The Best, the Better, and ... the Ugly!

Wireless network. That is the aspect I have been working on for some time. We already have two access points in our school (Belkin Pre-N system) but since the board wants the network to cover nearly the whole school, a more professional approach via outsourcing was necessary.
So I contacted three firms, let's call them B, D and F, completely independent from each other, but with the same question: we want a wireless network to cover the whole school. It should be built in two to three years time and in different steps. The system should be flexible so that in the future more computers can log in, and that speed is optimal.
I first contacted firm B who claimed it was necessary to do a "site survey" to be sure how many access points should be necessary. The site survey would cost 75€. In good faith I said that this site survey could be done.
The CEO of firm D appeared to be a former student of mine. It was very nice to meet him again after all these years. We talked about the network and in no time at all, he detected a few weaknesses in the system. Things that firm B hadn't noticed at all...
Finally I had an appointment with two people from firm F, a commercial and a technical representative. I immediately felt the professionality in both sales and technical aspects. The optional offer of Cisco controllers that make V-lans possible and the physical detection of portables on the system was very tempting...
In the end I waited for the offers. B was the last one - I even had to mail them to get the offer in time before I was going to Vietnam for the English and ICT workshop.

During my stay in Vietnam, the school board took the brave decision to invest in the best!

Back in school, I mailed firms D and B that we had decided to take the offer of firm F.
D was a good sport. He sent me a nice mail, hoping we had made a good choice and that we might meet and do business again. I'm sure we will!
B, however, was utterly frustrated and accused me blindly of transferring the results of their site survey to firm F!!! He also claimed more costs for the site survey!!
I have never seen such unprofessional reaction in my life! Apart from the fact that I received the results of the site survey days after I had received the offers of firms D and F, these other firms did not need a site survey of 75€ to get to more or less the same results!!! All they needed was their professional experience...

This was really a case of the Best, the Better, and the Ugly! ;-)

Marianne Wartoft's freeware

I have tried out some freeware for English, developed by Marianne Wartoft. I think the software for phonetics, Sephonics, can be a good help for all students and teachers of English, but particularly for those who are learning English in some remote parts of the world where they have a very limited contact with native speakers. I have experienced in Vietnam that some teachers of English, though full of energy and good-will, had difficulties expressing themselves. I suppose that the Vietnamese language lacks a number of sounds that are used in the English language. If they're not regularly in contact with native speakers, the production of these sounds becomes problematic. Maybe this program can help a little...
Intonation is very important in the Vietnamese language: one evening we were invited in Saigon by Mr Tach for dinner, and the subject of Vietnamese language popped up. They were pronouncing three words, identical to me, but quite different to them because of the intonation, an aspect that I failed to perceive... very interesting!!
Marianne Wartoft has also Selingua to exercise vocabulary and verbs, but the exercises and games are presented mostly in another language (Swedish, German, French, Spanish, but - unfortunately - not Dutch (nor Vietnamese...).
For our Geography colleagues Seterra seems to have been a success for years....
Great to see that some people share their works without the need of financial profit! Thanks to Marianne for that!

ICT-day in Brussels

Today I'm attending two sessions at the ICT-day in Brussels. It's great to see so many people again whom I'd been seeing for years during workshops, Enis and other ICT-projects.
Car drive was not so good today... 15 km traffic jam.
First session is on WEB 2.0: the information-pushing technology (as I am using on my weblog here...). Interesting service sites presented were:
http://www.netvibes.com/ : for collecting the information you like on your browser starting page.
http://docs.google.com/ : for making, publishing, sharing text documents and spreadsheets
http://www.garagetv.be/ : the Telenet version of YouTube to broadcast your personal videos.
http://del.icio.us/ : Practical site where you can save and share your favourites.
http://esnips.com/ : all kinds of stuff you can upload and share...
Then more info on RSS, Atom, XML,... and online exercises...
Although I had some knowledge of these relatively new techniques, the session was interesting... In the IT-world you can always learn MORE!!!
Thanks to Frank Vandewyer.
In the afternoon I attended a presentation by Bart De Smet on the new Office 2007 version. In his own style (glass of water in hand - God preserve him from drowning...) he presented the matter very fluently and full of humour. He kept repeating "interesting features" until he became aware of his oratorial mistake, replacing it with "remarkable aspects", after which he started uttering "interesting features" again...
I'm not going into the details, but the day was not a waste of time, and I met Robert Conings (Provinciale Technische School, Maasmechelen) again, my colleague from the former ENIS-project who gave me a tip on a German ISP http://www.servage.net/ who offers all services, including 250GB on webspace...
I mailed them to ask if they also host Sharepoint services, which we use at school as a "Workweb" (WerkWeb). I'm awaiting an answer...
By the way: at noon, I helped Henk Bakker, presenting his software "Nedercom" which we have been using for three years at Xaveriuscollege. Also an interesting - sorry - awsome experience to see how education people react on commercial products... ;-)

Great reactions on posting

This evening I want to thank Karl, Léon, Marc, Marc, Marc, Dirk (Lambik), Michael, Haloewie, René, Thierry and Joëlle for the quick and marvelous reaction on the mail I have sent, containing the announcement of the new site!
Strange that I hadn't heard in a long time from most of you (and you hadn't heard from me...), but that was really thrilling. I continue to find this medium the biggest revolution since rock 'n roll!
Today I met a former student of mine, Raf Verbeeck, who is head-deep in the IT-business - his mobile emitting noise every three minutes or so... Apart from technical stuff, we talked of our Jesuit school and his quote was one of the best I have ever heard: This school? I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, but I'd surely send my own kid to it!

Great to get to know them!

The visit of our international colleagues was a great experience to me. The group arrived a bit late because of traffic problems (we are used to that in the Antwerp area...), so the school tour was cut short. Before that, I was able to chat with people from the organisation VVOB and with Jan 't Sas, journalist at the education magazine "Klasse", who later on wrote an on line article of the event (Dutch). On the group's arrival I was very pleased to see Simone Goetschalckx again. We used to be study-mates at university in the 1970's. Now she is responsible for the VVOB projects in Vietnam and Cambodia. Also great was meeting Jan Geusens with who I have started to prepare the workshops I will give in HCMC (Saigon) later this year in December.
Headmaster Johan and I welcomed the visitors in our "polyhall". Johan explained the structure of our school organisation and the importance of ICT within that.

Then the group was split to attend three lessons in rotation.

The third form students were attending an informatics lesson by Ilse Heughebaert in our new computerclass R02. Many videos and pictures were taken by the Kenian, Cambodian and Vietnamese colleagues!

Our M04 classroom contains a projection system and 4 more computers used for group work or remedial exercises. Dré De Laet was teaching aesthetics to 6th form students there. Each visitor group was received with a warm welcome in English. The students were very enthousiastic of the visit as well!Finally the 1st form was having a history lesson (ICT-based) by Ann Onraedt, who amazed the visitors by the way she integrated IT in her lesson. They were also a bit puzzled because the students didn't speak English, but she explained that English starts from 2nd form onwards in our school system.

Later on there was coffee, but also Belgian beers, which were very welcome to most of the visitors! Jan 't Sas had some interviews, and I presented the school's situation and future plans for ICT.
The presentation can be downloaded.

Finally the core VVOB-team, including my good friend Marc Gorremans and his wife, finished this lovely day at the restaurant Park West where we had a great dinner and where I got to know the first person to love scorzonerae... (Jan!)