Computer Architecture Week 5

This week had us all take a component of computer hardware and research it and present the basic facts of each. The question posed to us is: What were the most valuable pieces of information that you learned from presentations in class tonight? At face value, this is difficult to answer because I feel well versed in all areas that were presented. New information includes the advent of PCI-E slots for video cards. I was not alert to the newest and fastest card types. When putting together a new system I will make sure I give attention to ones that have the newest type. Learning more about flash drives was beneficial. I never realized they can only be rewritten over so many times before failure. Makes me wonder why they don't have come type of counter attached to give the user more info pertaining to this aspect. I really learned the most from my own research about BIOS. I took this on so I could learn more about it, rather than choose something I already understood. The most interesting part of the research centered around the advent of EFI as a replacement for BIOS and how Apple has it easy because they control every facet of the production. PC makers need to come to come type of consensus regarding a coordinated effort to standardize hardware from their manufacturers. Until this happens Microsoft will be at their mercy, mush to Apple's delight.

Computer Architecture Week 3

This week had us examine Operating Systems.


OS Activities—Ron Mork


2pts - Install an OS:

I have installed several operating systems. They are all Windows systems. I upgraded my hard drives on my old IBM several times and with each one I installed Windows 98. These installs were easy and effortless. There was never a problem doing so. I have also installed Windows XP twice. One time was when replaced a hard drive. This install went 95% fine. I could not get all the drivers to work, especially the NIC driver; the system was not fully functional, so I switched it and used it as a slave drive. Then I had a hard drive crash and I needed to install a new one anyway. I ran into the same problems. I was unable to get a few of the drivers to work. However, this time I was more diligent and after an afternoon of trial and error, along with searching help forums, I was able to track down the missing drivers through the system information directory and activate all the hardware on the computer. As much as it was a pain in the backside, I was gleeful in my ability to not give up and call overpriced support and solve the problems myself.



1pt - Upgrade or install an OS patch, Service Pack or Upgrade for your OS:

I can only say that I have received updates from Microsoft and I oversee the process of installing updates. I do not allow my system to automatically install them. I want to know what is being installed and perhaps why. The latest SP3 from Microsoft for Windows XP was a disaster for me. There were stories circulating that the install of the OS Service Pack caused problems for a few individuals. Well I was one of them. I decided to install the SP3 to my desktop last August and was trapped in an endless loop while trying to reboot. My computer was inoperable. One thing I like to do is to try and solve my own problems on the computer. Well I spent the better part of 6/7 hours scouring the help forums for an answer to my problem. I tried several methods before realizing that I needed to disconnect all my USB connected devices, well that includes keyboard, mouse , and just about everything on a new computer. Most new computers so not have PS/2 ports for mouse and keyboard operation, everything is USB. The long and short of it was I needed to get into a SAFE mode on startup and I did but couldn’t navigate without a mouse and keyboard (USB), so I ended up rigging them through my USB ports on my monitor and getting in through the side door. Once there I was able to restore my system to a time before the SP3 install and repair all the damage. My desktop still doesn’t work properly and I am re-imaging to a factory state over Christmas break. I will not install SP3. I can’t wait for the next OS by Windows. As Bill said in Pirates of Silicon Valley…we need to make people need us…well I need Bill and MS.



2pts - Pirates of the Silicon Valley:

