ZDNet Education

July 3rd, 2009

"Windows 7 is the same as Ubuntu"

Posted by Christopher Dawson @ 8:11 am

Categories: Education Technology

Tags: Ubuntu, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Christopher Dawson

Obviously, this isn’t true. Their underlying architectures are quite a bit different, Gnome looks different than the 7 UI, etc., but to an average 17-year-old, there just wasn’t any meaningful difference between the two operating systems.

The other day, I posted a blog titled “Windows 7: Good enough to pay for?” I described how I’d installed the Windows 7 Release Candidate on my son’s computer for his take on the OS after living with Ubuntu 9.04 (and 8.10 before that) for a few months. It’s summer break, so he basically spends every waking moment when he’s not actually interacting face-to-face with friends on the computer. No better time to have a kid do some serious testing, right?

I asked him last night about his initial impressions of Windows 7 and, in typical teenage fashion, as he was bouncing between Meebo windows and browser tabs, he said it was “nice.” I managed to extract from him that his favorite feature was that he was able to use his Zune with it, something that had never worked terribly well with Ubuntu. Otherwise, he said, “Windows 7 is the same as Ubuntu; there just really isn’t anything different about them.” Read the rest of this entry »

July 1st, 2009

Hey, Mac users! Need to make flash cards

Posted by Christopher Dawson @ 9:58 pm

Categories: Education Technology

Tags: Card, Apple Macintosh, Christopher Dawson

I stumbled across a free, open source program today that makes creating flash cards incredibly easy. I was looking because I had a meeting today with some members of our middle school math department who were looking for new ways of reinforcing math facts, given that all too many kids in even the 7th and 8th grades struggle with simple operations.

We have some software that can reinforce basic math skills, but really the teachers were just looking for the best way to help kids improve their automaticity and memorize simple math facts. Flash cards are an obvious choice. With Alex Rose’s flash card application, students and teachers can easily create such cards to be administered on the computer (or projected to a class).

I won’t belabor the details of the application. However, by way of summary, it’s Mac OX 10.5+ only, it’s free, it’s a fast download, and it’s easy. It certainly isn’t the only application of its kind out there and there are others that are cross platform. This one happened to meet a need I identified today and I wanted to share it with anyone who happened to be running a Mac platform and wanted to create speedy formative assessments or memorization tools for any subject.

July 1st, 2009

So about those illegal downloads

Posted by Christopher Dawson @ 8:54 pm

Categories: Education Technology

Tags: Software, Music, Michael Scalisi, Christopher Dawson

PC World posted an interesting article today about the sale of The Pirate Bay. Titled “Pirate Bay Sale Signals the Death of an Era”, the article brings up some important potential implications for education in secondary schools as well as for enforcement at colleges and universities.

As the author points out,

The free software movement has gained critical mass. For most applications, there are free variants available. In lieu of Microsoft Office, we have OpenOffice.org. In lieu of Adobe Photoshop, we have the GIMP. With few exceptions, most paid applications have a free alternative. If people want to “stick it to the man” why not support the free software movement rather than pirating copyrighted apps? And if there’s still a commercial app that’s so essential that you can’t accept a free alternative, perhaps that’s a sign that you should actually pay the people who worked to create it.

The same goes for music. Many artists distribute their music for free now via a variety of media:

Why not support these musicians by actually purchasing their music? Many of them give their music away for free just because they want to be heard. By illegally downloading the work of a self-promoted artist, you’re just sticking it to the little guy, and that’s just plain jerky.

The real point here, though, is that there is a paradigm shift underway. Whether it’s the legitimization of the Pirate Bay, the conviction of the Pirate Bay’s founders, or the conviction (to the tune of almost $2 million) of a woman for relatively minor filesharing, the wild west of torrents is coming to an end.

So what does that mean for our students? Whether in middle school, high school, or college, most of them think nothing of just downloading the content they want from any number of torrent sites. How many people under 25 do you know who purchased all of the music on their iPods? Zero? One or two if you teach at a Catholic school?

