“Linux in education: Open Source provides a better solution for schools”

Well, should it be so?

A List of Links to Web Resources…

I am sharing the following list that I gathered at the NETA conference.  Many of these tools I have used, but there are a few I plan to try out and share my thoughts on over the coming days.  For now, I share the raw list in case you are interested in giving them a try along with me.  Let me know your thoughts and experiences so that we can learn together.  Thanks!

• http://www.toolsfortheclassroom.com
• http://del.icio.us
• http://bloglines.co
• http://www.flickr.co
• http://www.picnik.co
• http://www.jumpcut.co
• Google Docs http://www.google.co
• http://www.vyew.co
• http://www.gcast.co
• http://www.pbwiki.co
• http://www.wikispaces.co
• http://www.ning.co
• http://www.linkedin.co
• http://www.skype.co
• http://www.powergramo.co
• http://www.epals.co
• http://www.cilc.or
• http://www.ecoach.co
• http://www.jingproject.co
• http://scratch.mit.edu
• http://www.expressocorp.com
• http://www.apple.com/itune
• http://audacity.sourceforge.net
• Memories on the Web http://www.codejam.com/slideshow/mow.ht
• http://www.pageflakes.co
• iGoogle http://www.google.com/i
• http://www.gliffy.co
• http://www.zoho.co
• http://www.imbee.co
• http://www.skrbl.com

Adobe Photoshop Express FREE!

Adobe has gone live with its online photo editing presentation called Photoshop Express! My good friend Tim Vanderheiden, principal of Madison Middle School, gave me a heads up of this offering today. I plan to sign up and give it a go. Share your thoughts here on its capabilities if you get a chance! Peace!

lifehacker: “Run Windows Apps Seamlessly Inside Linux”

Read the lifehacker article “Run Windows Apps Seamlessly Inside Linux” for those who absolutely have to use some Windows only apps!

Kevin Purdy states: “You love working inside your Linux desktop, but at the most inconvenient times you’ve got to reboot into Windows—whether to open a tricky Office file, try out a Windows application, or even just play a quick game. However, with some free tools and a Windows installation disk, you can have Windows apps running right on your Linux desktop and sharing the same desktop files. It’s relatively painless, it takes only a little bit longer than a Windows XP install, and it works just like virtualizing Windows on a Mac with Parallels Coherence—except it’s free. Here’s how to set up Windows inside VirtualBox, and then get Windows apps running seamlessly inside your desktop.”

Read on, follow the instructions, and you will be in business (for FREE!!!). I know, you will have to purchase a copy of Windows!

Teach Programming K-12+ for FREE!!!

Carnegie Mellon University offers a FREE programming language along with teaching tools called Alice:

“Alice is an innovative 3D programming environment that makes it easy to create an animation for telling a story, playing an interactive game, or a video to share on the web. Alice is a teaching tool for introductory computing. It uses 3D graphics and a drag-and-drop interface to facilitate a more engaging, less frustrating first programming experience.”

“Alice is a teaching tool designed as a revolutionary approach to teaching and learning introductory programming concepts. The Alice team has developed instructional materials to support students and teachers in using this new approach. Resources include textbooks, lessons, sample syllabuses, test banks, and more. Other authors have generously joined our efforts, creating additional textbooks.”

There are separate programs geared toward college, high school, and middle school students and can be downloaded for your use today! Another FREE good programming opportunity for younger students can be found via MIT’s Scratch. With these offerings combined a school district can offer programming opportunities K-12 at minimal cost!!!

“The Best Laptops Under $1000″

I get asked from time to time what is a good laptop for under $1000. PC World has issued this article titled “The Best Laptops Under $1000.” Getting the biggest bang for your buck is important in today’s world, and these seem to be good buys. Of course there are other options, and Apple has the Macbook that starts at $1099 or $999 with the education discount.

As with any purchase do your homework and come up with what you want to accomplish with your new computer especially if you are a student or teacher. Ask yourself what programs are required, is there a specific operating system that you need to use, and what will be comparable to what you use at school.

Processor speed, hard drive size (a small drive fills up fast), and memory (I recommend at least 1 GB) are important components to consider. Laptops are generally not very expandable; so, make sure you think of any extras you may need (rewritable CD/DVD drive, ports such as USB 2.0, Firewire, a memory card reader, etc.). If you need extras, your price may exceed $1000, but you will spend more anyway once you realize you may need to add peripherals.

Also, make sure you look to see what software comes with the computer as that is another cost that you will incur if the computer doesn’t arrive with much. Open source software like Open Office (FREE “Office” suite), GIMP (PhotoShop-like program), and Audacity (audio editor) are FREE alternatives to common software that you may need to be productive, but you need to do your homework to find out if programs like these will meet any requirements you may have. Happy shopping!

A Picture from Space & MIT Open Courseware

I thought this picture was great (Click it to see it bigger or go here), and it caused me to reflect on us down here on the good planet earth. I have been quite busy it seems for the past year, and as over 600 articles pile up in my RSS reader, as April 15th looms closer and closer (It is my youngest daughter’s birthday too so I’m excited about that part), and as life seems to zip by at an ever increasing pace it takes a picture from space to give a little bit of perspective from up so high to way down there or here depending upon if you are in the space station or not. If I do have readers on the space station, thanks for stopping by during your busy schedules and I would recommend that you not stop by anymore and just stay focused on your space station duties!

