@database "ael0595.guide" @Node MAIN "Amiga Educator's List (AEL) Newsletter May 1995" :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ::::::::::: :: :: ::::::::::: AMIGA EDUCATOR'S LIST (AEL) NEWSLETTER :: /// :: ::::::::::: Volume 2 No. 2 - May 1995 :: /// :: :::::::::::...... ....:: /// :: ::::::::::::::::: :::::: \\\ /// :: ::::::::::::::::: Copyright 1995 OWL Software :::::: \\\/// :: ::::::::::::::::: All rights reserved :::::: \XX/ :: ::::::::::::::::: ::::::.............:: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: @{"Next Page" link "menu"} @endnode @node "menu" "AEL Newsletter Main Menu" @toc "menu" ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::: ::::::::::::::: AMIGA EDUCATOR'S LIST (AEL) NEWSLETTER :::::::::::::::::: ::::::::::::::: Volume 2 No. 2 - May 1995 :::::::::::::::::: ::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::: ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ::::: ::::: ::::: Editor: Lori Vinciguerra owl@davinci.reading.ma.us ::::: ::::: Consultant: Ralph L. Vinciguerra rlv@davinci.reading.ma.us ::::: ::::: ::::: ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: @{" Editor's Corner " link P1} @{" New Products and Exciting News " link P2} @{"Advice for Escom in the Educational Market" link P3} @{" List of Schools Using Amigas " link P4} @{" How to get on the AEL " link P7} @endnode @node P1 "Editor's Corner" @toc "menu" Editor's Corner by @{"Lori Vinciguerra" link P6} Well, we finally have seen the resolution of the Commodore buyout. For those of you who haven't heard, Escom AG, a large computer retailer in Germany has purchased Commodore's assets for $10 million. For those of you who are interested in more details of the liquidation proceedings, see Amiga Report Online Magazine Special Auction Issue, April 21, 1995 (http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~mjw/Amiga/News/AR/). A special thanks to all of the work that Jason Compton has done in covering the liquidation and in providing the Amiga community with Amiga Report. It is not known how the takeover will affect the Amiga market, however, now is the time to give suggestions to the new owners about the future of the Amiga in education. I would welcome suggestions from educators on additions to my article "Advice for Escom". I intend to include Escom on my distribution list for this newsletter. However, as of this date, there is no known e-mail address contact point. I haven't received any offers from people willing to write an article for the AEL newsletter. I know that you are all very busy, but I think others that are reading this newsletter would find your stories very interesting. I would encourage people to send in their articles for the August edition by July 15, 1995. You may email them to owl@davinci.reading.ma.us. @endnode @node P6 "Editor" @toc "menu" *************************************************************************** EDITOR ************************************************************************** Lori Vinciguerra email: owl@davinci.reading.ma.us *************************************************************************** @endnode @node P2 "New Products and Exciting News" @toc "menu" @{" Analay 1.1 (English Version) " link P2-1} Numerical analysis program @{" Ensemble Verbes (Version 1.3) " link P2-2} Practice foreign verbs The products listed in this area have not been tested by OWL Software. They are listed for informational purposes. Reviews of educational products are welcome and can be sent to owl@davinci.reading.ma.us. @endnode @node P2-1 "New Products and Exciting News / Analay (English Version)" @toc "menu" Product: Analay, version 1.11 (English Version) Author: Marc Necker Email: Marc@buster.tynet.sub.org Price: Available on Aminet in directory /pub/aminet/misc/math. Shareware fee of 20US-$/30DM. See the documentation for further information. Some functions are disabled in the unregistered version, e.g. the print-function. The Analay Archive without key file can be distributed freely as long as all files are kept together. You also may place it on PD-collections or CDs. Analay is a new numerical analysis Program which provides all the standard functions such a program needs. The special feature of this program is the integrated DTP mode which allows you to lay out a page with full WYSIWYG! The program is divided into two independent parts running at the same time as separate tasks. The Math-Mode contains all functions for plotting and analyzing function graphs. It's no problem to derive functions or to calculate the zeros or the area between functions to name only three of the many facilities. Moreover, the design of the graphs can be changed in many ways. You also can place text, points, etc. in the windows or hatch an area. Tables, lists and legends can be created as well. The layout Mode contains a small but complete DTP Program with full WYSIWYG and Intellifont support! It allows you to lay out a page with function-graphs, tables, lists, legends, text blocks, etc. Moreover, it knows formulas which no program apart form TeX was able to display or print up to now! The page can be printed in highest printer resolution! Requirements: AmigaOS 2.0 or higher and at least 1.5MByte RAM. More RAM and a harddisk recommended. To use all of the program's features AmigaOS 3.0 or higher is required (e.g. color printout). @endnode @node P2-2 "New Products and Exciting News / Ensemble Verbes" @toc "menu" Product: Ensemble Verbes, Version 1.3 (28/03/95) Company: Peter Janes 6868 Egremont Road, R.R.