oneteachersview

year 13 webdesign project

2009-11-10T07:56:00.006+13:00

I am looking at this as part of a project for my students, to create a website for teh national cycleways project

Trying to find anything about this has been difficult, though through the use of wikipedia, I have manged to find this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Cycleway_Project

which lead me to the governments page

http://tourism.govt.nz/Our-Work/New-Zealand-Cycleway-Project/

the seven tracks around new zealand have been outlined here

http://tourism.govt.nz/Our-Work/New-Zealand-Cycleway-Project/New-Zealand-Cycleway-Quick-Start-Tracks/

updates about the project, though the first start of work on the waikato trail, which is started today, is not mentioned http://tourism.govt.nz/Our-Work/New-Zealand-Cycleway-Project/Cycleway-Project-Updates/

Released today is the logo for The New Zealand Cycle Trail, does this really reflect the nature of such an important project. I think not. I am looking at what my class will be able to come up with next year as a assessment for my project.

John key unveiled the cycle way logo, which will be used on track signs.

The logo, Nga Haerenga, means "the journeys" and will also be used in offshore marketing.

So do we really want this on all the signage!

Oh no, it just got worse, I found the branding handout... http://tourism.govt.nz/Documents/Policy%20Website/Documents/NZCycleTrail/cycletrailHandoutWeb.pdf two pages of words and the other is just images of the country with the brand over the top.

annoyance

2009-10-27T23:22:00.000+13:00

UPDATE tabletest SET code=MD5(id)

ie UPDATE tabletest SET dateofbirth=MD5(dateofbirth)

Our Schools Top 100 Books issued by our school library

2009-10-20T19:45:00.003+13:00

Slight issue with the original Number One, this was a prescribed english book, we don't know how this got included in the list.

Rank Loans Title Author

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2 15 The village by the sea. [Text Paperback] DESAI, Anita

3 14 Eclipse / [Text Paperback] MEYER, Stephenie

4 13 To kill a mocking bird [Text Paperback] LEE, Harper

5 13 Harry Potter and the half-blood prince ROWLING, J.K.

6 13 Harry Potter and the deathly hallows ROWLING, J.K.

7 13 The big beefy book of Bart Simpson [Text Paperback]

8 13 New Moon [Text Paperback] MEYER, Stephenie

9 12 Anne Frank - the diary of a young girl [Text Paperback]

10 12 Perfect / Kenrick, Joanna.

11 12 Breaking dawn / [Text Paperback] MEYER, Stephenie

12 12 Twilight [Text Paperback] MEYER, Stephenie

13 11 Noughts & crosses [Text Paperback] BLACKMAN, Malorie

14 11 Text game [Text Paperback] CANN, Kate

15 11 Forever [Text Paperback] BLUME, Judy

16 11 My sister Jodie / WILSON, Jacqueline

17 11 Something in the world called love / [Text Paperback] SALIBA, Sue

18 11 The skin I'm in [Text Paperback] FLAKE, Sharon G.

19 11 Lost for words [Text Paperback] LUTZEIER, Elizabeth

20 11 Chinese cinderella and the secret dragon society [Text MAH, Adeline Yen

Paperback]

21 11 Looking for Alibrandi [Text Paperback] MARCHETTA, Melina

22 11 Kiss / [Text Paperback] WILSON, Jacqueline

23 10 Forbidden ground [Text Paperback] LAIRD, Elizabeth

24 10 Fall out [Text Paperback] RUSHTON, Rosie

25 10 Kiss of death [Text Paperback] BUTLER, Charles

26 10 The secret life of bees / [Text Paperback] KIDD, Sue Monk.

27 10 Twilight : the complete illustrated movie companion / [Text VAZ, Mark Cotta

Paperback]

28 10 Chinese Cinderella - the secret story of an unwanted daughter MAH, Adeline Yen

[Text Paperback]

29 10 The kite runner [Text Paperback] HOSSEINI, Khaled

30 10 Sold [Text Paperback] McCORMICK, Patricia

31 10 Love lessons / [Text Paperback] WILSON, Jacqueline

32 10 A thousand splendid suns / [Text Paperback] HOSSEINI, Khaled

33 10 Before I die [Text Paperback] DOWNHAM, Jenny

34 10 Slumdog millionaire Swarup, Vikas.

35 10 The meaning of life : Rachel Riley's (not) doing it diary / Nadin, Joanna.

[Text Paperback]

36 10 Rani & Sukh [Text Paperback] RAI, Bali

37 9 Cry, the beloved country [Text Paperback] PATON, Alan

38 9 Of mice and men [Text Paperback] STEINBECK, John

39 9 Harry Potter and the prisoner of Azkaban ROWLING, J.K.

40 9 Both sides of time [Text Paperback] COONEY, Caroline B.

41 9 The howler [Text Paperback] STINE, R.L.

42 9 My name is evil [Text Paperback] STINE, R.L.

43 9 A child called "It" [Text Paperback] PELZER, Dave

44 9 The boy in the striped pyjamas : a fable / BOYNE, John.

45 9 What's up? / [Text Paperback] RAI, Bali

46 9 Artemis Fowl and the time paradox / [Text Paperback] COLFER, Eoin

47 9 Malice / [Text Paperback] WOODING, Chris

48 9 Claudia and mean Janine : a graphic novel / [Text Paperback] Telgemeier, Raina.

49 9 The whale rider [Text Paperback] IHIMAERA, Witi

50 9 Love story [Text Paperback] SEGAL, Erich

51 9 Keep your hair on! [Text Paperback] VERCOE, Elizabeth

52 9 Girls in love [Text Paperback] WILSON, Jacqueline

53 9 The lovely bones : a novel / [Text Paperback] Sebold, Alice.

54 9 The secrets of love / [Text Paperback] RUSHTON, Rosie

55 9 Tough love [Text Paperback] CASSIDY, Anne

56 9 Skulduggery Pleasant / [Text Paperback] Landy, Derek.

57 9 Blade / [Text Paperback] POWLING, Chris

58 9 Missing you / [Text Paperback] CARROLL, Jenny

59 8 Alex [Text Paperback] DUDER, Tessa

60 8 Memory [Text Paperback] MAHY, Margaret

61 8 Heart of stone [Text Paperback] COOPER, Louise

62 8 The haunted car [Text Paperback] STINE, R.L.

63 8 50 short short stories by young New Zealanders [Text

Paperback]

64 8 Off-side [Text Paperback] OLDFIELD,Jenny

65 8 All change [Text Paperback] RUSHTON, Rosie

66 8 The whale rider [Text Paperback] IHIMAERA, Witi

67 8 The saga of Darren Shan - vampire blood trilogy [Text SHAN, Darren

Paperback]

68 8 The vampire diaries : the awakening [Text Paperback] SMITH L.J.

69 8 My heartbeat [Text Paperback] FREYMANN-WEYR, Garret

70 8 (un)arranged marriage [Text Paperback] RAI, Bali

71 8 The lost boy [Text Paperback] PELZER, Dave

72 8 Knife edge [Text Paperback] BLACKMAN, Malorie

73 8 All American girl : ready or not / [Text Paperback] CABOT, Meg

74 8 Memoirs of a geisha / [Text Paperback] Golden, Arthur.

75 8 The angel experiment / [Text Paperback] PATTERSON, James

76 8 My desperate love diary by Kelly Ann / [Text Paperback] Rettig, Liz.

77 8 Stray / [Text Paperback] BELBIN, David

78 8 Coma [Text Paperback] BELBIN, David

79 8 The two Jacks / [Text Paperback] BRADMAN, Tony

80 8 Buddies / MORGAN, Michaela

81 8 Burnout / [Text Paperback] SWINDELLS, Robert

82 8 Checkmate / [Text Paperback] BLACKMAN, Malorie

83 8 Lock and key : a novel [Text Paperback] DESSEN, Sarah

84 8 Seeing red / [Text Paperback] Lancett, Peter.

85 8 Are you kidding? / [Text Paperback] RAI, Bali

86 8 Summer / [Text Paperback] Crilley, Mark.

