I continue to wonder at the gulf between the needs of our student laptop program and Apple's recent laptop releases. No kidding, they have won the heart of our kids, what with 80% of incoming ninth grade students choosing Mac over Lenovo both this year and last. At the same time, we have seen hardware repairs go way up, as kids drop the Macs, and they crack, dent, and break. I am a solid Apple enthusiast, but I also run a school technology program with pretty reasonable needs.

In recent years, we have cautioned parents and students away from the Aluminum MacBook Pro. Aluminum is a soft metal (it makes great foil and not so good jewelry). Most of our students (and teachers) who have the aluminum laptop have suffered dents and warps, some of which have increased stress on internal components and caused them to fail.

Now we have no plastic Mac to sell (at least once Apple's inventory of white MacBook is exhausted). I recognize that the new aluminum case is cut from a solid piece of aluminum, but how will it withstand impacts? Will it still dent and ding? Will the hard drive, located right at the corner, take the brunt of the blow? I want to see crash test ratings!

The new glass screen face is another point of concern. We already experience cracked plastic screens, and now it's covered by a layer of glass?



Let me be clear. This is not our students' fault, but their families get to foot the bill. If I had to move my computer from room to room ten times a day, mine would probably also get dropped or stepped on as well. Congrats to Apple for producing a machine likely to win the hearts of home users, graphic designers, and college students. That's not enough for our students. We need toughness, too. Why won't Apple produce a school-appropriate laptop?

Our "Mac tax" is currently $300. Families pay that much more to purchase a MacBook compared to a similarly equipped ThinkPad T61. The ThinkPad is more solid and comes with both a four-year warranty and accidental damage protection for the price. For the MacBook we start with a higher base price, pay a premium to get a four-year warranty that you can't buy in stores, and then charge another fee to fund a limited, school-sponsored accidental damage protection program.

As the economy tightens, families are not going to accept this different much longer. We may end up with two tiers of laptop purchase, a Mac for those who can afford it, and a ThinkPad for those who want a tough machine for the money. I'm glad that my son is only in first grade.

tags: macbook, thinkpad, laptopprogram, onetoone

Here's a shot of the Mahlum Architects offices, where I am waiting for our 9:00 meeting for the Catlin Gabel Creative Arts
Center. Note the central tables for discussion and sharing documents. The staff rearrange themselves periodically so that architects sit with their project teams.

Today, we take planning for data and audiovisual support to the next level. We are seeking to plan for future capacity without exceeding the budget, include flexible audiovisual solutions for classroom and gallery space, and ensure sufficient power everywhere for the laptop program.

To start the project, we will need to meet specific fundraising goals this year.

The Flip Mino has the potential to be useful in our school, especially for students creating work for immediate review or sharing. The Flip seems highly compatible with efforts to encourage student construction of knowledge, visual literacy, and multiple forms of representation. I can see teachers and students using these devices to practice foreign language recitation, interview subjects for a variety of purposes, and gather material for oral history projects. I can imagine huge impact during our international trips. With a portable digital video recorder, students could turn their view outward, collecting sounds, scenes, and interviewing people to include in a presentation or learning portfolio upon their return. Multimedia art students should have a blast with the devices.

The device is small enough to take along anywhere and starts up quickly. User controls are simple, especially the big red record button in the middle. The price ($145 at Amazon) is twice that of a small digital audio recorder, about right in my opinion to gain video in such a small device.

The Flip has the potential to remove barriers to using video in classes, as the Olympus WSM-300 did for us with audio this past year. The relatively low cost makes it possible to put devices in the hands of students more often. The small size makes it easy to carry a device off-site or package a class set. You can keep the camera on you more often, since it slips into a pocket.

One huge key is the USB mass storage feature. Like the Olympus audio recorders, USB connectivity is built into the device. This eliminates the most time-consuming step in conventional video capture -- transferring footage from camera to computer. Now, one can transfer footage as a simple file copy or using The Flip's proprietary software. Each Flip comes with its own software installer on the device. If you want more control and flexibility, open the INSTALL folder and run the 3ivx installer. You will gain the ability for QuickTime Player (Mac) to open these compressed AVI files. An open-source decoder also exists.

In my one-day test, 2GB storage was more than adequate. I shot here and there during a three hour visit to the amusement park -- 25 short clips in total -- and only used 500MB.

For some reason, converting the files from compressed AVI to MOV. I am not sure whether the problem lies in the AVI conversion, the special compressed format that the Flip uses, or my slow G4 Mac!

