Saturday 12 December 2020

Devices for ZOOM and online tutoring

ZOOM and online tutoring is becoming popular. However, the main two issues are slow Internet access and poor-quality laptop without an active pen.

Problem 1

Slow Internet access is often the result of 2 problems: poor wireless signal at home and poor Internet service speed. These two are separate problems. 

Solution:

See this article: wireless Speed inside the house

Problem 2

Poor quality laptops

Most parents would buy laptops in the range $500-$700 for the kids to use at school. The screen is awful with low resolution like standard HD at 1280 x 720 and very low brightness around 180 nits (versus good brightness level of 300 nits or better). You are lucky to get full HD at 1920x1080 which is still poor today. These screens tend to produce poor colours and faded texts unlike the crisp and vibrant looking quality of high-end devices. These laptops are also generally of poor quality and slow. After loading a whole bunch of bloat wares that manufacturers load on at the factory, the devices are so slow that they are unbearable to work with. Further more, there is a need for a touchscreen with an active pen for students to write on the screen to easily communicate their ideas duriing an online lesson. All of these cheap laptops do not have touch screen and active pen.

Solution 1 (best option, cheap and effective)

Look for a used Surface Pro 4 or higher on eBay. It has a bright and high resolution screen at 2736 x 1824. Even an old Surface Pro 4 with i5 CPU and 4GB memory would beat most of the cheap new student laptops by far. ZOOM software only use between 25%-40% of the power of this device. It can run a full Windows 10 OS and each device has a Windows 10 license built into its firmware. There is no need to worry about getting a Windows license. A used unit with keyboard and active pen would cost around $350-$400 on eBay auction. 

Solution 2

Get a used iPad Pro with Apple pen. The screen is nice and bright with a high resolution of 2732 x 2048. This is a pretty expensive option. Even used a good iPad Pro with Apple pen on eBay would cost around $650. A new unit would cost around $1500. The other problem is that this option does not offer a full desktop operating system for work like Windows or MacOS. The ZOOM software for iPad is decent but not as good as the one for Windows.


Solution 3

Get a new Microsoft Surface Pro. This is also expensive at around $1500 - $1800 depending on options. IT allows users to use Windows 10 and an active pen on a very nice and bright screen (Display Resolution: 2736 x 1824). It still looks the same like older models from 4-6.


 

Solution 4

Get a chrome book with a pen like the Samsung Chromebook Plus with bright and high resolution screen of 2400 x 1600. The price is quite reasonable even when new. It's hard to get a used chromebook on eBay. There are some chrome books with a pen and the prices are between $350 - $800. The most expensive ones offer much better screen at high resolution and brightess and more colours. You would need a chrome book at the price close to $800 to get touch screen and active pen. The hardware quality will be similar to those Windows laptops around $1500.

The only problem with this option is that ZOOM software on the device is of poor quality. ZOOM has different versions of its software on each platform. ZOOM is probably best on Windows. Then it is not too bad on iPad. But on chromebook and Android, it is quite poor. The support for pen and annotation is very poor at the moment. So, one should avoid these devices for now.

Of course, there are very expensive laptops supporting active pen as well. These are from Microsoft, HP, DELL, Lenovo, ... They costs between $2000 - $4000 and parents would not want to buy these for their kids. And they often do not provide the ability to lay them at the right angle for comfortable writing on the screen like the iPad and the Surface Pro. These laptops are more powerful and often have larger screens.

A final note is about Apple laptops just in case you wonder why they are not mentioned. They are not recommended because they do not offer touchscreen and pen. Perhaps, Apple wants to sell more iPad instead of Apple laptops which are already very expensive.


How to make sure you get the best possible wireless speed inside the house

The popularity of wireless communication in the house due to its simplicity has led to very poor performance. The house environment is now too noisy with electronic noise. When several devices are active in a house, the speed and reliability of connections just drop. People who live in apartments have interference from their neighbouring apartments too.

To improve the performance, people should look at the following options. The trouble is that many people are not confident with technology and won't learn how to buy and configure them. In this case, they should get a computer shop or their Internet provider to send a technician to help out.

