Podcast: Jolicloud OS

I did my podcast on Jolicloud, a Linux operating system that is optimized for the web. You have probably heard of Chrome OS, Google's Linux-based operating systems for its Chromebooks. This is similar but not as limited because you can still use it like a traditional operating system with all of the local applications you would normally have.

Week 5: Chapter 3

As the authors say, it is hard to talk about the internet without talking about Google. For better or worse (and probably a combination of the two) Google has had a profound impact on the internet. For my part I tend to be pleased with most things Google has to offer, and while there are some changes I would like to see, it is tremendous that Google continues to provide such a wealth of free services to everyone.

The biggest complaint I have heard from people about Google is the accusation that Google sells page ranks. While it is understandable that people would be upset about this, the accusation is completely erroneous. Google does sell advertisements, but they are clearly labeled as such. The trouble, I believe, is  the Google search process, while quite effective, is not easy to understand. The video below is Google's explanation of how it works.


I use a lot of Google products for personal use and with my students. Here are my favorites. Gmail is essential. It is secure, reliable, and easy to use. I have two accounts (one for personal use and one I used with my students). I use Google Calendar religiously, and I tried to get my co-workers at GHS to use it too. We had shared calendars at work but there are many staff who still prefer to use one big paper calendar in the main office, which isn't very useful unless your in the main office. I used Google Docs with my students for a number of reasons. Originally, it was out of necessity. The computers at my school freeze often, and students lose their work. MS Office became especially problematic. Because Google Docs saves automatically and students can access their files without having to log on their account on the server (we also had issues with our server), it became a wonderful solution.


My other favorite Google products include SketchUp for 3-D modeling, Google Reader, and Google Plus.

Week 5: When Tech Tools are Too Cool for School (Technology and Standards)

If you have never used an air compressor, you are missing out. This highly customizable tool is indispensable in any shop. How does it work? The motor on the compressor draws air into a tank, squeezing more air into the tank than would naturally fit under normal circumstances. This pressurized air is then used to provide power to a wide variety of tools. In auto shops, you will hear mechanics tightening bolts with air impact wrenches. Carpenters use nail guns power by air compressors. Of course, you fill your tires with air from an air compressor, and someday you may even drive a car that is powered by compressed air. These are all wonderful uses of a very powerful tool.

In my wood shop class, my students' favorite pneumatic extension was the blow gun. This is an attachment that simply allows you to blow compressed air from a hose. It's handy for getting dust out of tight spaces or out of your hair. Many of my students thought it also makes a great dust brush and broom. "Why sweep when you can just blow dust all over the place?" Well, unfortunately, this method is noisy, fills your lungs with dust, and after you leave the shop, all of the dust in the air just settles back down and nothing is any cleaner.

Cool tools are hard to hide. Everybody wants to use them whether they are helpful or simply a distraction. This is normal. People like to play.

Like air compressor, computers are incredibly versatile tools, and they should be widely used in education. However, they should not be used just for the sake of using technology. If the practice does not add value to learning than it is not a practice worth having in school. Technology without an educational purpose is not only a waste of precious time in school, it can also be rather boring.

I taught a high school ICT class, and I constantly struggled to find good reasons for my students to use new tools. Because there was no required academic content to the course, I tried to incorporate as much as I could from various disciplines and life in general. I could not get my students to buy into “making a website because I need to make a website for class”. There had to be a reason for making the website.

This is actually one of the reasons I advocated getting laptops at my school and incorporating more technology into the general curriculum. There are more opportunities to use technology for authentic reasons in general academia versus learning different tools in Computer Class that will never be used anywhere else because the rest of education is done with paper and pencils.

Whether the teacher's objective is to meet the state standards or to give the students a more engaging learning experience, computers can be very useful, but student engagement is more than just doing something. Engagement means being engrossed in the tasks of learning. Teachers who are eager to use more technology will struggle to use it appropriately. They are learning too. This does not mean they should avoid using computers in their classrooms. It simply means they need to go slowly and reflect about what works. Teachers and students should always ask, “did that activity make learning easier or better?” Then they need to determine why and how. In this way, educational communities can determine what is valuable and what is really just a waste of required seat time.

Week 7: Chapter 8

The section of this chapter that especially struck was the one about uses of technology in Special Education. I have never worked with any students with the sorts of physical impairments that would require the adaptations they discuss in this section, but I have worked with plenty of students with learning disabilities and I'm interested finding ways that technology could assist them. That said, I also have some reservations about the long-term usefulness of some of the adaptations made for students with learning disabilities.