The Flip software offers buttons to quickly post video to YouTube and other video web sites. I haven't yet tried them, but this could be a way to quickly get a movie into FLV format for the web.

For a $170 video recorder, the quality is excellent. A couple of weak points are the audio levels and zoom. In my single day of use, I found the audio pickup a tad weak, though it should be fine for interviews and other classroom applications. I also found the image too fuzzy at 4x zoom -- it may be digitally enhanced.

I wish that the Flip had multiple folders for organizing stored clips, in the manner that the Olympus digital audio recorders do. Then, two students could share one device but keep their work separate.

Flip makes less expensive video recording devices, but only the Mino has a rechargeable battery. I would like to avoid the impact of disposable batteries, even though a dead rechargeable device will then be useless for the remainder of that period. Now I need to seek a device to charge a dozen USB devices at once.

How long before this level of video recording is a standard feature on cell phones, in the way that still cameras have recently become?

Here is a sample I shot today at full size and converted from 3IVX to QuickTime H.264 at 1000kb/s in order to retain as much as possible the quality of the original shot. Or, you can download the 3ivx version directly.



tags: video, flip

Reading edutech blogs, one might think that the iPhone is the only mobile platform out there. As a happy BlackBerry user, I have resisted the urge to try out what is apparently the greatest device ever. Nonetheless, running a school tech department, I felt an obligation to at least try one out. Fortunately, we came into a free iPod Touch as a result of our annual, huge order from Apple.



Before you get too excited, let me state for the record that the iPhone is a more capable device than the Blackberry. It can do more (and do it better). Its graphics are superior, the screen is larger, and the glass keyboard isn't as bad as I thought it would be. The camera shoots better pictures, and you can watch TV shows on it. RSS and Twitter text is more readable and easier to navigate.

Now that we have got that out of the way (phew!), let us consider a different question. What functions do I need in my mobile device?

On my Blackberry, I run:

1. Phone
   
2. Mail
   
3. Calendar
   
4. Address book
   
5. Notes
   
6. Tasks
   
7. GMail for a hosted domain
   
8. Google Maps
   
9. TwitterBerry
   
10. Facebook
    
11. Google News
    
12. NewsGator Reader (RSS)
    
13. Opera web browser
    
14. Camera

In other words, I can interact with practically all of my information sources from this device. I can blog, twit, photo, and so on. I can pay attention to either work or personal mail, depending on the day of the week. I suppose I could play music, but ever since I shortened my commute to 5 min, I don't need to. When consuming information, I prefer text to audio and video, or at most a page of text supplemented with other media.

I paid $0 for the Pearl with a new AT&T service contract.

Adding the handheld to our school BlackBerry Enterprise Server took about 5 minutes.

I recharge the battery every other day.

To download new BlackBerry applications, I typically just Google what I want and download it from the manufacturer's web site (i.e., like any other download). Click Install, and I've got the application.

iPod Touch

I spent about 20 minutes trying to determine whether I could avoid registering the product with Apple and still download the 2.0 software update. I could not.

$9.95 for the software update for a device we just purchased? I couldn't just pay the fee and download the software. I also had to create an iTunes Store account in order to pay the fee.

Applications are only available through Apple. That seems scary. Every installation requires my iTunes password, even for free products. Why?

Apple says that they now fully support mail for Exchange servers. Except that it doesn't work for me. Microsoft Entourage can access our Exchange server great through HTTP. Why can't this iPod?

If I want push email, we have to install an Exchange ActiveSync server. I doubt this is as simple as Apple's diagram might suggest.



Let's focus on teaching and learning

It's easy to get seduced by all the gadgetry out there, but this takes time away from our main purpose of building capacity to support teaching and learning. I'll stick with the BlackBerry (for now).


tags: iphone, ipodtouch, ipod, blackberry, pearl

I got my hands on two mini laptops at ACPE this week, the CTL 2go PC and the HP 2133 Mini Note PC. Along the same lines as the ASUS eeePC and the XO, they promise to provide a low-cost device that is suitable for basic classroom use. The HP appears to be just a low-cost version of a regular laptop, whereas the CTL 2go sports a carrying handle and rugged case. The 2go is also less expensive: $379 for the Linux version. The HP keyboard is nearly normal size, whereas the 2go has small keys. While I am sure that these fit kids' fingers just fine, will they have any difficulty adjusting from full-size and small keyboard formats?

