I wanted this ...



... but I got this.



Oh, well! Technical comparison coming soon ...

BAISnet is the Bay Area Independent Schools Network, a very active community of education technology professionals in the San Francisco Bay Area. One member recently asked the question, "what are today's killer apps?" The responses included some items I would like to explore for the first time.

iStopMotion, for simple animation and slow motion

ComicLife, for easy portfolio and digital yearbook creation

Tinkerplots, for representing information visually

Scratch, for programming in the early years

We have just discovered that 17 of the 21 eMac computers in our lower school lab suffer from a fatal flaw in the eMac. A capacitor on the system board leaks brown fluid, causing the machine to crash regularly. We began to suspect that something was up when two, then four, then six, then more eMacs began exhibiting similar crashing patterns. Now, Apple has opened 17 cases from us, and we will soon find out how long this computer lab is going to be out of commission. This is apparently common in eMac machines manufactured during the summer of 2004.

This underscores the risk of buying the least expensive computer in a product line. Computer manufacturers use the least expensive components in budget computers, leading to a risky situation in which system failure is more likely to happen. It makes the cost of a budget machine higher than it might appear. Some makes and models succeed at this price point, but buying there is always risky.

It appears that Apple acknowledged the problem and introduced a "repair extension program" in June 2006. Too bad that it's not a recall, and you have to wait until your machine seizes up to get service. With 17 of 21 machines in our lab up for service, it appears that they are all bound to get there eventually. We also hear that the replacement parts are heavily backordered!

On the web: CNet | MacFixIt | Apple | Wikipedia

Update

AppleCare has arranged to replace our dying computers with 2005 eMacs! That is great news for us and speaks positively to Apple's customer service. I still think that Apple should issue a recall. All of our 2004 eMacs became unusable only two years after purchase. Surely this suggests that Apple should make a greater effort to reach out to owners of these machines and notify them of the problem. Imagine the users who think that only they have the problem!

Update #2

Turns out that Apple ran out of 2005 eMacs but did come up with replacement logic boards two weeks after the request was made. A local Apple service center came out and replaced 20 logic boards in five hours -- not bad! Our eMac lab is running perfectly again, though we are still sore over the experience.

I provide a fair bit of technology advice and web site support to Maru-a-Pula School in Botswana, at which I taught in the 90's. My latest adventure is helping them improve their alumni/fundraising effort through the acquisition of fundraising software and development of a new alumni web site.

Today, I did a little research on fundraising software options. I found three articles helpful in this regard:

Selecting Fundraising Software

Inexpensive Donor Databases

Forum discussion: Raiser's Edge

In addition, I visited the web sites of a number of inexpensive fundraising products and marked ones that looked promising to me. I don't have direct experience with any of these. Do you?

Exceed! Basic ($499 MSRP, $299 at TechSoup)

GiftWorks ($35 at TechSoup)

eBase (Mac/Win, free software, fee-for-service costs, runs on FileMaker
Server)

Nonprofitbooks ($1,000)

Fund Raiser Select ($1,500)

Please let me know if you have experience with any of these or know people who do!

We regularly wipe and reinstall software on student laptop computers, but we do not copy music collections as a matter of policy. We believe that most students have illegal copies of music files on their family-owned computers, and we should not knowingly store such files on our servers or pass them through our network. While this causes a headache for many students (who has 20GB free on another computer to back up their music?), it's our current policy and practice.

iPod copy utilities make this transition easier. If a student has a copy of their music collection on their iPod, they can copy it back to the computer after the imaging work is complete. I haven't use them before, but here are three popular utilities for mac that I found online. One is cross-platform. Another one is free. Does anyone have experience with these in order to know which is best?

iPodRip

PodUtil

Yamipod

It's too bad that Apple's policies make it difficult for some users to perform legitimate file backup operations, in an attempt to block illegal file copying.

An article about intranet web 2.0 tools by Miguel Guhlin led me to phpMyFAQ, which fills I need I have been thinking about for a while. I want a way to catalog tech tips and answers to frequently asked questions, but this piece of software adds an important component: user additions and revision tracking. This could allow the entire Catlin Gabel community to maintain a knowledgebase of technical knowledge so that individuals improve their knowledge and self-sufficiency over time.

