What The Fox Say?

For those that don't have an army of kids keeping you informed on what is hot on YouTube, here's what's winding it's way through my kid's school this week - "What does the fox say?"

As with any YouTube hit, the amazing parodies quickly spawned.  Here's an SNL skit.

Some Books I've Enjoyed

I don't read books very much.  In fact, I hardly read books at all.  A regular paper or e-book will likely take me a year to read.   Though, Audio Books are quite another story.  I really enjoy Audio Books.  Here's a few that I think are exceptionally good that others might enjoy as well.   I intentionally kept this list short and mostly books that have an accompanying TED talk or video so you can get an idea about the subject before investing your time.

• Switch : How to change things when change is hard by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
• Here is a video presentation on Vimeo about the talk.
• Drive : The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us   by Daniel H. Pink
• This is a companion to his TED talk which is AMAZING!  (Matt's favorite TED talk)
• Outliers: The Story of Success  by Malcolm Gladwell
• Ever wondered how Steve Jobs and Bill Gates ended up where they are? This book explains a lot. The author has done some TED talks. both on The Norden Bombsight and Spaghetti Sauce.
• The Tipping Point : How Little Things Can Make A Big Difference  by Malcolm Gladwell
• Another Gladwell Classic. If you liked Outliers, you'll like this one.  You can see his Crazy hair on his TED Talks.
• Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking  by Malcolm Gladwell
• Talks about instant instinctive decisions we all make day to day.  Check out his TED talks on  the Norden Bombsight and Spaghetti Sauce.
• Rework by Jason Fried
• Written by the creator of Ruby on Rails. They founded the company 37 signal. If you are curious about the author and his work, you can watch his TED Talk.
• Made to Stick : Why Some Ideas survive and Others Die  by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
• Ever wondered why fake e-mail and urban legends spread so easily?
• Click : The forces behind how we fully engage with people, work, and everything we do  by Ori Brafman
• Talks about people that naturally get along and how effective they can be when this happens.  The author discussed the book in a talk at Stanford which you can watch to get the basic ideas.
• Misquoting Jesus - The story behind who changed the bible and why. by Bart D. Ehrman
• The bible has had a profound impact on our culture. Yet, if you look historically at the bible, there are more modifications than there are actual words!  In many cases, we have no idea what was originally written by the authors. More information can be seen by watching Bart Ehrman's Stanford Lecture.  

Learning Spaces In Cyberspace

We humans are naturally social creatures.  Communication is the glue that binds us.   It is only natural that the digital world we have created reflects our love to communicate.  We have been communicating for hundreds of thousands of years.  Have the ways we communicate stayed constant? Are there fundamental things we do that are innate in who we are?

 

 Learning Spaces

I found a similar question being proposed by Dr. David Thornberg  in his article Campfires in Cyberspace: Primordial Metaphors for Learning in the 21st Century  Much of our learning happens through communication so this seemed to be relevant.  He categorized learning into three different  categories called "Learning Spaces". Each learning space serves a different purpose and a successful learning experience requires all three of these.

Learning Space	Learning From	Purpose	Real World Examples
The Campfire (Lecture Space)	An Expert	One person telling a story.	Lectures, Radio, Television
Watering Hole (Collaborative Space)	Each Other	Many people discussing a topic	Panel discussions, Meetings, Telephones
Cave (Reflective Space)	Yourself	A place to be alone and think or research.	A walk in the park, Reading a book

For example, at a conference, you learn more if you have a chance to go to Presentations (Campfire), Discuss ideas with others (Watering Hole), and think about the the things that were presented and what they mean to you. (Cave).

 

Learning Spaces In Cyberspace

In the digital world, we see examples of all three as well. The most successful communication applications have a clear mapping to a learning space.

Learning Space	Types Of Service	Digital Examples
The Campfire (Lecture Space)	Push	Blogs, Twitter, Facebook Timeline
Watering Hole (Collaborative Space)	Interactive	E-Mail, Jabber, Yammer, Skype, Facebook Chat
Cave (Reflective Space)	Pull	Research tools like Wikipedia or Google

 

Google Apps For Education

SCVi Charter School makes use of Google Apps For Education which provides us with some great communication tools. Some of these tools include :

• Blogs : One person speaking to a group over time.  Postings are generally like journal entries and have a specific publish date, though they can be modified.  People can post comments, but everyone can see them so they are like an open forum.
  
• Groups: This is meant to be an area for discussion. It's interactive. Not good for "publishing" content as much as it is a way to have a searchable archive of conversations. You can have conversations go out through e-mail or have folks log on to see them.  They are not publicly visible like a blog usually would be.
  
