Help your students to become more technology literate.  Can your students recognize if the page they have navigated to is a personal page or not?  Here are some tips to help your students…

You can be smart about the URL.  Reading the URL can help you decide if the page you are reading is trustworthy or not.  A personal page while “pretty and interesting” might contain opinions and very little “real” information.  You have to be smart about reading personal pages.  Can you determine if the page is a “personal page”? 

When reading a URL learn to “read past the forward slash”.  Once past the forward slash, you may see items or names that will indicate to you the page is a personal page.  Personal pages are not necessarily bad or pages to avoid.  With personal pages, you must understand that the information on the page might be opinions or biased.  When accessing a personal page, the user must realize the page is a personal page and treat the information on the page differently than if the site was a known, reputable site.

To identify a personal site, look for a personal name.  Often times the name will follow a tilde ( ~ ), a percent sign ( % ), or the words “users,” “members,” or “people.”  An example of a personal site is:

http://www.publink.com/~fabian/intro.html (not a real site)

Another key to identifying a personal page is to look for a commercial Internet Service Provider (ISP) or other provider of web page hosting (like aol.com, myspace.com or geocities.com).

Even sites that you trust can contain personal pages.  It is not uncommon to see a .edu extension contain personal web pages.  Again, these personal pages will likely will follow a tilde ( ~ ), a percent sign ( % ), or the words “users,” “members,” or “people.”  So even if the site is a trusted site, the user must still use good decision making skills to separate the personal pages from institution or publisher supported pages.

Use the Web Wisely 

The number of web sites on the world-wide web is mind-boggling.  Complicating the issue even more is the linking within a web site to other web sites.  So the potential is to navigate to a web site using your browser and then from there “link” to other web sites without ever entering another web site in your browser.  Web sites link to other web sites that link to other web sites and so on…

Users of the web need to have skills that permit them to make judgments about the site.  Is this site appropriate for me?  Is the information on this site reliable?  Is the site biased?  Is the web site a “front” for another, more sinister purpose?

Just because a web site name sounds legitimate does not necessarily mean it is so.  Some web site names are designed to lure users to their site for a purpose other than the web site name indicates.  The classic example is whitehouse.com – while it sounds like this would be a site to visit to learn about our White House in Washington, DC, it is in actuality a pornography site.

Don’t be scared!  Just be careful.  On occasion, you are probably going to find yourself transported to a web site whose descriptive name is not consistent with its mission.  This is an artifact of living in our linked world.  Our students will find them transported to web sites that we would prefer they not have access to in our schools and homes.  That is going to happen.  The best we can do is to minimize the number of these occurrences but making good decisions.  These good decisions combined with computer security measures will minimize the “bad sites” that can be visited by all of us.

URLs and Domain Names 

So far I have been talking about web site names.  Now I want to become more precise in the language that is associated with web sites.  The Universal Resource Locator or URL is the formal name for web site.  For the website Relevant411.net, the URL would be http://www.relevant411.net. The URL does contain the Domain Name.  For the URL http://www.relevant411.net, “relevant411.net” is the domain name.  The domain name is found after the “http://www.” and you can often find clues about the website in the domain name.

Extensions 

Each URL will have an extension.  For http://www.relevant411.net contains the “.net”.  Other extensions include .com and .org.  You probably are familiar with others.  Below is a list of common extensions.  Many times the extension can provide you information about what kind of web site you are about to navigate to.  It is part of good decision making to be familiar with common web site extensions.

• .biz - business use
• .com - commercial use
• .coop - cooperatives
• .edu - post-secondary education organizations
• .gov – US government organizations
• .info – sites that provide information
• .jobs - employment-related sites
• .mil - U.S. military
• .museum - museums
• .name - amilies and individuals
• .net – networks but also used for non-network websites
• .org - organizations
• .pro – professional
• .travel - travel industry

Country codes such as .uk are also common extensions.  To keep yourself informed, visit Computer User website at this URL:

http://www.computeruser.com/resources/dictionary/domains.html

Now that you know how to keep yourself informed, be advised…the extension list is not fool-proof.  People and businesses can purchase domain names with extensions so that they sound like one thing, but they deliver another.  But the best we can do is to minimize the chances of navigating to “bad” sites.

is a website sponsored by Pearson. It is a website full of educational games and puzzles. The site has so much to offer that it can be overwhelming for people new to the site to focus in on what they might be able to utilize. The purpose of the Google DOCs link is to help you get to the “heart of the matter”.

Each slide is divided by age group and contains links to games you might want to try out. Most of these games can be played by students at their computers. But, they do not have to be. Most of these games work well in a Smart Board environment. This permits the entire class to be engaged in the activity and provides for interactivity at the Smart Board.

So, if you see a title that looks interesting, just click on it and it will launch on a new page for you. Go ahead and try out a few…

Now that we know the thin client solution will support the Virginia Standards of Learning (SOL) Tests, are you thinking about purchasing a Thin Client Solution? If you use a Thin Client solution, then you should consider changing the vocabulary you use. Instead of saying, “We need 37 computers.”, you can say, “We need 37 seats.”

