This English issue of our IT weekly newsletter is larger than normal and
specially made for "The Christ School", Orlando, Florida, USA.
For further details, please read on.
Assistance by the Educational
Facilitation Service [1]
This week two groups in our school were assisted by the EFS in working with a
program with which children learn to search in web pages and on the Internet.
Our problem is mainly: how to organize the activities in a school day in a way
that computers are integrated in the regular curriculum.
E-mail project
In our group 4 the e-mail project is ending. Soon the bears will go back to
their own classes.[2]
Letter Fun
The “language” software program for our youngest pupils, that causes us so much
frustration, is waiting for its final test. All names have (for the
umpteenth time....) been put in the
database. We are all going to make a new, but final start. If we again come
upon new difficulties we are going to look for a new program.
Notice board.
This week the ICT dept. received -at last-
our notice board. We have quite some lack of space on our desks and we needed
this board to keep track of our missions. Here you can see it: http://www.rosaboekdrukker.net/index.php?page=615&navpath=,
4371&contents=4372§ion=15&ID=4372&gallerypage=1
Font Size
In the image for our computers we had an irritating issue. The standard font
size of the browser was very large. That way our own website ran out of the
screen. This week it was altered, so that also the pictures on our site can be
totally seen.
(Dirk: my fault, I set the font size to maximum enlargement).
Mathematics Software
We bought a new software program for kids that have difficulties with
arithmetics. It’s a remedial program.
Printer-jamming
The printer on the second floor of our school was out of order this week. Our
technical support was able to reset everything from distance.
Save your old documents!
Since september 2004 we have the new ServerAtSchool. Your old data were made
available for you to copy them to your new location.
WHEN YOU DID NOT DO THIS, YOUR OLD DATA CAN GET LOST!! At the 5th of
May (Liberation Day, when the Netherlands were liberated by the Americans
in 1945) we will delete the old server data. When you have trouble recovering
your data, ask Karin or Dirk
Workstation in Koen's class
We use P2 400, donated by a municipal service. One broke down, Dirk replaced
the power supply and thanks to SABRINE, immediately a new image.
APS IT services
It is virtually impossible to understand the fine print in the contract of our
National Schools Microsoft software supplier. Of course, illegal use is
forbidden, but legal use of Microsoft in schools is almost impossible without
APS IT Services. So, annually, we report the number of computers, how many
full-time jobs we have in the team, etc. In total we pay about €700 (about $
900) for 50 computers per year.
When you got your computers as a donation, they make problems, when they are
better than P2 they make problems, etc.
Gradually we come to the conclusion that it's cheaper to buy normal licenses
and forget about APS-IT services. Or would that be forbidden? Karin pulls her
magnifying glass and starts reading the super fine print.
ServerAtSchool
The server system that is developed at the public primary School Rosa
Boekdrukker had a two page article in the Dutch Linux Magazine of april 2005. The
editor was enthusiastic about the system and its possibilities for primary
schools. Buy this issue of the Linux Magazine! You also find good article on
Open Office.org 2.0; the replacement for Microsoft Office 2003. We will start
using OOo after the summer holidays.
This weeks activities:
- We were at a school in the northern part of Amsterdam to 'sell' SAS. They
like our approach to use second hand workstations and the simplicity of our
approach.
- A school in Hilversum will deploy ServerAtSchool. They have a lot of Mac's
and Peter has some extra work to do to integrate the Mac's in SAS.
- When restoring an image on a client we found a strange error message in the
log files. A call to the help desk, and Peter in Bussum connecting to the
client revealed the problem; a misconnected harddisk cable. It's the strength
of this system that problems can be solved over the phone.
- Last Friday we had a meeting of the cooperation of schools that uses SAS. The
name of the group is now, (thanks to Ton):
STRICT: Scholen Tezamen Rijk met ICT (English: Schools Together Rich with
Information and Communication Technology). ICT is a common name in the
Netherlands for what the rest of the world names 'IT'.
Site@School
At this moment pupils in the 8 th grade of 'The Christ School' in Orlando,
Florida, USA, are proofreading and
correcting the S@S manual.
Thanks to the precise work and sharp eyes of Alex, Alice, Amy Morgan, Angela,
Ann Kallyn, Chelsea, Julie, Matthew, Micah and Taylor the manual of the 2.3
version will be in correct English.
The S@S team expresses its gratitude to the pupils and the teacher (Rich Magee)
who all made this great improvement possible.
Maybe it's also an idea to have a look at the English in S@S itself for the
next version?
And, last but not least, Dirk learns a lot too. Hopefully his English will improve,
at least his 'its' and 'it's'.
The S@S TV module
is now operational. In the hall of our school we have a television set. With an
old computer, a cheap tv video card and Site@School we have a message system
that is low-cost and easy to manage (from home). We can show messages,
pictures, videos, etc.
The release date of version 2.3 is slowly approaching. We released a new beta
version for our testers. At many places in the world people are working now on
the translations. We are grateful for so much help and encouragement.
Have a nice weekend,
Karin,
Dirk
[1] Educational Facilitation Service: A foundation that helps schools with
integrating new methods, school plans, learning disabilities, and all kind of
problems trhat schools run into.
[2] The Bears Project: A teddybear from a school in the Northern Part of Holland stays a couple of
weeks in our school. Every afternoon the bear goes home with another pupil and
spends the night there. The bear tells her/his adventures by email to the other
school. And vice versa. It helps
children to write texts and communicate by email.
Reacties op deze nieuwsbrief graag richten aan de afdeling ICT
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