• Sites: A place to publish different kinds of content.  Can be changed regularly. No inherent time associated with a posting.  Gives the most flexibility. Comments and discussions can probably be worked into this.  
• GMail: Google's E-mail service.
• Docs : Provides the ability to work collaboratively on content.

These products are intuitive because they can be mapped to learning spaces.

Learning Space	Google Product	Example
The Campfire (Lecture Space)	Blogs, Sites	A single storyteller publishing content.
Watering Hole (Collaborative Space)	GMail, Groups, Docs	Collaborative work or communication
Cave (Reflective Space)	Google Search	Research tools that allow you to discover on your own

 

Another Example : Jive SBS

Jive SBS is a "Social Business Software"  that is often used inside companies to facilitate internal communication.  One clever thing about Jive is that intrinsically provides different avenues for different learning spaces. Here's a few of the Jive content types that  map to learning spaces.

Learning Space	Jive  Content Type	Description	Typical Content
The Campfilre	Blogs	One Person talking to a group over time	Meeting Notes,  Reports, Events
The Watering Hole	Discussions, Polls	Interactive discussions outside of an e-mail thread	Problems, proposals, new ideas
?	Documents	Collaborative living documentation	Documentation, Policies, Procedures

Notice that it's not clear if a Document is a Campfire, Watering Hole, or Cave.  The problem here is that, unlike Google Docs, the Jive docs to not allow real time collaboration.  This keeps it from working very well as a watering hole.  This also makes it confusing for people on when to use documents at all.  This divergence from our naturally understood methods of communication is bound to cause confusion.

Summary

So, When looking at how you communicate in an organization, the closer you can come to using our intrinsically understood learning spaces, the more likely you'll be able to find something that works.

How To Speak Teenager

Does your middle or high school student seem to be speaking a language all their own? Do they have words in their vocabulary that you aren't sure even exist?    Keeping up with it all can be a bit of a chore. For folks who are finding difficult to keep up, maybe this will help. 

• Yolo - You Only Live Once
• Although you would expect this to be used  in situations where one is being encouraged to take a risk or explain a mistake, it's often used  as a synonym for good. i.e., "that movie was so yolo". The actual intention has to be derived from the context.
• Swag - Ridiculous Clothing or Behavior - Secretly We Are Gay
• This term is usually meant as an insult to say a person is behaving badly or wearing ridiculous clothing or jewelry. It's usually used in phrases like "That guy is oozing swag." or "You are dripping with swag".  Note that for people over 30, Swag used to mean the stuff you get at conferences or things given away at parties.  This meaning appears to have expired, but it's similar  in that it can refer to little shiny trinkets of stuff.
• Pawned - Owned, Defeated
• This is pronounced "powned" and is a derivative of PWNED from Leet. The person who was "pawned" is the one who lost a game, argument, or competition. It's typically a very solid defeat. i.e. "12 frags in a row, I totally pwned him". 
• Hash Tag - "#" meant to signify an interest, significance, or subject in a phrase
• Hash tags are used on social media and chat applications to signify a subject or interest. i.e.  "Having dinner with old friends is such #goodtimes." Using a hash tag allows others to "follow" conversations about this subject and search on when a subject was discussed. In most cases, hash tags can be created "on the fly" and be whatever you want them to be.  This can be used in speech as well. If you spend some time in a middle school classroom you may hear the word used repetitively to give emphasis to what someone is trying to say. For example, "that minecraft mod is so hash tag awesome".
• Noob -  Someone with little knowledge, experience, or ability.
• Noob often also implies that someone thinks they know more than they actually do. This is usually used as an insult. For example,  "He's such a Noob!". If you want to add extra emphasis, you can call them a "Nooblet", like.  "You are totally a Nooblet!" 
• R-Tard - Retard, someone who is not intelligent.
• This is just a newer version of the age old insult, "retard".
• LOL -  Laughing out Loud" or sarcastically, 'I don't really care. "
• LOL started as a texting shortcut for "Laughing Out Loud".  It is used in spoken language as well by just saying the letters "LOL" or sounding it out "lol".  Over time,  it became so over used, it started to be used sarcastically.  Now, when used,  it could mean either that the speaker thinks that something you said is funny, is signaling a complete lack of interest, or just has nothing to say and wants to break the silence.   i.e.  Teacher: "Class, we have a paper due tomorrow." - Student to his friend: "LOL".
• XD - "XD Face", from the emoticon XD.
• The XD emotocon is a smiling face with crossed eyes. When used in spoken language, you can say "XD Face" or just "XD". It is similar to LOL in that it can be used as an acknowledgement, or to show that you were entertained by what someone else has said. 

