edna.edu.au

Freedom, sameness, bling

In response to Bill Kerr: Is Ubuntu Superior?

Using Ubuntu has pros and cons compared with Windows and Mac OSX. I use Ubuntu and love it. So does my wife who teaches in the same state government system as Bill.

The people who advise government predominantly are the same ones who sell the products and services behind enterprise IT. It is in the nature of government to confuse serving their citizens with controlling them. Combining these and we see the tendency is towards a whole of government standard operating environment with strict access controls and filtering. That is what government wants. That is what industry wants. And the results are appealing to many teachers who value sameness and a lack of surprise.

Apple have shareholders to please. They have to be relevant in education. Their messages are very carefully pitched. They promise personal freedom to those that seek it. They promise low maintenance to those who fear technology. They promise power without complexity for those seeking to be productive. And more recently they promise interoperability with the enterprise crud to get past the gatekeepers. They use a combination of customer loyalty and incentives to target leading educators. I think they do this all very well. But they still don't get far despite well designed products.

Ubuntu has something neither Microsoft or Apple will ever have. They don't answer to shareholders but to a philosphy.

1. Every computer user should have the freedom to download, run, copy, distribute, study, share, change and improve their software for any purpose, without paying licensing fees.
2. Every computer user should be able to use their software in the language of their choice.
3. Every computer user should be given every opportunity to use software, even if they work under a disability.

My computer does everything I need and a bit more. If on top of that I can have real freedom, I value that above other considerations. And it is a damn good system regardless.

Other people feel differently.

The challenge for educators is how to work within an environment where some people want freedom, some want sameness and some want bling without disadvantaging anyone for their choices.

I have met people from all sides: Microsoft, Apple and Open Source fans who have trouble grasping this. In a world of pervasive computing people are going to have preferences and make choices. Forcing them to use a particular system is only "education" in the sense used by totalitarian regimes.

The great equalizer is the Internet. Increasingly cloud services will challenge enterprise style services. What teacher would not prefer the utility of Dropbox to a Windows file server? It will not be too long until everyone will want to be managing their own learning environment with their personal gadgets and cloud services. Interesting times ahead.

Posted at 02:04PM Jun 12, 2009 by Paul Shirren  |  Comments[1]

It is all about the software stupid!

I am disappointed that the education sector does not get this.

When discussing the enormous potential of netbooks and mobile devices to promote and facilitate social constructivism my wife informed me that while this was fine in theory she still had a duty as a teacher to assess individual progress. Collaborative work made this hard enough without the opaqueness introduced into the equation when people are tapping away at their computers and it isn't clear who is doing what.

I find this a little disappointing. In software development we solved the who did what problem some time ago. We have version control systems which track individual changes.

Perhaps good collaborative skills are innate in students before being systematically trained out of them by a formal education system focused on individual progress.

So why isn't technology causing radical change here? Is it just teacher resistance to change? I don't think it is. I think the tools just do not provide what teachers need.

As a society we expect teachers to assess the progress of individuals. I am not an advocate of testing and standards applied senselessly. But surely assessment is a necessary part of the feedback loop for customising education for individual learners. This is just one aspect of software use in education where mainstream software is often deficient.

When most adults use social networking websites, mobile phones, email there is not someone standing over them assessing their contributions. Work performance is judged on meeting goals and other higher level assessments. Most adult learning is not assessed at all. It exists to satisfy the learner. If the learner is satisfied they have achieved.

Schools are different. So they could benefit from different software.

I do not understand why more people do not see this.

Most businesses use a variety of customised software. Custom application development occurs on a much larger scale than shrink wrapped software production. Whether the software is designed for niche industry use or specifically for a particular organisations needs, most companies do not run core parts of their business with software off the shelves of Officeworks.

Reusing found objects in education is the orthodoxy. Whether it is web2.0 sites or mainstream business desktop applications. Schools seem to be incapable of taking the next step of adapting and evolving application code to suit their needs. I am not sure they even realise this is possible.

Software which is developed for the education market by outsiders is not always ideal. Business is about profit not educational outcomes. If you went to a multi million dollar LMS provider and convinced them their system was all wrong educationally does anyone think they would apologise and withdraw from the market and risk losing all that income? No, they would just make their powerpoint presentations prettier and take people out to better resaurants for lunch.

