Thursday, November 13, 2014

I'd rather be in Rio

Things haven't always been great in Rio.  In the old days (as in, four or five years ago), the heat could be  unbearable sometimes.  Storm clouds would threaten and whether we might survive to even make it through a work day was a serious concern.

Oh - I'm talking about Rio School District, not that place in Brazil.

The past few years have been the most exciting, most fulfilling I've had in a career approaching 30 years, with the exception, perhaps, of my days as a teacher.  And yesterday's election lent some confirmation that our progress as a district has been noticed.  The public voted to provide much needed support for our schools by passing Measure G, a local bond measure that will bring much needed upgrades to our district facilities.  This morning's paper showed that almost 70% of voters supported the bond measure.

We'll be able to upgrade our facilities (some of which are better than 60 years old), make our classrooms safer and better suited for 21st century learning, and enhance our technology.

I'm excited about all of this, but the tech is closest to my heart.  We'll be able to upgrade our backbone (to 10GB), improve our classroom displays (TVs instead of projectors, with wireless connectivity), and maybe get a phone system district wide that isn't Vintage 1985.

Our teachers have been working hard on creating a world-class learning organization, moving to a project-based / inquiry based curriculum incorporating 21st Century learning skills.  We're getting more focused on teaching kids how to learn, rather than teaching kids "things".  In an information rich, internet connected age, this is important.  Anybody can look up what happened to Napoleon in 1813 (he got his butt kicked in the Battle of Leipzig).  But learning why, and relating that to world events and relevance in today's world is more important.

Teachers across the district have thrown out desks in favor of couches, tables, and bean bag chairs.  One teacher lowered all of his tables so kids could sit on a square of carpet.  Kids loved it - they could move, wriggle and squirm.  They could scrunch together to share a screen or a piece of paper.  They could spread out to work privately.  Walk into another teacher's class and you'll find kids laying on the carpet, while other kids are sitting at desks or sitting on the floor against a wall, their netbooks sitting on their laps.  Everyone is engaged in what they're doing.

We're growing, and we're pushing boundaries, experimenting with what works best for kids in this age of information abundance.  Teachers are discovering that they are free from being the sole or primary source of information.  They can question, explore, and model how to be a learner, right along with their students.

It's a great time to be in education.  It's a great time to be in Rio, and there's no place I'd rather be!

FJ Cruiser On-Board Air Compressor

After five years of airing up after an off-road adventure using my Harbor Freight mini compressor, I decided to install an onboard unit.  After a little research, I settled on the ARB CKMTA12 twin compressor.  This little unit will provide 100 PSI, continuous duty - enough to easily air up my tires and run an impact wrench.

After getting it installed and wired, I aired a tire down to 21psi (standard off-road pressure), and timed filling it back up to 46psi (standard on-road pressure).  Total time, barely a minute.  The next test will be with an impact wrench.

When I started planning the installation, I wanted the compressor in the engine bay and up high enough that dirt and moisture wouldn't be a problem.  I also needed an area where heat from the compressor would not be an issue with surrounding components.  And I hate drilling holes in my vehicles. Fortunately, there's plenty room in the engine bay of the FJ, and in the back corner there are some existing 8mm threaded holes in the fender area, which I could use to bolt on a bracket for holding the compressor.

I fabricated a bracket out of a piece of steel bar stock and some steel plate.  The bracket bolts into the side of the engine bay into two existing threaded holes, and to the bolt which mounts the cold air intake.  I welded a piece of steel plate to the bracket and drilled holes to accommodate the compressor.  A teflon air hose encased in braided stainless connects the compressor to a quick disconnect, mounted on the forward part of the bracket, making it easy to attach the air hose.

Wiring was really straight forward using the existing ARB wiring looms, and only required poking a small hole in one of the rubber seals where the wiring enters the cabin through the firewall.  I sealed the hole with RTV sealer after inserting the wire under the dash.  A 10A Add-A Circuit, placed into the fuse box in an empty slot that is active only when the engine is running runs through the ARB switch, mounted in an existing slot to the left of the steering wheel.  I routed all the cabling along the back of the engine bay, tucked up under the top against the firewall, secured with zip-ties, and connected power and ground to the battery terminals.

With this, I can quickly air up - which means I'll be more inclined to air down, which means off road the vehicle will be better, and I won't tear up the roads as much.  It's all good!  (When I attended the Toyota Trail Teams event a few years ago, one of the instructors said that for the good of the vehicle and the good of the trails, one should always air down and always run in 4WD).



Wednesday, October 29, 2014

From the Things That Keep Me Awake At Night Department, one of the things I've been faced with since coming to Rio is the phone system. It's old. And disjointed. To make a call from one site to another, you have to dial the main number for the school, and get transferred. Just not an efficient system. And the quality of voicemail services varies with the school site. As does the chance that the phones will actually work - especially when it rains. That's the nature of 60 year old wires on old, analog systems. We lost our district office system a couple of years ago when the hard drive literally disintegrated. No kidding - it sounded like a gravel mixer. That's what happens when something built in 1984 (honest!) is asked to serve well into its twilight years - seems that nobody wants to spend money on making phone calls. Until they can't.

