Tech Ruminations

The Netbook Experience

2009-04-08T07:52:00.000-07:00

Want to try the Netbook experience?

1. Dig up some old PC or Laptop.
2. Download and install Ubuntu Jaunty 9.04 Beta
3. Terminal: sudo apt-get install ubuntu-netbook-remix
4. Restart

Open source goodness!

Image source: Neil J. Patel's Flickr Photostream

Impress Your Colleagues with Classroom or Office Automation

2009-03-20T05:52:00.000-07:00

Imagine that you and a colleague walk into your classroom or office for a short discussion. As you enter your Mac senses your presence and kicks off a series of actions.

Your Mac welcomes you back to your office, launches your email, announces the number and subject of new email messages, and then announces the current date and time and upcoming appointments.

What fun to see the expression on your supervisor's or colleague's face when they see just how organized and automated you are.

You can do this and much more with a very small donationware application called Proximity.

Read the MAKE post to find out more.

A Learning Tool for Every Learner

2009-03-19T05:25:00.000-07:00

Imagine for a moment that your son or daughter will be going off to college shortly. The college sends you a letter that due to circumstances students may only be provided with ONE learning tool. ONE.

You may choose a textbook or you may choose a pen, calculator, or whatever. One tool.
What would that tool be?

I know what I would choose.

Why, then, are educational spending priorities so difficult? Why are we not providing that one tool to every school age child? At the very least to every secondary student...

Ask your school leaders the ONE tool question. I'd like to hear the response. Post it here.

The Next Killer App? Google Voice

2009-03-12T06:38:00.000-07:00

Could this be the next email? Google announces Google Voice!

An when this gets integrated into Google Apps for Education, THEN will we consider migrating from our beloved Exchange server?

Firefox tips

2008-10-22T07:54:00.000-07:00

Here are two Firefox tips that I didn't know about. Perhaps there are other Firefox users who weren't aware of these keyboard shortcuts.

1. Zoom in and Zoom out of a page with Command-+ and Command- - (minus). Handy! Mac users enjoy zooming using the Universal Access system preference. This is done in Firefox and was new to me.

2. You can scroll down using the spacebar and scroll up with shift-spacebar. I didn't know that either.

I've been computing forever (if you ask my kids ;) ) and I still love finding new features even if they're only new to me.

I was a member of an old computer club run by a famous blogger. He used to share Macintosh "Easter eggs" in the newsletter... in the olden days!

Do you have little known browser tips? I'd love to hear 'em.

KP

Posting an Audio File Online is NOT Podcasting

2008-10-01T05:53:00.000-07:00

In my state many teachers are experimenting beyond PowerPoint thanks to an initiative to place laptops in many high school classrooms.

The buzz is exciting as we dabble with web 2 applications, conduct online research and more. What fun!

I'm bothered, though, by misuse of the term "podcasting."
Podcasting is not simply making an audio file available for download.

From wikipedia:

A podcast is a series of audio or video digital-media files which is distributed over the Internet by syndicated download, through Web feeds, to portable media players and personal computers. Though the same content may also be made available by direct download or streaming, a podcast is distinguished from other digital-media formats by its ability to be syndicated, subscribed to, and downloaded automatically when new content is added.

We've been able to upload audio files for ages. That's not at all what makes a "podcast." It's the feed, the syndication that's transformative.

CFF coaches, if you're reading, join me in teaching the difference between a podcast and a plain old audio file posted to wikispaces... unless of course we're just happy that we're getting beyond PowerPoint! :)

Scheduling Meetings and the Email Avalanche

2008-07-17T05:14:00.000-07:00

We've all seen this scenario! Administrator sends out an email to 20 people requesting a meeting time. The message ends with "What time is good for you?"

The avalanche of "reply to all" email responses is enough to trigger an Excedrin headache.

Internally, of course, we can use our groupware calendaring system and the meeting planner features... provided everyone's calendar is up-to-date. What do you do when all of the meeting participants are on disparate systems?

Here's a tool that's new to me. (keep in mind I could very well be the only one in the universe where this is still a problem) A free, web-based, no-account-needed, meeting time planner called When is Good?

Trying to get a team of 7 volunteer football coaches together on a summer evening? This is the perfect tool... if they're all online!

This suggestion courtesy of A Plethora of Technology blog.

Do you know of other tools that do this too?