But software development is expensive and projects fail and eat up too much money you say? Absolutely true. That is why you don't do this sort of work top down. One specification mistake and your top down project is doomed. You have contributors seeded into schools throughout the country with no specific goals in mind and let them organise and collaborate with teachers at the coalface and see what emerges. Start small and local and let the ideas get proven as schools dogfood their own innovations and let the small pieces of the puzzle that emerge grow collaboratively through cooperation.

I think open source, open content and open standards provide a stable tripod on which we could potentially build a new type of inhouse education software. I think that would be more of an education revolution than buying yet more hardware from China without any real concept of how to exploit its potential.

Posted at 09:20AM Apr 02, 2009 by Paul Shirren  |  Comments[3]

What a netbook is not

A netbook is not a just a cute cheap notebook computer. It is a device intermediate between a notebook and smartphone in power and screen size.

When Nicholas Negroponte founded the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program we started a paradigm shift in mobile laptop technology. I am sure that was not his intention. The intention of OLPC was and is to help children in developing nations escape poverty by providing tools to help gain a basic education.

The OLPC is a school in a box. It is supposed to replace textbooks, computer labs, video conferencing and other tools we take for granted in areas where basic infrastructure such as network cabling or reliable electricity may be rare.

It is obvious from its design that it is meant for Primary age children. It is rugged. More like the plastic you might find in toddler toys than the flimsy bendy stuff of adult laptops. There is a purpose behind every aspect of its design. The keyboard size is ideal for small fingers.

The netbook succeeded almost by accident. The form factor was obviously inspired by and intended to compete with the OLPC in the primary school education market. What was quickly discovered was that there was a large market for a second, mobile Internet focussed computer with adults.

So the netbook is a strange mashup of ideas. It is too small to be a primary computing device for most adults. The small keys are a bit awkward. The screen too small to work with graphics. The CPU too slow to work with video and 3D. It lacks the OLPC features that make it ideal for primary student use: the ruggedness, low power, daylight visible screen, advanced wireless etc.

So we have this intriguing new class of device. A very small cheap low power laptop. We have one here and I love it. My wife is a teacher and uses an MSI Wind netbook running Ubuntu Linux. Unfortunately her school doesn't have wireless coverage in her classroom which reduces the utility of it at school.

My wife also has a dual monitor desktop system and I have a 13" laptop which we use for tasks that exceed the netbooks capabilities.

I am left wondering if $150million dollars of netbooks for NSW schools is really all that well thought out.

As I said the keyboards are a bit on the small side. Up to 93% of full size on the best netbooks. Ideal for mobile use where you can make a compromise. But I recently attended by local inter-school sports and many of the young males (and some of the females) towered over me. Some of these young blokes are future footballers with hands that will swallow a Sherrin. Working all day on a dainty little keyboard isn't great ergonomics.

And they are loaded with applications like Photoshop which are not optimal for small screen use and shows someone is lacking understanding.

Netbooks are not just small cheap laptops. They are a new class of device. They have benefits and liabilities. I am sure they could be of enormous benefit if used wisely. Given the history of ICT use in education I am not sure if this purchase will have the desired outcomes.

Posted at 08:43AM Apr 02, 2009 by Paul Shirren  |  Comments[0]

Shoot the librarians

I like books. I guess I must be getting old. I quite like librarians as well and I don't really want them shot. I had to get your attention somehow.

What I dislike is the special place librarians have in the school system. The teacher librarian is an equal. A valued contributor.

Yet schools are increasingly relying not on books but on technology. Technology which is changing very rapidly. Schools have two types of technology specialists. They have the sort who are not teachers on a low pay scale with no influence or career opportunities. And the rarer sort who are teachers but don't have enough time to maintain and transfer their skills.

If you have worked in school IT support you are left with no illusions about the value the system places upon you. Your declining hours see you spread out over a number of schools as you struggle to make ends meet. You know that the department really wants to replace you with an outsourced whole of government contract. You keep your head down and know your place.

So why don't we have Teacher-Technologists?

Teachers complain that they do not get time to leave the classroom and learn new things. So why not have inhouse expertise that can go to them and assist in class?