We submitted the necessary documents for eRate discounts on a district-wide, hosted VoIP system, and were funded for it. Total cost, after eRate discounts, would be about $1800 per month (we're an 80% district - do the math!). With the demise of eRate support for communications comes the need for us to reevaluate our original plan for utilizing hosted VoIP system to solve our problem, because we can't afford to do this without eRate.

Working off my virtual napkin: Our cost, once eRate is completely gone for communications, would be $18,000 per month. That's a serious pile of dinero just to make phone calls - and we're in a day and age when many people don't even have phones in their homes anymore, instead preferring to simply use their mobile phone as their home phone. (Makes sense, actually). So we started looking at alternatives. One alternative is to go back to the hosting company and find out what they plan on doing - end result, they're reeling from the decision about discounts for communications also. I'm not sure what they plan on doing, but I have to come up with a plan. So, let's say they cut their pricing in half. Our monthly commitment,  ​$9,000 per month.  Annual commitment, about $108K.  Will they really cut their price in half? To be frank, drawing from my old MBA marketing classes, if these guys are really building their business model on a margin that's over 50%, they're either Apple or they're delusional. So I don't think even this scenario is going to float.

The problem for us is we simply cannot justify spending even $9000 a month for a hosted VoIP system when I can purchase a system for the district that would cost less than that and be done with it. When hosted VoIP was $1000 per month, it made sense.  When it turned into $9K per month, no way.  At that price, we have to ask ourselves if the marginal benefit of hosted VoIP justifies taking those funds away from our primary goal of providing every kid with a personal, mobile device.  Especially when the overall goal of a phone system is just to make phone calls!  

We looked at in-house VoIP solutions, we looked at analog systems (the upgrade what we have approach, even though nobody likes our existing phone system, even when it does work), and we looked at the open source solution. Cost-wise, the open source solution wins hands-down - solutions from Shoretel, Cisco, etc. are all still a huge pile of money just to make phone calls. (How much of that rich feature set that comes with VoIP do we really use, or need, anyway?) So what does it take to do this? Expertise. At the end of the day, the expertise for the open source solution works out to be no worse (in many ways better) than, say, Cisco. Or Shoretel. (We're computer guys, not phone guys!). On the other hand, there's 3 techs for 8 schools and the district offices (we're a school district, for crying out loud. What school district adequately staffs the Technology Department?), and our primary mission starts with kids and teachers and classrooms and works out from there. Phones are way down the list in terms of priority for service.

All of this goes totally counter to my The Cloud is the Future philosophy (hence, my sleepless nights). But when I can get an open-source solution (Asterisk) for less than one year of a hosted service, the issue becomes one of features, maintenance, installation, etc.  Right now, that's where my head is  - I don't have a firm answer yet.  But that's where we are.


This is the thinking I'll take to cabinet, and with budget still being a seriously compelling and primary consideration, the  main issue for me will be whether I can manage a system in-house. My guys are very, very good - we do have the technical expertise to do it.  And to be honest, If I put the $108K towards hiring another support tech, there's a compelling argument that says it won't take a full time employee to manage a phone system.


I doubt this is too far from what everyone in education is thinking right now - it's definitely a topic of conversation. It's just a matter of where it makes most sense to allocate the limited resources we have available - student devices, or phones?

Saturday, October 4, 2014

Blogging instead of site building

Sitting in on a Jen Roberts session is dangerous.  Well, maybe that's the wrong word. You will learn, you will be infected by her passion and enthusiasm, and you will be inspired.  But you’ll also be sold on there being a better way to do things - she’s that persuasive.


We’ve been looking for a way to get websites set up for our teachers.  I’ve been trying to convince myself to blog more.  I even built a blog site.  Now, I’m regrouping on both fronts.  Jen has convinced me that we need to dump the idea of websites for all teachers.  And she’s convinced me that the environment should be Blogger, not Wordpress.  So I’m shifting my blog to Blogger and I’m shifting my recommendation for our district to using Blogger instead of Google Sites for teacher / class pages.


Blogger is easier than Google Sites, and just as flexible and accommodating for teachers’ use.  It does some things fairly automatically that are very useful in the classroom, such as Archiving posts - which means that as a teacher adds assignments and information (each as a separate blog post), students and parents can find that stuff at a later date.  (I’m imagining the utility for students who miss a class!)  It integrates way better than Wordpress with Google Apps (because Google owns it).  It has great controls over comments (turn on comment moderation) and such.

OK, Jen - I'm sold, and I'm going down the Blogger rabbit-hole. We'll see if the district goes with me!