Saying Goodbye to MS Office

2008-07-11T06:32:00.000-07:00

The 11.5 update to Mac Office 2004 has killed Word. It just won't open any files.
Microsloth's solution? Uninstall and re-install and re-update? That may be acceptable in the Winworld, but not mine.

It's the last straw! Downloading OpenOffice.org 3 beta.

Upgrading to iPhone/iTouch 2.0? Get in line!

2008-07-11T06:09:00.000-07:00

Do you think the 2.0 upgrade is in demand on day one?

Adopting Google Apps for Education? Not So Fast!

2008-06-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

This from my SANS NewsBite email newsletter:

In an LA Times article the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeal has ruled that employers may not access employees' text and email messages if the company has contracted
with an outside organization to transmit those messages. According to
the ruling, employers may only access employees' email if the messages
are stored on an internal server. According to the ruling, employers may only access employees' email if the messages are stored on an internal server.

The original case was brought by
Ontario, California police officers who sued after a wireless provider
gave the police department records of text messages they had received.
This is the first federal appellate decision to provide 4th Amendment
protection to electronic messages.

I'll follow this more closely as it will weigh in on a decision to adopt Google Apps for Education. Have you or your district considered Google Apps to replace your internal mail server?? How would you handle e-discovery rules?

Video Sharing Insurance

2008-06-03T18:03:00.000-07:00

My children are getting into more activities as they get older and my school district is producing more digital video than you can imagine.

I've come to really like my Canon TX-1 digital video camera. It shoots exceptional video and very nice still shots directly to SD cards. This makes it extra easy to accumulate a bunch of footage that I would really hate to lose.

I try to back up my hard drive frequently but you know how that goes... I also like to keep an archive of video offsite by uploading to my favorite online video sharing site.

I like Vimeo because it allows unlimited file sizes and supports HD video. I worry, though, that Vimeo is not an online giant...meaning I worry about it's longevity. So I find that I also upload my video to YouTube... just because I think it will be around for a while.

To facilitate sharing my video clips to multiple sites I recently learned about TubeMogul from the recent edition of Macworld. TubeMogul allows you to upload once and share to many sites automatically. So if you, too, would like to upload your valuable family and classroom videos to multiple sites for safekeeping, then TubeMogul may be the ticket for you too!

EDIT: Of the many sites that TubeMogul can publish to, Vimeo is not ONE! Yikes! I was hasty and confused Veoh for Vimeo. Maybe it's not the answer I was hoping for.

KP

Planning NECC 2008

2008-05-13T19:59:00.001-07:00

It's that time of year to begin planning MY professional development. I spend much of the school year training and supporting others. Part of the summer is MY time to learn. The National Education Computing Conference has become my PD of choice.

Each year NECC gets better and better. Last year featured the first annual EdubloggerCon. This informal meet-up of education bloggers and forming an edubloggers' cafe were certainly the highlight of NECC 2007. In fact, a side-conference was actually taking place in the edubloggers' cafe. Twittercamp was running to highlight exciting events. Conversations and demonstrations were non-stop. Twitter became an indispensable tool. Sidebar chats and Skype conferences within and between sessions became the norm.

NECC 2008 holds even more developments and organization for the "conference within a conference".
Steve Hargadon has been busy organizing NECC 2008 Unplugged. Visit his blog post for a nice description and be sure to JOIN the NECC 2008 Ning!

See y'all in San Antonio! (Just practicing!)

Blogged with the Flock Browser

A Feed of Feeds or LIVE Blogroll?

2008-04-01T09:24:00.000-07:00

I'm almost there! I have an English teacher who is interested in blogging with her English Composition students. FINALLY!

We have decided to use EduBlogs for their price and feature set. Here's where I'm not sure where to go.

The teacher intends to set up a class blog. She then intends to set up student blogs. Let's just say 100 students or so. Her question is, how do I monitor the student blogs? Must I visit 100 sites per day? No, of course not. We'll simply subscribe in our feed reader, right??

Well now I have 100 feeds to monitor. Here's my question. I would like to set up a feed of feeds for those 100 student blogs. I know this can be done. I've just never done it.

Better yet, I would like a dynamic blogroll with live feeds to each student blog. The "live" blogroll would be displayed in the class blog sidebar!! That's the mission, should you choose to accept it.

