Taste of Tech

As a graduate student, I was required to take a course called “Foundations of Modern Education.” It was probably the most demanding of the courses I took for that degree. One of the major themes of this course was the erosion of community, especially in America. Prior to the 1950’s, Americans lived in neighborhoods. They worked, went to school, shopped, worshiped, and played in those communities. They tended to stay there for generations. So the kids in my class at school would be the same kids I saw in church on Sunday. My friends’ parents would work with my Dad at a company right here in our town. When Mom went to the grocery store, she’d run into people she knew from church, who were the Moms of kids on my baseball team. The community was interconnected. When someone needed help, everyone was there to pitch in. We celebrated and mourned and learned and played and worked together.

My childhood wasn’t like that at all. By the time the 70’s rolled around, we had started to spread out. Because I lived on the boundary of the school district, the kids who lived next door went to a different school. Dad worked in a factory 30 minutes away. We went to a church on the other side of town. The community had started to separate.

After college, things became even more disperse. For a while, I was living in Stow, going to church in Brecksville, and working in Hudson. Most of my family lived in Youngstown. My life was very segmented. Over here are the work people. Over there are the people who live in my neighborhood. The groups never intersected. While that arrangement has certain advantages (especially for a middle school teacher), it tends to force us into roles that we play in those various circumstances.

So, at work, I’m the technology professional. Hopefully, people perceive me as being on the ball. I like to think that I’m generally prepared, proactive, and reasonably conscientious. At home, I’m much more laid back. So that toilet repair might take a couple, err, years. At home, I do use technology occasionally, but I’m also a musician and brewer and gardener and Dad. But because the people I interact with only see me in the one situation, they don’t get a clear picture of who I am as a whole. I play different roles in different situations.

Over the last couple years, though, I’ve become much more involved in the online community. Strangely, this group transcends those artificial divisions I’ve always had. In Facebook, for example, I have some colleagues from work. I also have some family members, and people from my church, and some people I grew up with. There are parents from my kids’ violin classes, former students of mine, and fellow brewers. Then, there are other educational technology people I’ve only met online, some of whom I count among my closest friends.

Maybe that’s what it is about social networking that scares so many people. Once you go online, it’s nearly impossible to keep your life segmented. If you follow me on Twitter, you follow me on Twitter.  You don’t follow me the teacher, or me the technologist, or me the writer, or me the (choke) philosopher. You follow me. I can’t pretend to be just a part of myself online, because the whole personality comes through. But that’s okay. It’s only dangerous for people who rely on their roles to shape others’ perceptions of them. I like to think that it’s a more honest, genuine picture of me.

I’ve been surprised by the number of people who have shown genuine interest in my trip to Africa this summer. For those who don’t know, I’m going to be providing technology training to teachers, school administrators and educational leaders in South Africa and Kenya as part of a Teachers Without Borders - Canada team. I’ve had a lot of people approach me, wanting to hear more about the trip, when I’m going, how long I’m going to be gone, and what I’ll be doing.

During the six-week trip in July and August, we will be helping teachers learn to use technology to enhance their teaching. Workshops will focus on the use of technology to prepare and deliver instruction as well as to connect students and teachers with others around the world.

The workshops themselves are starting to take shape, and run the gamut from very basic computer use to the design of electronic instructional resources, to the use of online interactive and collaborative tools. The range of available technology is staggering. At one extreme, the schools have a computer lab with reasonably up-to-date computers and Internet access. At the other end, one of our workshop sites doesn’t have any computers at all (but we’ve been promised that they’ll have electricity). There are also a lot of schools between these extremes.

I’m personally looking forward to developing some partnerships between African teachers and North American teachers. In many places, the teachers are very isolated. We hope to use internet technologies to connect them to professional networks of other educators working toward common goals. Ideally, these networks will include teachers in their own countries and across the globe. One of the great things about education is that it’s essentially a collaborative enterprise. We’re not really competing against one another. When we work together, everyone wins.

I’m not a fund raiser. I don’t like asking people for money. I am especially sensitive to making people feel obligated to support some cause I think is important. My philosophy is that people will support the things that are important to them, and it’s not up to me to tell them what those things should be. But in talking to some people about this project, I’m getting the impression that this thing that is important to me is already important to them. And they want to help. It’s not up to me to stand in their way.

