Ramble On

This note captured an oft-expressed opinion, and I am posting here because it may be of some interest to a larger community.

Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2005 17:40:14 -0400
From: Jason Young
To: ndstech@lists.ncsu.edu
Subject: DS, schemas, etc.

Novell's beta announcement of yet another DS version prompts me again to
write, just briefly, something that I've felt was a blinding glimpse of the
obvious for some time, and just offer again the observation that Novell's
development model does not fit with the way this campus works with Novell
Directory Services.  I'm not sure that Novell's development model fits with
any organization's way of working with NDS, but it seems a lot closer to
shops that have a lot more control over the entire NDS Tree and can move
faster or at least less "fitfully" than we are able to.

We have been over-paranoid about the "schema" for quite some time.  And we
have the very real threat of DS problems in one section of the tree
cascading into serious issues in other parts of the tree.

Novell does release fixes, in odd ways only eclipsed in their oddity by the
Linux community (which is still better than Microsoft, and at least one
knows about them beforehand compared to Apple), but it's not like you can
take advantage of them, because you can't make changes to our shared tree
without (rightfully) sending 10 or so emails, and taking it to committee,
and at least a few meetings, only to inevitably get thrown out the window
some percentage of the time due to human error, be it ours or Novell's.

The Novell tree has been embroiled in politics - some quite serious - for
years now.  All surrounding this shared management issue that it seems we
cling to in the interest of - well I don't know why we cling to it other
than the "Accounts" that exist in one part of the tree or the other (it's
really "Resources" - but the basis of access to those Resources is the
Accounts).

I'd offer, again, in a way that's probably going to be taken wrong (again),
that it seems for this observer that we'd really be better off with
independently managed shrubbery.  And the collective brainpower that exists
in NDSTech, which is formidable, would seem to me to be far better used
trying to collectively find ways to make account synchronization work
across the shrubs (you know, I think CHASS has already done this a few
times over).  It seems that has the greatest potential of freeing up each
organization to pursue fixes and patches and updates and innovation to
their heart's content, all the while leaning on the experiences of their
peers across campus.  It does feel like that would be more like fighting to
"do something" - "for" something - rather than against the inevitable
breakage that Novell's development model seems to cause for for the NDSTree.

Take it or leave it, that's my annual $1.02, having been part of ndstech
since its inception, its first chair, and interested, hopefully objective,
if not unbiased, observer for several years hence.

Jason

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jason Young                       \ NC STATE UNIVERSITY
ITECS Systems Group Manager        \ COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
http://people.engr.ncsu.edu/jayoung \
____________________________________________________________

I wrote this email last Friday, and wanted to record it in the blog, because it may find its way to others that would be interested in the information:

Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 15:24:20 -0400
From: Jason Young
To: Ben McNeely, packmug@lists.ncsu.edu, tltr@lists.ncsu.edu
Subject: Re: [packmug] e-book on e-learning
X-Mailer: Mulberry/4.0.0b1 (Mac OS X)

Ben et al., I'm cc'ing the tltr (with Ben's permission), because I believe
they'd be interested in this.  I have some comments below Ben's note on a
part of it, not meaning to take away anything at all from the the focus of
Ben's note and his mention of this e-book.

--On April 15, 2005 2:00:20 PM -0400 Ben wrote:

> Our new chancellor and his wife recently released a new e-book about using
> technology as a learning tool in the classroom. I was fortunate enough to
> contribute a chapter to this book, explaining the student side of
> learning.
>
> Check it out at the EDUCAUSE Web site:
>
> http://www.educause.edu/educatingthenetgen/
>
> It is a free download, if you are brave enough to download the full book
> -- it is a 300-page document. Or you can read each chapter on the Web.
>
> I sympathize with Ilian, but I am not quite sure we are ready to have full
> integration of technology in the classroom. As Hal and Dr. Robarge have
> said, faculty must know how to use it before they can implement it. That
> is a slow and time-consuming process. Also, students need to know how to
> use technology. Right now, I don't believe students are as techno-savvy as
> everyone thinks they are. Sure, we can check e-mail and surf the Web, but
> how many can do routine maintainence on their computer -- i.e., set up a
> firewall, check and repair for virues, know which software updates they
> are installing, etc. How many can switch from the Windows platform to the
> Mac platform? How many K-12 students have computer or Internet access at
> home or at school?
>
> Technology is great, but in order to implement it on the massive scale, we
> must first look at who will be using it, what sort of exposure they will
> have and what resources are necessary in order to make it feasible and
> accessible to all people.
>
> As an institution, N.C. State is a great platform in which to study this
> problem and turn out practical, real-world solutions -- if we are willing
> to invest the time and money into it.
>
> Just my humanities spin on an obvious engineering problem.
>
> okay,
>
> Ben

