Monthly Archives: January 2006

Paul Nelson: K-12 Linux Terminal Server Project

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Paul Nelson is Technology Director at Riverdale High School in Portland, OR and co-creator of the K-12 Linux Terminal Server Project. K-12 LTSP is a really cool way to take older machines and breathe new life into them by connecting them to a powerful server that takes over the bulk of the computing tasks. For standard Web browsing and Office-like applications, schools can save a bunch of money using thin clients vs. full PCs.

Our podcast should be a pretty good introduction to Linux, open source, and thin client computing. We mention RedHat and Edubuntu, two Linux distributions of particular interest to schools, and the K-12 Linux in School Project which seeks to promote free and open source software in educational settings.

Download: STP-PaulNelson (16.9 MB, 36:35)

k12ltsp, thin clients, edubuntu

Recommended video podcasts

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Since buying my 30-GB iPod I’ve had the chance to try some video podcasts. (I can’t bring myself to use the term “vodcast.”) Here are four winners that I’ve found so far:

  • Quirky and newsy: Rocketboom. Always good for a chuckle.
  • Geeky: dl.tv with Patrick Norton and Robert Herron for the latest in gadgetry.
  • Polished and educational: Izzy Video with Israel Hyman.
  • Really cool idea: Rolling R’s with Larry Keim for a quick Spanish fix.

The last two, Izzy Video and Rolling R’s, deserve special mention. Both are outstanding examples of short-form, free, educational video content. I’ve picked up some great tips from Israel Hyman that will help make my next video project more polished and professional. And I’ve learned a lot already about speaking Spanish from Larry. Just like audio podcasting, you don’t need a portable player to appreciate this content. But I’ve already used these video podcasts to kill time waiting for meetings to start which I wouldn’t or couldn’t have done without my iPod. Portable video really works.

video podcasts, izzy video, rolling r’s, ipod, dl.tv, rocketboom

Which technology tools matter?

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I meet with a bunch of other ed tech folks from the Twin Cities area once a month to share ideas and see demonstrations of various learning technologies. As I type this I’m sitting in a meeting with a representative from the Minnesota Dept. of Education who is giving all of us an update on state-wide ed tech issues.

During a discussion about technology standards for students, one of the participants pointed out that significant gaps still exist between the technology skills that most kids bring to school and the kind of technologies we expect them to use in their schoolwork. I was struck by the thought:

What if the technologies that already interest our kids are the ones that matter most?

Now I’m not going to suggest that the kids in my school district have things all figured out. But maybe, in the long run, WordPress and IM matter more than Word, iTunes is more important than PowerPoint, and Firefox and Wikipedia are more valuable than the World Book Encyclopedia.

This is almost certainly overstated, but the key point, I think, is that what we old fogies think kids need to know may not necessarily be what matters for them in 10 years.

wordpress, ichat, itunes, firefox, wikipedia, educational technology

The video iPod: a quick little review

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I picked up a shiny new 30-GB video iPod last week. After playing with it for a while I thought I’d share this mini-review with everyone.

The bottom line: it’s really good; better than I thought it would be. I’d seen one up close and personal when they first came out, but I didn’t have a chance to really try it until now. Some thoughts in no particular order:

  • The screen is tiny, yes, but it’s high resolution and very watchable. An entire movie? Maybe not, but I’ve watched it for 15–20 minutes at a time with no trouble at all.
  • Love the photos. My previous iPod was a 4G with the B&W screen. The photos look great and you can store a huge number of them in a little space because the iPod is only storing thumbnails fit for the iPod screen. (You can choose to store the full-size versions on the iPod too just in case you’d like to transfer them to a different computer for printing or other high-resolution display.) I’ve got 3,500 photos on mine so I’ll never be without cute pictures of my kids again.
  • The AV cable is a must-have accessory. It allows you to feed audio and video through the headphone jack into the video inputs of a TV. Even content sized for the iPod looks decent on a television. (Of course, the resolution of standard-definition TV is pretty low.) I bought the 15-minute Rose Bowl summary from the iTunes Music Store and it looked pretty good.
  • Handbrake is really great and a must-have if you want to put a DVD that you own on your iPod. Just for reference, Monty Python’s “Search for the Holy Grail” is about 90 minutes long and compresses down to about 450 MB when converted to iPod resolution. See Mark Pilgrim’s DVD ripping guide for details.
  • I wish the battery lasted longer. A couple hours of video watching is about it. That said, I just plug it in while I’m at work and I never have a problem with it.
  • No Firewire support. This iPod supports USB charging and syncing only. Not really a big deal, but it’s interesting to note that Apple is clearly moving away from Firewire.
  • I’m using the iPod as portable storage more than I thought I would. Once you configure it in the iTunes preferences, the iPod shows up as an external drive that’s pretty handy for transporting large files that won’t fit on a USB thumb drive.
  • I ended up buying the 2-year Applecare plan for it. It was a no-brainer for my laptop, but I’m wondering if a $60 warranty on a $300 device is worth it. Time will tell.

