EVERY now and then I get the urge to stand back and look at what's going on in the world. As the old saying goes, Sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. This column is about data sources that give a world view. The U.S. government spends a lot of money to provide websites with all kinds of interesting data. One of the easiest to use and most comprehensive is the Central Intelligence Agency's World Fact at www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html. Incidentally, the CIA says there are 222 countries in the world. I thought the number was closer to 190. I guess I should get out more! One way to use the Fact Book is to use the Guide to Country Profiles. Detailed information on every country is broken down under the following headings: Geography, People, Government, Economy, Communications, Transportation, Military, and Transnational Issues. Under the Communications category, you can find such things as number of telephone lines, number of Internet hosts, and number of Internet users. According to the Fact Book, the U.S. has 208 million Internet users--about two-thirds of the total population. Vatican City has the fewest, with just 93. Some categories are just plain sad; under the Transnational Issues category is a subcategory for Trafficking in Persons. The most user-friendly way to use the Fact Book is to use its Ranked Lists. For example, if you examine Life Expectancy at Birth, you find that the number ranges from a low of 32.23 years for Swaziland to a high of 83.52 for Andorra--a small country between France and Spain. It's interesting to read about countries I had forgotten. An obvious data source on the world's children is UNICEF (United Nations Children's Fund). Each year, UNICEF issues a report titled State of the World's Children. The home page for the report is www.unicef.org/sowc. There are numerous ways to mine data from this report. You can download the entire report or print summaries, tables, charts, and panels--inserts in the final report. Although the world's children seem to be doing a little better than in the past, the numbers are still disturbing. For example, the percentage of the world's children under 5 years of age who are moderately or severely underweight now stands at 25%. In the least-developed nations, the number rises to 35%. These numbers tell the global story, but the report also breaks the world down by region. For example, South Asia has the largest percentage of malnourished children at a sad 42%. Incidentally, the adult literacy rate in the least-developed countries is 55%, compared to 78% for the world. And here is a curious statistic: only 68% of the world's households use iodized salt. Both UNICEF and the CIA have a wide variety of Web pages designed especially for students. For example, UNICEF has a colorful interactive game for children done by the creators of Sesame Street. You can find it at www.panwapa.org. The main UNICEF Web page for education is at http://cyberschoolbus.un.org. The main CIA Web page for kids is at www.cia.gov/kids-page/index.html. If you find yourself on a redirect page, just click on the link to Kids' Pages. Once you're there, click on the K-5 pages, and you will find an interesting activity that teaches children about the CIA's K-9 Corps. Kids get to see pictures of the various dogs and read about their work protecting the CIA's people. Although you might not expect it, the U.S. Census Bureau's International Page at www.census.gov/ipc/www/idb is another government site with a great deal of data on individual countries. An interesting feature of this site is that you can call up population pyramid graphs that show the relative percentages of people at various ages. Unlike many sites, the Census Bureau projects statistics into the future. For example, between now and 2025, the percentage of young children in the U.S. is projected to grow substantially. …

THE FUTURE is a complicated place, as I've said many times before. Unfortunately, it is getting worse than even I could imagine. I used to think that I was a power user of all kinds of technology, but today that is no longer possible. There is just too much complexity for any one person to master. One of the relatively recent happenings that has complicated matters is the advent of what I call By that term I mean any software that becomes obsolete in a very short time. Both Microsoft and Apple now make disposable software and have done so for several years. Let me explain. Every 12 to 24 months, Apple releases a new version of the Mac operating system (OS X). The most recent version is called Microsoft does likewise for PCs. Leopard has many enhancements of the interface and offers specific features that help to automate work flow. However, before installing Leopard, you absolutely must go through all the other software you own to find out if it is compatible with Leopard. Plan on spending the better part of a day completing this task. A friend just installed Leopard and quickly found that his version of Photoshop, as well as other programs, did not work on Leopard. He further learned that no upgrade was available, so he