To me it was a real treat watching this movie. Truthfully, I never knew it existed. I thought it quite interesting how these two individuals and their respective companies were so intertwined, yet so distinctly different, just as they are today. The thing I liked about it was that I was alive and kicking during this whole process. I was 18 in 1976. I thought back to what I was doing during this time and how the elements of the growth of both companies triggered memories. As far as the two men involved, Steve and Bill, well the movie seemed to paint them as synergistic opposites. Steve in his god-like nirvana and Bill in his nerd-like egoism almost seem to be yin and yang; both having a narcissistic drive to propel their companies toward success. I do not know how totally accurate the portrayals were but the seemed to peg the individuals fairly accurately. I thought it interesting that Steve seemed to reject his daughter Lisa, being that he was adopted himself; if this rejection is true at all. My favorite part was when Steve and Bill confronted each other after the Super Bowl commercial and Bill telling Steve that he just stole first; they both realized that they were guilty of stealing ideas together from Xerox. Once again, how true this is I don’t know. I do remember the commercial though. The movie left me wondering that with Steve’s intense loyalty-seeking drive toward a cult-like family would mean that Apple’s employees would have drank Jonestown Kool-Aid for him. I did like watching this movie after watching Triumph of the Nerds. The factual documentary really filled in the content needed to truly understand what was happening. Great movie!

Computer Architecture Week 2

Just a short blog this week. This week had us examine how long different computers and/or operating systems take to boot up. I have a PC with Windows XP Pro. The boot up time is fairly quick, I think, 63 sec. the full load of the OS with all the programs is 120 seconds. I have quite a few programs that need to load. Overall, to me, this is acceptable.

Computer Architecture Week 1

My life first...class stuff last!!

PERSONAL

Well, I sit here at the Wisconsin Dells, in a room at Chula Vista while my son sleeps. We are in town for a Youth Championship Football Tournament. I just realized that daylight savings time has occurred and it is really 7:15, not 8:15. This is both a blessing and a curse. You see his team won, which for all involved is good. It was a close game with both teams evenly matched. That was the blessing. Now the curse. Had they lost we would be playing at 10 this morning, done by 12 and home around 2. We don't play until tonight at 6, done by 8 and home by 10; which with daylight savings time will seem like 11. It is not easy getting my son up at 5:30 am for school on a normal night let alone add in all of the above. Yikes! Oh well lets hope they win so the ride home is more joyful than not. The good thing is he will be beat and most likely will sleep. As for me, well...it is what it is!! Any other parents feel the same way about these sports tourneys? Blessing vs. Curse??

The other thing is we need to be out of the room by 10:30. The game is at 6 so it will be a long afternoon. I suppose I could find out if we could stay in the water park, but the team needs to be out of the water by 1 so not much leeway there. I may drive a bit to get into town but not sure how much is open on a Sunday in November. Oh well it may just be a time killer.

Ahhh.....the life of a devoted parent. At least I brought my laptop and have taken the opportunity to work on my portfolio stuff albeit with a 1Mbps connection. We are at the end of the complex so I assume the signal has really faded down here. Boy to think that I was used to dial up connectivity and I thought that was great; then to be spoiled, somewhat, by a cable connection, I feel like I have reverted back to the stone age. But at least I have a connection!!


Oh yeah, we had a great buffet dinner last night and I had way more than my share of King Crab legs....so tasty!!


CLASS

Anyway, I should blog a bit about the class. A new class brings a new blog. This class is all about "how a computer works--from the inside". Class 1 had us look at various components of computer hardware as well as watch a movie exploring the innards of a computer by following a group of students through large oversized pieces representing computer parts. This was both fun and interesting. The visuals helped with a few explanations and understandings. Overall I think it was worthwhile. The most interesting part was the computer simulation where we illustrated the operation of a computer without actually being a computer. We followed a path that added two numbers. It was a lesson in logic, really. I did find it interesting that the number of steps necessary to add two numbers, quite a few for such a simple step.

I am PC person. As far as navigating through the inside of a computer I do that quite a bit more than the normal person , I think! I am always opening up my computer to clean it of dust. My 7 year old loves to watch and I point out the parts. In fact, we recently, literally, tore apart our first computer, an IBM Aptiva from 1999. I explained the parts to him and he seemed to really enjoy it. He refers backs to it and wants to tear apart another one. I would actually like to build one with him. My only regret is not saving the parts. I have upgraded my computers with hard drives, memory, ZIP drives (on the Aptiva). I have reinstalled operating systems after severe crashes. Just for fun at times too just get a nice new clean running computer again. Last August after updating my XP to service pack 3, I got caught in the endless reboot loop that had plagued many people. I spent hours searching the forums looking for an answer and a way to bring it back to life. I finally did and still don't have perfect running system nor do I have service pack 3. I plan on doing a re-image this Christmas break after grad school ends. I don't like problems but I love the challenge of conquering them and winning. I will spend an awful lot of time trying to fix a problem myself before just giving up and doing an OS reinstall, although I have done that many times.