87 8 Life on the refrigerator door : a novel in notes / [Text Kuipers, Alice.

Paperback]

88 8 The dead of the night [Text Paperback] MARSDEN, John

89 8 Honey, baby, sweetheart [Text Paperback] CALETTI, Deb

90 8 Vampirates : tide of terror / [Text Paperback] Somper, Justin.

91 8 Don't call me baby / Depp, Laurie.

92 8 Lucy Zeezou's goal / [Text Paperback] Deep-Jones, Liz.

93 8 Missing girl / [Text Paperback] MAZER, Norma Fox

94 8 Ten out of ten / [Text Paperback] CABOT, Meg

95 7 696 silly school jokes and riddles [Text Paperback] ROSENBLOOM, Joseph

96 7 Pride and prejudice [Text Paperback] AUSTEN, Jane

97 7 Persuasion [Text Paperback] AUSTEN, Jane

98 7 Message in a bottle [Text Paperback] SPARKS, Nicholas

99 7 Call it love [Text Paperback] BLACKLOCK, Dyan

100 7 Love and other excuses [Text Paperback] WESTAWAY, Jane

2010 curriculum ideas, junior secondary school

2009-10-17T13:10:00.001+13:00

I have been thinking about our courses, I know that we are looking at skills and development of the technological process, but we are leaving a huge chunk of work out, that we probably need to look at in more detail to make sure that we are creating that all round student.

A great place to start looking at resources is http://www.thegrid.org.nz – It is the netsafe group version of a connected, safe, Responsible student. These are the same things that the new curriculum key competencies are looking for.

The other area that we need to identify and improve students in, is not only technogicial literacy, but also digital literacy;
A nifty digital literacy resource to encourage reflection and stimulate discussion :: http://www.nwlg.org/digitalliteracy/

suspending the timetable

2009-10-14T19:41:00.006+13:00

We are currently planning to suspend our school timetable for the Year 9 and 10 students. 760 students will be undertaking an activity or activities for three days. This has been discussed for a couple of years and has been of great debate.

I will provide some more parts in this later on, once I get the presentation.

We have been asked to come up with ideas on what could be done by the staff to facilitate this process, and I must say I am surprised. I would say three quarters of the suggestions relate to EOTC, Education Outside The Classroom. Through the use of orienteering, tramps, surfing, and others. Now this raises a question, why are all these for outside the classroom, I would say that staff find it difficult to take students out of the class during school time, though three days in which we are to do various activities brings some light to the somewhat dark and dormant school.

My Idea, so far... is

Get Lost!

I wish to undertake a project of an urban journey. A range of Orienteering, map reading, geocaching, and mobile technology.

I would like to use it as a sort of Wherigo exercise, http://www.Wherigo.com/default.aspx

the reason is that then students can create there own for next years students. If this continues, this will mean that they have to work out various objects that will not move or be changed.

How is this done, students map out a area that they wish to use.

They then create a story to go along with a theme

http://www.gis2gps.com/GPS/lessonplans/gpsplans.htm

http://garmin.blogs.com/my_weblog/2006/03/geocaching_at_s.html

For a different take on running a wide game, why not try doing an Amazing Race?

It takes quite a lot of organisation but makes an exciting evening without costing too much. Work out a route including public transport (bus train or ferry), use a different method of collecting each new set of instructions, add a couple of challenges and send an adult along with each group.

Some ways to hand out instructions:

Map grid points
Collect emailed instructions at a net café.
Pick them up from an information centre or kindly shopkeeper.
Go to page x and line y in the white pages.
Challenge the shifty looking person dressed in aqua for your next clue.
Sealed envelopes with a code inside.
Use tracking signs (if they are unlikely to be disturbed)

Challenges along the way might include:

Playing boules or frisbee golf in a park.
Collecting scavenger hunt items - a foreign coin, a café napkin, some sand, a native leaf, an autograph, the cost of something, passport photo of the whole team.
Solving puzzles.
Airhockey or tablesoccer at an entertainment arcade - the whole group to participate

An alternative, though this just lasts one hour...

http://www.dayinthecloud.com/

One hour.
Brain-busting questions.

Literacy in Programming

2009-10-12T21:59:00.004+13:00

It's not often that I get to read about programming in a novel. But I have just finished Little Brother by Cory Doctorow and the hero writes some code in the story.
Here is how he talks about programming and I am thinking of using this to introduce a unit on programming.

"If you’ve never programmed a computer, you should. There’s nothing like it in the whole world. When you program a computer it does exactly what you tell it to do. It’s like designing a machine - any machine, like a car, like a faucet, like a gas hinge for a door - using math and instructions. It’s awesome in the truest sense: it can fill you with awe.
A computer is the most complicated machine you’ll ever use. It’s made of billions of microminiaturised transistors that can be configured to run any program you can imagine. But when you sit down at the keyboard and write a line of code, those transistors do what you tell them to.

Most of us will never build a car. Pretty much none of us will ever create an aviation system. Design a building. Lay out a city.

Those are complicated machines, those things, and they’re off-limits to the likes of you and me. But a computer is like, ten times more complicated, and it will dance to any tune you play.
You can learn to write simple code in an afternoon. Start with a language like Python, which was written to give nonprogrammers an easier way to make the machine dance to their tune. Even if you only write code for one day, one afternoon, you have to do it. Computers can control you or they can enlighten your work - if you want to be in charge of your machines, you have to learn to write code."

Cory Doctorow in Little Brother. Pg119-120

Just thought someone else might like it too.

http://craphound.com/littlebrother/Cory_Doctorow_-_Little_Brother.pdf

Just got an email from the author asking if he had any other suggestions for young adult reading that discusses or investigates the use of Computers and computing that could go into a reading program along with your great book?

The response...

If you liked this book and want to learn more, there are plenty of sources to turn to, online and at your local library or bookstore.

Hacking is a great subject. All science relies on telling other people what you've done so that they can verify it, learn from it, and improve on it, and hacking is all about that process, so there's plenty published on the subject.

Start with Andrew "Bunnie" Huang's "Hacking the Xbox," (No Starch Press, 2003) a wonderful book that tells the story of how Bunnie, then a student at MIT, reverse-engineered the Xbox's anti-tampering mechanisms and opened the way for all the subsequent cool hacks for the platform. In telling the story, Bunnie has also created a kind of Bible for reverse engineering and hardware hacking.

Bruce Schneier's "Secrets and Lies" (Wiley, 2000) and "Beyond Fear" (Copernicus, 2003) are the definitive lay-person's texts on understanding security and thinking critically about it, while his "Applied Cryptography" (Wiley, 1995) remains the authoritative source for understanding crypto. Bruce maintains an excellent blog and mailing list at schneier.com/blog. Crypto and security are the realm of the talented amateur, and the "cypherpunk" movement is full of kids, home-makers, parents, lawyers, and every other stripe of person, hammering away on security protocols and ciphers.

There are several great magazines devoted to this subject, but the two best ones are 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, which is full of pseudonymous, boasting accounts of hacks accomplished, and O'Reilly's MAKE magazine, which features solid HOWTOs for making your own hardware projects at home.

The online world overflows with material on this subject, of course. Ed Felten and Alex J Halderman's Freedom to Tinker (www.freedom-to-tinker.com) is a blog maintained by two fantastic Princeton engineering profs who write lucidly about security, wiretapping, anti-copying technology and crypto.

Don't miss Natalie Jeremijenko's "Feral Robotics" at UC San Diego (xdesign.ucsd.edu/feralrobots/). Natalie and her students rewire toy robot dogs from Toys R Us and turn them into bad-ass toxic-waste detectors. They unleash them on public parks where big corporations have dumped their waste and demonstrate in media-friendly fashion how toxic the ground is.

Like many of the hacks in this book, the tunneling-over-DNS stuff is real. Dan Kaminsky, a tunneling expert of the first water, published details in 2004 ( www.doxpara.com/bo2004.ppt).
The guru of "citizen journalism" is Dan Gillmor, who is presently running Center for Citizen Media at Harvard and UC Berkeley -- he also wrote a hell of a book on the subject, "We, the Media" (O'Reilly, 2004).

