[07:28] <highvoltage> good morning
[17:09] <highvoltage> mhall119: every time I see you you're either going in an elevator or going away or sitting across the room in plenaries. I'd like to say hi sometime :)
[17:30] <LaserJock> highvoltage: nice blog post
[17:30] <highvoltage> thanks, LaserJock
[17:31] <highvoltage> I was thinking of you when I wrote it since you've often made the case that we should do more education-focus stuff, and that if we set some big goals we can attract more contributors
[17:31] <LaserJock> I was thinking about the classic "computer lab admin" vs "pedagogical tools" thing
[17:31] <LaserJock> yeah
[17:31] <LaserJock> :-)
[17:31] <highvoltage> (brb)
[17:32] <LaserJock> I wonder if it just has to be the kind of thing were you respond to where users are at
[17:32] <LaserJock> I always wanted to push for actual teaching tools and trying to figure out how to make teaching more effective
[17:33] <LaserJock> the problem is, I don't know that open-source and Edubuntu users were really there
[17:33] <LaserJock> a great many of them just wanted an easy way to set up and maintain an LTSP lab
[17:43] <highvoltage> LaserJock: I don't think they are there yet, but I don't think it will take too much for people to get there
[17:44] <LaserJock> well, I guess it makes me wonder how teachers are using this stuff
[17:44] <LaserJock> and how much of a disconnect there is between the people setting up the tech and the teachers trying to use it
[17:44] <LaserJock> that's something I never quite got a good handle on
[17:44] <LaserJock> I always wanted to push
[17:45] <LaserJock> but, well, I don't think that strategy worked all that well ;-)
[17:45] <LaserJock> one thing though, that I think would probably help transition would be documentation
[17:46] <LaserJock> I think once the big picture stuff (LTSP and basic services) are more-or-less stable and workable
[17:46] <highvoltage> LaserJock: in my experience teachers care very little about technology
[17:47] <LaserJock> it seems like people might start exploring what they can do with stuff
[17:47] <LaserJock> right
[17:47] <LaserJock> and I guess my feeling has been that maybe if we gave them the right tools they might  care more
[17:47] <highvoltage> LaserJock: and I think we're at the point where that 'big picture stuff' is getting pretty solid and to the poing where we'll be getting bored with it
[17:47] <LaserJock> but that could be just because I'm a (higher level) teacher type who loves technology :-)
[17:48] <highvoltage> LaserJock: which suggests that we're at the point where we can try to attack even bigger and more complicated things... like making it better for teaching and learning :)
[17:48] <LaserJock> perhaps so
[17:48] <LaserJock> I sort of always envisioned they kind of thing
[17:48] <LaserJock> where the school IT guy comes in to a beginning-of-the year meeting with the teaching staff
[17:49] <LaserJock> and he goes "look at what I have for you guys this year!"
[17:49] <LaserJock> he flips on an Edubuntu system and not only does it work, but there's stuff there that makes the teachers excited
[17:50] <alkisg> Like what stuff?
[17:50] <LaserJock> whether that be better educational apps, or better student management, or easier ways of doing mundane tasks
[17:50] <LaserJock> I envisioned just making the teachers job a bit more enjoyable and easier when it came to tech
[17:51] <LaserJock> because my impression is that a big reason they don't care for tech so much is that it is a burden and a hassle
[17:51] <alkisg> Better educational apps => not enough resources. Better students management / doing mundane tasks => nice, I hope we see those.
[17:51] <highvoltage> LaserJock: yeah, that layer you're talking about there is kind of between education and sysadmin in my opinion. almost like an italc in a perfect world
[17:51] <LaserJock> alkisg: I agree, we never had the resources for edu apps
[17:52] <LaserJock> at first I wanted to focus on the edu apps themselves
[17:52] <LaserJock> giving teachers better apps
[17:52] <LaserJock> more student-focused
[17:52] <alkisg> E.g. I'd love to see standalone lab installations with nfs, ldap etc becoming as easy as it LTSP installations are. Skolelinux has something on that, I hope we cooperate more.
