Stenciled

So near...

2007-10-10T23:48:00.000+08:00

Like most people who follow these things, I've been waiting with impatient anticipation for a Linux that's "ready for the desktop".

I'm no Linux guru. I've installed and tried dozens of distributions over the years, and I've worked in environments where Linux servers are doing a lot of the grunt stuff. But as for the heavy-duty command line stuff, well, I can see the attraction, but life's too short. What I've been looking for is an alternative to Windows - on philosophical grounds. Free software, free information, the workers have no nation... you get the idea. I thought openSUSE was getting close, although Novell's purchase and subsequent flirting with Microsoft kind of poured water on my sanctimony. I tried an early version of Ubuntu, too - but it didn't play nicely with my hardware, and I could never get it to print or recognise my sound card.

A full reinstall of my system - a couple of years with XP and it had to be done - along with a nice new 400Gb hard drive meant the time was perfect to get my partitions in order, and leave a bit of space for a Linux installation.

Ubuntu it had to be. All the spin has been that this is the OS for the masses, and hey, the screenshots looked pretty slick.

Install went perfectly. Burn a bootable .iso, and follow the prompts.

Small annoyance. A simple explanation of where it's installing and how this will relate to the Windows partitions is in order. It's not going to cut it if the user doesn't know about partitions, swap space etc.

Not too long to install, and it was up and running. And it looked horrible. Getting the video to match a 1920 x 1200 widescreen meant a driver for an NVidia card. Which is much the same as XP, I guess, but the "protected" driver didn't want to install. I went the long way, and a rather good HowTo helped. When a finally got it working it looked spiffy, and unlike so many distros, it's clean and uncrowded.

Most other things worked. Sound was perfect, and installing a network printer (via a bridge, which sometimes fools XP) took no time (although it didn't auto discover, and I had to guess a few settings as the model of my Brother laser wasn't in the database). Still, once I typed in the IP number (again, this won't wash with a lot of users) it worked a treat.

Getting it on the network was almost easy. It had no problem with my wireless card (unlike XP, which needs a driver loaded) and it identified my network. But would it accept my encryption key and connect? Nope. I had to go to manual configuration, and after a few false starts, I got my internet connection. (It's been rock solid since).

So... a few hours, a few guesses and a bit of prior knowledge and it was getting there.

I started to think about installing a few bits'n'pieces. I thought about going the "download a file, and chase the dependencies tail" route. But Ubuntu have pretty well got this beaten (I suspect I should be crediting Debian). Add or Remove on Windows means playing disks or downloads, and knowing everything new is going to take a few percentage points off performance. Not here. There are thousands of free apps available beyond what's already installed (most of the useful stuff) and the goodly majority work without a problem. This is where Ubuntu starts to really show it's worth.

I had to use a proprietary DVD player (LinDVD) and getting it working involved a bit of terminal work (back to the HowTo) so this isn't going to be popular with new users. Still, once up and running, it worked as well as anything on XP. I could never get my DTV card going. Tried various apps, but it seems the Winfast card just wasn't going to play. I installed my favourite media player - VLC - and it mostly worked, although it's decided to hang now and then. Lots of codec issues with video files, so I'm reserving judgement on this front.

I could see my NTFS drives, and read from them, and file browsing was easy.

I'd pretty well concluded that Ubuntu has got very close. Just a few annoyances here and there, and probably still requiring knowledge beyond the average uninterested-in-the-workings user. But the user experience, once it was all up and going is probably just as easy as XP. And it's got a feel of being clean and simple.

I paused for a bit of reflection at this point. I realised I probably spent less time on the Ubuntu install than I did on the XP. I had to use just one CD-ROM - the original install disk. And (apart from the failures with the DTV card) I'd had to "manually" install one driver.

Then I tried Beryl. It's an experimental desktop system that really tries to be different. Multiple workspaces on the sides of a 3D cube. Flick between them, instead of doing the "minimise-maximise" shuffle. Need to know a few keyboard shortcuts, but the result is just fantastic. I suspect it needs a decent video card, but it really has presented the best alternative to the traditional windowing system pioneered by Amigas (oh yes, possibly Apple) I've come across. It's tempting me to select Linux when I'm booting up - I've never really had that experience before.

I'm editing this blog in Firefox on Ubuntu with Beryl running right now. The pics were edited in The Gimp. Theres a music player going, my email is popping up with new messages occasionally (Thunderbird - with its profile imported from my Windows version) and nothing is crashing or glitching (I'm touching all the timber I can find as I write). It feels like a very nice place to work. Just maybe we've reached a tipping point...

Depth or Decoration?

2007-09-24T09:05:00.000+08:00

Having a teaching program brimming with information and communication technologies is almost di rigeur these days. Let's state from the outset that this isn't some Luddite rant. But there's a need for a sceptical look at the depth of use in classrooms. So often teachers let the technology substitute for good classroom interaction. What happens between teachers and students is a complex, special process - most of it based on face-to-face interactions.

