[K12OSN] Making K12LTSP "school friendly"

[anthony baldwin]

richard ingalls wrote:

>--- anthony baldwin <anthonybaldwin at snet.net> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>Jim Kronebusch wrote:
>>
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>>>>Of course, you could simply move away from titles
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>>>>
>>like Reader Rabbit,
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>>>>Oregon Trail, etc.  If these companies care about
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>>the lost sales, 
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>>>>they'll get in line.    Besides, the way I learned
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>>to read was by 
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>>>>reading actual books, and I'm not all that old. 
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>>Is reading actual 
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>>>>books not considered "good" anymore?
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>>>>
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>>>Funny you say that.  I myself have installed this
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>>software on a few thousand
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>>>machines, but can honestly say I have never used
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>>the software myself.  So I
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>>>personally have no idea what the big deal is with
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>>the software.  And I really
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>>>get a kick out of when the libraries argue for more
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>>money for books, when I
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>>>just about never see a student reading a real book
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>>anymore.  In fact, I'll bet
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>>>in a couple years some students won't know you you
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>>mean when you say the word
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>>>"book" :-)
>>>
>>>And more ironic thing is that I have tried to get
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>>around the need for specific
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>>>software by asking teachers/admins to document the
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>>computer skills the are
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>>>attempting to teach the kids at each grade level,
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>>but come to find out no one
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>>>knows what they are trying to teach, just that they
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>>have a curriculum with
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>>>lesson plans setup by someone else and they just
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>>teach what they have.  So if
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>>>you don't know what you are teaching, what the heck
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>>is the point?
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>>> 
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>>Some really valid points there.
>>Some of the software mentioned is useful, though. 
>>Inspiration can be 
>>used for a variety of things,
>>such as developing outlines from graphical webs,
>>etc.  For some 
>>students, the graphical web
>>is easier to conceptualize, but, then seeing it
>>transformed to a linear 
>>outline helps them to make sense of outlining.
>>Etc.  It is a very useful product.
>>I'm an English teacher, myself, and have made much
>>use of it.  I've 
>>never used any  computer games as a teaching tool,
>>but I have allowed children to play games as a
>>reward, and made 
>>educational games available.
>>(Sure, Kbounce is VERY educational, isn't it?)
>>I've used computers extensively in my own
>>curriculum, but what I was 
>>teaching was not computer skills
>>(okay, some may have learned computer skills
>>"viacriously"), but 
>>research skills, writing skills, organizing skills,
>>reading skills,
>>critical thinking skills, even logic.
>>Having software available for various multimedia
>>projects allowed 
>>students room to be creative in expressing what
>>they'd learned, too,
>>and did afford some the opportunity to develop new
>>computer skills along 
>>the way.
>>(And I still send children to the library to
>>research in books, too, and 
>>require that they read.
>>I have to say, though, that I've found the libraries
>>in the schools 
>>where I've worked very meager, and, accordingly,
>>much more information was available through online
>>sources.)
>>But I can do all of that on a Linux box without
>>proprietary software.
>>There are even tools to do much of what Inspiration
>>does, as far as 
>>webbing/outlining/organizing.
>>
>>tony
>>
>>http://www.school-library.net
>>Freedom to Learn!
>>    
>>
>
>tony - what do you use in place of Inspiration?  This
>is one of the main apps that I'd like to use in my
>LTSP labs for my middle schools kids...
>
>also, would you mind if I had my Language Arts teacher
>email you about how you use your classroom lab?
>
>  
>
To tell the truth, I don't have a classroom lab.  None of the schools 
I've been in have let me set one up.
Last year I did bring in several boxes I built out of donated parts for 
use in my classroom. 
I installed K12 on them, but as standalone desktops.  The children got 
right on them and used them
for presentations, research, writing, all kinds of multimedia projects, 
etc. and didn't even realize
that they were using something different until I told them!  I gave the 
computers away as
awards to graduating 8th graders at the end of the year, since I was 
leaving that district.
They played nice with the Mac network there.
Anyhow, I'm not even teaching this year.  I'm unemployed.
Well, I did just start a part-time job in a software and tech dev 
business that creates
proprietary software and products for the medical industry (say no more 
- non-disclosures, etc.
I even installed XP on a slave drive here, first windows in my home for 
three years, because they
use some M$ specific devtools.)  I suppose that's irrelevant on this list.

I've used Kivio and OpenOffice's Draw program to create graphical 
organizers and stuff.
Neither will convert a web to an outline like Inspiration does, though.

All the curricula I've shared on School-Library.net was created on a 
linux box using open source tools.
Scribus is way cool.  I've probably used OpenOffice.org more than any 
other tool, for creating curricula,
both on my linux box and the OS X iBook I had that was stolen over the 
summer (snif).

I used linux boxes just like any other box might be used, Mac, Windows 
or otherwise, for research, for
writing, for creating presentations.  We did a unit on advertisement and 
they used graphical tools, like the Gimp.
(Yeah, it was justifiable by the CT Framework for Middleschool Language 
Arts Curricula, because we studied ad techniques,
then propaganda, then logical fallacies.  It was fun, and made them all 
stronger persuasive writers!)

tony

http://www.school-library.net
Freedom to Learn!