I had a student recently who can read, but not well. Her biggest problem is she cannot (or will not) focus. Most of the time she refuses to read, but does not want to listen to explanations or discuss the topics. The subject was Economics, which even I do not find all that interesting. I searched for games and interactive resources for teaching economics but everything I found was either intended for grade school or was too advanced. I considered trying to make my own content, using audio and maybe some combination of homemade videos and voki to explain the content and present questions, but this would have been a lot of work for me.

Besides the time that such an endeavor would take for me, I also had to ask myself what the student would be taking away from such an experience. It's great if she could actually learn about Economics, but wouldn't it be more beneficial for her to learn how to obtain information on her own. She isn't going to have someone to spend hours modifying sources of information into her preferred medium all the time. She needs to be able to read and listen.

I have strayed slightly from the main topic. Technology can provide valuable accommodations learners with special needs, but it should not replace more traditional ways of doing things. Students need to be able to listen to other people in order to perform well in the workplace. They need to be able to read in order to take control of their own learning. Otherwise, they will only have access to the limited content in other forms of media, which is extensive for sure, but will never surpass written expression.

Week 7: Brian Crosby's Classroom

Brian Crosby's presentation of his classroom was refreshing. A lot of the ideas we have explored this semester are exciting to me, but many seem so far out of reach. For instance, watching the video about the Project-Based Learning school in Minnesota was exciting. I have to admit I'm envious of the whole program. What an excellent way to learn! I wish I had gone to a high school like that, and I would love to be able to teach in that sort of environment, but I suspect that sort of environment would not work well for many students in the general population.


Crosby's classroom encourages students to be active learners but it provides a more rigid path than the PBL school in Minnesota. It is easy to see that Crosby's students are excited and involved in the curriculum and this undoubtedly results in learning. On the downside, because this version of project-based learning does not leave the planning to the students, it requires a great deal of preparation on the part of the teacher. Crosby is clearly a very dedicated teacher and willing to spend that time; he must also have the experience to build upon previous successes.


Many students, including nearly all of those with whom I have worked as a teacher at a school for students with special behavioral needs, require a fairly high degree of direction. In some cases, this is due to a lack of motivation, but in others it is an inability to maintain focus. When I taught Wood Shop, I had some students who needed step-by-step instructions. For instance, I could not simply tell them it was time to clean up, and expect them to actually put everything away. I had to say things like, "put your hammer and tape measure in the cart." Then, after they finished that I could give them another similar instruction. These are the students who benefit greatly from detailed checklists and I cannot imagine them surviving in an environment like the PBL school in Minnesota, however all these individuals (I am referring to actual students whom I have taught) would also do quite well with a project like the aerial mapping project in the video about Crosby's class. In short, Project-Based Learning must be geared toward the students.

Week 4: Diigo and Google Reader

Diigo

When I first heard about Diigo and Delicious, I didn't understand why people would want to share their bookmarks with anyone else. Even though I was aware of several Web 2.0 tools, I was still stuck in the Web 1.0 mentality, where the Internet was still primarily a place one goes to find information. I had always used bookmarks as shortcuts to my most commonly visited sites. It never occurred to me that bookmarking could be a social activity.

I started using Diigo about ten months ago after hearing about it at a workshop I went to for work. I was not impressed with it initially. I was expecting it to replace browser-based bookmarks, and it could, but really Diigo is more aptly characterized as a reference tool. During the Spring semester, I began using it with the students taking my Economics and World History classes. Many of them actually liked. It is very handy when conducting web-based research. It is easy to bookmark sites and because all of your bookmarks are stored online, students can access the sites they have saved on any computer. Additionally, tagging enables a person to easily organize content.

Diigo’s highlight feature makes it very easy to save quotes or take notes. You can even post notes to your bookmarks. All of this can be shared with the public or a select group of individuals. Diigo offers teachers the ability to create student accounts. This enables teachers to control how students share their content. I used Diigo with my classes for both individual and group work. Sometimes, I would bookmark something and highlight sections on which I wanted the students to comment. They could type their comments in Diigo and easily share with the entire class. For my own part, I use Diigo constantly to keep track of things I find on the internet. 