Although both models offer a Windows option, I can't believe that the computers would remain useful for more than a couple of years running Windows XP on an underpowered processor. With Linux, we would have to learn to manage Linux on the desktop for the first time, but the machines would likely last longer. We would also have the opportunity to choose a Linux distribution with a super kid-friendly user interface. We will evaluate and purchase a handful of these devices next year with an eye to purchasing classroom units by next summer. I would like to hear your experiences with inexpensive, classroom laptops.

tags: ulcpc, acpe08

I have learned that wireless access points don't die -- they degrade. Both at school and at home, WAPs become flaky in their old age, so that the wireless network exhibits problems easy to attribute to other issues such as channel conflict. I just upgraded our wireless access point at home after weeks of "a wireless error occurred" messages from our Macs. Thankfully, the new one has made our access point happier again, even though the marketing "RangePlus" gimmick still does not allow wireless to reach all the way to the bedroom (must be a PC thing). Our new AP: Linksys WRT100. The old, which served us well for years: Netgear WGT624. I also went a step further with wireless security this time, using WPA instead of WEP, locking down admin access to wired computers only, and only allowing known MACs online. I wonder whether manufacturers are actually pushing people away from WEP, since I couldn't quite get how to correctly configure encrypted WEP keys. If we ever have a 802.11n device in the house, this device is apparently compatible.

tags: wireless, 802.11g

Who do you believe?

E-Cycle Environmental

E-Cycle Environmental practices a no re-sell policy of any of the electronics we process through our organization, regardless of functionality. Obsolete electronics have no place in the modern economy for numerous reasons:

-Very few organizations will except donations
-Computers only a couple of years old are obsolete
-Companies can invest in new electronics for minimal cost
-Used electronics are usually very unreliable
-Obsolete electronics take up valuable square footage
-Obsolete electronics are tremendous liabilities

FreeGeek

FREE GEEK receives donated used computers and refurbishes them with care. They are then "adopted out" to volunteers in exchange for 24 hours of service in our recycling facility. We call this the "adoption program," and anyone willing to come down and work is eligible to join us and adopt a machine. The computer systems we create, called FreekBoxes, are loaded with the GNU/Linux operating system and other Free Software.

Any computer equipment, working or not, can be donated to FREE GEEK; we will repair and reuse what computers we can. Non-functioning computers and scrap will be recycled responsibly. Computers that are deemed obsolete or broken are demanufactured and separated into their basic components. FREE GEEK then finds a local industrial recycler to process the materials.


tags: ewaste, recycle

Apple has done it again. They join the ultraportable laptop party ten years late and still manage to leapfrog the competition in a single bound. Could this device take off in schools? Let's take a look.

I love the LED screen concept. Less energy consumption + no mercury or arsenic = longer battery life and less hazardous waste. I'm glad to see serious innovation in screen technology reach a mainstream laptop. Same for the solid-state hard drive. Though it's too expensive to become a popular choice, it's a sign of further innovation to follow. Neither innovation is likely to change school adoption dramatically, unless we start offering only models that meet certain sustainability benchmarks.

I hope Apple has made the case of more rigid stuff than that of the MacBook Pro. The say it's "anodized aluminum," which if not alloyed with another metal, will bend and warp easily. This could easily put increased pressure on internal components, causing the hardware to fail readily. In a school environment, our MacBooks and MacBook Pros are already extremely fragile relative to the tougher ThinkPads we also own.

People are bummed about the sealed case and internal battery. In our school, I know of no user who carries a spare battery. Typically, users purchase just one battery and then ride it until its performance is no longer acceptable. As long as it's not a bear to open the case, we should be able to replace batteries just fine.

Oddly, ultraportable laptops are not very popular at our school. I'm not entirely sure why. One would figure that, with so much to carry around, both students and teachers would appreciate the lighter weight and smaller size. A full-size keyboard definitely helps. Very few users like typing on smaller keys for long. Maybe it's the cost. Or the slower processor. Or the smaller hard drive. Or the lack of expandability. Or maybe our users are mobile but not "ultramobile," so they don't need an "ultraportable" computer.

Students and teachers lose their MacBook display adapters fairly readily. Now, they will also have an Ethernet adapter to misplace! Our collection of loaner video adapters will diversify some more.

802.11n? Not for a few years at our school. The cost of replacing all of our access points just to move up to the next wireless standard would be prohibitive. We only just got rid of our last 802.11b WAPs! We will likely get there through our regular replacement cycle.