Well enough babbling.

Later!

"Digital Media Grad Class Week 5--Web 2.0 Application Review"

Well this week we had to find a Web 2.0 app that we hadn't looked at in class and write a paper examining the application. Boy-oh-boy! There are a lot of them out there. Little did I know. Well after perusing the net for a bit I settled on Capzles.

I wanted to find a site that I could really use in the classroom rather than just picking one to get the assignment done. I have the kids in my class do several different projects throughout the year (biography report, explorer report, 13 colonies report, to name a few). This application gives me the best way for them to create a visually expressive way to add value to their research. I signed up for an account and created a capzle to get a feel for the process. I love it. I hope others explore it too. Below is the opening paragraph for my paper that explains Capzles.

Capzles (http://www.capzles.com/) is a beta version of a Web 2.0 application for users to express themselves by developing personal photo stories. Conceptually it is about storylines or timelines presented in an interactive, horizontal filmstrip fashion using a Flash-based interface. It is about telling a story. These stories are called capzles: your life, a vacation, a moment in history, or whatever the story is, you can make a capzle about it. A capzle is made up of individual moments (slides) which are composed of photos, video files, blogs, and/or audio files. The capzle is a container with its own title and description and the moments (photos, video files, blogs, and/or audio files) that make up the capzle have their own description and title too.

Try it!

We also met online this week again through a site www.dimdim.com . The use of these online conferencing sites makes sense especially with transportation costs rising everyday. The hardest part of the whole thing was keeping up with the test entries. It would make sense if all participants had cams and mics so we all have a visual and audio experience but since we all don't it provides a worthy alternative. Our group started a conference and each of us took a turn creating a meeting room and all went well. Not too much to say about it right now at not until I have more familiarity with it.

Podcast #1

Please navigate to my Wiki page for this podcast.

http://mrmork.wikispaces.com/

I used Audacity to create an mp3 file. I then uploaded the file to MediaFire http://www.mediafire.com/, a free file hosting site I have used in the past. This is a good site although files need to be less than 2 GB and the link to the file needs activity or else they dump the file for inactivity. I also used Screencast-o-matic and created a screencast for the entire process of uploading to MediaFire but it was very large (100MB) so I sit with a large file. I will have to either export it out as a smaller file or compress it....until then I have a link to my Wiki where I was able to post a link to a Quicktime file (10MB) of the podcast.

Well I just went to play the large Quicktime file (screencast) and found out that I have no video, black screen, and only an audio recording ....a very large audio recording...bummer!!!! Oh well it gives me something to try and conquer.

"Digital Media Grad Class Week 4--Social Bookmarks, Podcasts, and Social Networks"

This week had us examine Social Bookmarks, Podcasts, and Social Networks. Interesting stuff! I really enjoyed the ability to create social bookmarks and see myself instituting that in my class soon. This will be helpful when students are doing class research and come across useful sites on their own. It will save me time scurrying around the room writing down all the URL's they come across. It will also give students a place to save bookmarks they come across outside of class and school. Podcasts sound promising but I need to really examine how I am going to bring them into my class and school. My IT person is already wanting to do work with them so I will have to connect with her so we can bounce ideas off each other. As far as Social networking, the IT person at my school has already established an account with Think.com and we are talking about the usefulness of it and how to apply it in the school. That too sounds promising. I will keep you informed.