So, if you want to get involved with this project, here are some ways you can help:

Monetary Donations
As unpleasant as it is, sending a team to Africa is expensive. While costs vary for each team member depending on flight arrangements and how long they’ll be in Africa, my trip will cost about US $200-250 per day. I’ll be there for 41 days, so that adds up pretty quickly. Some of that cost is my responsibility, and some of it comes from TWB-C. But neither of us has that much money, and I’m only one of seven people on my team, and the team is only one of two teams working in Africa this summer. So their costs are pretty high.

If you’d like to contribute, you can do so in a couple different ways. If you visit the TWB-C site, you can donate through CanadaHelps.org. For tax reasons, Americans may want to donate through Teachers Without Borders International, because they’re registered in the United States as a tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization. If you visit the TWB-International site to donate, please make sure you earmark your donation for “TWB Canada” to make sure it goes to the right place. If you’d rather go old-school, you can just send a check by visiting either of those sites and using the instructions provided.

Send Us Stuff
Maybe you would rather contribute something tangible that we can take with us to Africa to give to a teacher or a school. A few people have already donated netbooks. Others have donated Flip cameras, and there are some rumors of forthcoming MP3 player donations. We could also really use flash drives. You know you have some older, lower-capacity flash drives laying around that you don’t use anymore. We can put them to good use, especially if they’re in the 1-2 GB range. If you’d like to help in this way, please contact me.

Share Resources
Maybe you have a great resource for teaching Science. Or a wonderful tool for digital storytelling. Please use the tag “TWB-C” to draw our attention to it. We’re especially looking for pedagogically sound instructional software that doesn’t require a network connection, along with free open-ended educational software that can be used to help promote problem solving and critical thinking skills. But if there’s something else you think we should be looking at, we’d love to hear about it.

Volunteer
We have to realize that we’re all global citizens now. Technology has made the world a much smaller place. Our students need to have an awareness of other cultures and a tolerance for cultural differences. They also need to build collaboration skills, were they’re working together to solve problems and create products with people they’ll never meet face-to-face.”  If you are a North American teacher interested in building a relationship with a class in Africa, or if you are an African teacher trying to build ties with the U.S. or Canada, we can try to help.

There are no guarantees here. But as we work with teachers in Africa, we may be able to help foster some of these classroom connections. To express your interest in a project like this, tell us what you have in mind.

Regardless of how you choose to help, I’m grateful for all of the interest and attention. And, yes, I will be taking pictures on my trip, and (bandwidth permitting) posting them and blogging about my experiences while I’m gone.

Update - May 19, 2009:
I’ve applied for a $200 micro-grant through We are Teachers to try to get some Flip video cameras to take to Africa this summer. The plan is to use them to do collaborative projects between African and North American students. The top 10 proposals will be funded, based on the number of votes they receive. If you’ve not already voted for one of the other proposals, I would appreciate your support. You can vote here: http://bit.ly/IQgb4 once per email address, until June 1.

Over the last few weeks, several people have asked me for lists of free software that I use. There are plenty of sources online for this kind of thing, and there are some great sites that give you lists of free applications to perform certain tasks, alternatives to commerical software applications, and reviews of the best freeware applications. So the last thing you need is another list.

But these are the applications that I actually use.  I’m limiting this to Windows programs that I run on my computer. So you’re not going to find any kind of instructional software here (like this science list or this math list). There’s also no server software or anything like that. So, with that said, let’s get to the list.

Desktop Utilities

These are programs that fill specific needs that either aren’t met by the operating system, or that are poorly implemented by Windows.