Imagine if there were no teacher librarians. Imagine that schools were forced to buy books that kept on falling apart. That all they could do was employ people to fix the bindings. Imagine if nobody knew how to exploit the potential of the books in class or even knew their contents. It wouldn't make sense would it?

Books are an ancient technology which everyone is familiar with yet we employ experts to maximise their potential in education. Why don't we treat new technology which teachers are struggling to utilise with the same respect?

I suspect the only reasonable answer is misplaced snobbery. Teachers, librarians and tertiary educators are all part of an established academic elite. You can teach the fundamentals of computer science but you can not teach the day to day stuff as it changes faster than people can write courses. IT people are always going to be self learners either by inclination or necessity. Does that mean that institutionalised education is simply incompatable with the IT crowd? Perhaps it does.

My gut feeling is that something has to break not just in schools but in our whole understanding of formal education before reform can happen. There is something wrong that they spend hundreds of millions of dollars on equipment yet are unwilling and unable to ask for assistance in it's utilisation. It clearly is not the result of the open minded, critical thinking that formal education is supposed to be producing. The open minded, critical thinking is coming from the barbarians at the gate.

Posted at 03:00AM Apr 02, 2009 by Paul Shirren  |  Comments[2]

NSW notebook tender

I am a rabidly pro open source fanatic. So you might expect me to be upset about news that NSW is spending taxpayer dollars on Microsoft/Adobe powered netbooks.

If it was about education I think I would be upset but it never was. It is all about money and politics. I expect a flawed outcome from a flawed process.

The personal computer revolution is coming to an end. We have already entered the next revolution - mobile, social, deeply interconnected and mostly based on open standards and often open source.

The old assumptions about the role and relevance of office software suites, file servers, locked down desktops, anti-virus and filtering systems are increasingly irrelevant. They still have a role in enterprise where 10-15 years of accumulated software cruft keeps them locked into old paradigms. Fast companies, consultants, designers, young entrepreneurs are more likely to be mobile with an iPhone/Android/Blackberry and a netbook or Macbook than being chained to a managed Windows desktop on an enterprise network. Debating the merits of Microsoft Office versus OpenOffice is like debating the merits of competing duplicating machines or sliderules.

The department has seen netbooks, not as a revolutionary new mobile tool, but as a cheap laptop. They will seek to manage that cheap laptop the same way they have managed their legacy Windows networks. They will do this not because they lack vision but because they consult and employ the wrong people. They look to enterprise IT support people whose livelihood is tied to perpetuating an obsolete model. They have missed an important paradigm change.

Regardless, facing down Microsoft/Adobe and going with an alternative was never going to happen. Microsoft identified threats to their education and government business years ago and formulated successful strategies to cope. These strategies have names like the Education and Government Incentive Program (EDGI) and Microsoft Unlimited Potential. See: http://boycottnovell.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/px09683.pdf

Microsoft also have an extensive PR machine and fund numerous think tanks and people of influence. Understandably not many would want to bet their political future against a machine like that.

The other side of the coin is that the Open Source offerings are not ideal either. There are rough edges. Decision makers see open source as a cheap alternative to the Microsoft or Apple software stack. They use that cost as a lever to drive a bargain. What they fail to appreciate is the opportunities for improvement and customisation.

I see open source software as a basis for innovation.

I don't see real innovation in education. I see frustrated leading edge educators dumpster diving on the Internet and with mobile technology seeking to apply modern, relevant technologies in education often against the prevailing winds of institutional stagnation. It is hit and miss stuff. Some of it is brilliant. Some merely desperate.

My vision is different. I want to see teachers collaborating with funded open source developers creating radically new types of software that will push education forwards. I know that is still a long way from happening. In 3-4 years when many of these netbooks are in landfill and students have smartphones with more functionality perhaps things will be different.

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Posted at 02:13AM Apr 02, 2009 by Paul Shirren  |  Comments[2]

Where is the debate on school Internet filtering?

When South Australia introduced its draconian school Internet filtering many years ago I missed the vigorous public debate.

Considering the times I am guessing some god bothering Americans told us with some authority that there were weapons of mass destruction on the Internet and that only abstinence and ignorance could save us. Somehow their public spirited warnings ended with us spending lots of money and sacrificing our young. Who would have thought it?

It seems such a different world now. Smart phones becoming common. Practically all students have a mobile phone. The filters are now trivially bypassed. And a black guy in the White House. What a moment.

