Technology, Uncategorized

Cut MAP Testing Setup by 66%

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Update on this post: NWEA contacted me to let me know that they offer expanded support times for international schools – 3am GMT Monday to 1am GMT Saturday. There’s also a web form at http://www.nwea.org/about-nwea/contact-us if you prefer not to call. Finally, they’ve got support forums at http://community.nwea.org/ – it looks like a mixture between pedagogical and technical questions. Props to NWEA for being proactive and responsive.

I’ve had a steep learning curve this year: in addition to my responsibility over all things IT, I have three preps as a tech teacher, work with three elementary classes, and am the MAP testing coordinator. When you wear a lot of hats you look for efficiencies, and one of the most frustrating things about MAP testing was how obtuse and labor-intensive it was.

Cutting Per-Test Setup Time by 66% Through Scripting

The previous MAP testing coordinator told me to leave 15 minutes between sessions to set up tests. I quickly discerned that this was to do with the labor-intensive nature of MAP testing. Each station needed to be logged in and have the correct test selected. Between waiting for the login to occur and selecting the right MAP test for our Mac Minis, it would take about a minute per workstation. Luckily, our school had shelled out for an Apple Remote Desktop license. This enabled me to do a batch login for all of our testing stations simultaneously by executing the following Unix command, which just tells the workstation to simulate the keystrokes of an actual physical login:
osascript <<EndOfMyScript
tell application "System Events"
keystroke return
delay 1.5
keystroke "username"
delay 1.5
keystroke return
delay 1.5
keystroke "password"
delay 1.5
keystroke return
end tell
EndOfMyScript
Make sure you replace the credentials with those from your environment, run the commands as root, and save the above as a Template in ARD so you don’t need to type/copy-paste the commands each time:

Screen Shot 2013-10-19 at 11.23.39 PM
Click to zoom.

I also set up a user account that executed an Automator action at login to connect to the NTE share, launch TestTaker and send the login keystrokes to TestTaker:

automator
Click to zoom.

*note that the script to log into the TestTaker problem – the last link in the chain of events in the Automator scrip – is a bit different, as per the code below. The 60-second delay at the beginning gives TestTaker time to launch before inputting proctor credentials:
osascript <<EndOfMyScript
tell application "System Events"
delay 60
keystroke "mapproctorusername"
delay 1.5
keystroke tab
delay 1.5
keystroke "mapproctorpassword"
delay 1.5
keystroke return
end tell
EndOfMyScript
When all was said and done, I simply needed to select the class, student and test after sending the login commands from ARD. It cut our setup time from 15 minutes to 5 minutes.

On the Magic of Resumable Downloads

NWEA is so considerate to offer the MAP for Primary Grades audio files as a 1GB download that is non-resumable because it’s behind a secure login. Under absolutely ideal conditions, that download would complete on our school’s 2Mbit line in just over an hour. Except that our connection doesn’t get 2MBits/sec to NWEA’s servers, so the effective download rate is about 30KB/s. And guess what happens if the download gets interrupted, like it does EVERY TIME you try to download it?

You get to start all over again, from the beginning. That’s what.

Solution to downloading huge MAP for Primary Grades audio files if you’re on a slow, unreliable internet connection in West Africa? Get your parents to download it for you, then have them post it to your personal web hosting service. Then, download it using your favorite resumable HTTP downloader like wget or uget.

Or, if you have access to a diplomatic pouch, order the DVD. Ours arrived three days into our testing season, and the hand-written title etched in Sharpie ink made it clear that not many people go with that option.

Beating Obtuse Software Design

Here’s the funny thing about the NWEA TestTaker client (the software that students use to take MAP tests) for Mac: it’s not actually a native Mac program. If you open Activity Monitor while TestTaker is running, you’ll see a process for wine. No, not the delicious stress reliever we all know and love – quite the opposite. Wine is an open-source compatibility layer that allows you to run Windows programs on Linux systems without actually installing Windows. Apparently, NWEA decided it would be better (easier?) to take the Windows TestTaker and hack it to work with Macs by running it in Wine.