would need to purchase an entirely new version of many of his programs. So within less than two years, his recent version of OS X had become disposable and with it much of his other software. There goes another hundred dollars for Leopard and a few hundred more for Photoshop. In past columns I have mentioned Keynote, Apple's great presentation program, which is bundled with Pages to make what Apple calls iWork '06. In late 2007, Apple came out with iWork '08. A few days ago, I wanted to use Keynote to create a presentation that I could export as a QuickTime movie. The export failed. I had recently upgraded to QuickTime 7.2 player, which I think was the problem. Now I will probably need to purchase QuickTime 7.2 Pro for about $30. And because there is no upgrade path for Keynote '06, there goes another hundred dollars. You can avoid problems like those above if you keep in mind that the software in your computer must work together and that old and new programs might not play well together. To avoid problems, never upgrade any software unless you are prepared to upgrade nearly all of your software. You can simply keep using the old stuff that works. Now that I have given Apple some press, let me turn my attention to Microsoft's latest blunder: Vista. If you thought Apple liked to upset the apple cart occasionally, consider Vista, Microsoft's newest version of its Windows operating system. A lot of older PC software is not compatible with Vista. Here are a few words from the Microsoft Vista website: Most programs written for Windows XP also work in this version of Windows, but some older programs might run poorly or not at all. If a program written for an earlier version of Windows doesn't run correctly, use the Program Compatibility Wizard to change the compatibility settings for the program. To change settings for a program manually, use the individual program's Compatibility tab. If changing the settings does not fix the problem, go to the program manufacturer's website to see if there is an update for the program. Here is an abbreviated list of the settings you might have to tweak to get older software to run (minus any description of what they do and how to use them): compatibility mode, run in 256 colors, run in 640 x 480 screen resolution, disable visual themes, disable desktop composition, disable display scaling on high DPI settings, privilege level, and show settings for all users. How bad is the Vista dilemma? Already I have students who are frustrated because I cannot open their e-mailed homework, which they wrote in Word 2007. I simply have to ask them to please bring me a printed copy. …

FRANKLY, I have felt guilty over the past several years for not discussing personal media players like iPods and for not covering more WiFi topics in this column. Maybe it is as the ancients thought, bad ether. Or maybe it is my love for things like high-definition video, five-channel surround sound, and fast and capable computers. But all that is about to change, as I am finally making the move to WiFi, personal media players, and take-it-anywhere technology. It pains me because until very recently, I have been more than happy with the technology I already have. It is the Archos 605 WiFi personal media player that lured me out of my wired comfort zone. I have ranted and raved about technology in the past, but the Archos 605 makes me stretch to find enough superlatives--and expletives--to describe it. I first learned about the 605 while reading an editor's review by Donald Bell on CNET (dated 8/30/07). While I consult CNET reviews often, the opinions that follow are mine and not quite the same as those of Mr. Bell. The Archos 605 is 4.75 inches wide, 3.25 inches tall, and slightly over half an inch thick. Most of the front is taken up by a gorgeous 4.25-inch (diagonally) TFT (thin film transistor) LCD (liquid crystal display) screen with 800 x 480 pixels. This screen, by itself, sets the Archos apart from nearly every other similar device, including the iPod. Two other features put the Archos in a category by itself: a 30-GB hard drive and built-in WiFi for wireless networking. The 605 is available with as little as 4 GB and as much as 160 GB of memory, but I suspect the 30-GB model will be the most popular, and it is the one I recommend. Another feature I like is the small speaker on the front that lets you listen to music without using those annoying ear buds. Together, these and similar features drove me to the store. The screen of the 605 is a "multi-touch" screen that turns into a qwerty keyboard when you need it. A "multi-touch" screen allows you to scroll up and down or side to side with a finger or a stylus--two of the latter are provided. There are also six buttons on the right side of the device that are needed from time to time, but you can generally use the touch screen. As soon as I got home with the 605, I turned it on and checked to see if there was any wireless coverage in my neighborhood, but there was none. I guess the local Starbucks is just too far away. Oh well, I think my son has a spare wireless station that I can use with my Mac mini and DSL line to create