Has the time come to tear down the walls yet? Using the same criteria to filter receptions, senior students and staff never did make sense.

So I am guessing there is a vigorous public debate going on somewhere. Anywhere? Links welcome.

EDIT: I am such a johnny-come-lately. It is all happening over at Savvy Web2.0 Use

Posted at 09:49AM Mar 17, 2009 by Paul Shirren  |  Comments[0]

Matching technology to opportunities and outcomes

Blindly buying computers and software will not deliver educational transformation. Sorry Kevin.

Sometimes schools are not asking the correct questions and so they are getting the wrong answers. Sometimes if you go through this cycle enough time you lose the capacity to see the broader picture.

The Call Centre

Call centers were briefly thought to be a huge potential employer in Australia. Governments used incentives to attract them. This is strange in hindsight since places like India and the Phillipines had the same idea.

Working in a call centre is extremely performance driven. The cool comfy open plan offices with their colourful motivational propaganda don't give a lot of indication that you are entering a stressful environment. Hardly enough time to follow up between calls. Remaining calm and helpful when dealing with angry and upset customers. Or the nice customers who take way too much time. Probably a bit like a classroom in some respects except with half the salary.

This particular call centre had some IT issues. Call times were severely impacted by slow access to customer accounts and to other information. In this context a group were talking about the computer systems during a break and one person despaired at the lack of Photoshop on their computer as symptomatic of the general ineptness of their IT people. They had Photoshop at their previous employment and somehow associated it with good IT practice.

Since the readership here typically endures filtering second only to China and Saudi Arabia I will refrain from swearing for accessibilities sake.

Ofcourse nobody in the call centre had any reason to use Photoshop as part of their duties. In education people are often out to satisfy their own agenda. Sometimes fantastic innovation comes out of this. I think if you look for leaders in education today you will find people who are motivated and curious who are often pursuing a personal interest such as blogs or mobile phones and then working out how to apply their knowledge in the classroom. These people are fantastic and we need more like them.

My worry is the people who had "Application X" at their last school or on their last computer. Even if they don't use the application anymore. Or if there is an effective substitute or a better way of teaching the concepts. You can have a grand plan based around educational outcomes introducing new opportunities and one of these people will sink it.

One Laptop per Child

Lets say you wanted to change the world. Not just a small change. Lets say you wanted to drastically reduce poverty.

You might send food aid or build wells or provide loans. But what about those countries that are reasonably stable. They can feed themselves. They are not at war. How can they climb out of poverty?

Obviously education is the answer. We know that education can have massive impacts on reducing poverty. Education is expensive though. Textbooks, schools, science labs, computers, distance education all cost money.

A small group in the US realised there was a solution. To build a small, cheap robust computer that could connect up students to the world and act as a textbook, video phone, educational toy, journal and much more.

Using this educational computer a first world educator notices the unfamiliar interface. Next that it does not run Microsoft Office or Photoshop. They find this disturbing and question the value of the device. Ofcourse this completely misses the point. This device was designed with specific educational outcomes in mind.

Back to School

Many educators are turning away from our managed LANs and software application suites to the Internet and mobile technologies. Word processing, spreadsheets and slideshows went so far and no further. In ten years the only progress on our school networks was to increase the login times, make the Internet less usable, make the interface glossier and lock everything down so students can't change their backround or move the icons. For student usage Word 97 is not all that different in functionality to any later incarnation.

All the interesting stuff is happening on the Internet and it works on Macs, Linux, Mobile devices as well as our school networks. You can demonstrate Web2.0 sites: voice annotating slides, editing video, producing slideshows synched to music, video and audio conferencing, editing databases, documents, spreadsheets and blogging. All this wonderful stuff that often maps really nicely onto teaching and learning.

You show it. You explain why you don't need the server or the desktop computers or Microsoft Office. You don't need Microsoft Windows or an antivirus. You can do it all with cheap portable devices with free commodity operating systems. Suddenly you have all these new opportunities.

And somebody will still ask if it runs Photoshop.

This is not a rant against Photoshop by the way. That would be missing the point. The point is that after several cycles of putting the cart before the horse this has become the conventional wisdom.