Now, I love open-source – my primary machine at home is a custom-built PC running Linux Mint Olivia. But a lot of open-source is not exactly end-user friendly, and it’s only free if your time is worthless (ie you’ll spend a lot of time setting it up). I’m actually shocked that TestTaker runs as well as it does, but it’s still prone to obtuse errors. If a test session closes down unexpectedly and you get a student set up on another station, there’s a good chance that TestTaker will give you a “resource busy” error until you manually log into the server and terminate the old client’s connection from there. Sometimes you’ll just get helpful errors like the one below that inexplicably disappear when you repeat the exact same action (usually trying to start a student’s test):

Errors like this make it easy to troubleshoot MAP Test problems.

 

And most delightfully, sometimes you’ll launch the Mac client, only to be left with a black screen that you can only get out of by force-quitting the application

Getting Support

You know what’s really convenient? Calling the States at 8pm because you’re on GMT time and the support line is on the US Pacific Coast. That’s how you change admin passwords – there’s no web interface. I didn’t even bother to try, so confirmation emails still go to the old email of the guy I replaced (luckily he’s a stand-up guy and isn’t going to sell our students’ results on for money). I wish NWEA had support forums so they could crowdsource solutions, rather than relying on a less-than-helpful knowledge base. NWEA does have an international support line with expanded hours, as well as a web form to get in touch with people. There are also forums at community.nwea.org. I’ve asked them if they’ve considered doing a web chat support option – I met plenty of people at AISA for whom calling/Skyping is not an attractive option because of the poor telecom infrastructure in Africa.

A Note About Doing MAP Tests on a WiFi Connection

Don’t do it. Ever. It won’t work.

Uncategorized

Attention to Detail and Ghanaian Soap Operas

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I’ve heard that it takes about six weeks for culture shock to set in. So far in Bamako I’m surprised that it hasn’t. Perhaps I’m just too busy between my new role at school, weekly squash at the equestrian club, and regular weightlifting at the only gym I could find on my side of the river. But while I’ve definitely felt that I while I live in a third-world country, I haven’t felt it as an overwhelming burden – until I left.

I departed school early on Friday to catch a plane to Accra for the Fall 2013 AISA educators’ conference, where I was to attend a session for Moodle administrators. One of my school’s perks is free transportation to the airport, so I was picked up in a school van with green diplomatic plates for the 20-minute drive south. As we approached the airport, traffic thinned out and gave way to well-manicured, deserted roads. Mali doesn’t have a population wealthy enough to afford regular air travel – leading to a chicken-and-egg problem where the dearth of passengers means that airlines must charge more and offer fewer flights, and because of the high ticket prices most Malians are discouraged from air travel. And so Bamako-Senou airport needs only a single terminal with a deserted check-in area and lonely immigration officer manned the exit desk. The security line was non-existant and the customs officer who checked my bags had time to chat me up and remark on his surprise that an American had learned some French before wishing me bon journey and sending me on my way. I was almost surprised to find that the departures lounge had a café selling croissants and Heineken along with a poorly-stocked duty free concession; I was less surprised to find every chair filled by French soldiers finishing after their tour of duty in the north.

My flight on Air Côte d’Ivoire opened its gates for boarding an hour early, and it took that long for all the passengers to finally board. This would be their procedure at my connection in Abidjan, too – as would the unusual (in the first world) practice of spraying insecticide into the overhead baggage compartments before takeoff, a practice that the announcement assured me in French and English holds “no harm to you.” I was expecting a cramped seat with well-worn armrests and tired chair fabric, but the plane was surprisingly new and the stewardesses surprisingly mindful, down to admonishing me to turn off my Kindle during takeoff and landing where the staff on an Arab airline would have shrugged and moved on.

