Author: grabe

Working with technology can be frustrating. Sometimes it seems things do not work like they should. Cindy brought my attention to a blog entry by David Warlich in which he describes his frustration in dealing with such issues. Sounds like you she said.

Sure enough I ran into what sounds like a similar problem today. I run web applications on inexpensive machines (old Macs I can pick up around the university) using open source software (apache, php, mysql). Sometimes, things just stop working. A problem with a complex environment built from multiple components is that one little thing can be changed in one of the components (or within the operating system of the host computer) and suddenly nothing works. The folks working on these individual components work on their individual pet projects and it is easy to see why “one little thing” can go wrong. No one is responsible for making certain all the pieces will continue to work together.

In this case, I think it was Apple’s fault. I upgraded to the newest operating system (10.4) on two of my machines several months ago. One machine stopped working and no matter what I did I could not get the web resources I had developed to work again. I went back to system 10.3 and the software worked. Today, the other 10.4 machine stopped working.This time I did a little more Internet research before moving the machine back to an earlier operating system and came across a blog entry that reported a problem very similar to my own. I tried the solution someone provided and the problem was fixed within 5 minutes. The first failure probably cost my 10 hours of frustration. This time the same problem was fixed within minutes. This Internet search stuff is pretty amazing.

Dave – if you happen to read this post, check out the link that I include above. Apple – I hope you did not mess up the verion of PHP you provide to better support the AppleServer solution you sell. Such tactics would really disappoint me (even if done within the context of better security). I must just keep telling myself – problem solving is fun, problem solving is fun.

Perhaps you are familiar with the latest Wikipedia.com controversy. Staffers working for Rep. Marty Meehan have altered a previously posted description of Representative Meehan. Wikipedia is “social software” and is based on the assumption (by my interpretation) that those with knowledge in an area will post information or upgrade the posts provided by others. The assumption has proven idealistic as those with competing views may see the same situation in different ways.

The situation described here is not exactly a difference in perspective. The issue in the Meehan situation is that the information removed by the staffers was a matter of public record and the staffers have altered the original post to portray their boss in a more positive (but not necessarily more accurate manner). Mr. Meehan did “in fact” make a campaign promise not to serve for more than eight years. Information provided by the Federal Election Commission indicates he has built a campaign fund of $4.8 million.

Perhaps an upgrade rather than an outright alteration would have been more honest. It would seem fair to include an additional comment indicating that politicians do change their minds. I am not certain how the fund raising issue should be clarified.

Evidently, altering wikipedia “information” on our elected officials has become a recent and common practice. What should we tell the kids about this type of thing? Note to politicians – this is not what they meant by the “hacker ethic.”

Related online article from Lowell Sun

The PEW Internet and American Life project has released a new report (Note – this link will download the pdf). This report concludes that the Internet helps family members develop more effective social networks and plays an important role when family members face important personal decisions. 45% percent claim that the Internet played a role (communication with family members, information access) in an important life decision made within the last year. What are the implications for educators? Perhaps – what are the disadvantages for those families without access, have citizens learned to locate useful information, have citizens learned to communicate effectively?

Thanks to Tim Lauer for his post describing Scuttle and social bookmarking. Scuttle is similar to del.icio.us, but can be run on your own server. Not everyone will appreciate the opportunity to host your own apps (and not everybody should), but I enjoy the challenge of getting and keeping such applications running and the open source scripts allow me to tinker and attempt to customize and maybe come up with improvements.

I have been developing an online database of useful web sites for several years. While I have shared this site, the limitation in my approach is me. The site provides my collection of sites. I have a unique orientation, personal motives, and limited experience – I share these limitations with everyone else. Social software is intended to integrate the experiences of several individuals and greater a more useful resource as a consequence.

So, I am converting my existing database into a Scuttle database in the hopes that others will use the site and contribute. If no one adds anything, I still have the resource that I started with converted into the Scuttle format. If others add personal favorites, there is the potential to create a more useful resource.

I must admit I am concerned with the downside of social sites – i.e., individuals using such resources to spam or offer other forms of inappropriate content. This is the reality that educators must contend with if they are willing to take the risk of using online social tools. I am guessing the danger is less with the large hosted applications because of the focus such sites can bring to preventative measures. Popular personally hosted software (e.g., the software running this blog) has also developed a network of supporters who have been willing to create measures to limit problems. Scuttle is new and this network has yet to emerge.

Anyway, my new Scuttle site can be found at http://ndwild.psych.und.nodak.edu/book/scuttle/. You are welcome to take a look.

