Day: October 10, 2018

I have become a fan of the power of what I have decided to call “understanding through ownership”. I believe embracing this concept provides anyone both a sense of autonomy and a better understanding of how digital technologies works within our lives. I am not a supporter of the universal value of “coding for all” as I regard programming as a vocational skill unique to specific professions. I do believe that digital literacy is a far more important life skill and coding alone does not provide the necessary skills and understanding to deal with the changes technology is bringing to all of our lives.

I have written previously about what might be described as the benefit those of us who participated in the emergence of personal computing have enjoyed. Those who have entered this revolution at some point along the way lack the understanding that comes from having experienced more primitive versions of things and having to do more for yourself. I miss the days I enjoyed being able to quickly convert any Mac I was working on into a working server. It is true that I enjoyed the advantage of working at a university which allowed me the advantage of a dedicated IP, but even a computer that assigns the IP as you connect would work as a server until you disconnected again. I understand the security issues in those with limited technical knowledge operating a server, but this understanding also illustrates the point. I understand security concerns because I personally had to deal with them. I am not advocating going back to this level of control, but having had such experiences has strongly influenced my thinking.

What I think makes sense for the educational setting is the purchase of shared server space. This is relatively inexpensive – I would budget the cost at about $10 a month. When you own a server, you can take risks and exercise control at multiple levels. Most hosting plans allow me to install tools by running host provided scripts. Anyone can do this. Push a button and follow instructions and you can set up a wiki, a WordPress blog, or a Weebly web site. You own the service and the content and the headaches. One of the realities of services is that flaws continually emerge and some flaws allow vulnerabilities. If you want, most services have mechanisms that will automatically update your installs. Middle school on, I think some students could manage such a site for their peers.

Just to be clear. You do this type of thing not because it provides you access to the most powerful version of services, but because it offers you greater control of versions of a particular service. I suggest that you use open source software when possible. Unless you install the open source software from a source external to the hosting site, you have some satisfaction in knowing that most groups providing this software are receiving some support through the stipend you pay to the hosting site. Dealing with how online experiences are funded is an important lesson for all to learn and learners are more likely to think about such issues when they are putting a little money into their experiences.