School Tech Administration

January 21, 2011

Blogger’s Frustration – the Technology or Us?

Having spent the past few days in Fiji, I thought I’d share some of my frustrations – and hopefully insights – about the perennial choice between netbooks and tablets for productivity and consumption with technology. As I’m now fully grappling with some of the strategic decisions regarding which device to recommend for my school’s 1-1 implementation later this year, I thought it would be an interesting experiment to take along my ASUS eeePC 901 and Apple iPad for the holiday and see which device would prove the best for which situation.

My typical uses for these technologies included:

– RSS reading
– Checking, posting and replying to emails
– Social networking (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter)
– Updating this blog (WordPress)
– Updating my travel blog (Blogger)
– Drafting blog posts with Google Docs

My eeePC usually runs Ubuntu Linux but as part of the experiment, I installed Windows 7 to see how it would fare with some of the more proprietary programs I like to use (iTunes, Word, Excel, MobileMe, Evernote, etc.) I currently use an Apple bluetooth keyboard with my iPad that I purchased in the US a few months ago.

It’s interesting to note that with just a few days of milling around in my spare time and trying out all of the above on each device, it’s very clear to me when each device comes to the fore as the best device for certain tasks (granted, many people have already written on this but it helps to experience the difference for yourself). All of this said, there were a few issues that really complicated things and need to be noted first, especially given that they apply to many people around the world (including many of the kids I teach):

1. Many applications and/or operating systems are not geared properly for offline-use or use with slow and/or patchy internet connections. This especially applies to circumstances where there is no good alternative to web platforms such as Facebook – which needs to be constantly “on” and is very data intensive (side note: Facebook used to have a “lite” edition that worked very well with poor internet connections – where did that go?)

2. Blogging is especially difficult where the internet connection is patchy and slow. Although there are some good offline blogging platforms, very few properly utilize a WYSIWYG approach to editing, especially when it comes to including and manipulating images as I frequently need to do in my travel blogs.

3. We are so often restricted by proprietary affiliations between different applications and/or software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions – such restrictions stifle creativity. For example, when using Windows Live Gallery to manipulate images, the user can only upload images to certain services like Facebook with a mandatory MSN account. On Picasa, ‘Blog This!’ only works with Google’s Blogger.

In any case, I found the following:

1. The iPad – Powerful and Slick (but on Apple’s terms)

The iPad quickly showed its power as a superb email device, RSS and ebook reader, handy tool for social networking and reasonable device for drafting the text for my blog posts. Not having a SD card reader adapter, however, I immediately hit a wall when it came to importing/editing photos, having to rely on Windows Live Gallery instead (although I usually run Picasa on Ubuntu) through the netbook. Nonetheless, with my bluetooth keyboard, and unified inboxes on the iPad’s email app, I was easily able to stay in touch with friends and family. The email app also works very well when wifi is patchy, saving a message to the outbox and sending it when the next connection becomes available. Apps like the very successful Yoono also allowed me to quickly stay in touch with all of my social networks on the one screen. As for RSS reading, MobileRSS has now become my indispensable go-to application for staying in touch with all my never-ending feeds.

Where the iPad fell short – and where the netbook picks up – is in the limitations and restrictions of the apps and the highly restricted functionality of the up-to-now mandatory Safari browser. Writing in either Blogger or WordPress through the browser was next-to-impossible, with half a draft disappearing in smoke the minute the wifi signal dropped out. While drafting text is all well and good in Notes, Pages or the WordPress app, I needed to upload and manipulate images for my blog and to date, as far as I’m aware, this is simply not possible.

2. The Netbook – Highly Functional, Flexible and Open (if you can weather the lag)

As for being a reasonably full-functional and familiar computer, the net book shines, as long as you set it up properly and don’t expect the world in performance (this is precisely why I will never again run Windows 7 on an Atom processor!) Being a huge fan of customizing an OS, pimping out my browser and tweaking everything to be the way I like it, I’m also a fan of any device that truly lets me do this. Short of jail breaking, apps on the iPad are forever restricted to Apple’s approval which is, as we know, becoming harder and harder to gauge and even harder to predict.

While I got away with – and rather enjoyed – doing most things on the iPad, there was that familiar sense of joy that I got when firing up Firefox and having my favourite skins, toolbar buttons and plugins. There’s also a familiar sense of woe in accepting that such an open browser is unlikely to make a debut on Apple’s poster child any time soon.

