Plakboek

Crazy errors

Fri, 25 Dec 2009 12:40:41 GMT

I have published here a collection of quirky images collected over the past few years. They illustrate stuck OSX compuer desktops, Windows XP virus madness, website bugs and some really odd error messages.

That you can view these images is credit to the web-servers that limped onwards or operating systems that could still support a simple print screen command.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/plakboek/sets/72157622942174433 (or this flash slideshow)

Flat fuel

Tue, 22 Dec 2009 01:27:07 GMT

Oil Droplet by der_makabere

The production and sale of diesel in Australia is very odd. I could not understand why it is more popular (and cheaper) in Europe. My friend Gary was explained to me that it had to do with the even stranger pricing system that we use. It is something that will probably never change until we have a pricing review to flatten competition.
     http://www.abc.net.au/landline/stories/s249744.htm

Diesel is increasingly the dominant fuel in Asia. In China, diesel fuel is used for heating and was stockpiling before the Olympic games. This created a short term problem in Australia. It seems that we just cannot make enough to meet local demand.
     http://www.aip.com.au/pricing/facts/Facts_about_Diesel_Prices.htm

The sales of small diesel engines continues to boom and I was interested to read that whilst petrol-electric hybrids have been embraced as green icons by politicians and the media, a Hyundai i30 diesel won the Greenfleet technology class, even beating the Toyota Prius hybrid using just 3.2litres/100km compared to 5.6litres/100km.
     http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23036860-5010760,00.html

Whilst the price of diesel relative to petrol is an important consideration, diesel has a higher energy content compared to petrol and delivers more kilometers for each litre of fuel – particularly when combined with new, efficient diesel engines. Here is an interesting review that explains this difference. It also explains why low sulfur diesel is good for the environment.
     http://www.caradvice.com.au/9553/2008-hyundai-i30-comparo-petrol-vs-diesel/

It explains some of the complex reasons why I choose to power my family car with this fuel.

ACEC2010 social networking

Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:53:21 GMT

ACEC2010 screenshot by plakboek

I have been doing some work on the social networking elements of the ACEC2010 conference and it has been interesting to re-examine some of the many different web2,0 tools that we are preparing to use.

Some are new, some are empty, all are growing as they fill up with people, contacts and content.

A great way to quickly explore these tools is to watch this sideshow of 16 images that i have published to flickr. I am interested in your thoughts and feedback.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/plakboek/tags/acec2010screenshot/

Watch these spaces :-)

Tweet cloud distraction

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:15:36 GMT

After a hell of a day sorting out reporting issues for just everybody else at school, I had an interesting discussion with my junior IT class talking about the value of tagging and social networking. Some had never really noticed the value of the tags used with YouTube. We had fun examining the ABC news tag cloud and playing with Wordle http://www.wordle.net to farm and sort words that I used in my reports. Here is a tag cloud that I just made with http://tweetcloud.icodeforlove.com that analyses your twitter posts to determine the most popular burning topics and keywords. My technicians had a bit of fun playing about with it and here is my cloud for November:

Hmm, so it is packed with stuff that I can wrote into a single sentence. Here goes .. issues raised by VITTA09 conference keynotes, ACEC2010 Melbourne conference, free software ideas (software freedom day), a morning wish for more thinking and reflecting time bundled with thanks to you all for another great year online :-)

Beyond the critical mass

Sun, 29 Nov 2009 00:12:49 GMT

web2.0 by ryyo

My suspicions were confirmed after talking to Amanda at QSITE09 in QLD. Thinking back to the changes I noticed at NECC2008, I can now confirm that whilst mailing lists are not dead, they are no longer the best way forward for all special interest groups such as teacher subject associations. Web2.0 tools such as YouTube, Twitter, Nings, Flickr, Delicious, EdNA, LinkedIN, Facebook, etc. now have a complex and important role to play.

it means we must increasingly rely on social networking to build bridges between different groups, not just find the biggest mailing list to dominate and post alerts. Whilst it may be we will get less e-mail, it does mean that it is more importan to keeping track of your interests and matching them to online groups.

