Left Lane Ends

How do you like THAT irony? :>

First, i will say that it takes me longer to type on the  XO keyboard than it does on my iPhone’s tiny little touch keypad. Granted, the keyboard is made for little fingers…

Moving on. I am working on my annual reinstall of my laptop and got all excited about dual booting my machine with the Kubuntu flavor of Linux open source OS. I’m the first to admit that I’m not  a full out computer geek and I don’t get ’super duper excited’ about the newest and greatest - BUT, I’ve always been FOR the open source products out there. After attending a session about a district that is using Kubuntu (albeit in small numbers), I started rolling around ideas about how i could do the same for my office work by moving towards online tools like our webmail client for Outlook, Google Docs, etc. After all, Linux installs have gotten much easier over the years so why not take the plunge?

I’m on day two. I have stuff to do. My laptop is down - still. I just wiped it out and am giving Linux the boot. After finally getting my hard drive partitioned right and getting half way through the installation, I got an error - no go - shut down - do it again. It was at that point that i realized, I HAVE to have Outlook up all day for my job. I HAVE to use Internet Explorer for specific applications we have in-district. MSN Messenger is the only chat application we have open to pilot (and what good is a chat client if it isn’t up-and-running on your machine?).

I realized I was defeated, slumped back to tech services and asked for the XP install disk one more time so that I could do a simple, one partition install. At home, this would work (IF I would be willing to give up the ability to do serious video editing). In Africa (where I might be helping to install updated computers), this will work IF there is a solid internet connection. In Irving ISD, it won’t be possible. Even our students are required to have IE for distriuct systems AND for state-wide testing systems (which would make it hard for any texas district to move full-out to open source). I know there are work arounds. I know. But I want realistic solutions. I want developers to push the limits (like Apple has done lately) and come up with ways that I can work online without making my forearms cramp up like they are now. What good are new devices if the usablity stays the same as the old ones? What good is free software if it is problematic and cumbersome?

I’m not happy with Windows - I hate the copy of Vista that is running on my video editing mchine. But XP works. It meets my job requireents for email, messenging and district systems. So, Kubuntu - you get the boot… a single boot to XP only.

I’ll still run Open Office only, but Outlook will have to be installed. With so much of my work being done through a browser, it should have been easier than this… it should have been doable. Guess I’m being forced to stay on the highway with this one.

With that, and with my hands and arms cramped from typing this out on the XO, I’ll finish the post. There are a ton of errors due to the keypad that i’ll have to fix when my laptop is back up and running, and i’m sure as heck not going to go through the cumbersome process of grabbing and embedding link from the XO when i can do it three times faster from my laptop.

And, on a positive note, I’m glad to know that I CAN post to Wordpress from here, that web 2.0 applications do work, and that kids around the world will have the chance to feasibly do the same…

Well, until our kiddos get busy and figure out a way to down the new system, I am on IE for good. Updated score: Networking - 57, Us - 1

To clarify what is happening and how we’re being blocked: We can download/install Firefox and even open the program on our machines. The ‘new product’ does not allow Firefox to pickup outside bandwidth. I can still do my internal Irving ISD homepage and even our internal Blackboard system, but nothing more.

Until someone develops a plug-in that bypasses the ‘new product’, we’re all doomed for eternity!!!

YES!!!! I just informed our main networking guy - with a broad smile and ample gusto - that Firefox is working again (temporarily)! You should have seen his shoulders drop! Either our kids have over burdened the ‘new system’ or found a way to bring it down!

Score update: Networking - 25, Us - 1

At least we’re not at zero anymore!!!

My cousin was in town last night as he made his rounds around the country to install a new networking device at several of his company’s remote locations. We got into some networking ‘talk’ (or jargon, for those looking up the technical reference) and I mentioned that networking is all about CONTROL. He smiled, nodded his head and said, ‘yep, I LOVE control!’ It’s neither good nor bad - just the nature of networking. The more you can control your network, the better off you are.

So, that leads me to my sad morning. I knew it was coming… but I still pushed on until the last minutes that it could hold its breath… Networking has been discussing a ‘new product’ - very secret, very hush-hush - that will give them more control over the network. I won’t even say the name of it (it’s pretty hard to even research on the internet - doable, but hard) for fear of being repremanded. I’m sure you can picture my complete and utter joy at this news.

