Most teachers know ERIC because any serious research paper often required time at the ERIC terminal in the library going blurry-eyed at all the small print. The good news is that you can go blurry-eyed at home. ERIC is on the Internet.
Yahoo! has just released a new service called Pipes. It is a system for combining information from a variety of Internet services and then repackages it in a variety of ways. This is not for the regular user. It might be a very good source of projects for your school's computer classes.
Thankfully someone has decided to add security before they put something out. The OLPC people have created an innovative collection of security features -- mostly available now in pieces -- so that children will have security has strong as a high security government agency. Wired Magazine has a good story on the new security system. If you want to see more of the details, look at OLPC's Wiki.
This is not the first time I've written fondly of Hamachi. While it is especially popular with gamers because it creates a local network between players in remote locations, I've recently been able to use its file sharing feature along with my standard backup utility.
MediaMax, formerly Streamload, is offering 25 gigs of free data storage. The features look great and the storage amount of 25 gigs is better than anything else I've seen. I've been using it for several weeks now and while it has come in handy, the software does not always work -- at least not in a way that I recognize as working. The application screen can get stuck in a mode that appears to be frozen, but the processor stats tell me that it's working like crazy. I cannot recommend using this system at this point in time but I'm going to activity follow this product so that when it becomes more solid and easier to understand, I'll be ready to use it.
Flash card systems were probably one of the first educational tools used on a computer. They were never very popular because one had to enter lots of information just to get started. Memorizable is a site that actually makes flash cards on a computer make sense. You can share your terms -- great for a class -- and you can use pre-existing sets of terms.
Yesterday I covered Xen Express. VMware has a utility called VMware Converter that will convert a normal server into a VMware server. This is a great way to test out the system to see if you like it.
I don't think there is any doubt that virtualization of servers is going to become the norm. This is especially true with Linux-based systems. Xen is one of the virtualization technologies I like the most. Because of the way it interfaces the virtual server to the hardware in a very direct way, it's very fast. It does lose some flexibility that other virtual servers enjoy, but I think it is a good trade-off. Also, Xen is great for moving between virtual servers. You can copy a virtual server to another server and switch in real-time between the two. That can be very important if your system has to be up all the time.
Microsoft's new Office 2007 is one of the more interesting new offerings. It comes with a new interface and new file format. The benefits will be significant and so will be the training curve. If you're like most schools, you don't have much time for training. Kind of odd given that's what schools are in business to do. This new version of Word comes with may keyboard shortcuts. Fast typists can often work faster from the keyboard than they can using the mouse. This article at LifeHacker gives cheat sheets on these new commands.
One of the biggest problems an educator has when looking for open source software is finding something that works like something already in use. Open source programs usually don't have marketing budgets and Google searches don't always help because many open source programs are still in development or have been abandoned years ago. You probably cannot ask your buddies at school which open source program they like because they don't use any or don't know that they are -- for example, FireFox. OSalt.com is a site that lets you see which open source programs are viable alternatives to commercials programs. And, remember, you don't need to run an open source operating system to run many open source programs. Many of them work great on Windows.
Recuva is a beta version of a new file undelete program. I've used a number of these programs and this one looks like it will be a good one.
I cannot believe that I've failed to mention Hamachi until know. They have one of the cleanest security and communications products I've seen. Security systems often are as difficult for the users as they are for attackers. addresses, you traffic is unseen by the normal scanners. While you can still be seen by packet capturing systems, it's nice to be invisible to most attackers. On top of this, Hamachi creates a private network between you and the people on your network. Because Hamachi uses its own IPHamachi includes a fairly high level of security. I've used the system and found it to be easy to use. Give it a try.TightProjector is a software that can transmit the screen of a particular computer to other computers in the same local-area network. The data is transmitted continuously, in real time.
Usage examples:
There are many opinions about Vista. See for yourself if Vista is good for you by taking Microsoft's test drive of Vista. Vista has a number of good and a number of bad points. Try it.
FileMenu is a free Windows utility that adds features you wish Microsoft had added to its filer explorer. I especially like the folder synchronization features.
Schools usually do a pretty bad job of providing phones to staff. To make matters worse, teachers frequently move between rooms -- and thus between phones. While office workers may leave the building to smoke or pickup some coffee, teachers frequently are on the job in play grounds and monitoring the loading and off-loading of school buses.