“Seats” is the word to use when integrating the thin client solution into your school networks. The presentation below looks at the costs associated with purchasing thin clients vs desktop or laptop PC’s.

I have many more thoughts about using a thin client solution. I believe there are saving opportunities to be had.

Imagine the uproar if school’s were to ban students from taking driver’s education while students at the school. Driving is a central component to life in America. We think driving and safe driving is so important that communities have taken the responsibility to to work with our young students to help develop safe driving habits and become safe drivers.

Despite our best attempts, some students still get tickets, are involved in minor fender-benders and despite our best efforts some are killed. Some will drink and drive. Some will pick up hitch-hikers. Some will tell you they are going to the mall but will actually go somewhere different. Are these experiences exasperating? You bet. Some parents and teachers will be mad and some will be disappointed. But, and this is a big but, we still let them drive. Despite all the things that can go wrong, schools still do their best efforts to have students learn to drive cars so they can participate in a society that is automobile based.

So let’s summarize, schools and communities insist on schools offering drivers education so our children can be empowered to go off and do an activity that could lead to their death. We should ban drivers education. Why should the schools be involved in any endeavor that places students at risk?

Ok, let’s look at another activity that involves risk but if used safely is the key to accessing information. Using the internet. Many schools have blocked internet or severely limited internet access. Who is responsible to teach our students how to negotiate this highway? The internet is dangerous. - But real danger is whenever one of our young drivers gets in a car, straps on the seatbelt and starts the car.

Can a student be distracted while using the internet? Sure, just like a student might while driving a car and his friend is punching him in the arm while the car is moving. Can someone die using the internet? Don’t know about that one, but clearly many students die each year while driving cars.

Because the internet is a central component to today’s life, it is essential that people be educated how to use the internet. Will a student always go to the correct web site? No. Will they get side-tracked and explore other sites and listen to music? Yes Sir! That is why we should restrict student access to the internet. - NO IT’S NOT!

That is precisely the reason we as teachers and educators should be helping our students learn to drive the internet. We want them to develop the skills to recognize inappropriate sites and to have the critical thinking abilities to know if what they are reading is true or not.

As parents, at some point we turn our children loose with the car and the keys. We hope they have learned to make good decisions, to recognize and avoid danger and we hope someone else does not run into them and cause injury or worse.

Today we had students use our Thin Client systems to take the Virginia SOL tests. I am reporting the session was a success! The thin client setups involved a Dell computer with 2 GB of RAM driving an computer solution driving 6 terminals. A second setup using a Gateway computer as the server drove 6 more nComputing terminals.

9 students were seated at nComputing stations to take the SOL test. The system loaded quickly and without any problems. The students could not tell that they were using nComputing stations as opposed to a regular computer station.

The ability to support SOL testing is a BIG DEAL! It is the last hurdle to be negotiated as we proceed with computer purchasing and refresh decisions. The Thin Client solution will become a part of our computer resources solution.

Faquier County Public Schools are using an nComputing solution in their libraries.  In my discussions with their representative they are happy with the performance of their systems.  They report some concerns with applications that are disk based so they have not been willing to deploy nComputing thin clients into student lab situations.  Feel free to contact me for more information.

Technology Leadership Planks

The link above is a video presentation of what guides me as I practice Technology Leadership. The presentation is a Powerpoint created using Camtasia software.

Link to Google Docs This link is the Powerpoint presentation that is seen in the video above.

I have been pondering how one tells if instructional technology is having impact in a teacher’s class room. After the “Wow” has faded, is the technology being utilized to maximize its benefit? Is the technology or the results of the technology being combined with other technologies to leverage maximum benefit and impact?

I have observed that teachers accept technology with different degrees of enthusiasm and expectations. I know this does not come as a surprise. When technology comes to a teacher it comes with all the enthusiasm, “Wow”, and promised benefits.

But the teacher’s reality of technology is different than the marketing that proceeds it. Learning to use technology takes an investment of time. Time is a commodity that a teacher holds dearly. Rarely is a teacher given extra time to learn and gain a sense of comfort with the technology.

Therefore, after the initial hype wears thin, the reality of learning to use the technology sets in. It is important to know this - the ability to use a technology does not imply the technology is being integrated into a class room. For example, a teacher can learn to use a Smart Board. They can learn to write on it, erase text, and navigate to web sites. This is what I would characterize as learning the technology.

But really, though the teacher is using the Smart Board, is there any advantage being leveraged over projecting the same images from a LCD/DLP projector onto a white board? Is the Smart Board being used as a screen? So I ask, what is the educational value of the Smart Board - how can its value add features become part of the class room?

So technology training needs at least 3 components:

1. Learn the nuts and bolts of the technology
2. Take time to become comfortable with the”nuts and bolts”
3. Learn to use the technology so that it changes how class room business and learning is conducted.

So my point is - simply placing technology in a class room is not integrating technology. Technology integration takes time - measured in months and years. Keeping this in mind will help calibrate our expectations when it comes to teachers using technology.