I started my new Grade 9 course yesterday, Applying Information and Communication Technology 2 15F. (Nice snappy name, eh? Blame the Government of Manitoba for that one.) I’m supposed to show the students some of the cool things they can do with technology. One of the things I’ve got planned is stop motion animation (which is remarkably simple to do with a free program and a cheap web cam).

All I managed to do is set the kids up with e-mail (courtesy of Google Apps) and blogs (courtesy of 21 Classes). Yet after 70 minutes of class it was time to leave, and quite a number couldn’t believe that class was over. It seemed like no time at all. I suppose when you’re playing around with Internet goodies even school can seem fun to some people.

Just for fun, here’s an “educational jargon generator.” The whole thing is entirely tongue in cheek, yet it sounds suspiciously like some principals and a lot of people in education departments and universities. The worst part is that though I think I speak clearly, I can actually figure out what most of the jargon generated really means.

This site is a promotional site that’s intended to go along with a product. Premier School Agendas, probably the largest seller of student agendas in Canada, has set up a site to go along with this year’s elementary school collection. Premier Planets is space themed and gives you basic information about all the planets in our solar system. It’s colorful, has lots of sound, and is a lot of fun. The guy who wrote much of the text for the site (who just happens to be my brother) has an off beat sense of humor that I think you’ll enjoy. If you’re looking at astronomy with your elementary class, this site is worth your time.

I heard about a site that provides links to Social Studies related games that deal with real life issues, whether that’s airport security, immigration, or Christmas shopping. The games are intended to make a point, which is why they call the site Persuasive Games, of course.

Some of the games are downloadable, and some can be played online. A couple are NOT free, but the vast majority are free for the asking.

You’ll have to decide whether the games are age appropriate, and whether you can justify them in your class. The amount you’ll learn from some games is more than you’ll learn from some of the others.

It’s a nice way to teach about some of the concepts covered. Learning can actually be fun.

One of the problems facing schools that are trying to do more with computers is that they need more computers. Computers are expensive and school budgets are limited. The reality is that you’re just not going to get your school to buy a whole lot of computers.

So what do you do? Well, someone pointed out to me that possibly 80% of what we do on a computer is done online. We reseach, play games, work through simulations, and do e-mail. We can even do simple word processing and spreadsheets on online sites like Google Docs and Zoho.

Well, it doesn’t really take that much of a computer to run an Internet browser. Some very old machines can run some fairly up to date browsers if that’s all they’re doing. However, Windows is  not capable of operating in really old machines. Yet a lot of variants of Linux are. Windows, as well, is pricey, but Linux is free.

What I’ve been experimenting is putting a version of Linux on a CD, and running all the functions of your computer right off the CD. (It’s called a Live CD.) Running Linux off a CD means you can disconnect your hard drive. That means you can’t get viruses. Disconnecting your hard drive also means you don’t need a fan. That means you have a very, very quiet computer.

So I have a plan. I get Linux on a CD and run it on old computers that I put back into classrooms and put them on the Internet. It should be simple, right? Well, in my arrogance, I thought so. I tried the nice package at Live Kiosk. It ran on computers at home and one at school, but failed to run on any computers I used to demo it for our Vice Principal.

Then I tried the rudely named Damn Small Linux. That worked pretty well (and it worked when I demo-ed it for our VP), but it’s pretty limited. Its version of Firefox is not a really good one.

Okay, moving up in the world, I tried an expanded version of DSL, namely Damn Small Linux – Not. This version of Linux has a really nice little web browser called Sea Monkey, and did just about all the simple tasks I wanted it to. The only problem I ran into was that instead of running DSL-N off a CD and leaving the computer I was testing it on unaffected, I managed to write it to the hard drive and write it over top of everything else already on that particular computer.

Our computer tech at school was really good natured about re-imaging the computer I messed up and putting the right programs back on. I, however, felt really foolish since, theoretically I shouldn’t have been able to mess up the computer I so badly messed up. I’m still not sure what I did wrong.

Still, the idea of running old computers off a Linux CD and thereby giving them a lease on life is a good one. The problem, so far, has been my execution.

The search for knowledge continues.