Two decades ago I nicknamed the "Chandler critical mass" as a measure of how large a mailing list needs to be to become successful tool. I now realise that I had left out some important dimensions: the features and flexibility of the tool for collaboration, the enthusiasm and willingness for users to wield it to develop new ideas, bound together with the sense of community ownership, community and tradition .. features of the oz-teachers and eChalk mailing lists. Anything less and they would become just another a news list.

Whilst it is more work for us to now also network with people using web2.0 tools for social networking, there are rewards of new opportunities and connections.

That is a good thing :-)

Google SVG whiteboard

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 13:09:34 GMT

Google Document Drawing by Wesley Fryer

Here is a fascinating bit of hot news. Google have built into GoogleDocs a whiteboard and it is has been built using SVG technology.

I have been involved with some fascinating collaboration using Google Docs with different teams editing the same page, at the same time. I am now interested to try it out with this new function.

"The team and technology behind Insert Drawing originally came from the startup Tonic Systems, which Google acquired in 2007. The drawing feature that we've built relies heavily on a relatively new capability in browsers: the ability to render vector graphics. We use the SVG (scalable vector graphics) standard to accomplish this in most browsers and VML (vector markup language) where SVG is not available." reference

Some of you probably read about the interesting work by Bill Kerr with SVG and that I have used it in the classroom with Inkscape, a cool and free open source SVG drawing program.

This is going to lend some weight behind this powerful open standard and is worth trying out ..

.. when collaboraitng online of course ;-)

Learning amongst the shepherds

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:39:09 GMT

sheep by drgillybean

Some interesting discussions are around about the kind of environment we would like to have when schools move towards a 1:1 laptop program. It is curious to see how much interest that there is in tools to regulate and control exactly what students can do on their laptops and what they can see, in effect tightly shepherding their thinking and learning using technology tools to control what could be seen and done on the computer screen. Some research in Australia by Intel was cited that found that this restricted the ability of students to 'own' their learning. They were unable to naturally progress very far as they were being held back by the teacher.

This embraces the current debate that spans the development of self-directed learners and the vertical / horizontal scaffolding we need to put in place to enable this to happen. Already there is general agreement that it is going to be hard to achieve this when we shepherd students along the strictly narrow path of directed learning. A well intentioned and constructivist classroom environment build around 1:1 laptops can be easily subverted with the right technology, strategically placed barriers or rules to recreate just another traditional, chalkboard lesson.

When this happens, put me back next to the camp fire with a stick and some sand.

I think we should articulate our vision first and then do some background reading. I have the greatest confidence in grass root educators that ground their decisions in personal experience and hard research evidence and less in bean counters that crank out fancy websites, brochures, slick charts or slide shows.

Should the curriculum drive the management strategies?

Of open whiteboards

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 05:04:00 GMT

Wiimote Whiteboard IR Pen V2 by Adam Melancon

If a person creates an activity for an interactive whiteboard using a particular piece of software designed for a particular brand, they often cannot share it wiht someone using a different brand of interactive whiteboard. The question has been asked if there is a generic or open-source software to create learning activities.

It is called vendor lockin and it sucks. To a degree, all the big players are guilty of it and it is part of the reason why opensource software and open standards are so important. Worth reading up the related article on Wikipedia about this topic.

We use an Australian made IWB board called a 2Touch that doesn't require any software to drive .. even works with a netbook running Ubuntu remix as the operating system. Web based is the way to go in my mind so something like KindleLab is worth exploring. I have even had fun using MIT inspired program Scratch to make IWB activites and again, it can be readily used with any IWB system. In my mind it is important that teachers and students can adapt and reprogram the learning objects created.

On Friday, I was talking with a developer who was interested in projecting Apple iPhone applications onto a whiteboard. I didn't realize there were tools around for doing this for free or that they can automatically scale up for larger screen formats. His interest was in teachers sharing applications for free or even opting to sell them online for a couple of dollars and was sounding out my thoughts.

With the Google inspired Android only a couple of years down the track, things are going to look very interesting.

