I read an article in T.H.E. Journal tonight about an online tool called Saywire.com that proposes an interesting idea of creating a safe social networking tool for teachers and students. A district in Hillburn, NY is already using this tool to reach out to elementary students, as the article describes in T.H.E. Journal (see link above). The district uses the environment to teach students about the safe use of online social networking. I really like this quote: “[James] Yap (the director of instructional technology and data management for the Ramapo Central School District) began rolling the tool out to 500 Ramapo teachers and students in grades 3, 4, 5, 7, and 9. By focusing on younger students, the district can use the system’s controlled environment to teach proper use and behavior in web-based communities.”

Learning by immersion?!!? Also, interesting to read that this district is in its third year of a Second Life initiative for its middle school. I recommend you read the article this month in T.H.E. Journal magazine or go online.

Pico Projection from Syndiant Technology. And great news from Governor Rick Perry’s office here in Texas about this company and the development of micro-projection devices.

iCloud gives me chills in good and bad ways. I think the idea of a web-OS belongs to the heavy hitters. I wonder who will buy out iCloud first? I also wonder if you can have more than three different apps or windows open at the same time on this iCloud? I read today that the new Microsoft OS Standard edition will only allow 3 windows open at once. I guess they didn’t copy Apple’s “Spaces” concept in this new OS.

SkyTone released specs on a $100 netbook that runs the Google Android OS. It seems everyone has an operating system these days. How about I just make my own?

And finally, this little gem deserves posting here as well. I posted it on my Facebook wall today. It is footage from a Sprint HD slow motion camera that films 1,000 frames per second. Stunning visuals! I wonder how long until this technology makes it to Sprint phone?

One last share item – A Tumblr page I love to check out. This Szymon person posts the most amazing visual advertisements and sculpture ads on his Tumblr. Very interesting visual images used in international advertising.

I thought I was done but I have one last ramble. This site lists the 100 Most Iconic Viral Videos and I really think a re-imagining of them with TCEA members could be a fun idea for the conference for this year. I think a viral-video campaign for TCEA could be a good promotional tool. I watch that video of Susan Boyle singing on stage and wonder how easy would it be to recreate with a recognized TCEA (male) face spliced into it and getting Simon’s reaction??

Could be fun….. anyone? anyone?

If anything – watch their interactive website which includes animated films designed by students. Link is embedded or find here: http://my.liveatedu.com/

Here is what Microsoft says they will provide FOR EACH USER:
25GB of space on SkyDrive (their own individual home folder)
5GB of space in email
Ability to send 20MB per message
Instant messenger (which can be open for staff and not students)
Microsoft Sharepoint services – collaborative documents shared online
A website that includes blogging, calendars, document sharing, etc.
Microsoft Office Live access (Word, Power Point, Excel) online (no installers)
Microsoft Live Search

In other words, a teacher could upload their files to this system and then open rights up to students to view/edit. Teacher and administrators could create folders to share documents and files. The shared folders on our file server migrate up to this system and then we assign rights to the specific folders.

Microsoft Office Live is the web version of Office – Word, Power Point, Excel. Students and staff would have WEB access to these tools without having to install on their own computers.

Total cost for this: $0.00 for hosting. No advertisements on ANY student access service but staff may have Microsoft advertisements (only in top banner of screen). The advertisements aren’t commercials but a banner about a particular Microsoft service.

Positives:
Hosted off-site (no need for a second NOC….or a first NOC for that matter).
Free – and that is free forever (no fee later)
Web access means all materials are online all the time. No second upload for teachers wanting to post documents on their websites. They simply assign rights to their documents in their folders to who they want to view or edit the docs.
Microsoft availability online means kids and staff access Microsoft Office on any computer with Internet connectivity. Same version for everyone.
Built-in Spam and Virus scanner
Leave-ability: Graduates from district take email and info with them. Account goes from district address to @hotmail.com if they want it. All documents and files go with them and out of our control and management
Lots of space gives 30GB of space per user but may be up to 50GB once we get into the Office/Web apps
Private and secure
Collaborative work environments online
Instant Chat
Student websites – Students could make portfolios for classes and be able to share them with future employers/colleges.
Teacher websites – Teachers can generate websites with blogging, calendars, documents, document sharing, etc.
Syncs with our current Active Directory and setup (all current and archived emails with Folders migrate over)
Mobile phone access is built-in via the web
Low maintenance
Low migration issues
Offers ShareView which includes ability to link 15 users for screencasting

Negatives:
Hosted off-site so if the site is down or Internet is down, we are down.
Advertising on some areas (but it is for Microsoft products only)
25GB of space gives freedom to put music, games, etc. in the system. It will be hard to monitor it but we will look into that and how our network access control can help.
Microsoft – most viruses and hacks are targeted at them but in this day and age, we are all targets
Some migration issues. I think if we are to do this, we pay for the advanced migration tools and maybe hire an engineer to come help us migrate it all over. This could be our only cost.

My district uses Active Directory and Microsoft for everything so the migration will be simplified. The presenter in the webinar shared how universities migrate over 30,000 users in a week. We have 710 staff and have not opened up student accounts beyond the high school.

All this said, does the cloud beat the wheel? Do we migrate completely online? This changes cost dramatically but then the money for our own hosting goes to bandwidth. We open the pipeline!

I want to know from others out there who are experiencing this what their thoughts are. Districts, universities, businesses going Web 2.0 cloud – what do you think? Is it worth $0.00 for this??

I shared with them my vision for migrating resources to the web and the justification for why. I explained the differences of office tools, operating systems, and the push for online assessments. I also shared various resources found in social bookmarking and sharing collaborative spaces in Google documents. I kept my eyes on them to make sure I wasn’t going overboard or extending beyond what they were understanding; but they were all on board. I went for 90 minutes and even answered questions.

I left that group today with some great responses! They want to learn more and that is the best response!

They also would like to get more youthful representation in the HCCC. I may get together with my computer teachers at the middle through high school to see if there is some shared interest.

And they would like to help with a project I have in mind to get older computers out to the community. We have a huge recycling problem in this world when it comes to our computers. Instead of thrusting them out to third world dumping grounds, we could strip them down and put Ubuntu on them for Internet access in our community. The HCCC is interested in helping with this project and I welcome their help!

Anyway, it was a great time today to share with another group in this great community. I feel so blessed to be able to go out and share within our community about our ideas and to hear feedback on what we can do to improve our vision. I don’t know of many technology directors who are so willing to go out and connect to their community resources! I wish more of my colleagues would do this. Step out of your offices and into the community that may or may not be your “target” audience. Share. Collaborate. Learn.

And HCCC – I already have some ideas for your new website! Let’s keep talking!