learn.5tein.com Jared Stein's grad-school-community blog on teaching and learning.

Notes on Eval Environment Set Up – Timez Attack at Elementary School

Rob and I set up the lab environment for the evaluation of Timez Attack this a.m. A few notes:

Lethargy of computers inhibited set up more than we expected, as did a few problematic computers. We were glad to have a small margin (about 10%) of extra computers available for each class group.

Having James the Big Brainz tech was invaluable, as he was able to not only show us how to set up swiftly, but answered questions about level selection and programming student lists.

The Teacher account can set up a class list. The Student account just plays.

Net connection needed to track data remotely.

In others' lab environments, ask if remote access or networked installation of software is available.

Students may benefit from a cheat sheet/quick ref card.

Because time to load from name selection can be as much as 3 min, Rob and I decided to enter student names ahead of time, then preload the game after selecting the student just prior to the evaluation.

Quick ref card could then include a tutorial.

Time spent to set up was approximately 2 hours (I had to leave after 1:15).

Anticipate that we will need 30 minutes to set up each class (start software, choose name, establish functionality) immediately prior to eval.