Features:
* Various supported database systems:
You can use MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, Sybase, MS SQL Server, MaxDB, IBM DB2, IBM Cloudscape, or Apache Derby.
* LDAP integration:
Add your company's LDAP based user management into phpMyFAQ
* Content Management System:
You can administrate your users, news, themes, categories and records in the password protected admin area.
* User Administration:
Selected users can edit and administrate records.
* Record Administration:
Your users can write new records, the administrator has to unlock the record. The admin can also edit the record, move into a another category or delete the record.
* WYSIWYG editor:
Write your articles like you do in OpenOffice.org or Word.
* Image Manager:
The Image Manager provides an web interface to browse for image files (JPEG, PNG, GIF, and others) on the web server.
* News Administration:
Write news that appear on the FAQ mainpage.
* Revision system:
Store the old entries in wiki-like revisions.
* User-Tracking:
Analyze the way of your users through your FAQ.
* User-Voting:
With the voting of the users you can analyze the quality of your records.
* Top 10:
You'll get a Top 10 with ten of the most popular records.
* Language files:
phpMyFAQ supports more than 30 languages including Arabic, Chinese and Vietnamese.
* Multilanguage support:
Write records in different languages.
* Search engine optimization:
Support for Apache mod_rewrite, IIS ISAPI_rewrite, and lighttpd mod_rewrite
* Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 search plugin support:
Search through your FAQ using the internal Firefox or IE7 search
* Sitemap:
Lists all FAQ articles in a alphabetical order
* Template system:
Custimize your FAQ to your webdesign.
* Simple installation and configuration:
Install and set up your FAQ only with your browser!
* 5 different views for records:
XHTML, printer optimized XHTML, PDF, DocBook XML and plain XML
* Spam protection:
phpMyFAQ uses captchas, bad word lists and IP ban lists to prevent spam.
* XML-RPC interface:
Support for searching over the internet.
* Backup:
Export and import from SQL tables
* Community module:
Users can write questions to the system, so that other user can answer these questions.
* Send2Friend:
User can send records up to five friends with email.
* PHP 5.x ready
phpMyFAQ 1.6.x works with PHP 5.x

I am catching up on the flagged items in my blog reading. Here are some items that got me thinking.

Is a Computer Like a Bicycle? (Presentation Zen)

Do elementary students in laptop programs use them to improve higher-order thinking skills? Only if they are taught how. Lesson #1: avoid software that constrains you into a particular way of thinking. Good software "gets out of the way" and equips you to think creatively within a powerful environment.

Is there a community with this text? Building a new view of teaching and community. (Christopher Sessums)

Should learners take charge of their own learning through social software? Students could build their own information sources from collections of conversations with peers and research sources within an electronic environment.

Exploring Wikis in Education with Vicki Davis and Adam Frey (Steve Hargadon)

On a similar note, Hargardon summarizes the advantages of wikis in education. Does a wiki echo the business model of "continuous improvement?" What if students began the year with a wiki and improved it little by little over the course of the year until the document was at its best at the end of the course?

Vocab Daydreams (Bill Fitzerald)

Fitzgerald outlines different ways to use the web to construct meaningful vocabulary exercises for students. This reminds me of a site I built for UHS in which students wrote up vocabulary definitions and uses for homework, teachers marked some as exemplary, and then students reviewed the marked ones for vocab quizzes. So, it''s not magic, but it did work for four years.

Yes, working in a K-12 school is very different from working in a 9-12. The biggest difference is that the K-12 has different divisions, almost as if I am dealing with four different schools in one. Case in point: upon arrival, I was asked to provide academic technology advice to teachers in the upper school. I just assumed that this would be wanted in the middle school as well, but there I found that the middle school computer teacher was already filling that role! Why the difference? For one, the middle school computer teacher provides core skill instruction: spreadsheet, presentation tools, and others. The upper school computer teacher offers classes only in programming. He really is not in a position to advise a modern language or science teacher how to use technology in their classes! Another reason would just be accidents of circumstance. As individuals grow into their roles over time, they carve out niches. Luckily, the arrival of a new staff member such as me provides an opportunity to assess and fill those gaps.

I recently bought a wide screen CTL display for my MacBook Pro, in order to be kind to my neck while also keeping the same aspect ratio as my built-in display. I accepted Nancy's recommendation of CTL as the price for this budget display was just over $200! Upon first use, I was dismayed to discover that the image quality was muddy and feared that I might have bought too low on the display food chain. However, the Apple display calibration tool saved me. It turns out that the display was calibrated to a PC gamma standard -- the Mac standard (or better yet, a custom value) makes it look normal again. The image doesn't look as great as an Apple studio display, but hey, it's one-third the cost! The assistant is available in System Preferences -> Display -> Color -> Calibrate.