The plane landed in Abidjan after a long descent over the muddy waters of the Atlantic coast, and as the plane pulled into its gate I was reminded again of just how poor Mali was. Out the window I could see not one but three OTHER commercial aircraft on the tarmac, and the duty free actually sold … well, things. And on my arrival in Ghana I was greeted by advertisements assuring me that I could use my ATM card at numerous ATM locations in Accra (to date, I have seen only one place in Bamako – my travel agent’s – that accepts plastic). I passed through immigration and past several signs warning immigration officers against negotiating the visa on arrival fees with travellers and warning passengers against being “sexual deviants” and “pedophiles.” The duty free in arrivals was already closed at 8:30pm, as were both exchange kiosks. I exchanged $100 with a man on the street outside for a much better rate that I would have gotten at my hotel and then set off in a cab.


In Bangkok you can get a 5-star hotel experience in the heart of downtown for $130 a night. In Brussels I paid that much for a room at the Sheraton Four Points just off Avenue Louise. In Ghana, that money will buy you a night at the Asa Royal Hotel. It was new enough that Tripadvisor had only one sparse review, and it quickly became clear that it was run by someone without much hospitality training or attention to detail. The bathroom lacked any amenities – even soap – and the shower head did not attach to the wall at all. The hotel didn’t have any Wifi, although a friendly employee promised me that he would buy a SIM card and credit the next day. The bed was covered by thin linens that reminded of the industrial 2-ply toilet paper in the basement bathrooms at Northwestern. The TV showed Catholic masses and Ghanian soap operas that encompassed a confusing mixture of country living, hair braiding, and domestic violence. But the facilities were generally clean and the location was less than ten minutes by foot to La Palm Royal hotel, where I would have spent three times that much, so the hotel was more than adequate for my purposes.

News, Teaching, Technology

Summer Reflections

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A dilemma of being an international school teacher is that when you return to your home country in the summer you’re more often than not homeless and relegated to crashing on couches or begging rooms from family. And you’ve got to meet the obligation of seeing family and friends, even when that takes you across the continent in the few short weeks you have.

This year I spent a week in Belgium visiting a friend and enjoying Kasteel, Delirium Tremens, Leffe, and Hoegaarden before heading off to DC for the week-long JOSTI conference, a series of technology-oriented seminars sponsored by the State Department for international school teachers. Like other conferences I’d been to, this one had a mix of valuable and forgettable sessions. Some were useful hands-on demonstrations of a teaching practice like the flipped classroom, while others were merely presentations of lists of apps, tools, and websites that we might find useful in the classroom. I found that the most useful sessions had four components:

  1. A summary of relevant standards, philosophies, and other pedagogical considerations as background.
  2. A demonstration of the tool or activity
  3. Hands-on activities where teachers relate the presented information to their own classrooms
  4. A summary of best practices related to the tool or activity

It’s hard to fit all that into 90 minutes, but the conference did an excellent job of giving teachers time to process and network, and this is where the real value of the conference was. From the pre-conference happy hour to a baseball game to exploration of DC landmarks, the JOSTI organizers made sure not only that we had fun but that we had plenty of time to compare notes and make connections while doing it. The State Dept also selects a very diverse group of educators, both foreign- and local-hire from every geography from Caracas to Curacao, Bamako to Hyderabad, Kuala Lumpur to Manila. Considering that it’s room, board and tuition paid, I think tech-oriented educators should really consider it, especially those at schools far from big regional tech conferences.

The rest of the summer was spent shuttling between WA, BC, ON, and NY visiting family. We learned that BC wineries make some delicious Gewurtztraminers, Rieslings, and Madeiras among the stunning hills overlooking the Okanagan Lake; that Mt. Rainier boasts the highest snowfall in the continental US; and that France requires you to clear your pet through customs when making any connection through Paris. This created quite a snarl in our travel plans since we learned of the requirement too late to secure the requisite paperwork to clear EU customs, so instead of flying my girlfriend and dog through Paris via JFK as planned, we were rebooking her flight a day before her scheduled departure. In the end I ended up driving her 10 hours to DC to pick up an Ethiopian flight to Bamako via Addis Abbaba, and then driving another five to New York to catch my flight from JFK. We met safe and sound in Bamako, glad to have the world’s worst itinerary behind us.

Teaching

I got better.

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I’ve always found it difficult to know when I’m doing a good job. Teachers have such a diverse audience in their students and, realistically, parents and administrators. And while we are supposed to advocate for our students, it is not they who evaluate us. Unless you let them, of course, which is why I give out end-of-the-year surveys.

