Computer Issues

Note about SD36 school computers:

a) The computers at the Learning Center all use IE6 for a browser. Some of the tools you may wish to try have been updated to work with IE7 which our IT people are not installing at this time. These will not work at school. SD36 does not permit downloading unless a program is on the 'accepted software' list.

When working at home:

NOTE: before doing any serious downloading back up your system or at least set a system restore point.

a) A possible Flashfix -- I have not tried this and so cannot offer help:

• If you have been unsuccessful at updating to Flash 9 for Internet Explorer 7: go to your C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash folder and run these two files:“FlashUtil9d.exe ” and “ NPSWF32_FlashUtil.exe ”
  
• the Adobe site will prompt you to download Flash Player 10. I found that unstable so I went back to with Flash 9. You can find older versions of Macromedia Flash Player at sites such as OldApps.

b) Changing your browser: some help videos, embedded items, and tools in this course work better in Firefox than Internet Explorer.

• The latest version of Firefox is 3.0.5. I found Firefox 3 to be very unstable on my older computer, so I went back to 2. If you go to FileHippo.com, you can find many older versions of FF. Try FF3 and see if it works. If it keeps crashing, uninstall and then install a version of FF2 from the list.
• Which version of FF2? Firefox has withdrawn some features of FF2 on versions 2.0.0.19 and 2.0.0.20-- notably the anti-phishing function so you are encouraged to get your own filters. However if you go back to FF 2.0.0.18 the filters are still there, albeit not updated. FF may try to update you to the later versions, but you can decline this.
  

c) Having trouble getting some kinds of video files to play? It's time to learn about Codecs: "A codec is a device or program capable of encoding and/or decoding a digital data stream or signal." If you don't have the right ones, your computer cannot display certain videos for you.

• I have used K-Lite for quite a while with Media Player Classic (comes as part of the K-Lite package) as my default player. It likes all the different kinds of video files you might want to play. You can download it free from the K-Lite website. I accept all their default settings.

Most of what I learn I pick up by trial and error -- lots and lots of error -- so please do not look to me for help with these issues.

If it all seems terrifying, ask a tech person for help -- but that's part of the process of updating -- finding friendly, knowledgeable people who can assist you.

Why this peculiar title?

It simply reflects the way I feel about my own transformation during the past year and a half.

MY BEFORE PICTURE

AND NOW?

The clip that follows has been cut from the New Year's Day episode of Charlie Rose interviewing Sam Mendes, director of American Beauty, about his most recent movie called Revolutionary Road. It's the story of a married couple living in the suburbs in the 1950's written in 1961 by Richard Yates. I guess I've been sort of married to my job for a long time and the parallells seemed pretty striking. Mendes' remarks really spoke to that tiredness and lack of passion and even irritability and antagonism that were overshadowing my work and the way I've grasped onto this moment to make a change and renew my teaching.

About

The original 23 Things program, called Learning 2.0, was created by Helene Blowers at the Public Library of Charlotte & Mecklenberg County (PLCMC) to encourage her co-workers to experiment with and learn about the new and emerging technologies that are reshaping the way people use the Internet today. It was inspired by Stephen Abram's article called, 43 Things I Might Want to Do this Year written after he'd discovered the personal goal-listing and sharing website called 43 Things.

I have to admit that I'm feeling a little professionally isolated in our small learning centre situated on a lane/drivethrough in the south zone. The view out my window is the back wall of the strip mall. Don't get me wrong -- we're a going concern, but the daily dialogue and exchange of ideas you get in a bigger mainstream school just isn't possible here, so I have put together this '23 Things Surrey-style' in an effort to reach out to old SD36 friends and to meet new people as well.

I thought it would be interesting to try learning these tools myself, and rather than struggle on alone it seemed more fun to share ideas, frustrations, and successes with colleagues and friends as we go along. After all, that is the essence of a 'social network' & school staffs know how to do that really well. Doing it online just takes it into the realm of Web 2.0.

If all this seems a little overwhelming, this was how I felt about using online tools 16 months ago.


Sources that I drew from include:

BLOGS:
Vermont's 23 Things
School Library Learning 2.0 (California School Libraries)
23 Things on a Stick (Minnesota)
Infopeople: Our 23 Web 2.0 Things (California State Libraries)

WIKIS: (if you aren't sure what these are now, you'll soon know!)
Webtools4U2Use
K-12 Learning 2.0 (Atlanta)

P.S. Holy upgrades, Batman! I haven't even launched this 2.0 program of discovery yet, and I've just found out that vs. 2.1 is up and running strong!

Invitation from Sue Hellman

Those of you who knew me when I was at Guildford Park will remember that my idea of being technologically savvy was knowing who in each class could hook up the video machine and how to get my marks in more or less on time. You will likely be surprised to see my name on this program, but for me the past year has been one of change and reinvestment in myself not only as a teacher, but as a learner.

My New Year’s Resolution for 2009 is to continue this journey into what for me is uncharted territory in Technoland. I hope some of you will join me as I try out these 23 Things and become more confident about negotiating my way around Web 2.0 before it morphs into Web 3.0.

Our first challenge in this process is to come to some understanding of just what Web 2.0 -- aka the Read/Write Web -- is. To help with that I am assembling a video that I hope you will find both entertaining and informative. Stay tuned.

The course will begin in the second week of January. Although it's a self-study program, I hope you'll be emailing me and others for help rather than sitting frustrated and alone at your machine. No one will have all the answers, but together we should be able to figure most of this out. The idea here is to connect and help each other. I hope we’ll be meeting in real time online using Elluminate, so you might want to consider getting a headset with mike that you can use during meetings.