Powered by Drupal

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:40:33 GMT

Westall website by plakboek

I needed a fresh look for our college website and called upon Donna from Creative Contingencies to lend a hand. Compared to our old default themed school website, her new theme is a huge improvement. I am particularly delighted how she used Gimp to create a banner with the suspension bridge image from our Balook Camp in Gippsland.

I notice that we are not the only ones using the open source software Drupal to drive our online content, it is also being used by the Australian Prime Minister and the Whitehouse.

A year ago, Peter got our first open source powered website up and running running. Since then, Arran has done a great job with the upgrade to Version 6 and maintaining the engine that powers this website, today finishing an important upgrade. At this sage I need to shuffle the blocks about. do some housekeeping and rethink the entire site architecture.

Early days yet but at least it is looking much better.

Critical path towards the exams

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 09:09:24 GMT

Exams :( [Day 12] by Alex France

Today I had another year 12 Information Technology revision class about project management whilst we work our way towards the end of year Victorian examinations.

I talked about the chap who cuts the grass with a junior apprentice. The boss rides the lawn mower (50 min) whilst the apprentice does the edging (30 min) and sweeps the path (10 min). There is only one mower, edger and broom. The broom can only be used after the lawn is cut and edging is done. The group had a good laugh when the remaining few finally understood that the apprentice was on the critical path (pun not intended).

I am enjoying going over the past exams. Students are now in awe at the work that is put in to assemble these when I walked them through an examiners report. My mind keeps turning to all the delicious discussions we have post examination time for particular questions.

Iwonder if any other subject deconstructs their assessment tasks with such energy and enthusiasm? It is worth noting at this point that QLD seems to do quite well without any formal state-wide exams. Hmmm :-)

Fast Fourier transforms

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 12:33:34 GMT

Windows wireless networking by plakboek

The CSIRO ought to get more recognition for their pioneering work in this field of developing the Fast Fourier Transformation chips that lead to the development of WLAN or Wi-Fi networks. It came out of the research they were conducting in radioastronomy and is a great example how blue sky research can often bring about commercial spin offs or advantages down the track that may not be imediately obvious or aparent.

The ABC Catalyst science show gave some good background to this work and their legal fight. It is a pity that this history is only given a brief mention on Wikipedia .. perhaps somebody could fill in the gap ;-)

Crikey, I recall all the fast Fourier transformation calculations that were crunched through slowly in Fortran on the mainframe that underpinned the mysterious workings of the NMR and IR machines I used back in the early 1980s when I worked at ICI Australia. To build a chip to come up with these calculations was a huge step forward.

Holding your breath for more Internet

Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:32:33 GMT

a champ at holding his breath by Pfau

The Education Minister Bronwyn Pike today announced that Victorian government schools will enjoy free internet access from the first day of term one in 2010, "All Victorian government schools will have their internet charges covered by the Brumby Labor Government." Whilst this has some cost benefits for schools, schools still have a role to play rather than leave the Internet taps left open and running on full.

There is only so much you can shove down a pipe at once or to put it another way, inviting more people to eat your birthday cake means that the birthday party will take longer (lag) and there will be less for each to eat (bandwidth).

Our experience to date is that if we didn't have in place some mechanisms to monitor and gently cap the usage (ala bandwidth throttling controls for admin / staff / students) it can run out of control and everybody suffers. This has always been the dilemma of the virtual commons. There are some great commercial and open source tools that help us manage and track our usage.

I once used the rule of thumb that you should at least be able to click on a link and hold your breath until the page refreshes (30 seconds) although lately, I notice that people are less patient and get angry if there isn't a response after a few seconds.