If you want to learn more about hacking arphids, start with Annalee Newitz's Wired Magazine article "The RFID Hacking Underground" (www.wirednews.com/wired/archive/14.05/rfid.html). Adam Greenfield's "Everyware" (New Riders Press, 2006) is a chilling look at the dangers of a world of arphids.
Neal Gershenfeld's Fab Lab at MIT (fab.cba.mit.edu) is hacking out the world's first real, cheap "3D printers" that can pump out any object you can dream of. This is documented in Gershenfeld's excellent book on the subject, "Fab" (Basic Books, 2005).

Bruce Sterling's "Shaping Things" (MIT Press, 2005) shows how arphids and fabs could be used to force companies to build products that don't poison the world.

Speaking of Bruce Sterling, he wrote the first great book on hackers and the law, "The Hacker Crackdown" (Bantam, 1993), which is also the first book published by a major publisher that was released on the Internet at the same time (copies abound; seestuff.mit.edu/hacker/hacker.html for one). It was reading this book that turned me on to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, where I was privileged to work for four years.
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (www.eff.org) is a charitable membership organization with a student rate. They spend the money that private individuals give them to keep the Internet safe for personal liberty, free speech, due process, and the rest of the Bill of Rights. They're the Internet's most effective freedom fighters, and you can join the struggle just by signing up for their mailing list and writing to your elected officials when they're considering selling you out in the name of fighting terrorism, piracy, the mafia, or whatever bogeyman has caught their attention today. EFF also helps maintain TOR, The Onion Router, which is a real technology you can use right now to get out of your government, school or library's censoring firewall ( tor.eff.org).

EFF has a huge, deep website with amazing information aimed at a general audience, as do the American Civil Liberties Union (aclu.org), Public Knowledge (publicknowledge.org), FreeCulture (freeculture.org), Creative Commons (creativecommons.org) -- all of which also are worthy of your support. FreeCulture is an international student movement that actively recruits kids to found their own local chapters at their high schools and universities. It's a great way to get involved and make a difference.

A lot of websites chronicle the fight for cyberliberties, but few go at it with the verve of Slashdot, "News for Nerds, Stuff That Matters" (slashdot.org).

And of course, you have to visit Wikipedia, the collaborative, net-authored encyclopedia that anyone can edit, with more than 1,000,000 entries in English alone. Wikipedia covers hacking and counterculture in astonishing depth and with amazing, up-to-the-nanosecond currency. One caution: you can't just look at the entries in Wikipedia. It's really important to look at the "History" and "Discussion" links at the top of every Wikipedia page to see how the current version of the truth was arrived at, get an appreciation for the competing points-of-view there, and decide for yourself whom you trust.

If you want to get at some real forbidden knowledge, have a skim around Cryptome (cryptome.org), the world's most amazing archive of secret, suppressed and liberated information. Cryptome's brave publishers collect material that's been pried out of the state by Freedom of Information Act requests or leaked by whistle-blowers and publishes it.
The best fictional account of the history of crypto is, hands-down, Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon (Avon, 2002). Stephenson tells the story of Alan Turing and the Nazi Enigma Machine, turning it into a gripping war-novel that you won't be able to put down.
The Pirate Party mentioned in Little Brother is real and thriving in Sweden ( www.piratpartiet.se), Denmark, the USA and France at the time of this writing (July, 2006). They're a little out-there, but a movement takes all kinds.

Speaking of out-there, Abbie Hoffman and the Yippies did indeed try to levitate the Pentagon, throw money into the stock exchange, and work with a group called the Up Against the Wall Motherfuckers. Abbie Hoffman's classic book on ripping off the system, "Steal This Book," is back in print (Four Walls Eight Windows, 2002) and it's also online as a collaborative wiki for people who want to try to update it ( stealthiswiki.nine9pages.com).

Hoffman's autobiography, "Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture" (also in print from Four Walls Eight Windows) is one of my favorite memoirs ever, even if it is highly fictionalized. Hoffman was an incredible storyteller and had great activist instincts. If you want to know how he really lived his life, though, try Larry Sloman's "Steal This Dream" (Doubleday, 1998).

More counterculture fun: Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" can be had in practically any used bookstore for a buck or two. Allan Ginsberg's "HOWL" is online in many places, and you can hear him read it if you search for the MP3 at archive.org. For bonus points, track down the album "Tenderness Junction" by the Fugs, which includes the audio of Allan Ginsberg and Abbie Hoffman's levitation ceremony at the Pentagon.

This book couldn't have been written if not for George Orwell's magnificent, world-changing "1984," the best novel ever published on how societies go wrong. I read this book when I was 12 and have read it 30 or 40 times since, and every time, I get something new out of it. Orwell was a master of storytelling and was clearly sick over the totalitarian state that emerged in the Soviet Union. 1984 holds up today as a genuinely frightening work of science fiction, and it is one of the novels that literally changed the world. Today, "Orwellian" is synonymous with a state of ubiquitous surveillance, doublethink, and torture.

Many novelists have tackled parts of the story in Little Brother. Daniel Pinkwater's towering comic masterpiece, "Alan Mendelsohn: The Boy From Mars" (presently in print as part of the omnibus "5 Novels," Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1997) is a book that every geek needs to read. If you've ever felt like an outcast for being too smart or weird, READ THIS BOOK. It changed my life.

On a more contemporary front, there's Scott Westerfeld's "So Yesterday" (Razorbill, 2004), which follows the adventures of cool hunters and counterculture jammers. Scott and his wife Justine Larbalestier were my partial inspiration to write a book for young adults -- as was Kathe Koja. Thanks, guys.

That should be plenty to get started =)

Who would have through emailing the author would give so much.

Think

2009-10-10T20:34:00.004+13:00

This was a video that was presented at the final address of the ulearn conference in Christchurch. Isn't it amazing how one video can get you thinking and excited.

This is a video that I want to use at school with our staff. Though I would like to modify it just a little bit, to remove the reference to apple. Just to get staff thinking about change.

http://www.apple.com/education/teachers-professors/mobile-learning.html

http://www.apple.com/education/thinkahead/tour/

http://edcommunity.apple.com/ali/story.php?itemID=19351&version=7488&page=2

a wonderful collection of resources that I will have to go back and look at. It is amazing how one video can supply a great amount of resources

one thing we have to do...

2009-10-09T14:12:00.003+13:00

A question we were posed is what is one thing that we need to do by the end of term.

Get the information out...

We have a LMS, we have google apps, we are not using it! we need students to get using it, so the aim is a campaign to get the information out there, cards, leftlets, posters, all designed by students to get out to other students, will forget the teachers, we need the students to get the teachers to use it!

ulearn09

2009-10-09T09:09:00.003+13:00

Rastorbartor - create an image using dot, this might be an interesting thing to do with a corner of the room in the classroom, to put a image of the school yard/walking trail.

Google sketchup

Google earth - flight simulator/sky/sea

readplease - a way for students to listen to what they have written, different voices

90 free tools for education - http://dakinane.com/blog/resources/

studentnet is dead

2009-10-04T12:49:00.002+13:00

During this term I had one of the mirrored RAID drives in studentnet die, Ok, so not really a big loss, however, the main drive has now stopped working as well. 120Gig of data, originally started in 2004 is now all lost. Will be trying to get this going again, but I dont think it is going to be too positive. Looking at freezing the hard drive. Its has been great, but samsung hard drives, never again. though you did run for 5 years without a problem.

working things out

2009-09-30T21:16:00.003+13:00

Busy working things out, We have been given server racks by a company and today was getting one of then setup and installed. In this rack we have a number of the ICT departments servers located.

