Mother's Day

Attended what will probably be my last AA noon meeting for this year's FL excursion in Kissimmee today. Very moving meeting, especially from mothers at the extremes of the sobriety spectrum and in between;

• a newly sober mother agonizing over the parenting mess cased by her addiction, and loosing children because of it
• to a few in their first year expressing gratitude for repair occurring with their own moms and with their own children,  
• to old timers full of gratitude and appreciation for the gifts that sobriety has brought to those relationships, giving AA the credit as the platform that made the journey possible.

Lots of tears there. That's what I like about AA meetings, real people, real stuff, the raising of the human being to fullness. There were some young ones running around distributing a rose (someone had donated a bunch)  to each mom. So in front of us joyful children, with available parents. Fully available, body, mind and spirit.

I was reflective about what sobriety has meant to my relationships with my kids. As a drinking parent I was mostly there physically and financially but mostly absent mentally and spiritually. Even on the physical and emotional level it was obligatory and resentful. Scouts, soccer games, school plays, concerts, taxi services, on and on, yuk. Time and resources away from what me, myself and I wanted. On top of it, a house and yard needing constant attention. We bought a fix-it-up starter home in 1977 and it stayed in fix-it-up condition for a long time. No shortage of grand plans and grandiose ideas ("let me get a beer and figure this out") but way short on action and execution. ("the game is on!"). Endless blame and resentments, promises broken, frustration.

Then a moment of grace, a glimmer of hope, a willingness to try something different.

Then sobriety started and a journey of growing up. 31 years later, a lot more balanced, a lot less resentful, grandchildren that have never seen me drink and children fully aware of AA's role in bringing them some semblance of a father. Still flawed for sure, but what alternate universe would there be had this not occurred? We know that addiction is progressive and affects everyone, but we also know the recovery is progressive and affects everyone.

And father is grateful for the spouse (and great mother) who demanded I put in those appearances and met minimal commitments so that the family unit could survive until it could thrive, thanks to AA.

I'd like to think that my efforts at least put a dent in the cycle, and serve as example. Small efforts, but leveraged by huge contributions of energy and perspective from the program and the fellowship. So after 31 years, another magical meeting, a short hour on a Sunday morning to remember that life, sober life, is good indeed. Happy Mothers day

American Mirror - Bernie, Hillary and Trump

Well, Cruz and Kasick bowed out of the GOP primary so its just Trump now to represent the regressive, repressive fear-based side of American cultural world-views.  We still have Bernie soldiering on for the progressive vision and of course Hillary carrying the status quo banner for the powers that be (don't be fooled by the Bernie-forced rhetoric, she is Illuminati all the way.)

So now its like a perfect mirror for the culture as a whole and the individuals in it. Well done! Stark, easy choices, that’s what we like and no matter which of Hillary or Bernie moves on, the general election choice will be a no-brainer (for those that get off the couch and actually vote, that is). Problem is, a Democrat choice for status quo may not generate enough turnout to overcome the energized USA uber alles crowd, who will turnout for Trump. Will I turn out? Well if it is Trump/Bernie general election sure I will, the revolution he speaks of (and has been working on his whole life) is long overdue. Yeah, I was a Clinton cheerleader back in the 90's . Who could deny budget surpluses and that health care needed fixing? But I did not see coming the downside of de-regulation, trade deals, and jailing the underclass (Bernie did). But in hindsight, Bill just set the table for the Bush/Cheney  gravy train. Now he's in bed with Nestle, the company that believes humans don't have a right to free water.

I for one am not convinced that the corporate takeover of America (and its resulting continued decline for the 99%) will proceed any slower under a Hillary reign. The confusion and power struggles under a Trump reign would most likely result in continued gridlock (better) ; unless a Cheney-like running mate is named, one who can work the system and  soften the worries for some middle voters and alleviate the fears of power brokers(worse).  But there is this: electing such a poor excuse of a human being (bigot, pathological liar, demagogue etc. etc, etc.), will wreck the GOP for decades. They will have to redefine, perhaps giving rise to more parties. And I have a suspicion he would be more sincere about overturning Citizens United than Hillary.

In short, maybe Trump hastens the revolution more than Hillary? The GOP in recent years has given us administrations led by amiable idiots, bumbling fools, and shills for oil and war profiteering, why not top it off with Trump's cup-runneth-over blend of pathologies? Maybe 4 years looking in the Trump mirror would be good for the electorate. I KNOW the stand up comics and late night talk show hosts are salivating for 4 years of material that writes itself.

