HiTechHall’s Tech Waves

Hi y’all, it’s Friday so must be time for the 2nd installment of HiTechHall. I will return to this post to discuss the above, but now I’m off to International Day at Marian Baker School here in San Jose, Costa Rica. There will be free food, but just as important, I need to finish the school’s new anti-virus installation I started too long ago!

I shall return.

Ok, I’m back. And full. The food was great, (I really liked the Togolese spicy sauce the Lohrman’s brought), and now all of the 50 or so computers have the latest version of McAfee. While I was there, I ended up talking to the school’s business manager for almost an hour, learning about the history, plans and problems with the technology on campus. One of the issues that came up was student use, or over-use, of instant messaging. Administrators and teachers were annoyed and concerned that the computers were not being utilized sufficiently as learning vehicles. I’ve heard about this IM problem at almost all of the schools I’ve been associated with. And I agree it’s a problem, but one with no easy solution.

Sure, IM software can be be removed. Here’s how to remove MSN Messenger and some others. And there are many others, such as Yahoo, AOL, Gaim, ICQ, IMSecure, Trillian, Windows Messenger, Google Talk, etc. What’s worse (for those averse to IM), is that a new Web2.0 site called Meebo allows users to connect to the IM service of their choice though a browser only, there is no need to have these services installed on the computer the student is using. (I sure hope no students are reading this, but heck, they probably know about Meebo already).

So, I recommended that if the school heads really wanted to eliminate IM for the short-term, they would need to have a technician log on to each computer as administrator, remove all the IM software installed (and being familiar with the school’s machines, I know that every one had multiple versions of these programs), and then have the school’s content-filtering software configured to block Meebo’s IP address. But this solution would work only so long as another similar site didn’t come online, and I’d bet there are some Meebo-like clones out there already. Those would then also have to sought-out and blocked by the network content-filter. And who was going to do that job, anyway? This school, like many, doesn’t have a full-time network administrator.

In the end, I suggested that it would be far wiser to try to control “the problem” rather than try to snuff it out entirely, which would be futile. Besides, aren’t schools supposed to be trying to prepare our students for a work environment where collaboration and group-based problem solving is the norm? Most modern work environments have already successfully incorporated tools such as IM, wikis, podcasting, screencasting, videoconferencing, etc. This stuff comes naturally to our digital-native students and they will be using these tools when they join the work force. And they will certainly find a way around any technological barrier schools try to put up.

We educators need to focus on trying to master these modern tools ourselves and then use them to teach the traditional curriculum. That is a HUGE challenge, and we have a long way to go. But it’s just a matter of slowly chipping away at the stone. Eventually, we will get there. To be honest, I could not offer many solutions to control the “problem” of student IM use, other than to suggest more vigilant teacher monitoring during class time, possibly with the help of a tool such as NetSupport: School, which allows teachers to monitor all classroom computer activity from the teacher’s computer. But I did try to stress to the business manager that simply trying to ban all instant messaging use was a bad idea, and one that would surely fail both the anti-IMers AND the students.

A Great Firefox Extension

I used to be a terrible speller, but when I started using spell-check religiously on my emails, I became a much better one. I think it’s the same for students. So here’s a tool that I think is neat, and which I’m pretty sure will help my and most students’ vocabularies as well. It’s an extension to the Firefox browser, which most of us are using these days. (You are using Firefox, aren’t you?). The program is called Dictionary Lookup. It’s a tiny piece of code that basically adds a dictionary to your browser.

So after the install, when you are reading something online and come across a strange word, just right-click your mouse and you will see the option Define. A small pop up box will contain the words “to state or set forth the meaning of…”, for example, if you hovered over the word define above. It’s simple, it’s easy, it’s what computer geeks call elegant. I agree. This is what computers are supposed to do: Help us learn more and whenever possible, to keep it simple (KISS).