Studentnet - file and print server, with web server running. Year 12 web design web server with ftp access.

h2 - decommisioned today, this was an old Pentium 120Mhz machine running a web server, the data on this machine has been moved to ict1.

ict1 - development machine that hosts a number of ebooks and various developments on the go. Mostly used as a web server.

playdoh - playdoh is a machine that I obtained a few years ago now, just a the apprentice was just starting out on tv. This was one of teh first machines we used for development with the year 13 web design class.

All of the above run linux systems.

house - no not the tv series, but the house server, this hosts a installation, or multiple installations of wordpress. This runs the school spirit website. Running on windows xp with wamp installed.

As with most of these things they are proof of concept and then keep on running, though we are looking currently at what to do with our school intranet development so one person does not have to keep doing everything. We are currently given more and more things to do with the ministry and this is just one part of what our current development is.

I have been looking at a number of moodle installations through school throughout the country, as well as wordpress and joomla. Though I see benefits with each one. I need to think more about a single solution and what will be best to put as a case through to our IT manager. As the final installation will have to be installed and setup on on intranet server, as the ones I have access to above would not be able to handle more than 30 concurrent connections.

The reason is that we haven't really done anything for the last seven years with our current intranet solution, apart from me changing the content on some of the pages. We need to do more to educate our students and provide them with greater opportunities, with web 2.0 being more of a feature in classrooms our internet connection cannot handle it. We are now doing over 200 Gig a month in traffic. We need to look at where this traffic is going and what can do to get this down to a more manageable connection.

Exam Room Cricket

2009-09-28T14:25:00.002+13:00

So have to try this out next year

And so we come to the time of the year where we have to supervise exams. You can’t do marking, you can’t surf the internet on your phone, what’s left? Well being stuck in the hall again I have decided on cricket. The international rules are as follows:

•1 Run = Letting someone go to the toilet.
•2 Runs = Hushing students walking past the exam room
•3 Runs = Handing out extra paper.
•4 Runs = Helping a student with an error in a paper or clarifying an instruction
•6 Runs = Crossing off the board of time to go.

The guy who wrote this blog post claims that his personal best is 14 runs in a one hour session.

Now this game can be expanded to three or five day matches with a suitable prize to the victor at the end. It started off as a bit of a joke but it has made the time pass faster and we are all more alert to hands up.
Happy Examining

obtained from http://tek.net.nz/2009/09/exam-room-cricket/

Office Web Apps

2009-09-19T17:50:00.002+12:00

I’m really excited about the potential Office Web Apps have for education. We’ve seen schools, and students in particular, embrace a wide variety of collaborative and online environments to do work in an ad-hoc fashion and move beyond the classroom and even their PC as a core computing device. Office Web Apps will allow students to collaborate in real-time across a wide variety of experience types, whether it’s editing assignments in Word at a library computer or the ability to embrace a much more collaborative approach to sharing projects with teammates. Doing work anytime, anyplace without the restriction of the PC they’re using or the software that’s loaded on it will be a tremendous opportunity. With Office Web Apps, you can view, create, edit and share documents anyplace, on any device (phone, PC, MAC) and across popular browsers (Internet Explorer, Safari, and Firefox).

Office Webs Apps will be a great companion to Office, so students can take the documents they’ve worked on and open them up for feedback and collaboration with others whether or not they have Office software on their machines…and a student won’t have to worry about whether their friend has the same version of Office either. This will open up the world of computing across campus and across different learning modalities which certainly opens up collaboration opportunities.

I think Web Apps are great examples of Microsoft’s commitment to not only create new experiences that connect to the needs our educators and students and what they are asking for, but our commitment to software plus services.

http://blogs.msdn.com/microsoftuseducation/archive/2009/09/17/office-web-apps-enter-technical-preview.aspx

Above is details of Office Web Apps, one of the questions we are going to have to ask ourselves in the future is do we stay with google apps, or jump ship? Or is Microsoft just catching up with where Google are at.

knowledgenet and year 13 web design

2009-09-19T13:05:00.005+12:00

the students have asked me if I could do this,

thanks to the great staff at KnowledgeNET for providing me a way to find this out. http://redbeach.knowledge.net.nz/

All I need to do is to look at the site and grab the form data, and can modify the parts that we need.

Now for the same with google apps.

Google Version
<span style="font-style:italic; font-weight:bold; ">Search Google:</span>
<form action="http://www.google.co.nz/custom" method="GET" target="_top">
<input type="text" name="q" size="19" maxlength="255" value>
<input type="submit" name="sa" VALUE=" Google It! ">
<input type="hidden" name="cof" VALUE="AH:center;AWFID:xxxxxxxxxxxxx;">
</form>

Wikipedia Version
<span style="font-style:italic; font-weight:bold; ">Search Wikipedia:</span>
<form action="http://www.wikipedia.org/search-redirect.php" method="get" target="_top">
<input type="hidden" name="language" value="en" />
<input type="text" name="search" size="20" />
<input type="submit" name="go" value=" Wikipedia It! " />
</form>

Moodle-google apps integration

2009-09-09T20:36:00.005+12:00

Starting to think about next year and the requirements of a Single Sign On, and Software as a Service.

What LMS to stay with or go with
We currently have knowledgeNET as our school LMS, moodle as a independent LMS for specific staff, Ultranet is now on the board as a possible alternative.

Syncing users and information
SMS to AD integration, AD to LMS, AD to google apps. Though I have now been looking at AD to LMS to google apps, through a simple block http://development.moodlerooms.com/course/view.php?id=30 which will provide student access to moodle and google apps through the same login. This means we have to link in through moodle, though there is talk in the knowledgenet camp of hooking in moodle blocks which will also mean access to the google apps environment as well.

But then again, should be we paying for access to a LMS, when there is an open source solution, or are we paying for a domain name, hosting and support?

Username and passwords are also on the agenda,
Currently the format is Surname, First Initial of your first name, year the cohort started school and form class, say David Smith, Year 11 student and in P13 would be SmithD7P13, this has lead to a unstable and unmanageable Active Directory, with students leaving not being removed, students changing form class, yet I don't know how this has been allowed to happen, and mistyped names and details. Our SMS creates a login name and password which is where we are looking at, but I can see differences happening here as students change there prefered name or some details of their name have been entered incorrectly which will cause an issue later on as well. The other issue is the students who have exactly the same name.
Or should we be looking at a StudentID number login name, that links into an actual name in the LMS and google apps, but this will have the same issue with two names that are the same.
Another issue is logins for assessment, will these go through to the LMS and google apps. It would have to be managed in such a way that these accounts do not go through.
I will have to keep an eye on the mle-reference-group on how they suggest this works.

I am some amazed at what some schools have been doing, they have just created a moodle group and teh aim of that group is to share courses and developments with each other. http://www.aucklandmoodle.school.nz/
The three schools are
AggsNet http://moodle.aggs.school.nz/
Eggstranet https://web.eggs.school.nz/ inaccessible...
Saint Cuthberts http://www.stcuthberts.school.nz/login/login.aspx inaccessible...

There is a New Zealand schools group starting up http://www.moodleinschools.org.nz/

Just an update: I am starting to get more of an understanding of administrating moodle as I play with it more and more, working out that editing on and off gives you more choices and details, though it would be nice to get the External Search Module - DigitalNZ working.

Hot Potatoes, we have been using Hot Potatoes at school since 2005, it has been a download that you had to register after running with a code. as of the 1/9/2009 it is now been classed as freeware. This means that there is no longer a registration code that needs to be entered.
To download Hot potatoes goto - http://hotpot.uvic.ca/index.php#downloads and download.

Some might ask what Hot Potatoes is?

The Hot Potatoes suite includes six applications, enabling you to create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web. Hot Potatoes is freeware, and you may use it for any purpose or project you like. It is not open-source.

Portable apps

2009-09-08T21:13:00.003+12:00

I have been thinking about this for a while, I have been using portable apps on my netbook for a while now it has become my test environment with XMAPP running on it. It has provided me access to mysql and php with apache web sever. It also has openoffice on it. Though I am now starting to think, is this enough.