So my advice to my fellows is to make it a more perfect mirror; do what you can in the very near term to make sure its a Bernie/Trump choice rather than a Hillary/Trump choice. Ask your friends to check the reflection and decide whether or not they really believe in the idea of America at all. 

New job in Northborough

Yea, I have accepted a new position as technology specialist at the Peaslee School (K-5). It should be a lot of fun being back in an intense learning environment. I can't wait to get started. I'll be looking after the IT lab and the schools technical infrastructure while helping teachers and students to leverage technology towards improved learning skills. Long list of secondary activities. Usually this position includes web sites, photography and AV stuff, which are fun also. Looks like they have not used LOGO to introduce math and programming concepts so I'll be trying to develop some reusable curriculum assets for them as well.

love to learn, learn to love.....its a good day.

Braggin on our daughter Allyson

Hey our daughter Allyson, an educator in New Hampshire, was selected to be one of those representing the state to this summers educational summit in Washington DC. She is a peach and will advocate for the 'right stuff'. Proud daddy.

Mass "Race to the Top" proposal

The Massachusetts proposal (PDF) for a portion of the 4.35 billion funding
was listed on the US DOE page here

The PDF at the Federal site is unreadable, probably someones secretary scanned it badly...
the original back at the statehouse is much better

Seymour Papert

Just finished Seymour's book "The Children's Machine" and posted my notes on my Edu 21st page, see link over there --> . Lots of really good stuff that we should have evolved towards a lot faster.He wrote it in 1993, and here we are 17 years later with the fallout of "Leaving More Children Behind than Ever" , having followed on the heals of the earlier "America 2000".

Hopefully the new administration will sponsor more variation and less hot air than the last.
In the course of writing my notes I came across this wonderful talk given by Seymour in 1999 for the Diversity Task Force convened by Vice President Al Gore. Check it out...I love this guy.


Turns out he is working still in Maine with at risk youth ( similar to the institution I was working for earlier RFK Children's Action Corps ) (and whose school unfortunately now is without teachers for technology, music, art, media due to state budget cutbacks)

One Laptop per Child 2012 XO-3 design

http://blog.laptop.org/2009/12/24/xo-3-concept/

Open Learning Networks

http://ineducation.ca/

excerpt about: articles and reviews of works that explore ideas in teacher education, as well as broader and more inclusive discussions in education. We envision works that augment the latitude and significance of the idea of education, while acknowledging the ubiquitous growth of the digital arts and sciences in the everyday practice of life and how that might (in)form notions of formal and informal education.

the first article in the first issue, the case for Open Learning Networks, provides the rational and research behind the teaching style that I just blundered into, by intuition. I moved the RFK library pages into the cloud in 2007 and began student assignments in the cloud in the 2008 summer session, continuing that fall. The RFK infrastructure at Google persists to this day (unfortunately I left prior to full transfer to teachers). Some of the newer operating systems coming down the pike for netbooks (Chrome OS, Jolicloud, Moblinux, Android) will really lend themselves to this model. The article goes deeper into functional partitioning which would be needed to implement on any kind of scale.

Happy New Year...rocky

The Intergenerational School

Saw a great report on the Intergenerational School on PBS.
What a terrific idea, pairing senior mentors with young ones for reading and various kinds of school assistance. Here is one in OHio. Someone should start a similar charter school here....

Tech Tip: Poor man's document camera

Want a document camera but school does not have the 300-400 $$???

• Get a 14$ gooseneck web cam for USB. I like the Hue HD web cam.
• duck tape it to a couple dead hard drives for weight, and plug into the USB port of your laptop.
  
• Rotate the image 180 if you want to place it pointed down above a document. Prrrresto! , poor man's doc camera and it works great!

Education in the 21st century

Well, down the rabbit hole we go again.....
The US is proclaiming that education is a big priority, but the layoffs in the schools continue unabated.

The non-profit sector that services the most unfortunate among us, who for one reason or another can't hack it in the public schools, really took it on the chin with huge cutbacks in the departments of youth services (DYS) and children and families (DCF) that trickled down to layoffs at Robert F. Kennedy Children Action Corps where I was teaching technology. They had already killed the shop courses in 2008 where kids learned how to use tools and build stuff. The media/library person left that year and was never replaced and then Title 1 reading was gone. Now Art and the IT courses are gone. I was teaching Career Exploration and Social Skills/Character Ed as well so presumably they are gone too. Down to just basic ELA, Math, Science, History , I guess, with an emphasis on teaching to the MCAS. Pretty sad when you think that this is the generation upon which we are pinning our hopes of human survival.

We have all these grand ideas about the direction that education SHOULD go in ( emphasis on critical thinking, creativity , collaboration, technology, etc) but the governance is driving something (standardized testing) with its funding and its messaging , that is about 180 degrees out.