The nice thing about these is that they tell you how you can modify your pedagogy, and by keeping the questions consistent from year to year you can track your progress. I use Google Forms and follow the following guidelines:

  • Book labs /set aside time in the last two periods before exams so that I give students dedicated time – this gives me a pretty high response rate, except for the students who choose to skip class before exams – and if they choose to skip, then their feedback may not what I should listen to anyway.
  • I make it clear that their responses are anonymous and leave the room while they fill out the surveys.
  • I try to keep the questions as consistent as possible from year to year.
  • Most questions are a scale on 1-5 or 1-10 if I want more detail. I include two free-response sections.

This year I improved in 17/20 metrics. Some highlights:

What I did well

93% of students – and 100% of my gifted/talented ones (I had a class that happened to have mostly G/T kids, and while the surveys were anonymous I did ask for the students’ period) – say I’m knowledgeable and well-prepared. Most importantly, perceptions of me being fair and respectful increased by 25% this year, and my approachability increased by 12%, while the number of students who thought I needed to be more lenient decreased by 36% and the number who thought I needed more strict decreased by 27%. Clearly I’m working towards a good balance in my learning environment and impress the students with my instruction.

What I need to work on

In my comments the kids mentioned my sense of humor numerous times, but as a whole I apparently got less funny  – perceptions of my sense of humor went from 85% to 78%:

“last year you were less serious in the class so when I had to get used to the new style of your teaching it was interesting and effective. (even if it did get really annoying sometimes.)”

while ratings of my explanations (of assignments, but my questions may have been ambiguous and respondents may have been referring to content explanations) went from 85% to 81%. Ratings of my willingness to help went from 70% to 66%. The last figure is the most troubling for me. In his inspiring Google Teacher Academy Application video, David Theriault talks about being a champion for students, and the downward trend suggests that I have some work to do there. I know why I got that rating – teaching 6/8 blocks, coaching, and keeping time set aside for myself doesn’t leave a whole lot of extracurricular time for me to work with individual students outside of class or devote my entire attention in class.

I’m also too nice; one of my growth points is to become more assertive:

“I think Mr. Kelsey is tooooo nice, not that he should be very mean, he should be in the middle; fun and entertaining when the class is respectful, disappointed and a bit strict when the class is disrespectful”

“Our class had a lot of rowdy boys and sometimes you would allow their “lack of intelligence” ,for the loss of a better phrase, disrupt the class. “

And what you’re going to want to argue with me about

I’m good at lecturing and it works for my kids. It was the highest-rated instructional technique that I used, and 100% of my G/T kids thought it was valuable (vs. 67% agreeing that discussions were valuable). It’s statistics like this that make wary of dismissing direct instruction in favor of the flipped classroom and collaborative learning models – it’s not that the latter aren’t great ways to teach, but I don’t see why I should deny students the choice of learning in a way that clearly appeals to them, since my students say things like this:

“[Mr. Kelsey] allows us to come up with our own conclusions and then we branch off from them as a class to narrow subjects and think more critically.”

“[Mr. Kelsey] makes the lessons very fun and interesting… even the boring chapters. In addition, he gives us a fair amount of independence and guidance.”

So what do we do when our desire to differentiate and give students choice in how they learn conflicts with the cutting edge of educational thought? And lest we consider technology a panacea, consider this:

I probably think that anything that has to do with internet or computer typing should be removed. Because, some students aren’t really the technical type. They work better with a textbook, paper, and pencil.

 

 

Teaching, Uncategorized

A Republican View on Motivation and Collaboration

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Sorting through the post-exam detritus strewn about my classroom, I encountered a curiousity: an exam study guide created by an enterprising freshman (download link). It was notable not just as a fine example of preparation, but also as a public work: it had been created by a student in a section that I didn’t teach and distributed to one of his friends in one that I did. Printed in color, with large attractive images, it seemed more like a published work than an amateur effort.

