Xaco Hotspot

Today was testing day for the wireless hotspot system at school, and, by God, it worked! Only on the ground floor and only for the classes near the teacher room. During the holidays the rest of the network will be installed (three dozen of access points) and tested. Finally our partner Ferranti will do the final tuning!

Manipulating pictures for publicity

Read more on this smartboard-aspect in my photobog!

How Wireless is Wireless?

Just a picture to show you the state of my working space at school. The blue spaghetti is the incoming cable system which in the coming weeks will connect the server to 36 access points all over the school. From that moment on the whole school will be one big hotspot, and all the teacher's laptops will be connected to the network through it.
The joke of the week was: someone coming in, saying "what are all the cables for?" and me answering "For the wireless network...". ;-)

T - 3 and counting

In three days, I will be flying to Saigon...
The preparation is in overdrive. I have prepared a Blackboard course on EloV. I have received 30 free accounts for 30 days... I'll try to find a solution to make the content available for the workshop attendants for a longer period... I'll probably give them a CD which I will prepare in HCMC.
I will go into detail when I'm over there. I'll probably have to change quite a lot on the spot... Important is to take as much material as I can, so I can improvise if necessary...
Tomorrow, late in the evening, I'll be checking my photo equipment. Charge the batteries, clean the lenses, check the memory... In the second half of my trip I will be concentrating on that... photography in Mui Ne and Phu Quoc. Although that's in 10 days, it seems like an eternity...
By the way: do you know what the weather is like over there?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/5day.shtml?world=0157
Just check this out!!
During daytime, my energy goes to school business! Busy, quite busy with wireless audit! But I'm also upgrading the two computer classes with about 10 programs and upgrades. Geography pushes its ambition to 4 programs! Google Earth, OrbitGis, and two programs on "water in our environment". Hope the other subjects will follow...
Tomorrow I'll be programming another 14 computers, upgrade one from Win2000 to Win XP pro, secure a data projector and have a meeting on network-matters...
Had some very sympathetic reactions on my coming Saigon-trip today. My old friend EM embraced me and wished me good luck, three other colleagues tapped me on the shoulder. Some even wanted to know what I was going to do there! Of course there are the sceptic ones... I don't comment on them. Suppose they still have a long way to go. If they want some help: I'll be there. You know what a push from me can do... ;-)
Anyway: life is short and if you can add to the evolution of man - just a little bit - on your own level... just go for it! ;-)

T-10

T minus 10! In about ten days I leave for Vietnam. Preparation is taking 100% of my free time now... All practical things have been arranged. I have the tickets, passport and visa. Hotels have been booked. Transport arranged. All I need to do is prepare the final content of the workshops. It won't be easy. I had a short conversation with Hans Defour on Monday. He was there and encountered mainly linguistic problems. Since I will be having an audience of ESL teachers, I probably won't have the problem, except if they weren't fed any Beatles songs during their studies. Then they might have a slight problem understanding my Liverpool-ish accent... ;-)

Tonight I downloaded the mindmapping freeware program FreeMind (I loved the name!) and made the scheme (which is hardly readable, but I'll present it in another way further on...).
I'll try to work as much off line as possible since many schools over there don't have the facilities of broadband internet connections for complete computer classes. So I intend to work on Simulation games ic SimCity, which has a rich treasure of vocabulary on different themes like economy, traffic, landscapes, social networks, functions, housing, urban infrastructure,... Combining the gaming experience of SimCity with mindmaps or webquests, wordlists and interactive crosswords might do the trick! Further on some tools will be presented like Zarb and reviewing in Word (just ordered the English version of Zarb www.zarb.de). About 5 years ago the former VVKSO-team for ICT in the English lesson, led by my dear friend Karel Van Rompaey studied a large amount of CDROMs for English Language Learning, and of all these programs, MacMillan's Reward series was the best. I'll be testing three levels with the HCMC colleagues!
To give creativity a boost, I will present the Poëzome site, which I will adjust a little, adding a few translations of the interactive poems.
Finally I'll introduce them to the Underworld of Zork, an pre-windows program from ancient times... 1981. Even the most basic dos-computer can handle that, and in those days this adventure game was a real success. Students even started a Zork-club to play the game at noon, and they drew hundreds of maps of the mazes in the underworld... Even the humour is great: if you get frustrated after hours of fruitless treasure hunting and in your final despair you type sh** or f**k, the program answers with a cool phrase: "Such language in a high-class establishment like this!"... Students love it, and so do teachers (to put it in a confirming addition to a positive remark!)
Anyway, I'll give you the html-version of the mindmap:

Workshop HCMC

• Techniques
  
  • Mindmapping
  • Groupwork / pairwork
  • Webquest
  • Discussing
  • Gaming
  • Simulating


• Content
  
• Presentation
• Cyber-poetry (creativity)
• International communication program (example)
• Hands-on
• Tools
• WordClassifier
• CrosswordCompiler
• Wordweb
• Review-function (Word)
• Zarb (Exercise-generator in Word)
• Adventure game
• Zork (The underworld of ...
• Simulation
  SimCity 4
• Services
• Internet searching
• CDROM / DVD
• ELO (Electronic Learning Environment)
• Online software
• Weblog


• Activities
  
  • Exploring the net for classroom material
  • Cooperating with colleagues
  • Preparing lesson plans, based on the webquest model
  • Exploring an ELO and publishing material on it
  • Try out and evaluate games to use in class
  • Use WordClassifier as a text or wordlist analyser
  • Use Zarb to create exercises in Word
  • Explore and evaluate a closed CD-ROM program for remediation

Investing in old technology...

