We traveled to San Diego earlier this week and stayed in a Courtyard by Marriott (very nice, by the way, even though they are remodeling). While there were certainly some families staying there, it appeared as though the majority of guests were business travelers. I used the Business Center in the lobby to print some directions and our boarding passes, and I found their computer setup interesting for a couple of reasons.
First, they were running Thinix, a kiosk-style interface that runs on top of Windows XP.
Second, and most interesting to me, was how they had the kiosk interface configured. Here’s a picture of what the computer looks like when you walk up to it.
This is the main tab, and I find it very interesting what they chose to include here considering their primarily business clientele. Web browser, Chat (linked to Meebo), MySpace, Facebook, Google, YouTube, and the Weather Channel. Now, assuming they are attempting to meet the needs of their business travelers in the most efficient way possible, and assuming someone consciously thought this through, I find it significant that the main tab had mostly social resources, while the Office Apps tab was relegated to #2. But let’s look at the other tabs as well.
On the Office tab, here’s what it looks like:
The word processor, spreadsheet and presentation apps are all ThinkFree Office apps, then they have some remote connection apps and a calculator. So, while this was still running on top of Windows XP, it’s interesting that they don’t feel compelled to offer MS Office for their business customers.
The games tab isn’t all that interesting (other than that they have it at all):
But moving on to the Bookmarks tab we see once again what Marriott apparently thinks their business guests are most likely to want to access:
Here’s the Media tab:
Again, interesting choices – YouTube, Hulu, Pandora, Flickr, then the three networks formerly known as the “major networks.”
So, what does this Business Center tell us - what’s the takeaway from this? Perhaps nothing profound, but perhaps another indication of the shifts that are occurring in all areas, including the traveling business world: from desktop to desktop/cloud combination, from private to social, and from proprietary to open source.
So, I’m curious. At your school, what direction are you going (are you shifting the same direction?), and what page do your computers/browsers open up to?
If you’re curious, at my school browsers start up to a locally hosted version of this page. This is the external version that our eeePC’s (37 currently, but hoping to add to that) that connect wirelessly start up with, since they are not connecting directly to our domain, but instead are using the open side of our wireless network that any student device can connect to.
This will not be any kind of coherent post, just some miscellaneous thoughts from the annual NCTE Convention. (I know, I know, how will you tell the difference?)
At the opening celebration for the NCTE Convention, they had it playing in a continuous loop for 60 minutes. But they also had the sound turned down and a mariachi band playing – so picture Did You Know? with mariachi music and light appetizers. Too. Funny. Oh well, Henry Winkler’s done okay since then, hasn’t he?
Greg Mortenson We went to listen to Greg Mortenson, author of Three Cups of Tea, speak, and we sat in the front row because Anne wants to try to get him to blog with her students about the book. Just before he’s about to begin I start to take a picture of him. But he sees me and immediately walks over, puts his arm around me, and hands the camera to Anne to take a picture of us. After that about fifty people came up to have their picture taken with him. I’m guessing he just knows that’s going to happen so picks somebody out to start the process, I just happened to catch his attention. It was a little awkward, since I wasn’t trying to get my picture taken with him, and I’m still not sure Anne has forgiven me (even though – for the record – it was completely and utterly not my fault).
For folks that liked Three Cups of Tea, you’ll be excited to learn that they’ll be releasing both a children's version and a young reader’s version in January, both of which should be more accessible to younger readers. You might also look at the Pennies for Peace program.
Anne and Kristin I was part of two presentations at NCTE. Anne and I were the featured presentation on Saturday morning, but it was 8:00 am so sparsely attended. But on Friday Anne Smith and Kristin Leclairepresented and it was fabulous – I predict that NCTE will be inviting them back to do some great things very soon.
Technology Let’s just say that for a conference that was titled “Shift Happens,”
the wireless access was, ummm, pretty “shifty”. I know it’s expensive, but when is it going to be a given that when anyone gets together for a conference learning, especially educators, wireless is a necessity, not an option? Bud Hunt has more thoughts on this, and so do his commenters.
In addition, every single session I was in, including both of the ones I was associated with, had technical issues with the projectors and/or the microphones. Some of that is to be expected with that many sessions, but 100% with problems? I don’t think so.
Miscellaneous Quotes From My Notes
If we really want students to succeed in the future, we have to allow them to work in a participatory and collaborative way.
