Image Is Everything

Right now my one to one laptop initiative has an image problem. And if we are going to be distributing more than 250 netbooks to students, we need the right image or we will be spending lots of time dealing with frustrated users who can not access online tools or manage information on the netbooks. In the world of one to one computers - where a large group of users will be given computers that all need to look and act the same, image is everything.

First, in the context of computer programing, image is used to describe a capture or snapshot of what applications, plugins and software are available to the user on their desktop, or running in the background from their hard drive to allow access to web based or software applications. For example, many of the interactive learning tools on Thinkfinity.org require Java or Adobe Shockwave plugins to work properly. The desktop may contain shortcuts to word processing tools or frequently used websites. This image can then be used to clone - or recreate - the same desktop conditions for any number of additional computers.

Using our goals and objective for our one to one initiative, we developed a list of the plugins and applications that we wanted to be pre-installed on the student netbooks. Our students will be moving from a Mac environment k-8 to a Windows/Linux/Ubuntu environment at the high school. In order to make decisions about what needed to be included on the netbooks, we were faced with two challenges. Initially, we needed to keep in mind WHAT we wanted students to do with their netbooks. This was based on the 21st Century Learning Curriculum. Secondly, we needed to educate ourselves about the Linux based Ubuntu operating system and explore the opensource software available to come to an agreement about what plugins and software needed to be included in the image to allow the students to do WHAT we wanted them to do.

Guiding Questions for Making Image Decisions

• What tools/applications will allow students to express creativity?
• What tools/applications will allow students to communicate ideas?
• What tools/applications will allow students to collaborate with the peers or teachers?
• What tools/applications will allow students to organize their thinking?
• What tools/applications will allow student to conduct research and share information?
  
• What tools/applications will allow students to access core content materials?
• What tools/applications will allow students with disabilities to access content, research, communicate, share ideas and collaborate with peers and teachers?

FHS List of Recommendations For Our Netbook Image
http://docs.google.com/View?id=dc39nfhs_415vj4997g3

Creating the best image for your netbooks takes time and the willingness to do some research on what would be best for the students within the boundaries of the operating system. There will be a lot of frustration if you choose to use an operating system that you are not familiar with. It also requires a team approach and a lot of communication. Someone needs to be thinking about curriculum and the user end of the netbook image and someone else needs to understand the programming and technical piece. For some districts, it might be useful to bring in an out of district consultant to help with one or both of these pieces. I started a Google Doc for our tech team to share ideas and trouble shooting tips with each other. Most importantly, once a decision about the image has been finalized, the image should be installed on a small number of netbooks to use for a prototype test. These netbooks should be given to students and teachers to be used in real world learning situations to make sure that all the components of the image are working properly and that the students can be successful 21st Century Learners.

My next entry will focus on using the netbooks for 21st Century Learning.