All I am saying is start from educational outcomes. Work back with the technology that has recently emerged and is building mindshare. Be prepared to ditch some legacy ideas. You may find that the Windows/Microsoft Office/Server/LAN combination is about as relevant today as the BBC Micro or Apple II computers before them.

Ofcourse this is all irrelevant if teachers do not have the skills to use technology or the time and support to acquire them.

Posted at 09:31PM Mar 16, 2009 by Paul Shirren  |  Comments[0]

Language Choices

I am just now having my first real go at growing a beard. And it has plenty of gray highlights so time to tell some of the young folk to get off my lawn. 

I used to connect to the World Wide Web back before it was commercial and before we knew how big a success it would be. I used early builds of Mosaic, a browser that predated Netscape and Internet Explorer. I had to tunnel my connections via modem through University student logins, across campuses and via software I compiled on a server sitting in someones office. Talk about keen.

In my part time job I looked up resources with ancient precursers to the web such as Gopher, FTP, Telnet, Archie, Veronica. I posted on Usenet and downloaded the earliest Linux distributions via FTP. Prior to that there was the BBS scene.

I read some of the language fads amongst the education buzzword herd and given my particular background I feel I should point out some of them are either wrong or sound a bit silly to an old bloke.

Cyber bullying - that would just be bullying wouldn't it?

Cyber cheating - cheating?

Cyber sex - used to be called flirting

Cyber safety - how about "How to deal with strangers and spot potential dangers"

Cyber-anything unless you are referring to Doctor Who or William Gibson novels is a sure sign you don't know what you are talking about.

Second Life - this is a product name for a 3d social game not an actual state of being

IRL - In real life - most of us who work and play on the Internet consider it to be a part of our real life

Online predator - predator will do. If they aren't finding victims online they will do it some other way. At least we can teach kids how to avoid them online and they leave a nice evidence trail.

Information Superhighway - Please. Do. Not. Do. This. Internet is fine.

Ethical Hackers - WTF? The hacker ethic is to deconstruct, understand and make. It values freedom of information above authority. Oh! You meant hackers who are not criminals? That is a bit like introducing a muslim who is not a terrorist. Or a priest who is not a child molester. Slightly loaded don't you think?

Free Software - Not the bloated adware and spyware supported freebie you downloaded. Free with a capital F software is about protecting your freedoms to learn by inspection, learn by modification, and learn by accessing other peoples ideas in turn. Free is good; free means nothing.

Theft - not a word to be used in relation to copyright. Unauthorised copying is fine. You wouldn't steal a porshe would you? But if you could quickly make a copy to try one out without depriving the owner that would be different. Unauthorised copying might deprive the rightholder of revenue. It might make them a new sale. It might be fair use. But it is never theft.

Virtual Learning Environment - learning environment would be fine. What is Virtual Learning anyway? If refering to software learning management system (LMS) or portfolio are fine.

Web2.0 - some people hate this. I am in two minds but I think it can be a bit generic. Would a more specific term such as social networking, crowdsourcing, hosted application or cloud computing be more precise?

That was a quick list. Please comment if you can think of any more.

Tags: cyber super virtual buzzword
Posted at 04:02PM Mar 13, 2009 by Paul Shirren  |  Comments[0]

Opening Education

There is a conversation under way in the progressive corners of the education establishment. A conversation that often includes the word "open". Open Source software, open content licensing, open standards. There is also a cadre of education enthusiasts reaching out to Internet technologies such as blogs and social networking which are open in nature. I see significant institutional roadblocks to openness in R-12 schools in Australia.

Before you click away I am not going to regurgitate Ivan Illich here and suggest we dismantle formal education and deschool the population.

Frankly there are too many fringe loonies out there who would have their kids destroying each other in the name of their particular brand of idiocy if we didn't have a place where they could meet and learn about each others cultures. We don't have a dominant church. Parents work entirely too much. We don't have a dominant media anymore and the fragments of the old media place community at a distant last to all other consideration such as profit.

So I am convinced we need schools for the sake of a peaceful and functional society. Preferably secular public schools which promote the acceptance of difference. How do we make them work better in the modern world?

Within schools we have a multitude of blockers that prevent or restrict moves towards openness. Some of these are easy to overcome. Others are sacred cows. Guess which ones I am going to discuss?

