Pidgin

OK, for most everyone this is a no brainer. Pidgin according to their website:

Pidgin is a chat program which lets you log in to accounts on multiple chat networks simultaneously. This means that you can be chatting with friends on MSN, talking to a friend on Google Talk, and sitting in a Yahoo chat room all at the same time.

I use pidgin every day as part of my work communication. We have several sites spread all over the state and we can communicate instantly and painlessly. The best aspect of this mode of communication for me is that it can be asynchronous unlike the telephone. When the telephone rings I have to stop what I am doing, whether it is teaching a class or working on a computer; conversely, if someone sends me an IM I can get the message and reply when it is convenient for me.

Pidgin supports several networks and you can use them all simultaneously and seamlessly. Typically, I am logged in to Twitter, AIM, Yahoo and occasionally IRC but one can also use Myspace, gadu gadu, MSN, Google or several others.
One feature that most people don't know about is the ability to send messages to mobile phones from Pidgin. You just select start a new conversation and type in +########## where the #s would be the phone number including the area code.

Of course Pidgin is free and open source or I wouldn't be mentioning it here as you well know by now...

Nonstop Crunchy

It is a pretty long story but you probably surmised that already.

My best friend and I love to go adventuring in the Asian District and I found in an Asian market there a coffee coated peanut product from Thailand and I absolutely love coffee.  On the side of the can the product was described as being "nonstop crunchy" in broken English. At that moment I knew I had to buy it. I mean, how can you not purchase something if it nonstop crunchy? Come on, will it ever stop being crunchy or is it truly nonstop?
Hearing the angels sing, I purchased it immediately and subsequently, many times since. Ultimately it became a joke amongst friends, coworkers and family. One would ask me for example, " are you stop crunchy yet?" and I might even reply that I was "dangerously low on crunchy."
Then somehow it became a general term for a state of being and could even be used as "stop stepping on my crunchy" if someone were doing something to annoy you.
The product no longer uses nonstop crunchy in its description which is a shame in a way but it remains crunchy nevertheless.
At one point, I purchased nonstopcrunchy.com which I still own and set up email accounts at that domain I so I have nospam@nonstopcrunchy.com etc.
I had some stuff on the website but it is currently just parked even though I still own it.


That was a long rambling answer but it is probably the shortest one coming even close to explaining it. I can explain more in the future if necessary

Here's hoping your crunchy is truly nonstop...

Nonstop Crunchy (You can call me "Crunchy" for short if you want)

Free Stuff

"For education, free software makes it possible to teach everything using computer tools: art, science, maths, computer science, music, you name it."
Mark Shuttleworth, Founder of Ubuntu

This pretty much sums it up nicely. For just about any software you could need to use in education there is a free alternative. I will not try to explain at length what "Free" means when used in Free and Open Source or FLOSS as others have done so many times and occasionally quite eloquently. Suffice it to say that Free, when used this way does not always mean free of charge but free to use or modify as you see fit as long as you comply with the license such as the GPL, LGPL, BSD etc.

Today I am going to start with the extremely and almost painfully obvious for those of us involved in open source advocacy. OpenOffice.org

Alas, many educators know nothing about this very powerful and free office suite. I teach in a prison 4 days every week so that offenders can have real, marketable job skills when they are released back into society and don't return to a life of crime and ultimately, incarceration in a revolving door cycle. Almost universally they face serious financial hardship when they first get out and I always give them a copy of Openoffice.org that they can use since they would not be able to afford a legitimately licensed copy of a Microsoft suite.
OpenOffice as it is usually called, even though the proper name includes the .org contains:

* Word processing
* Spreadsheets
* Presentations
* Graphics
* Databases

It is also fully compatible with MS Office and is even able to use the new file types that were implemented in Office 2007.

There is a very small learning curve as well. If someone has any experience with an office suite, then they will be able to use OpenOffice.

Novell Netware

I am now administering another network for another computer lab in my building with a Novell Netware server on it. Wow, I am so surprised to see how quickly I became completely spoiled since I eliminated mine. I built a Samba file server and run it headless and it took no time at all and love it (not just because it is Linux.) If I hadn't been stuck with Novell I don't think I would ever use it. I know that there is no way that I would choose that solution for my labs.

TD&L

Greetings from inside a prison!

Ok, as I write this I am not setting in my prison office but that is where I work 4 days / week. I cannot serve as an official voice here for my state department but I can tell you a small part of what I do with more to follow in later posts...

The Transportation, Distribution and Logistics program prepares female students for employment in warehouse or distribution environments by teaching them industry specific competencies. Students get a lab-based, hands-on experience with industry specific equipment, including computer applications emphasizing inventory and database management. The program capacity is 12 students who are currently incarcerated by the Oklahoma Department of Corrections. The program length is 6-8 months.

I designed the program and started instruction at Mabel Bassett on 8-12-2005

Skills Centers Home page

Technology in Education really means...

I am a professional Career and Technology educator so it would make sense for me to understand what technology in education really means. Alas, the question is not as simple as it may seem at first glance.

Is technology what we are teaching or is technology what we use to teach?

The answer is yes and no. As a career and technology educator we teach topical technology such as computer network or repair; moreover we may even teach specifics like Microsoft Excel or Ubuntu Server. We also use technology as an instructional tool when we teach such as a computer network for online testing, computer based attendance or even an overhead projector.

In the next series of blog postings we will be exploring both sides, as a tool to teach and as a subject we teach and how they are interrelated.