my very own WiFi network. I plan on setting up my home wireless network soon, but I want to make it as secure as possible, which might take a little study. Expect more on this topic in a future column. If you don't have a WiFi network, you can simply connect the 605 directly to a computer. The 605 comes with a special cable that connects it to the USB 2 port on a computer. You must have a USB 2 port, since this is how you charge the 605's batteries, and a USB 1 port does not have adequate power. Once connected to a computer, the 605 shows up on the Mac desktop or in "My Computer" on a PC. There are two ways to configure this connection: one makes the 605 appear as an external device; the other makes the 605 act as a Windows Media Player. The first connection method is the one I use, since it allows me to simply drag files to the 605 hard drive. The first order of business for me was downloading some music files from eMusic.com--an Archos partner. I like eMusic for three main reasons. First, the music, which costs 99 cents a song, is not copy protected, so you own it. That means you can transfer it from computer to computer and make as many CDs as you like. Second, I like eMusic because it features a wide selection of old folk, pop, rock, and country music that is nearly impossible to find elsewhere. For example, it was easy to find nearly a dozen versions of Donovan's "Catch the Wind" and a copy of "Lonely Surfer" by the Ventures. …

THE CONSUMER Electronics Show (CES) and Macworld, both held in January, are always a rich source of information about where the electronics industry is headed. Based on this year's shows, it appears that the future will be wireless, thin, high-definition, and chic. One of the annual events at CES is the last gadget standing, an informal contest sponsored by Yahoo. The winner of this year's competition was the Eye-Fi wireless SD (secure digital) card. The Eye-Fi card is a two-GB memory card with a built-in wireless Wi-Fi transmitter. With the software included, you can wirelessly transfer photos to your computer or even to an Internet photo-sharing site. The card is available from Wal-Mart and other retailers for about $100. Speaking of wireless, several new technologies are becoming available that can help eliminate wires. Universal Serial Bus (USB) 2.0 has become the ubiquitous standard for computer interfaces. Now, there is Wireless USB. Wireless USB is essentially an in-room technology that creates a wireless interface between devices over a distance from 3 to 10 meters. At 3 meters, the data transfer rate is as high as 480 Mbps (megabits per second). At 10 meters, the transfer rate drops to 110 Mbps. These rates make it possible to connect printers and other peripherals and transfer photos and music, but they are not fast enough to transmit high-resolution video very well. If you hate wires, the under-$50 price tag is appealing. However, you will need an adapter for every device. Recently an industry trade group formed called Certified Wireless USB. The group has an informative website at www.usb.org. Of course, before you buy any Wireless USB devices, it is wise to be sure the company has drivers for your computer's operating system and for your printers. Recent reports have come in that drivers are slow in coming for Microsoft Windows Vista. Another industry trade group dedicated to developing wireless networks capable of streaming high-definition video and surround sound is called WirelessHD (WiHD). Members of the group include LG Electronics, Matsushita, NEC, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba. If you want to beam high-definition video (HDTV) with surround sound all through the house--something I have wanted to do for years--things get tricky. Beaming four streams of HDTV is ideal, since different people in different rooms could then watch different programming. But unlike Web browsing and other wireless uses, even small interruptions in a video stream are objectionable. This means that the gear used must have what is known as a QoS (quality of service) function that guarantees a certain throughput. By comparison to Wireless USB, WirelessHD has data transfer rates of between 2 and 5 Gbps (gigabits per second). WiHD is definitely an in-room technology, but that may be a benefit. You won't be beaming your video around the neighborhood. If you are interested in learning more about WirelessHD, Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org) has good explanations and comparisons of various approaches. I suspect that, by the end of 2008, both Wireless USB and WirelessHD will have become common. They say that is in, and in the IT world, thin was readily apparent at this year's shows. For example, LG previewed a super-thin 42 LCD HDTV that is only 1.7 thick. Not to be outdone, Sony unveiled an 11 television that is only 3 mm thick. Sony's super-thin TV uses an OLED (organic light emitting diode), a technology that requires very little power. By contrast, LCD and plasma displays consume a lot of electricity, so OLED is a step toward greener displays. The ASUS Eee PC is a sub-notebook or ultra-compact PC that has received a lot of attention at CES and in the tech press. The Eee is the size of a hardback book and has a 7 diagonal screen with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels. A distinguishing feature of the Eee is that it uses memory chips instead of a hard drive. …