QSITE09 Rocked

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:25:12 GMT

iPhone Home Screens by Lee Bennett

Every participant at the QSITE 09 conference "Beyond the Flashing Lights" was given an Apple iPod touch and the technology experiment really rocked. We will certainly be considering this for the ACEC2010 conference in Melbourne next year (April and the same time as our International Comedy Festival :-)

For those of you that are wondering what is an iPod touch, think Apple iPhone with wireless but no phone. I was amazed at their Unconference session with very close coupling with twitter with a back channel .. imagine a projection screen to the side of the keynote where conference participants and those outside can post questions, links and other thoughts. #qsite09

The unit is robust enough for classroom use and there has been some positive feedback from schools here that are using these as a class set etc. I am going to get one for myself as soon as I drop my Palm Pilot .. the damn thing keeps on going and going and going (sigh) ..

Here is a cute Teacher Tube video link that will put a smile on your faces of a 2 year old, navigating and posting an e-mail with this unit. Take a look at and tell me that kids can’t learn using mobile devices or what will happen when they are immersed into a traditional school system that frowns on using handheld technology. Here is a great list of links that surround the history of the elusive Apple tablet computer.

Fascinating stuff. I now really want to get our hands on a class set of these units and an phone for myself. :-)

Public music spaces and places

Mon, 14 Sep 2009 07:05:03 GMT

Birthday Cake - Candles by Jessica N. Diamond

It seems that every time your phone rings and you are in a public space, you could be contributing to a legal suit with your phone tune.

The exact copyright definition of what it means to perform arts in a public space seems to vary (as we would expect it to). From what I can read, virtually every auditorium, classroom, meeting room or staff lounge is a public auditorium. If the public can be excluded and every one there was your friend, the performance would most likely not be considered as public and you would be legal.

Whilst it seems as if any clear legal interpretation is going to be a mystery wrapped in an enigma, it would be prudent to ask all unfriendly, strange or new staff to leave the room when singing Happy Birthday (the song is owned by Time Warner). Anybody that joins in to sings this song and provides false witness or claims to friendship is not only dishonest and opening the entire group to legal action, they will probably hold their hand out for a slice of cake too.

For now I will stick to whistling open source music such as , threaten my students with an improvised jazz items on my clarinet or saxophone and wonder about the legal issues of a song loop that is stuck inside my head for half the day. Should I pay royalties or only if I admit this in public ;-)

Compared to some of the heavy copyright material we get to use in the classroom, this is great discussion fodder with some clear examples and range of views that students can debate, consider and reflect upon.

Technology behind the magic

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 10:03:27 GMT

Inside iPhone by lietus

A colleague circulated on the year 7-10 list, some great worksheets for students to guide their dissection and the examination of the inside workings of an old computer.

I did hear about a research project that asked different generations to draw what they thought the inside of a radio, iPhone or iPod could looked like. The school aged students had had trouble visualising a circuit board, describing a computer chip or understand some basic electronics. They had no idea and had trouble speculating what was inside these devices. Is this now a generation that treats consumer items as throw-away, black box electronics?

Arthur C. Clarke once remarked "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Perhaps because we are surrounded by so much equipment that cannot be serviced or opened. Perhaps this reflects the decline in school based technology activities that once provided some hands-on experiences. Compare them with a family in India that can service and repair their own mobile phones and consider where real innovation is going to happening.

The OLPC XO-1 computers can be repaired by a child with a screwdriver. Watch this cool video on YouTube for details. Try that with a Netbook ;-)

I would like my students to appropriate and embrace technology with reason and understanding, not cloak it in commercial mysticism then worship it with a misplaced awe.

Science and Language Centre

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 04:55:22 GMT

Iliad by magnuscanis

Our college has won a major grant for a science and language centre.

The college was awarded close to $2 million in 2009 from the Federal Government towards the construction of a new science and language centre to be completed in 2010.

For a school that has worked long and hard to secure funding, this is both an great addition to our college facilities and exciting development.

Bilingualism can give students great opportunities for future employment and has many other advantages. Our Bilingual program has operated since 1997 when it was an early pilot. Today, students gain subject literacy in two languages - Chinese/English Science and Greek/English Mathematics.

You can read more about this in the local NeosKosmos.COM newspaper.