Multi-touch trackpad? This seems a poor substitute for a tablet PC or multi-touch screen. I'm not excited.

Do I see correctly that there is only one USB port? That won't do for anyone who wants to use this laptop at their desk for very long.

High price will make it an unpopular choice for school-owned machines. I can't imagine the additional cost being worth it for faculty or staff, for instance.

Wow factor: huge. We have already seen a dramatic shift toward Macs in our student laptop program, in which students choose their preferred platform. Though the features don't scream "great for school," the dramatic lines and clean look may sway quite a few users. Ultimately, I hope our students stick with the more durable (did I just say that?), expandable, serviceable MacBook. The PC users have not gone for the ultraportable Thinkpad. Perhaps they will also eschew the MacBook Air.

p.s. Did Apple goof with the name? "MacBook Error?" "Air MacBook?"

I picked up a Blackberry Pearl today -- a nice mix of compact size and smart functionality. It also finally solves my two-phone dilemma -- when work provides the smart phone but you also need to own your own phone in order to place personal calls. The Pearl is incredibly thin, and I can do work email, calendar, appointment reminders, web browsing, to-do lists, notes, RSS feeds, maps, photos, and even music if I wish. It was dead easy to get onto our BES server at school. Best of all, I got the device for free (after rebates) at Car Toys and signing up for a new AT&T contract!

I have experienced only two quirks so far. The screen is pretty small, but I'll accept that in exchange for the ability to keep the tiny device comfortably in my pocket. GMail 1.5.1 doesn't work with my Google hosted domain, which is puzzling, since GMail 1.1.0 worked fine with my hosted domain on my Blackberry 7100i. I hope that Google is planning to implement hosted domain support on GMail mobile -- it's very handy to access work and personal email from the device but keep them separate.

I have very gradually been getting more accustomed to doing work on a mobile device. The usefulness of additional applications -- a whole suite from Google plus Newsgator RSS reader -- have really opened the door for me. I am sure that I will reach the limit soon. Nothing compares to a full-size keyboard and screen, and I'm just not that mobile compared to the classic smart phone road warrior.

Sure, I'd rather have an iPhone, but not for $400! ;^)

We're planning to take a look at Blackberries and cellphones on campus soon ... not for students, but for staff! We feel caught in a typical bind, in which the desires for innovation and cost control are in conflict with each other. My favorite innovations are cost effective (or even cost saving). For example, many of the web technologies we have introduced cost far less to adopt and support than their commercial counterparts. What about Blackberries and cellphones? The advantages are obvious. Blackberries allow us to monitor email while away from the desk, receive meeting reminders, make appointments quickly, and be available by phone anytime. However, the costs add up quickly per individual per month, when you consider the phone, minute plans, BES license, and support time needed to care for the finicky devices. It's difficult to estimate the value of intangibles when budget time comes around.

Other factors also affect these decisions. Tax laws require us to either not use the devices for personal calls or to track personal calls and then reimburse the school. Either approach seems impractical. One requires you to carry a second phone around for personal calls, and the second requires you to do a bunch of extra work to identify all of the personal calls in a bill each month. I would like to share the costs with the school, either by buying the phone and having the school pay for the plan or vice-versa. However, we don't yet know whether this is a legitimate use of school funds.

We hope to find a solution that meets the tax requirements of a non-profit organization, allows us to take full advantage of new technologies, keeps costs under control for the sake of the school, and allows phone-toting staff members to make natural choices about the use of the phones for business and personal purposes. Stay tuned in the New Year to find out what we do.

Smart Boards are another example of an exciting innovation with a high price tag. We have already committed ourselves to install ceiling-mounted data projectors in as many classrooms as we can. We would love to include Smart Boards as a standard feature in every room, but at $1500 each and considering the patchy pattern of adoption among our teachers, standardization seems undesirable. Instead, we acquire a few Smart Boards for the most active users and leverage our financial resources elsewhere.

I had a completely atypical customer service experience when I called Anthro yesterday. A customer service rep picked up the phone on the second ring, consulted with Engineering while I was on hold, and then gave me a very helpful suggestion to my question. The whole experience took about five minutes and completely solved the issue. Two thoughts occured to me: first, that I had a great experience, and second, that I wish that more companies ascribed to this standard! It so happens that Anthro is local (Tualatin, OR). and now that I think about it, many of the local companies have terrific support departments. Perhaps there is something about the friendly culture of Portland that makes it a good place to host a customer service center.

