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I received my CR 48 in a fit of excitement, but immediately upon turning it on, I had my first encounter with it’s fatal flaw: network incompatibility. As the OS entirely relies upon wireless internet access for the setup, it is subject to all of the typical annoyances associated with WiFi. As I love and work on the UC, Irvine campus, I am subject to their security protocols for my internet access, a situation familiar to many academics and students. Upon turning on my computer, I was unable to authenticate my Google account until floundering into Guest mode and being redirected to our university’s network authentication page. After 1 blissful, naive hour online I turned off my computer…little did I know how dear that hour was.

Upon next turning on my computer, I found that I was no longer able to access the internet, nor could I find or access the network authentication page. My new notebook was effectively bricked. Thankfully Google has amazing tech support in the form of Chrome Ninjas (who sadly it seems only work Monday through Friday). After 3 days of tech support involving entering the elusive command prompt  (open using ctrl + alt + t), resetting the computer (using the hidden developers switch), and very pleasant conversations with a knowledgeable ninja, we resolved the problem. My own network, UCI Resnet, had assigned me an IP address that had previously been blocked.

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Moral of the story:

Chrome OS relies upon the most fragile, ill-supported segment of our technology structure: the WiFi network. This is often where valuable websites are blocked, legacy settings & code wreck havok, and hardware fails. My husband, a teacher, refuses to test the CR 48 on his school’s network since they already block Google products such as Gmail, Google Calendar, and Gtalk. He complains often that though they use Google Apps, they block the generic versions of Google for his students and himself. Even on an open network, a small error bricked the entire notebook.

Beyond this, the CR 48 shows promise for schools. Since the OS is entirely cloud supported, users can switch between computers with ease. At parties, I don’t mind passing my computer around to others because even strangers can sign into their own accounts without my worrying for my files and settings. The OS starts up in seconds, not minutes. The memory is solid state so more durable. Applications, extensions, and themes belong to the user, not the computer, and  install quickly upon the initial sign in. The number of applications is growing, though Chrome still does not support Silverlight, Java, or most media players.

Overall, I feel that Chrome OS shows promise and could be considered for schools that have “Gone Google” in another couple of years.

What would the use of Google Apps on a Chome OS mean for Education? Many schools are wary of a one-laptop-per-child program because of replacement costs, home environments, or other issues. Schools may instead implement laptop carts, but then they face the problem of student data storage and the high cost of licensing applications. Another issue is keeping the network secure while still allowing students access to the data they need (their own, their teachers’, the web).

The Chrome OS is built around signing in to the Google network. This has already been accomplished on Google’s Android OS for mobile phones. A single sign on (on the phones this is done only during the initial setup) and all contacts, email, calendar, and other web-based information is available. In Chrome OS, a single sign on brings the student into the Google net (or possibly the school’s intranet) and then through a seemless interface out into the internet. One beauty of cloud computing already experienced by mobile users is the ability to access information through multiple devices, even transferring phones without moving any data. Chrome OS takes this a step further by allowing access to all this information through the same UI, Chrome browser.

Of course this places us in another awkward problem, this one philosophical rather than practical. How much do we trust cloud computing? Not only for the reliability (which Sidekick users can attest is not entirely reliable), but for privacy concerns. Should we allow Google, or any other company, to own the physical aspect of our data, including manuscripts, contact information, or financial information?

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/story?id=6699048&page=1

On a side note, the students groaned everytime the video would lag.

Last week, Prof G (pseudonym to protect the awesome) was reminded that he scheduled class in his syllabus on Veteran’s Day.  He told the class that though the building would be closed, he hoped we would all still attend.  As the course is dense (and we are all naive first years), we consented to class on our day off.

On Tuesday in the late afternoon, I showed up to the building at the usual time for class. We began class promptly and had just finished passing out the handouts for the day when the lights and power go out (did I mention the classroom has no windows).  We all sat in the glow of my laptop (it’s statistics so everyone else brings paper) stunned for a second.   We all walked out to the windowed foyer and one of the women in the class called maintenance.

We pondered why the power was out for around 15 minutes until we all slowly decided that, well, the show must go on.  We collected our belongings and moved out into the foyer.  Prof G began to use the windows as his whiteboard and we sat on the ground or couches.  After a bit, two of the older students ran back into the darkness of the building and returned with a wheeled whiteboard.  Prof G changed his expectations for the syllabus as he raced against the coming darkness.

