[Edu-sig] Many Laptops per Adult
So I met with an Eee guy @ Chaos place this afternoon, talking about branding: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157...@n00/3182546603/in/photostream/ Given the XO is so identified with OLPC, we were talking MLPA perhaps -- many laptops per adult. The idea is you check them out from work, differently configured per the job at hand, e.g. sometimes you're presenting about Apache on Linux, other times about Apache on Windows, so might have a "stable" of laptops. I'm not saying every adult cares to have all these laptops, just its a way to market separately from OLPC without muddying the waters. The Eee is an Intel box, doesn't have to run Windows, or maybe get a Dell preloaded with Ubuntu as your other top choice (closer to my configuration). Of course both OLPC and MLPA need funding sources, sponsors. I expect the UN will keep thinking of ways to jump in. Here's some more pro Django stuff on PPUG list (somewhat apropos, in terms of demoing Apache to lifers in cube farms): http://mail.python.org/pipermail/portland/2009-January/000538.html Kirby ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Many Laptops per Adult
If the idea is shared laptops, probably a single laptop configuration would suffice for the following reasons: -- it's likely that most adults are barely competent to configure an operating systems -- "administrators" need to be able to maintain the revolving door laptops with minimal, consistent effort -- hard disks tend to be of sufficient size to host multiple operating systems -- someone grabbed the Ubuntu laptop but she/he needed the Windows laptop for (fill in) -- someone needed the Ubuntu laptop but it was unfortunately already checked out -- individual's need to control their own data -- more efficient would be a single laptop to update perhaps by dropping a new image of a virtual configuration set -- a smaller pool of laptops would be required per "team" of shared users since all laptops would have a shared configuration No matter what, some end-user training would be required to explain how to use whatever laptop the adult was checking out ... therefore, with a SINGLE laptop, a SINGLE instruction booklet would require one extra section explaining how to boot into one's required environment. Shared data (e.g. a slide presentation) could reside in a common folder on each "team" laptop. USB flash drives are relatively inexpensive, hence individuals would keep their unique files on their own USB flash drive. g. ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Many Laptops per Adult
Yes lots of excitement about booting from flash sticks, makes the laptop itself the peripheral, might have no OS at all when powered down, takes on "personality" of whichever stick. Nadine of Friends Peace Teams, doing AVP in Aceh, right through the Tsunami chapter, was all aglow about memory sticks when I saw her in Portland, thinking at least she'd be free of all those viruses and slow poke machines, hampered with cruft, trojans, mostly zombies by the time she gets to 'em.[1] My own DWA / 4D has: Satellite Toshiba x1 (x2 counting mom's when she's around, plus she has a Sony Vaio which I'm not counting); OLPC XO x2; Ubuntu Dell laptops x2; various PC desktops x4 (3 in office, one for Spores etc., working on Spores-based Cockfight! concept, an alternative to violence against chickens (roosters), with real money bets possible, more on Wanderers Yahoo! list (have to knock to get in)). I take different laptops to work depending on whom I'm trying to impress. If it's OSCON, take the Ubuntu Dell and rotate the Compix cube because that's what Miguel de Icaza does and everyone claps (when I do it they stare politely -- need more jokes). When I go to some other gigs, I only take Windows because Linux is still scary to them, as is Python. You have to understand that North Americans live in a state of abject fear, brought on by television and misinformation in the schools. Anything "Linux" or "GNU" means "hacker" and that's just too scary to talk about. The other device we might power up with different memory, depending on driver, is the "Bizmo" or business mobile, a van or bus or even SUV sized vehicle that's designed to keep the busy cube farmer in touch with her workplace, plus offers a meeting space and the ability to put on a circus, if caravaning with others (my preferred model -- unless the culture is biased against anything "gypsy" in which case split up, don't attract attention). Truckers are already very familiar with the "bizmo" cab concept, as they make their livelihoods on the road, just aren't geeks in the same way, so have to haul freight, whereas I'm hauling access to future career possibilities, showing up in schools to signal a bright future (that's the storyboard -- so far just using Razz, a "clown car" (Portland has lots of clown cars [2])). Think of flying into a remote city, going to your company's garage or lot, and checking out a bizmo (like a laptop), and installing your favorite, customized software. Ulmer (not Urner -- different dude), a full time bizmo guy, invented geocaching, uses his software to find ghost towns and mine shafts in the North American southwest.[3] Others would have other goals. Thanks to the separation of hardware from software, you don't have to specialize the fleet too much, just what's on the memory sticks. Science fiction I realize but I think we're moving in this direction, based on what I see in the tea leaves. Kirby [1] http://worldgame.blogspot.com/2008/03/peace-teams.html (Nadine et al) [2] http://mybizmo.blogspot.com/search?q=Razz ( = Subaru Bizmo) [3] http://controlroom.blogspot.com/2005/12/we-win.html (Ulmer, click link for details (not current, but gives the idea)) On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 6:23 AM, gerry_lowry (alliston ontario canada) wrote: > If the idea is shared laptops, probably a single laptop configuration would > suffice for the following reasons: > -- it's likely that most adults are barely competent to configure an > operating systems > -- "administrators" need to be able to maintain the revolving door laptops > with minimal, consistent effort > -- hard disks tend to be of sufficient size to host multiple operating systems > -- someone grabbed the Ubuntu laptop but