Technology Tools Week 4

I viewed an InTime video called "Opera on the Net: Collaboration and Performance." This project allowed students to work together with a school in Sweden to create an original opera via e-mail and video conferencing. This assignment was created in 2001 and seems like it was ahead of its time.

Our school received a grant about 5 years ago to install distance learning equipment. We now have the ability to talk to people all over the world. Our students now collaborate with others around the state and they have participated in activities around the world. This project is a long-term assignment and allows a greater connection between students than what our students currently experience. The assignment seems to be very involved and requires a lot of preparation from the teacher, like taking a summer course from the Metropolitan Opera Guild. It seems to be as much a collaboration between teachers as it is between students.

Students took on roles to develop an opera, from music, to costumes, to staging. In the end, the students from Sweden flew to the US to rehearse and present the opera to the community. What a great opportunity for all involved.

Technology Tools Week 3

Week 3 brings some good resources for me. This week's spreadsheet assignments forced me to use and try things in Google Docs that I had not yet tried. After trying it, I can now comfortably go to my teachers and tell them what I like and what I do not. I feel better about my knowledge of the product and my ability to help them.

NetTrekker was also very helpful to me. I have been researching web sites with lesson plans for my teachers for a number of years. NetTrekker was a great resource. In the past, I have recommended sites like Teacher's Domain, Curriki, and MIT's Open Courseware (specifically for the high school). This is a much better resource than any of my pages. This is something I would like to look in to as a future resource. We have plenty of resources in our library and labs for students like databases, computers, and books. We do not have nearly as many resources for our teachers.

Once again, I found the readings to be the most difficult thing for me. I am not one who learns by reading and answering questions. I am a much more hands on person.

Technology Tools Week 2

Again, this week's class offered up some interesting new technologies. The biggest thing for me, and I would bet for others, is using a different search engine. Most of us probably use one search engine for everything, usually Google. I was not aware that there were so many different search engines out there. While I have used many search engines like Lycos, Google, WebCrawler, Yahoo, and Bing, I didn't know about the others. A quick look in Wikipedia under the term search engine listed all known search engines by their creation date. Very interesting list.

After researching that list for a while, I chose to try out the engine called Cuil (pronounced cool). I chose it mainly because its name interested me. While it is a good search engine and its results format is different than Google, it is not as thorough as Google. I may try some meta-search engines like Dogpile later this week. If it can really search many different search engines and get better results, that is great.

As for the online word processing services, I was already pretty familiar with those services. There were really not any surprises in this area. I am now excited that I have an entire suite of online services. Between Google Docs and some of the others we learned about I now have presentation, word, graphic, and spreadsheet services available to me. While they are not as advanced as something like Microsoft Office, they work for me. I am a basic user, not an advanced one. For the most part, these services will work fine for me and I am looking forward to sharing this information with my teachers.

Technology Tools Week 1

So, it has been a long time since I posted anything here. This week we started a new class and had a lot of new technologies to research and explore. I am going to focus on the two services I used, 280slides.com and toondoo.com.

The first assignment I did was the presentation software review. I tried a couple of different programs, including GoogleApps but was not satisfied with any of them. Then I ran across 280slides.com. The first thing that appealed to me with this service was its look and layout. It tried to emulate the Mac look and feel, which is something I was familiar with. It was extremely easy to use. It only took a few minutes to create a presentation, insert images, and share the presentation with others. 280slides.com does not have its own sharing built in but they have a link to slideshare.net which I used for sharing. This took the longest time because the slide show had to be rendered between 280slides and slideshare. It took about 3 or 4 minutes to share the presentation.

The next assignment was to create a project in a graphics program. I had heard a lot about Mr. Picassohead but after using it I ran into a couple of problems with sharing. So, I moved on to toondoo.com. This was very easy to use. I created a 3 panel comic strip and shared it within minutes. It has some nice features for working with graphics (flip image, enlarge, shrink, etc.). One of our computer classes currently uses a program called Comic Life to create basic comic strips. This seems to do many of the same things for free.

Overall, I enjoyed these two assignments. We are in the process of reviewing our school licenses. Online software is going to play a big part in this process. Things like GoogleApps and other software mentioned here are nice alternatives to programs that are licensed per machine.

How Does This Course Connect To Me?

This course was a big benefit to me.  This opened me up to some technologies that I did not previously have experience with.  The Linux assignment is the one that I will spend the most time researching.  My school is a 97% Mac school while the rest is all Windows XP.  The cost for licensing Mac and Windows operating systems is quite large.  Every upgrade costs about $30/machine and with over 400 computers, that adds up fast.  The first time I installed Linux (Ubuntu) I was quite surprised.  I was not expecting to see such a familiar environment. The software was fast and reliable and very easy to pick up.  