"Digital Media Grad Class Week 3--Nings & Wikis"

Well this week we looked at nings and wikis, collaborative web 2.0 apps that have taken root and are flourishing madly. As usual my thoughts drift toward "this is not a viable tool" but then my mind opens to the things I can actually do with these apps. This class is expanding my view of the web and the apps that make it what it is evolving into. This is the purpose of education of to me: allowing a student a comfort zone to learn and make mistakes and to challenge their existing beliefs. Well, my beliefs are being challenged and examined and I am happy to say I am not as static as I thought.

Here are two examples of how I visualze using these apps in the future with my students.

I can see the students creating a website using a Wiki that functions as a discussion board for different subjects from class. As far as a Ning I can visualize an area where students build a more interactive environment around a subject where they can learn the art of etiquette and the social subtle nuances of communication.

"Digital Media Grad Class Week 2--Blogs & Wikis"

This week we spent time looking over Blogs and Wikis. I am actually expanding my thoughts on these two areas. My initial thoughts were that these were a difficult and practically non-useful thing for students to engage in, but being relatively open-minded, I am beginning to see the creative way that these can impact my students in my class. I find that wikis are a great way to allow students to explore open software, engage in community collaboration, generate respect for other people's ideas (especially ideas different from your own), and how to really examine the intellectual property debate as well as to understand the idea of public domain. Blogs can be useful as a way for students to record their ideas and to compare/contrast them with others as well as begin to delve into the area of critical thinking that is beneficial to them as adults and humans.

The challenge for me is to present the usefulness of these tools to my administrator and the school board as a valid way for students to learn and grow. My school's policy prohibits the use of these two tools and prohibits students from publishing anything online. So I need to build a bridge between this mindset and the one that encourages the growth of student ability and knowledge through Read/Write web collaboration.

Digital Media Grad Class Week 1--My Question

I started a new class this week called Digital Media. It is a class that encompasses several apps of Web 2.0 especially blogging, Wikis, podcasts, nings, etc.. The question I need to ask myself each week is how I can apply what was discussed/examined in class to my life in and/or out of the classroom.

This first week presented an overview of the class as well as provided some time to explore the social network created for this grad class. http://cedu534-k-1008.ning.com/

Being that it is the first week I really don't have much substance to ponder, nor is there any real connection to my life. Yet! That is an important three letter word!

So, I use this first post to pose questions I ask myself.

Do we really need to stay connected to the world all the time? Is it necessary to use technology, as it exists today, to always "be in touch"? Has humanity come to such a point that solitude begins to evaporate and people can no longer seek solice in " being alone" for a period of time? Do we really need to bring our laptops on vacation? Can't we turn off our cell phones for a week? Do we need to be followed with Twitter? Does it really matter that someone responds to thoughts, opinions, and beliefs through blogging? How important is it to constantly need reinforcement through social interaction and connectivity? Have people gotten to a point where their psyche is is dependent on others and their affirmations?

Now having posed those questions, I know and understand we are social creatures and NEED the comfort, support, and interaction of others in order to really "be human". But, are we losing the ability for an internal locus of control through technology and the spores it ejects? If we are who we are from what we have, then what happens when we don't have? If we are who we are through the bolsterings of others, then what happens when those others are gone? If we are who we are by what we do, what happens when we don't do that anymore?

Now, it will be interesting if anyone responds to my musings. If you do, great. If you don't, well, perhaps you are taking some of the questions I have posed and are digesting them for a bit. Then again, perhaps you are simply not responding because you are not bolstering my need to see if people really care about what I think. Then I am the one left wondering!

Gather data in schools

We use a three faceted approach to gathering data in our school. We use MAPS results along with WKCE testing data and we combine it with immediate observation and assessment by the teacher in the classroom. I think it is important for the teacher to be involved in the process and not solely rely on test data to see if a child is learning or improving. The test data is very objective and is important but at the same time I believe a very subjective human element is needed to give a balanced picture to student learning and achievement.