Zayd Rajab on Motivation and Collaboration

What possessed the student to go to such lengths? I sat down with the author, ASK freshman Zayd Rajab, to discuss motivation, collaboration, and achievement. Below are some excerpts:

2013-06-11 14.07.46
Yes, that is an 18-page exam study guide created on a student’s own initiative.

A big challenge for lots of 9th graders is being willing to put in the time and effort to prepare thoroughly for an exam. What motivated you to go to such lengths?

The way I study for exams is to make a study guide so I have everything in one place, so I can do it all at once rather than bringing all those messy notes. It’s neat and clean. What I did is use this application called iBooks Author, and it makes a really good template you can use.

How did you decide to share it with other people?

I made a good study guide – it wouldn’t be nice just to have it all to myself, so I sent it out.

Did you ever consider working with another person to make your guide?

No, because when I work with other people I get distracted, so I like working by myself.

Zayd demonstrated the initiative and compassion that we'd like to develop in all of our students.
Zayd demonstrated the initiative and compassion that we’d like to develop in all of our students.

How would you feel if a teacher put this on Moodle?It would be great – people could use it and it would help them a lot. If they can study better, they can get a better grade and that would make me happy.

What if a teacher assigned this as homework to do throughout the year?

If I’m going to do it as homework, I’d find it a bit of a pain, because when you do it as homework you’re being forced to do it. You won’t put 100% effort into it. But when you know there’s a reason (and you’re doing it on your own), you put 100% into it.

For the people you gave it to, did they ask for it? Did you think they hadn’t studied on their own, and were using it as a crutch or an excuse not to study?

A lot of people aren’t studying, and if they do they’re just looking at messy notes. I think it’s better if you do the study guide yourself. But if you do have my study guide, you’d have extra help, but you’d be more lazy.

Do you think this will inspire people to do their own next time, or will they be waiting for you to give them one?

They’ll be waiting for me to do it.

In a nutshell, Zayd showed a lot of self-motivation, but his interactions with his peers motivate him as well – not just from the recognition he receives, but from the satisfaction he gets from helping others. Teachers love having students like this – he exemplifies the “Learn for Life” and “Make a Difference” qualities that we value.

A (Grossly Stereotyped) Republican View on Motivation and Collaboration

Zayd’s last remark summarizes the problem I struggle with regarding collaboration. For background, modern educational thought holds that collaboration must be a pillar of education because a) it helps students develop interpersonal relationship skills, and b) it leads to “deeper scholarship,” for example by letting students compare multiple perspectives and tackle more complex problems (Davis).

At least three issues make me question how universally we should apply these assertions:

  1. Zayd’s observation that group work is a distraction
  2. My own observations that in a collaborative setting, oftentimes the strongest student functions as a “crutch” on which the others allow themselves to depend,  a supposition supported by Zayd’s comment that his study guides allow other students to avoid doing the work.
  3. The fact that for higher-level students, “Mixed ability cooperative learning plans should be used sparingly for gifted students” as research “indicates that—for gifted students—cooperative learning seems to produce fewer academic benefits than [similar ability] grouping plans” (as cited in Davis, Rimm, and Siegle 15).

Why make students work together if the strongest one is going to do all the work? In the same way that Republicans rail against handouts to the “needy,” teachers implementing collaborative teaching strategies need to rail against handouts to the academically or motivationally challenged. Don’t let the strong subsidize the weak, because such subsidies don’t inspire the weak to succeed – they enable them not to.

It’s an ageless teaching issue that hasn’t been addressed in all the reading and talk about collaboration that I saw through my experience in the COETAIL program and Gafesummit. James Kulik appears to have done extensive meta-review of the available research and concludes that similar-ability groups benefit the most advanced students while being no different in terms of achievement than mixed-ability grouping for low- and intermediate-level ones (Kulik).

I’m not advocating that we should abandon those lower- and intermediate-level students, nor do I mean to dismiss all mixed-ability groupings as a form of intellectual parasitism. Rather, teachers need to carefully think about how we allocate and ration our time, and more importantly, focus our attentions on how we design collaborative learning, not what technology we use to achieve it. The discussion about using Google Apps and all these other tools for collaboration must be inseparable from the conversation on appropriate instructional design and must be accompanied by practical examples of how to design groups and hold them accountable for their work – and it is the responsibility of tech integrators to make sure this is the case.