Dual-band routers 

Make sure you use both 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz bands. 2.4Ghz band has the ability to communicate over longer distance and can go through walls and doors better than the high speed 5Ghz band. It's simple to create 2 wireless connections on your router. The devices far away from the router would need to use the 2.4Ghz connection. The ones close to the router will need the 5Ghz connection. If you do not have a dual band router, it's time to get one. Also make sure you have the password for the router. If you don't have it, get your ISP provider to help.


 

 WiFi Boosters, Repeaters and Extenders

A WiFi repeater or extender is used to extend the coverage area of your WiFi network. It works by receiving your existing WiFi signal, amplifying it and then transmitting the boosted signal. With a WiFi repeater you can effectively double the coverage area of your WiFi network - reaching far corners of your home or office, different floors, or even extend coverage to your yard.

However, it gives the house a lot more electronic noise in the air and there will be some speed loss in the whole environment.

 

 

Boosters, Repeaters and Extenders are slightly different in how they work but the goal is exactly the same. So, manufacturers often use the terms carelessly without saying how the device really work. As the effectiveness is pretty much similar, people don't quite care about the technical details. A notable difference is the wifi repeater which has 2 routers inside it. It creates a new wireless network and piggyback on the existing one. This means a lot of electronic noise. It's better to get a dual-band unit that receives signal in 2.4Ghz and broadcast in 5Ghz.

Add access points

For people living in a big house with 2 floors. It's impossible for the signal to travel well across floors and then further walls and doors.

An access point is a device (could be just another router or even old router). You need to run a network cable(s) from the router to another far away location(s). Then plug another router to this cable and set it up as an access point.  This option gives really good signal strength to all parts of the house with less electronic noise.

Most modern houses tend to have network cables laid to all rooms when they are built. All the cables tend to come from one place like the garage to all the rooms. This means one just need to buy a network switch and plug all these cables in the gararage to create a local area network. If you don't mind hooking your laptop to the network socket on the wall, you would already have the best speed. If you want the freedom of wireless access, you will need to set up wireless access points. 

Often just one extra wireless access point is enough to cover a typical house. You would need another one to cover the outdoor alfresco. It's cheap to get used routers on eBay to set up access points. 

This appproach also creates a local wired area network (LAN) for devices that don't get moved around. These devices can enjoy high speeds from 1Gbits/s to 10 Gbits/s making it possible to do backup via the LAN. People often install a central storage device call NAS (Network Attached Storage) to allow alldevices to store and access data from one central file server. This effectly convert the house into an office workplace.

The main trouble is that you have to run network cables for an old house and that is not easy and you often have to pay a processional electrician to install the cables. It might not be too bad if you run just one cable and try to hide it from view.


Power-line network adapters 

For older houses, it's hard to run network cables. You should if you can. However, if you cannot, you can only use signal boosters (not good) or try power-line network adapter which makes use of the copper electricity wires as "network cables".

 

The speed tends to be low and the noise from electronical devices would make the network performance unreliable. And then you have to install an access point as well. This option requires a pair of power-line network adapters and one extra router/access-point device.

For old houses, the best option is still to try to run a network cable (cat 6) and try to hide it as best as possible inside the ceiling or use the cable colour that can be blended into the colour of carpet or wall. Then install an access point. A lot of used routers could be found on eBay at cheap prices. Just make sure these routers support access point mode and both bands 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz (dual bands)

Upgrade to NBN

Finally, people should upgrade to NBN service to get faster speed and more reliable connection to Internet. If one has 4G or 5G mobile phone, this can be used as a hotspot for imergency when the fixed line is down.

Thursday 3 December 2020

Support for selective school and scholarship writing

 03 Dec
---

Year 5 students are now near the last 12 weeks from the selective test (and scholarship tests). It's now important to make sure that one can write a narrative well because it's easier to get writing marks than reading comprehension marks. For those hoping for a scholarship, writing is vital as it sits alone as one area in the test and is highly valued by private schools.