[17:52] <LaserJock> but then you run into the huge problem with different standards all over the place
[17:53] <LaserJock> and a lack of resources to really make a significant number of really cutting-edge apps
[17:53] <LaserJock> so then I started thinking more about the teacher
[17:53] <alkisg> Most open source edu apps are also available for windows, so those apps don't provide a reason for the teachers to switch to linux
[17:53] <LaserJock> and thinking, if we make the teachers job easier, make them not waste time on non-teaching tasks
[17:53] <LaserJock> then maybe that frees them up to do the real educational part
[17:53]  * alkisg agrees on that
[17:54] <alkisg> I developed an app called "sch-scripts" exactly for that purpose
[17:54] <LaserJock> my problem of course is that I'm not a K-12 educator
[17:54] <LaserJock> so I can guess at things that would make teacher's lives easier, but it's only a guess
[17:54] <alkisg> It's the main reason ubuntu/ltsp got install in about 250 schools here. Ease of installation + classroom administration tool.
[17:55] <alkisg> The problem is that a good open source tool for classroom administration doesn't exist
[17:55] <alkisg> iTalc unfortunately doesn't fit the bill
[17:56] <alkisg> I hope we'll fill that part in a few years
[17:57] <LaserJock> yeah, I think it has to be a pretty long term strategy
[17:57] <LaserJock> there's a reason this stuff generally doesn't exist :-)
[17:57] <alkisg> The good part is that we're teachers developing the tool that we'll use in our classroom
[17:57] <alkisg> So we have very good chances on maintaining that on the long term
[17:58] <alkisg> I just hope we get just a bit of upstream support on the tools we use
[17:58] <LaserJock> yeah, it's hard pulling it all together
[17:58] <alkisg> (e.g. vinagre for student monitoring, x11vnc etc)
[17:58] <LaserJock> I think it's hard on the teachers who are also writing their tools
[17:59] <LaserJock> it's hard to keep up with changing technologies
[17:59] <alkisg> Well, the only other option was to use italc, but it crashed on 2 secs on 3 out of 5 labs. So nope, no other option than to write our own :D
[17:59] <LaserJock> I don't know what's going to happen with gnome 3
[18:00] <alkisg> I think external tools like vinagre, vlc for video streaming etc will continue to work there
[18:01] <alkisg> We just might need to modify the "glue" a bit
[18:02] <LaserJock> I wonder how gnome-shell is going to work for educators
[18:03] <LaserJock> with sbayon, etc. and just in general if it will be the sort of thing that educators will be happy with
[18:03] <LaserJock> or if everybody will end up using something else
[18:04] <LaserJock> they might just have to end up using openbox
[18:04] <alkisg> Sabayon has proved to be difficult to maintain, it's more frequently broken than working
[18:04] <LaserJock> but I'm a big fan of openbox  :-)
[18:04] <LaserJock> yep
[18:05] <LaserJock> these are the fundamental issues that I see as a trapping point
[18:05] <LaserJock> you can have the most easy to install, rock stable, LTSP (or other) systems
[18:06] <LaserJock> but I still think if you can't lock it down or manage users effectively you end up shooting yourself in the foot
[18:07] <alkisg> Yup, even the most common tasks like having a shared folder between teacher and students are non-trivial currently
[18:13] <LaserJock> alkisg: yeah, that's the kind of stuff that puts teachers off
[18:13] <alkisg> We've done good progress with that here
[18:14] <alkisg> E.g. mass user creation with GUI, creating shared folders, sending files to students etc
[18:15] <alkisg> I hope we can refine it so that it gets into the debian/ubuntu archives in a couple of years
[18:47] <Zarrku> alkisg?
[23:31] <highvoltage> goodnight edubuntu