They did all this work outside of school because our filters wouldn’t let them find these things.
We invited the superintendent, adminstration, etc. – not one of them took the invitation. That was disappointing.
Teachers will incorporate bits and pieces, but it was still the same basic curriculum – we needed to change the whole thing.
'They’re on a computer, that’s not English' – but they were doing more reading and writing than in their other English classes.
I didn’t feel like our department had a vision – so I changed schools. At my new school, there was a different way of talking about students, a different way of viewing students.
We believe kids can’t look critically at the world until they figure out who they are.
We should think of ourselves [teachers] as the Designer of the Learning Experience.
Every teacher will have to be tech savvy.
They don’t have to be where the information is.
Blogging is reading, with the intent to write. (Quoting Will Richardson).
As I’ve blogged about previously, my school recently opened up our wireless network for personally owned devices to access the Internet. Students, staff, parents, and community members can connect to the Internet with any 802.11 a/b/g device Monday through Friday at my school (turned off on the weekends for security reasons – I hope to eventually get it turned on on at least Saturdays since the building is fairly heavily used that day as well).
As some folks in the community might have concerns about this, my principal asked me to write up something for our school newsletter about the rationale of why we were offering wireless at AHS. I started off just writing about the obvious reasons (access to teacher web pages, databases, other resources on the web, etc.), but then couldn’t help myself, and found myself launching into a mini Fischrant. Because I didn’t just want to talk about the obvious reasons, I wanted to talk about the philosophy and the vision. I wanted to be transparent about what we were doing, and try to get folks more involved in the discussions we are having about 21st century education.
When I was done it was about three pages, which is probably just a tad bit longer than he wanted for the newsletter (regular readers of this blog might have noticed that I can be a bit wordy) and probably a little bit “different” than what he had asked for. I figured he would edit out most of the ranting and make it much shorter. To my surprise, he ended up running almost all of it, only editing out three or four paragraphs to shorten it up a bit. It gets mailed out today (we also post it online as a pdf), so it will be interesting to see what – if any – reaction we get to it.
So, I figured if my principal was willing to run my rantings in our school newsletter, then I should probably put it on the blog as well. So here’s the full rant - before the editing - in case anyone can use any of it.
Why Wireless?
As Arapahoe High School begins to offer wireless Internet access for personally owned devices, one of the questions that some folks have is, “Why? Why would you give students one more way to be off task when they are at school?” The answer to that question is not simple, but we’d like to take a few minutes to talk about some of the reasons we view this as an extremely positive development for our students.
The most obvious reasons are rather straightforward. There is a wealth of information and resources available to our students via the Internet, and online resources are an integral part of many of our classes. This includes resources that Arapahoe and/or Littleton Public Schools creates and provides for students online such as:
The Campus Portal, which gives students real-time access to their grades and assignments.
Teacher Web Pages, which can include assignments, notes, worksheets, presentations and links to additional resources.
Electronic Databases – online, subscription-based services such as Ebsco and ABC Clio that Arapahoe pays for to bring the best reference tools possible to our students.
Then there are the vast resources of the open web, which include not only sources of information and knowledge but communication tools and practically unlimited storage capabilities. AHS teachers utilize blogs, wikis and other Web 2.0 tools to enhance and extend their students’ learning, to knock down the walls of our classrooms and the idea that learning only takes place in classrooms, with desks that are in straight rows, and only happens between 7:21 and 2:16 each day.
There are other reasons that may not be so obvious, but are perhaps more important in the long run. Our students will spend the rest of their lives in a multi-tasking, technology-driven world and will need information and communication technology literacy in order to be successful – in both their professional and personal lives. They will need to be continually learning throughout their lives. “Lifelong Learner” will not be an educational buzzword for them; it will be an economic and personal necessity.
The world our students are entering is a much different world than the one in which most of us (their teachers and parents) grew up in. In a flat world, in a constantly connected world, in a world where the answers one needs may be found from the teacher down the hall, from a server in Indiana, or from a blogger in India, students need access to the tools of the modern learner. We feel that to be successful in the 21st century, our students are going to need different skills, abilities, and habits of mind than we did in the last century. They will need to know how to create and maintain their own Personal Learning Networks. Our students must know what to do when they don’t know what to do. They will need to know how to learn how to learn.