ORIGINALLY, I planned to write this column entirely about the $100 laptop, the brainchild of Nicholas Negroponte. For years, Negroponte headed MIT's famous Media Lab (www.media.mit.edu). In 2005, he and other visionaries from MIT, such as Alan Kay and Seymour Papert, formed a nonprofit corporation called Laptop Per Child (OLPC) (http://laptop.org). plan is to develop the $100 laptop and sell it at cost, in lots of from five to 10 million, to the governments of underdeveloped countries. In the mid- to late Eighties, when Alan Kay was an Apple Fellow, Apple was involved in various high computer access (HCA) projects that studied how classrooms were transformed when every child had his or her own laptop. HCA research done by Apple (and now many others) found five outcomes of HCA: 1) truancy dropped to near zero, 2) parents became more actively involved in school activities, 3) discipline problems were greatly reduced, 4) students were more active participants in classroom activities, and 5) students used the computer at home until the wee hours of the morning. vision Negroponte and the OLPC project have for the $100 laptop is intriguing. Some prototype models are battery operated, with a crank handle to charge the batteries. Other prototypes have two screens: one normal color screen and one black-and-white screen that is easy to see in the sunlight. Another prototype has wireless Ethernet that will allow any child to instantly network with up to 100 other children, as long as they are within a two-mile range. In other words, the $100 laptop could instantly network an entire village. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Where do I sign up? According to most tech news sources, the OLPC group has, to date, driven the price down to about $135--pretty close to the goal. I suspect that most computer component manufacturers will give you a good price if you tell them you want five to 10 million units at a time. While searching for information about Negroponte and the $100 laptop, I ran across the conference website (www.ted.com). stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, although is also about science, education, business, and the arts. holds an annual conference that brings together about 1,000 of the brightest, most innovative, and creative thinkers in the world. Some 50 of the conferees are major speakers at the meeting. 2007 conference will be March 7-10 in Monterey, California. But with a conference registration fee of $4,400, it is unlikely that very many Kappan readers will be attending. gives several annual TED Prizes to outstanding TEDizens. 2007 winners are James Nachtwey, photojournalist; E. O. Wilson, evolutionary biologist; and President Bill Clinton. President Clinton won the prize for his outstanding work raising $10 billion to support his foundation's work fighting HIV/AIDS. A Prize comes with a $100,000 gift that is called The One World-Changing Wish award, which the winners can use as they see fit. With sponsorship from BMW and production assistance from WNYC/New York Public Radio, releases a weekly TEDTalk featuring past speakers. talks are available as digital videos or as audio files--both of which should play on an MP3 player. Currently, there are some 50 TEDTalks that can be played online or downloaded. Here is a small sample from that collection--intellectual capital for your desktop. * Nicholas Negroponte, recorded February 2006, duration 17:21. * Ray Kurzweil, inventor and author of Age of Spiritual Machines and Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology, recorded February 2005, duration 23:41. Kurzweil is also a recipient of the President's Science Award. * Bono, rock star, activist, and a 2005 Prize winner, speaking about both our moral obligation and our economic incentives to help eradicate African poverty and disease, recorded February 2005, duration 28:37. …

YANKEE ingenuity was a saying we used in Nebraska, but when I moved to Florida, my students quickly corrected me. In the South we call it "redneck know-how," they informed me. A friend of mine who is a native Southerner likes to say, "We have the technology," which roughly translates into "We can do that." Regardless of what you call it, there are a lot of ingenious ways to help solve problems. There are two practical reasons to discuss green and non-electric technology. First, if you've ever dreamed of a cabin in the woods, but there is no electricity, and you can't get a septic tank permit, green technology can make that dream feasible. Second, there are millions of people in developing countries whose only realistic option is green and non-electric technology. Various philanthropic efforts, such as those of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, have been in the news lately. They have been busy working to help eradicate AIDS and malaria, especially in developing