Works Cited

Davis, Gary A., Sylvia B. Rimm, and Del Siegle. Education of the Gifted and Talented. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, 2011. Print.

Davis, Matthew. “How Collaborative Learning Leads to Student Success.” Edutopia. The George Lucas Educational Foundation, 5 Dec. 2012. Web. 12 June 2013.

Kulik, James A. “An Analysis of the Research on Ability Grouping: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives—NRC/GT.” An Analysis of the Research on Ability Grouping: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives—NRC/GT. Neag Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development, n.d. Web. 12 June 2013.

 

Teaching

Showcase: Google Docs for Group Project Coordination, Redux

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A year ago I reflected on how I used Google Docs to coordinate year-end group projects for my 10th grade World History students. They used a spreadsheet to keep track of their work and typed up their notes and created their presentation in Moodle. It was a substitution, or perhaps an augmentation, of what they would have been able to do without Google Docs (now Drive). This year I thought about how I could make the experience not just easier in terms of workflow, but also in terms of learning. I accomplished this by focusing on feedback and motivation.

20130609-185249.jpg
Better use of comments helped students get feedback and validation of their work.

Working from the premise that the quality of work improves when 1) students get prompt feedback and 2) feel they are creating something for an audience other than their peers, I changed the structure of project to incorporate additional components:

  • A research skills component that required students to evaluate the credibility of the sources in another group’s bibliography and share their feedback with that group (next time I’ll have the kids leave this feedback as comments within the bibliography rather than a separate document so that it’s immediately apparent)
  • More rigorous feedback on my part, using comments within Google Drive to give praise and constructive criticism promptly and regularly
  • Regular showcase demonstrations of exemplary work to the class as we passed each checkpoint, which I could do since each group kept their work in a folder that was shared with me.

These three components required students to create for a peer audience and also gave them numerous opportunities, along with concrete examples, of how they could improve their work. Kids also appreciated being showcased and it created a real sense of camaraderie. There’s something really cool about having an entire class applaud someone’s work.

I felt I got closer to a redefinition this time around – not because leaving feedback is novel, but because giving intra-class peer feedback between 20+ students at a time is impractical to the point of impossibility. It’s just another way that Google Docs helps streamline the process of learning: it helps you get away from getting kids to DO things and lets you focus on getting them to LEARN things.

Technology, Uncategorized

Repurposing Old Hardware via Chrome OS (aka Chromium OS)

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A recent post on Google+ asked:

Has Google ever thought of releasing the Chrome OS as a stand alone product for purchase? I know Google would like us to buy Chromebooks, but for many schools, we have to use existing hardware until it dies, and who knows if and or when we may get $$$ for new.

I would love to be able to convert my existing netbooks to Chromebooks, and then when they die, be able to show my board and principal a proof of concept for purchasing only Chromebooks in the future.

Here’s the answer:

  • Google has kind of released ChromeOS, as the Chromium OS. This is an open-source implementation of ChromeOS that includes core functionality but lacks a) drivers for most types of hardware, b) flash, c) pdf, and d) Google Talk. It’s hasn’t released it in a way you can install on your computer.
  • You can install Chromium OS on your computer via programs created by third-party (read: random, but talented) individuals. These are called “builds” and THE guys is hexxeh, who was at one point a 17-year-old UK programmer who just took it on as a hobby. He has taken the raw code (“source code”) of Chromium and turned it into a package you can install on some – but not all – computers.
  • If you get it installed, functionality may be missing for some components, or it may be reduced in future builds – Google tries to keep ChromeOS as streamlined as possible, which makes it fast but also makes it compatible with only a narrow range of hardware.

If you want to try it out, though, you do the following:

  1. Download a build of Chromium from http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/
  2. Follow the instructions for Win, Mac, or Linux from that page to get the build copied to a USB stick.
  3. Boot your laptop from the drive (F12 at startup – choose the USB stick)

At this point, your laptop will either load Chromium or not – if it doesn’t, you probably have hardware compatibility issues. For example, Chromium loads up just fine on my Toshiba, but the trackpad isn’t recognized, so I have to plug in a USB mouse.