• 7-Zip: Yes, I know. Your computer can already handle ZIP archives without any additional software. And if you do have a special progam to handle zip files, it’s probably Winzip. But 7-Zip has the advantage of being able to open archives in just about any format. Plus, it’s free, it doesn’t nag you to register, and it integrates well with the operating system.
• Foxit Reader: Anyone who is using the web these days has to have a way to read PDF files. Sure, you can get Adobe’s product. My frustration with that route is that it takes forever for Adobe Reader to start up, and it’s constantly trying to upgrade itself. PDF files shouldn’t be that complicated. Foxit works just as well, and it recognizes that there might be other things you want to do with your computer besides reading PDF files.
• PDF Creator: Like reading PDF files, creating them shouldn’t be rocket science either. When Adobe doubled the educational license price for the commercial Acrobat software a few years ago, we switched to free alternatives. PDF Creator doesn’t have all of the features of the commercial programs, but it does what we need it to do — create PDF files. You set it up as a printer, and “print” to a PDF file from any application. It prompts you for a filename, and you’re done.
• AVG Anti-Virus: We license commerical anti-virus software for our school computers, and that license gives staff members the option of installing it on their home computers, too. But when I had a problem with an installation of that application, I found that I could neither reinstall it nor uninstall it. So I switched to AVG. So far, I’ve been happy with it. I’ve also heard that Avast is very good, but I haven’t tried it.
• NAS Backup: Your mileage may vary with this one. If you happen to have a server running rsync laying around (and, honestly, who doesn’t these days? :-)), you can use this program to automate backups from your computer to the server. It works well once you get it set up right, but sometimes getting the configuration tweaked can take a while.
• TrueCrypt: Truecrypt is disk encryption software. Why do you need this? I use it in two ways. First, let’s say you have a flash drive, and you want to keep files on that flash drive that may contain sensitive or confidential information. You can use Truecrypt to encrypt them. So when you leave the flash drive in the computer at the library, or drop it in the parking lot while trying to find your keys, the person who finds it doesn’t have access to your files. I also use it on my laptop to encrypt the entire hard drive. When the laptop starts up, it asks for my super-secret 29-character passphrase. Until I enter that passphrase, the hard drive appears to be unformatted. So I may lose the laptop, but no one’s going to get the data from it. As a school district, we use this software on all laptops assigned to individual staff members. If you want details on how all of this works and why it’s so secure, geek out with this episode of Security Now.
• VNC: This is software that allows remote computer management. There are lots of implementations of this protocol, but we use the TightVNC variety. It’s loaded on every computer in the district, and we can use it to remotely manage those computers to help troubleshoot, perform routine maintenance, and provide support to our staff members and students.

Internet / Interactivity Software

These are applications that I actually use all the time. Every day. All day. The list isn’t long, but these are things that make my work a lot easier.

• Firefox: In a former job, I once told the network manager that I would never use Internet Explorer as long as Netscape survived. Two years later, I was using Internet Explorer, because I didn’t consider version 6 of Netscape as “surviving.” But the pendulum has more than swung the other way with the Mozilla project, and I can’t imaging not using Firefox as my primary browser. Sure, some people are crazy about Chrome. And, yes, I have it installed, too.  But the add-ons in Firefox make it worth the slightly slower performance and it’s my default browser of choice.
• Thunderbird: As a Gen-Xer, I’m old enough to have embraced email early, and I’m still shackled to it. Unlike the alternatives from a certain Washington-based software company, this software doesn’t assume that everyone in the world is using the same email client and the same kind of mail server. It also doesn’t assume that I want to use a proprietary format for email attachments (I love those winmail.dat files).  Plus, I don’t need a calendar in my email program. The two functions are completely separate. Right now, I have it set up to access seven email accounts, 12 RSS feeds, and three usenet servers. And it just works.
• Skype:  In the last three years, this software has changed my life more than any. If you’re still paying for long distance service, and you’re not calling, say, Mars, you’re missing the boat. Plus, it makes a really good chat client. And it does video. Free video conversations with anyone in the world? Free audio conference calls with a dozen people? Are you kidding? This is how we build collaborative networks.

Multimedia Tools

Once in a while, I have to work with audio, video, or images. When I do, I reach for these tools.

• Audacity: I don’t know anyone who records audio who doesn’t use Audacity at least some of the time. It’s free audio recording and editing software. We started using it with foreign language students a couple years ago, and the AP Test people even encourage its use. My music teachers use and love it. Every podcaster I know who isn’t in love with Garage Band uses Audacity. Just don’t tell Jeff I have it installed. He might put me to work.
• Miro: Speaking of podcasts, this is how I get them. I used to use Juice, but since it hasn’t been updated since, well, people actually started podcasting, it was time to move on. Just to be clear, I don’t love Miro. But since I refuse to use iTunes, it’s the best alternative I have.
• VLC Media Player: I have a hard time finding audio or video formats that VLC can’t handle. It also converts between them, something most media players won’t do. It has replaced Windows Media Player on my computer as the player of choice.
• DVD Flick: Have you ever wanted to take a video file and burn it to a DVD that will play in a DVD player? It’s an annoyingly complicated process, but this program makes it easy. Give it a video file (or a series of them), and it’ll do all the magic converting and encoding and give you a playable DVD. It’s pretty limited in the editing and menu functions, but I rarely (never) need that stuff anyway.
• Irfanview: The old standby for image editing. Years ago, we started installing this program on all of the district’s computers for handling image files. It lets you easily crop and resize pictures, which is what we use it for most of the time. It also lets you adjust brightness and contrast, perform color correction, and convert among various image formats. There are even some filters that allow you to apply certain effects to images. And, it’s easy to use.
• Paint.net: Irfanview doesn’t actually let you do retouching. You can’t add text to images, you can’t copy and paste. There are more powerful programs to do that, but I’m not a graphic designer. I don’t need Photoshop. And while the Gimp is a really powerful Photoshop replacement, it’s too much for me. Paint.net fills the niche nicely. I can do simple editing without causing too much damage. That’s perfect for me.