ipod, handbrake, dvd, video

Google Earth for Mac is here!

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Attention Mac users… Run, do not walk to download the Google Earth beta that’s now available for OS X.

Google Earth screenshot showing Hopkins Schools district office

That’s a shot of my office. I think I can almost make out my car. This isn’t just for the U.S. folks, you can see the world with this tool. (You should probably listen to John Hanke’s talk at O’Reilly’s Where 2.0 Conference for some background about Google Earth.) Maybe you’re talking with your students about the importance of Mount Fuji in Japanese culture. Why not take a tour of the mountain and surrounding area? This screenshot shows how you can change your point of view.

Google Earth screenshot showing Mount Fuji

I need to play with this some more, but suffice it to say that Google Earth will be going on every student iBook in our 1-to-1 program as soon as possible.

Update: I missed it in my initial scan of the Google Earth page, but make sure you check out the Google Earth Community to see some examples of what others are doing with the Google Earth technology.

Apple shows more RSS awareness

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The Mac faithful were tuned to MacRumors and their IRC chat today for the Steve Jobs keynote at MacWorld. There were a number of surprises that will be blogged about everywhere. A couple things that caught my eye were the new version of GarageBand and a new product called iWeb. Many people had predicted that Apple would release an app that would make podcast creation and publishing easier, and now we have it. I will install the new iLife as soon as possible and give this new Garageband a whirl. iWeb appears to be a Apple’s attempt to create a basic blogging tool that can publish photos and all sorts of digital media. Apple is touting the RSS capabilities of everything including iPhoto and a new feature they’re calling “photocasting.”

Who knows how well these tools will actually work, but it sure looks cool so far.

ilife, osx, iphoto, iweb, macworld, garageband, rss

I need to try more screencasting

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I used a traditional CGI approach and MySQL to build my recent idea sharing Web application. After listening to the last episode of Inside the Net which discussed, in part, the Ruby on Rails Web development framework, I decided to check out some alternatives for future development work. Ruby on Rails is getting all kinds of well-deserved buzz these days, but being a Python programmer I looked around and found Django and TurboGears, two Rails-like frameworks for Python.

That leads to the real message of this post which is to point out how prevalent the “screencast” has become as a tool for promoting and teaching about these tools. Both the Ruby on Rails screencasts and the TurboGears Devcasts are great ways to get a feel for how these tools work in real life. I should be using tools like Snapz Pro more often to help spread the word in my district about creative uses of technology. (I certainly have the gear for recording.) My district has been an Atomic Learning customer for years, but I’m thinking of a longer form screencast. Possible screencasts:

Maybe we should just buy all of our teachers new iPods and subscribe them to screencast podcasts. (I’m only half joking. What great professional development potential!)

Easy idea sharing for teachers

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I feel the need to geek out and do some programming every once in a while. My recent days off providing a great opportunity so I decided to implement an idea that’s been rattling around in my brain for a while. We’ve got seven elementary schools in my district and, not surprisingly, the teachers don’t communicate between schools as much as they would like. We’ve got electronic mailing lists for each building, but what if you’re a 6th grade teacher and you want to send a quick message to all the other 6th grade math teachers about a cool Web site you discovered? What if you want to send a message to all 5th and 6th grade teachers who teach social studies? Maintaining your own private mailing list for every permutation is obviously not a viable option.

So I figured that I could build a simple Web application to do this. It’s really just a proof of concept at this point because I’m still testing some things, but so far it looks promising. If you look at the screenshot you can get an idea how it works. Just check the boxes to determine the recipients and type the message. We’ll have a database on the backend that knows the school(s), grade(s), and subject(s) for each teacher.

Idea Blaster screenshot

I see great potential here for encouraging easy sharing of all kinds of information across schools. Even if no one uses it, I had plenty of fun flexing my Python programming muscles.