If you’re able to log in, you’ll want to copy it to your hard drive so you don’t need to leave the USB stick plugged in all the time:

  1. Log in to the Chromebook with your Google Account.
  2. Ctrl – Alt- F2 to bring up a command line
  3. Log in with chronos / facepunch
  4. chrosh + enter brings you to the ChromeOS developer shell
  5. type “install” (this will format your hard drive)
  6. Reboot when the process is done and remove the USB stick.

That’s it. Once again, if these instructions don’t work, your hardware is probably incompatible. If you get this far, though, you probably want to add Flash, PDF, and mp3/mp4 support. There are sites out there that purport to get them working, but they don’t seem to work on all builds. This means that you’ll have to go without the ability to use sites like Prezi or WeVideo, read PDFs, and listen to music. Not terribly useful.

If you’re wanting to repurpose old hardware, then you should go with Xubuntu Linux for your OS and install Chrome as the default browser. It won’t have the streamlined (simple) interface and lightning performance of ChromeOS, but there will be much better hardware and software support.

References

Technology

New Tech Toys

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I’ve made several very worthwhile tech purchases this year. While I’m interested in how gadgets and computing help us work more efficiently, I’m not exactly an early adopter (save for the original iPod and iPhone). Spending time weighing features and scouting deals precede any purchase, and that’s led to me getting the following kit:

DSC02735
Room-filling sound in a portable package. Pricey, but worth it.

Jawbone Big Jambox

I work out a lot in the gym, outside, and at the pool, and I appreciate having music to keep my head in the right place. But a lot of places don’t have outlets, and even if there are, it’s cumbersome to lug around a tangle of wires and speakers. Enter the brick-like Big Jambox, which combines surprisingly room-filling sound with a longevous battery and Bluetooth A2DP connectivity. It fills our 1000-square foot weight room with ease and tucks easily into a gym bag. It also works great by the pool and beach. It’s not audiophile sound quality, but it doesn’t need to be because the convenience are portability make it an easy sell. Jawbone also makes a smaller version, but the Big Jambox fills large spaces much better. Try getting a refurbished one; I got mine through NewEgg and shipped it through Aramex.

Samsung Galaxy Note 2

DSC02739
Galaxy Note 2: unreasonably large.

I gave up my original iPhone for a Google Nexus One and quickly grew to favor Android’s extensibility and openness over the iOS’ polish and aesthetic. Gmail integration initially drew me to the platform, but over time Android has simply become better for productivity. Only on Android I could select multiple photos and then attach them all to an email, or begin composing an email and then later select attachment from local storage or Dropbox, or bring up a contextual menu in an app. The other day I downloaded a video from YouTube onto my school computer and copied it to my Android phone, where it played natively – no conversion necessary, no need to have a special computer through which the phone was tethered. I missed the seamless iTunes music syncing and access to quality games like Civilization, but that’s it – as a productivity tool, Android worked better for me.

Regrettably, time was cruel to my Nexus One, scarring the body and claiming the power button due to a well-documented design flaw. I kept it running by rooting it and installing CyanogenMod to work around the power button issue, but poor battery life and limited storage continued to bother me. The former complaint is what initially drew me to Samsung’s Galaxy Note 2 – the huge size of the phone meant that it could hold a high-capacity battery. The S Pen digitizer was also a cool toy, and I anticipated being able to easily annotate PDFs and take quick handwritten notes. It’s 1000x more accurate than using a stylus to draw on an iPhone.