So the verdict? Unfortunately I remain in two very divided technology worlds and two minds on the subject. While the CES convention has unmistakably touted 2011 to be the year of the tablet (and an Android one at that), the real test in my view will be the extent to which the device can be genuinely shaped to suit the needs of the user, by the user. These days, I have increasingly less time for being told how I should be using a device. While there’s no silver bullet (and probably never will be), there’s plenty of scope for putting pressure on the big players to collaborate, keep things open and listen to us. That much should give anyone cause for optimism, at least for now!

October 4, 2010

Head in the Cloud

Over the past few days, it’s been very hard to contain my excitement over Google’s recent moves to add all the applications from standard Google accounts to Google Apps for Education. While the core suite of applications – Mail, Docs and Calendar – are extremely useful and have put my school on the Web 2.0 map, I’ve been so disappointed that other Google apps like Reader, Picasa and Blogger have been off-limits for so long.

Sure, students can create their own Google accounts, you say? Having worked with frustrated teachers and students who all-too-easily forget usernames and passwords, I’ve really come to appreciate the ability to control accounts as the school administrator and have kids quickly online and using the tools they need to get ahead.

Now when all of my students log in, they get immediate access to an incredibly powerful set of Web 2.0 applications without the need to enter a single name or additional password! Exploring these is going to take some time, but it’s great to know they’re there for anyone to use.

Some of the new applications I’ll be running PD on are:

1. Google Reader

Call it the nerd factor in me, but I have to say that hands down, Google Reader is the most remarkably simple yet sophisticated piece of the Web 2.0 pie. While many educators have consigned RSS feeding into the too-hard basket of technology education (installing feed readers, locating RSS feeds, keeping up to date, etc.), Google Reader makes RSS reading fun, social and very easy to get started. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a valuable teaching doorway into the vast world of internet content. I’m really looking forward to sharing feeds/articles and helping my students getting started with organising their reading on the web.

2. Picasa Web Albums

Google’s extremely generous web storage allocation (I know it’s now in the several gigabytes but have lost count) is incredibly good news for Google Apps Education students making use of this photo management gem. However, it’s Picasa’s easy integration with other Web 2.0 services like Blogger, Reader and Docs along with mobile integration and a very powerful photo management application for Windows and Mac that wins hands down.

3. Blogger

While not my blogging tool of choice (sorry Google, WordPress has the edge for now), Blogger makes blogging very easy and hassle-free. It’s great to know that my kids can get started without the need for another username or password, and I’ll be incredibly keen to explore this as a platform for electronic learning portfolios.

Pieces in a Web 2.0 Puzzle

It’s easy to see that already, Google is bringing to the web the same kind of integration that Apple brings through suites of applications like iLife and iWork that easily “talk to” one another without the need to transcode data or switch out of one app and into another (just think about the “Blog this” buttons in Picasa and Reader or the Picasa Web functionality in Blogger). As a technology expert/administrator, I see this as a level playing field for all teachers and students. While not all of the tools will be used all of the time, making them available is the first step to transforming the curriculum and the way we teach with technology.

April 23, 2010

Thoughts on One-to-One Laptops in Schools

My school is in the exciting (and somewhat daunting) position of now investigating possible ways of achieving a learning environment in which every child has their own laptop for daily use. The desire to move towards this particular model is highlighted by the current National Secondary Schools Computer Fund and by the proposed pilot for completion of some School Certificate subjects (and eventually HSC subjects), with specific recourse to using computers in examinations.

Certainly, exams that need to be typed are a good reason to start looking in this direction, right? We think that a one-to-one environment would definitely be a suitable goal within the next few years (and our school is not the oozing-cash-private-variety where such a goal has long been a reality!)

At the same time, I have a number of real misgivings about current approaches taken by other schools – where the computer fund is solely or largely used to directly provide a computer to year 9 students. You could summarise these misgivings as follows:

Current 1:1 ratio calculations occur on the basis of including existing desktop and laptop machines (up to four years old), as well as recently-purchased laptops.
Many schools have designated these for general school use. This designation recognises the need for students in all years to have reasonable access to new technology.
The model of directly providing students with laptops may not be sustainable given these calculations.
It is also unclear as to whether the National Secondary Schools Computer Fund may continue over the long-term. If it is not continued at any time, this would unduly disadvantage any students who have not received a computer as part of the grant.
Giving laptops unconditionally to students may not ensure accountability and a sense of responsible ownership in relation to the care and use of the machine.

