HAL Cutting Back In Houston; At Least It's Hard To Catch -- January 13, 2015

Houston Biz Journal is reporting that Houston-based Halliburton Co. has cut an undisclosed number of jobs in Houston due to current business conditions.

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Tweeting now: Fort Hood confirms an investigation involving a soldier who died after returning from West Africa.

The CDC has been told to "embargo" news stories regarding Ebola based on an earlier posted story.

Also tweeting now, and quite surprising, or maybe not: the vote to extend military intervention against Islamic State militants in Iraq passed French parliament 488 to 1.

And while we're at it, first Muslim lawmaker will be named to House intelligence committee giving him unlimited access to state secrets in his intelligence oversight position.

And so it goes.

See Disclaimer.

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Schools And iPads

The elementary school that our younger granddaughter attends here in Texas has very successfully incorporated the Apple iPad into its "curriculum."

The Los Angeles Independent School District ... failed. And the FBI is investigating.

My wife's siblings attended schools in the LAISD so we follow the district with some interest. I also enjoy Apple so it was "doubly" interesting to follow the inclusion of iPads into the curriculum of various school districts.

Three things, I think, mean the difference between success and failure introducing the tablet into the elementary schools.

• incredibly good teach instructor and knowledge of the operating system
• tablets stay in school; tablets do not leave the school
• tablets are an adjunct, and not the center, of the curriculum

It appears that LAISD failed on two counts, and probably all three. I believe I am correct when I say that LAISD students were "issued" iPads which they took home with them every weekend and over the weekend.

Having seen how challenging the iPads can be to technologically-challenged adults over the age of 25, I can only guess that LAISD teachers were well beyond their comfort zone when working with the iPad.

Finally, according to the linked article over at Macrumors, the new report deems "the project too heavily focused on Apple's iPad as the centerpiece for the initiative, with no willingness to focus on a less-expensive alternative."

I don't think cost had anything to do with it; after all, it was already in the budget when the program was determined a failure. The money had been spent. I have no idea what the writers meant by "no willingness to focus on a less-expensive alternative." One set of Encyclopedia Brittanica in each classroom? Perhaps.

I have been incredibly impressed with how computer-tablet-e-book literate our younger granddaughter is, a third grader. Each day at the start of the school year for the first two weeks, the students spent 30 minutes at the start of each day loading applications into their tablets. This was not "digging-ditch" work. They learned how to download apps, using passwords and "install." After those 30 minutes the iPad was put away for the day.

At the end of the two weeks, the iPads were used at particular points (and for a defined period of time) throughout the day for specific tasks and then put away. The students did not take their iPads home. They were not given homework to be done on mobile or laptop or desktop devices at home. However, over time, the teachers, parents, and students have learned to use the internet / e-mail to correspond with each other. The other day our granddaughter forgot her "agenda" at school, over the weekend, and panicked, not knowing/remembering the homework.

Her mother was able to go on-line and find that homework assignment. Our granddaughter was thrilled and completed her homework. However, on Monday, our granddaughter was given one demerit because she had forgotten to take her agenda home to have it signed by her parents. That was her first demerit and to put it mildly, she was bummed. But she moved on; more importantly the homework was done.

My wife still thinks California public schools are better than Texas public schools.

And so it goes. Memo to self: talk to that teacher about that demerit. LOL.

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Say It's Not True

Macrumors is reporting, that after 11 years, Apple is quietly doing away with its weekly iTunes freebie.

Apple has seemingly ended its weekly iTunes "Single of the Week" promotion that gave out a free music single download each week on the iTunes storefront. As noted by Business Insider, a member of the Apple discussion forums claims an Apple support employee informed him the company decided to drop the weekly promotion. 

I wonder if this might be in response to the U2/Bono debacle. Which was way overblown (WWWO).

One of the comments mirrored my last statement: "Apple is probably sick of having to be insulted for giving out some little things for free."

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Notes To The Granddaughters

Speaking of schools and technology (iPads above), when I went to pick up the older granddaughter, the third grader was all excited. She had just finished all of her "advanced" arithmetic on her laptop: addition, subtraction, multiplication, division. She scored 100% in all modules. And was quite excited. She got the task accomplished, and her mother was able to devote quality time to the six-month-old whom she had not seen much today. She was at the city library working on her Ph.D. in nursing.

And now to competitive swimming with the older granddaughter.