Souls for Sale

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 12:35:28 GMT

souls for sale by killthebird

Consider the amount of commercial software that is bulk purchased to be loaded onto each government computer, what it costs and what is actually productively used on each desktop. Much of this software is rarely used. Often is purchased or bundled, 'just in case' it is needed.

it is easier to deploy the same software onto all the computers in an organisation. This is sometimes called an SOE or Standard Operating Environment. This can reduce the deployment overhead for IT technicians and can help give a each desktop a familiar look and fee. The downside is the opportunity cost of what could otherwise have be done with the funds. Whilst the state can help provide support with software selection, validating training and encouraging innovation, it should not condone a state endorsed monopoly of any software product or act in a way that could stifle innovation by mandating conformity.

Schools should pay for all their commercial software licensing outright. If they are smart enough to make strategic spending decisions on good software products, then let them use their funds in the way that bests suits their local needs and save money not spent their global school budget. By illustration, schools seem to be able to select, purchase and deploy text books for individual classes without the state government negotiating purchase deals on their behalf or demanding a standard book reading environment.

It is a phony to compare state-wide purchase discounts as software pricing models are not built on traditional ideas of limited supply and demand. I groan when I hear the claim that "all educational department school software is free" as it miss-represents the revenue that is still spent on stitching up these bulk deals.

Whilst I welcome any increase school funding, please let us deliver it all to the school and thus to all students.

Apollo online

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 12:13:51 GMT

Apollo 11 Neil Armstrong in LM by FlyingSinger

It is interesting to track the 40th anniversary of the humans first setting foot on the Moon with the NASA Apollo 11 mission that is being re-enacted in real time, delayed by 40 years, using Twitter.

Whilst browsing an interesting podcast describing why the astronauts could not sleep on the moon I bumped into this wikipedia page about Jack Garman and the spacecraft computer system error 1202 that nearly aborted the landing

It took some quick thinking by the support staff back on Earth to figure this out and again emphasises that like many missions before, this one was a team effort and win for the team.

The Dish and Moon

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:20:46 GMT

The Dish and Moon by plakboek

The countdown has started towards the launch of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing. The excitement is starting to bubble over at Parkes around the radio telescope. You can follow what is happening at these websites.

http://www.wechoosethemoon.com
http://www.parkes.atnf.csiro.au

I wish the CSIRO Parkes team all the very best for their open days over this weekened.

I'll be following this space science event with my twitter account by tracking the following two NASA twitter posters.

AP11_SPACECRAFT
Apollo 11 - Preparation for first lunar landing still on schedule. 8:54 AM Jun 28th

AP11_CAPCOM
Houston Control - official Apollo 11 countdown begins 1:10 AM Jul 11th

I think I will celebrate the event over this weekend by inviting some friends for some dinner to watch the video clip of The Dish. :-)

Chicken Stock

Sun, 12 Jul 2009 06:54:46 GMT

Chicken Stock by plakboek

I have had fun over the last six months, cooking different recipes with a slow cooker that was a Christmas gift. Here I am making some chicken soup stock.

It is easy to make, just fill up the cooker with all the ingredients including a chicken carcass, chopped carrots, celery, onion and a bay leaf. Switching the cooker on, I leave it to bubble and cook overnight. In the morning I filter out all the remaining vegetables and bones. After chilling the liquid stock in the fridge, the fat can be easily skimmed off, leaving behind a chicken stock that I can use for other recipes.

You can view a slideshow of this cooker in action here.

Counting on the Netbook Abacus

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:44:43 GMT

Abacus by allspice1

Bryn Jones noted on the eChalk list that if you are a student in NSW DET you have to use a Netbook - no choice and that if you are a WA DET student you are not allowed to use a Netbook - no choice. In VIC DEECD, things are more muddled. Not a criticism of anyone but it doesn't bode well for National Curriculum how states can come to totally different Netbook conclusions from the same starting information.

