Archive for April 14, 2006

Richard | April 27, 2006
2 comments

Link Request Spam

bathroom

You know those spam email messages requesting link exchanges? I received a good one today at my school account.

Hello,

I have found your website sfuhs.org by searching Google for “bathroom modern interior design”. I think our websites has a similar theme, so I have already added your link to my website.

A similar theme? There is actually a reason for this. Our school’s major fundraiser for financial aid is the Decorator Showcase, an event in which interior designers redecorate a local house and then we charge admission to tour it. For fun, I searched Google for “bathroom modern interior design.” Our site isn’t anywhere in the top five pages, so they must be spamming the whole result set to find us! Nonetheless, this was about the last email I expected to receive this morning.

Category: Social studies |
Richard | April 26, 2006
2 comments

New Tech Director Blogs

Back in November, I whined about the lack of school tech director blogs out there. I am pleased to report that two S.F. Bay Area tech directors have recently started their own blogs. Barbara Cohen of Marin Country Day School writes about using vendors for professional development, podcasting in elementary school, and using technology to show the process of learning. She has even started a separate blog for Daisy the Duck, a new arrival on their campus!

Duck Diaries blog

Howard Levin of the Urban School writes on behalf of students with visual processing disabilities, “authentic” uses of classroom technology, and Urban’s constructivist approach to student use of gaming and social network sites. Howard is a national leader in the fields of 1:1 student laptop computing and oral history on the web. Check out Telling Their Stories.

Thank you for your contributions!

Category: Blogging |
Richard | April 24, 2006
2 comments

Posting Audio Files to Moodle

moodle audio links

Our AP Language Spanish teachers are doing an assignment this week where the students listen to a variety of classic songs. This year, we have uploaded them into Moodle both as individual mp3 tracks and a .zip containing the entire set. This caters to students with different sets of listening technologies. Some students will listen to the files individually during free periods at school. Others will listen through broadband connections at home. Some enterprising students will transfer the files to their iPods. Others will be able to burn a CD of the entire set at school or ask the teacher to do it for them. This should cover the range of student needs for this assignment.

On the technical side, I ripped and converted the songs in iTunes and used the International English language pack for Windows to write the file names and track information with correct accent marks. Rather than use Moodle’s file upload feature, which is limited by the upload limit set in the PHP configuration script, I copied the files directly to our web server through the network. This is yet another advantage of hosting an internal web site on-site or having a dedicated media server. The different file type icons of Moodle are really helpful — even better than Plone’s. They even have an icon for zip files.

Category: Software/web |
Richard | April 24, 2006
No comments

Low-cost Township Computing Center

As a followup to Africans With iPods?, watch this short video about a community computing center in a South African township near Pretoria. Ndiyo, the “other” low-cost global computing initiative, has developed a Linux thin client, mobile phone-based technology for low-cost computing facilities in developing nations. This pilot project is both a business opportunity for the proprietor and a means to access for township residents.

Watch the video.

Ndiyo

Category: Hardware |
Richard | April 23, 2006
No comments

Organizing My Thoughts in Cmap

I have been planning for some time to start organizing my thoughts for July’s NECC presentation on our intranet development process. This also seemed like a good opportunity to try Cmap Tools for the first time (thanks, Miguel). What a success this was! Cmap is like Inspiration for grownups. It is exceptionally intuitive to use and runs smoothly on multiple platforms. Oh, yes, and it’s a free download. The tool is fantastic for visual processors like me who like to lay out ideas and then disconnect, rearrange, and reconnect them in better ways. I am going to make it part of our standard software install for students and teachers next year.

I put together the rough form of my presentation in about an hour. Though you can’t read the text from this far out, check out the structure that is so apparent.

Cmap wide view

Here’s a closeup of one section. Structure is apparent at this level, as well.

Cmap part

I need to check out the Internet-based sharing features of the tool. Cmap appears to share files in a similar manner to ChemSense. A file tree shows a hierarchy of public files on the Internet, and you are prompted to register a username and password during installation. This could be a great way to share concept maps among multiple users for a whole variety of purposes.

Category: Programming |
Richard | April 21, 2006
One comment

PowerPoint: The Blank Slide

Teachers periodically invite me into classes to give an introductory lesson on PowerPoint. Happily, I have been influenced by Presentation Zen, the leading blog on presentation techniques. The author repeatedly emphasizes principles of simplicity and clarity with, well, simplicity and clarity!

blank slide
Blank slide

Last week, I tried something new during my presentation: the blank slide. During most presentations I have seen, some slide is always on display. Even when the speaker elaborates or digresses for several minutes, audience members are distracted by some visual element not necessarily related to the point at hand. During my presentation to the kids, I put up a completely black slide, and something remarkable happened. Every student in the room stopped looking at the screen and looked squarely at me.