Selective and scholarship writing

In the Selective School test and all scholarship tests, it is safe to assume that students are only asked to write narrative texts. The narrative format is used by 99% of all selective and scholarship tests. Even when they give a persuasive prompt, they often also allow students to write a narrative with that prompt. Only ACER scholarship tests occasionally give a persuasive writing prompt. It can be easily converted into a narrative prompt for story writing by just treating the persuasive prompt as a theme.

Why is creative writing so difficult?

Creative writing is difficult as it requires so many different areas of skills and knowledge: grammar, spelling, English vocab, punctuation, knowledge of narrative structure, literary techniques and, more importantly, creative thinking. This is why students are encouraged to work on these skills, read a lot and watch TV shows and movies and copy down the good ideas. 

Support for writing on Mathemafix website

Mathemafix provides a lot of writing resources. There are online writing modules. The Selective Writing module is a portal that includes all the other writing modules and samples of writing works from past students.

The Mathemafix's Online Writing Resources serves as the introduction and road map available writing resources on Mathemafix. Parents should read this document to get a complete overview.

The following resources are at the basic level and suitable for year 3-4 but also applicable to year 5+.

  • Familiarisation with Creative Writing Workbook: This is a gentle introduction to narrative (story) writing that asks students to read a story, identify the elements of narrative text and then rewrite it.
  • Writing Workshop: This online module is aimed at year 5-8. However, there are some great videos suitable for kids at year 3-4 to watch and learn about English sentence structure and narrative text structure. Kids at year 3-4 can learn to identify the elements of narrative texts so they can analyse stories and then write with the correct structure.
  • Writing Tools Kit : This is the most basic set of templates, guides and scaffolds to help students write a variety of text types.

 

Steps to learn how to write narrative texts (stories)

Some students have done the Mathemafix's Selective and Scholarship Writing workshop. They would know about the following resources. Others who have not done this course, should make use of the following resources.

Step 1: [For beginners and those wishing to revise ] Watch the videos in the Writing Workshop (inside More ...)

The following videos should be watched:

Grammar and English skills: Adjectives | Adverbs | Participles as verbs and adjectives | Phrases | Adjectival and adverbial clauses | Conjunctions | Use conjunctions to make flowing sentences | Sentence improvement | Sentence construction | Common errors in writing

Text composition skills:  Settings | Character | Theme and More Theme | Create a Plot | Writing with the senses | Show NOT Tell

Step 2: [For beginners only] Use the workbook  Familiarisation with Creative Writing Workbook and the knowledge about narrative text from step 1 to analyse and see the elements of a narrative text in each of the stories. Then rewrite each story to become familiar with how to write stories.

Step 3: [For beginners only] Use the story planning worksheets in the Writing Tools Kit to plan and write small stories under 300 words and within 30 minutes.

Students should also the module punctuation in More ... to improve their punctuation skills. There is also a guide on punctuation for dialogues. These should be used frequently to support correct punctuation.

Step 4: Access the page QUICK LINKS to see many documents about writing. Use them as required. Pay special attention to the  document Guide for Scholarship and Selective Test Writing.

Step 5:  Refer to the document Mathemafix's Online Writing Resources to make use of the writing modules.

Step 6: Use the Selective Writing module to write weekly and get help from parents to mark using the marking form. Parents have the option to pay for on-demand marking service if they are not confident about marking for their own kids.

Students should actively read the works from past students and the comments from markers (available in the module Selective Writing) to learn from common mistakes. The module Read Summarise Write provides a lot of sample works written by adults from 200 words to 600 words in length. This should be used to practise when one is not confident of using one's own ideas.

 

Areas to focus for those who have mastered the basics of narrative writing

A lot of students just don't manage to go beyond the basics of narrative writing which is to produce a simple story with orientation, complication and resolution. Once the basics have been mastered, students need to try to do more fancy things.

