Parental Controls

Although my preferred method of assisting a student/child is through education and encouraging self regulation there are times when, as a parent/guardian/teacher you may decide to step in. Parental control features are built right into the Mac. As a parent and administrator of the Mac you may choose to manage your child’s use of certain applications, time investment and internet restrictions. Here's how:

• You must have an Administrators account on the Mac, and the ‘child’ account will be Managed (ie administrator rights removed). If the Macbook is managed by a school IT department you may want to contact them first and ask that they add a parent account for you.
• Log into the Mac with your new account, being certain that you keep your password private, and head over to your System Preferences/Users & Groups.

• Be sure to unlock the padlock in the bottom left corner. Select your child's account and check the 'Enable Parental Controls' box. Now click once on the 'Open Parental Controls' button.

• It is important not to lock down the child account too much as this will render the account almost redundant. You do not need to Use Simple Finder. I would not recommend limiting any applications, however if you wish you may choose to restrict social networking applications like FaceTab, Skype, Microsoft Messenger etc. Check the 'Limit Applications' box and then check the applications you want to allow. To search for an application enter its name in the search field.
• Notice the 'Logs..' button in the bottom right. It is here where after a few weeks you can view which applications have been used and which websites have been visited. (as I write this my heart goes out to the restricted user..)

• The Next tab deals with website restrictions. You can limit access to adult websites or you may want to create a 'white list' set of acceptable websites which the user can only access.
• Nest up is the People tab. Here you can restrict certain emails from contacting the user. However, this only works if the user is using the Mail or iChat application.
• The Time Limits tab is a very handy tool. Allow the user computer access for just 3 hours a day, make the user account log out at a certain time each school night and a later/earlier time at the weekend.

• Finally the Other tab deals with profanity in the Dictionary, access to printers, and CD/DVD burning. There is also one last check box which you may want to check; 'Disable changing the password'. This stops the child account from changing their own password.
• Now that you have set the restriction lets head over to the 'child account' and test our settings.
• If I launch a restricted application I get the following warning

• The useful thing here is that should your child require access to this applications you, as an Administrator, can authorise use for 'Allow Once...' or Always Allow'.
• If I try to access an adult rated internet page I see the following

• Again if the Administrator is available you may choose to enter your password and lift the restriction temporarily.

These tools are easy to use and can put a lot of control into the hands of the administrator. The most valuable tools here are probably the time restriction tools, enabling the computer to not take over the users life completely. If you notice that your child is constantly playing computer games etc, just use the time restriction tool, thus ensuring that there is time left for family time.

An Apple Dilemma

Macbook or iPad for my school?

This is a fresh debate. And one where the question should perhaps be ‘laptop or tablet device?’. Another question which i’m certain has echoed around many a principals office is ‘should we engage in a personal digital education at all?’

It only seems like yesterday when we were trying our hardest to banish all mobile phones from the school grounds and now we find ourselves equipping kids with even more powerful, ever decreasing in size communication devices.

Tablet computers are an all round seductive device. The package itself is small but heavy, reminiscent of an expensive christmas gift. It is tied in a beautiful silk bow which unravels itself to reveal glossy glass and polished aluminium. The rich and vivid colours of the display ooze quality and class. “This is where education should be! How can we possibly go wrong with each child equipped with one of these things? I mean they can hold every book ever made, right?”

I am going to assume that you are at the stage of ‘We want a 1:1 environment’ and I am also going to focus on the Apple Macbook and iPad. I aim to share with you my first hand experiences so that you might make a decision between OS X or iOS.

OS X or iOS?

Don’t worry I am not about to start discussing the benefits of an ARM processor over an Intel chip. OS refers to the Operating System, the platform if you like which really provides the user experience. OS X is the MacBook operating system and iOS refers to the iPad platform, and it is here where you are truly making your decision.

Recently a principal from a developing school here in Australia approached me asking for my opinion. He said to me;

“We are in a fortunate position where we chose not to jump 2 years ago into a fleet  of Apple notebooks. Now we can wisely invest into providing a 1:1 iPad environment into our school”

Adamant in the fact that by A, not acting 2 years ago was the right thing to do and that B, the iPad was beyond any doubt the right way to proceed surprised me a little. With a completely unknown track record the decision to go with an iPad is often one which has already been made after fore-mentioned disrobing of the alluring device and not after extensive trial or research.