With the introduction of bigger USB sticks, I am starting to look at Operating Systems that could run on these. Ubuntu has released information that can boot off a usb stick, and now I see windows xp, though it does get me thinking what will happen when you change windows xp from one computer to another. The reason why I am thinking this, is that school cannot afford to buy microsoft expression web. Though with the dreamspark program students can install it on there own computer. So if the students have their own usb stick is it the same, can they install software on the stick that they own. I know this will have some issues around what operating system and how the license is used.

turnkey

2009-09-08T19:15:00.008+12:00

Turnkey - A turn-key or a turn-key project is a type of project that is constructed by a developer and sold or turned over to a buyer in a ready-to-use condition. source wikipedia.org

I have been asked to get a solution going for my year 13 web design students that will be easy to use and run. It looks like turnkeylinux might be a good alternative. Using a mixture of vmware virtualisation with VMWare ESXi

WordPress is a state-of-the-art publishing platform with a focus on aesthetics, web standards, and usability. It is one of the worlds most popular blog publishing applications, includes tons of powerful core functionality, extendable via literally hundreds of plugins, and supports full theming.

http://www.turnkeylinux.org/appliances/wordpress

VMWare ESXi - VMware ESXi is the easiest way to get started with virtualization—and it’s free. Consolidate your applications onto fewer servers and start saving money through reduced hardware, power, cooling and administration costs. VMware ESXi has been optimized and tested to run even your most resource intensive applications and databases with minimal performance overhead.

The best part is that I have a machine that is sitting currently idle and can be placed into my little wee server room with the machines, h2, studentnet, playdoh, house and ict1. All apart from one run linux, house is running windows xp with wamp, but if this is successful, I may be removing the database and wordpress and incorporating it onto the Dell machine and leaving the current house machine for an alternative installation.

But what to name the test intranet machine? The Irish translation for Intranet is inlíon.
Then there is the welsh translation, fewnrwyd. Thought this could be somewhat difficult to key in and remember.

Intranet Survey - Students report

2009-09-08T15:04:00.004+12:00

SURVEY REPORT - From one of the students
School Web Development Survey

In order to realize the opportunities and needs of the target audience, we were to carry out a survey. This survey was known to be the School Web Development Survey. Created through Survey Monkey, the electronic survey immediately collates data and sorts the information. In terms of the survey, there has been a response of 173 people. In terms of those who took part in the survey, 17.3% (30 participants) in year 9, 19.7% (34 participants) in year 10, 20.2% (35 participants) in year 11, 23.7% (41 participants) in year 12 and 19.1% (33 participants) in year 13. In terms of the responses we had, the largest amount of responses came from year 12 with 23.7% whereas in year 9, there was lowest response with 17.3%, a 6.4% difference. Out of the 173 people who have partaken in this survey, 86.5% had answered ‘Yes’ to using the Intranet.

General Closed Questions – Accessing the Intranet

In regards to the closed questions in the survey, the response rate was quite reasonable. In terms of the intranet, the response rate was sufficient, in comparison there had been 72 students who had missed the entire KnowledgeNet section.

The majority of the respondents use the intranet. 149 people, 86.1% use the intranet, whereas only 24 people do not use the intranet. In terms of this, the majority of people whom use the intranet only access it at least one to three times a week. Almost half of the respondents (47.4% - 82 responses) access it 1-3 times; where as 6.4% of the respondents, 11 people access it 8 – 10 times. 14 people do not access the intranet at all during the week, while 18 people access the intranet more than 10 times.

Through the statistics gained, via the electronic channels of this survey, we are able to see that the majority of people whom access the intranet, access it for the school notices. 89 respondents access the school notices, which is over 50% (actual figures 54.9%) of the total number surveyed. Google Apps is accessed just under 50% at 49.4% which is quite reasonable, whereas House Events and KnowledgeNet are accessed, but not by the majority.

Of those who had responded to the survey, 139 (80.3%) had stated that they would like to access the intranet at home. In correlation to the Internet use they have at home, the majority of the survey population have access to Broadband internet. 147 people (85%) can access internet via broadband. 7 of the surveyed respondents do not have internet access, while 11 have access to dialup. 4.6% or 8 respondents do not know what connection they have available to them at home.

In terms of accessing the intranet, the majority of surveyed students have accessed the intranet more than they have accessed the learning management resource KnowledgeNet.

General Closed Questions – Accessing KnowledgeNet

173 people were surveyed for the Web Development Survey, and only 101 people had answered the questions in regards to KnowledgeNet. In terms of the responses, the majority answered ‘No’ (49 out of 101, 48.5%), followed by ‘Sometimes’ with 34 respondents at 33.7%. In terms of those who use KnowledgeNet, it is quite minimal with only 18 respondents.

For those who access the learning management resource, the majorities do not access it. 46 of the 101, at 45.5% do not access it. While those who access it, access it at school or at school and at home, both at 23.8%, with 24 respondents. The respondents rarely access KnowledgeNet at home. Only six respondents access the system at home, and only at home.

In comparison with the intranet, there seem to be more usage in terms of those who access the intranet and those who use KnowledgeNet. It is apparent that 72 people have not taken this segment of the survey, and this could be due to the fact that they may not have knowledge of KnowledgeNet, or generally did not have time, or had system failure. We can see that there is more usage in terms of the intranet with 86.1% using the intranet, and only 51.5% of the respondents who took the segment of the survey, either access it sometimes or on a regular basis.

Accessing the Intranet - Year Nine

In response to the survey, 30 year nine students have taken the Web Development Survey. In regards to this, there are some figures based on their views and opinions, which can lead to the opportunities, and needs of the target audience. By the level of responses provided by the year nines, we are able to identify the needs of the entry-level student and what they require when accessing the online services. Not that much of KnowledgeNet, but that of the Intranet. 24 year nine students access the intranet, whereas the remaining 6 stated they do not use the intranet.

In terms of what the year nines access on the intranet, the majority access Google Apps with 11 year nines. This is followed by ‘other’ which 9 respondents have answered, stating that they use the intranet in terms of accessing either school related information, research information or third party email addresses e.g. Hotmail. 7 respondents access notices, while 6 access the House Events information. In terms of what is least used, two have answered to using KnowledgeNet. Six people did not respond to this question at all as they do not access the intranet.

It is clearly revealed that the year nines are obsolete with their knowledge of KnowledgeNet, and this was definitely assumed prior to the survey. This learning management system would definitely be a different system from those that they usually use prior to attending secondary school.

In terms of wanting to access the intranet at home, 5 people have stated that they do not want to access the intranet at home. The majority stated yes (25 respondents). In terms of the internet connection available at home, 3 of the 30 do not have internet at home. Ironically they also stated they would like to access the intranet at home. 3 of the 30 also said they would like to access the intranet at home, but do not know what internet connection they have at home. 2 of the 30 have dial up, while the remaining 22 have broadband. 5 of the broadband users have answered ‘No’ in terms of accessing the intranet at home.

12 of the 30 people would like to access school related material. This is in the form of house events, careers information, sport, school photos and even homework help. The 1 have stated so, or answered as ‘All’. In terms of multimedia, 6 people would like to access videos, photos, music, lyrics and comedy shows. 5 people have also mentioned that they would like to access social networking such as Bebo, Facebook etc. 9 people either said they do not care what is on there, or they did not answer properly.

Accessing the Intranet - Year Ten

34 year 10s have participated in this Web Development Survey. The data collected from the year 10s would be specific to the transition of intermediate to high school, as we are able to look at the data and see what the year 10s have gathered after being here for a year. This will allow us to open a door of which we can look at the data through the perspective of a year 10 so that we can create a design that would cater for their needs.

3 out of the 34 do not use the intranet. Although this is the minority, it is very dominant that the majority does access the intranet. In terms of accessing the intranet, 12 of the 34 respondents access the intranet for the notices. This is quite reasonable considering that 7 of 30 accessed the notices from year 9. There is a five respondent difference. Once again, in terms of Google Apps, 16 respondents access the intranet to use Google Apps. This is similar to that of the year 9s who had 11 out of 30 users accessing Google Apps. Unlike the Year 9 usage of House Events of 6 out of 30, year 10s have seem to have a much desired interest with 14 out of 34 accessing House Event information. This could be due to familiarization of the school and house system, whereas the year 9s are still quite new to the system. 9 students have stated they use KnowledgeNet, which shows that the figures between the junior school are low for the usage of KnowledgeNet.

