Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Decent projector installation
Ah, the quest for a decent projector installation continues. Easy you'd think, buy a bracket and stick it up. OK. So what about the cables? How and where do I run them, what do I use, who do I use to do it? Having done a bit of this sort of thing myself in a previous job I have been disappointed by the installs that we have had done at school so far. With another classroom due for a ceiling mounted projector, sound etc. soon, I think I might do this one myself and see how it goes.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Dissapointed....
Yesterday I attended the "Future of ICT In New Zealand Schools" symposium, and it was unfortunately a real let down. I'd only found out about it the day before and was excited at the prospect of attending something with such a grand title. I took along one our ICT lead teachers and chatting with her and others afterwards, there was a definite feeling of confusion and that we had been a tad mislead by the title.
What the symposium turned out to be, was the launch of the new online version of the 'Computers in New Zealand Schools' journal (which in itself looks really good by the way). This was preceeded by a rambling presentation by Ed Strafford from the MOE on..... well, none of us were really sure what it was on actually (Sorry Ed...). There was then a panel presentation by three speakers, including Niki Davis, who I had heard before at U-Learn. Although there was nothing intrinsically wrong with the presentations and subsequent discussions, it just didn't all gel together and (comment if I'm wrong), most people left feeling a little dazed and confused. No fault of the speakers I think, more the organisation of it all perhaps.
2 things that stuck out in my mind were 1) Too many of the presentations I have seen by people from the MOE are badly organized 2) I am always amazed at the number of people involved in ICT that still use pen and paper for taking notes....
I did join the e-learning research network, which looks excellent, and I remain positive that what we are doing in our school with ICT is on the right track. I just feel a little deflated. I spend my days trying to help our staff understand the benefits of deep integration of ICT into their teaching, and often find myself defending technology to the naysayers. Sometimes though, I wonder if they are right....
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
What the symposium turned out to be, was the launch of the new online version of the 'Computers in New Zealand Schools' journal (which in itself looks really good by the way). This was preceeded by a rambling presentation by Ed Strafford from the MOE on..... well, none of us were really sure what it was on actually (Sorry Ed...). There was then a panel presentation by three speakers, including Niki Davis, who I had heard before at U-Learn. Although there was nothing intrinsically wrong with the presentations and subsequent discussions, it just didn't all gel together and (comment if I'm wrong), most people left feeling a little dazed and confused. No fault of the speakers I think, more the organisation of it all perhaps.
2 things that stuck out in my mind were 1) Too many of the presentations I have seen by people from the MOE are badly organized 2) I am always amazed at the number of people involved in ICT that still use pen and paper for taking notes....
I did join the e-learning research network, which looks excellent, and I remain positive that what we are doing in our school with ICT is on the right track. I just feel a little deflated. I spend my days trying to help our staff understand the benefits of deep integration of ICT into their teaching, and often find myself defending technology to the naysayers. Sometimes though, I wonder if they are right....
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Monday, February 8, 2010
To pay or not to pay
Faced with the high cost of the Adobe suite of products (Photoshop, InDesign, Illustrator, Dreamweaver etc.) we have been discussing the pros and cons of rolling out free or open source alternatives. Amongst many other articles I recently read this article on interface magazine which is a good primer on some of the good bad and the ugly. I am torn really. The rebellious, anti-establishment side of me loves the idea of software that is developed "by the community, for the community", and did I mention IT'S FREE! (well sort of...). However, the conservative network manager side of me has always been disappointed by the lack of polish on all of the alternatives I have tried. An example would be trying to use Kompozer as an alternative to Dreamweaver last term. It worked, but managing it in a network environment where kids are moving from one machine to another like rabbits was virtually impossible. Every time they moved to a new machine, they had to setup their sites from scratch, and this became (ahem...) a little tiring for them. Dreamweaver. Roll it out via an msi to all machines in a lab, without even visiting said lab. Kids logon, setup site once. Work on any machine and hey presto, it just works (for me and for the kids). Now this is a very small example, but I am writing it because it is typical of the seemingly small, but deal breaking issues that arise when it comes to open source/free alternatives. As a parent, I'd like my kids to be able to use stuff at school that they can use at home (for free), and it seems daft that in these times of breaking down the barriers between home and school using technology, we are considering spending a lot of money on something that for most of our students (unless of course they download a non-legal version) would not be able to run on their home computers. I'm not ready to throw out my Microsoft Servers and Desktops (and to be honest I probably never will be), but maybe I just need to work harder on making some of these alternatives work in my environment..
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Google Talk / Google AppsAccounts
Google Talk is a basic instant messaging program and can be used as part of Google Apps for Education. My Google Apps (GApps) users can sign in using their accounts and, as I had just had a request for an instant messaging system for the staff I thought this was a great thing.
Well it is, but as always there's a 'gotcha'.... The problem is that we don't really want instant messaging for the students. Easy you say, just don't install Google Talk on the student machines? Well yes, that does help. However, in their wisdom, Google decided to build the 'chat' feature into Gmail, and I am rolling out Gmail to all of my users. So the students bring up a browser, login to Gmail and they are automatically (gggrr) logged in to an instant messaging program within a browser! Searching the Google help forums I have been staggered to find that you can only disable chat/google talk at the domain level, so it's either on or off for everyone. If I disable it the students can't use the chat feature built in to Gmail (which is a good thing obviously...) but the staff can't use instant messaging.
After discussing with the staff we have decided that IM is too important a tool not to have for staff, and that the Google route is the obvious way to go. So we are sticking with leaving chat on, and putting the emphasis on the teachers to monitor usage in class, and try to educate the students about the appropriate time to be using things. It's been really interesting as what started out as a simple technical problem has lead on to discussions around a whole bigger issue of whether in these days of collaboration and communication, we should even be trying to restrict access to stuff anyway. I can see that the traditional role of the Network Manager is changing and even though I have always seen myself as an 'enabler' rather than a 'disabler' it is still a challenging time trying to find the right balance between giving students access to the tools that they need and use, but trying to ensure that they are used appropriately.....
Well it is, but as always there's a 'gotcha'.... The problem is that we don't really want instant messaging for the students. Easy you say, just don't install Google Talk on the student machines? Well yes, that does help. However, in their wisdom, Google decided to build the 'chat' feature into Gmail, and I am rolling out Gmail to all of my users. So the students bring up a browser, login to Gmail and they are automatically (gggrr) logged in to an instant messaging program within a browser! Searching the Google help forums I have been staggered to find that you can only disable chat/google talk at the domain level, so it's either on or off for everyone. If I disable it the students can't use the chat feature built in to Gmail (which is a good thing obviously...) but the staff can't use instant messaging.
After discussing with the staff we have decided that IM is too important a tool not to have for staff, and that the Google route is the obvious way to go. So we are sticking with leaving chat on, and putting the emphasis on the teachers to monitor usage in class, and try to educate the students about the appropriate time to be using things. It's been really interesting as what started out as a simple technical problem has lead on to discussions around a whole bigger issue of whether in these days of collaboration and communication, we should even be trying to restrict access to stuff anyway. I can see that the traditional role of the Network Manager is changing and even though I have always seen myself as an 'enabler' rather than a 'disabler' it is still a challenging time trying to find the right balance between giving students access to the tools that they need and use, but trying to ensure that they are used appropriately.....
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