After all OS X had been in development for over 8 years. With the likes of Microsoft Office, industry standard design tools from the Adobe suite and full access to online technologies such as Flash we knew where we stood. This platform offered a truly flexible learning environment, as a teacher we could pick and choose media and content which complemented our syllabus as we chose to teach it. Not restricted by Apps as vetted by Apple staff.

OS X has proven itself to be an outstanding study partner. The Macbook offers sturdy design and a long battery life. Certainly in my experience students take well to the iLife suite. Podcasting, and movie making is a snap for most. It is a platform which I am an ardent fan of, one which prepares the students properly for careers where word processing and spreadsheet manipulation is essential. Learning on a Mac teaches other basic computer skills such as file handling and touch typing. Without these skills we are simply not preparing students properly for a digital future ahead of them.

My discussion with the curious principal continued. We crooned over the features and portability of the iPad, the medium to low price tag and the ‘third dimension’ of its touch screen. Eventually our conversation developed further into the integration of the device into classrooms and into the hands of teachers.

Classroom trials of the iPad have been met with mixed responses. In terms of an ebook reader it certainly shines. Finding the correct ebooks however has been difficult. But this is changing. Teacher attitudes have also began to shift and I think there is a clear focus on content creation from the school itself. Creating PDF documents, and interactive iBooks is now a very simple task. Getting those digital formats onto the iPad is also becoming simpler, sought of.

That Syncing feeling.

The iPad, in anything but a 1:1 consumer situation is very difficult.

For years I didn’t believe that ‘syncing’ was actually a word. That was until I became a proud owner of an iPhone and entered the Apple eco-system. Syncing isn’t a word that normal people use. It is a slang term which now represents the painful mine field of multiple Apple ID’s and mysterious windows asking you if its ok to “Erase and Sync?”.

It is almost the first task which an administrator of 2 or more iPads in a classroom situation will need to do. How difficult can this be? I’m perfectly happy to purchase a school license, can’t I just double click the install file?

For months I researched this topic, trying to find a fix which doesn’t break the 35 page long App Store T&C’s. There are a few convoluted solutions involving distribution of gift cards or iTunes credit, but why is it that Apple make everything so simple but this is so complex? And i’m still not sure how ethical it is that every student must exchange their personal details with Apple for an Apple ID.

There does seem to be a solution coming via ‘App Store Volume Purchasing’ but for the moment we must wait.

Apple have also answered many device management questions and using the right set of tools it is possible to lock down an iPad and restrict access to certain components. (such as the camera or the Safari internet browser). So with the right implementation shared devices in a school may work well.

With the tight control of Apples Apps and personal ID’s it all feels a little overwhelming. Never before on a Windows machine or OS X did it all feel so difficult, however playing by Apple’s rules might have some very positive impacts on education...

Pedagogical Values

A sand-boxed user experience is the first thing that hit me when I used the iPad. This meant that apart from the clock and battery indicator there were no other distractions when I was using an App. There is no cluttered desktop behind floating windows or header icons vying for my attention. So I was focused on the task at hand. This is a highly under rated feature and one which comes into its own in the classroom.

Multi-tasking for a modern student is when they are typing 3 essays at once while researching online, updating Facebook and streaming a video. Now you just cannot do all of these things simultaneously on the iPad. And that is a good thing for teachers trying to maintain a single focus in class.

It is for this reason that the iPad is truly chameleon like. It is a scientific calculator for a science period. It is an atlas for another and a musical keyboard for another. On the way home the iPad becomes a magazine and at night your bedtime book.

The way in which information is provided and accessed is revolutionary on the iPad. ‘Our Choice’ is an application developed with Al Gore as narrator. It is the most encapsulating, interactive digital book available, and the content is incredible. The touch screen is used beautifully to allow the user to engage fully with examples of solar power and wind density throughout America. It uses the built in microphone as another way in which the student can engage with the content. Just in this app alone I think a teacher could guide a student through an entire term of Society and Environment studies.