My comments, as I want to focus on this part of Ben's note.

> Right now, I don't believe students are as techno-savvy as
> everyone thinks they are. Sure, we can check e-mail and surf the Web, but
> how many can do routine maintenance on their computer -- i.e., set up a
> firewall, check and repair for virues, know which software updates they
> are installing, etc. How many can switch from the Windows platform to the
> Mac platform? How many K-12 students have computer or Internet access at
> home or at school?

my first reaction to this was a somewhat overzealous "Yes! Yes! Yes!"
comment, which thankfully was quiet enough that I didn't cause too much of
a stir in the basement of Page Hall.

Our "next-generation of Eos" initiative[1] considers this kind of education
as *fundamental* to the success of the computing environment within the
College of Engineering.  Without a strong computing education program, our
other efforts with student owned computing, labs, and remote access
(including VCL) will not be anywhere near as successful as they could
otherwise be.

In partnership with the Department of Computer Science, we formed an
implementation team made up of individuals passionate about changing how we
do computing instruction, the curriculum for the "pilot" course for E115
(Introduction to Computing Environments) was revamped last year.  The pilot
course was offered to students in the College of Engineering that signed up
for our student owned computing initiative[2].  The new curriculum[3]
focused on teaching "modern computing concepts" teaching the students about
their own computer, viruses/spyware/other security issues, a little about
networks and remote access to NC State resources, and concepts common to
Windows/Macintosh/Linux, whatever platform the students have.

What I think was *revolutionary* was that we brought 300 students in this
semester and did *not* provide them an NC State-customized "image" - which
is what many IT people will tell you has to be done to be able to "support"
something. We have a few Macs, and a number of Windows machines, installed
as they were from the vendor.

We put a lot of IT staff in the first classes to assist the students in
getting their laptop operational (consisting mostly of cleaning up a lot of
Windows spyware and viruses).

And with the revamped curriculum, we had no observable increase in the
support required from our helpdesk. Initial assessment is that the students
also got a lot out of E115 and were excited about it. (it also had really
good TA's, and like anything, good people make the best projects). Our
assessment director conducted an assessment, and I have only seen some of
the initial results - but the initial feedback was very positive.

However, getting people really excited about this has been quite a
challenge.  It has seemed that most of the people, faculty included, that
we talk about "Eos2" with - become a lot more interested about the
technology aspects of the effort (things like our Virtual Computing Lab[4]
project that's a part of an overall Remote Access strategy) - than they do
the education part of the initiative.  Perhaps it's because the curriculum
might be somewhat unique to Engineering and not relevant to the campus, or
because it's only a 1 hour course, I don't know.  But it certainly seems to
be the most exciting part to me at least, and that's coming from a
technologist, not an educator.

For now we are staying the course, 97% of our Engineering students are
bringing computers, 70% this past year brought laptop computers, and we
want to incorporate those computers in our classrooms, and most importantly
help our students (and our faculty) help themselves with their own
technology - helping them do the things that Ben touched on, and we are
looking forward to an ongoing evolution of this course for our incoming
students.

Referenced URLs:

[1] http://www.eos.ncsu.edu/eos2/
[2] http://www.eos.ncsu.edu/soc/
[3] http://courses.ncsu.edu/e115/common/laptop/course/syllabus.html
[4] http://vcl.ncsu.edu/

Jason

--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jason Young                       \ NC STATE UNIVERSITY
ITECS Systems Group Manager        \ COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING
http://people.engr.ncsu.edu/jayoung \
____________________________________________________________