Current mood:	bouncy
Entry tags:	education, hdd, microsoft, moodle, ooo, open source, openoffice, software, student-teacher, students, vitta, vm, vmware

Virtual needs and wants
Mike keeps asking if I would like to see a Beta copy of Vista. Dont get me wrong, I'll get around to looking and probably upgrading to this product. I will admit to having a problem understanding the burning need to upgrade my VITTA,  operating system yet again. Some technical bloggers have grumbled about the overload with too many Microsoft applications released at once. I will get around it it but this will take time. For now I am pleased with OpenOffice that I can reuse my teaching notes from this year.

I have been fascinated by Virtual Machines since Donna gave me a self booting CDROM copy of Ubuntu to play about with. To date I have been tinkering with installations and tests using both Microsoft VirtualPC 2004 and VMWare 5. The former is free and the latter is full of cute features, tweaks and extra features. Virtual machines are fascinating to tinker with. There is even a cute picture on Wikipedia of Windows XP, running as a virtual machine on an Ubuntu host computer. Whils I could do this for hundreds of different operating systems, it made sense to first try the easy to use and install Linux Ubuntu system.

The folder sharing functions of VirtualPC 2004 didnt work at first when I used it to to build a virtual comptuer with Ubuntu, a Linux based operating system. Soon after, I discovered the application in the virtual Ubuntu that would permit me to share folders with my host computer by just using the laptop's wireless connection or a USB key. One of my hard-core IT students was fascinated by a copy I had running, spending some time to tinker and play with the settings to explore the different functions, layout options and file storage system. That is something that I learned at ACEC1006 conference, letting students play about with the software is a legitimate educational activity.

I was curious about the differences and read tonight a review that suggests that VMWare performs better than VirtualPC 2004. Whilst VMWare GSX is running on Google's 13000+ linux servers, this is probably not something that my students would notice. I also read some good notes in an online forum that indicate that these virtual machines work better if they are used on a hard disk drive that is physically separate from the operating system running on the host computer. I am going to try and see if it makes a difference if I copy and run them onto a 80 Gb relocatable USB2 HDD that I carry around. If this works, I can then easily run and tinker away with this on my laptop, work desktop or home computers. :-)

I have another student teacher working with me next work. I have asked him to develop and teach a 5 period Moodle teaching unit based around operating systems, drawing upon the practical task of installing both Ubuntu and Windows98 into different virtual machines. I insisted that he use Moodle, develop an online quiz and even share all his work on the VITTA website. Worried I was probably throwing him into the deep end, he just made oodles of notes, sat back with a smile and said "I like the pace are setting." (phew)