Category: xp

XPArena – Slowly, slowly.

Posted on by primaryt
WARNING: This is a horrible idea for a use of technology. It completely dehumanizes pupils. It was an abstract idea and is left here for historical purposes. Since I wrote this some companies have begun developing this tool, these companies should be ashamed of themselves and read this to begin walking their path of enlightenment

Me and Chad have been chatting about the scoring / reward / xp mechanism and how we can use it to try to encourage learners to “learn more”.

Without going off on one  I wanted to quickly update everyone with where we are at.   By we I mean the 3 developers, 1 designers and 2 teachers working on the project.

More than one user interface for primary age kids.

Whoa, now this is big. But it is right. The problem is that primary kids web based skills are developing so quickly at home that at 9-12 year old 3 years ago is the equivalent of a 6-8 year old now in the way they negotiate web sites. This report recently published suggests 2 interfaces, 6-8 then 9-12. My brain explodes.  So many providers just provide one interface, us included.  I often pondered this but to read it in this report confirmed it for me.

XPArena should therefore be theme-able

So these are the themes we hope to make available:

  • A very basic theme for 6-8
  • A slightly more advanced theme or 9-12
  • A theme for teenagers.
  • A theme for adults.  <– Will adult learners actually be engaged by a mechanism such as XPArena?

How do we compete with facebook?

We don’t try to.  We must leverage social networks by writing plugins/addons.  Our current list reads:

  • WordPress
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Ning
  • Moodle

Note: We wont promote any of these services directly to the user.

When will XPArena be live?

I don’t even have a due date or anything for this, it’s not because I don’t want to do it.  Over the last month I have bashed our SearchyPants and Satpin, the reason for making those sites specifically is because they don’t have any layers of complexity, they are simplified versions of already existing relatively well understood concepts.  So I guess maybe early 2011.  I’m currently waiting on Ning developer access so I can see if it is possible to easily send points from a ning post to XPArena.

I really need teacher help with this project so if you can see a use for it please get in touch because without it being tested in it’s beta stage it could end up growing into something that completely misses the point.  I’m considering writing it for Ruby on Rails.  There, I said it.

Will XPArena be the point scoring mechanism?

Usually what happens is some well marketed system comes along and forks off our existing source code, closes it off then calls it their own.  I’m fine with that.  The only way we can compete against big business is with transparency and by proving to educators we are being security concious.   The main thing XPArena will need to do is facilitate new learning tools as they are launched.  Services like Edmodo will fall by the way side as they have no API/developer tools, schools will hopefully become aware of this ability to link tools together and begin choosing the open system..  Of course this in theory..

So I have some (rough) designs, what do you think?

Obviously these designs are aimed at 6-8, maybe 9-12 too..

Do we really need local servers? A Web2 school

Posted on by primaryt

While deep thinking my “Not a VLE” Project I began doing a topology graph for schools information and data flow, part of this process lead me into looking at processes that local servers do to ensure teaching and learning is continuous.

When I say that Primary School ICT is complicated, some of you may be shocked by just how complex it is. An average school may have just 2 servers and 50 or so clients but the amount of processes involved to deliver the perfect desktop experience is huge.

A simplified diagram of an average Primary School’s ICT from a process point of view:
Recently we have found an upsurge in schools buying EEE’s with XP Home and we have considered leaving Home on and seeing how they get on:
Here are the initial negative reasons why XP Home without a domain controller(server) is not suitable for a school…
(A Pupil may also be a teacher)
The problems:
  1. No Account restrictions – Pupils can break their device.
  2. No Centrally manageable Anti-Virus – Pupils may get a virus and the school wouldn’t know about it.
  3. No Windows update monitoring – Pupils may not have the latest windows on their device so may be at risk.
  4. No Authentication to printers – Pupils would not be able to 1 click print as easily.
  5. No ability to deploy software – Software would not be able to be “pushed” from the server meaning each piece would have to be individually installed.
The Fixes:
  1. No Account restrictions – Keep an image ready to restore from DVD/USB HD, this is not a complicated process and should be done as part of best practice anyway. All locally saved documents are remotely backed up using either Syncplicity, humyo or remote backup from Primary Technology
  2. No Centrally manageable Anti-Virus – An organization level web managed antivirus web2 application
  3. No Windows update monitoring – Teach pupils to periodically check for the latest windows update
  4. No Authentication to printers – Stop printing, use email, blog, etc.
  5. No ability to deploy software – Use web2 applications – Legacy applications could be supported by Thinapp or an app publishing platform?
The advantages to the Fixes:
  1. No Account restrictions – Increased Data protection as pupil information only lies on the MIS server (Which could eventually be easily hosted)
  2. No Centrally manageable Anti-Virus – Much easier for technical support providers to manage large number of devices and for schools to check status.
  3. No Windows update monitoring – Children will know how to update their systems in the future.
  4. No Authentication to printers – Record is kept of what/when is sent and we don’t waste paper/ink
  5. No ability to deploy software – Web2 applications tend to be available anywhere and do not require updating.
The disadvantages to the Fixes:
  1. No Account restrictions – Time spent in restoring devices and loss of local copy of data will mean a restore process from remote backup.
  2. No Centrally manageable Anti-Virus – Increased internet bandwidth usage
  3. No Windows update monitoring – Large updates could take a long time.
  4. No Authentication to printers – Email, blog systems could be abused.
  5. No ability to deploy software – Web2 companies and/or their hosting providers can have issues leading to downtime and unavailability.
The other angle to approach this from is a web3 angle which would be a cloud OS however for true data protection a school should always keep their own copy of any document they have worked on.

Toshiba NB200 clean XP Pro install

Posted on by primaryt

How to … (Yes this is the quickest method…)

Prereqs:

  1. External USB CD OR DVD drive.
  2. Nlite
  3. Windows XP Pro ISO image or XP Pro CD

Steps:

  1. Get External USB CD Drive & Blank CD/DVD
  2. Get nlite
  3. Get this driver from Toshiba – It’s the Intel matrix storage floppy driver..
  4. Extract driver to a folder..
  5. Install nlite
  6. Run nlite and select to include driver and create ISO Image
  7. Create new ISO Image
  8. Select folder where you extracted the driver (Multiple drivers)
  9. Select all drivers.
  10. Burn ISO image to a blank CD/DVD
  11. Install from CD/DVD.