This behavior has to change. I don’t mind the idea of “sticking it to the man.” I’m Gen X enough to not be overly fussed about taking a mix cd from someone. I’m geeky enough to use free software whenever I can. However, it’s clear that both legal and cultural tides are turning against the rampant file sharing in which most of our students engage. RIAA is winning more cases, colleges are blocking P2P entirely, and Trent Reznor is actually making millions on the music he gives away for free.

Add it to your list of Internet education bullet points. Students can no longer afford to take such a cavalier attitude towards file sharing. The real question, though, is how to communicate to students about copyright infringement in terms that mean something to them. Michael Scalisi makes a good start in the PC World article, but any other suggestions would be welcome. Talk back below.

June 30th, 2009

Maine remains at the forefront of 1:1 with 64k Macs on order

Posted by Christopher Dawson @ 4:46 pm

Categories: Education Technology

Tags: Maine, Apple Macintosh, Teacher, Notebooks, Recruitment & Selection, Desktops, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Human Resources, Workforce Management

InformationWeek is reporting on Maine’s latest efforts to expand its 1:1 computing initiative. According to the posting,

The massive order stems from the state Department of Education’s decision to expand the Maine Learning Technology Initiative into all public high schools. Maine has been providing Apple MacBooks to middle school students and faculty under the MLTI since 2002.

While it would be easy to argue the value proposition of 64,000 MacBooks versus other platforms (although Macs, with their easy content creation software and durable exteriors do offer value in their own right), I’d rather point to Maine’s successful strategy of 1:1 expansion. Teachers throughout Maine middle schools have designed curricula and activities around students’ abilities to access a computer anytime they need it. It’s no wonder that high school teachers and students are clamoring to continue the program in grades 9-12. Imagine going to a job where the company provides you with a laptop for 3 years and then switching jobs, only to find that you need to bring your own laptop to the new job.

It’s worth noting, while we talk about value, that the laptops will include both the iLife and iWork suites. I’m no fan of iWork (although KeyNote is super-pretty), it does provide students with a perfectly workable productivity suite at a fraction the cost of Office. While iLife is included with any Mac, it makes creating multimedia content across curricula so easy that teachers can focus on the content instead of the software.

I’ve heard a lot of talk about the “1:1 tipping point” recently; while it’s usually associated with netbooks, anything that pairs ready student access to computers in and out of school with solid curricula that exploits their utility gets an A in my book.

June 30th, 2009

Good enough to pay for, part 2: Microsoft Office

Posted by Christopher Dawson @ 3:24 am

Categories: Education Technology

Tags: Microsoft Office 2007, Google Docs, Secretary, Microsoft Corp., OpenOffice, Microsoft Office, Microsoft Windows 7, Office Suites, Software, Christopher Dawson

This weekend, I asked if Windows 7 was good enough to actually justify the cost when good, free alternatives (ranging from existing Windows XP/Vista installs to Ubuntu) were readily available. The responses, not surprisingly, were mixed (to put it diplomatically).

My two primary computers are a Mac and an Ubuntu desktop, but this summer will definitely see a thin-and-light laptop purchase as we shuffle computers in the house (I won’t start on the parallels between hand-me-downs and a tech refresh); we’re making some moderate number of purchases for the schools as well. While most of the school purchases this year won’t be affected by Windows 7 (we’re buying Classmates and Macs, largely), my personal purchase will be, and 7 will certainly factor into decision-making for lots of people spending ARRA money.

I won’t restart the 7 vs. everything else debate; as far as I’m concerned, the jury is still out on the value of 7, especially as we try and stretch those ARRA dollars as far as we can before falling off the funding cliff in two years. However, I got up early this morning to work on some documentation. It’s fairly sophisticated, with formulas, a variety of formatting, and, frankly, the kind of stuff that makes you really grateful for a good secretary.

I don’t have a secretary, unfortunately, so I do all my own word processing and desktop publishing. Suffice to say, this was not the sort of document for which Google Docs was created. It’s also the sort of document that is a lot easier in Word 2007/2008 than it is in OpenOffice.

