One of the very first posts to this blog was about my scheme to replace my old-and-busted Compaq laptop that I use through work, with an Apple Powerbook, via college funds of course. A lot has happened since then. First, the Powerbook model was discontinued in favor of the Macbook Pro. Then I had to convince my department to fork over the $800 difference between the standard-issue laptop replacement and the Macbook. Then came a dictum from the administration that our IT department was no longer going to pay for laptops and that laptop replacement would now be an expense of individual departments (which sucks; but it’s another post.) Then there was a period where the IT department thought we were going to pay for it and vice versa.
Finally, I got sick of the wrangling and took matters into my own hands, writing an internal grant proposal to pay for the whole thing. This afternoon I am happy to report that that grant was half-funded (which is better than most of my grant applications) and there’s enough money in the existing department budget now to pay for the other half. So as soon as everybody in the department has had a chance to have a problem with the whole affair, I’ll be ordering that Macbook Pro, thank you very much.
And yes, I do have specific educational goals in mind for this machine. More on that later.(Despite the pic above, it’s not about playing music; although that’ll be cool too.)
5 responses so far ↓
Casting Out Nines»Blog Archive » Finally… // 27 March 2006 at 1:29 pm
[...] The Macbook Pro has been ordered. Shipping time is about 3-4 weeks. So, one month until geek nirvana. • • • [...]
dpg // 29 March 2006 at 5:48 pm
Congratulations! I hope it turns out to be all you have hoped. These days I am bummed that I have a Mac because they last much longer and that puts me years away from needing to replace it. I’d like the built in iSight camera, the Photo Booth, and the Front Row software.
Casting Out Nines»Blog Archive » The Macbook makes its classroom debut // 11 April 2006 at 2:05 pm
[...] After a week of noodling around with the Macbook Pro, today I finally got around to using it for what I intend to use it for — working with students in the classroom. Well, I’ve actually been using it to that end for several days now, making materials up and getting presentations ready. But today the machine had its coming-out party, via an interactive lecture on eigenvalues and eigenvectors in Linear Algebra. [...]
Casting Out Nines»Blog Archive » Looking ahead // 21 April 2006 at 6:58 am
[...] The goal for this summer in calculus is to create course materials, mostly electronic in nature, that can be re-used and updated indefinitely. This was the main gist behind the grant proposal I wrote that got me the Macbook — I wanted to use the multimedia capabilities of the Mac to create media-rich pedagogical materials. I read something recently as well about the effectiveness of teaching in short, targeted, 20-minute segments versus 50-minute segments; that seemed sensible, and so I’m going to try to develop the materials with that philosophy in mind. [...]
Casting Out Nines»Blog Archive » // 25 May 2006 at 10:02 pm
[...] The CO9’s crew is heading down south on Saturday to visit my folks over the holiday weekend. I anticipate no blogging until we get back on Tuesday, although I am taking the Macbook to use as an ersatz portable DVD player in case the Doodlebug needs a Wiggles fix — and to show my mom and dad some photos and video. In the meanwhile, here are some assorted blog-bites: [...]
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