Now the NFL is pushing their Play60 exercise program for kids while we are building schools with no playgrounds and no recess.

We are shipping money out of Washington to keep teachers working but at the local level they get laid off.

We send IT jobs overseas because there are insufficient skilled workers (they say) but we have not the will to skill up our own kids?

Confused? Just ask Alice....its a bummer.

ubuntu server notes

• installing web admin
• 
  

Perl tips

• located a GD module that would install just do at command line
  

  ppm install http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/ppms/GD.ppd

• Good examples at http://linuxgazette.net/issue83/padala.html
• also need to load GD:graph and GD::text
  ppm install http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/ppms/GDTextUtil.ppd
  ppm install http://theoryx5.uwinnipeg.ca/ppms/GDGraph.ppd

Ghosting dual boot

trying to ghost dual boot Tecra M2

• Ghost10 needs to be installed on windows before it can image a drive..there does not seem to be a way to boot it except for recovery
• Ghost2003 with external usb dvd seems to boot OK but hangs trying to get the MFT table
• 
  

Master Plan Notes

This is a reminder to put together a long term IM development plan.

• include using Basecamp as the project management platform
• establish development platform , and goal to move finished, tested apps to production server
• start developing some sharepoint expertise with long term goal of RFK wide intranet
• Pilot use of chat technology for non-emergency school-residence communications as well as replacement for several classes of residence logging, are transcripts good enough?
  
• Develop prioritized list of development projects
• Infrastructure for generic form based data collection to email to implementation agent, essentially single step nworkflow except that email can be combined with processing
• Infrastructure for multi-step work flow, essentially web based checklist augmented with links to forms based steps, whose steps yield results that tie back into the flow
• Prime candidates for collaborative data collection and reporting are
  

1. face sheets
2. incident reporting
3. BDM and Grades
4. take a look at external data requirements
   

Edubuntu dapper release is out....

This note will capture learnings from The new Edubuntu release

We are back -Fun with Dapper and X11

I have not been back here in a while....at present I am messing with
bringing up the lastest Edubuntu release at school....the flight 6 dapper drake release
http://www.ubuntu.com/testing/flight6

It looks really great, super integration with our windows network.
So far though I cannot get AVI's to play.

Had a really great vacation visiting Dianne's Uncle Dick and Aunt Suzie in Fort Worth Texas.....

IE, FireFTP and managing web based content

was musing lately about the aggravation of maintaining web content in todays ISPscape.

One of mine (1&1) has these really long FTP usernames constructed by concatening the already obscure base username with the ftp site name...so you wind up with impossible to remember access info like username: u12787652333teamsys password:yourpassword.

Now if you maintain things from multiple computers, its gets tough to sync all your access info for the various client tools you use...e.g. ftp, ws-ftp, etc. etc. ......

Lots of my web content is in nature of tech tips, link lists, cheat sheets etc. I would really like something like a index list of files at the site, inside my browser window, and a [ right-mouse, open-with-program] type of functionality that would bring up the file, and write it back on exit.

The ISP had this FAQ note about FTP'ing with Internet Explorer that stated that you could upload this way with ftp://nodename.com/ types of URLS. I have seen this before as a way of reading web files , but writing??? no way , I assumed the author was confused, but decided to try it. They never actually stated HOW to do it, so I thought , well just put in the access info and see if some new IE wizzy pops up. None did, as expected so I was about to leave when I thought to give the old cut,copy, paste paradigm a try.....it worked!!

Well thats nifty, I thought , but I detest IE on general principle, so I bet Firefox would support this as well but it didn't. Then came across FireFTP extention.

Could not get it to work from the address line as advertized but did get it to work from the tools menu. I was impressed with its speed and usability, integration with Firefox, ability to manage accounts etc. Operated very similar to my old favorite WS_FTP.

None of this solved my problem with access information portability, or gave me exactly what I was looking for , but got me closer.....

bye for now.

Here we go!

Well , nephew Tyler inspired me and I now join the blogosphere with my travels thru education. I am a new teacher , teaching computer and technology to special needs boys ages 7-18. After being in the computer industry for 30 years, the change has been something of a culture shock and I am struggling with how to bring the fruits of the last 20 years of technology growth to a cash strapped and struggling institution.

I have a number of on-going projects and hope to document good results here for technology teachers who might be in a similar situation. I am taking a good look at Edubuntu, a Linux distribution with a focus on third world eductational institutions. Though I am working right here in Massachusetts, the place where I work is 3rd world in all important respects, believe me.

Well by for now, and thanks Tyler...good luck in Australia.......