The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn. - Alvin Toffler
In times of rapid change, the learners inherit the earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. - Eric Hoffer
Our students are the ultimate knowledge workers – their primary “job” is to learn – and we need to make sure they are able to take advantage of the resources available to them. By offering wireless access, we are allowing them to practice “just in time” learning, whether they are in the classroom, the library or the cafeteria.
We are moving from: “do your own work” to “work with others” “just in case” to “just in time” learning “hand it in” to “publish it.” - Will Richardson
We need to engage our students through relevant, timely and meaningful activities. We cannot limit them just to the knowledge available to them within AHS, they need to explore and interact with the global society of which they are a part. Technology is not the goal, but rather it is the enabler that allows us to achieve our goals.
These are just technologies. Using them does not make you modern, smart, moral, wise, fair, or decent. It just makes you able to communicate, compete, and collaborate farther and faster. - Thomas Friedman
We are trying to foster a collaborative environment among students – sharing not only with other students in the classroom, but with other classrooms around the world. Students need not only to be able to present information to their classmates, but to share their work with the much wider – and often more authentic – audience that the Internet provides. We need to move from an isolated to a connected classroom.
The best companies are the best collaborators. In the flat world, more and more business will be done through collaborations within and between companies, for a very simple reason: The next layers of value creation – whether in technology, marketing, biomedicine, or manufacturing – are becoming so complex that no single firm or department is going to be able to master them alone. - Thomas Friedman
None of this can happen if technology and access is an “add-on.” Students need ubiquitous access to these 21st century technology tools.
The computer is the primary instrument for intellectual and creative work in our society. - Gary Stager
Wireless access to the Internet is a force multiplier; it allows students to leverage the knowledge of folks all over the world.
Ask yourself these questions:
Are you ever going to be 18 again?
Are your students ever going to be your age?
Should we be preparing students for the world as it was when we were 18, or for the world as it will be when they are our age?
As far as students being “off-task,” our philosophy at Arapahoe is to have high expectations for our students, to educate them to behave ethically, responsibly and safely and then expect that they will do the right thing. When they don’t, they know we’ll have a conversation and try to learn from the mistake, but we don’t assume they are going to mess up. We give our students responsibility, and then help them live up to that.
We have created an environment where students are both respected and nurtured, where they are treated as professional learners, where they are seen as individuals that can contribute to the common good. An environment where they are viewed not just as passive consumers of information, but as active producers, who add meaning and value to the information. An environment where students are encouraged to interact, not only with others in their classroom, but with others in their community - and in communities around the world. Our students need to learn in a responsive information environment, where they are able to ask questions and seek answers, not just from their teachers but also from the vast information and human resources that the Internet enables.
Our students are facing an unpredictable future, much more so than any of us faced. Yes, we didn’t know exactly what our future would hold, but this generation is the first generation in history to really have no idea what the world is going to look like when they are adults. They need to be continual learners, to be able to teach themselves, to seek out and refine their own learning networks so that their learning doesn’t end when they walk across the stage at graduation.
In order to do this, they need practice. We are offering them that opportunity, as well as our guidance.
We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. - Albert Einstein
It seems like a recurring theme in my school and district, two steps forward and one (or sometimes 1.8) steps back. By the end of this month, my school will be offering access to our wireless network to “personally owned devices.” Anyone who owns a device that uses the standard wireless protocols (802.11 a/b/g right now) will be able to connect to our wireless network and access the Internet (although not our file servers and printers). This access is still filtered by the same filter that school computers use, but is not password protected or restricted in any other way. Users have to accept an agreement each time they launch their browsers, and teachers have full discretion over their use in classrooms (much like we handle cell phones and iPods right now).
For those of you paying very close attention, you may recall that we had this briefly last fall until we realized that the licensing for our Internet filter did not cover these personally owned devices so it was switched back off. Over the summer the district purchased a new filter (8e6) and this was part of that agreement. This means that our students (as well as staff, parents, and other visitors to the building) will be able to bring their laptops, or iPhones, or Palms, or iPod touches, or whatevers and be connected. We have theoretical wireless coverage for about 95% of the footprint of the building, although I suspect that we will find quite a few dead spots as students start bringing more and more devices. We may also have density issues, although we did put extra wireless access points in our media center and cafeteria, figuring those areas would see heavy usage. (Because of our variable schedule, our students have a fair amount of unscheduled time at school to work on assignments, seek out teachers for additional help, meet with counselors, and use our media center – including the computers. While we currently have 35 computers available in our media center, they are still often all being used, so this will begin to help students have access whenever they need it, not just when the computers are available.)