#8 Watford, ON, CANADA N0M 2S0 E-mail: pejanes@descartes.uwaterloo.ca Price: CAN$25 for Ensemble Verbes shareware registration CAN$10 for The French Student's Dictionary & Guide CAN$30 for Ensemble Verbes *and* The French Student's Dictionary & Guide Add CAN $3.00 for shipping. User groups - Contact the author for a group registration fee. Availability: All files can be found on any Aminet site. The unregistered version of Ensemble Verbes may be found at: ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/misc/edu/Verbes1_3.lha (67690) The patch files may be found at: ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/misc/edu/VerbesRegPch12.lha (21241) ftp://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/aminet/misc/edu/VerbesRegPch13.lha (77599) All of the files may also be retrieved from: http://www.undergrad.math.uwaterloo.ca/~pejanes/Verbes.html Distributability: Shareware. The unregistered version of Ensemble Verbes may be included in the CD-ROM or floppy collections compiled by Fred Fish and the Aminet moderators; all others should contact Peter Janes before including the program. Both registered and unregistered versions are Copyright (C) 1995 by Peter E. Janes. Ensemble Verbes is a program to help students practice and master French verbs in the most common tenses of the language. It is designed to support classroom work, not to replace it. The shareware version contains only -er verbs and present, subjunctive past and present participle. The registered version of Ensemble Verbes features: * Over 75 verbs, including -er, -ir, -re, reflexive and irregular conjugations * Seven tenses plus present participle (present, compound past, imperfect, future, conditional, subjunctive past and present participle) * Full online, context-sensitive help via AmigaGuide tm. * Close adherence to Amiga User Interface Style Guide * Sound support * Support for international keyboards * Locale support (English, French, Norwegian and Spanish catalogs included) Registered users can also obtain The French Student's Dictionary & Guide, a 150-page book featuring: * French/English and English/French sections * Most commonly used vocabulary, in context * Many easy-to-understand examples to help in selection of vocabulary * Many idiomatic expressions * Regular and irregular verb charts * Reference grammar guide * Over 5500 entries This is an update to Ensemble Verbes 1.2. Major changes include localized menus and gadgets, Norwegian and Spanish catalogs, and a reduction in the price of single copies of The French Student's Dictionary & Guide. Requirements: AmigaDOS 2.04 or greater. AmigaGuide/MultiView and Installer are recommended. @endnode @node P3 "Advice for Escom in the Educational Market " @toc "menu" by Lori and Ralph Vinciguerra As the new owners of the Amiga technology, Escom AG, attempt to formulate a marketing plan they must consider one of the biggest market areas: education. Schools, universities, and home educators are just beginning to use computers to teach everything from literature and languages to math and science. Many educational institutions are trying to decide on which platform to purchase and what types of software are available. Many educators that we have spoken to believe that the Amiga is a very viable choice for schools. However, certain actions on the part of Escom will help inform the decision-makers that there is another choice besides PC or Mac. The suggestions which follow will help Escom foster the necessary confidence in the Amiga and its new owners. The first and most important action is to introduce the Amiga technology into schools by providing educational discounts. Loaner or free machines should be placed in schools to expose teachers and children to the Amiga. Apple has made huge inroads into the educational market because they have seen the importance of supporting the school systems. Also, children who use Amigas in school are more likely to purchase them for home use. Many schools and classrooms are starting to connect to the information highway. Leverage AmiTCP and AMosaic and produce an Amiga-based Internet-in-a-Box. Give it away FREE to schools who buy Amigas on an educational discount (check out IBM's OS/2 Warp which has internet tools bundled for an example). This will provide easy access to the Internet, connecting the user with endless Amiga resources and countless Amiga users. Along the same vein, start an Escom Amiga World Wide Web site (also gopher, mailserver, and FTP) which is both an AmiNet mirror and a source for new information, system specifications, support, Q&A, suggestions, and pointers to other Amiga resources. Get on the information superhighway! All of the other major players (Sun, Apple,SGI, HP, IBM) are out there. This will give educators an immediate contact point on the Internet and confidence in the Amiga. Direct market to home educators. A low cost, highly capable machine like the Amiga 1200 would be very effective if co-marketed with a handful of educational software packages and perhaps a magazine devoted to the topic. The Amiga Educator's List Newsletter is published quarterly and is a free resource for people with e-mail or Internet access. Vision impaired people who could benefit from the built in speech capability should be a very good market. Inform special education departments at schools and universities of the Amiga's strength in this area. Provide seminars for schools to learn how to integrate computers into their classroom. Not only would Escom benefit from the seminar fees, but the Amiga name would be remembered when the school goes to purchase machines. Advertise in magazines which target educators. There are large sections of family magazines, such as Family Life, Parents, Parenting, etc, dedicated to software. There are also trade magazines and catalogs designed specifically to sell computers and software to educators. Find out what these are and make sure that the Amiga is visible. An announcement for AC's Guide to the Amiga should be included with each new machine. Perhaps ESCOM and PiM Publications can negotiate shipping one issue of the Guide with each machine. This would provide the user with a list of a majority of the available software. It would also provide the publisher with a chance to advertise Amazing Computing. Since