The Permian Technology Conference will be held at the Big Spring High School in Big Spring, TX. The conference will start at 8:00 am and there will be a meeting of the SOS-SIG after in concludes. << MORE >>

Is Open Source ready to go fulltime? Many would have a us believe that this is so. How can we find out if it is time for Open Source in our environment? Typically the Open Source advocates point to a strong return on investment (ROI) as the main justification for going Open. Of course all the vendors can produce an ROI showing their product as delivering the best bang for the buck. A lot of times this is just window dressing so that the decisionmakers can justify what they want. What we need are some simpler and easier to present criteria. << MORE >>

Question: Why do laptop initiatives succeed for about two to three years, and then the gains fall away?

Comments: There are a number of factors that cause this. In this article I will examine the issue of sustainability.

First let me start by pointing out that the literature and media tend to focus on schools who are showing success with laptops. The schools who encounter problems typically do not broadcast this. All schools have troubles the first year and mostly this is with logistical issues or unforeseen problems. For example, no one considered the existing desks when designing the programs. ...

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At the first official meeting of the Strategic Open Source Special Interest Group (SOS-SIG - http://sos.tcea.org/) I was elected president. The group is a part of the Texas Computer Education Association (TCEA - http://www.tcea.org/), one of the largest state computer groups. << MORE >>

It has been a while. Over the past months I have experienced serious illness and was not able to post very often. Sorry about that. I will be posting regularly again soon.<< MORE >>

The schools with comprehensive programs that were properly funded, that adequately prepared the teachers, parents and students, that had on-site repair abilities, and that had administration support showed a lot of success. Those schools that were missing any of these key components had varying degrees of success or failure. Yes, laptops are essential to quality technology integration - but only for all students after you have the school, staff, students and administration ready.<< MORE >>

We will have Windows through out most of our schools for many years to come, but our students may be walking into a shop that is all Linux in the near future and we should at least expose them to some of the technology. Even in the US, a bastion of Microsoft, a number of government entities have switched to open source only. With technology budgets the way they are, we are stuck with software and equipment longer than we should be. However, with Open Source we can bring in new software all the time and at least that area can be leading edge for our students. << MORE >>

Educating kids on what choices they should make is wonderful and we need to do that all the time. Assuming that just because they know what they should do means that they will do it is dangerous and wrong. We can, and should, still teach the technologies in question safely. We can prepare our students for this wide-open world without exposing them needlessly to danger before they are mature enough to handle it. << MORE >>

Why are we using floppy disks? Does your organization have an application that requires floppy drives? The key here is whether your organization has a specific need for floppy disks. Most organizations eliminated the need for floppies a long time ago. However, that does not mean they quit using floppies. Some people are very attached to them and feel strongly about not wanting to give them up.<< MORE >>

If your district directs your staff to use e-mail for transitory information only, then there are no retention requirements. Below you will find the links to Texas' Records Management web site. They have a specific e-mail section and policy to peruse. http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/slrm/recordspubs/index.html<< MORE >>

I surveyed schools and businesses, locally and around the state, over a number of years about technician salaries. The biggest problem with just comparing salaries is that the job requirements and job duties are vastly different from organization to organization. The following information includes the detailed job descriptions for the positions and recommendations for pay based on those job descriptions.<< MORE >>

Letting students leave high school without touch typing skills is hurting their chances for a successful, high paying career. I have participated at a number of schools in testing students for a Keyboarding class exemption and the most important part was not the software that was used, but the conditions of the test. << MORE >>

There is a major difference between the corporate world and the local Independent School District. The school district is run by administrators who are hired by the taxpayers with high quality education as a goal - not profit. These taxpayers may be highly educated, may not be, may be financially literate, may not be, may be technologically literate, and may not be. Therefore, they do require a different approach than corporate stockholders and most administrators have adjusted their methods to match the situation at their school.<< MORE >>

The Promise from the Vendor: Using old computers as thin clients will save you money. Comments: There are many cases where thin clients are a good solution. However, in the case where the cost savings involve using old computers I have a few concerns.<< MORE >>

Not only is Internet slow and sluggish, but every application on the local machine is sluggish as well. -- Before you spend any money perhaps you can try a few simple and free things.<< MORE >>

How do we measure "too much" work? I have to say that the biggest complaint I receive from other Technology professionals is that they have too much work.<< MORE >>

I have noticed a disturbing pattern arising. Many school districts and administrators are being seduced into major changes in their technology processes and infrastructure by the phrase "its E-Rate-able" in all of its varieties. << MORE >>

Keyboarding in Elementary is always controversial. Over the years the discussion seems to boil down to a few questions.<< MORE >>

Who is teaching programming languages without flow charts, logic structures, and/or modules? The teacher that is just giving them the code without teaching the logic is not teaching programming. << MORE >>

For every study about the value of one-to-one computing there is another that shows no significant gain in test scores and some that show losses. So why are we surprised that administrators do not want to commit the funds required? Now if the laptops were $100 to $200 would that change?<< MORE >>