The SurRural Librarian

As previously mentioned, my old hard drive has met its maker, so I am currently trying to recreate my life with a new slate. All was going well until I had to install the Flash player. (Have you tried to do anything without Flash these days? It’s impossible. The world has gone Flash crazy.) For some reason, Flash has some permissions issues on Macs.

By what I see on lm-net, many of us don’t realize one of the easiest & quickest ways to get an answer to a computer problem is simply to Google it. Don’t spam a list, for heavens sake. Google the exact error message - you’ll turn up the answer in a split second. In case you happen upon this same Flash issue, here’s a step by step solution:
http://www.table38.com/blog.php

The bad news is you have to use the command line. Many of us shut down completely at the thought. I was working at a time when I had to use heinous Unix commands to simply check my email, but I still shiver at the thought of opening up a terminal session. I embraced point & click like no one’s business and I still need to call my personal tech support (thanks M@) whenever I need to speak Unix. That said, it does come up and (same goes for HTML) we’d all be better librarians if we were just a little bit more comfortable with this kind of thing. A little code won’t kill you, it will help you understand a little more about your computer and hopefully empower you to tackle the bigger issues.

Just in time, Jessamyn linked to this helpful, and very chipper, tutorial Life on the Command Line

sudo go learn something

I had a lovely walk Sunday with the dogs and this week’s On The Media podcast. The entire show is about books. There is a fun segment on the new Espresso Book Machine, which prints and binds a paperbacks as you wait. Coolest part? There are only six in the world and one will be living at Vermont’s own Northshire Bookstore in Manchester.

The NYPL had one for a while. Here’s an article from SLJ. With beasts like this on the premises, libraries could get immediate access to books for loan. Could it finally (finally!) finish off interlibrary borrowing? I’ve got my fingers crossed.

So far, it sounds like the majority of works they offer are in the public domain. I hope more publishers see the potential soon, I want to order up a Double Grande Trollope. Oh wait - is that - hey! cool, I’ll see you in Manchester.

The Reactable is an amazing new instrument developed in Spain. It’s got a tangible interface, meaning you move the icons around - rather than point and click.

I’ve been slightly obsessed with these videos (1, 2, 3). I’m not sure if it’s the retro prague rock sound or the completely cool little blocks that thrill me the most.

Searching for a reason to show the videos in class, I realized it would be a great way to talk about the difference between command line and GUIs, and what a huge difference that’s made, making computers accessible to non-computer scientists.

The kids were agog (admittedly, it was first thing in the AM). There’s something so compelling about being able to touch what you normally click. We had a good discussion about what it would be like to be able to move your iTunes or Word around like that. They made some pretty creative comments.

Now I need to think of a way to work the Puppy Monorail into class.

both via Boing Boing

My del.icio.us feed has been growing fast and furious lately, so much so that I needed to highlight these few fun things.

~ Accessibility Software for the Colorblind

My colorblind husband sent this one to me. Reading graphs online can be a major difficulty for some kids.

eyePilot is an easy to use, interactive software program that lets anyone
work more efficiently with the full range of colors in the computer environment.

~ The O.P.E.N. Citation Maker from the Oregon Public Education Network Clearing House is a nice, very simple citation maker. My students and I have tried so many of these, and this one is one of the simplest we’ve found yet. Very nice.

And in the category of There Has to Be an Educational Use for This…

~ The Make Blog is a consistently inspirational read. I think every science teacher in the country should be subscribing to this. It’s sad that Bre Pettis isn’t teaching in schools anymore, but this here is quite a legacy. DIY from weather balloons to bird feeders.

~ Sheesh, what am I saying. Libraries should also subscribe to Make Magazine. It’s an absolute DIY joy.

~ Finally, there is this little mind bending, guy. Cute too.
Robot with Rhythm article and videos

Another strictly adorable video here.

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends NO screen time for children 2 years and younger. Yet something with the unsavory title of “Giggles Computer Funtime for Baby”  for  children 6-24 months old appears on The Association for Library Service to Children’s 2007 Notable Computer Software for Children list.

Two articles in my aggregator this evening have me wanting to hide under the covers. I haven’t heard people so stressed since Y2K (which, I confess, I insisted we spend off the grid, just in case.)

Here’s one on the impending mess resulting from the new Daylight Savings change.

