If you have never used an air compressor, you are missing out. This highly customizable tool is indispensable in any shop. How does it work? The motor on the compressor draws air into a tank, squeezing more air into the tank than would naturally fit under normal circumstances. This pressurized air is then used to provide power to a wide variety of tools. In auto shops, you will hear mechanics tightening bolts with air impact wrenches. Carpenters use nail guns power by air compressors. Of course, you fill your tires with air from an air compressor, and someday you may even drive a car that is powered by compressed air. These are all wonderful uses of a very powerful tool.
In my wood shop class, my students' favorite pneumatic extension is the blow gun. This is an attachment that simply allows you to blow compressed air from a hose. It's handy for getting dust out of tight spaces or out of your hair. Many of my students think it also makes a great dust brush and broom. Why sweep when you can just blow dust all over the place? Well, unfortunately, this method is noisy, fills your lungs with dust, and after you leave the shop, all of the dust in the air just settles back down and nothing is any cleaner.
Cool tools are hard to hide. Everybody wants to use them whether they are helpful or simply a distraction. This is normal. People like to play.
Like air compressor, computers are incredibly versatile tools, and they should be widely used in education. However, they should not be used just for the sake of using technology. If the practice does not add value to learning than it is not a practice worth having in school. Technology without an educational purpose is not only a waste of precious time in school, it can also be rather boring.
I teach a high school ICT class, and I constantly struggle to find good reasons for my students to use new tools. Because there is no required academic content to the course, I try to incorporate as much as I can from various disciplines and life in general. I can't get my students to buy into “making a website because I need to make a website for class”. There has to be a reason for making the website.
This is actually one of the reasons I have advocated getting laptops at my school and incorporating more technology into the general curriculum. There are more opportunities to use technology for authentic reasons in general academia versus learning different tools in Computer Class that will never be used anywhere else because the rest of education is done with paper and pencils.
Whether the teacher's objective is to meet the state standards or to give the students a more engaging learning experience, computers can be very useful, but student engagement is more than just doing something. Engagement means being engrossed in the tasks of learning. Teachers who are eager to use more technology will struggle to use it appropriately. They are learning too. This does not mean they should avoid using computers in their classrooms. It simply means they need to go slowly and reflect about what works. Teachers and students should always ask, “did that activity make learning easier or better?” Then they need to determine why and how. In this way, educational communities can determine what is valuable and what is really just a waste of required seat time.
If, when you read the title of this post, you thought, "what is Linux?" then you are not alone. Many computer users believe that Windows and Mac are the only options for operating systems. In fact, there are many options, and some are more popular than you may realize. Linux operating systems are most prominent in the server market. In fact, over 85% of the world's top 500 supercomputers run on Linux. If you use the Internet, you undoubtedly access information from Linux servers all the time. Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, and several other Internet giants all use Linux for their servers because of its security. Even the U.S. Defense Department and FAA use Linux (Focus.com). Linux, however is not yet popular for the average computer user, but its use is growing.
I recently jumped into the Linux community and I am very excited about what I have found. What follows is an explanation of why I switched to Linux.
Besides a Commodore 64 my parents had when I was too young to remember, the first computer in my household was an IBM running MS DOS Shell, a precursor to Windows. I was ten when my family got the computer and I used Windows or DOS for the next twelve years. That is when I purchased my first computer. At that point, it seemed everyone I knew who used Windows either struggled with viruses or their computers were so slow due to antivirus software that they might as well have had viruses anyway. I decided to switch to Mac. I purchased an iBook G4 and never looked back. Two years ago, I upgraded to a MacBook and have been very happy with it. Unfortunately, I am still forced to Windows at work, and I still run into the same security issues that frustrated me back when I switched six years ago.
Windows users may be grumbling at this point, and my intention is not to argue about which operating system is better, I just want you to know where I am coming from. I teach at a school that runs only Windows. To be specific, we use various desktops running Windows XP SP2 on a Windows 2003 server. We have so many issues with viruses, computers freezing, inoperable user accounts, and more. I don't know a lot about servers and networking, but given my personal preference for Mac, I decided to look into the prospect of purchasing Macs for our school. One phone call confirmed my suspicion that it is never going to happen. The best deal Apple would give our school was about $850 per MacBook.
Macs are great; they are secure and easy to use, they come with a great deal of powerful software right out of the box, but when it comes to providing a frugal option, Apple is the worst. Sure, all of Apple's computers have high-end hardware and advocates will argue that users save in the long-run because they do not have to purchase additional security software or deal with as many IT headaches. This may be true when comparing to Windows, but Windows is not the only other option.
Fueled by my disappointing phone call to Apple and frustrated by being forced to use AT&T in order to have an iPhone (Verizon will soon be providing iPhones now), I decided it was time to finally try a Linux operating system. Linux is a kernel; you can think of it as the core of an operating system. Like MacOS, it is based on Unix, but unlike MacOS, it is completely open source. It is free, and anyone with the knowledge can build an operating system using Linux as the Kernel. In recent years, some Linux derivatives have grown very popular. Android, Google's mobile operating system used on phones and tablets, is built on Linux, and even Amazon's Kindle uses a modified Linux kernel. Desktop distributions of Linux are not as well known, but are growing in popularity and in sophistication.