I wonder if some are scared that schools might do something different with their technology funding for eLearning? .. hmm, I that has already happened. Suppose this was about the introduction of calculators:

We would have a state group digging in around a contract signed to deliver commercial electronic cash tills to every student, a state group importing millions of oddly circular shaped slide rulers that use a novel calculation system based on natural logarithms supplied in a booklet of tables, a state group insisting that we should only use ergonomic built devices with non-interchangeable AAA batteries and volatile memory, poor school teachers making their own abacus with beads and wire, confused parents scratching their heads whilst wondering what happened to pencil and paper whilst smart students sneak into school, cheap solar powered models they bought from the local supermarket.

We loose so much when we are just focused on what students and schools should not do .. rather than engaging with research to help determine what can help work best, provide seed grants to stimulate innovation and unbiased training to help educators make well informed and practical choices. Perhaps some state bodies have lost the plot and are digging in to enforce a centralist control model that suits their needs, not the flexible learning spaces many of us are now building for our students. Whilst it is hard to predict any technology trend, it is foolish to pretend that schools not well placed to make good decisions about how to spend money to meet their local needs.

Nobody has a monopoly on a good idea.

Obama on Twitter

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:04:57 GMT

Obama on Twitter by plakboek

It has been interesting to watch the recent growth of interest by our government and politicians in the role and value of online social networks.

Last night whilst driving home I heard that the state government is going to give serious consideration to the use of Twitter and Facebook to communicate bushfire alerts. Earlier this week I was following a fascinating series of discussions about Government2.0 and the Public Sphere headed by Senator Kate Lundy in Canberra. For both, this is not just about broadcasting news. It is about engaging with the wider public in the issues that matter.

A bit earlier and I recieved an e-mail about President Obama joining my twitter followers. Of course I know that this is very probably an automatic reply to counter-subscribe ..

Just that it caught my eye and made me suddenly realize again, how small the world has become.

Smiley Fritz

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:55:38 GMT

Smiley Fritz by plakboek

I forgot to publish this astrophotograph, taken soon after sunset on 1 December 2008

Ow well, better late than never.

It is a conjunction of Venus and Jupiter with a crescent moon nearby. The two planets are about two degrees apart in the Western Sky. All three objects will lie within the borders of Sagittarius.

This conjunction quickly acquired the nick name "Smiley Fritz" because of the happy face that briefly appeared one evening.

Morning triangle of Moon, Venus and Mars

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:21:33 GMT

moon, venus and mars by plakboek

View showing the Moon, Venus and Mars, a planetary convergence that formed a triangle in the North Eastern, morning Melbourne sky on the 21 May 2009. In another hour the sun would rise and the pale red dot of Mars would fade from view.

This photograph was a long exposure taken over one second. The camera braced against a pole at about 6:00 am in the morning. It is the best of several images that I took.

You can view some of my other astrophotographs here.

Technology pollution

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:13:27 GMT

Bushfire smoke by plakboek

Just thinking about technology pollution of the electrical and noise varieties.

T7, T8 and T9 are the numbers on the huge, high voltage transmission pylons positioned on the corners of our school. Even just standing about on yard duty looking up at the overhead power lines is enough to swell our chests with pride in "Man's ability to generate electricity" (apologies to Darryl and The Castle circa 1997)

Seriously though, new staff sometimes ask me about the hazards of living under power lines. My principal just points out relevant research literature and to date it indicates that this is probably more of an eye-sore than a brain-sore.

"On balance, the scientific evidence does not indicate that exposure to 50 Hz EMFs found around the home, the office or near power lines is a hazard to human health." ARPANSA

" .. these major reviews have reported that the body of data, as large as it is, does not demonstrate that exposure to power-frequency magnetic fields causes cancer or other health risks, although the possibility cannot be dismissed." SDGE

There is an interesting point about the background white noise that can fill our technology spaces. The server room is now unbearable from the din generated by the rack mounted beasts we installed. By contrasts, the lab packed with Apple iMacs next door is practically silent. I have some good Delicious links about the topic and an excellent white noise generator that teachers can demonstrate to students.

There are probably more important things for us to worry about such as vaccination refusal, mysterious increase in allergies, UV solar radiation, occupational stress from disruptive technologies and a sedentary lifestyle behind the keyboard.

Speaking of which ..