OETC is now offering free Moodle hosting, which appears to be a hassle-free way for just about any school in Oregon to get started with Moodle. One superior aspect of free, open-source software compared to proprietary, expensive solutions is that getting started is very low risk. At no cost to the school, and now with no install time, one can set up Moodle for a school.

OETC is working to expand our service offerings for our members and today we are excited to announce that we now have free Moodle hosting up to 200 MB available to members!

What is Moodle?
Moodle is a course management system based on pedagogical principles. Teachers and staff can use it to create online courses and/or facilitate meetings and groups online.

o Your own Moodle can be created automatically in minutes
o Members will receive your own domain name (yoursite.eduhost.org)
o What if I want more than 200MB? Accounts can be expanded from 200MB
to 2GB each, by making arrangements with OETC. (Accounts larger than 200MB will incur a fee.)

How Do Members Sign Up?
OETC members may sign-up online by going to http://www.eduhost.org and clicking "Sign Up" in the upper right-hand corner of the main page. The
web site will walk you through setting up your own domain name and activating your new Moodle account. If you have any questions or would like to discuss setting up a larger account, please contact Jake Rosenbalm at OETC at jake@oetc.org or 503.694.4499.

At the start of the year, dozens of users come through our office with small computer issues. They need to clear a bad printer job, restore network access, install a new toner cartridge, fix access to mail, update their operating system, and so on. Most students prefer to resolve the problem quickly and get back to work (or play). However, a teaching opportunity usually presents itself, one that may build the student's capacity to resolve the problem herself in the future. I usually opt to take a little time to teach the student the cause of the problem and the steps needed to resolve it. However, many times the student's eyes glaze over -- he would rather just get the solution and move on.

A similar problem exists with regard to backing up files and preventive maintenance (software patches, antivirus definitions, and adware/spyware scans). Some users perform these tasks diligently. Others never perform them. The tech team has to decide how much of this to require in some manner or actually perform for users. We do not want the poor habits of a few users to drag the entire network down for all users! Up to this year, we have required all laptop users to give us their computers for a few days, and we perform the updates and scans ourselves -- clearly an enabling practice for many users. This year, we have taken a small step toward increased user responsibility by installing a Cisco CleanAccess network device that blocks a user from accessing network resources if she is not up to date with the latest patches and defs. Of course, there is a small convenience and performance hit associated with this device, so its use is not ideal. However, it may strike the right balance between protecting our network and building user responsibility for the integrity of their own systems.

The hard road to self-sufficiency is to do less hand-holding in certain cases. If users adopt an overly service-oriented approach to tech staff, then we sometimes simply refuse to resolve the problem ourselves and instead teach a solution that they may implement themselves. I wish there were an easier way to teach this lesson, but it sometimes is necessary to remind users of their responsibility to learn more about the computer system that they are using. Sometimes, one must work delicatly to avoid pissing off a user who has a frustrating problem that needs attention.

Sometimes, users conceive of the tech team as a service center that exists solely to fix problems. We prefer to think of ourselves as builders of systems and trainers of users. We create the capacity to get things done both in terms of the capabilities of our systems and the knowledge of our users. As school technology programs grow larger, it becomes impossible for a handful of tech professionals to resolve every problem that occurs on campus, nor is it consistent with our educational mission to do so. Students use their computers off-campus, during the summer, and in college. They should learn to manage their equipment while with us in secondary school.

Students and adults often hold another interesting misconception that confounds this issue: that computers behave in a predictable, rational manner. I am often asked, "will this solve the problem every time?" or even "why did this happen?" Most often, we don't know the answers. We resolve many problems through trial-and-error and workarounds. Sometimes, this characterizes our entire approach to the field. I am not sure what is the best way to teach against this misconception that computers are orderly, but it throws many users for a loop.

I hope that increased communication with users will help build a road to self-sufficiency. After all, tech professionals typically consult external documentation on a regular basis to solve unusual problems. I am probably going to start a department blog or Moodle site as I did at UHS in order to keep the user community abreast of tips and important changes on our network. I would also like to try building a school tech knowledgebase for the first time -- install good knowledgebase software and take user submissions to help build a library of commonly-encountered problems and step-by-step solutions. It would be great to direct users to this resource and build a habit of checking documentation before asking for help.