And technology is not just about presentation. A PowerPoint can be a great way to teach a concept if used sparingly and intelligently. But it's not a substitute for teaching using more fundamental tools: the voice, the eyes, and reasoning. Form the relationship with the child, then set about using the peripheral tools.

The superficiality of usage by some educators is so often mirrored in the work produced by students. - everything based on presentation. The technology is very good at that, but it's not the same as conceptual depth. So much student work is presented and published in frilly form, and we have to guard against being too impressed by the gadgetry. Blogs, wikis, social-networking sites - they have immense potential, as long as we analyse the content within. Otherwise, it's the equivalent of giving marks to the kid who draws flowers around their full-stops.

Hula Pod

2007-09-19T09:31:00.000+08:00

Is the iPod the hula hoop of the 21st Century? I know they're ubiquitous (iPods), but are they more than a cultural icon? Okay, you can listen to music on them, and maybe they have an education role (podcasts). But I'm thinking they're really just a clever Walkman. You wanna walk around with music playing in your ears? Great. You wanna use technology to communicate, educate, extend the mind, work in new ways? Get a computer.

An oldie but oh, what a goodie

2007-09-18T21:13:00.000+08:00

It's about time Neal Stephenson wrote something. The Baroque Trilogy is drifting into the past (although finding someone to celebrate the genius of the ending with is not easy).

Not familiar with our Neal? Consider yourself slapped with a wet fish.

He's more than a novelist. His "geek journalism" is exemplified in the wonderful Mother Earth Mother Board, first published in Wired. There's a version with the formatting intact here.

VoiceThread - a minor killer app.

2007-09-18T20:08:00.000+08:00

Sharing is all the rage on the Net right now. I’m hoping that caring goes with it, but that’s another matter. A quick think comes up with YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, BitTorrent (notice a trend with the evolution of punctuation here?) and the blogosphere (all 70 million strong). You say network, I’ll say social. In fact, there’s so much sharing, it’s easy to get plum shared out.

Blogs send me to sleep (except this one, of course), MySpace is just plain silly, and BitTorrent… well, no names, no packdrill. Then along comes a simple, bright idea that you just know could work in a classroom. Remember film strips? The ones with beeps on a tape that told you when to advance the slide and sombre commentaries on the precipitation cycle. Here’s the DIY version, and as slickly presented, in an understated way, as a Swedish breakfast.

VoiceThread is a web application where you build narrated slide-shows. Upload some pictures, record some commentary (or type in text if you wish), then share with selected friends. It’s beautifully simple, and the interface is an easy-to-look-at mix of charcoals and greys. The design means the images are the centre of attention, and you can’t help but produce slick results.

Well, actually, it can go wrong. Recording the audio uses Flash in the browser. I used, by coincidence, VoiceThread’s recommended input device – a Logitech USB headset functioning perfectly with Windows Sound Recorder and Audacity. I tried it in Firefox and IE. It thought it was recording, but just however-many-seconds of silence was the result. Right-clicking on the Flash window and playing with the settings fixed it - but it wasn't obvious. I'm big on obvious.

Which would normally be enough for me to suggest you forget it. But this is worth persevering with. Assuming the audio works for you, then the rest is a treat. You could do this sort of thing with Photo Story or the dreaded PowerPoint, but this has all the advantages of a web application. No installs, use it where you like, share as you see fit. It has a nifty multiple-identities feature that means one class can work from a single account. VoiceThread also make a noble proclamation that the app will always be free for student use. (Wait until Microsoft buy them.) It’s useful, by my estimation, from about Year 3 onwards. Simple, but not childish, so perfect for children.

The obvious use is with Listening and Speaking in English which would take care of Viewing in the process. It’s the perfect medium for reporting Science investigations or journaling a challenge in Technology and Enterprise. That’s from the student side of things – if you want to present some resource material to the class, here’s a place they can find it from anywhere.

I’d recommend playing with this one. It has minor killer app written all over it – in subtle charcoals and greys, of course.

Digital Natives or Digital Savages?

2007-09-18T10:46:00.000+08:00

There's been so much written lately about the notion that out children have somehow evolved into a different species. Most notable in this view is Marc Prensky, with his Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants essay.

I'm not convinced. It's a nice idea - one that makes us want to believe that the Brave New World is here, but experience in the classroom and attendance at recent talk-fests have me thinking otherwise.

Kids are good at using technology. Is this new? It's (generally) in a kid's nature to pick things up easily, but that's what the young of our species are programmed to do. They've been like that for millenia. But extending this self-evident fact to suggest we're dealing with some sort of sub-species. Oh, please...

Martin Owen's little discussion paper first raised my doubts about worshipping at the church of holy Web2.

More to come on this...