The people who make the automated vacuum cleaner have a version that is for educational purposes. They have just announced it so I don't know much about it other than that it's programmable. BTW, the same folks are making robots for bomb investigations in Iraq.
The NSA has a very useful document on how to protect your network. While some of the recommendations are a bit extreme for a school environment -- such as the number of passwords one has to have before reusing one -- the general recommendations are excellent. Many of the steps are free. I especially liked the section that provides information on how to setup your firewall to block out-going bad traffic. The file is in PDF format.
Here is another free firewall. This one has been getting good reviews and has a number of known good applications already listed in its database. This means that when good applications attempt to contact the Internet they are let through. I don't know about you, but I don't always know if a program is good or bad. The names rarely give it away.
Asterisk is an open source and free telephone replacement system. You still have to purchase telephones and computer equipment, but the software is absolutely free. Asterisk has a reputation for being difficult to setup but solid once it's going. Take it from someone with experience with traditional telephone systems, the only reason they aren't difficult is because the high sales prices includes a complete installation and configuration. You then purchases a maintenance contract to keep it going. If you don't feel comfortable handling a telephone system on your own, there are firms that you can hire to help with the installation and support. Even if you are happy with your current system, Asterisk can be linked to your current PBX to supply voice mail and other advanced services.
There are many free programs that students could take advantage of. The problem is knowing about them and which ones are the best for a specific task. The SoftewareFor organization has created an ISO image that can be downloaded and burned to a CD. The student can share the disk and install whatever they like from the collection of programs.
Most people get stuck buying an operating system they did not want because some program they had to have was only on that platform. Desktop publishing is one of those pieces of software that can determine the computer and operating system one purchases. Scribus is an open source desktop publishing application that works on all the major operating systems. It also claims to be lighter on the hardware requirements. Of course, it is less feature rich at this point in its development but that should not be an issue for a school computer lab or school newspaper.
Adobe's PDF is a wonderful tool for accurately transmitting electronic documents. Adobe's Acrobat program is a good tool for creating PDF documents but it is quite expensive. PDFcreator is a free tool that works in Windows to create PDF documents. If you just need to read PDF documents, use Adobe's free Acrobat Reader. They just came out with a new version with a number of valuable additions.
Betocracy is a predictive market system. By "buy and selling" shares -- no money involved -- various alternative outcomes can be weighted. So, for example, if you wanted to predict the outcome of the next three basketball games, students could trade shares such that the own shares in the alternative they believe is most likely. Naturally, the more popular picks are the most valuable/expensive. This is a great system for learning about markets and economies. The system is in beta, but that does not stop you from testing it out now.
Quintura for Kids is one of more interesting search engines I've seen for kids. Most of the other search engines for kids are based on the application of strong filtering and some content reorganization. Quintura uses an associated search feature that I think kids will really like. You put your cursor over a word and associated words appear. Hard to describe in words -- go there and take a look.
AmberJack is an open source project that allows you to create a guided tour of a web site. Essentially it is a series of screen snapshots with comments. This site is very useful for helping students learn a new site and for helping parents figure out your school's site.
Here is a review of a version of Linux which is designed to look like Windows XP. While the newest versions of Linux look great, the cold reality of school life is that some people won't accept any form of change. Providing a version of Linux that does not appear to change things can help. Naturally, there will still be many differences, but hopefully your users will only find out about them after they fall in love with Linux.
Schools work with a lot of photographs. There are the school newspaper and year book, but students working on project in the computer lab also want to insert photos. This blog gives some great advice on how to fix photos with fairly common techniques.
Wikia is a project created by the same people who created Wikipedia. Basically, this site gives you the same type system they use for Wikipedia on a system that gives you all the storage space you want. All of this is for free. Here is a good news story on the new site.
The BIOS is the first operating system a computer user sees. While you may run Windows or OS X, you also run a BIOS. The majority of the time, no one ever changes the BIOS no matter how many times the operating system may change. The LinuxBIOS project replaces the operating system on the BIOS chip with one of its own design. Why should you do this? For one, it loads Linux in about three seconds. This is actually a very important factor if you have to restart your Linux computer for any reason. Another nice factor is that it allows you to use some services, such as redirecting the console to the serial ports. Rack mounted servers usually have this in their BIOS settings, but a converted old PC will most likely not have this feature. So for no money you can squeeze more services and performance out of your old hardware.