  • Make sure the conflict of a story is right at the beginning of the story as a story written in 20 minutes is very short (only around 300 words).
  • Make sure there are 2-3 complications in the story.
  • Add a theme into the story.
  • Use more descriptive writing. There a module called Word Pictures (in More ...) where a lot of sample writings from famous English authors are presented for students to copy the style and the words.

 

Available writing class

For students who have not done the Mathemafix's Selective and Scholarship Writing workshop still has enough time to do the Google class for Selective and Scholarship Writing. It's an online Google class with video recordings for 10 lessons in narrative writing. This class also offers 3 lessons in persuasive writing.

On-demand marking service

As the marking of writing tasks is not a simple task, we now provide on-demand marking in the module Selective Writing. Students can write and then parents can request on-demand marking service. To activate this, parents need to load up credit for marking before a request for marking can be submitted.


Mathemafix's writing for year 3-4 students

03 Dec
---

Students are now taking a rest after the OC test. It's a good time to keep students warm by asking them to do some low level activity and let them relax. Students should read for relaxation and enjoyment. They should read a variety of novels and things that they enjoy. They should also watch a lot of TV shows for entertainment. It's best to select those that has cultural values and educational content. All this will give kids ideas for creative writing.

Selective and scholarship writing

In the Selective School test and all scholarship tests, it is safe to assume that students are only asked to write narrative texts. The narrative format is used by 99% of all selective and scholarship tests. Even when they give a persuasive prompt, they often also allow students to write a narrative with that prompt.

Why is creative writing so difficult?

Creative writing is difficult as it requires so many different areas of skills and knowledge: grammar, spelling, English vocab, punctuation, knowledge of narrative structure, literary techniques and, more importantly, creative thinking. This is why parents should get kids to start early practising simple skills while accumulating good ideas through entertainment (reading and watching TV shows and movies). 

Support for writing on Mathemafix website

Mathemafix provides a lot of writing resources.
  • Familiarisation with Creative Writing Workbook: This is a gentle introduction to narrative (story) writing that asks students to read a story, identify the elements of narrative text and then rewrite it.
  • Writing Workshop: This online module is aimed at year 5-8. However, there are some great videos suitable for kids at year 3-4 to watch and learn about English sentence structure and narrative text structure. Kids at year 3-4 can learn to identify the elements of narrative texts so they can analyse stories and then write with the correct structure.
  • Writing Tools Kit : This is the most basic set of templates, guides and scaffolds to help students write a variety of text types.

Simple steps to learn how to write narrative texts (stories)

Year 3-4 students should start with informal simple steps as described here. Later, they can learn how to write narratives in a formal way once they get to year 5.

Step 1: Watch the videos in the Writing Workshop (inside More ...)

The following videos should be watch:

Grammar and English skills: Adjectives | Adverbs | Participles as verbs and adjectives | Phrases | Adjectival and adverbial clauses | Conjunctions | Use conjunctions to make flowing sentences | Sentence improvement | Sentence construction | Common errors in writing

Text composition skills:  Settings | Character | Theme and More Theme | Create a Plot | Writing with the senses | Show NOT Tell

Step 2: Use the workbook  Familiarisation with Creative Writing Workbook and the knowledge about narrative text from step 1 to analyse and see the elements of a narrative text in each of the stories. Then rewrite each story to become familiar with how to write stories.

Step 3: Use the story planning worksheets in the Writing Tools Kit to plan and write small stories under 300 words and within 30 minutes.

Students should also the module punctuation in More ... to improve their punctuation skills. There is also a guide on punctuation for dialogues. These should be used frequently to support correct punctuation.

More advanced narrative writing and preparation for selective and scholarship test writing

Mathemafix provides a lot of e-writing modules in the section More ... to help kids write narrative and persuasive texts. All of these modules are collected into a big module called Selective Writing. Access to this module is free to Mathemafix members but the marking of student writing tasks is not free. We provide a marking-on-demand service for a fee per marking request. Mathemafix also provides online writing workshops in both Google class (with recorded video lessons) and live ZOOM live classes. The Google class can be enrolled at any time. The live ZOOM online classes are only offered once per year with a maximum of 6 students per class.

For more information, see the following: