Author: ssegraves

Education Software is Messy

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K-12 student management software is messy, there is no other way to describe it. Options are limited and none of them stand out as being well written or well maintained. It is sad really. Very important data is passed over, underutilized, and ignored because of the inability of the software or the software company to see actual needs and respond to them.

What school districts need is software that is lightweight, is easy to understand, simple to maintain, and can be expanded upon if needed. Right now the software that is out there only mixes and matches a couple of those items, not all of them.

There are a lot of resources spent on software, hardware, and yearly fees, and it’s unnecessary when we really dig down and look at the requirements. School districts are simply small cities that have to manage themselves, why can’t software be built around that effectively?

The biggest issue standing in the way of progress when it comes to student/district management software is too many hands seeing cool or new things and wanting them. A lot of school districts are split up into different areas, just like a company, and each of these areas oversees different pieces of information. The problem arises when none of the areas coordinate their software buying and end up with multiple tools that in the end, could have been consolidated with one tool, had there been communication.

We as software developers need to look at this as a real problem and try to fix it. If we can make affordable software for school districts that works, we can help that school district find a more affective way to use the money they saved.

American Airlines Fires Designer

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A story has been weaving its way around the internet about an American Airlines web designer being fired after responding to a complaint from a user. I have watched as some big names in the web space have ripped AA apart for their firing of the designer, claiming that AA.com is terribly designed and letting someone go who had ideas is a horrible decision.

Every single criticism of AA ignores the most obvious detail, that the employee broke the terms of his NDA. This type of attitude seems to be the norm in society now, that the violator is somehow the victim. Sure, I agree that it is probably a bad idea to fire someone who has ideas that could have a positive affect on a website or company, but at the same time what kind of example does it set for the rest of your employees if you allow someone to blatantly break the terms of their agreement?

Sometimes, things need to be called out for being right and being wrong, no matter how you feel about the tertiary aspects of the issue.

Technology and Education – The End Game

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In the web and software development world there has been a saying that the “tools don’t make the developer”, meaning the tools I use to write software do not affect the outcome as much as my abilities as a programmer. Over the years we have seen more and more technology pushed into the classroom under the camouflage of making life easier for teachers and improving student’s learning. I would submit that we’ve actually done the opposite, we have created a monster that requires technology to do the simplest of tasks. Education needs to learn from the software world and understand that the tools don’t make the student.

There are basic skills that students need to have to succeed in middle school and high school and if they choose, college. A lot of the skills have to do with fundamentals, basic math, reading, and writing. With the fundamentals in place, it is not hard to expand and continue the learning process. The issue facing schools now is wanting to expose students to technology and “easier” ways of completing tasks leading to a drop in the student’s ability to do such tasks without the technology. A basic example of this is calculators in elementary school. Why is that needed? If students are not able to do basic math without the use of a calculator, they need to retake the class. Using the excuse that a student is, “just not good at math”, is a terrible way to go forward. If that particular student does not learn how to do long division now how are they ever going to master geometry or calculus?

This is not a bashing of technology, it is simply a wakeup call. When I learned to create webpages I was using the most basic of tools, Windows Notepad. I struggled with aspects of the code, but the tool never helped me and because of that, I would argue I am a better developer.

I’m hoping this topic, Technology and Education, will become a regular one on the site.

Ecuador – The Foot Race

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Every once in a while, Continental Airlines will publish a fare that is just too good to pass up. A few weeks ago, they announced a weekend special to Quito, Ecuador, a city which usually carries a price tag of around $1,000 to fly to, was going for $299. Knowing that Jessica was not going to be able to take off work for the trip, I called a friend and we agreed to split a hotel room in the business center of Quito.

Quito - Early Morning

The city of Quito sits at 9,350 feet and is flanked by the active volcano, Pichincha. For travelers not used to the high altitudes, this makes walking around somewhat of a chore, in fact, for the first few hours in the city, my body was adjusting.

