johnhendron.net: hendron’s digest - a weblog

I’m in an excellent session now on Wikis in the Classroom at NECC 2007 Atlanta.

Visit the presenter’s wikis. To master wikis, she suggests:

• small edits
• communicate
• use the history
• discuss the content students add
• refresh before writing

The creator of Wikispaces suggests that we do not need email addresses for all the users. It can work without student e-mail.

You can e-mail a list of usernames/passwords to wikispaces.

Think of the structure of the wikispace before you start… assign roles to students for what you want to appear.

Installation options: Moodle, other providers, software for your own servers.

Resources:

• educationalwikis.wikispaces.com
• coolcatteacher.wikispaces.com

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Some personal thoughts on the first two full-days of NECC 2007 sponsored by ISTE in Atlanta, Georgia.

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The second full day at NECC has been great… I just came from an excellent presentation by Bernie Dodge, PhD from San Diego State, who asked us if technology could make us wise… and the answers were interesting! He encouraged us to seek wisdom-promoting practices in the classroom, because wisdom is teachable. And technology can make it happen.

Now I’m waiting for another session to start… on games and simulations. I hope it’s good.

The opening “keynote” discussion this morning was good too, with several different personalities on stage (a dancer, a creative marketer, an educator, etc.) that revealed to us what our focus for future workers should be focused upon…

The problem with picking sessions many times is… Where to go? I had 3-4 great sessions picked out for each slot. Open-source, gaming, wikis, communications, etc. I also captured some video today to use in a forthcoming podcast.

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This is a birds of a feather session focused on using Open Source software in schools. Sharon Betts from Maine presides, uses Web 2.0 and open-source products. “You don’t buy anything but the hardware.” Mr. Fitzgerald, 20Monkey, using Drupal with schools. Steve Hardagon, running the open-source pavilion at ISTE. The session has some classroom teachers, IT, and coordinators. Folks want ideas for the classroom. Many folks do not yet use open source programs, but many are interested. A select few are heavy users of Open-Source, and are great resources.

Some open-source examples are Moodle, Audacity, Celestia, Dia, Drupal, Firefox, FreeMind, FIMP, Nvu, OpenOffice.org, Scibus, TuxPaint, and Ubuntu Linux.

eduUbuntu comes with free elementary software.

FLOSSed conference is an event you can attend to learn more about OpenSource in schools.

A discussion ensued regarding the “free” aspect of open-source software. “Free” cost to distribute, but you may hire someone (an expert) to install the software. There’s another “free”–to customize, share, and manipulate.

FLOSS - free/libre open source software. A compromised term to describe the “freedom” in OS software. There is SIS and ePortfolio software being developed that can be used in the educational organization… other software is being developed to work in tandem with pre-existing suites, such as Drupal or Moodle.

Many schools begin using OS software because of the cost, but many are finding some apps are best-in-class options.

Distrowatch.org is a website that tracks Linux distributions if you want to start with Linux.

Nvu (now Composer) is a good analogue to Microsoft Front Page.

Hardagon believes we should be teaching PHP, MySQL and Apache skills to give kids employable skills.

Getting started? Go to an OpenSource matrix site to see examples. Focus on how systems treat users, and how they group users. Examine what is important, engage the support of the user community.

• How easy is it to install?
• How easy is it to maintain?
• How easy is it to extend?

Many give advice to network with other educators… and get their advice, share their experiences.

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I attended this session at NECC 2007 on Monday, June 25, 2007.

Some advice I have for presenters. I’ve seen this twice so far today… Too much introduction. Why ask how many people are in the room who are teachers, etc., when you’re not going to change the way you present? And participation - not my thing. When the presenter asked for people to “network” with one another, some people walked out.

The audience has some good ideas about what PBL is what the advantages are. “Good application of what you’ve learned,” and “authentic engagement,” and allows “deep learning.”

Who is the audience for their book? Capable, optimists, learners, connectors. I think we could have skipped this. If I like your session, I’ll get your book. We’re 24 minutes into the presentation and haven’t “seen” anything yet.

• The Arc of a Journey
• • Wiki for Planning
• • IM
• • Skype
• • Del.icio.us
• • Blog for the Public
• • Flickr Group for uploading pictures

At 11:30 we’re looking at the TOC for their book. I’d really like to see some examples, ladies. People are walking out of your session. As the lady who left next to me said, Show me the money.

This session was a waste of my time. In 15 minutes, they could have sold me their book… the content looks good. But there was little I could walk away with and use.

I will be attending NECC 2007 in Atlanta this week.

We left Richmond on a flight on AirTran at 10:00 AM this morning, and arrived at the hotel around 2 PM in Atlanta. After checking in, and checking e-mail, I headed to the conference center via shuttle bus.

From there, I registered, found some fellow Virginians, and proceeded to the main opening event.

It was wonderful… we saw a drumming group from Atlanta that was outstanding. We each gave them a deserved standing ovation. Then our opening speaker was excellent too, complete with jokes and good statistics and a view of the future.

This year, ISTE has set up a conference planner that will make keeping up with all the events easy. And Monday evening is the VSTE social event at the Omni Hotel where I hope to conduct a podcast.

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Apple has announced the feature set for Leopard. The general consensus for Mac users is… lukewarm towards the announcements.

Jobs promised “top secret” features, and these new features were mainly cursory and suspect.

• A transparent menubar
• Stacks
• 3D Dock
• “New” Finder

Let me have a few lines to express my own dismay on these features/updates.

The menubar is clearly an attempt to show “Apple can do transparent windows” like Windows, but not with the Window. It looks stupid. I want to clearly see my menu bar. Not have to look at a glass version of it. At the worst, make it an option. Don’t make me use this!

The stacks are interesting, but are presented in a very uninteresting way. That “fan” view looks stupid. It’s a half-made attempt at something un-grid like. The Vista way of doing Exposé (3D windows, in a stack) would be a much better implementation of a stack than a weird fan shape.

There have been demos of a new UI approach where stacks are made on the fly, and the icons lay on a surface organically… this is where this concept should go. In its current state, it’s laughable.

3D Dock. This is “3D” because we can. Not because it offers a new feature. In essence, it is as if the third dimension has been wasted for only eye candy. What if… clicking on a dock icon, made it move over, or twist, to see a side-view. And option buttons were displayed… in otherwords, using the 3D space for functional reasons. Hey, there’s an idea.

What about a dynamic dock that re-arranges icons based on… processor activity, RAM usage, or frequency of use… Mac OS X just knows what apps you spend the most time in… and makes them bigger, or re-orders them that way.

3D is incredible, and is where things are headed. But we’re smart enough to know working in 3D in a 2D space has serious limits. Make the new dimension of depth have a purpose… please.

The Finder is up there with the menubar, for me. The two big features, coverflow and the new preview features, are questionable. Isn’t one just the other? Coverflow… icons that are “real” previews, and require plugins for developers to write. I can’t picture Adobe doing this… but who knows.

And the preview? How frustrating to be able to read something… but not edit?! Yes, looking at PDFs and Keynotes are fine.. but what about other docs?

Seems like some good ideas that need refinement. I’d prefer to right-click on little icons and get a super snazzy animation pop up and show me.

iTunes works for iPhoto. iPhoto works for some of iMovie. But the Finder? Will someday iTunes and Finder merge? Just listening to files that happen to be music?

We need better organizational tools… not folders… and “stacks.”

I don’t have all the answers… but the solutions so far aren’t inspiring.

Mac OS X Server for 10.5 appears much more interesting…

Over the past few months, I have begun to consider earning a Ph.D.

This post is scaring me, however.