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Ubiquity: creative, collaborative learning environements are anywhere you are
by David Wagner
6-18-2002
Considers San Antonio, New Orleans, and San Diego as best conference locations
wants to talk about an evolution of the internet, not using high speed networks not to just access information, but also to create learning environments within your classroom so students can work on projects anywhere, around the world
we be talking about network infrastructure, what others are doing, and tools you can use to set this up
About a year ago were looking for a project name, came up with "ubiquity," poor product name but great concept
- lots of places on the internet let us get at info but not do anything with it
Want to talk about things you can do to put networks together
About 9 years ago David wandered into an elementary classroom in Colorado, looked like chaos but every student know exactly where they were going, what they needed to do
- could go to any computer in the school, find their folder and their work, were not limited to just there classroom
- lots were working with multimedia classrom (loaded kid pix, clarisworks, appleworks, and 1 other)
Now this is reflected in TEKS and ISTE standards, we want students using
Established networked learning environment
- now people going wireless
- expanding the learning environment
- 600 feet anywhere from access point
Question: how can we make the learning environment infinitely large?
Back in 1999 spawning of idea was 1999 Singapore trip: fiber optic cable to every school in the country
- broadband to everywhere
- "Thinking Schools, Learning Nation" - 2001 in Nov, Singapore announced they were throwing out their cirriculum, announced the implementation of a constructiviest, student-centered approach to learning across the entire primary and secondary system
-- they consistently score highest on all international standardized tests
-- threw out that curriculum in favor of a new model
Young people- collaborating
- nation1.org
- no one over age 24 is allowed
- designed by students in Japan, Finland, Australia, and US
Question: will students start collaborating using these networks?
- doesnt' take long to find these types of websites (1nation.org)
- answer is YES
Need 2 things to make this happen:
1- accessible broadband networks
2- accessible creativity tools
Erate is helping with wiring areas and homes
- accessible
iDisk is paid for by hoping you will go over 25 MB
- even if you are Windows, find a mac and sign up
- then with the account,
- can map any idisk drive to any drive letter on your computer
- basically an ftp system
iDisk at first was only mac, then came out for Windows
- 1 problem with it: it is slow
Digital California Network is a way to run high speed networks throughout California
- Grossmont Union High School District ran OC3 lines to every school, looked at iDisk and decided it was too slow
- Then asked Apple to host on their own servers
- finally got permission
About 9 months ago they designed what that might look like
- yesterday afternoon he found out he could download this
eBackpackOnline
- Apple took their iDisk system and allows Grossmont Union to put it on their own servers
- Everyone has 100MB of free servers on their website
- Every teacher has a gigabyte
They bought Macintosh servers and some windows servers
- Apple has not yet announced what the license price will be
- this is like a system (ftp based) running on your server OS
- spent 9 months designing the system with the needs of schools in mind, unlike other free services like xdrive
It is possible to create a nework server that sits outside your firewall that students can save to
- ebackpack is the security system that keeps people from being able to see that anywhere
participant: the main filter is me - at home there is not a human or technological filter
Peakview Elementary has almost no security,
Virtual Private Networks - School - Internet -- Home / Library / Cafe
- this is what you are creating here
- using the internet instead of your own private network as the way you move information around
That is just the first step (network) - next you need accessible creativity tools
- as a small company both at HyperStudio and Tech4learning, they can't work on infrastructure
- Hyperstudio for Windows at home was 17 disks to install, or 1 CD
- question is how do you deliver software to people wherever you are
First answer was software caused MediaBlender: web based multimedia software
- very similar to what you have seen with PowerPoint and HyperStudio
main difference is where the program is launched from
- can launch from your computer
- or can launch that program from the server and run it in any java enabled browser
Licensing works per user
- not server side software
- it is an applet that runs on the local computer
- more people running it, server doesn't slow down
platform doesn't matter in version 2
- current version is just OS 9
- new version Win95 and higher, all Mac OS X, will come out in July
Mediablender was released at this show last year
- uses an ftp client to let you access your own server folders
When you save, Mediablender shoots it back up to the server via FTP
- most standard ftp server addresses are usually the same as the URL
Thinkfree.com has other products like spreadsheets, etc
- word processor, spreadsheet, email client, all based on this same technology
- their licensing is a bit different tho
Is working with schools in Minnesota and the above California schools
- catalog single user license is $34 per year, or $90 for 3 year license
- in Sept will change to $90 as a piece of software and 1 year of online access, can renew online access for $10 per year
- all updates are free when you are subscribed
- like buying a tech support / updater contract rate for $10 per year
Can run it off their servers or put it on our own
School district has also gotten a contract with Cox Communications to provide high speed access
- 25,000 students, 18,000 homes
High speed providers in your region will bend over backward to get that contract
- school district is telling the kids at home they should get high speed
Mediablendar now loads in 72 seconds over 56K modem
- once loaded
Hurdles to success
- connectivity
-- 73% of kids 12-17 are online at home
-- 96% of US population lives where there is at least one broadband ISP (Aug 2001), this is now probably close to 100%
-- that estimate is based on zip code
Digital Dakota Network - high speed to every single school
- most wired state in the nation
- gave every district $1000 per teacher, and each teacher $1000 to go to training to
Hurdles to Success?
- IT - making computers and networks safe
- from their users
- IT is based on the idea of keeping things inside the firewall
THIS MUST CHANGE: have got to get data outside the firewall
- example of the problem: IT people who have locked out users from even making new folders on their own computers
Training is another hurdle to this
Mediablender: we need to train people about where to save their stuff, how to share it, not just how to make a button
- not just training, but EXPERIENCE
experience and comfort, not just a skill set, that will make people successful
Another participant: other hurdles are money and IT people focused on MS Office is the only tool
- need those IT people to see the possiblities, they come from outside educatiion
What does this mean for project / curriculum design when you are not limited to the class period?
- access to tools
- location is no longer just the classroom, school can be anywhere
we talk alot about lifetime learners, when you remove location learning no longer becomes just something that happens at school
- geography is removed- your class can be anywhere on the planet
on webite there are samples of projects, research on project based learning
we are removing a lot of these hurdles
Teamwork required!
- classroom educators
- content specialists
- IT specialists
- media specialists
Roger doesn't recommend going out and buying mediablender and servers
- do the planning first with state standards
- was just in state of Mississippi and they wanted everything to correlate to the state standards
we have the technology to do anything we want, we can pull in experts in the field, contact people in other places
Get a couple people in the room and ask them
Are later focusing on instant messenger, netmeeting integration
This project started with java applet opened
CreateTogether is not a web based product like this
- does have ability
Right now if students are working on same project whoever saves last wins
- version 3 feature may include this
At CA school, teachers setup separate folders for different project groups