there is a whole section devoted to education, it would help inform teachers of the amount of available software. Make the Amiga easy to network. Many schools are networking machines from different classrooms together to avoid to management of large numbers of floppies. Apple has done an excellent job of providing networking support with the MacIntosh. The Amiga should at least come with simple networking software and the means to hook machines together. We hope that the representatives from Escom consider carefully each of these suggestions. The Amiga is now represented in at least 100 schools or school systems in the United States and Canada alone (see school list). Because it has been successful in these schools, we believe that the educational market is open to the acceptance of Amigas. Escom has the opportunity to enter this market at a critical time. We wish Escom good luck in their newly acquired business. @endnode @node P4 "School List" @toc "menu" Schools are using Amigas The following is a list of schools with Amiga Labs. If there are more of you out there or if any of these no longer exists please let us know. We will attempt to maintain an updated list and publish it in the AEL newsletter on a regular basis. As you can see from the current list, we are interested in all levels of schooling, from K-12 to college. I have received many inputs for the list this month. I have also included the list from "Famous Amiga Uses" compiled by David Tiberio and available on Aminet. School Name Departments Alberni School District 70/Vancouver,BC Art, Media Arizona State University Education, Multimedia Atlanta College of Art/Georgia Graphics Ball State University/Indiana Video Information Banting Memorial High School/Ontario Video Toaster Bishop P.F. Reding Secondary School Video Bridgerland Literacy Program Reading California Institute of the Arts Animation, Video California State University at Fresno Media Cameron University Physics, Communications Carleton University/Ontario --- Centralia Community College TV production Charles Sturt University/Australia Image analysis, Art Colgate University Art & Art History College of St. Rose Physics, Math Capilano College/Vancouver Computer Graphics Costano School/ E. Palo Alto, CA --- Drake University/Iowa TV Emily Carr Inst. of Art & Design/Vancouver Film & Video Ferris State University/Michigan TV Fresno Community College/CA Video Information Graphic School/Belgrade, Yugoslavia Animation, Image processing Grossmont College Multimedia Institute for Biochemistry/ Austria --- Intermedia Arts/Minneapolis, Minnesota Animation, video Kent State Telecommunications Kentucky Educational Television Physics, Satelite TV Logan Middle School/Utah --- Logan High School/Utah Industrial Arts Loyalist College/Ontario TV Maarstricht University Hospital/Netherlands --- Marine Institute of Technology/Newfoundland Multimedia, Video Information Massachusetts College of Art Art Massasoit Community College/Brockton,MA Cable TV Middleton High School/Wisconsin Video Toasters Minneapolic Community College (MCC) Film & Video Modesto Junior College/California Art, Animation NY Institute of Technology Art, Animation Nicholson Catholic College/Ontario Media, Art N Adeleide School of Art Edu./Australia Art Ohio State University Art Olympia High School/WA Video Orange Coast College/Costa Mesa, CA Art, Multimedia Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine --- Reg. School #7/ Winsted, CT Math Remsen Central School/New York Word Processing Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute Electronic Arts Rhode Island School of Design --- Saint Francis de Sales School for the Deaf/NY Media Sherwood Secondary School/Hamilton, ONT --- Southwest Research Institute/Texas --- Space Telescope Science Institute/Maryland Video information SUNY Albany Math SUNY Oswego Graphics SUNY Stony Brook TV Stephen Leacock Collegiate/Scarborough,ONT Multimedia, TV Studio Stevenson-Britannia School/Manitoba Elementary school Toronto K-12 School System Art, Wordprocessing Tulane University Video & Television Tulsa Junior College of Oklahoma Video University of Bergen, Norway --- University of California/Santa Barbara Video University of California/Santa Cruz --- University of Florida --- University of Georgia Fine Arts University of Maryland Film & Video University of Massachusetts/Lowell Computer Science University of Minnesota/Twin Cities Video University of North Texas Video Information, TV University of Oulu/Finland Chem.,Computing,Geophysics,Math University of South Florida Graphics University of Tampa Animation University of Toronto University of Utah Video University of Wisconsin Hospital Medical Research University of Wyoming TV Utah State University Instructional Tech, Vieo, TV Valencia Community College Physics Walton High School/Georgia --- Western Illinois University Broadcast, Weather Western State College/Colorado Art, TV Westford Academy (MA) Math @endnode @node P7 "Getting on the Amiga Educator's List" @toc "menu" To get on the Amiga Educator's List send e-mail to owl@davinci.reading.ma.us. Please specify whether you will be reading the newsletter on Aminet or whether you would prefer to have it emailed to you. We are encouraging people to receive the AEL newsletter digitally to keep our duplication and mailing costs down. If you received this copy via US mail and have an email address or the capability to download it please send e-mail to OWL software at the above address. The version on Aminet (found in the directory /docs/mags) runs with AmigaGuide or Multiview which provides a spiffy hypertext presentation. When requesting additions to the email list, please specify the uuencoded or text version. When no specification is made, we will assume that you want the uuencoded lha file, which will allow you to view the hypertext version. A limited number of paper copies will be mailed upon request. @endnode