The launch of Moodle as a new online community tool at Catlin Gabel is well underway. What pleases me the most is that the faculty and staff are showing an appropriate amount of enthusiasm for this new tool at this early point in the school year. In each division, a number of early adopters have jumped at the opportunity to give Moodle a try, a larger number have decided to wait and see what others do with the tool, and some have no desire to start at this point. The following chart shows a neat curve of activity from the most-used to least-used courses. I will follow this activity report closely as students begin to add to the hit totals.



This reflects a wonderful balance at this point. The small crew of early adopters will be able to roll with the kinks (as we work them out) and lack of clarity (as we refine our training approach). For them, taking advantage of new capabilities will likely outweigh any frustrations experienced from using a brand-new Moodle installation. Leading the way are the modern language teachers, who are excited by many features of Moodle: requiring users to use a foreign language interface, the ability for teachers and students to post audio files, and the facility to create links to many online resources from other countries.



As I noted before, I am hopeful that Moodle can serve as a general-purpose community web site tool for a wide range of school groups: classes, clubs, teams, and faculty. Under the leadership of Andrew Merrill, the Upper School Faculty page has taken off, and its use practically required due as it now hosts links to attendance and directory files that every upper school teacher uses. The girls volleyball coach has started a page and apparently directed her team members to it, as the access logs attest. The lower school librarian would like to experiment with a page. The outdoor education teacher is excited by the ability to post permission forms in addition to trip schedules, reports, and photo galleries.

Lower school technology integration is a new field for me. I presented Moodle to them for the first time today and was excited to find several points of resonance. Some teachers were interested in posting lesson and homework materials for students. However, the possibility of posting student work for parents to view was perhaps even more warmly accepted. It is currently common for teachers to print reams of student work or burn CDs -- posting the work online could simplify and broaden access and save trees and time in the process. The lower school is especially interested in electronic portfolios, though they want the portfolios to span multiple years of a student's work rather than being limited to one grade. This suggests that an individual-centric application like Elgg may meet this need better than a course-centric application like Moodle.

Two ideas that have nothing to do with Moodle also show a lot of promise in the Catlin middle school. First, Jordan showed me an application called Comic Life that comes preinstalled on some recent Macs. This allows a user to quickly pull images from one's iPhoto library, arrange them in a comic book template, and add text callouts! Quick and fun storyboard! I also shared the KQED Digital Storytelling Initiative as a way for students to produce digital movies without the time and effort of editing digital video.

Paul M. has organized a number of Catlin employees to participate in this month's Bike Commute Challenge. The school's objective is to bike as many commute trips as possible. The organization is attempting to increase the number of bike commuters and raise awareness as well. One cool aspect is their nifty web site, which makes it easy to track commute trips by person and organization. My goal is to bike to work every day in September.

After much deliberation, we have decided to abandon implementation of Blackbaud's NetCommunity product. Over the past year, my colleagues put in a tremendous amount of time and effort to get NetCommunity working to our satisfaction. Much of the hangup was caused by poor control over template design. It was impossible to get NetCommunity to look like the rest of our web site, despite paying Blackbaud to help and carefully examining the dozens of available style sheet modification screens. Another issue was that the web front-end is not attractively designed. For example, directory entries appear in widely spaced columns, with the list sorted by last names but only the first names linked. Finally, NetCommunity does not have career networking capabilities, which are important to us.

We realized that we would get to launch more quickly and present a better interface to our community if I migrated the alumni script I wrote for University High School to the Catlin Gabel web site. My script does the job, is free, uses a single template file, and has more of the features we want. The main advantage of NetCommunity all along was trouble-free import into Raiser's Edge. Now with our alumni director's experience importing data into Raiser's Edge and my experience creating custom web site export files, this is no longer such a great advantage over other options.

Here is an advertisement for NetCommunity from Blackbaud's web site:



Ha ha! Don't you have better ways to spend your time than defeating my critical commentary?

The text underscores a missing piece in Blackbaud's web strategy. Getting data into your database does not by itself lead to a closer relationship with alumni. Instead, turn the equation around and evaluate the web site experience from the alum's point of view. As an alum visiting a web site, what is there of interest? What would motivate you to visit this web site more often? What tangible benefits can this web site provide you? A stronger sense of belonging to a community of former and current teachers and students? A referral to an individual who could help you get a job? A lead on an ultimate frisbee get-together this weekend? A description of what has changed since you left the school, and perhaps more importantly, what hasn't?