And here’s another explaining on how the internets are going to stop working this year because of all the videos we’re posting.

I do believe the change in daylight savings time is the most under-reported story of the week. I have yet to talk to anyone who realizes we’re changing the clocks this weekend. When I tell people, they give me a blank stare. I honestly don’t think anyone believes me. It’ll be strange, but is it really going to mess with my Tivo? yikes!

Mac users, run your regular upgrades now. PC folks might want to check out the MS site to determine the patches they need.

I’ve always thought it would be really cool if you could hum into a search engine and it could recognize the song. I also really doubted it would ever happen.

Wrong again. midomi (beta) is a search engine based on a database of user-submitted recordings (just register and start singing). You hum or sing into your computer’s mic and it tries to give you back recordings of other folks singing the same song.

I heard that some who’ve tried it couldn’t get a match, but after playing with it last night, my whole family was able to make it work. It seems that the more a song has been recorded into its database, the greater the chances it’ll be able to match you up (makes sense).

Try Beatles tunes, or Happy Birthday.

Frankly, I can’t yet see the benefits of this beyond what’s the name of the song that goes… But it’s fun, and I think the technology’s pretty out of this world.

In a frenzy of “oh my, vacation’s over and I haven’t done half of what I wanted to”, I have done the following today.

Set up new rules and mailboxes in my Mail.
Created practice pages for each student on their wikis.
Made a template wiki page for them to copy & got together some instructions for them.
Downloaded and edited the lessons in this free typing thingy (simply webpages and javascripts) for the 3rd graders first typing class tomorrow.
(It’s kind of wacky, but delightfully simple and now completely under my control, just the way I like it.)
Decided on the next unit (Early Readers and Chapter Books) and first book (Catwings) for the Primary class.
Registered with a hosting company (and got an amazing deal!) for a new site.
Installed Wordpress.
Found a new skin, but I have to wait for the DNS to resolve in order to install it, sigh.
Checked in on the status of my free books from JLG.
Upgraded Cyberduck.
Blogged.
Got some new sneakers.

ahhhhh.

As much as I enjoy Apple’s new Mighty Mouse, I will state unequivocally that it should not be foisted upon people of less than eight years of age. I have seen first hand the havoc that cute little scroll button and those squeezable sides can wreak. Helping a class of 1st graders try to navigate KidPix with those things was enough to make me pass out with exhaustion. (They scream every time the dashboard pops up, they think they broke the computer.)

I’ve had to move them all into the upper grades, and replace the lab ones with cheap old dual-click jobbers.
Hmm, I wonder if Apple had to pay to use that name.

The new Google for Educators site is up and running and there is some interesting reading. I am always happy to find a new source of lesson plans, that’s for sure. I do hope to see more content here soon though, it looks a little thin to me.

The most surprising thing is the Google Teacher Academy where you can actually GO - as in “get on a plane and go” - spend the day with Google. I never really thought about Google being any Where, as in the Getrude Stein meaning of there - where.

But huh, go figure. You can go chat with the real live Google folks and get some training in their fun toys. Then you can go back where you came from and deliver the message to your teacher-homies. My question is, do you get paid to promote Google’s products? Or is the a volunteer corporate shill opportunity? The site says they’re still working out some of the benefits. I hope one is cold, hard cash. They certainly seem to have some they could share.

This is a straight-up word processing lesson I thought up while walking the dog. It turned out really fun.

I noticed many kids didn’t know the difference between copying and cutting. I also noticed they needed practice pasting things in the right place (and only once), moving the cursor around and using keyboard shortcuts efficiently.

I made a web page filled with random words (I used a current classroom unit as the theme.) I made copies of the same page and handed them out to the students. They had to cut up the page - one word per piece of paper - and reorganize the words in any way they wanted onto a piece of colored paper. (Their teacher said it looked like a ransom note when they were done, and so was born a lesson name).

Then I told them to go to the web page, copy the words into a document and rearrange them by cutting and pasting, exactly replicating the version they created by hand. And they had to use keyboard shortcuts to do it.

(The kids love shortcuts and pick them up very quickly. Though many still use their mouse hand to type them, and I’m trying to get them more comfortable apple - xing with the left while mousing with the right. I’m forever going on about it, like it’s violin lessons.)