Network Tools

A big part of my job is centered around network administration. Having these applications in the toolkit has saved me a lot of time. If you’re not a network admin, these probably won’t be that useful to you. It’s also worth noting that most of these can be used for nefarious purposes, but I’m focusing on the positive, productive uses here.

• Putty: Admittedly, unless you use a command-line interface to a server somewhere, you probably don’t need this. But I live on the command line when it comes to server administration, that this is rock-solid software for handling those connections. It also allows you to create ssh tunnels, which can be very useful if you need encrypted tunnels.
• Network Stumbler: If you work with wireless networks, it’s helpful to have an application that can measure signal level with something a bit more precise than a four-bar scale. This application will find any access points within range, give you their MAC addresses, tell you what kind of encryption they’re using, and show a graph of signal strength in real time.
• Nmap: Lots of network problems can be difficult to diagnose, especially with firewalls thrown in the mix. This application lets you see which network ports are open, closed, and filtered on a specific host or network segment. Don’t use this to go blindly scanning people’s networks — that’s considered hostile behavior. But if you’re trying to troubleshoot why certain network applications aren’t working, this can be very useful.
• Wireshark: Network traffic is broken down into packets, which individually traverse the network. When a message is sent from one computer to another, the various packets making up the message can take different paths to get there. Whenever there are network problems, it’s useful to be able to see the packets moving back and forth. Wireshark lets you do that. It captures and analyzes the packets going over the network. While this may not sound like much fun to you, it can be pretty valuable data when there’s a problem.

So there’s the list. Yes, OpenOffice is missing. That’s because I use Microsoft Office most of the time. And I haven’t talked about browser add-ons, even though there are many that I use on a daily basis. And I haven’t even scratched the surface of online tools. But that’s going to have to be another post.

Most school districts in the United States employ some sort of web filtering technology. To be eligible for the e-rate program, schools must comply with the Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000, including the use of “technology protection measures.” According to the Universal Service Administrative Company, which oversees the e-rate program, “A technology protection measure is a specific technology that blocks or filters Internet access. It must protect against access by adults and minors to visual depictions that are obscene, child pornography, or — with respect to use of computers with Internet access by minors — harmful to minors…. For schools, the policy must also include monitoring the online activities of minors.” (source)

So, while the federal government can’t mandate that we use web filtering, they can deny us access to e-rate funds if we don’t do it. In our district, that amounts to tens of thousands of dollars a year, making this a pretty easy decision.

In reality, we were filtering web content before CIPA was enacted. When schools started connecting to the Internet, there was a fundamental shift in how information is accessed in the school. Prior to the web, materials were acquired through the efforts of media specialists and curriculum directors, who were careful to make judicious use of their limited funds. All of the materials were age-appropriate, and most were academic. It’s understandable that connecting a school to the Internet would raise concerns, because the traditional safeguards disappeared. Suddenly, students could access just about anything.

So schools developed policies for acceptable use of the Internet, and they installed filters to protect students from inadvertently accessing inappropriate content on school computers. Many schools still force students (and staff, in some cases) to sign off on these policies, and promise to behave themselves online and not to hold the school responsible if they find things online that are, umm, a bit too educational for school.

The filtering worked reasonably well for about a decade. Sure, there were lots of things blocked by the Internet filter that shouldn’t have been. There were also some things that weren’t blocked that students probably shouldn’t have been accessing. The web is a constantly changing medium, and trying to keep up with lists of sites that are appropriate or not appropriate is an impossible task. But we’ve lived with it.