In light of these issues, I’ve now argued for a while that the National Secondary Schools Computer Fund grant is, for many schools, best spent in the continued designation of machines for general school use and KLA-specific use, and that access to the machines is most equitable when they are stored and maintained in the school concerned.

At the same time, schools need to explore ways that an environment where students own and bring laptops to school for daily use might be achieved over the long term. To this end, I’ve been interested in netbooks (and similar low-cost, light-weight laptops) viable options for students to purchase, and it is reasonable to expect that this technology could complement the current technology infrastructure in the school concerned. The specific advantages of complementing currently existing technology with student-owned netbooks can be summarised as follows:

Netbooks are light-weight and have sufficient battery power to last extended periods.
They are also very low-cost when compared with other machines.
Recent software developments (for example, Ubuntu Netbook Remix and Windows 7 Starter Edition) recognise the need to develop light-weight operating systems that boot quickly and enable basic productivity and internet use.
By using netbooks for basic functionality (for example, typing essays, managing spreadsheets and internet research), existing technology can then be maximised for the type of use that requires higher powered machines (such as when editing videos, recording music or manipulating images).

Perhaps many schools need to consider models through which the bulk purchase of netbooks might be negotiated to the benefit of interested parents and students. Possible parameters in which such purchases might be made could include any of the following:

Partially-subsidised machines, where parents and the college co-contribute to the machine’s purchase, either as a one-off cost or in instalments.
The negotiation of three or five-year warranties to ensure that repairs are possible and will be low-cost in nature.
Site licenses of favourable operating systems and/or basic productivity software.
Assistance with developing adequate technical support.
Well-negotiated arrangements for purchases from reputable and reliable suppliers.

What are your experiences in advising on the purchase of machines in your school as part of moves towards one-to-one computing? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

March 27, 2010

Integrating School Data with Student Email Addresses

Very few tech-related experiences come close to the nerdy thrill of cracking that spreadsheet formula that’s been puzzling you all week. On Thursday afternoon, I managed a small feat that will streamline communications in my school: synchronising school data with student email addresses to create shared contact groups using Mac Numbers, Google Apps Education Edition, Moodle and Shared Contacts (an app from a German company by the name of Floreysoft).

For some years now, it’s been puzzling me that while students have email addresses and schools have plenty of student data, never the twain have been able to automatically meet. How convenient would it be for teachers if the classes that are created in schools’ databases could then translate into shared contact groups to enable teachers to easily subscribe to their own student class lists! Ah, but the simple things in life so often elude us, do they not?

What’s made this all-too-difficult in the past has been our school system’s use of antiquated email software by a company named Editure, which did not allow for a shared directory, searchable addresses, let alone groups that could be created. The result of this was that while students did use their email addresses to contact their immediate friends, staff were unable to find an address easily, much less create a list of addresses.

Companies like Google have – for at least the last eight years – brought sophisticated ways of searching email archives and directories. With the flexibility of importing and exporting CSVs, all that is required is a spreadsheet program that can create the lists required.

Enter Mac Numbers and a few simple steps.

From my school’s student management system (a horribly clunky and much out-dated MS Access-based program with the misleading title of ‘General Access’) I manage to export a student list with core classes and homerooms, which becomes the ‘General Access’ sheet like so:
From Moodle, I manage to export a list of student names and Google Apps email addresses – let’s call it the ‘Moodle and Email Addresses’ sheet:
Using the CONCATENATE formula, I string first and last names together on both sheets, to make unique search strings.
I then create a third sheet – call it ‘The Works.’ It reads the names, classes and homerooms directly from the General Access sheet and will do the work of cross-referencing these against the Moodle data, to give us a list with all the fields we want – in this case, names, classes, homerooms and email addresses. I also CONCATENATE names on this sheet in a separate column.
The LOOKUP formula then searches both the Moodle and General Access sheets to match the concatenated names and produce the Google-style CSV for creating the shared contacts groups.
Having made a sheet with all the data, the ‘Reorganise’ tool in Mac Numbers lets us display only the email addresses for, say, the 8.3 class or the Mackillop homeroom. Hiding lets us display whichever rows and columns we need for whichever purpose. Hooray!

At this point I feel about as nerdy as a guy in a lab coat pouring fluorescent green liquid into a test tube. Well, not quite – but close.

If anyone is interested in this mock-up copy of the Mac Numbers spreadsheet, drop me an email or comment and I’ll pass it on. After all, who wouldn’t give their right arm for Celine Dion’s class, homeroom AND email address?!