Firefox has officially been blocked district-wide. It is an apparent danger to society and therefore must be shut down. I first punched my left palm and growled when I jumped over to IE and didn’t have my tabs. (we can’t install the new version for compatibility reasons.) I will miss my tabs sorely. I vaguly remember the days of right clicking to ‘open in new window’ in IE and feel a dull, angry burning in my stomach knowing I will have to go back to that. My second palm-punch/growl-combo came when I realized I lost my built in spell check that was SUCH a great feature in Firefox 2.0. You see, I know when I misspell a word and I LIKE the fact that I get to recognize the words that I misspell on a regular basis. I look FORWARD to those little red dots under my misspelled words! I even LEARN from them and force myself to learn correct spellings of those words… so much for THAT. I now have to copy this whole freakin’ post into Google Docs (cause I SURE as heck ain’t gonna us MS WORD on this sad day!!! $#%#$()%*#$) just to check my spelling, and I’ll have to update my Wordpress Blog to the latest version to get the new spell checker. *sigh* The final time I ‘went inside to my angry place’ was my realization that I no longer had my wonderfully integrated bookmark tool - de.licio.us. I have scrapped bookmarking and need to get myself setup to most effectivley us de.licio.us within IE. I know, I know… It’s a few extra clicks - BUT THOSE CLICKS ADD UP, dangit!

Oh, Firefox… you are out there, but I can not access you. Miguel Guhlin says in a recent post:

Why should we continue to invest millions of dollars in school technology if it has already been established that schools aren’t changing? Wouldn’t it be better to accept schools as they are–institutions as flawed as the people who spend significant amounts of time in them, trying to justify those hours by any reason/research possible? Of course, the answer is really about whether any of us can change who we are, how we think for the children we serve.

I know it isn’t a ‘big deal’. I know I can use another browser. Something just doesn’t feel right, though. I’m feeling like I can’t get off the highway these days… Is it worth trying? Is it even possible?

~ I miss you, Firefox…

If you do nothing else with this post, check out the artist (Brett Dennen) that I link to below. He is GREAT - in concert and on CD. In fact, you can bet that his Mosaic Project CD (which can also be found on iTunes) will be a staple in my children’s playlist’s! How can you RESIST a CD titled: Children’s Songs for Peace and a Better World???
This is a really spontaneous post, originating from a dialog in my head, an entirley separate (forced) conversation and my own personal feelings on the matter. Read at your own risk:

Open source in education has been on my mind this week and I keep wondering more and more - why do we not make the move to open source software in schools? Every day, I do more of my work on Internet based applications then the day before, so what is holding us back? A working browser? I can boot up a version of a Linux operating system off of a CD and do everything I’m doing now (writing, posting, email, etc) on it. (AND, I am NOT a person with very much knowledge on open source!!) I’ll toss out two reasons that I believe are the primary factors in keeping us from using open source.

Miguel - you’d be proud. I’m actually writing about open source…kind of. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s the way to go, but it typically just isn’t at the top of my interest list…

I read an article yesterday from SlashDot (a geek’s paradise) that was a VERY well balanced review of the three major OS’s. If you are interested in a review that doesn’t just bash one or the other, this is a great read. I didn’t think much of it after that, and went about my day.

This afternoon, we’re sitting in a presentation from Explore Learning that is about their product and the variety of ‘Gizmos’ that they have in their system. You may have seen things like these Gizmos - simple Java or Shockwave applets that allow you to play with different parameters of a concept and see the results immediately. Check out an example on NCTM that demonstrates this concept.

I’m trying to keep this one short, so I’ll get to the point. Explore Learning has fleshed out a variety of these little applets with curriculum correlations, lesson guides, etc. They are very well put together and allow for manipulation within Office type software as well. My thoughts ran back to the OS comparison article from yesterday, and one of the main negatives listed about the Open Source (Linux) OS is its lack of education/curriculum resources. I’m not saying that Explore Learning is THE way to go, but it certainly demonstrates a cross platform (they test a large number of browsers across all major OS’s) solution that would break down some of the Linux barriers.

Granted, paying for a solution goes against the whole concept of open source, but the quality of these applets is significantly better than others that I have seen online - and their library is quite a bit larger. On top of that, I would argue that a large number of teachers who struggle with technology integration would be more apt to integrate a more usable, complete system like this in a classroom environment. The few who ‘get it’ on a campus aren’t enough to get us to where we need to be.

Maybe I’m stuck on the highway here, but the concept of cross platform educational resources seems to be growing - and that is certainly a plus for the open source movement.