The second step forward has to do with the filter itself. One of the reasons my district chose 8e6 was because of its ability to include overrides. There are actually two levels of override, an Active Directory override and a Building Level override. The Active Directory override allows all staff members to enter their login credentials and override many of the sites that the filter blocks. This allows them to use their discretion about using a site that may be blocked but is still educationally appropriate, and also allows them to get to a site to evaluate if it is appropriate. The Building Level override then gives an even higher level of access. I’ve questioned whether there is a need for two levels of override, using the seemingly incontestable argument of why would they trust me more than my staff. Those discussions are still ongoing, but I’m hopeful that they will eventually give all staff the same override rights as the building level override.
This is a huge improvement over last year, where we did have a building level override but no individual overrides, making it much easier for teachers to do their jobs “just in time.” If you are using 8e6 in your district and don’t have these overrides, you might ask (nicely) why not. This is built-in to 8e6, so I don’t think there’s a huge technical hurdle to implementing it. Keep in mind that it does keep a log of all overrides, and that log is attached to the login override that’s used, so there is still some “tracking” that can be done.
So, what’s the one step back? With the implementation of the new filter over the summer, they had to re-setup the categories of what was blocked and what was allowed. As part of that process, we now have lost access to YouTube, Google Video and other similar video sites. Previously we had had full access to those sites, and many teachers and students had used them effectively. Now, they’re somewhat crippled. Yes, teachers can access them with their override, which is annoying but still workable if they want to show a particular video to their classes. But what they can’t do anymore is have their students watch videos on their own, or find videos, or work on presentations that include videos, or upload their own videos. With our variable schedule, this is something that teachers had asked students to do in the past, but now we can’t.
I’ll spare you the long, drawn out arguments I made, as most of you can probably make them better than I did. But I will say this much. This completely contradicts the philosophy of my high school (and I thought my district). Our philosophy is to have high expectations for our students, to educate them to behave ethically, responsibly and safely and then expect that they will do the right thing. When they don’t, they know we’ll have a conversation and try to learn from the mistake, but we don’t assume they are going to screw up. In other words, our philosophy has been to educate, not ban.
It appears to me that the basic problem is that the filter, as much as I like some of its features, still cannot do what it purports to do – which is block inappropriate content (however that’s defined and whoever is doing the defining, which is a whole different rant). As it is, the filter is only capable of blocking categories and all of YouTube, not just inappropriate content on YouTube. While I understand that that is technically daunting, I don’t really care – that’s not my job, that’s the filter company’s job. Until they can do that, I think we should stop calling it by the euphemism “Internet Filter,” and instead call it what it really is, an “Information Censor.” It still amazes me that schools are so willing to abrogate their responsibilities and turn over control of the resources their students are allowed to access, the information and ideas their students are exposed to, to a third-party, for-profit company that does not hold education as its primary mission. What's next, are we going to start buying textbooks? OK, so maybe I shouldn't be so amazed.
So, as one example, our students won’t be able to learn from and participate in Pangea Day while at school. From the TED blog:
On May 10, 2008, Pangea Day, sites in New York City, Rio, London, Dharamsala, Cairo, Jerusalem, and Kigali will be video-conferenced live to produce a 4-hour program of powerful films, supplemented by visionary speakers, and global musicians.
The purpose: to use the power of film to promote better understanding of our common humanity. A global audience will watch through the Internet, television, digital cinemas, and mobile phones. Yes, of course, movies alone can’t change the world. But the people who watch them can.
To start the process, a short Pangea Day trailer (2:30 min) has just been given front-page exposure on YouTube, inviting anyone to submit their films. Pangea is seeking films "that provoke, entertain and inspire". "Images are powerful to divide, but also to unite", says the trailer.
Here’s the trailer. Note that while the trailer can be viewed on the Pangea Day website, films are submitted to a group at YouTube, meaning our students won’t be able to view them, or submit their own.
Sorry, LPS students, you won’t be able to view this at school. Please go learn – and change the world - at home.