Over the last few years, though, this has become more of a problem. Traditionally, the filters block sites that have user-generated content. A discussion board, for example, would be blocked. That’s because anyone can post content there, and it’s impossible to tell, day-to-day, or minute-to-minute, if the site contains objectionable content. The “free” web site services (Geocities, Angelfire, etc) were also blocked for the same reason. The pages can change too frequently for the filters to keep up with, so they all get blocked by default.

Over the past few years, though, the web has become much more interactive. We’re not just talking about blogs or social networking, either. Go to CNN.com and you can comment on any news story. The same is true for USA Today, and the New York Times, and the Cleveland Plain Dealer. A news story from a reputable site could have comments on it that contain offensive language or hate speech. Do we want our third graders to be reading this stuff?

The filtering companies have taken a reasonable approach, and don’t (at least by default) block every site that allows user comments. But they do block a lot of sites that allow people to upload their own content. In our district, currently, the blocked sites include Youtube, Facebook, Plurk, and all web-based email systems.

Interestingly, the list of sites that aren’t blocked includes Wikipedia, Wikispaces, Ning, Flickr, Twitter, Ustream, and Google Docs.  The rules can be arbitrary and inconsistent. For example, you can’t access Youtube. The site contains user-contributed videos that might be unsuitable for minors. But you can access Google Video, which could contain the same content. The same is true for microblogging platforms. Twitter is allowed, but Plurk is not. You can use Skype from school to audio- and video-conference with others, but you can’t access the web site to download it and sign up for an account.

The problem, I think, comes from trying to adapt to the changing nature of the Internet, while still maintaining the perception that students are protected from inappropriate content. So you can’t access your social network from school, but you can go to Ning and create a new social network, and that one’s okay.

But as teachers increasingly try to move instruction beyond the walls of their classrooms, they’re hitting these roadblocks. There are lots of teachers and students in schools all over the world who would like to do collaborative projects, interacting and working with students and teachers in our schools. This type of interaction promotes serious collaborative (as opposed to cooperative) effort, improves students’ understanding of diverse world cultures, and fosters a global attitude of tolerance and acceptance that we sorely need. At the same time, it shows our students how they can leverage the enormous power of the communication and collaboration tools that are freely available to them. But we can’t access these tools because some Internet vandal may have posted a dirty word or a picture that’s too, umm, anatomically detailed for polite company.

The ironic part of all of this is that the students are fairly adept at circumventing the system. To make the system usable in any practical sense, there have to be holes. There are ways in which a sufficiently motivated student can bypass the censors and get unrestricted access to the Internet.  We regularly catch them. But depending on the methods used, it can be pretty difficult and time consuming to figure out what they’re doing and devise a way to prevent it without breaking some legitimate use of the network.

And when they circumvent the filters, what are they doing? Since I get an email every time a student bypasses the filter, and I can remotely watch what they’re doing in real time, I’ve taken some time over the last few weeks to watch. They’re going to Facebook. They’re going to Myspace. They’re going to Youtube. For the most part, that’s it. Once in a while, a student tries to access drug-related information. How much should I be paying for a quarter ounce? How would one go about growing, err, herbs and vegetables in one’s basement? But for the most part, it’s the social networks and interactive web tools.

So what if we didn’t block these things? What would happen? I guess it’s possible that students could inadvertently stumble upon inappropriate content. I’ve certainly seen cases where innocent Google searches have yielded not-so-innocent results. Try doing a Google Image search for any woman’s name, for example, with safesearch turned off.  But for the most part, things would be the same. We’re not talking about unblocking sexually explicit content, or hate speech, or this generation’s equivalent of the Anarchist’s Cookbook. We’re talking about Youtube videos and Facebook updates, the vast majority of which contains no objectionable content whatsoever.

We would, almost certainly, see an increase in student use of technology for non-academic purposes. But this isn’t a technology problem as much as it’s a supervision one. There are some places in the district where I can walk into a lab at any time, and see a dozen or more students playing games. Having access to social networking tools isn’t going to make them any more or less productive. If they’re permitted to do non-academic work, they’re going to do it. If we want to stop them from doing non-academic stuff on the computer, we’re not going to do it by blocking access to every time-wasting technology on the Internet.

It’s also possible that we’ll see an increase in students attempting to purposely access inappropriate content. Again, this is a supervision issue. By policy, students are not permitted to use computers in unsupervised settings. If they’re surfing for porn in the computer lab, we have a problem with supervision and student self-responsibility.