Gallery is an application which presents over 1100 pictures from the National Gallery in London. The collection of pictures can be sorted by date or artist. With the ability to pinch, zoom and study the pictures it has outstanding value in the art class.

The entire works of Shakespeare downloaded in minutes for free. Bram Stoker, Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde to name just a few are all free via the Ebook reader. Quickly my initial thoughts that this device was better suited for junior school students learning their ABC were proved wrong.

As I evaluate the many geography & history apps I gasp in disappointment that I didn’t have access to such interactive maps and animated detail when I was a student.

Indeed any science teacher would drool at the classroom support provided for learning the periodic table or even studying astronomy through the touch screen which literally brings the skies to life.

Never before has such a repository of information been available to assist teacher and student. The App Store is just starting to take shape. In the years to come one can only imagine the ingenious forms that apps will take as developers and educators continue to out trump each other.

The iPad has been equipped with an exceptionally powerful processor. It is equipped with three-axis gyro sensor as well as an accelerometer, and light sensor. It also has a built in digital compass and 2 cameras. What does this all mean? It means that the hardware is capable of so much more. The software development will never be hindered by lacking hardware. The journey is just beginning, the future a bright beacon of LED-backlit glossy widescreen Multi-Touch display with IPS technology. IPS technology? i’m not sure either but I do have faith that this investment might be the right one.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly the iPad in education is finding its feet. The Macbook will, for the time being continue to be a safe choice, especially in its latest incarnation, the MacBook Air.

My recent findings have concluded that the iPad is a superior form for accessing data and assisting in student consumption/learning. However I have found the creation of original content on the iPad to be not as fast or dynamic when compared to the Macbook. Although I am certain that youth today will take to the screen keyboard and pinch-pull zooming etc very quickly. It is of course possible to use external bluetooth keyboards, but I personally feel that this defeats the point a little.

After extensive experience with year 7 - 12 students and observing the ways that they are using their personal MacBooks, it seems clear to me that the majority of time is spent on internet browsing/research and word processing.

Adobe Photoshop is used extensively. The note taking software Inspiration and media creation tools iMovie and Garageband seem to be the next biggest use of students time, (closely followed by gaming and social networking). Most of these applications are easily substituted with counterparts on the iPad.

The school computer labs were, I thought becoming a thing of the past. But the idea of a lab existing along side an iPad 1:1 environment is a practice which would work well. It is here that you may choose to conduct Photoshop training. You may also choose to have a ‘Pro’ suite set up allowing students to learn film editing or 3D research for example. It is these labs that enable the student to experience conventional desktop computing and also skills such as touch typing.

I would not like to be in the position where I am tearing the MacBook from the hands of tech savvy students to replace them with iPads. But to be able to join my students in what can only be described as a journey of immersive learning where almost limitless resources are just a tap away is an opportunity too good to miss out on.

Apple have consistently listened to and addressed issues raised from the education sector. I am anticipating that the arrival of the App Store Volume Purchasing for education in Australia will be the final part of the jig-saw. Combine this with a carefully planned deployment and iOS 5 arriving this summer and the iPad is looking like a good choice.

Free Educational Documentaries

I have compiled a fairly extensive list of sites which allow for the streaming of documentaries. Most of the documentaries can be classed as educational, some content is fairly cutting edge and thought provoking so be warned and choose wisely. We in no way endorse the views expressed in any of these programs! You will find many provocative but also informative documentaries. These sites mainly cater for the American audience with a lot of political views being expressed. However you can also find some real gems like the complete BBC documentary 'Planet Earth'.

Its worth noting that the sites listed below generally do not host the actual video footage. Often they are just embedded links to other video hosts such as YouTube, Google Video 0r Vimeo. This is worth remembering because if you would like to share these videos with your class but not get them distracted with other content, just grab the embed code from the host and place the videos in your own wiki or website. If you need help doing this let us know.

In no particular order take a look at the below documentary sites.

