White Space Wi-Fi – What does it really mean!

 Being able to move from classroom to classroom with a connection is great, but how many wireless access points do you need to get good coverage throughout a building.   White Space Wi-Fi will allow you to have fewer devices as the single is stronger and will not weaken when going through walls.  The hard part at the school level is the need to invest in NEW hardware to take advantage of this new technology.  Something to think about down the road, we will have to see how it all works out over the next few months.

A good article to read up on the technology: 

What You Need to Know About White Space Wi-Fi

Related Articles

• What You Need to Know About White Space Wi-Fi (pcworld.com)
• REALITY CHECK: White Spaces “Wi-Fi On Steroids” Is Still Going To Cost Money To Use (GOOG, T, S, VZ) (businessinsider.com)

Why aren’t you using – OPEN OFFICE / LibreOffice – FREE Open Source Product

In doing my research for my last post OpenOffice or LibreOffice – Free Office suite – Open Standards which discussed the future of OpenOffice under Oracle – I found some interesting information that you might be interested in.

In my discussions with business and Educators and why they don’t use this great FREE product, they indicate that support is an issue as well as documentation.  I understand these concerns as School District technology people are over worked and can’t afford anything that will increase the work load that is already off the rails.

You really have to look at this a little differently, if you’re using MS Office Suite (Great product) – how much are you paying for this product, how much will it cost you over the life cycle of the product to keep support and upgrades options open.  With all that money you spend, you most likely could hire an outside resource to support this part of your business for much less.

Debunking Myth #1: There Is No Documentation. In the case of OpenOffice, there is in fact substantial free documentation for the suite, and there are free tutorials. You can find documentation for specific versions here. You can also find many free OpenOffice books here. You can also find many useful Flash tutorials here.

Debunking Myth #2: There Is No Support. OpenOffice has a very large community of users, and the Community Support option can be sufficient for many users, but it’s not the only option. Inexpensive consultants offer support for OpenOffice, and there are inexpensive third-party solutions for paid support. OpenLogic is just one of the available providers.

READ FULL ARTICLE from OStatic

OpenOffice or LibreOffice – Free Office suite – Open Standards

BIG NEWS!

I am a very satisfied customer of Open Office at home and have been using it for several years.  A lot of questions were asked a little over a year ago when Oracle purchased Sun and what they may do with the OpenOffice product.  Over this time everything seemed to be moving along, updates coming out about every 4 months or so – Well that might be changing….

Today I believe the future of the FREE OpenOffice might be in question.  When key players leave and create a foundation “The Document Foundation” and have a product available for download in BETA that looks very similar to OpenOffice you have to wonder.  This foundation stands for what the original group stood for, plus the open source community is very loyal and does not like controls and being told what to do.   The press release is available and by the looks of  all the support this group is getting from some big companies, they are well on their way.

If your one of many School Districts using OPEN OFFICE rather than MS Office, you might want to keep watch to see what happens next.  You really have no real concerns today, but if you want product that will continue to grow and evolve  – you might have to consider moving to LibreOffice as I believe this will be the product to have moving forward.  As long as legally they have no issue with Oracle, it being open source product I don’t see how, but you never know.   I would wait and see how it all unfolds over the next few months.

The press release is dated today – so this has been in the works for sometime – the WEB is up and the download available.

K12 – Contest – WIN 100K for your School – Microsoft – OUR SCHOOLS NEEDS

***Districts have been picked***  CHECK OUT MY NEW POST – YOU STILL WANT TO VOTE IF YOU WHERE NOT ONE OF THE LUCKY 15!

What a great contest – You get your students involved and they learn at the same time.  Putting together a multi-media presentation for a great cause – Your school!   If this is done right, this can be a great life lesson for anyone that gets involved and invests time and effort to create.  

How the Our School Needs Contest Works

We want to hear from teachers and students about what their school needs most. Look around your school and think about how it would benefit from winning $100,000.

Watch: What does your school need

What to do

Students can work in groups, classes, or even school-wide to write an essay and take pictures finishing the sentence “Our School Needs: ___________.” To enter:

1. Write an essay (500 to 800 words)
2. Take pictures (3 to 5 photos)
3. Film a video (not required, but fun! Maximum of 3 minutes in length)

Who Can Enter

Any student or teacher from a K-12 school can enter. While students under 18 are encouraged to create the entry, a parent, legal guardian or a teacher must submit it.

What Could Our School Win?

Bing will award a quarter-million dollars, divided among four schools—$50,000 to three first-prize winners, and one $100,000 grand prize.

Microsoft continues INVESTMENT into Education

Education is in the news each day, people and companies are stepping up and trying to do what they can to assist our schools system in this difficult time of finance and controversy over the state of education across the country.

A great quote from Microsoft that is so TRUE:  Why Microsoft cares about education and what we are doing about it

 “At Microsoft, we believe every child has a basic right to an excellent education. The challenges of education are too big for any one institution to fix. We believe it will take a broad range of private and public partnerships to contribute to this effort and Microsoft is committed to doing so. As a business leader, our future is dependent on a competitive workforce, equipped to succeed in the 21st century.”

Among many other items – Microsoft has released a new contest “Our Schools Need”  – Enter your school  –  “Write an essay. Snap some Pictures. Even film a video. Entering is easy!”