Before you ask me for a copy of my alumni web site script, note that it is a lot easier to create a web script for one institution than it is to create it for many. Part of the complication of Blackbaud's product comes from the goal they have to build one alumni web site community tool that will work for a wide variety of schools with different needs. They also cannot consider all the other available resources within the school. For example, we already process credit card transactions manually. We therefore do not need to pay additional service charges to process transactions online. I have already written separate volunteer and event registration scripts. We therefore do not need to duplicate these features in our alumni web site tool. I have found it easier to provide interesting people with attendance or volunteer scripts than with larger, more heavily featured online community scripts such as this alumni tool.

On the technical side, my first objective is to test MSSQL queries using the read-only user that is automatically created during the Blackbaud install process. Limiting this user to only the necessary database tables is a good first step for ensuring data security in our web site. Luckily, I also have a crew of talented web hackers who will test the integrity of our site!

Ultimately, adopting my free, custom tool gives us the flexibility to consider more broadly what we would like to provide to our alumni community. One desirable feature missing from many alumni web site tools is a social networking component. Starting from career networking, we need to develop more ways for alumni with similar interests to get in touch with each other. This could involve using some input fields to create a tag taxonomy and then allow users to search on it. This year, we will undertake consideration of what features would really excite alumni and get them to come to our site more often. It's going to be a fun process!

It also helps enormously that we will stop paying $6,000 a year in license maintenance and support costs and free ourselves from Blackbaud's preferred feature set.

Environmental sustainability was the focus of a faculty/staff discussion on the first day of meetings. Small groups of employees were asked to brainstorm ways to move toward the ultimate goal of a 100% environmentally sustainable campus. Much of the discussion was provided by Mike of the grounds crew, who explained his department's initiatives in plant cultivation, re-use of wooded material, composting, and recycling.

Toward the end of his explanation, Mike hit the nail on the head regarding the balance between services provided and sustainability. Given the amount of water required to maintain grassed lawns even during the summer when school is out of session, would the school community support an initiative to plant water-conserving, indigenous plants instead?

The same argument applies to computer technologies. We provide 600 computers to about 900 users. Each teaching faculty member and upper school student receives his or her own laptop computer. We set up and configure dozens of servers and network devices to provide the highest quality of computer access possible within the school's generous constraints.

Most computers we purchase have two or three lives within the school. Some have four or five. New computers typically go to the most intensive users. When they provide insufficient capacity or speed for these users, then they cascade down toward other users with less intensive computing requirements. The few computers that are actually not of use to anyone within the school go to Rummage, our annual sale of used goods, thereby finding yet another life elsewhere. Our facilities department sends computers that no longer function to FreeGeek, a refurbishing and recycling center. In the best of cases, the machines are used by those learning computer repair skills, brought back to life, and then distributed to deserving organization and individuals. Other equipment is properly recycled, so that their raw materials can be re-used and toxics put in a safe place.

Our school community expects and enjoys a high level of computing operation. Should we purchase fewer machines in the name of environmental sustainability? What impact do the faculty and student laptop programs have on the environment? Do the benefits of these programs outweigh the costs? Probably yet, but it is worth considering the question.

Aside from scaling back our program, what else can the Catlin Gabel technology program do to practice better environmental stewardship? Instead of sending broken machines to another computer refurbishing center, we could launch our own. Catlin students could bring discard machines back to working order and donate them to people or organizations that need them. One teacher would like us to make duplex printing the standard across campus. We could make a stronger effort to replace paper distribution with electronic communication. We could replace more CRT displays with lower energy-consumption LCDs (is it worth the resulting generation of waste?). We could implement printing quotas or at least provide users with printer volume feedback.

Wouldn't it be great if a computer manufacturer produced a "green" computer? It could use fewer toxic materials than other computers. The case and other components could be made from recycled materials. It could use slightly older, more universally available components so that there was a larger stock to draw from. It could draw less energy than it peer machines. It could come with instructions for disassembly and proper disposal (I am reminded of the HP return address labels that ship with every printer cartridge).

How do you handle the conflict between high-end technology use and the subsequent generation of computer waste? What is your tech department doing to make its practices more environmentally friendly?