A phone call from my mother invoked an uncomfortable feeling in me: she told me she and my dad had bought two VCR-recorders... I told her: "You want me to come and install them?" "No, the others aren't broken, yet!"
She is afraid that in a short while there won't be any VCRs in the shops any more, and that, if theirs breaks down, they won't be able to watch all the tapes they have...
I can understand the logic, yet it makes me feel uncomfortable, since the latest HD-DVD-recorders are very user-friendly, and you can digitise the whole lot of tapes... But that's a lot of work too... which you don't have if you have a social choir life as my mum has... ;-)
In short, for myself and for school I prefer investing in new equipment. No unnecessary luxury, but hardware that can resist the future for at least 5 years and that is right for the way it will be used. No second-hand computers for our school: if you work with old stuff you need three or for times the necessary manpower to keep it all going... And in the end it is more expensive, and very often out...
Fortunately people aren't supposed to be treated like computers, so I hope to be around as a computer-wizzz for a while... ;-) Anyway, they won't find a bin that is big enough to dump me...

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!

International visit!

On Friday November 17th we received a group of people involved in the development of IT in education. They were invited by VVOB (Vlaamse Vereniging voor Ontwikkelingssamenwerking en Technische Bijstand) who develop education and environment projects. The group consisted of people from Belgium, Vietnam, Cambodia and Kenya.
Here is the program I worked out:

Welcome to Xaco (Xaveriuscollege – Borgerhout)
Schedule:
13.30-14.15: welcome-speech by the headmaster, Johan Verschueren, and school visit.
14.30-15.05: attending 3 lessons in smaller groups. Switching classrooms after 15 minutes.

• R02: Ilse Heughebaert : Informatics
• M07: Ann Onraedt : History
• M04: Dré De Laet : Aesthetics

15.05-15.30: Drinks at the Polyhall
15.30-16.00: Presentation of the ICT-project at Xaco (Polyhall)
16.00-16.30: questions, ideas, opinions,…
16.30: end

And the winner is...

During the last couple of days I have been busy installing big multimedia equipment in the multi-usage projection hall of our school (advise and delivery by Prodiason). Great stuff we put up there: a 5 meter wide silver screen, weighing some 150kg was hung on the ceiling by Erik and me, assisted by Steve. Height of ceiling: 4m. Want to know how this magic was done... Just type you request...
Elpro large electrol of 5m x 3,65m with key switch for preventing undesired use... only: the wire-scheme was drawn in black and white... great if you have Black, Blue, Brown and Green/yellow as wires... Also the key-switch was suffering from a tight box... so it was hell trying to stuff all the wired in there with my thick fingers... one moment I felt like a robot-gynaecologist... but what an experience when that screen came down... slowly, as desired!
And then the projector: a Sanyo PLV-80: great machine since the zoom and lens shift make the projection flexible whatever source you use. The projector was hung on the ceiling at some 12m from the screen.
The effect is great: this evening the members of the board came to look at their investment and the nodding was great when I showed them the opening scenes of the classic "Easy Rider": Dennis and Peter motor-surfing this bright brand-new screen! Board meetings don't always need to be dull... ;-)
Tomorrow's the first movie show for the students... wonder what their reaction will be...
Today the hall was used for a conference, organised by the Silver Museum of Antwerp. They loved the equipment... I also lent them our Gyro-mouse by Gyration for the presentation of their PowerPoints. In the beginning it's a bit tricky getting used to, pointing and twisting in thin air, but once you get the feeling for it and use the wrist to move the cursor, you are once more amazed by the miracle called IT-techniques...
I shot a few pictures of today's event... I will show them later!

First trial

On Wednesday November 14th our projection facility was used for the first time by the Zilvermuseum Sterckshof who organised a conference at our school. Here a panoramic picture of the projection facilities.

Current ICT-situation at school (hardware and services)

Hardware situation. Currently we have installed a fifth-generation computer class at our school (R02). We have two computer classes - one of 30+1 and one of 25+1 computers. The big class (OLC - Open Learning Center) was installed with Pentium 4 desktops and CTR-monitors. The newest (R02) contains Dell Dimension Pentium D desktops with NEOVO 17" flatscreens.
Both classes and about twenty computers in many other locations are connected to a Windows 2003 server. Another server is used for the administration network. In all we have 100 computers, 15 printers and 12 data-projectors in 2 networks.
The services we use on Internet are:

• web hosting of the schoolsite (http://www.xaveriuscollege.be/)
  
• MS sharepoint for filesharing and office-extension (http://werkweb.xaveriuscollege.be/)
  
• mail service (http://webmail.xaveriuscollege.be/)
  
• Online evaluationsystem (http://www.schoolonline.be/)
  
• Broekx administration system (http://www.broekx.be/)
  
• EloV Blackboard Learning Platform (http://elov.vvkso.be/) (formerly http://www.elov.be/)
  

Software licenses were acquired via group-licensing of Sumika and MS KISS licensing for Microsoft products via ZEB-computers.
For Dutch remedial and drill exercises we use the Nedercom software from Henk Bakker.
There are more programs that we use, and which I will mention later on.