would also give me an answer when my students say listening to their iPods helps them concentrate while they work on my projects. LOL!
Artist websites
EmptyEasel.com has written a simple little article on the technology driving a website … and, why artists should use one instead of others.
Although I haven’t gotten around to selling my artwork online yet, this is a targeted message you’ll want to read. Artists are visual folks and that may end up hurting them if they’re not careful.
If you’re an artist with a blog, he’s also got some good recommendations on getting your art blog noticed and increasing your Google ranking.
Ok, I got the box …
Apple sent me the box for me to send in my MacBook to get the cracked case fixed (and, hopefully, the flickering screen). They sent it in a couple of days which they said they would but I didn’t expect them to. LOL. I spoke to my IT person at school and he gave me a temporary laptop yesterday. My school uses Dells, but my IT guy set my Mac up for me and said it wasn’t a problem for me to use that if I wanted to; which I preferred. I think I got my wireless set up on the Dell correctly. I’ll check before I go into work today just to make sure.
I’m hoping this repair works out okay. Stuff like this just makes me nervous. I really dread sending my laptop away, but I guess that’s the only way I’m going to get it fixed.
MacBook Relief
I spoke to Apple today and they recorded my complaint about the crack in my laptop. They are sending me a box to send my laptop back to them to be repaired. What’s best is this is all covered under my warranty. Whoo hoo!
I called back later today to also let them know about the flickering of my screen. The flickering was something that hasn’t affected my software or actual running of the computer. I called in July to report something and made mention of it. The guy told me to take it to an Apple store to have it looked at, but I never did. I knew I wanted to check it out further since it just started not too earlier than July. They added that to my repair for the crack so it looks like it all be taken care of at the same time. At least, I hope.
The biggest concern I have is the fact that I’ll be without my laptop for about two weeks. What will I do at school and home? YIKES!
Cracked MacBook
I’m SO frustrated. A corner of my laptop split, about an inch from the right front corner. For MacBook owners, they’ll know where it is because this has been reported before. I’m just hoping my AppleCare Plan covers it. What’s worse is that while working on it, I fragment has peeled off so I had to tape it to protect it from further damage.
What’s frustrating is that this happened under normal usage. I don’t put my laptop through any extraordinary circumstances. I use it for school and carry it in my Brenthaven Edge I case. I even have so far as to get a keyboard protector to keep my screen clean and scratch-free and a protector for my data ports.
Other than that, I’ve been having another similar problem that I’ve read about regarding intermittent (and extremely annoying) outages of my Airport. While browsing it just goes offline. I called AppleCare and they have it on record. I’ve been planning on calling them back because it’s been an unresolved issue. I should have called them earlier, but it hasn’t resolved itself. I don’t notice the problem when I’m hooked up to my base station.
We’ll see what happens. Has anyone noticed these problems and reported them? Were they picked up under AppleCare?
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