Now I know that YOU know a good solution. Please share.
Fingers are crossed that I'm just missing this feature.

Cloud Computing: Will Schools Play Along?

2008-03-11T17:27:00.000-07:00

Check out the video concerning Dropbox that was recently highlighted on TechCrunch.

With tools like this Districts had better position themselves for bandwidth, bandwidth, and... yep, more bandwidth.

The more tools like Google Docs, Zoho, Flickr, etc. are storing stuff for you (a.k.a. cloud computing) the less storage space Districts should need, right?
Now this calls out questions about e-discovery rules, privacy, and security. You wouldn't want confidential files to accidentally get saved to your "cloud" like Dropbox.
Even deleting it doesn't delete it!

The possibilities are exciting, yet scary at the same time. I'd hate to be a technology director these days... oh wait!!!!

Google Apps Sites- No RSS Feeds

2008-02-28T15:54:00.000-08:00

Unless I'm missing it the pages in Google Sites do not have RSS feeds. They have a "subscribe" feature but I don't see our friendly orange icon.

I'm hoping that this is a feature that is on the horizon.

I'd like to see a teacher be able to subscribe to her students "sites" to have a dashboard view of the updates.

Please clue me in if I'm missing it.

Google Apps for Education - Many Questions

2008-02-27T11:08:00.000-08:00

Here at my District we are using Google Apps for Education as a small pilot. Our implementation is small and we've communicated with parents and students throughout the project.

The results are good and students/teachers are finding creative ways to use the web-based tools. The most popular activities are collaborative writing using Google Docs in Language Arts classes. Teachers are using the shared calendaring to coordinate their mobile laptop labs and more.

I have received frequent calls from school districts with questions about liability, AUP, filtering, monitoring, archiving, etc. I don't have all the answers. I do believe that we cannot wait until we have all the answers. Sometimes you forge ahead and improve and learn as you go.

In a recent announcement Google has added some monitoring, filtering, and archiving solutions for purchase. Yep, they're not free... yet.

I would be interested to know or be able to calculate the TCO of operating email/document services for thousands of students. Just maintaining email services for several hundred staff is a challenge given our current staffing levels. This task would increase our email service workload considerably if we did this in house.

I guess the biggest question is: how "private" is our email messaging if it's stored at Google? When it's in-house, I can always pull the plug.

This is VERY tempting, yet I have reservations. Ok, let's all agree to switch to Google for messaging/calendaring/document sharing!!! Uh, you go first! :)

PETE&C absolutely MUST change it´s name!

2008-02-10T10:23:00.000-08:00

I am trying to follow the Pennsylvania Education Technology Expo and Conference from a distance. I am finding it very difficult to do! The ampersand (&) in the name appears to be problematic for technorati tag searches.

See the hitchhikr page on PETE&C! There is very little related to the conference! While some guy named Florida Pete has an interesting life, it is not exactly what I´m after.
(You do follow conference events with hitchhikr.com, don´t you?)

Compare the results of the PETE&C tag search with the recent METC tag search. No comparison.

Tagging is a wonderful way to share the photos, videos, live blogging, ustreams, and more. Well, I guess I will wait until my colleagues return to get the scoop.

Please, Pennsylvania, get rid of that ampersand and let the sharing begin.
At least I *think* that is the problem. Anyone else have ideas on what the problem could be?

Dear M$, Please don't cripple these tools!

2008-02-08T09:57:00.000-08:00

I see that Microsoft is now in talks to acquire Ustream.tv. This following their bid to acquire Yahoo.

From a purely selfish standpoint I sit here hoping that Microsoft doesn't cripple Flickr and Ustream for non-Microsoft browsers. Today these services seem to be platform agnostic.

I'm not an open source purist but I do tend to use FOSS whenever I have a choice. I just have to wonder if Microsoft will develop these tools ignoring the "10 percenters"?

Are you concerned?

Web-based Time Lines

2008-01-10T19:16:00.000-08:00

A common learning activity in our social studies classrooms is the creation of a time line. Time lines help students to frame an event or concept in terms of chronological events.

I think we've all been asked to create one at some time in our education.

A very simple tool that I'd like to share is CircaVie.

Like many sites it requires a free account. This particular service requires an AIM account. This could be problematic for some schools who filter tightly.

The time line creator is really rather easy. It allows one to populate the time line with Flickr photos (or any online photo for that matter.) Remember to cite properly! Text entries can become events. Even YouTube videos can be included.