The data reveals that the junior school surveyed has only 11 people who access KnowledgeNet.

4 of the 34 use the intranet for school related purposes. 4 people have answered miscellaneously. Claiming that they are either “trying to access other sites but it won’t allow us”, and “Just looking up cool pic’s of my fave cartoons =]”. One of them accesses the intranet in order to get quotes, though there is no specific quote typed that is accessed. Approximately 24 people claim either they do not access anything else, have entered random figures or have not answered the question.

29 of the 34 have answered ‘Yes’ to having want to access the intranet at home, whereas in 5 of the 34 do not. The majority for both year 9 and 10 have answered ‘Yes’ to accessing the intranet at home. In terms of the internet access at home, one respondent does not have access to internet at home. 2 of the 34 do not know what connection they have, while 4 of the 34 have access to dialup internet. 27 of the 34 have access to broadband internet.

The content that would like to be accessed from the intranet is particularly careers. 10 respondents have mentioned that they would like to see career information. 10 people stated they would like to see school related content, whether it is arts and culture, documents of work and information about the school. In terms of multimedia, 7 people have stated they would like to access video, whether this school relevant or in the means of online video function e.g. Youtube is unknown. Some have commented on whether it is Youtube or not, but it is still entirely unclear. 6 people have suggested photos. The photos mostly wanted are those of school events, e.g. Dreamgirls (school production), sport events, and even ball photos. 6 respondents have stated that they would like to have access to gaming and social networking. This is quite similar in terms of the figures for the year 9s who wanted to have access to the social networking network. 3 people have stated that they “do not know” what they want or they want “nothing”. One entry was empty.

Accessing the Intranet - Year Eleven

The year 11 students mostly use the intranet at least 4-8 times a week, and is the second largest respondent group, at 35 students of the 173. Out of the 35 students, 6 of them stated that they do not use the intranet. 29 students in year 11use the intranet at School. This is a sizeable amount to see how the entry-level senior student would use the intranet to benefit their learning at this educational facility.

In terms of the services accessed through the intranet, 21 of the 35 access Notices, which is a huge increased compared to the year 9s and 10s. This could mean that the year 11s may be more in demand of the events occurring around the school. This is followed by Google Apps that has 16 respondents accessing this service. 11 accesses House Event information while KnowledgeNet is positioned at the bottom again with only 8 respondents using the service. There is a gradual increase in the use of the intranet as the year levels increase from the data collected so far. In addition, there are other services of which is accessed through the school intranet, these are, house points (2 respondents), option choices or examinations (3 respondents), or 4 respondents for miscellaneous school based services e.g. site of the week, research, reading and events around the school. One respondent accesses games via the intranet.

In terms of wanting to access the intranet at home, 7 of the 35 stated that they would not like to access, whereas 28 have stated that they would. In terms of the Internet background at the residence of the year 11, 2 have stated that they do not have internet, where as only one participant does not know what internet connection that they have. In terms of dialup, 3 of the respondents stated they have dialup connection, while the remaining 29 have stated that they have a broadband connection.

In terms of the content that the year 11s would like to access, the majority would like to access photos. 14 of the 35 responses had mentioned that they would like to see photos. Coming up second was anything school related. Under this category information regarding exams, homework etc, has been applied to, and 8 respondents chose this option. Sports and arts and culture along with videos both had 4 mentions, while careers had 6. Games had 1 respondent, while anything or everything came in with 5 respondents. One comment though that has a valid point is that “it would be better if it was updated regularly because some of the stuff is pretty old.”

We can see that there is an obvious factor in terms of the intranet that it is out of date. Some people have noted this before arriving at the questions regarding the content of the intranet. It is also apparent that KnowledgeNet is a service that remains unused. We also see the pattern of more usage of the intranet as we progress through the year levels.

Accessing the Intranet - Year Twelve

In terms of the number of respondents, year 12 held the largest amount, with 41 students (23.7%). This large portion of responses will be able to assist in determining what the year 12s need in terms of their intranet, and what opportunities can come from the data collected. The number of people who do no access the intranet is quite small in comparison. 5 out of the 41 do not access the intranet, leaving the 36 students in year 12 who use the intranet.

The intranet, like for the year 11s is highly used for notices. 24 of the 41 mentioned they access the intranet for notices. This is followed by Google Apps who has a larger number of mentions at 22. Unlike the previous year levels, year 12 have a large number of users on KnowledgeNet. 16 people mentioned that they access the learning management resourced. This is a large number, which reveals to us that as the year levels increase, they may become more reliant on data on KnowledgeNet that could benefit their learning. House Events is in the bottom with 14 mentions, whereas other services accessed are school related. In terms of not answer the question, 2 students had not selected anything.

Accessing the intranet at home would be desirable for the year 12s. Only 7 of the 41 have stated they would not want to use the intranet at home. This is minimal, as like in the other year levels compared to the vast number of those who wish to access the intranet at home. 34 have stated that they would like to access the intranet at home. In terms of being able to access the intranet at home, the internet connection that is used largely is broadband. 39 respondents have broadband access, while one only has dial up. One also does not know what connection they have. Surprisingly all the year 12s who had participated in this survey have internet access, unlike the other years, where there were a minority of people who did not have access at home.

The majority of year 12s would like to access school related content, photos and career information. 30 respondents mentioned one of the above. 10 in each category. In terms of videos or music, 5 respondents mentioned this, while 3 mentioned that they would like to access social networking or games. This is by far the lowest amount. 5 people did not mention anything or said ‘Any’ in their answer. In terms of the intranet there should be “more subject help/resources. Also it would be helpful if you could see what books are in the library from any computer in school so you could find out books you could get without having to get time in the library.”

We can see from the data that the year 12s along with the other year levels would like to access more school related material, as well as careers. This may be due to the decision of a career that students will need to make before transitioning to further tertiary education. Either way, school material, careers and photo material seem to be very in demand in terms of what the year 12s would like to see on the intranet.

Accessing the Intranet - Year Thirteen

Year 13 being the last year of a High School Student we can see what the needs are in terms of the student. We can see how the intranet has catered for them in the duration of their study, and what is needed to make them use the intranet more so often. 33 or 19.1% of respondents completed the survey. 3 of the 33 said they do not use the intranet, whereas 30 of the year 13 population surveyed have stated that they do. For those who do not access the intranet, they did not answer what services they use in terms of the intranet channel.

8 of the 33 do not access the school notices on the intranet, meaning that the majority of 25 access the notices. 14 of the respondents access Google Apps, which is almost 50% of the respondents. 10 respondents access House events information while 6 of the 33 accesses KnowledgeNet, which is in comparison to the other year levels quite low. 3 of the 33 also mentioned that they use the intranet for other means. 2 have stated that they use the intranet for research, while one stated that they access it for timetables such as examinations.

10 of the respondents stated they would not want to access the intranet at home, which in reality is quite a large number in the likes of the 7 out of 41 who had chosen ‘No’ as their answer in year 12. 23 is still the majority that would want to access the intranet at home. Along with being able to access the intranet at home, 1 surveyed student said they do not have internet access at home. 1 do not know what internet connection they have at home, while one is on dialup. This makes the majority 30 of which have access to broadband internet at home.

In terms of the need to access material there is a slight decline compared to year 12 where the majority of options peak. Although this has occurred, a large number access the notices, which may mean more participation in the likes of school events.