Make magazine has a number of useful links for educators wishing to create a podcast or to find good educational podcasts. Check out the Podcasting 101 link. It's an excellent place to obtain further information.
Paltalk is offering video conferencing for groups up to ten people. In reality, you're not going to have more people unless you have a 50 inch screen.
While we know that Wikipedia is the best known wiki in the world, that does not mean it's going to be suitable for your next wiki project for your school. The good news is that there are many types of wikis available -- many of them for free. WikiMatrix helps you to determine which wiki is best for your purposes. Even if you don't plan on using a wiki any time soon, this site can help you to understand what wikis are.
Donors Choose is a very interesting site dedicated to matching people with small amounts of money with small school projects. If you cannot get a big grant for your next school project, this site may be a good way to get part of it funded.
flixr has an interesting site devoted to examples of good web site designs. Since you probably won't have enough money for a designer for your next school web site, this is good place to see what you want.
Zemble is a social networking site that uses text messaging for communications. This system could be quite useful for a school. It could be used to send out notices about school events and announcements of snow days.
A selection of educational articles found on Wikipedia can now be obtained on a CD-ROM. This article describes the project that put together the CD-ROM and provides a link to downloading it.
Schools were not built to provide access for telephones. Installing a telephone system can be an expensive proposition. Given that most teachers have cell phones, why not use them? Most people have calling plans that make local calls free. Using cell phones also means that your staff can be reached regardless of their location -- even outside the building.
There is a wide selection of online dictionaries but OneLook is the first "reverse dictionary" I've come across. It's great for situations where you know what the word means but you cannot remember the actual word. This could be useful for students and for your own work. It also works nicely as a type of thesaurus. It also has the ability to check the definitions of words you find in multiple online dictionaries.
Middle school students and older may be actively looking for naughty content on the Internet, but most younger students simply stumble on it. While filters can help, they are not perfect. In Google, for example, one can still see the image icons for sites that one may not be able to visit. Even with the Google safety filter turned on, a great number of questionable images can appear.
As your server closet gets more crowded with more and more servers, switches, routers and firewalls, the ability to monitor them becomes an increasingly difficult task. I started using KVM switches (Keyboard/Video/Mouse) to control my servers, but as the number of servers increased, I found that the tangle of thick KVM cables became a real bother. The back of my servers is already a web of Ethernet and power cables. The KVM cables made things a lot worse and in some cases would knock loose a power cable and bring down a server.
LitSum is the best collection of book summaries I've seen. This site could help students to know if they want to read a particular book. It also good to know what's out there in case a student tries to pass off one of these summaries as their book report. Using online information is one of the problems the Internet has brought to the classroom. It's not that cheating was not going on before, but it is certainly easier now.
Blender, when combined with programs such as GIMP, Ink Scape and NVU make for a fairly complete design setup. Blender is a three-D design tool. GIMP is like Photoshop while Ink Scape is like Illustrator. NVU is a web design tool, like Dreamweaver. I've used GIMP and found it to be quite usable. Some of the features are beyond me, but then so are many of the features in Photoshop.
Thinkature is web based collaborative brainstorming space. It's like having a whiteboard for a project group meeting. This could be a useful tool for students attempting to put together projects. It also can be used to teach concept mapping and brainstorming skills. There are other systems like this one, but this is one of the best I've seen that is offered for free.
In July I posted on Microsoft's new FolderShare program. FolderShare allows you to synchronize data from one computer directory to one or more other computers.
Google has released an updated version of their Google Earth site. The new version has all the features that use to be in the paid for version.
It is not as common as it once was, but every so often a student comes in with a file created at home in a format that your applications cannot read. I use to have a collection of file conversion utilities to handle these situations, but today I don't have any easily at hand. Zamzar is an online tool which takes any file up to 100 megs in size and turns it one of many other possible formats. Unfortunately, it does not handle my Real video files, but it gets most common formats.
Here is one of several locations where one can get older model computers. Like car prices, old equipment loses value fast. This particular Dell GX150 is being sold for $47. The cost of shipping will come close to the price of purchase.
Language Guide provides a fair amount of information for beginners in learning a foreign language. The languages include Spanish, Chinese, French, German Arabic, and a number of others.