Ubuntu also came with Open Office.  This is something that I read about but had never used.  I immediately downloaded Open Office on both Mac and Windows machines to see how well it functioned.  I now have teachers and students testing this software.  I am contemplating switching from Microsoft Office to Open Office.  This will be a big money saver to the district.  There are still a few bugs to work out but so far, I am rather happy with the software.  I am also talking with other school districts who use this office suite to see what their experiences have been.

I am in an unusual position.  Most of the items discussed in this class are things that I already do.  While a knowledge of anti-virus software and data backup plans are important to everyone, they are things that I do every day.  It was good for me to review different software options and for me to revisit my backup plan.  These are things that, as long as things are working, I take for granted.  I should regularly schedule a review of these things to make sure our network is protected.

So, will I use this information in the future?  Right now, I hope so.  I may not move forward with Linux right away but Open Office is something that I will certainly consider putting into place for the next school year.  At this point, I cannot think of anything that I would change.

I Have a Virus

Viruses. An interesting subject for us Mac users. Until I started my job in a school with a mixed Mac/PC environment, I didn't know much about viruses except they were something that PC users got. Well, that is still the case, at least for now. While some small scale viruses are out there for the Mac, over 99% of the active viruses are made for the PC. They cause systems to slow to a crawl, pass along personal information, and destroy data. Not a fun time for a PC user if you get one.

So, how do you go about protecting yourself against viruses? Even though I use a Mac, I still use some sort of anti-virus protection. For a Mac user there are not a lot of options. There is the free, ClamXAV software, but in my experience, that has not been effective. iAntiVirus for Mac is also a free program but they do offer a solution for $29.95 that includes 24x7 support.

A better solution is the Norton Internet Security for Mac. This is a multi-function software package. It not only protects you against viruses, but it also includes a firewall to protect from online intruders, identity protection, and has an option for those Mac users who dual boot into Windows. The software is an easy install but setup of each component can take some time.

To run this software on the Mac, you need to have a machine that runs Mac OS X 10.4.11 or higher on a PowerPC or Intel chip, a CD/DVD drive, at least 256 MB RAM and 150 MB of hard drive space available. An Internet connection is also required for live update which will download updates to the software as well as the latest virus definitions. The cost for this software is $79.99 to purchase and $39.99/year to renew the service. You may be able to find the initial purchase cheaper if you shop around online. At the time of this post, Amazon was offering this software for $36.45.

For Windows users, Norton also makes Internet Security although if you want to include identity protection in the package, you need to upgrade to Norton 360. The cost for Norton 360 for Windows is also $79.99 but I found it online for $49.99. This package includes a license for up to 3 household PC's. Like the Mac version, this requires a yearly renewal.

Also for Windows users, AVG Anti-Virus is available. This company offers a free basic anti-virus program. For $54.99 you can upgrade to AVG Internet Security. This gives you many of the same features that the Norton 360 gives you.

McAfee is another company that offers a complete solution for Windows. It does offer a Mac solution, but only in its enterprise software. Its Windows solution offers the same thing that Norton does and it only costs $49.99 for the first year. I have used this program before and, while it works fine, its interface is not as easy to use and Norton. It also seemed to slow the computer down.

To these products you will need to have a Windows computer running Windows XP (2000 for AVG), preferrably 512 MB RAM, and 500 MB of disk space (300 for AVG). A CD/DVD drive is also required.

Cnet.com said that Norton 360 was the best complete package for the price for Windows users. I found that AVG was a bit easier to setup but the Norton software did receive better reviews. While there are other solutions than what is mentioned here, this represents some of the best products on the market.

Disaster Data Recovery and Your System - Work

What kind of plan needs to be used in a work setting to safely protect your data from hardware failure and viruses? It is a similar process to a home backup but on a much bigger scale. Many of the same methods are used but a greater storage capacity is usually needed.

In our school setting, all user accounts are stored on a server. Even teachers and staff who use laptops have their documents synchronized to a server. So, in most cases, the servers are the main thing to backup. These servers will host things like e-mail, blogs, calendars, library catalogs, and student information systems, as well as all teacher and student files.

For both Mac and Windows servers there are some solutions for backup software. EMC Software's Retrospect is a good piece of software that has both Mac and Windows clients. This software is installed on one machine and other machines on the network have client software installed. The main installation connects to the clients and backs up the desired data. It will backup SQL databases and e-mail (Exchange) servers. Usually, this server is connected to a tape drive, a packet drive, or other storage device.

Like a home user, some of this data might need to be backed up outside the building. Student information and financial data can be backed up to a DVD on a weekly basis and stored in a vault or somewhere else off site.

A third option would be to backup the data using online methods. Again Mozy's business version, Mozy Pro, would work. The software is priced based on the number of servers and storage space required.

This method requires more work by the administrator. Not only does one need to check on the status of the backups, but they need to make sure each server is connecting to the main server properly, and they probably also need to change tapes in the backup drive.