Regular readers will know that’s not an easy statement for me to make. Not only am I a huge fan of Google Docs, but am an avid supporter of OpenOffice. They’re free and they both work wonderfully. Why wouldn’t I be a fan? I remain convinced that both Docs and OO.org will satisfy the needs of 90-95% of students and staff, the former allowing the added benefits of online collaboration and easy access to saved documents, regardless of location.

However, Office 2007 (even more so that 2008) is an incredibly good productivity suite. All of the secretaries in my district who started the year using OpenOffice (at my request) have moved to Office (at their request). This isn’t for lack of trying, either. Every single one was a great sport and learned OO.org well. They were very functional in the suite, but Office 2007 made the harder jobs easier and faster. The learning curve, in fact, wasn’t the issue; all of the secretaries had been using Office 2000 or 2003, so also had to climb a curve to use 2007.

Students in K-8 have no need for this sort of sophistication. I could argue that there isn’t a need to spend the money on licensing for most 9-12 students and budget-conscious college kids can get the job done in OO.org, as well. However, even I can’t deny that Office 2007 is worth the money, at least for a subset of users, as I look over at the document I was creating when I started this post, not in OpenOffice, not in Google Docs, but on a spare PC using Office 2007 because it was the right tool for the job.

June 29th, 2009

New Google Apps education community sites launched

Posted by Christopher Dawson @ 7:18 pm

Categories: Education Technology

Tags: Google Inc., Google Apps, Cloud Computing, Christopher Dawson

Having just made it through a successful rollout of Google Educational Apps, I was looking for interesting sites and easy training materials for teachers to ponder over the summer. Along comes @jkeltner on Twitter and points me towards two community-driven sites devoted to Google Apps, Education Edition.

The first, the Google Apps Education Community, was just launched on Sunday. It includes discussions, tutorials, tips, and other useful resources for educators deploying or using Google Apps.

The second is really centered around the use of Google Apps in the classroom. Providing a variety of searchable lesson plans and lesson templates, the site gives examples ranging from a choose-your-own-adventure story to a data collection and analysis project on human dimensions.

I’ve been a champion for Google Apps for some time and am really excited to see a creative bunch of teachers in action looking at ways to exploit the power of Edu Apps. Sometimes, however, even the best of teachers struggle to use new tools in the classroom; these sites from Google provide a great resource to get those creative juices flowing. Can you say “Professional Development” in the fall?

June 29th, 2009

ARRA, affordability driving interest in Latitude 2100

Posted by Christopher Dawson @ 12:23 pm

Categories: Education Technology

Tags: School District, Dell Latitude, Netbook, Computer, Netbooks, Nettops & MIDs, Notebooks, Productivity, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Christopher Dawson

Not long ago, I wrote a post concerning what I saw as a high price and somewhat limited value for Dell’s new educational netbook, the Latitude 2100. It seems, however, that a lot of school districts disagreed. According to a brief on Yahoo News, “more than 500 U.S. school districts have purchased the Latitude 2100, which was launched just last month.”

I’m still not convinced of the value of this particular incarnation of netbook, but I am convinced that we’re at a significant tipping point in terms of 1:1 computing. Not only are stimulus funds pumping quite a bit of money into the system, but netbooks in general (from the cheapest Asus to a loaded convertible Classmate) are so inexpensive that schools can afford to deploy them in large numbers.

While computer labs have a lot of usefulness and can be scheduled such that they are fully utilized throughout a day, a small, rugged laptop that a student can access anytime, anywhere can be a real game-changer. At the same time, schools are increasingly looking at how students can integrate computers into classroom work, rather than merely having “computer time.” This, of course, begs for 1:1.

It remains to be seen who comes to dominate 1:1 computing in schools, but there is plenty of room for competition and innovation in this segment.

June 27th, 2009

Windows 7: Good enough to pay for?