It’s been about three months since I purchased a gently used Note 2 from 248am.com for 140KD, and I still think it’s a great phone, but it’s definitely not for everyone. It’s so big that one-handed use is difficult, and even my lengthy thumbs can’t reach across the width of the screen. Other phones seem like toys in comparison. The digitizer is a cool feature, but one that yields more utility on its larger cousin, the Galaxy Note 10.1 (my next tablet purchase to replace my iPad 2 will likely be that, or its successor). It’s not a feature I use on a day-to-day basis. The battery life is great, lasting me for two days of light use on an HSPDA network. The large screen – 5.5″ – is nice for browsing web pages, but not as much as you might think since it’s only 720p. When compared to my girlfriend’s 1080p HTC One X, which has a smaller screen but higher resolution, the difference is noticeable. On the other hand, I have a user-replaceable battery and microSD card slot, which the One X lacks. They’re two different phones for two different audiences and I’m quite happy with my Note 2, but the One X has me thinking that my next phone two or three years’ hence will be smaller than my current one.

Custom-built media center PC

Not much to look at, but less than $400 sans hard drives and it can double as a workstation.
Not much to look at, but less than $400 sans hard drives and it can double as a workstation.

I used to play my shows off of a WD TV live connected to a 2TB hard drive, but this setup always made me nervous – I experienced a catastrophic HD failure a few years ago and lost all of my music and college pics. Aware that my setup was vulnerable to the same issue, I turned to RAID for a solution. (Yes, I know RAID is not a backup, but I’m looking to protect against hardware failure, not user error or malicious deletions) Since a lot of prebuilt desktop and computers don’t have the internal space for the 3 hard drives required for a RAID5 setup, I decided to get a computer custom-built for me at the Hawalli Computer Souk, which is really collection of independent hole-in-the-wall computer stores on Ibn Khaldun Street displaying an eclectic mix of computer components in haphazardly-organized storefronts. My contact at WorldNet computers really knew what he was doing, and I ended up with:

  • A-Case ATX case – room for 2 x 5.25″ and 5 or 6 3.5″ drives
  • Asus P8H77-Z motherboard
  • 3rd generation 3.3Ghz Core i3
  • 8GB RAM
  • 3 x 2TB Hard drives for my RAID and a 1.5TB HD for the boot disk
  • Nvidia GT218-series graphics card with HDMI, DVI, and VGA out

None of this was top-of-the-line, and in fact was probably overkill for my needs, but I got a good deal – 130KD for the computer and under 30KD for each hard drive (these are prices not far off Stateside ones). Considering that a 2-bay NAS setup would run me $300 just for the enclosure, I think I got a good deal. On the software side, I set it up as follows:

Still on the to do list are getting Shairport set up, which will allow the computer to act like an Airport Express and receive audio streams for iOS devices; NFS server, for more robust file serving; finding some solution to implement a webcam-based security camera; and testing whether Ubuntu has MTP support and will let me sync my Galaxy Note 2 with the Rhythmbox music player – this will let me ditch iTunes completely.

I don’t recommend this kind of setup for everyone; a media player box like the WD TV Live and a USB hard drive will serve most people just fine. My approach also requires hours and hours of setup since Linux is still really rough around the edges:

Building your own home media server is definitely a hobbyist solution, but if you’re willing to put in the time, it’s a much more powerful, flexible, and affordable setup than any commercial offering.

Musings

The Generational Digital Divide, Elucidated

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Somtimes I feel like I’m part of this generation. Photo Credit: x-ray delta one via Compfight cc
As part of a jigsaw in class today, I asked students to email me a photo from one major event in modern (post-1949) Chinese history. One student found a suitable image using his iPhone, and then came to my assistance, because he had not idea how to use the Mail program. I was the first one to show him how he could email a photo saved to his Photo Library. And even though he had two email accounts, neither was set up on his device – he simply doesn’t use email for communication (the kids like Twitter, WhatsApp, and Viber). Once we got one set up, we was mystified by what the CC and BCC fields stood for. (Another thing the kids find difficult is the concept of email bounces. I often get kids complaining that I don’t receive their emails, and when we check their inboxes there are clearly bounce messages because they misspelled my email address – but these warnings just don’t register with them) I found the contrast between our preferred modes of communication amusing – especially since I was born in 1982 and grew up around computers myself. This just goes to illustrate the care schools need to take when deciding on electronic communications platforms – which one will best serve the greatest audience (parents, teachers, and students) at your school?

Practical ed tech

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