Fortuitously, as he finished the last set of notes for the new goal, the lights returned.  We took a break and reconviened in the more comfortable chairs in the classroom.  We easily finished the lecture for the night and were dismissed around an hour early.  In explaining this to my fiance when I returned home, he commented that this should be a poster with the caption Determination.

So, even in a classroom without computers, technology can fail, but even so, determination on the part of teachers and students can mean productivity continues.

First, the assignment is several questions on general knowledge.  The young girl’s first reaction is to open up her web browser to Google.  For her, general knowledge no longer needs to be stored in the brain, but can be retrieved in real time from a larger community brain.

Secondly, the girl’s answer to the Three R’s is recycle, reuse, reduce.  This is similar to an anecdote I once heard about a ESL student answering a word problem such as “What is two plus two?  How do you know that?” with a story about how he and his sister used to play house.  The story was used to illustrate the cultural assumptions inherent in the classroom.  Since this girl is obviously of middle class origin, her father being a regular blogger for Freakonomics, can we still blame cultural differences on her lack of understanding?  Is this a problem of generations or a problem of teachers being inculcated into a seperate “teacher culture”?

To move to something that might be more useful in education, I just started watching video of Google’s Android cell phone OS.  Having used an iTouch pretty extensively last year (regularly bumming it off friends), I am impressed by the thought put into the Google applications and interface options.  I would recommend watching most of the videos Google has created at http://www.youtube.com/user/androiddevelopers but this video shows I think the best use of the applications:

I could see applications like this, with multiple input potentials being highly valued in education.  For just an interesting thought piece think of the 2d bar code on the developers business card.  What if a poster presentation included bar codes on the posters that downloaded the researcher’s information, downloaded any related papers from the Internet, and saved a picture of the poster right to your phone.

Expand this to a museum where being near a certain exhibit or scanning a bar code on a display send students to a virtual set of information.

Now expand this further to a classroom where students can move about and learn through their location in space.  The multimodal input capacity allows students to access on demand information and can even better allow them to access more specific information by way of a set of bar codes on an object of interest.  Think of a science classroom with various experiments set up displaying Newtonian Mechanics.  The experiment’s position is used to create connection on their Android.  As they explore the information, a link about gravity opens up a radar bringing them from a velocity experiment to a pendulum challenging any confusion that might be forming about velocity and acceleration.

I am a fan of multimodal computer input because I believe that like the example above it creates more chances for embodied learning.

The teenager posted that Steve Jobs had suffered a massive heart attack on iReport.com.  The report caused Apple stock to drop $4.8 billion dollars until Apple released a statement denying the report.

iReport is a website setup by CNN where anyone can post news items.  The site is essentially a news based blog.  Still, investors believed a posting, not bothering to check their facts with any credible source including Apple itself.  Information illiteracy, not a teenage prank, caused this financial debacle.

The Generalized Lessons of Programming

1. Cause and effect are not always direct. Often the effect is emergent.  The science fiction term for this is The Ghost in the Machine; the common term is often a bug.
2. Outlining and ordering thoughts. A good programmer has a plan of action before beginning any project of length.  The amount of code and troubleshooting requires a clear program outline.
3. Research skills. One of Gee’s (2003) Learning Principles is the Just-in-Time Principle.  Programmers do not just memorize all the code in a language.  They have the ability to peruse online help files, databases, and the internet in general to find the answers they need to accomplish their goals.
4. Language Skills. Knowledge of translating your thoughts so that another person/machine can understand them is a useful skill in perspective.  Programming requires similar metacognitition as learning any language.
5. Problem solving and mathematics.
6. Programming skills. I started this article by discussing the rise of the user interface leading to the fall in programming being essential.  I would turn that on its head now and point out that programming is still a useful skill for productivity and analysis.  Excel and word each make use of Macros which are programming languages.  Statistics software, wikis, websites, and a host of other applications make use of some programming.  Which leads me to my last point:
7. Communication. IT professionals have become the backbone of modern companies.  Joining administrative personnel, custodial workers, and human resources in their employment across all industries.  The jargon of this profession is useful for all productive employees.

Gee, JPaul. (2003). What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.