Now for the actual issue. Our Anthro LTSC30 alternates charging one side of the cart at a time, but we only use one side of the cart. Rather than purchase a new cart, we wanted to make it possible to charge just the sixteen laptops as quickly as possible. The Anthro manual helped us understand that we could increase the timer interval length to 100 minutes, and tech support suggested that we could connect the second bank of power outlets directly to an external source if we wished. We didn't adopt the latter suggested but instead connected all of the power supplies to the primary bank of outlets, increased the interval time to 100 minutes, and then instructed teachers to flip the external power switch to Off and then to Internal to reset the timer so that the laptops got a good 100 minutes of charge right away. We'll keep an eye on how well this solution performs.

The following diagram shows the location of the power switch on the cart. The timer adjustment is a tiny dial located below and to the left of the timer, easily mistaken for a screw head.

Recent discussions of the Eee PC, XO, Kindle, iPhone, and GPhone remind me of the palmtop discussions of nearly ten years ago. My principal at the time and I presented a talk titled "Ten Strategic Technology Innovations," in which we outlined a framework for evaluating new technologies by the degree to which they could support a school's mission. Our red herring was the HP Jornada, the palmtop device that looked promising but had serious limitations of connectivity and operating system.

What purposes do laptop computers serve at your school? Most laptop implementations I have seen thrive because the computers are versatile, nimble devices in the hands of creative users who put them to a great variety of purposes. The ability to use both web resources and download desktop applications, write to a variety of portable media, and connect to various networks are all critical features for the success of school laptop programs that I have seen. If a device is too limiting, the ability to find the right tool at the right time is compromised.

As was the case then, the new devices are too expensive and not capable enough to replace laptops. Why would one purchase a $300 device that's only capable of half if what you want to do, when you could buy a full-featured computer for $1,000? Screen size, durability, service plans, and maintenance should all be considered as well. For the moment at least, a mainstream computer is a better deal for the dollar.

At least, this time around, the small devices offer more mature operating systems (locked OS X, Linux) than last time (e.g., Windows CE!). Perhaps, ten years from now, we will see the palm-sized devices simply merge with the laptop in terms of features and versatility.

For years, PCs have dominated our upper school faculty and student laptop programs. Most of the teachers prefer Windows, and the year before last, three quarters of the students felt the same. Last year, the incoming ninth grade class went 50-50, half for PCs and half for Macs. We thought we had seen the end of the switch. Then suddenly, the balance was flung to the opposite extreme. Of the seventy laptop orders we have received only 10 are for PCs. That's right: 60 Macs and 10 PCs, more than a complete reversal of the ratios of two years ago.

Why did this happen? Until we survey the students, we can only speculate. Apple is gaining market share worldwide, due to the success of the iPod and the sleek design of the MacBook. Apple has certainly achieved "cool" status at school, especially for the usability of iTunes. The word has gotten around the school that Macs have fewer software problems (though not as many students have realized that the Macs experience more hardware failures). We have a number of Intel families that now have "permission" to buy Apple computers. Perhaps the most strongest potential causal factor is that we upgraded our lower school lab to brand-new eMacs when these students were in the fifth grade. Last year, these same eighth grade students got to use brand-new MacBooks and hardly saw a Windows computer during their middle school careers.

What implications follow for our teachers? For one, teachers of ninth grade students will have to accommodate the shift. We will provide "Mac basics for Windows users" training so that teachers feel more able to help students troubleshoot email, printing, and file transfer difficulties. Finally, many of the upper school teachers are up for system replacement next year, and I bet that many will take advantage of this opportunity to switch platforms.

Do you have a choice-based faculty or students laptop program at your school? Have you noticed a similar shift?

We have heard a lot in recent years about technologies designed reduce the cost of computer lab implementation. Several network-based terminal server solutions exist (Microsoft terminal server, Citrix, and K12LTSP), some are trying to build extremely inexpensive laptops (OLPC, XO), and others speculate about the potential for phones to meet the needs of some computing activities. Now, it appears that nComputing has come up with a device that allows multiple users to share the same computer without using the network. Based on KVM technology, the x300 allows one computer to run multiple keyboards and mice, kind of like a small-scale mainframe technology. Typically, the users would sit right next to each other, since the cables are meant to carry data and power over short distances. Like other resource-sharing solutions, this will work best for software applications where the computer itself is idle much of the time because the user is reading or thinking, for example word processing and web browsing. I would love to take this for a test drive!