Leadership at school

I don't have a formal leadership role at school. We are very small and work in mostly individual capacities. There is one teacher for each grade level. I teach grade 5. If I had to express a role I would say I take the initiative to communicate with the 6-8 teachers to ensure that things I am doing in the classroom will directly impact the children and their ability to succeed in grade 6. I would say I collaborate well with the other teachers when the need arises. My leadership role involves a more informal capacity rather than a formal one. I find that I work better behind the scenes getting things done over being in the limelight. So this class should be interesting as I reflect on these things throughout the next 6 weeks.

Why is web design knowledge critical for instructional technology leaders in the K-12 environment?

To me this is a simple answer. As instructional technology leaders we need to be able to present to our students the best of what the web has to offer. The only way to do this is to compare the good with the bad. What does this mean? Upon arrival at a website, first impressions are important! If a site is visually appealing and clean with respect to presentation and navigability it allows us a better opportunity to explore and interact with it. Conversely, if one arrives at a site and it is cluttered and messy it would be laborious to navigate through the mess to complete whatever it is that needs to be done. Students will eaily becomed bored and disconnected from the reason for them being there.

We need to keep in mind the student. For he/she is the primary reason we are doing what we are doing. We bring children into the world of the internet for different reasons than they may peruse the net at home. Our time with them is limited; therefore, we need to showcase websites for them to interact with that are designed well. This will give them a better chance for success than allowing them to interact with poorly developed sites.

What is the best Website solution for my school?

I don't really have an answer for this question. My school is in a rural area. Many students do not have access to the Internet and if they do, a large percentage of them still have dial-up access. Our website is simple and straightforward. There are very few graphics. It is primarily information (text). This suits the majority of the student body and their families. Because of this unique situation I feel the site is sufficient for them. I would like to see the day where we have a more interactive site with both teachers and students involved, one where teachers actively post and students can access it easier. Our growth for both staff and students needs cultivation.

Are teacher websites important?

This is an interesting question. Truthfully it is up to the teacher to place importance on it. However, in today's world there are more and more people who use the Internet for many activities and communication is one of those activities. A teacher can communicate to students and parents on a more broad level and allow information to reach them outside the constraints of the school day. It is strictly a communication tool. As long as a teacher maintains a site it will be useful

Frontline on PBS this Tuesday

"Growing Up Online"Channel 10 9:00 pm
A look at the impact of the Internet on adolescence through the eyes of teens and their parents. FRONTLINE explores the complicated new lines being drawn between the real and virtual worlds for today's children and teens, and for their parents, who often find themselves on the other side of a new digital divide.

This could be interesting. If you don't get a chance to watch it go to their website and watch it in segments.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/kidsonline/

Interesting article!!

I came across this article on eSchool News from Monday May 12. It is an interesting article that discusses views from parents that digital media use doesn't benefit a student's ability to improve their social skills. I found it most interesting because I have children myself and I see the benefit of the media in the digital age as well as the apparent downside to it too. I see my son able to use various media platforms with ease but find that he is isolated in using them. I am not decided on the issue. What do you think?

Link: http://www.eschoolnews.com/news/top-news/?i=53773;_hbguid=06decc0d-abe4-4cf6-a682-b8dc4418f37e

You have to register to eSchool News. It is free and easy.

Why is a good Web design important in/to education? Particularly to your district/school website.

I believe that good website design is important to those in education. This is beneficial to teachers who have students using the Internet for just about any purpose. Many students these days are used to instant gratification and instant success. I see this everyday when I take my kids in the lab and have them use the net for research. Most of my kids expect the information to instantly pop up in front of them and if it doesn't they say they can't find it. I have to literally model the process of navigating a website looking for information that is beneficial to them and their needs. If the website is cluttered and especially difficult to decipher then this compounds the process and will actually hinder them in this process. The sites need to be clean and easy to navigate if I am going to try to instill the value of perseverance and determination into my students. If they are not, well then, most of my kids will attempt to give up. Of course this is a vain attempt by them because I will not allow them to give up. A well-designed, well-thoughtout website will help me in this endeavor.