Posted by Christopher Dawson @ 9:11 pm

Categories: Education Technology

Tags: Ubuntu, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Christopher Dawson

I finally installed the Windows 7 release candidate that the folks from Microsoft were kind enough to pass on a couple weeks ago at the Intel Classmate Ecosystem Summit. I could have installed it on my Mac, but I already have Vista running with Boot Camp with a fair amount of Windows software that I didn’t want to reinstall (or couldn’t for lack of install media). I thought about installing it on my primary desktop at work (running Ubuntu 9.04 at the moment) since that’s a bit older and I could assess its speed on legacy hardware, but it lacked a DVD drive.

So I installed it on my oldest son’s laptop. This was the same kid who, almost a year ago, declared that he “hated Linux”. He has since grown to like Ubuntu, particularly 9.04, since it’s rock solid no matter where he manages to skulk about online. However, it doesn’t work with his Zune and he prefers Office 2007 to OpenOffice. Until now, I’ve told him to suck it up and have an old XP desktop in the study that he and his brothers use for syncing iPods and Zunes. Ubuntu, after all, is free, and requires no maintenance from me, no matter what dark, malware-infested corners of the Internet he happens to explore. Read the rest of this entry »

June 26th, 2009

Massachusetts Educational Data Warehouse provides a host of tools

Posted by Christopher Dawson @ 12:09 pm

Categories: Education Technology

Tags:

Massachusetts is not the first state to create a data warehouse for educational data, but it is early to the field with a really robust set of tools for analyzing a variety of student information. For those of you new to data analysis (probably not many of you, but just in case), a data warehouse goes way beyond the databases we work with routinely. Wikipedia defines them as well as anybody:

…an expanded definition for data warehousing includes business intelligence tools, tools to extract, transform, and load data into the repository, and tools to manage and retrieve metadata.

In contrast to data warehouses are operational databases that support day-to-day transaction processing.

The Massachusetts Educational Data Warehouse is already populated with our state standardized testing scores (aka, MCAS), basic student data, and the ability for districts to easily “claim” students (and their associated data) who are transferring from other districts.

While this is clearly useful (our MCAS data represent the ultimate summative assessments as we examine the effectiveness of our curricula), the real power of the data warehouse is in its ability to store data from other tests and then perform longitudinal data analysis, slicing and dicing the data into subgroups and allowing far-reaching comparisons.

The state is also piloting programs allowing student information systems to interface with the warehouse and exchange data easily.

A good chunk of my summer will be spent working with the data warehouse; I certainly have a lot to learn about its ins and outs, but I also need to train staff who are increasingly using data to drive instruction. I’ll report back on the good, the bad, and the ugly.

June 25th, 2009

Don't be like China

Posted by Christopher Dawson @ 11:25 pm

Categories: Education Technology

Tags: Pornography, Content Filtering, Government, Content Management, Vertical Industries, Enterprise Software, Software, Christopher Dawson

China has been receiving enormous amounts of negative press lately for its so-called “Green Dam” content filtering and increasingly stringent requirements for Google to limit access to pornography via its searches. According to the Times article,

At a news conference on Thursday, a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, was quick to criticize Google for allowing too many links to unseemly sites, saying, “It is every government’s responsibility to protect their teenagers from porn and vulgar information on the Internet.”

Here in the States, we take measures to limit our kids’ exposure to pornography, as well. This isn’t a bad thing, of course. Schools and libraries are places for students to learn, not have free broadband to download porn faster. Content filtering, depending on how good it is, at least blocks the most egregious websites.

However, it becomes tempting to block a much wider range of content, taking a whitelist instead of a blacklist approach. After all, if kids can only get to kid-friendly sites, they can’t see anything that might be a source of liability or controversy. The Chinese government has gone so far as to block sex education, sites with politically dissenting views, and sexual health information, all in the name of protecting its people.

Clearly, most system administrators will not take such a hardline view of content filtering, especially related to politics. But it certainly seems that a more moderate approach to filtering, especially in secondary education, gives students a much better handle on how to navigate and assess content. A Green Dam, or any other sort of content filter, doesn’t make pornography, social media, or political dissent go away; it merely hides it temporarily.

Isn’t it far better to educate our kids about online safety and appropriateness with some tools in the background to ensure that content that obviously has no educational value doesn’t reach their screens?