It makes sense. Once the slide has served its purpose of providing visual support to an idea, it should go away. I will make liberal use of this technique at NECC in July.

Now, wasn’t that better than showing you my slides?

Category: Software/desktop |
Richard | April 20, 2006
No comments

Too Much Spam

spam chart

Blue = blocked (rate control)
Red = blocked (spam)
Green = allowed

Our filter tells us that most of our incoming mail is spam. Though I am happy to have a spam appliance (from Barracuda), the overall increase in spam volume leads to a corresponding increase in false negatives. Users start receiving several spam messages each day, reminiscent of a few years ago when that is all the spam that existed. It is a shame that we have not been able to pass effective anti-spam legislation to thwart this problem.

Category: Server |
Richard | April 18, 2006
3 comments

Use Excel to Write SQL Queries

Microsoft Excel is a handy tool for creating text with repeating patterns. It is the only common tool I can think of that easily combines algebraic and text operations. For example, today I created a set of INSERT statements as follows. In column 1, I created a series of numbers from 6 to 49 using the formula

=A1+1

Then, in the second column,

="INSERT INTO `slots` SET `eventid`='2', `jobid`=" & A1 & ", `slots`='2'"

The result looks like this:

Excel screenshot

Now it’s an easy copy/paste into phpMyAdmin‘s SQL query window, and the task is complete. I find this a lot faster than writing a short script to accomplish the same task.

Category: Programming |
Richard | April 17, 2006
No comments

CompuMentor On the Move

CompuMentor, the San Francisco organization that supports the technology needs of non-profits, has come across my radar today with two innovative programs. It’s only too bad that they scaled back their school support services a few years ago.

April 19-20: Using online social networks for non-profits and community-based organizations. This is an online, asychronous event. Web site.

We all love social networking applications like Friendster, Tribe, Linked in, My Space and Frappr; however, many of us have little time to use these in our personal lives, let alone to create an organizational profile for our nonprofit. Is there a use for social networking applications in the nonprofit workplace?

CompuMentor is also seeking applicants for a study of the effectiveness of refurbished computer labs. It’s high time we had some data to either support or refute the widespread practice of computer donations to nonprofits and schools. I wonder whether they are going to go with Linux in order to maximize the power of the equipment? Application.

During the spring and summer of 2006 CompuMentor will choose two San Francisco based nonprofit programs that either want a lab of up to 20 computers – or who want to add computers to an existing lab. This San Francisco Department of Environment (http://www.sfenvironment.com) sponsored program will test how well refurbished computer equipment works in a high use lab setting. Most computer equipment, software, and installation labor will be provided at no cost.

This isn’t a CompuMentor event, but the Eastmont Computing Center is having an eighth anniversary celebration. I had a good experience teaching a service learning class to sophomores two years in a row, in which we studied and visited community technology centers. It was an eye-opener for most of the students to a public resource they did not know existed.

Category: Social studies |
Richard | April 14, 2006
2 comments

Maru-a-Pula: Preliminary Recommendations

Since Maru-a-Pula is now on holiday, I will take the next couple of weeks to write my final report on my visit. Here are some of the recommendations I plan to make, in rough order of priority.

1. Finish networking the academic part of the campus.

2. Redistribute former lab computers to department offices and classrooms as requested.

3. Follow a sustainable system replacement schedule

4. Renegotiate external support contract to focus on occasional, highly technical support rather than daily, routine support tasks.

5. Build new school web site aimed at prospective and current families.

6. Share student technology self-assessment results with staff.

7. Install and configure new servers.

8. Continue to improve Internet bandwidth.

9. Provide staff training for a variety of tech skills

10. Provide a data projector to each department that wants one.

11. Provide 3-5 laptops to staff each year based on a competitive application process

12. Launch school intranet web site to host a simple CMS, such as Moodle.

13. Upgrade clients in two remaining computers labs and library, including at least one Mac/Win dual-boot facility.

14. Extend campus network to staff housing on campus.

15. Redesign forms 2-3 curriculum to replace tech classes with technology projects integrated into other subject classes

Category: Strategic Planning |
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