With those who access the intranet they would like to access more of photos related to school. This may be “a range of things - Arts and Culture, Sports, Careers, and other interesting school related events - Bollywood Night, School Productions, International Day”. There was a mention of photos 14 times within the 33 year 13s that access the intranet. This is then followed by videos and school related material such as house events that are regularly updated, and better studying material. Both video and school related material had a mention by 12 surveyed students. It is also apparent that library was used frequently as a catalogue or such is wanted by the year 13s so they know what books are available, sports are also categorised as only 2 mentions came from this. Careers followed with 9 mentions, meaning that although there is not a larger number, careers is generally one of the most desired options when coming to access information in regards to the school intranet. Arts and culture came in with 5 mentions, as people tend to like the visual side rather than the informative side. It is also apparent that the year 13s would like to access more notices, this could possibly be of a wider scale than that that is already attainable via the school intranet. 6 mentions for the respondents claim they either do not know or have not specified what they would like to see.

The information collated via the year 13s show that there is quite a decline in terms of the access of the intranet services. Less use the KnowledgeNet, while the main focus is school notices, this reveals that the year 13s may have a strong desire for the events occurring around the school.

Usability of the Intranet

In terms of the intranet and the overall usability functions the response from the 173 students showed that the majority of students could ‘Sometimes’ find what they are looking for. 119 students had chosen this option, bringing the percentage to 68.8% more than half of the population surveyed. 43 (24.9%) of students said ‘Yes’ whereas 11 people said no. The 6.4% of the people that said ‘No’ is a reasonable amount to confirm that there is some difficulty in finding information, in fact the huge proportion of students who claim that they can ‘Sometimes’ find what they are looking for, is enough to show that the intranet is not friendly in terms of data content.

In terms of the content that the intranet holds, 88 students, which is just 50.9% has stated that the content is ok. This is followed by 28 students at 16.2% that say the content is good. 14 heads claim that the content is very good, bringing this percentage to 8.1%. Bad and awful have 15 people who agree with this, bring the two percentages to 8.7%. 13 surveyed students do not know what they would rate content, this is 7.5%. This data clearly shows that although there are different views on the content, there is a large number who find that this is ‘ok’, whereas 30 students from the school population surveyed find it awful or bad, which is quite a sizeable amount in terms of school wide scale.

As for the design of the intranet, it is rather apparent that at 43.4%, 75 surveyed students, the design was ‘Ok’. This is a reasonable amount, which shows that the design is mediocre. Although this is the majority, another large amount of students state that the design is ‘Good’ with 23.7%, 41 respondents. Even so, there is a large proportion of students who state that the design is either bad – 9.2%, 16 students, or it was awful with 21 students -12.1%. This clearly shows that there is a significant amount of students who find the design unattractive. It shows that there are students who may be happy with the layout, but overall large amounts do not find the design appealing. This is a sizeable amount to see that there is something wrong. In terms of ‘Very Good’ there were 11 respondents at 6.4%, and for those who ‘Do not know’ there were 9 respondents at 5.2%.

KnowledgeNet

It is already apparent that there is a significant amount of students who do not use KnowledgeNet. Throughout the year levels it is clearly seen that the junior school would not use the learning resource system as much as those in year 11 and 12. Year 13 shows a slight decline in the usage of the KnowledgeNet. The majority of the school do not use KnowledgeNet, whereas more prefer to use it sometimes rather than all the time.

Students use KnowledgeNet, “only once in a while to check an event or to find subject resources. KnowledgeNet is overloaded, there is too much content and the majority is not used by anyone. The links are unintuitive. It should be less 'personalized', the links under Navigator are useless to most (web diary, to-do list etc, come on). I would rather have links to my subjects, or at least the most recently accessed pages. I would use KnowledgeNet more if I knew each subject page had proper and easily accessible content. For example, the accounting page only has text labels that don't even lead anywhere. Also, the design is quite unpleasing.”

We clearly see that those who use KnowledgeNet are put off by various factors such as layout, content and the out of date material, just as the intranet is out of date. This proves to be a topic to investigate as if there is minimal usage of a learning management resource, is there really any point in having so.

In terms of the knowledge of KnowledgeNet, it is apparent that the majority ‘don’t know what it is’.

The data gathered in terms of KnowledgeNet, feels as if there is not enough substance in the use, and rather the obsolete knowledge of it. It is shown that the intranet has much more interest than that of the system of KnowledgeNet. 72 did not fill this part of the survey, which leaves the data unjust.

Intranet survey

2009-09-07T18:19:00.012+12:00

We have been using our current intranet structure and development platform for seven years now. It was developed by an ex student who was employed at the school to develop and bring it up to current ICT developments and in some cases future developments.

Though, it has been recognised that the current look and feel is getting rather old and dated and that there is a need for change. Using the Technology Achievement standards and the year 13 students who have studied web design at year 12 and doing the subject at year 13, and with a slightly changed course of web development, they have been entrusted with researching current trends of our school intranet and development of the future intranet.
They have noticed some interesting trends of development so far with the use of surveymonkey.com to handle the results and analayse the votes of some 184 students, which is 10% of the school.

85% of students use the school intranet, although a number don't know that it exists as it is not the first page that loads up when the students access the Internet browser. Normally this is a msn.com/runonce page as we have an issue with log ins not grabbing the right policy.
Almost 50% of students access the intranet between 1-3 times per week. With 11% of students accessing the intranet over 10 times per week.
This will create an interesting task in making sure that we keep students coming back, are we after changes every day or once a week.

Most students are looking at the school notices, this is a rather interesting point, as notices should be read out in form class each morning, they are mostly printed and given to form teachers at morning meeting. So something must be going wrong here. There has been mention by a couple of students that previous day or days notices would be appreciated to go online as well. For year 13 students with study in the morning, they would like to access notices at home to see what changes they have during the day, also various visits. Though this brings in another point that students would like to see included in the thought of the intranet. University visits to be made more public and informed, a calender to show when they are coming up. Thoughts point to using the schools LMS, KnowledgeNET, though various questioning of students through the survey show that almost 50% of students do not know what knowledgeNET is or how to access it. Students have pointed to the fact they they struggle to find information, it is not clear on where things are or what is available, as many of the pages have links that are not yet active. Which is causing some students to give up using such a valuable resource.

What would they like to see on the school intranet?
House events, career information, subject selections, access to the school library, access to google apps.
I myself see our school intranet being used as a portal for students.

Internet portals are virtually dead, but a portal approach can tame the unruly chaos on internal company networks. Intranet portals overcome many Internet portal limitations, and might be the best hope for productivity and a unified user experience. http://www.useit.com/alertbox/intranet-portals-study-1.html

This is where I see our future development going, though there is still a question, access. Should it be able to be access from home, or should it be an in school thing? Should we put all of our eggs in one basket. KnowledgeNET allows for a public area to be developed and changed, though I see the issue of Internet Traffic. Internet traffic and connectivity is still an issue at school and home. We still have students with dial up access, though this value is getting smaller as more parents see the value of the Internet as being a part of their daily lives. Then there is the apple ipod developments going on, with some thought possibly in the future of a mobile portal for school to be put on the cards in the development of the school intranet.

We then could put all of this on google sites,

Google offers templates, a rich-text editor, 10GB of storage for each Google Apps account and integration with other Google services so you can embed gadgets, calendars, spreadsheets, presentations, photo slideshows and videos. You can invite people to collaborate or just view a site and you can also publish the site so that anyone can view it. http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/02/google-sites-launched.html

This goes back to connectivity and traffic. One of the solutions that could be used is wordpress being hosted on a server at school. This provides us the solution to put up a media rich site with various gadgets being hosted inside the school, When future connectivity and traffic issues are sorted with the roll out of fibre connections to the gate, then we are ready to provide access outside of school.

Students are busily writing their report on the results from the survey, which will steer them in the development of the future portal/intranet.

One thing I would like to see is some google analytics on the site, to see where students go and what they are looking at,

If you can reach the above URL using your network's internet connection, you have satisfied the first requirement. Additionally, your intranet must be accessed using a fully qualified domain name (FQDN) such as http://intranet.example.com. The ga.js JavaScript will not work if your intranet is accessed using a non-FQDN (such as http://intranet). Copied from google

This seems that we would have a problem running it on our site, though I would like to see an alternative that was able to run on our system. It seems that http://piwik.org/ would be a suitable alternative to run, and is simple enough to install on our own webservers.