Professionalism

I have yet to meet a teacher who could convincingly express what they learn in four years of formal education that would make them more capable as teachers than a passionate knowledgeable adult with equivalent classroom experience. I am not trying to belittle teachers. I respect them for the valuable work they do and their tenacity in the face of systemic obstacles. Their status as professionals has done a lot for their ability to collectively bargain, something this teacher's husband and their child appreciate greatly. Actually how about a raise?

If you are passionate about something in your youth do you explore that passion or go to teachers college? How many people have experienced life with out giving a thought to teaching as a profession but now feel a little empty. Two hundred years ago they would have been working with young apprentices or running informal lessons. One could argue that if we let these people in to schools to share their experiences we would instantly be enabling a potential source of scab labour that could break the power of collective bargaining and put teachers in an even poorer position than now. Four year degrees do not only restrict supply. They also instill a commitment to preserving the status quo.

These barriers don't only apply to class room access. Within schools only teachers get paid professional salaries and only teachers have a career path. Ofcourse you say - teachers are uniquely positioned to understand the needs of schools and other teachers. The consequence of this is that ancillery positions within schools such as IT support are treated almost with disdain. People who work with computers and who are passionate about them are often uniquely placed to inspire and lead others in the workplace. Do schools leverage this? No. They employ the least skilled, cheapest labour they can find. Overwork them. Expect them to perform miracles. Don't treat them as peers. Provide no career path. If they employ anyone with the slightest skill and ambition they are going to be left searching for a replacement in no time and so they prefer ex-students who fit their needs.

Duty of Care

We all want to protect children don't we. What sort of parents would we be otherwise. But most parents I think have a little voice in their head that says "back off a bit." Children need to make mistakes. Children need to experience the world. It is our duty to guide them, protecting them from the worst dangers, while allowing them enough freedom to grow.

Fear for children's safety can be both manipulated and exaggerated. Whether it is Al Upton having his children's blogs taken offline or the zealous overblocking of the Internet that takes place in our High Schools many of us know things have gone too far. The powers that be aren't getting their information from crime reporting statistics or wide ranging studies. They are getting them from "A Current Affair."

Yet if you raised a real problem with the school filtering such as the underblocking, or suggested that whitelists might be more suitable in a lower primary environment you would be at odds with infrastructure people and all that support them.

To read some reports allowing young adults to use Youtube in a supervised learning environment is the depths of depravity and anyone suggesting otherwise is probably a child molester or as bad as.

Please! Please. Back off a bit. The Internet is dangerous the same way everything else of value in the world is dangerous. You could be bitten by a redback in the toilets - should you hold it in forever out of fear? Humans constantly have to weigh risk versus reward. Teachers have a significant role to play in helping students understand this and maximise the rewards and minimise the risks. Internet risks can never me minimised away entirely but the rewards can also be limitless.

We have got it completely wrong with the Internet in schools. Completely wrong!

Crown Copyright

This is a weird one to pull on you. As employees of the crown work you create could be covered by crown copyright. This is extremely problematic in a world tending towards open content and open source. As an IT professional if I was working in a school I would insist on my code being made available under open source licensing. There is no benefit to hiding this knowledge. The gains to schools worldwide of sharing source code outweigh any potential for commercial exploitation by the government. Having to get a clearance from the Attorney General before I share a backup script is complete BS.

Lets have a blanket ruling that code and teaching materials produced in schools are either in the public domain or under a Creative Commons license. For the benefit of all humanity and future generations. Or better yet - just change the copyright act to place all government work in the public domain so tax payers don't have to pay twice for anything our government produces.

Ok. That is entirely too much of a rant for one blog post. One last thought.

Academics at a dance

With Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk about academics at dances in mind. Really - do you want to emulate these people? I think of the Twitter, Facebook and Blog profiles of the cutting edge of teacherdom and it is a fairly incestous affair.

Mix it up a bit guys and pick up some new dance moves. You may need to leave your friends to mind your handbag for a bit. There is a growing fringe around education of people who care and want to contribute in meaningful ways. Within my own area of interest we have OLPC friends, Moodlers, Wikipedians, Linux user groups and a while lot more who are passionate about making and exploring. I know some of you have tapped into this in a big way already. To all the rest - don't be scared. There are a lot more people passionate about education and educational opportunities than you might realise.