It's nice to have a fast laptop again

When I bought the Compaq 1200 notebook computer back in 2000, it was a top notch machine. In the years since then, it has become antiquated and slow, and I avoided using it if at all possible basically until about a week ago, when I added 128 MB of RAM to it and a wireless networking card.

Now, the wireless networking card has done me no good whatsoever thus far because here in Maine there are still very few places (my house included) that are hotspots. That said, I'm excited about maybe getting it to work this weekend in the Tech Center.

I mention all this because I've been off on my computer much of this past week and a half, plugging away in many remote environments and neglecting to charge up the home PC and point out my successes and failures on this blog. I know Elaine has felt a little out of the loop lately, and for that I apologize. I really should have been better about checking in at the end of the respective days to keep her and Mary Ann up to speed.

Speaking of Mary Ann, she recently noted that she didn't realize there was a patent pending on TeacherWeb. Because Connected Classrooms has temporarily dissolved until she and Jason (from Gravity Switch and The Persons School, for review) can get together and renovate, she doesn't really have a site with which to compare the patentable portions of TeacherWeb.

Which serves as a smashing segue into another mention, which is that I then asked Mary Ann for a listing of what she believes the strengths (and conversely, the weaknesses) of Connected Classrooms will be when it reemerges, whenever it is that it will reemerge.

This is important, because I'm trying to add a SWOT analysis to a document for this weekend's Capstone Fair, but I can't come up with strengths and weaknesses for a website that doesn't exist... well, I guess a significant weakness would be that it doesn't exist... but theoretically, it will, and I'll need to know what Mary Ann plans on offering that other websites won't.

Otherwise, the display board for my Capstone is coming along swimmingly, and I'm particularly proud of a certain graphic design I made featuring a school bus with webpages for a windshield. I'm so clever.

Fishbone

Mary Ann returned word today that although she hadn't spoken to Jason in a few weeks, she expects there to be mockups available to me no earlier than late June, early July.

While there's no guarantee I'd have gotten around to doing anything with them prior to that point anyway, I can honestly say the sooner I have current versions of Connected Classrooms at my disposal, the better. Mary Ann, being a teacher dealing her last few weeks of school, though, is under tremendous stress. Living with two teachers, I can sympathize.

In the meantime, Elaine mentioned in a phone conversation midweek that she believes the real way to go with the Capstone at this juncture is to do a Fishbone Analysis to determine the root problems leading up to Connected Classrooms inability to catch on.

Sounds good to me - the aforementioned Fishbone Analysis will likely be what graces my Capstone board at the Fair on June 26.

"I wanna do 'dis, Brutus, but I don't want to pay"

The title to this line is a quotation from the esteemed L.L. Cool J, in a song later interpreted by the more modern philosophers Sevendust in a heavy metal vent.

And it has absolutely nothing to do with my Capstone. But I needed a subject line and for some reason "Going Back to Cali" has been running through my head. You know, I've always wanted to take a kayak behind the outfield wall of SBC Park in San Francisco when the Giants are playing, if for no other reason than to get my picture taken in a kayak on the Pacific Ocean behind a baseball stadium.

Regardless, I emailed Mary Ann to see if she might be able to provide me with some mockups for the renovated Connected Classrooms site, so that I my research results are more up-to-date. It seems rather silly to user-test and interview based on a site that may have already made the improvements I may be fixing to suggest based on the results I found with the old version of the site... if that makes any sense...

So ideally, the following will happen: Mary Ann will provide me with mockups (or at LEAST wireframes) of the new version of her site and I will use those in my user testing. While she's preparing those, I'll go out and do some competitive analyses of competitors' sites (of which there are painfully few, with the only REALLY direct competitor, as far as I can tell, being the aforementioned TeacherWeb.com) to keep myself busy.

Also on the docket is about three-fifths of my legal report, due on Friday, and a competitor's analysis of one of LobsterGram.com's nemeses.

Can a train jump hurdles?

Let's hope so.

The gee whiz updates for today aren't really new developments so much as older developments I haven't yet posted about on this site.

And I've got about 10 minutes to post about them before leaving for work, so I'm going to try and keep the peanut gallery comments to a minimum.

The first interesting note to make is that one of Connected Classroom's main competitors - TeacherWeb - has a patent pending on its site. This patent may or may not present a huge problem for Connected Classrooms. Upon a little further research, the patent seems to deal with TeacherWeb's user interface, and before too long into this project, I'll need to make sure that Mary Ann's website doesn't utilize any patented devices.

That could be the monkey wrench to end all monkey wrenches.

Another interesting note is that Mary Ann informed me this week that she and Jason Mark - the Persons School web design instructor, as well as the founder of Gravity Switch and co-creator of Connected Classrooms - are planning to reinvent Connected Classrooms.

This, I think, is a fantastic idea in general. However, this leaves me wondering whether to proceed with studies considering the OLD Connected Classrooms or the NEW Connected Classrooms.

Elaine suggested I use the mockups for the new version of the site, and I agree, but I don't have word as of yet whether or not those mockups are available. Hopefully Mary Ann will be able to shed some light on what stage of the reinvention we're currently at. If it's all hypothetical at this point, I may have to use the old version of the site merely out of necessity.

Can a train jump hurdles?

Let's hope so.

The gee whiz updates for today aren't really new developments so much as older developments I haven't yet posted about on this site.

And I've got about 10 minutes to post about them before leaving for work, so I'm going to try and keep the peanut gallery comments to a minimum.

The first interesting note to make is that one of Connected Classroom's main competitors - TeacherWeb - has a patent pending on its site. This patent may or may not present a huge problem for Connected Classrooms. Upon a little further research, the patent seems to deal with TeacherWeb's user interface, and before too long into this project, I'll need to make sure that Mary Ann's website doesn't utilize any patented devices.

That could be the monkey wrench to end all monkey wrenches.

Another interesting note is that Mary Ann informed me this week that she and Jason Mark - the Persons School web design instructor, as well as the founder of Gravity Switch and co-creator of Connected Classrooms - are planning to reinvent Connected Classrooms.

This, I think, is a fantastic idea in general. However, this leaves me wondering whether to proceed with studies considering the OLD Connected Classrooms or the NEW Connected Classrooms.

Elaine suggested I use the mockups for the new version of the site, and I agree, but I don't have word as of yet whether or not those mockups are available. Hopefully Mary Ann will be able to shed some light on what stage of the reinvention we're currently at. If it's all hypothetical at this point, I may have to use the old version of the site merely out of necessity.

Another weekend in the Anti-Cell state

I love Vermont. I love its natural beauty and the luscious green surroundings, and the peace-loving people and their loyal Red Sox fans. But can't they throw some cell phone towers up SOMEwhere up there?

I go to one of the most technologically advanced grad school programs in the country, but its buried right in the heart of one of the least technologically accepting states in the country.

And I come from Maine, so that's saying something.

Anyway, on Saturday, just prior to the wedding reception for Jimmy and Carrie Goodreau in Holyoke, Mass., I met with Elaine at the Tech Center in Brattleboro, Vt. Because I was a loose mental canon with educational technology research pouring out of my ears, Elaine and I sat down and tried to pound out an intelligent timeline for all of my project deliverables so I'd have something to work with.

Here's what I have for tasks to accomplish in the coming weeks:

By 6-1-04 - Email Mary Ann Fitzgerald (the creator of Connected Classrooms) with a progress report, as well as Claudine Keenan (the Director of Academic Programs for the Persons School) with a request for some research help from those in the school's teaching program. We figure we can harvest my teaching classmates for survey purposes and user studies and such.

Check! Both of those things have been done.

By 6-5-04 - Update my Capstone Proposal online to better reflect the actual work I'm doing, which is really a marketing plan more than anything.

By 6-12-04 - Market Summary, including Market Needs and Market Trends.

By 6-22-04 - SWOT Analysis, including potential customer analysis, critical issues and competition.

By 6-26-04 - A finished display board for the Capstone Fair.

After that, I've got all sorts of stuff that'll still need to be done, but this at least maps out my next month or so.

I also got word back from Mike Muir, with some more resources to check out and encouragement that he'd be able to help me out in person if I gave him some more specifics about what I needed.

Nice folks all around.