When I decided to try Linux, I opted for Ubuntu, the most popular desktop distribution based on Linux. I had hoped to find something I would like more than Windows, but I assumed it would be a little limited in features. I was wrong. Despite the fact that Ubuntu is completely free, it is an advanced operating system with some features I have never seen in MacOS or Windows.
I suspect a lot of people are afraid to try a different operating system, especially if it means buying a new computer or losing your access to your trusty old OS, but there are several risk-free, easy ways to try Ubuntu for free. First of all, Ubuntu can be downloaded directly from ubuntu.com or you can order a CD for a fee. You can then use the CD to install Ubuntu on your computer or you can try Ubuntu directly from the CD without installing anything. I chose to install VirtualBox on my MacBook and install Ubuntu in a virtual machine. VirtualBox enables users to run operating systems within another operating system. It is open source, so it is free as well, but there are other proprietary options such as Parallels and VMware if you feel like spending money. You can use any of these to run several different operating systems much in the same way you would run any program on your computer. It is more difficult to use this option, and I also noticed some loss of functionality, but it is still an excellent way to become familiar with another operating system. I may post more about this later.
After using Ubuntu in Vbox for about a month, I decided it was time to run it natively. I still wanted my Mac and I was not interested in dual booting so I decided to purchase a little netbook from System76, a Colorado company that makes computers and sells them with Ubuntu installed. The computer cost less than $400 but there are less expensive options. I could have purchased a used computer and installed Ubuntu, but I also wanted to test feasibility of using netbooks with students at my school.
Ubuntu Software Center
The first two weeks I had my netbook, I would bring it and my MacBook to work. Now, I hardly even use my MacBook. Don't get me wrong, I still like MacOS, but I hate the Apple philosophy. All of Apple's computers are high-end and expensive, and you can only legally run MacOS on a Macintosh computer so you have to purchase from them. I can run Ubuntu or any other Linux "distro" on any computer (as long as the hardware supports it and most do) and I do not even have to pay for the operating system. Ubuntu also comes with the Ubuntu Software Center which includes almost 35,000 FREE applications (think of Android Market or Macs App store).
As I use Ubuntu more, I am learning just how feature-rich this operating system really is. As a Mac-user, I loved being able to use expose to switch between windows and workspaces. I grew especially dependent on my hot-corners. Well, much to my excitement, not only can I still use hot-corners and expose in Ubuntu, but there are even more window and workspace switching features, such as the desktop cube. Also, unlike MacOS, Ubuntu is highly customizable. I do not have to have my computer look and operate the way Steve Jobs thinks I should; I can set it up my own way.
Switching Workspaces uses Desktop Cube in Ubuntu
Next week, I am going to blog about some of my favorite Ubuntu features and explain why I believe educators especially should try Linux.
When I first heard about Diigo and Delicious, I didn't understand why people would want to share their bookmarks with anyone else. Even though I was aware of several Web 2.0 tools, I was still stuck in the Web 1.0 mentality, where the Internet was still primarily a place one goes to find information. I had always used bookmarks as shortcuts to my most commonly visited sites. It never occurred to me that bookmarking could be a social activity.
I started using Diigo a couple of months ago even though I was not that impressed with it. I was expecting it to replace browser-based bookmarks, and it could, but the real power in Diigo or any other social bookmarking site is the ability it gives users to share ideas and interests. I am just beginning to explore the collaborative features of Diigo. I have started joining groups to learn what others are bookmarking. This is an excellent way to discover information about topics of interest. I have not started following individuals yet but I can see how that might be very useful as well.
Besides discovering and sharing information with strangers, it is also easy to collaborate with classmates or colleagues using Diigo. I recently signed-up for an educator account with Diigo. I am going to create student subaccounts for one of my classes next semester in order to help my student work together in group research projects. I am still debating whether I should do this with Diigo or Google Bookmarks. I like Diigo better but the nice thing about Google Bookmarks is... well, it's Google.
I have heard people complain about Google taking over the world, and I do think it is important not to rely too heavily on one entity, but as an educator, it is really nice to have one central location for several services. I create one Google account for each student and that account will give him access to scores of Web 2.0 tools. I am trying to get approval from my principal to set-up Google Apps for our school.
Google Reader is by far the most distracting web tool. It provides instant access to incoming feeds from any site of interest. Because the user subscribes to changes on the website, there is no need to navigate to the same website repeatedly to find out what is new, and it's harder to miss something. I set Google Reader up in my Google Gadgets, which appear on my desktop. This means that not only do I not need to surf webpages to find something interesting, but I don't even need to open a web browser to view my RSS feeds. There are several distracting new bits of information for me to read, right on my desktop. It's extraordinary and truly is a wonderful way to stay informed.