Our low-voltage specialist on staff has spent the last year building up his knowledge of data projector installation through three on-campus projects. These first installations took a long time and ended up causing quite a headache. We spent weeks waiting for a local technician to assist with the installations, then we gave up on him, and Toby spent some more weeks finding distributors for the cables, face plates, mounting brackets, amplifiers, and speakers that he would need to complete the jobs himself. Now, we are sitting pretty with established contacts and the internal expertise to perform additional installations ourselves, moving our school more quickly toward the ultimate goal of an installed audiovisual system in every classroom. This summer, Toby is going to perform six installations himself, and we are wrapping another eleven installations into a construction project.

The cost savings is fantastic. We estimate the total cost of an installation to be in the neighborhood of $2,000, though installers will charge $6,000-$9,000 for similar work. That's all-inclusive: the data projector, speakers, VCR/DVD players, all labor (estimate based on salary), and all associated hardware. Installations included in construction are more expensive, but their cost is pretty small compared to the cost of renovating buildings. It is easier to work audiovisual installation into a construction budget than into our operating budget. We only plan to include Smart Boards in those classrooms where the teachers expressly want them, though the installations will be design to make the later addition of a Smart Board easy.

We have a number of new exciting podcasting initiatives in process. In one way, I feel like we are joining the podcasting party a year after everyone else, but in another way, this work didn't seem quite this easy until now. It also takes time for anyone to warm up to actually using a new innovation in the classroom.

The first is podcast by phone, which I have written about before as a proof of concept. I first offered this to the upper school students and teachers as an open resource, but adoption has been slow. The middle school was the first to try it with a class activity. Twenty middle school students and three teachers take an annual trip to Costa Rica to perform service work and meet students at a peer school there. This year, one of the trip leaders is putting in a call to our podcast channel every few days. This has proven a great way to keep parents and the rest of the middle school body in the loop on the group's progress in Costa Rica.

The other groundbreaker has been really small podcast recording devices. We have acquired a few Olympus audio recorders. They are really small, record in WMV format, and have built-in USB support, so you just connect one to a computer to copy audio files to your computer. The device controls are pretty easy to use to record, play back and file new recordings. Connect a small lapel mic to the recorder to avoid the device slipping inside the speaker's sportcoat! We also got a higher-fidelity Edirol recording device, but the practicality of the tiny Olympus devices have made them the popular choice for spoken presentations. Try free Switch to batch convert WMV to MP3 files.

These two means of recording podcasts have practically removed the possibility of technology being the obstacle to successful podcasting. I have high hopes for continued success as we roll out additional ways to podcast: Moodle plug-ins, and the "old-fashioned" built in computer mic and Audacity!

We have finally received the Smart Board 680i unit that we ordered back in August! Smart had a bunch of problems getting this product to market for some reason. I feel fortunate that we bought only one, since the troubles they experienced may spell further difficulties for us down the road. However, we are equally happy to have one of these units. The classroom has a vaulted ceiling, making the installation of a ceiling-mounted unit next to impossible. Also, the all-in-one unit is a lot less trouble to install than separate projector, audio speakers, amplifier, and Smart Board. If the unit proves reliable and easy to use, we will look forward to installing it in other locations where the ceiling structure does not allow a vertical mount.

The device itself is something of a marvel. Smart appears to have split up the projector components into two parts. The lens and lamp reside in a tiny enclosure over three feet off the wall, and the projector inputs are all back on the wall!

I will cross my fingers and hope that this announcement leads to a student-friendly laptop one day soon. Today's laptop computers seem geared mostly toward a business environment or home environment in which the user is mobile for only short parts of the day and treats the computer relatively gently. Students are mobile all day and are pretty hard on their laptops. Now all we need is a student-friendly operating system: one that cuts back on the bells and whistles in favor of stability, speed, and automated backup.

Full story from eSchoolNews

I recently found out that we have a lot of cable TV running through our campus ... except that no one is using it! According to one teacher, it was installed around the time of 9/11, when the school realized it had no way to broadcast current events to the school body in the case of a momentous event. Now, I'm no big fan of live TV in the classroom, and there doesn't seem to be much call for it. In contrast, considerable demand exists for recorded shows. A number of times this year, a teacher has asked whether anyone has the capability to record an episode of a science or history documentary for them. People can, of course ... from home! Digital video recorders make it trivial to record and store a TV show at home. Why not make this capability available at school? The best part is that this would likely be an inexpensive experiment:
less than $1,000 to make this service available to the entire school.