she/he needed the Windows laptop > for (fill in) > -- someone needed the Ubuntu laptop but it was unfortunately already checked > out > -- individual's need to control their own data > -- more efficient would be a single laptop to update perhaps by dropping a > new image of a virtual configuration set > -- a smaller pool of laptops would be required per "team" of shared users > since all laptops would have a shared configuration > > No matter what, some end-user training would be required to explain how to > use whatever laptop > the adult was checking out ... therefore, with a SINGLE laptop, a SINGLE > instruction > booklet would require one extra section explaining how to boot into one's > required environment. > > Shared data (e.g. a slide presentation) could reside in a common folder on > each "team" laptop. > > USB flash drives are relatively inexpensive, hence individuals would keep > their unique files > on their own USB flash drive. > > > > > g. > ___ > Edu-sig mailing list > Edu-sig@python.org > http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig > ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Many Laptops per Adult
gerry_lowry (alliston ontario canada) wrote: If the idea is shared laptops, probably a single laptop configuration would suffice for the following reasons: That's a very nice idea, as long as you figure out how to make me right-handed, convert my eyes to 20-20, and fix my former colleague's color-blindness. Some customization is (or should be) portable, and it is, in fact, necessary. When I was younger, I used the smallest font that I could read, in order to get the most letters on the screen. In essence I do that now, by choosing a high-resolution display and picking a font carefully for legibility. The letters are larger now in absolute terms, and _much_ larger in pixels, so I suffer with web pages and applications that think they know what size text takes. "One size fits all" is short for "one size fits all that fit." --Scott David Daniels scott.dani...@acm.org ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Many Laptops per Adult
Scott, regarding your vision problems, from your e-mail header, it looks like you're using the virus a.k.a. Windows (User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.17 (Windows/20080914)). Me too. My bread and soy butter world is Gates based. Windows has options to help your text reading: -- I prefer ZoomIt (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434.aspx) -- under Programs, Accessories, Accessibility, you'll find the Magnifier applet. -- with Internet Explorer you can change text size via the View Menu (success here is sometimes suppressed by the individual web page's internal structure) -- Firefox 3 has a Zoom Menu which behaves similar to ZoomIt with the Firefox window. Linux and other O/S's likely have tools akin to ZoomIt and Magnifier. (Fortunately for me, I'm very near sighted, so I just have to move things closer to my eyeballs.) Sinister Scott, I too am left handed not a problem with most laptops. Sucks for hammers, though. B-) Scott, I did not say to avoid customization ~~ remember, however, we are talking SHARED laptops here. When I wrote "probably a single laptop configuration would suffice", I'm talking some form of multi-boot or equivalent. Because today's hard disks are relatively large, it's possible to easily configure a single laptop to run more than a few operating systems. -- As for your former colleague's colour-blindness, while likely not fixable, those with a basic understanding of accessiblity issues will design for issues like blindness, colour blindness, hearing loss, et cetera. Of course, not every disability will be easily supported. Those will advanced forms of paralysis will be disadvantaged in our current world as will fully blind persons. CUSTOMIZATION POSSIBILITIES === Not only can a USB flash drive have one's private data, it could also store individual profiles and other methods of customization. See also kirby's response. regards ~~ gerry ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
Re: [Edu-sig] Many Laptops per Adult
Like with my Ubuntu Dell, I have MySQL which I access in a terminal window (people call that non-GUI but of course the window itself is an animation, even wiggles, has a frame rate (desktop is OpenGL)), then I go > manage.py runserver or whatever it is and get the Django thing going on 127.0.0.1:8000, after which we start poking around in Mathy, my database of mvp mathematicians, very tiny so far, and not all Latin-1 by any stretch of the imagination. I have an Optoma projector, am trying to sell local schools (like Cleveland and Grant) on the idea they need an in-house Django database as a part of math class, student-designed and run, similar to the one I'm showing. Yes, that means teaching about regular expressions and DOM (document object model) maybe instead of so much time on factoring polynomials, repeating the same poopka year to year, degeniusing them, making them think it's all way harder than it is (the first step towards having a docile population, ready for Bud + NFL). I took 'Idiocracy' to Vilnius that time, to explain our culture. Here's the opening screen: http://www.flickr.com/photos/17157...@n00/1023081047/in/set-72157601248882665/ (conference venue, Reval Hotel, Vilnius). Speaking of Django, I'm running a Subversion version and still don't see Microsoft SQL Server as an option, just flavors of Postgres, MySQL, and Oracle. Patrick leans strongly towards Oracle with an "all you can eat" license. Maybe some folks here have war stories about Django? I posted this query to my local group, but the only nibble so far is from Dylan, who thinks my idea of doing all reports as PDFs is kinda stupid: http://mail.python.org/pipermail/portland/2009-January/000542.html Kirby Related reading @ Math Forum: http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=1879421&tstart=0 (last three paragraphs about Django), also mention Ian Benson again (someone I met at the last Pycon, high up in UK curriculum writing, here's a page on the guy): http://tizard.stanford.edu/groups/sociality/wiki/d4276/Visiting_Professorship_(Kingston_University).html ___ Edu-sig mailing list Edu-sig@python.org http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/edu-sig