RSS

Google Reader is by far the most distracting web tool. It provides instant access to incoming feeds from any site of interest. Because the user subscribes to changes on the website, there is no need to navigate to the same website repeatedly to find out what is new, and it's harder to miss something. I mostly use Google Reader on my Android phone now. It’s very handy for keeping up to date with my favorite news sources. I especially like it on the phone because it gives me quick access to interesting content when I’m not able to get on a computer.

Week 3: DRM Denies Our Freedom of Choice

These days, I try to stay away from products and services that lock me in. When I sign-up to use a new web application, I want to know that I can export my data so I can switch services later if I choose. This is especially important to me when I am purchasing digital media. When I buy a music album, I should be able to play that album on the device I choose. Unfortunately, many of the largest digital media distributors do not agree. They use Digital Rights Management software to lock consumers into using their platform. 

Apple did this with songs from iTunes for many years until finally caving to pressure from consumer advocates who sued the company in 2005. Since 2009, Apple has been selling songs without DRM protection but videos are still afflicted with the restrictive software and users who purchased music before 2009 have to pay $0.30 per song to get clean copies of their music. The lawsuit is still pending (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20055155-37.html). 

I used to turn a blind eye to Apple's anti-consumer-rights behavior because I really dislike Windows, but over the years I grew more annoyed with the lack of choice that Apple affords its users and I decided to leave the Jobsian walled garden; I switched to Linux at the end of 2010. I still have about 300 songs that will only play in iTunes. 

When I switched to using Linux (I'll probably blog about that later), I began to notice how prevalent vendor lock-in really is because a lot of the software needed to use DRM-protected media is not available for Linux. Of course, there are plenty of Linux programs that are great for video, audio, and ebooks, but media vendors do not want you to use these programs; they want you to use their software and buy their devices (iPods, Kindles, etc.). Fortunately, some clever and dedicated developers have come up with ways to run a lot of Windows software in Linux, so now I can actually run Kindle for PC and Adobe Digital Editions in Linux, but I don’t really want to; I like Calibre better and I see no good reason why I should not be allowed to read the ebooks that I paid for in whatever program I choose.

Media vendors will tell you that DRM protection is needed to protect the artists and enforce copyright laws. This is nonsense. DRM protection does not stop piracy; it just makes things less convenient for consumers. Author J.K. Rowling refused to publish ebook versions of the Harry Potter series for several years, but illegal ebooks were made from the paper versions and sold or given away online nonetheless. Also, getting around DRM protection is not that difficult; it’s just annoying.

I recently searched around for a way to circumvent Kindle’s DRM so I could read my ebooks in Calibre. I did this only after reading an article about an appeals court ruling that declared circumvention of DRM to be legal when its purpose falls under fair use. Now, I have tried to figure out how the ruling exactly applies to my situation but I cannot make sense of all the legal lingo. All I intend to do with my ebooks is read them, and I am pretty sure that is fair use since after all that is why the authors published them and made them available for me to purchase. I have no intention of selling or redistributing the ebooks I have unscrambled. I suppose my wife might read some of them someday, but last I checked that was okay to do with a paper book. Should she be required to buy her own copy?

I am not any sort of technical administrator or software engineer, but the process I have to go through to unlock my books is probably too much for the average computer user. It is really NOT hard but most people will be happy to just buy one ebook reader or another and go on believing they must purchase their ebooks from that same company. People who buy Nooks, Sony Readers, and almost anything but the Kindle have a lot of options because most of those e-readers use Adobe Digital Editions for DRM, but these folks will not be able to use ebooks from Amazon, who has the largest selection. These are the people affected by DRM protection, not would-be pirates. Amazon must understand this and they are probably working on ways to improve their DRM protection so horrible people like me cannot read the books that we PAY for on anything but Kindle software, and consumers will keep buying Kindles instead of e-readers made the competition.

Week 3 - Virtual Learning Communities & Social Networking

In Connections: Virtual Learning Communities, Richard Schwier explains the important of building communities in which learning can take place. Whether in a virtual setting or tradition brick-and-mortar classroom, people learn best when they are able to explore new ideas collaboratively in a supportive community. Schwier outlines some of the advantages and disadvantages of a virtual learning community. 

On the one hand, virtual interactions fell less authentic because they are lacking some of the non-verbal queues we all use in face-to-face communication. While videoconferencing helps to make online conversations more real, there is no substitute for the physical immediacy and feelings associated with place that contribute so much to our interactions when we are present together.