The leading digital video recorder, TiVo, is easier to use than the old VCR recording scheme. I figured I would ask our librarians to offer TiVo-to-DVD as a service to our teachers. It's a piece of cake to set a TiVo to record episodes for multiple teachers at different times, and I figured that a companion DVD burner would be the best way to make the video available to our teachers. Then, with a little investigation, I discovered that the new TiVo sets already offer enough features to make this system self-serve! TiVo now offers online scheduling, TiVoToGo, and TiVo Desktop. On paper at least, a teacher could scheduling a recording on a web site, then play the video on their PC or transfer it to a video iPod! Amazing. (Oh. Note that TiVo Desktop does not play video to OSX, only Windows)! I imagine that many teachers would still want the librarians to facilitate this process and put the file on a DVD, but even that would allow us to leverage an underutilized resource. I wonder how we could put this service in the hands of students?

What copyright concerns exist in this system? Seeing that educational institutions have "fair-use" allowances for the incorporation of copyrighted materials within lessons, we would likely be okay. Without having investigated this issue in depth, I imagine that we would only have to keep an eye on the permanence of the use. A recorded show could probably be only used once in class, not kept forever for annual repeat performances.

However neat, would this technology improve teaching and learning? It could help bring more current information into classes than textbooks can provide, in a format that engages the visual and auditory learner. TV shows typically incorporate a higher production quality than your average web news article, and TiVo video is more complete, easier to find, and higher quality than your average YouTube video. Students may also come up with creative uses of such video in their classes and activities. But what if teachers made fairly mundane uses of the new, fancy technology? I don't think that reproducing existing teaching methods through new technologies is necessarily bad. It accords the teacher more respect than if one were to insist on project-based classroom work. It also provides teachers with an entry point to easy-to-use technologies, which may encourage them to be more adventurous in their selection of more project-based technologies in the future. Don't get me wrong. I am more excited about developing constructivist, project-based technology applications in the classroom. But it's not appropriate for me to serve some teachers better than others based solely on their teaching style.

Some companies offer their employees the benefit of making an in-kind donation to a non-profit organization of their choice. Rather than giving a cash gift to the organization, employees may select products at employee prices to give. This is a great opportunity for schools, as employee prices are typically one-third of the retail price! For a $300 gift, you can get a laptop computer! As we provide laptop computers to students on financial aid, a recent parent gift just saved our financial aid budget $7,000!

Note that you must publicize the option tactfully, as companies want the employees to dictate all aspects of the gift. Program information is typically not available on public company web sites.

With so much talk about online communities, it is easy to believe that we now live in a virtual world, in which the flow of bits and bytes completely determines how we interact with others. Three recent experiences reminded me how very physical our world still is and how far we are from a truly virtual experience.

Normally, I don't do much hardware repair, but today I removed a hard drive from a Powerbook G4 to attempt to recover data off it. The sleek, Apple aluminum case itself was dinged and bent all over from so many collisions with who knows what. I removed plates, plugs, modules, keys, and countless screws. My hands turned grey from contact with dirty aluminum and steel. The instructions repeatedly cautioned me to take care with this wire and that cable. When I finally had the drive in my hands, I heard it attempt to spin up ... and fail ... over and over again. The drive wouldn't spin -- the bytes trapped on the magnetic medium with no way out.

We live in a very physical world.

I recall a film I used to watch with students called Secrets of Silicon Valley. The film weaves together two stories set amidst the economic boom of Palo Alto. One conerns the struggle of PluggedIn, a local community technology center, to locate a new site for its program. Their old rental property is sold, then bulldozed for a large chain. The organization secures funding, buys a property, and refurbishes an old building so that kids can have a space to access free computers and training. The second storyline describes one HP employee's struggle to battle the giant company over the health hazards of working on the printer assembly line. Injured backs, cardboard cuts, and respiratory ailments all accompany the grueling work of getting new printers to customers.

We live in a very physical world.

I am reading Let My People Surf, the Patagonia story as told by its founder Yvon Chouinard. He talks of the enormous environmental cost of shipping goods across the United States. The act of shipping a piece of clothing from California to Massachusetts consumes as much energy as does manufacturing the article all the way from raw materials to finished product. The financial cost of shipping is cheap, but the environmental cost is very expensive. I think of all of the computers and peripherals that ship from China, Texas, and California. Thank goodness we at least buy projectors and displays locally.

We live in a very physical world.