That self-responsibility is the piece that we’ve been missing for a long time. I often hear the argument, from both students and staff, that “inappropriate” and “appropriate” content for school is defined by what is blocked or not blocked by the filter. If it’s not blocked, it must be okay. But what happens when the student goes home, to the computer without filtered Internet access? Is everything suddenly okay, just because they’re not at school. The teaching of self-responsibility is an important component that we’ve been overlooking.

I’d like to see us try it. At the very least, we should open the door to social networking tools and web-based email. Let the students actually use email to communicate with one another and with their teachers. Let them access their networks. I have a feeling that the benefits will far outweigh the potential for abuse.

What do you think? Should the schools change the web filtering policies to allow access to interactive web tools like Youtube, social network sites like Facebook, and online email? Now’s your chance to weigh in.

Baloo, our 75-pound dog, tirelessly guards the back yard from any and all wildlife.  Squirrels, groundhogs, opossums, cats, and birds are not welcome, and he makes sure they know it. He’d keep the rabbits away, too, if Mom would let him. His rule is that anything that moves is not allowed in HIS yard unless one of his people says it’s okay. Wild animals are little. And while they’re difficult to catch, they’re easy to chase.

This arrangement has worked well, and he has enforced the eviction of various critters over the years. But one day, he came around the corner of the shed and found himself face to face with a deer. He stopped. He had never seen a deer before. He had never seen ANY animal that big, except humans. So he froze. And the deer froze, with that “deer in dog-lights” look. Baloo had to figure out if he was supposed to be the predator or the prey. After a moment, the deer turned and ran. The dog pursued it, barking furiously, until he reached the end of his leash. He had his answer. Deer fall into the “animals” category, and they’re not allowed in his yard.

That’s learning. We make rules — generalizations — about the world based on our experiences. When something new comes into the picture, we have to find a way to make it fit what we already “know.” We adjust our thinking to fit the new information. If we do that enough, we end up with a pretty good understanding of our world.

But my world is pretty small. I’ve lived in Ohio my whole life. I was born here. I went to school here. All my jobs have been here. My wife has always lived in Ohio too. It’s the best place in the world. Really. We have seasons. It’s really warm in the summer, yet we get our fair share of snow, too. The cultural and performing arts scene is unparalleled. We have access to outstanding medical care. And some of the best institutions of higher learning are right down the street. I can’t understand why anyone would want to live anywhere else.

My understanding, everything I know about the world, comes from my experiences in this tiny little corner of this moderately-sized country which holds a minority of space on one of seven continents on this planet. I don’t have what one might call broad horizons.

Up to this point, all of the problems, solutions, goals, and priorities in my life have been very focused on my world. Over the last couple years, though, I have developed a personal learning network that has included a wider circle of people. I’m regularly communicating with people in other parts of the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Australia. I share a lot in common with these people. It’s a self-selecting group, and people tend to gravitate toward others who are like them. And while there are geographically diverse, they’re still culturally similar.

As we move into the new age — the post-information age of flat worlds, globalization, 21st century skills, and interactive web technologies — this isolation is no longer appropriate. Yes, I’m an Ohioan. And I’m an American. But I’m also a citizen of the world, and I have a certain responsibility to the global community as well.

I don’t know if  “responsibility” is the right way to put it. I don’t see this as an obligation to embrace the global community, or to try to do something ambitious and worthwhile like solve the world’s problems. But it’s an opportunity — an invitation to participate.

I have recently accepted that invitation by joining a team of seven educators from Canada and the United States working with Teachers Without Borders - Canada. This summer, we will travel to Africa for six weeks to provide technology training to teachers and school leaders in South Africa and Kenya. We’ll also be working with local non-governmental organizations to implement sustainable models for technology use in African classrooms. We hope to improve their ability to collaborate with online learning tools, facilitate access to Internet resources despite limited bandwidth, help them develop customized learning objects for instructional use, incorporate technology in teaching and learning across the curricular spectrum, and develop models for sustaining technology use and growth after our departure.

This is a new set of challenges for me. While I hope to apply much of what I know about running school technology programs, this is a fantastic opportunity to step outside my usual set of assumptions about what is practical. I can look at educational technology from a completely different perspective. Hopefully, I will have resources and ideas to share. Undoubtedly, I will learn a lot from this experience that can be applied to my own schools upon my return.

At the very least, this experience is certainly going to change what I “know.” I feel grateful for this opportunity, and hope I can make a small difference for a few students in a handful of schools in a tiny corners of small countries on a very large continent on the other side of this relatively small planet.