LiterSide

A wiki post to ced534.wikispaces.com:
gOffice is a free online office application. Users can create, edit and save their files online. The site will allow saving as a pdf or html file back to your local drives. Future improvements are going to include import and export to and from Microsoft Word format files. The authors make their money when user click on ads within the site. They also sell internet appliances that business can purchase and use within their organization. The documents created on the gOffice site need to be kept simple since not all office functionality is available. One of the most noteable missing feature is the tab. If you need to line up text use simple tables which are supported.

AJAXlaunch is another player in the online office application but it does require firefox 1.5 to run. It is written with a new programming language calle AJAX. This project seems to be a little more complete than gOffice and provides a much more office like experience.

Any of these applications will be a great asset to student in education. the folks a gOffice clain in their FAQs they are not taking business from Microsoft. Outlook express is an email application available to windows users, there is still a place for webmail applications. In the end Microsoft, too, will need to provide online apps for all to enjoy. Like many other free programs schools may have the option to get advertisement free connections. More importantly, student will have access to the more expensive programs. The big downfall to these is they will tend to overlook the rural areas that don't have access to high speed broadband internet which will make applications in these forms difficult to use. Those users shouldn't forget about the open source programs like open office to create and edit their office type documents.

Today, I will explain different web technologies and hopefully you can comment with ideas of how to use them in a classroom.

A wiki is a document (web page) that is open for a group users to edit and maintain. The quality of the content is monitored and policed by other editors to maintain the quality of the content. Wikipedia is this type of document. People who consider themselves experts on certain topics will add content to the site. The pages can be added or modified by permitted users . The editting can be open to all acounts or the manager of the site can permit certain users to do the editting of the site. The main content of the site is text with links to other sites and a few simple graphics. The wiki is kept simple (programatically) to allow all skill levels to be able to edit and add to it without problem

In class situation, the teacher could maintain the site and permit student in the class as editors. The scenario would give all the student, even if they are in different sections the ability to share ideas with all other involved in the class. It may be necessary to "seed" the wiki to get the postings going. The teacher could also maintain a single site to be used for all classes during the year. The students could then post on commonalities that the teacher may use across classes. One way I have tought about using wiki is to build a site and then continue the same each year. The student could continuously build or correct previous year information. This also may give me a way to see the progress I am making year after year. In subjects where content changes often the pages could be modified to be kept current.

You also then could fairly easily share ideas with other classes. The instructor using the wiki could join forces with another instructor in comparable subject and they could edit hte wiki together. These may be classes in the same school or classes on the other side of the globe. In some cases working with your neighbor is just as rewarding as working with someone across the globe. One site that offers wikis is wikispaces. There are other sites the a google search will quickly turn up, also Moodle Course management software has a wiki option available to be used with a class.

Let me and other bloggers hear your ideas for using wiki in classes.

If a goal in education is to teach the using technology student already have, then why the big push to put a laptop in all student hands. In many (and I would venture to guess most) homes students need to share computer time with other family members. Wouldn't it be more practical to encourage the use of computers in a similar shared way in the classroom. I know there are some students who have their own computer, but couldn't teaching be built around having one computer for ever 3-4 students in the classroom and having the lab for the necessary individual work.
Laptop computers have been expensive to maintain and have a shorter life than an equivalent desktop and thus very cost prohibitive. I am in a lifelong quest to find a computer for classroom use that can replace the textbook (many texts are available on CD or online). I want all the convenience of textbook. It has to be ready to go as fast as opening to the page. As easy to maintain as taping a rip, gluing a binding or even just skipping over the missing page, and it can be put away in a matter of seconds. It needs to last 7 or more year, with no need to upgrade. The ability to take it home isn't necessary, because there will be a small set available for checkout from the library. If anyone has this technology please post comment.
One thing that I have been looking at is a multiheaded linux machine. One computer up to 10 keyboard, mice, displays. Set up as a Kiosk type machine where it is secure but available for wordprocessing and internet searches as well as the countless other available open source titles.

One part of tech use that tends to bother me are the times that people misuse or overuse technology. A recent experience chaperoning a 4th grade field trip brought this to light for me. We took a coach bus, kids were enjoying the trip, pointing out things outside. Then, because the technology was there we put in a movie to watch. Now all are watching a movie on a 9 inch tv screen and missing a great "movie" going by outside. I can say this because my 4 children age 2-14 travel very well, but movies have no business in cars. We should be seeing what's around us all the time. Some people need to practice with this type of awareness.
So, keeping with the blog theme, watching a movie in a car (vehicle) while traveling is like taking a gameboy to a broadway show.

There was a person who wanted to have new tires installed on his truck. The old tires still worked but they caused issues unseen by the typical person on the street and could potentially cause a huge disaster that may or may not affect said person. It was true also that those tires and the truck had not caused trouble for a very long time (over 175 days). But on a rainy Friday night the new improved tires were installed. A few days pass and things are fine. While carrying on normal day to day task the truck was loaded with bricks. You see, the bricks were needed soon so the truck was loaded fairly heavily and headed toward home. Almost to his destination, the driver notices the new blacktop in the road causing bumps that the truck could handle without problem. All of a sudden, YIKES, a HUGE pot hole!! The driver swerved to avoid the pothole the road crew forgot to patch. Just as the driver regained control of the truck and load a thirty point buck came crashing through the passenger window causing the truck to land in the ditch toppling the slightly above average load of bricks. Fortunately, no one was hurt, even the deer managed to run off into the wilderness, leaving the poor driver to clean up the mess.
This setback, although devastating initially, did not deter the driver from trying to get home. He began picking up the bricks, most could be salvaged a few were crushed and would need to be replaced. The people passing by were concerned but were unable to help. The people waiting for the bricks felt they deserved extra time to complete the construction even though they had more than enough time to complete it but chose to wait until the last minute. The builders were busy during work hours, but some refused to do work while the foreman was planning future workdays. After reloading the truck the driver had trouble getting out of the ditch. You see, it was a very busy time on the road and no one really wanted to give him the time needed to get back on the road safely. He pushed on, and although was able to get going, lost a few brick on the way and damaged a universal joint on his truck. Later that evening, he repaired the u-joint, went back and cleaned up what he could and then headed.
Keep in mind the window is still broken and that will need to be repaired in the future. The broken window really was not caused by upgrading the tires on the truck. The truck is useable and it shouldn’t, by itself, cause another crash.

Since Policy is, in essence, the school law not agreeing with the AUP is like not agreeing with posted speedlimits. "Yes officer, but I don't agree with the limit and therefore don't believe I should follow it." Elected official put these policies in place and to change them, become one of the elected officials.

The network bandwidth and the internet is like a highway. The more lanes you have the more traffic you can push through at one time. The traffic is like the information you are sending or recieving. When there is road construction that limits the lanes, or something that add more traffic like a sporting event the overall time it takes to get through is affected. You don't always see the cause of a backup on the highway but it can often be predicted by the time of day or the day of the week. Also , but not exhausting the analogies, if only one car needs to get through, like to check the mail, it may not be necessary to construct a 5 lane highway. Although, with some of the big packages you may be getting, having more than one lane to get packages to your house might not hurt.