While cleaning up, we recently discovered three old, heavy projectors that are of no use to us anymore. I found the original documentation (1996) on the web. State of the art at the time, the unit boasted 640x480 resolution and 250 lumens. My 1997 Civic still feels perfectly useful and current. This projector is practically from the stone age. Thankfully, FreeGeek is willing to accept, refurbish, and find a useful home for the unit. Otherwise, it would be off to the e-waste recycling center.

We live in a very physical world.

Recently, the Apple tech support center was shut down for the good part of a day because of a burst water pipe in their building.

We live in a very physical world.

I recently attempted to help a vision-impaired faculty member expand his computer use. He is masterful with Outlook, filtering email correspondence by student name so that he may keep track of conversations. When browsing the web, however, he is completely lost. His screen reader dutifully marches down the sidebar of the New York Times, reading each link in turn: "politics ... washington ... education." The blaring headline article in the middle of the page catches my eye first, but his screen reader never gets there. After listening to 20 sidebar links, he attempts to click on an article but just ends up in another section. He gives up. I cannot find a shortcut key that will get him to the main article in the center of the page ... so apparent to me.

We live in a very sensorial world.

I wanted this ...



... but I got this.



Oh, well! Technical comparison coming soon ...

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 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.

I recently bought a new iMac for my mother and was surprised to walk out with a free iPod nano and printer/copier/scanner as well! This is part of Apple's back-to-school special. However, I can only find the free nano offer on the web. If you are in the market for a new Mac, I suggest you go to an Apple store with your education ID and attempt to get the full package.

We walked off the street into an Apple Store and got:
- $100 off the iMac (education discount)
- Free iPod nano (by mail-in rebate, $200 value)
- Free HP inkjet printer/scanner/copier (by mail-in rebate, $100 value)
- Microsoft Office Student/Teacher edition for $100 (after $50 mail-in rebate)

The printer was the most pleasant surprise. It's the fastest inkjet printer I have seen, it includes a small flatbed scanner, and the one-touch copier is simple to use and provides black & white and color options.

I wish mail-in rebates were illegal. I wonder what proportion of customers fail to submit the rebate forms? In addition, both the printer and iPod rebate forms ask for the original iMac UPC. Apparently, the iPod offer will accept copies.

Now if only my parents didn't want the free iPod!

I have quite unintentionally become a Blackberry user. The new tech department I just joined standardized on Blackberries some years ago, so I got one, too. For a change, I picked up the 7000i to see whether I could have a smaller device than the others'. Turns out that it's not actually smaller, just narrower and taller. At least it fits in my pocket.

I was freaked out for the first week at how often the device buzzed and beeped me. This leads to my first lesson learned: turn off notification for email messages! I really don't need to know when each separate email message arrives, and my phone will still buzz when I receive a phone call, radio call, or IM message. I definitely do not want to become one of these people who frantically checks their Blackberry for every email message that arrives! I switched to "phone only" mode to make this happen easily.

Being new to town, my favorite new Blackberry app is Google Local. It's perfect when trying to find an address or get driving directions while on the phone!

I tried "find me now," a Mapquest feature that uses GPS to locate me wherever I am. It wasn't very accurate and required a lot of setup.

What other Blackberry apps should I download and try?

I checked out the ActivBoard for the first time. Promethean has developed accessories and software to complement their interactive whiteboards. They now bundle a data projector and wall-mounted bracket with whiteboard. They also provide a slate input device, which could be very useful for giving students control of the whiteboard during a lesson. The software seems to provide great value as well. For example, they offer geometry software in which a virtual compass and protractor appear on the screen for performing live measurements. This is worth a try for our next whiteboard purchase.

ActivBoard NECC New Product Announcements

tags: necc2006

I picked up a new MacBook for the first time yesterday. I liked several things about it. The glossy screen is much clearer, although I think that people will have difficulty getting used to the high reflectivity. The wide screen aspect ratio is a nice add-on. I recall that the resolution is about 1200x800, great for an entry-level laptop. My favorite new feature: removing the battery provides access to two RAM expansion slots and the hard drive! This will provide more flexible RAM upgrade options and allow tech departments to more easily swap a user hard drive into a loaner laptop in case of hardware failure! This should be a valuable plus.

tags: necc2006

Looks like the iAudio U2 may be a great small device for students who want to record class lectures (thanks, Miguel). We currently use iPods with iTalks for this. The iAudio is a much less expensive solution ($100) that appears to have similar organizational and transfer capabilities. I'd like to give it a try at CGS.