Speaking of time, I have been debating what I could enroll myself in via MIT’s Open Courseware. What a great opportunity, as there are with many universities now. A visit to iTunes U opens up many lessons to be had and learned. That is what I like about this “new” world, it is smaller, flatter, and it is easier to get around. It brings us closer together, if we make time to do so. That is what I need to do: make the time, shape the time, capture the time. A focus on things that matter most is the key. Peace!

Also, go here if you haven’t as of yet (PBS Frontline special “Growing Up Online”).  We really need to address digital citizenship!  Things are happening each day and we need to help young people navigate this digital world.

New Tales

My daughter Heather and I have continued our podcasting adventure with two new tales for your listening pleasure. The purpose of this is two-fold: Heather and I are having fun sharing our tales for posterity, and we are providing some examples for a creating and publishing online media class! I plan to tweak these podcasts using Audacity and spicing them up a bit with music, pictures, etc. We shall see what comes to pass. The fun part of publishing online is the ability to be creative with what you want to share and how you want to share it. For instance, an actual “Heather Tale” web page or blog would be a great repository for these tales. The whole idea is to generate ideas with your “stars/students” and audience; so, let Heather and I know what we could do to jazz up our podcasts, and in the meantime enjoy our raw, unedited tales as told in real life!

A Brand New Heather Tale (As of about 9:30 p.m.)

Heather’s Tale

Daddio’s Tale

Open Source Web Design

Open Source Web Design is a place to gather free web templates. I have shared this site before, but each time I use it as a resource I am further impressed. As they say on their site: “Open Source Web Design is a site to download free web design templates and share yours with others. We help make the internet a prettier place.” Here is a little something I put together this week using one of the designs from the site and one from last fall I used to create an example of using OSWD. If you are looking for a quick way to piece together an attractive web page or site go to Open Source Web Design today! Enjoy!

Open Source Living

A new open source site:  Open Source Living!   As stated at the site, “Welcome to Open Source Living, an archive of the Web’s best Open Source software, applications and references for a zero-cost / top quality digital experience.”  Nice! 

Links to FREE and Open Source Software

Windows

Mac

Enjoy!

More FREE software!!!

Always looking to cut costs and save $!!! Here are a few programs I have come across recently:

Celestia

“The free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions. Celestia runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.”

GRASS GIS

“Commonly referred to as GRASS, this is a Geographic Information System (GIS) used for geospatial data management and analysis, image processing, graphics/maps production, spatial modeling, and visualization. GRASS is currently used in academic and commercial settings around the world, as well as by many governmental agencies and environmental consulting companies.”

Mars MOLA Viewer

“The Mars Orbiter Laser Alitimeter experiment carried on the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft produced a topographic map of the entire surface of Mars. The data for this map is available on the Internet. The Mars MOLA Viewer will download this data for you and render it as a 3-D landscape which you can “fly” through in real-time.”

GIMP (I have shared this before, but it’s so good I’ll share it again!!!)

“GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.”

This final item is Shareware ($), but from what I can gather and comparing it to similar specialized software it seems quite reasonable.  The demo should give one a good trial run to see what it can do.

SAILS Speech Assessment and Interactive Learning System

“SAILS promotes learning by focusing the child’s attention on those aspects of speech sounds that are the basis for distinguishing the various speech sound categories.”

Tux Typing & Tux Math

Open source typing and math programs (FREE)!!!

Tux Typing

Tux Math

Plus, find loads more educational open source software at School Forge!!!

Open Educational Resources - OER

Wikipedia states the following about Open Educational Resources (OER):

“Open educational resources (OER) are an Internet empowered worldwide community effort to create an education commons.

The term “open educational resources” was first adopted at UNESCO’s 2002 Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Open educational resources are educational materials and resources offered freely and openly for anyone to use and under some licenses re-mix, improve and redistribute.

Open educational resources include:

Learning content: full courses, course materials, content modules, learning objects, collections, and journals.

Tools: Software to support the creation, delivery, use and improvement of open learning content including searching and organization of content, content and learning management systems, content development tools, and on-line learning communities.

Implementation resources: Intellectual property licenses to promote open publishing of materials, design-principles, and localization of content.”

Links to OER resources include:

Open Learn Learning Space

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

OER Commons

OER Grapevine

FLOSSCOM.NET

Curriki

Childsplay: Opensource (FREE) software for kids age 1-9!!!

I came across Childsplay today: open source (FREE) software that works on Mac, Windows, or Linux operating systems. There are several games in the software that test basic math and language arts skills along with other exercises that practice matching, listen, and memory skills. The activities help children learn fine motor skills as they navigate the computer keyboard and identify specific number and letter keys, mouse, and mouse pad movements. My 4 year old daughter and 6 year old son think these games are awesome!!! I do to, and best of all they are free. Download, install, and try them at home or school, but remember to get permission from your parents or the technology department or both! Enjoy!