Having them cut the words out and glue them down again really helped them understand the difference between copying and cutting (and it gave us something to discuss as they cut up their strips of paper).

They thought it was a hoot, and some kids were very challenged by it, while others surprised at how good they were at it. A number of kids stayed in for the first few minutes of recess to finish (their idea, not mine) so I guess they didn’t hate it. All in all, pretty fun.

One of the grownups in my online research class is doing her research project on Quaker education and the use of technology, so in class the other night we did a little quick surfing to see if anything was out there.

We ran across this list of questions developed in a workshop at the Second International Congress on Quaker Education in 2000.

I don’t know too much about Quaker beliefs, but boy these questions are super.
I’m just weighing the pros and cons of a redesign for our school web site, and I’m finding these both clarifying and thought-provoking. Here are two great ones…

2.  Technology and Community
How can information technology enhance human interaction?  In what ways is technology bringing people together, keeping them apart?  In what ways is technology affecting the sense of community at the institution?

4.  Technology and Economics
How will the growing educational uses of information technology narrow or widen the gap between the quality of and access to educational experiences for those who are divided by wealth?  How will participants deal with the disparity of access to information technology within a technology-rich school situated within a poorer community?

link

Don’t get me wrong, I love my new computers. Thanks to the fabulous grant writing ability of my gal Jess, I am now the proud administrator of 7 brand new iMacs and 1 cute little Intel mini.

However, issues are cropping up left and right with software not running on the new Intel Macs. So far on my list of un-installables are Type to Learn and Thinking Maps. I need to update Alexandria, and I’m waiting to hear from Mavis Beacon and Tinkerplots.

This combined with moving the kids from Appleworks to Word is driving me to distraction. If anyone is getting some new Macs in soon, I recommend researching all your third-party software before you install.

One high note was the kids. I stood over their shoulders for a minute today and watched as they leapt into Word for the first time. Of course - they had to leap because I was just too busy moving machines around to really help anyone. It was a thing of beauty. They LOVED spell check. And I loved watching them. How quickly does it take a 5th grader to figure out all he has to do is right click on the underlined word? All of 2 seconds. Gorgeous.

Two great articles appeared in the main stream news this week. Two!

Why Johnny Can’t Code By David Brin in Salon is even worth sitting through the adds. (Just do something else while the flash goes by). I’ve been wondering a lot lately about how I can get kids interested in how computers work, and why schools don’t teach programming more often. Brin really nails it.

BASIC used to be on every computer a child touched — but today there’s no easy way for kids to get hooked on programming.

And yet another about MySpace, in US News & World Report no less. And it’s surprisingly balanced and in-depth. I’m going to make copies for my teachers and some parents.

Decoding MySpace by Michelle Andrews

It’s the coolest hangout space for teens-but parents might be surprised at what their kids do there. Here’s how to help keep them safe online

Below is a reply I received today from (my) VT Senator Leahy in response to an email I sent him raving on about DOPA.

It’s clearly a blanket statement, but there are a few tidbits of hope in there, among them, a stated understanding that the wording of the act is vague. Plus, a mention of the Constitution is always a good thing.

Any readers in Maine and New Hampshire might want to drop a line to their Senators Snowe and Sununu on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation and make sure they know not to sit next to Ted Stevens.
Begin forwarded message:

Thank you for contacting me about the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA) of 2006, H.R. 5319. I appreciate hearing from you on this important issue.

On May 9, 2006, Representative Fitzpatrick introduced H.R. 5319. The bill would require public schools and libraries that rely on Universal Service funding to provide Internet access to prevent access to certain websites. On July 26, the House approved the bill and it is currently before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, of which I am not a member.

As a father and grandfather, I am very concerned about the need to protect our children from inappropriate materials that can be found on the Internet and elsewhere. We must work hard to meet this important goal; however, we must do so within the scope of the Constitution.

In an effort to bridge the “digital divide,” Congress authorized certain educational institutions and libraries to receive discount rates for Internet services under the Universal Service program. The discount assists these educational institutions in making Internet access available to more Americans. I understand the concern that language in H.R. 5319 is overly broad and may unintentionally limit access to an array of websites.

Thanks again for your comments on this issue. I will keep your views in mind should this or related legislation comes before the full Senate.

Patrick Leahy
UNITED STATES SENATOR

Please visit my website at:
http://leahy.senate.gov/