We arrived fairly late but clearing immigration was simple and the hotel had arranged a driver to pick us up.

La Basílica

The next morning we were on our feet bright and early and walking the city. Because it was a Sunday morning in a predominantly Catholic country, the streets were mostly deserted, giving us the run of the town. We ended up visiting all of the churches and most of the sights in Centro Histórico, the historic district of the city, which helped Quito become the first UNESCO World Heritage site.

Having more time than we thought, we arranged a driver to take us to the Pululahua volcano, thought to be one of the only active calderas with inhabitants. The view was breathtaking, even in the dry season with dust flying. The area is sustained completely on subsistence farming and now eco-tourism to the hot springs that are near the village. We also toured the equator, which even though has a real touristy feel, is extremely interesting.

035-IMG_3926

We ended the day by attempting to take a ride on TeleferiQo, the aerial tramway that takes riders to around 13,400 feet on the side of Pichincha. Luck was not on our side however because we arrived at the ride area to find that it was closed for the day. That lead us to dinner where we enjoyed a good amount of Ecuadorian food and broken English conversation with our waitress.

Ecuador is a beautiful country and I highly recommend that everyone take a trip down there while they still can. The president, Rafael Correa is thought to be the Chavez of Ecuador, and this shows when coming back to the States, I was grilled for a good 30 minutes by the immigration officials on the reason for my visit.

Speaking Spanish is a plus, because as we found, not a lot of the locals speak English and those that do have a very limited understanding. Since both I and my friend have a little bit of a history with Spanish classes, we managed, but it would have been really difficult without the classes I took in high school.

So go. Find a cheap fare and enjoy the country of Ecuador. The weather is gorgeous all year round, with the wet season being what we would consider winter and spring.

Land Thieves

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As the University of Texas takes on the University of Oklahoma, I thought it prudent to point what exactly a “Sooner” is.

Sooner is the name first applied about six months after the Land Run of 1889 to people who entered the Oklahoma District (Unassigned Lands) before the designated time. The term derived from a section in the Indian Appropriation Act of March 2, 1889, which became known as the “sooner clause.” It stated that no person should be permitted to enter upon and occupy the land before the time designated in the president’s opening proclamation and that anyone who violated the provision would be denied a right to the land.

Illegal claimants were initially called “moonshiners,” because they entered the area “by the light of the moon.” Sooners or moonshiners hid out in brush or ravines, then suddenly appeared to stake a claim after the run started, giving them clear advantage over law-abiding settlers who made the run from the borders.

If you didn’t feel like reading through all of that, I’ll sum it up in a word; Cheaters. How fitting then is it for the Oklahoma mascot to be a Sooner.

This is the one day a year I can happily say:

Hook ‘Em Horns!

A Sooner Cries...
A Sooner Cries...

Coming to an Airport Near You

ssegraves

A few weekends ago I took a trip to Quito, Ecuador and was subjected to the displeasure of the newest addition to the TSA’s anti-terrorism toolbox; The full body scanner.

 

The full body scanners do exactly that, they scan the entire body, through the clothing to produce a near naked image for a TSA employee to ponder over before letting the traveler go about their business.

There is only one such scanner currently at IAH and it is in Terminal E.

On the day that I was flying, the traffic through Terminal E was light so everyone was being subjected to the full body scan. There was no signage anywhere explaining what the scanner was, people were just being directed into the device and told to “raise your hands in the air”.

Knowing what the machine was and what job it performed, I let the agent know that I would “opt-out” and preferred the personal screening. I assumed that this would be done like it has always been done, behind a screen out of the public eye. Nope, not this time. The pat-down was more thorough than a doctor during a physical and was performed right out in the open in front of everyone walking by.

This is unacceptable, plain and simple. It was quite obvious that they were trying to test the machine during a lull in the crowd and were using the pat down as an embarrassment tool to persuade me into going through the machine next time.

We are sacrificing our freedoms in the name of security and it’s irresponsible.