Free Documentary TV - http://www.freedocumentary.tv

Top Documentary Films - http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/watch-online/

Documentary Heaven - http://documentaryheaven.com

Documentary Wire - http://www.documentarywire.com

Watch Free Documentaries - http://watchfreedocumentaries.net

Short Film clips with a heavy focus on education - http://aso.gov.au/education/

Other Resources worth checking out are:

http://www.pbs.org/teachers

PBS LearningMedia is a dynamic platform offering the best of public media content and produced specifically for PreK-16 teachers. With free access to over 14,000 high-quality resources tied to national standards, teachers can download, save and share exactly what they need for an inspired classroom experience.

http://onebigtorrent.org/

If you feel like embracing legal Torrent sharing this is a good place to start. We will cover the basics of bit torrents in a future article.

OneBigTorrent.org is a new place for sharing material that deals with or is relevant to issues of social justice, progressive and radical politics, independent media, ecology. We run a local bittorrent tracker (which we encourage uploaders to use), and we also host torrents from other trackers, as well as ed2K and Magnet links.

There cannot be a formal definition of what content we deem appropriate for upload. If the concepts above don't suit you, browse the index -- you'll get the idea quickly. We typically remove obscure stuff dealing with UFOs, mind-control, secret societies, Black Helicopters and what have you. The net is full of this bs anyway.

We hope that you find these links useful. Don't forget to bookmark this page if you want to refer back later.

Google in Education

Why we can no longer ignore what Google are bringing to the table for educational institutes.

Google are providing a complete solution for schools which has every base covered.

Wireless networking, complete collaboration, power, stability, security and back-up.

Administration

Each computer in your fleet can be managed seamlessly from a single online administrator account. Updates are automatic (you’ll never even know that they are happening) and security is a tight as you need with new ‘tab sandboxing’.

The main concept to get your head around is that pretty much all of your work lives on-line. So if you are word processing, number crunching or even working on a presentation every step is performed inside a browser window. Or Google Chrome to be precise. And don’t underestimate the functionality of the applications available to you. You can video edit, podcast produce & create extremely complex and powerful spreadsheets or presentations.

There are many, many other advantages when it comes to going with Googles' new cloud experience.

Email, (or instant message, even video call!)

Using Gmail... but this doesn’t mean having a @gmail.com email address. Your can still continue to use the schools domain address. Using Gmail email account servers also means every user in your institution can have 7.2GBs of storage and you can send emails up to 20mb in size. Each email inbox can be personalised with the school logo. The mailbox also offers ‘Labs’. These are like tiny email Apps which include common tasks such as ‘Undo Send‘ and immediate language translation from any language to English and vice-versa. The email inbox also contains the ability to send instant messages to your colleagues who are online as well as instant video chat.

The email inbox begins to act a little more like your personal intranet system. You can easily see all of the documents which you are working on, you can share them with individuals, staff groups, or classes. Working in real time on the same document with a colleague is easy - even multiple colleagues.

The Google Calendar

Most people are familiar with the power and flexibility of the Google Calendar. Overlaying multiple calendars into one view is a snap, sharing calendars  and sending notes to calendar owners is also simple. I have also found that the sharing of Google calendars across different platforms (iCal, XML or HTML) is extremely stable, so you can publish straight to your website and have limitless subscribers. Perfect for a school environment!

But the experience is so much richer than just that.

The Google Apps Marketplace

Welcome to the largest collection of apps designed specifically to function inside Google Chrome. These apps can be installed by your administrator and made available to all of the users within your domain. Many apps have the ability to access data from your contact list or calendar accounts. Communication, project management and design apps are extremely popular. The focus with these apps is to strengthen collaboration which I think is the true strength behind Google.

Google’s new Education category on the Apps Marketplace is an online repository filled with learning management system (LMS) software, web-based grade books, and other content that can be shared among an entire school district or college campus with the click of a button.

iSupport’s top 3 favourite Education Apps

1. Thinkwave - A fast and reliable online student information system that is easy-to-use and quick to deploy.

• Import students from Google Apps.
• Log in with Google Apps usernames.
• Collect grades and attendance online.
• Generate report cards and transcripts.
• Upload handouts online. Collect homework from students online.
• Integrated gradebooks for teachers.
• Grades online for students and parents.

2. Stupeflix Studio: Easy video creation

• select a video template .
• fill the template with pictures, video clips, soundtracks.
• rearrange, fine-tune, preview.
• export your video on YouTube, Facebook, or download the file.