So, now when your kid walks into the room and says, "Hash Tag YoloSwag".. you'll at least have some idea of why the other kids all start laughing. 

SCVi 2013 Projects

We've got a lot on our plate at SCVi over the next year and we could use lots of help!!  We took a pass at listing everything we know and what we think will be needed to accomplish these tasks. Of course, these are only estimates and estimates can be way off, but we at least wanted to get an idea of the relative scale of the different tasks.

• SCVi Admin Trailer has Internet And Phones
• We are expanding into a trailer behind what is currently Higher Vision Church.  We need to pull the Wireless bridge, router, cabling and phones and move it into the trailer. 
• Internet In New High School
• SCVi high school will be moving into the building that is currently Higher Vision Church.  We need to make sure they have Wifi. We may either bridge this from the main school campus, or set up a new provider.   If it is a separate drop, it will also have separate phones and a separate phone system.
• New High School Has Phones
• If we do a wireless bridge, we can tie the new High School into the main SCVi phone system.  If they have separate internet, this will be more difficult. We need to figure out what we will be doing and then make it happen.
• Summer 2013 Classroom Moves
• Every time a classroom is moved we find it takes about 3 hours of labor.  It is expected that several classrooms will move during the Summer of 2013.
• Phone System For iLead
  • A new phone system has been purchased for them.  Someone at iLead will need to install it.
  • Folks involved : Daniel Glen, Matt, Shannon, Lynn Boop, Natasha
  • Estimated Effort : 32 Hours
• ERATE 2013
• We have several bids from different vendors. We need to look at them and determine which will work best for us.
• Increased Internet at SCVi
• Once we choose an ERATE vendor, we need to look at increasing Internet bandwidth at SCVI and what will be involved in that
• iLead Internet Filters
  • We currently use OpenDNS for internet filtering and CIPA compliance at SCVi.   It's always been free,. but the service is being retired so we are going to have to find something else.  We are doing ERATE at  iLead Lancaster so we now need to add filtering for them as well.
    I started looking at a replacement that we can use at both sites.  The direct replacement for OpenDNS is called umbrella,. and it's expensive,. about $4,000 per year!   We are going to be obligated to have something so I don't see a way to avoid having this as a budget item.  There may be some other devices or services that are cheaper, but it sounds like this is an expense we're going to get stuck with one way or another.  
  • Folks Involved : Matt, Shannon
  • Estimated Effort : 16 hours
• Internet For Breezeway
• We purchased an outdoor access point that we believe will provide strong internet for the breezeway and parts of the cafe. However, it appears we got the wrong one.  We can probably make it work, but it will take some time to figure out. 
• Folks Involved : Matt, Shannon
• Estimated Effort : 8 hours
• Estimated Cost $100
• Wireless Network Accounts
  • We want each person on the wireless network to have their own account.  We hope to accomplish this by logging in with our Google ID's.
• Implement Adobe Cloud
• We have purchased 14 Adobe Cloud licenses.  We need to see how these can be use don Island or Apple Laptop Cart machines.
• Tech Ticket Web Site
• We have been using http://www.scvitech.com.  Though, there have been problems with reliability.  What other options do we have?
• All Technology Inventoried
• We need to know exactly what we have at the school.  Every computer, monitor, iPad and network switch should have a property tag and a vital statistics stored.  We should be able to know how many we have a particular type of computer, processor or iPad model.
• School Checkin / Google Intetgration
• We want to be able to send an e-mail to parents that don't have enough volunteer hours.  We are experimenting with google groups to send mail through \  volunteers@scvi-k12.org or  parent.volunteers@scvi-k12.org.
• If you add folks through the Web interface, it sends them an e-mail so we need to write a script that will create the group through GAM.
• The school checkin does not have e-mails so we'll need to merge two different lists in software and use that to generate the google group.
• Also looking at automated ways we can add and delete users from the system based on the school roster.
• JB is looking at backups and upgrades for the system as well.
• Folks Involved : Matt, Shannon, Cheryl Sena, Christine Chane, Ronald Johnson
• Estimated Effort : 12 hours
• Learners Can Checkout Laptops
• We will need to purchase  chrome books, a few Mac Airs and a few ipads for learners to check out and take home for short periods of time.  The computers on the carts need to stay on the carts.
• Paperless Business Office