Next time, I’ll just go through Terminal C and avoid the unwanted feel-up by the TSA.

The Perfect City

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Downtown Houston

David Byrne’s piece in the Wall Street Journal is a great little write-up on what it takes to make the perfect city.

Scale is important. In London people hang out in Soho, Covent Garden, Mayfair and other areas of mostly low buildings packed closely together. The City (their financial district), like the downtown in many American cities, is full of tall offices and it empties out at night. It isn’t that bustling in the daytime either. Some sort of compromise might be more ideal—the tall towers mixed in with the modest-sized shops and restaurants.

Scale is a big problem in Houston. Downtown is a mass of tall buildings with very few people living within it, then there are warehouses, some that are still active, others that have been turned into apartments. From then on it is houses and apartment buildings until one hits the Medical Center or the Galleria, both of which are mini Metropolises with tall buildings, shops, and housing. Then it’s the suburbs, each with the same strip center as the other.

The reason it is so spread out is because we have the acreage, so builders build. The other part is probably the weather. During the summer, southeast Texas is not the most comfortable area to take a stroll, so my guess is people have become comfortable driving further distances. We wouldn’t walk even if it was close, so why make it close? Density seems to be a dirty word associated with no greenery, space, or personal identity. So we continue to move outward from downtown Houston, extending our commute and then complaining about it.

Someone Donate a Dictionary to NBC

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Apparently the economy has hurt the folks at NBC so much that they cannot afford a dictionary. Or maybe their time is too valuable to actually look up a definition before speaking complete fallacies.

During a report on the recent ACORN scandal Norah O’Donnell of NBC News stated that the sting videos “might be viewed as entrapment”.

No, Norah, it can’t be because as the definition states, entrapment is when a law enforcement officer or government agent induces or encourages a person to commit a crime when that person expresses that they do not want to do so. Entrapment is based on who caused the encouragement for the act.

In these ACORN tapes it is clear that the encouragement was not by the “government agents” but instead with the ACORN volunteers.

What makes this wordplay even funnier is that NBC is also the producing network of the entrapment trainwreck called To Catch a Predator. There have been numerous claims of the show’s decoys being the first to suggest sex, meaning that a show acting in conjunction with the government crossed into the fuzzy area of entrapment.

[flash flashvars=”v=GdkUpruzSU”]http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/eyeblast.swf[/flash]

Civility

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Joe Wilson’s explosive comment during President Obama’s speech to the joint session of Congress was inappropriate. He apologized, end of story. Right? Wrong.

His two words have caused an uproar on the internet, the television and the radio, diverting attention away from the real issue; Healthcare. One blogpost writes Wilson’s comments off as poor “civility” and claims such a virtue is not one at all:

Civility is one of our favorite fake virtues. Real virtues like kindness, charity, or honesty ask something of us—but civility is satisfied so long as we speak in a certain tone and refrain from using certain words. We might spread lies that lead to unnecessary war—but we do so politely. If we grind the faces of the poor into the dust—at least we do it with well-polished boots. We are a nation of wealth and taste.

Sure, it sounds like a decent argument on the surface, but the tactic here is to add language that again, distracts from the argument. Lies are lies are lies, no matter who spreads them. The disturbing part is the recent revelation that the two examples of where healthcare failed used by the President in his speech were embellished. Ok, so he didn’t tell the whole truth, but wait, that sounds familiar if you listen to the rhetoric on Bush’s Iraq policies.

It is just more proof that neither side is better than the other and they both have their share of crooks, liars, and whackjobs. Trying to claim moral high ground on the basis of political ideology is about as dumb as looking into a gas can with a lighter. Your politics may be shaped by your morals but loose blanket statements on issues doesn’t pass the muster test. If you believe in virtues, then you have to abide by all. It’s not some moral buffet where virtues can be cherry picked when they suit a purpose.

So maybe it’s time to forget civility and try kindness, humility, temperance, charity, patience, diligence, chastity, and justice. I’m sure that out of those eight civility will become a given.