3. Aviary Design Suite for Education

Free design tools and templates to create, modify and share images, presentations, audio tracks, podcasts & more. Classrooms can collaborate on multimedia projects. Works directly in Google Docs.

• Create Logos, Presentation Slides, Yearbook Pages
• Retouch photos, Make Web Templates & Icons
• Develop Podcasts, Remix Audio & More

The Chromebook

Pick up a Chromebook, any Chromebook and you can pick up from where you left off. This flexibility is a huge advantage for students and administrators in a school or college. Your valuable data is never lost and you really don’t even have to think about it.

And if you opt for a 3G model Chromebook, you don’t even need to instal a wireless network into your building... But this begs the question, are Google just a little bit ahead of the game? With 3G networks and even broadband networks, Australia certainly has a long way to go. This device relies heavily upon an always on connection, at home and at school.

So what about pricing? Well the in the U.S. you are looking at around $20 per unit per month. Minimum 3 year contract.

For more updates on the impact of Google in our Australian market, watch this space.

Google Apps for education - link - http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/edu/

What makes a great school website

Things to consider when building the perfect school, college or university website.

When I was recently asked to 'up-date' my school website I went through many stages of research, design & development. I thought it would be valuable to share my ideas and findings with you, just incase you find yourself wanting to overhaul your school or college's online presence.

Firstly I spoke with many of my colleagues & I asked them how often they used our existing website & for what purpose. The response regarding the original website was fairly negative. Not one member of staff had visited the website since their initial enrollment into the school. Next I spoke with some parents, most of whom responded with complaints of 'too much information" and a "badly organised space". However the most common complaint was that the website was quickly outdated and it all seemed rather static.

The challenges.

I knew that I had to design a site that could be;

1. extremely easy for anybody to update but also one that looked great.
2. It needed to house a lot of information but at the same time be easily navigated.
3. I also wanted the website to be used by both staff, students and parents alike.
4. I wanted it to become a type of forum where parents could easily be notified of upcoming events and news but also one where job applicants could post their resumes.
5. I wanted current staff to visit the site and easily access the intranet.
6. It had to be full of multimedia & showcase students work in picture & video.

To cater for all of these groups that make up your school community can seem like an overwhelming task, but it can be done. And you can do it all by yourself for next to nothing.

Wordpress

Wordpress is a platform normally associated with blogging. It's popularity has grown hugely in recent years and the development of the software has come a long way. I chose to use Wordpress because I new that my final website was going to have to be built on blogs, or news feeds. These news feeds could be written & published by a variety of people and a large variety of people will subscribe to those feeds. This would ensure that the site was always up to date, and could also hold a lot of organised information.

By breaking my community into 4 different categories titled Junior, Middle and Senior School and also a Community feed, I could make the information easy to be consumed. Each article published would not only be assigned a category but also time stamped allowing for further search terms to be applied.

Wordpress not only allows for articles to be published on ever growing feed pages, it also allows for static pages to be created. These static pages would make up the About Us & Contact style pages. I would also develop a simple Careers page which would house a list of available jobs and embedded forms so that one could apply online for that job.

The Design

A Wordpress site uses CSS for almost every design element on the page. Cascading Style Sheets is an amazing coding language where you can specify everything from your Paragraph Styles to the Padding used around pictures. You do not need to know any CSS to get started with your site but to truly personalise the look and feel it will help to root around in the style.CSS sheet at some stage.

Hosting

The website will need to reside somewhere. In my case the school preferred the website to be hosted internally, on our own servers. The alternative is to host the website with a private hosting company such as 1&1 or Go Daddy. Unpacking your Wordpress files and establishing a MySQL database to store all of your articles and pictures is only a Google search away. Google analytics and Feedburner are two services which I recommend. Feedburner allows you to monitor how many people are subscribed to a particular Feed in your website, and Google Analytics provide a detailed overview of your sites traffic.

The Developers Role

My role as developer of the site had to end just there. In a short time frame of just 4-6 weeks I had to have the site ready to go but also have 2 members of my admin team fully trained to update and maintain all of the articles video and picture content when required. It is here where the true ease of use and flexibility of Wordpress came into it's own.

To see the website click here.

• If you require any assistance or general support for the online presence and marketing of your school website please contact iSupport.