  • We'd like for Accounting and records to be stored paperlessly. This will mean scanners and backed up reliable storage.  We are currently thinking 3 paper scanners.
  • http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=soho&cs=ussoho1&sku=A5718569&dgc=SS&cid=255160&lid=4522435&acd=12309163088460810
  • http://mashable.com/2010/05/01/small-business-paperless/
  • http://www.inc.com/guides/2010/06/switch-to-paperless-office.html
  • Estimated Cost : $6,000
• Electronic Time Card System
  • We purchased a time card system that will require IT support to get set up and configured. A lot of concerns have been raised as to whether this is a good fit for the school. We want to verify that this is the best option before we invest the work in deployment.
  • Specific concerns have to do with the "Punch In"/"Punch Out" time clock nature of the system since many people work from home and don't want to have to drive in to the school to punch in.
  • Some of the requirements that have been requested:
  • Remote access for folks working from home
  • Web interface to view and edit hours for use on iPad, iPhone, Mac, Linux,. ChromeBook,. etc.
  • Folks Involved : Matt, Ceci, Amber, JB Marsh
  • Estimated Effort : 40 Hours
• Network Documentation
  • We've made a lot of changes to our network over the last few weeks.  We need to document how these changes were made so that  IT staff can maintain these changes.  We need to document the commands and process for the following.
  • Static routes set up for the phone system.
  • Configuration on Ubiquity Dishes
  • Configuration on small Cisco switches.
  • Configuration of switch in 2'nd grade
  • Folks Involved : Matt, Shannon, Daniel Glen
  • Estimated Effort : 24 Hours
  Nightly Ubuntu Update
  • We'd like our Unbutu machines to run our update script every night. This can be done by CRON. Anything we need to do to make sure the machine is in working order should be added to the script.  
  • Folks Involed : JB Marsh, Matt
  • Estimated Effort : 8 hours
• Island Computers
• The tables in the Island need to have computers set up on them.  All the table space should be available for use with computers.  The tables in the middle of the room probably need to be secured for earthquake safety.  We'll probably put the light computers (Mac Minis) in the middle table and Heavy HP 8200 machines along the wall. 
• Folks Involved : JB Marsh, Kay McElvain
• Estimated Effort : 24 Hours
• Deploying Computers To Classrooms
• We have a lot of computers configured in the Island. We'd like to get them deployed to classrooms.  There are some issues that need to be resolved here:
• Network problems in Room 219. They would like 4 computers added.
• Tables in 2'nd grade are too tall for use by learners. Either need new tables or tall stools.
• Folks Involved : Kay McElvain, JB Marsh
• Estimated Effort : 40 Hours
• Phones Cont'd.
• We don't have all our phones up and running yet.  We need to get more phones set up in Maui Wowie as well. This may involve running extra cables in Maui Wowie.  We may also need to add phones to the Cafe.
• Folks Involved : Shannon
• Estimated Effort : 8 hours
• All Printers On The Network
• We have printers in most classrooms. However, not all are on the network.  We'd like all printers to be available for printing wirelessly. 
• Folks Involved: Shannon, Kay McElvain
• Estimated Effort : 24 Hours
• Estimated Cost $300
• Synology - SCVi Cloud Music and Photos
• We have purchased a Synology NAS to use for  picture and movie sharing. 
• Folks Involved : Matt, Shannon, Tad Miller
• Estimated Effort : 40 Hours
• Disney Computer Donations
• Disney will be donating more computers and maybe a cabinet for the server room
• 2014 Computer Purchases
• We may need to buy more Facilitator laptops in 2014.
• Donated Network Equipment
• We have a coule Cisco 4507 Catalyst switches and a Foundry POE switch we could be using for our network.
• Island Comm Closet Spaghetti Mess
• Our comm closet is a disaster!  We need to get wires organized,. maybe add a rack or turn switches around for better access.
• Cable Management / Tidy Byte
• Besides getting computers put into the classroom, we want to make them look good.  Wires should be minimally visible and CPU's should be tucked into places where they don't interfere with hands and feet. 
• Also open up machines and remove dust that has clogged fans.
• Folks Involved : Looking for fresh meat!
• Estimated Effort : 8 Hours
• Music In Hallways
• We'd like music playing in our hallways and we'd like a central PA system that is connected to it.  We should be able to bring learners back from lunch using this system.
• Televisions In Lobby
• We'd like to place televisions around the school. We'd like to stream video content to them.
• 3 at the front door
• 1 at the end of the high school hallway
• 1 outside the Island
• Estimated Cost is  $2,000
• Apple TV's in all Classrooms
• We would like to purchase an Apple TV for every classroom projector