This apparent disadvantage to virtual communication can also be an advantage. The technology that serves as a barrier to authentic communication can also help people feel protected. Schwier offers the example of a student more willing to question the positions of other students or even the professor when shielded by technology. Also, virtual communication affords students with a vastly greater potential to forge connections with people all over the world. This is the inherent advantage of a virtual learning community.

To that end, I anticipate more educators embracing social networking technology as a tool to help students network with people outside of their traditional communities. For children, there are privacy and security issues that will always require limiting their interactions with outsiders. For adult learners, it is easy to begin making connections with other people safely. Facebook is by far the most popular social network today. According to Facebook, there are 750 million users. That is over 10% of the world’s overall population and over 35% of internet users worldwide. With that many users, Facebook has an extraordinary potential to be the go-to place for people interested in extended their own personal learning networks, but in its current design, there are some limitations.

The biggest limitation that I see, is the way Facebook treats your “friends”. In the eyes of Facebook, all of your “friends” are the same. That is, you want to share everything with all of them. Facebook does let you share post with just individual people that you specify, but this feature is cumbersome at best. You have to select each individual person each time or have one group that you use repeatedly. While this may works to maintain an existing network it makes it hard to build a personal learning network. For my own part, I am reluctant to “friend” someone I meet through Facebook who might have similar professional and academic interests because I do not want to share my personal life with them as I would with the rest of my “friends”.

This is where I see Google Plus becoming the network of choice for people who wish to make connections with others on a more professional basis. At the same time, it will also serve people well who wish to stay in touch with their actual friends and family. Because Google Plus enables users to create “circles” of contacts, users can easily share content with the right audience. For instance, I have an Education Circle and a Technology Circle. When I share cute pictures of my dogs, I only share them with my Friends and Family circles. In this environment it is much easier to find people who share your interests and to network with them. I am much more willing to add people to my network when I know that I can easily share just the content I want to share with them.

I imagine other social networks, including Facebook, will adopt this approach. I hope educators recognize the potential of this new networking technology to build broader virtual learning communities. Some already do. You can meet them on Googe Plus.

Week Two: Initial Thought on Course

I think the biggest struggle I have with technology is explaining it to other people and convincing them to use it. For the past two years, I have been teaching at Granite Hill School in Newport, New Hampshire. It is a small school for students with special behavioral needs. This past September, I convinced the principal that we should begin using Google Calendar so we can keep everyone up to date. She liked the idea but getting people to actually use it is not easy. I gave all staff a quick training at the beginning of the semester but it was not enough. I think getting people (especially educators and other professionals who are used to doing things one way) to really appreciate and utilize new technologies takes a sustained effort.

I hope as we learn new tools in this course, we also learn how to make them useful to our colleagues who are not taking Computer Education courses and do not have the time for substantial amounts of training. I think as schools embrace technology and make it ubiquitous, they will need to provide ongoing professional development to help teachers use the technology.

My digital footprint consists mostly of my involvement on forums and other forms of online discussions. I use Diigo to share bookmarks with and learn from other educators, and I recently began using Google+ to network with others who are interested in Technology or Education. I have a few videos of YouTube, but most of them are from assignments I completed for school. I also use LinkedIn to connect with people I know professionally, and I have used Twitter as well.

About ten months ago I began reading about open source software and became very interested in its potential to make students' access to technology more equitable. I started using Linux and have now fully embraced open source software for all of my computing needs. Much of my KWL reflects my recent passion for open source technology.

Week 2: Thoughts on Chapter One

The first chapter is a justification for the book. The authors discuss how prevalent technology is already and present the notion that technology can transform the learning environment. They also discuss how technology can help learners think at higher levels.

In the section about 21^st century skills, the authors emphasize that learning how to use technology is an essential part of education. Students need to develop information technology literacy in order to become viable workers and productive citizens in an increasingly globalized and competitive world. This is just as important as learning to read and write. Students who are not educated in the use of technology are at an extreme disadvantage.

On the flip side, when teachers infuse technology into learning and instruction, they not only provide students with a chance to learn technology, they provide students with a better learning experience. Ubiquitous computing in the classroom contributes to a student-centered learning environment. Students have more opportunities to create and collaborate, and find a learning style that works for them. Lastly, computers help students learn how to continue learning, which should be the goal of every teacher.