KnowledgeNET Stats
We have been in contact with the management of the system at school for a copy of the login logs of students and staff on knowledgeNET, out of the 1850 students and 120 staff, only 546 have ever logged in successfully into knowledgeNET. 4281 successful logins have happened, so it shows that some students have accessed this multiple times, one student has accessed the site 262 times over this year, the top teacher has accessed the site 86 times.

Some of the student comments:
- A range of things - Arts and Culture, Sports, Careers, and other interesting school related events - Bollywood Night, School Productions, International Day - Information regarding these (permanent instructions to partake etc)

- Past notices (few days back maybe) - Upcoming events, possibly like the calendar available on knowledgenet which is quite useful occasionally. As a side note, syncing with google calendar would be useful. - Library catalogue These would probably be useful only if available at home

- Video access - Drama and Media Studies Recent books/movies- Hard to find any good ones these days (books especially)

- Arts and Culture, Careers, House Events (needs to be regularly updated), Videos/Presentations shown in assembly throughout the week

- Yes all of those but also it would be better if it was updated regularly because some of the stuff is pretty old.

- LIBRARY-NEW BOOKS AND MAGAZINES CAREERS- ANY EXPERIENCING DAY AVAILABLE

Where to go to next?

robocup junior - the day

2009-09-05T11:33:00.013+12:00

We have been busy preparing for this day for the past five weeks, two teams have been meeting each Tuesday and Thursday mornings at 7:30am at school constructing robots and programming them to meet the requirements for the robocup junior rescue. We have a year 13 team, and a year 11 team
Unfortunately the year 11 teams pulled out citing not enough time, however looking at today's challengers I believe that they would have managed to gain maximum points having seen what I am seeing today.

The year 13 students have been busy getting their programs ready for each round and challenging themselves to meet their own goals. Making there way through the field to the spill area.

Round One

- 44 points

Round Two

- Follow the line and hope for the best aka Operation Dad 34 points

Round Three

- back to basics (Where is the manual?) 12 points

Round Four -

Finding our way back, where is the program that we designed at school, oh yeah, its on the server that killed itself! - 10 points our worst one yet.

Round Five - Operation Turn right, earned us 48 points

One of our highest rounds, if only we had planned the speed bumps which caused us to get stuck, kind of like a boy racer on a Saturday night. Though had we got over this, we would have been caught at the water tower, the aim of this was just to get a far as possible for a suitable amount of points...

The water tank is behind the person on the floor.

A total of 148 points plus the interview points placed us second in the Auckland region, which is a great accomplishment. When we entered this we were just going for an experience and to see what it was about. It is a pity that the year 11 students did not join us, as it would have been nice to take home two trophies as I believe they would have accomplished some of the tasks better than the team.

look forward to 2010, though I hope it is in a bigger venue.

A couple of things, we will have to get some of our own tiles so we can do our own competition at school, a good thing to do if we go through with the suspend the timetable at the end of the year, this will provide an opportunity for the students to get involved in a team situation as I have seen today with problem solving, computer crashes and other issues. Second is the opportunity to enter another type of competition, I would like to enter the dancing comp, with something a bit different, where through the dance the robots draw a design on the floor, so at the end the operators can hold it up. We have two minutes max to do this, so it will have to be quick and crude, though this allows for the opportunity to run multiple robots, I think the most I saw today on the floor was 4, and that was a band.

the students have said they would like to have more time to do this, but talking with other students from other schools, it is normally a club environment at lunchtime where they have only been working on things for three weeks.

Thinking about the various types of dance today, there was no bollywood, how could we create our first robotic bollywood group.

Do we have enough equipment to handle future competitions?

Recording each round, we started off recording each round, but after the disaster of round 4 we thought we would not do any better on round 5, so we didn't record. This is likely to be an issue when we get to handing in the work required for the unit standard. That is why I have include photos on the blog here today, so we have a record of what has been done and what modifications were made.

twittering the event today also provided some information for people following me on what was happening, sorry for not including the fourth round results, I think it was more of the fact that it was a disappointing result that caused me not to put it up until after finding out that we had gained 2nd place.

Remember this

2009-08-28T16:16:00.000+12:00

SELECT * FROM table WHERE myid IN (2, 16, 93,102);

our own schools mathsweek

2009-08-16T22:10:00.002+12:00

Comments on the past weeks maths competition.

Stats

Monday = 42

Tuesday = 34

Wednesday = 26

Thursday = 16

Friday = 6

Out of 1814 students able to compete each day, I am not too sure how this has been successful. Though comments about the number of paper entries during the same period last year suggests the same.

Things I need to consider if running this next year.

An Admin system for the maths staff to login and check the results

The system working out what day it is and displaying the correct days questions

Not importing all the students into the system, self registration might be possible

Not limiting long answers to varchar(50), may have to use the text field next year

Not leaving this to the last minute to design and implement.

our own schools mathsweek

2009-08-10T20:35:00.002+12:00

I have bene busy getting tomorrows questions online, this has been an interesting experience as I am gaining more and more skills in php/mysql.

I am using seperate tables to record each days results from the students, this will be able to be used for stats next week.

41 students completed the monday tasks, though I must admit that I had a flaw in the program that locked one of the answers to 50 characters, which meant that some students, they way that they formatted the answer might get it marked as incorrect. I have passed this information onto the people running it, and hope that this will not disadvantage those students.

While getting tuesdays information up, which was all written up, and the database table for tuesday was designed to handle multichoice answers only, which was the next step to be updated, I had a students submit answers for tuesday by the time I had made a cup of coffee. I will have to make sure that I amend the database table first before putting wednesday, thursday and fridays questions up. Though i still have to work out how I am going to put up a three part answer, as the database table was originally setup to handle one answer for each question.

Online apps

2009-08-10T17:25:00.003+12:00

This time of year is a busy time for me, as I seem to go through a Rapid software development mode. Last year it was the subject choice system, which I have had to make some amendments to this year to help make it just that little bit easier for the students.

But no, this year we also have a maths online version running, just for our students. Ok, its not as flash as http://www.mathsweek.org.nz/ and I didn't expect it to be, as I just ran out of time developing it. I should not have left it to the last moment to design and run, but all it needed to be was a simple login and collect data. Though I did not think I would have to apply the function of saving the answers so they could be modified later.

It is working well, though i have not seem the final results for the day, as this closes at 7pm and I cannot access the database backend through the school connection.

Just finished designing the form to be used tonight, however, tomorrow is the problem, as one answer has three parts to it. I knew I should have provided some more specifications on the development of the questions.

just went to use www.mathsweek.org.nz and its down, poor web site developers, spending all that time creating the website for it to fall over on the first day.

The flu

2009-08-05T17:43:00.002+12:00

Three weeks back at school and I have a cold, it is not the greatest thing. But, have I slowed down, no.

We are into dress rehersals for the school production

We have two data projectors being used to do the back drop which has allowed us to use moving images and something that is a bit more lifelike to get the show across to the audience.

Curriculum developments,

tomorrow is a teachers only day at school where we are looking at curriculum planning for implementation for the new curriculum in New Zealand. This is causing a bit of strife as we are trying to follow examples from around New Zealand on curriculum planning and delivery, but put our own spin on it, so the students can understand and get the localisation from it.

IT Support

Getting up to speed and working out what is needed to be carried out, I am spending more time on helping teachers get what they need out of ICT. Though I would like a more structured helpdesk solution in the school. People need to learn if there laptop isn't connecting to the network, there are a few simple problem solving techniques that could use, instead of, I can't do that, or just not doing anything.

I am working on a system to run our school maths week as well. Though this starts on Sunday, I haven't exactly spent much time on it. I think I am going to have to say, whoops, can we try this later on? How about we jump on board with the national one?

We start rehearsal in 10 minutes, and the majority of the students still have not arrived or got there sound equipment yet. Its gonna be another late night. No voice warmup yet either. Not Happy