It would make an outstanding project for students to create a CLASS time line where each group populates a series of major events complete with photos and videos. WOW!

When the time line is complete, in true Web 2.0 fashion you may share your new resource by embedding into your wiki or blog. See a non-sense sample below. Be sure to use the <<>> buttons to move horizontally.

The Need for Change

2007-11-28T05:34:00.000-08:00

I can't remember who always says this, but this is why *I* read blogs for professional development.

If you do one thing today, visit Wes Fryer's Speed of Creativity blog and read this post!

He sums up the need for education change very clearly. Wes articulates what's on the mind of so many educators. He points to resources and makes reference to other conversations for clarity.

I will be sharing this with my the entire educational team in my district. I can only hope that this post moves you to action as well.

KP

Out of Touch? 2007 Edublog Awards

2007-11-27T17:06:00.000-08:00

First, congratulations to Jim G. for being nominated in the ¨Best Resource Sharing" blog category.

I do keep a lean aggregator but I USED to think that I had many of the top bloggers on my radar. As the nominations were announced I now see that I was mistaken.

Here´s how my aggregator faired:

Best Individual Blog- I have subscribed to 4 of the 10
Best Group Blog- 2 of 5
Best new blog- ZERO!
Best resource sharing blog- 2 of 5 (Go vote for Gates´ TipLine)
Best teacher blog- 1 of 10
Best librarian / library blog- Zilch
Best educational tech support blog- None here
Best elearning / corporate education blog - Nope, none
Best educational use of audio- nada
Best educational use of video / visual- Not even one
Best educational wiki- 1 of 5
Best educational use of a social networking service- 1 of 5
Best educational use of a virtual world- zero here, not a second lifer.

So how did you fair in your aggregator?
Just when you think you're winning in the rat race, along come a whole slew of faster rats!

KP

Blog by Invitation Only

2007-11-20T17:34:00.000-08:00

As more and more laptops roll out across Pennsylvania with the Classrooms for the Future program I am becoming more aware of PA edubloggers.

I definitely see more teachers trying their hand at blogging and especially wikis.

Today I saw something in a blog that I have not seen before. A blog by invitation only!

I understand why someone might choose that option if they were concerned about privacy. Then why blog? The global community is the true power behind blogging. You essentially cut off the worldwide audience who can provide a steady stream of insightful feedback.

Is this technique common? I wonder how many educators use this feature?

MacBook Remote Control with PowerPoint

2007-11-11T05:18:00.000-08:00

As part of Pennsylvaniaś Classrooms for the Future initiative many teachers are receiving MacBook laptop computers. The MacBooks come with a very simple remote that works nicely with Keynote and other iLife and iWork programs.

Many of our classroom teachers have invested a significant amount of time in preparing PowerPoint resources for their classroom. They have asked about the remote control with PowerPoint.

I am pleased to share that there exists a freeware program that extends the functionality of the remote to PowerPoint and much, much more.

iRed Lite is freeware for today. The author has announced plans to make the software into $12 shareware very shortly. Get it today!

Our technical staff has not had a chance to test iRed Lite with our MacBooks. I would like to hear if you have deployed this software for your teachers.

In doing some reading, I think I will try iRed Lite for delivering web-based presentations. I would like to see the software be able to switch tabs in Firefox. That way, the presenter just opens various screens on separate tabs. This one looks like it has potential.

Here is a post about more options for your Apple remote:
http://www.123macmini.com/news/story/501.html

No Time to Try Second Life?

2007-11-10T17:51:00.000-08:00

If you cannot find the time to catch up in RL (real life) then certainly you have not had the time to try Second Life.

Here is a glimpse of what you can expect, initially at least:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flkgNn50k14

Thanks to the Internet Time Blog for sharing this.

KP

Multiple Email Account Solution

2007-10-18T13:09:00.000-07:00

This solution came to me via Kim Cofino over at Always Learning.

Schools across the nation are adopting online tools at a very rapid pace. To get your students signed up with many of the free online tools you will need to enter a "valid" email account. Edublogs is one example that comes to mind.

Gmail to the rescue. It seems that with one Gmail account you can have many "sub-accounts" linked to it. Confusing? Go here and read Kim's outstanding explanation!

How has this fantastic feature flown under the radar?

KP