[Tech stuff – why Scuttle is cool]

I have been listening to “The Google Story” as an audio book. With this experience as a background, the decision of Google to limit which Google features and resources would be available within China was made public (Reuters). This on top of the company’s resistance to requests for information by the Justice Department. The idealism of the company in the early days, the resistance to selling out when ranking hits to return to users, the motto “Don’t be evil” seem inconsistent with the decision. To be fair, others before them have made similar accommodations (Yahoo, Microsoft). I have to stop reading these books and assuming that “garage-based technologists” are this era’s heroes.

We ordered a 5 pack of the new version of iLife as soon as we could. There was a sticker from FedEX on my door when I got home tonight and I was anxious enough to experiment with the software that I drove out to the delivery center to rescue our software from the truck.

Here is what I hope. The efficiency with which students can generate multimedia products plays a signficant role in whether some and probably many teachers will involve their students in such projects. I hope iWeb (the web authoring, blogging, etc.) program that is part of the new iLife will be easy enough to use and impressive enough that it meets teacher expectations for efficiency and student expectations for “cool.” The comment about “cool” many annoy some – I happen to think we are all motivated by the opportunity to generate something we know to be attractive. The comment about the need for efficiency is simply a recognition of the reality of life in classrooms.

My experiences are not yet extensive enough to generate a strong endorsement and I would like to see what students can do with this product, but after an hour or so of experimentation, I am willing to say the product is worth a look.

A demo web site hosted on .Mac.

When I listened to Job’s presentation explaining new Apple strategies, an issue that concerned me was the connection between software and .Mac (this probably sounds like my typical Microsoft complaint). The price for iLife seems reasonable, but I would guess many would balk at the $100 annual fee for a .Mac account. To me, the software would have extra value if it could author resources to be delivered by any server. This is the case – here is the same demo web material as available from my own G3 (an old machine for non-Mac people).

Here are some things that do concern me (again I have not had the chance to explore a great deal). iWeb creates impressive looking content by using templates. A user can create new entry points (text, images), but is encouraged to drag images, video into designated locations and enter text in designated boxes. As long as the focus is on authoring and not web design, this is probably OK. The finished product looks great partly because of the sophistication of the template. Translate sophistication as consists of many components, complicated, etc.

My concern is that simple is sometimes valuable. For example, when I work on my own web content, I often do so incrementally. I might create a new page and link this page to the home page. To alter my actual site, I upload the new page and also the altered home page. My changes are simple enough I can remember what has to be uploaded OR I can use the publish option of my authoring program (GoLive or Dreamweaver) to identify the new pieces and take care of the upload for me. I am guessing this type of complexity is not an issue when using iWeb with .Mac. I do wonder about creating more complicated sites and then trying to figure out what should sent to a personal or school server. You really wouldn’t want to resend the entire site each time a small adjustment was made to the web site or a new blog entry was created. There are software tools for comparing the resources at two locations and uploading only those files that are different. However, this is now becoming more complicated than I would like.

So, I like this product and it meets my criteria for simplicity when connected to a .Mac account. This is not a bad solution for some folks. I will have to explore a little more before I decide what I think about the opportunities for using this system with a school server.

Some issues seem to keep resurfacing. The topic of whether students should now spend time learning what they can “learn to access” may be one such topic. I see this issue surfacing in a variety of ways. Cindy recently directed me to a link focused on “legalized cheating“. This article combined a discussion of ways students had discovered to cheat and alternative assessment approaches some educators have implemented to allow students to access such resources. In some ways, the suggested approaches would be similar to an “open book” exam and would be nothing new. From a different perspective, the opportunities being described are somewhat different than “open book” in that these approaches encourage students to take personal responsibility for locating the resources they would use to respond to course assignments.

You know this reminds me of? Do you think the minds behind “Who wants to be a millionaire” don’t know that some “phone a friend” contacts are attempting to use Google? Does it matter? Perhaps an Internet search should be a new life line? Why not just give the contestant say 20 seconds to use the Internet? Anyway …

This topic brings to mind a previous post in which I suggest that it is important to think carefully about this topic and to listen carefully to what individuals are advocating. When educators used to generate open book exams, I assume they created different kind of evaluation tasks. It would not make sense to evaluate understanding of terminology by allowing students to look up definitions in the text. While I automatically use Google to answer all kinds of simple questions that come up, I also see the value in knowing (meaning in my own memory) some things. For example, my professional conversations, even my teaching, requires that I know specialized vocabulary, relevant research from my field, etc. There is nothing wrong with admitting that I cannot remember a study, a name, etc. and searching for that information within a professional context, but a complete lack of internal knowledge would be a great liability.

So – I am for learning to “find information” and I am for “knowing” some things. I think we must just think more clearly about when each is appropriate.