countries in Africa. While we should certainly admire these efforts, what about ensuring that all people have clean water to drink? It seems to me that basic human needs might supersede eradicating diseases, however widespread and debilitating. I was first drawn to the topic of this column by a National Public Radio story about the efforts of the Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG) in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala. Here is an overview of AIDG from its website (www.aidg.org). Roughly 2 billion people do not have access to basic services such as electricity, clean drinking water, and sanitation. Development of the infrastructure is essential to breaking the cycle of poverty in developing countries. The ... AIDG works to provide rural villages in developing countries with affordable and environmentally sound technologies that meet these needs.... The AIDG is a young NGO [non-governmental organization] that received its 501(c)3 status in January 2005. It is currently establishing micro-manufacturing enterprises for appropriate technology in Guatemala and will expand its model to other regions in the near future. Peter Haas is AIDG's founder and executive director, and the group's first "incubated business" in Guatemala is XelaTeco. The Xela Project in Guatemala has devised a simple and ingenious way to purify water. It uses a clean drum with a layer of gravel at the bottom and progressively finer layers of sand on top of that, with the finest sand at the top. Friendly bacteria that grow on that top layer kill the bad bacteria in the water, and you end up with safe, cool water to drink. A water purification system such as the one shown above can provide a lot of water, but it probably needs to be used frequently to keep it in working order. A good source for any small-scale water purification system is Lehman's Non-Electric Hardware catalog (www.lehmans.com). Lehman's is unique! Where else can you buy original, tuned brass sleigh bells? And did you know that Aladdin is still making kerosene lamps? In fact, the company never stopped. (This also means that the kerosene lamps you might find in antique stores are probably not all that old.) Lehman's has interesting green technology products like water filters, composting toilets, and alcohol stoves. Lehman's offers a variety of water filtration systems, including the Berkey Light, which is an attractive tabletop unit that can purify four gallons of water an hour. The cost is $184.95, and the filter elements last 3,000 hours. Among the other AIDG designs is a bio-digester. The AIDG website describes it as "essentially a well-constructed animal waste collection chamber." Here's how it works: Unlike a septic tank, which is not sealed and vents methane, as well as passing effluent to its leach field, a biodigester is a sealed system that intentionally promotes the controlled buildup of methane. …

WARREN Buffett's first rule is Never lose money. His second rule is Never break rule Years ago, Isaac Asimov issued three rules for the robots in his book I, Robot. His first rule was Never harm a human being. If these people can have rules, so can I. Here then are the rules regarding technology that I have developed over the years. Rule 1. Technology should be designed from the user to the network center, not the other way around. This rule is so important, I may want to borrow Buffet's rule 2. Over the last 20 years, I have done consulting work in school districts and universities across the country. Almost without fail, I have had to remind Information Technology (IT) personnel of rule 1. All too often, IT people spend most of their time and energy thinking about servers, networks, switching gear, bandwidth, district databases, and other things in the network operations center that are well removed from the typical user. I find that school district IT people commonly spend most of their time and energies on administrative computing at the expense of teachers and students. Since superintendents and their staffs sign the IT people's checks, this may be a natural phenomenon. I visited one district with 50,000 students that had a dozen or so people devoted to administrative computing and just two people devoted to instructional computing. When I visited the district's schools, the situation was bleak. Specifically, technology systems should be designed in the following order: user [right arrow] output/input device [right arrow] software [right arrow] interface (operating system) [right arrow] hardware [right arrow] local area network [right arrow] wide area network [right arrow] operations center (servers and mass storage) [right arrow] extranet. All too often, people start thinking about hardware, not the user. My university recently changed the online program that lets faculty members enter final course grades. The old application had radio buttons for each possible grade. All you had to do to enter a final grade was to push the right button next to a student's name. The new application requires you to pull down a menu next to each student's name and scroll down to the grade you want to enter. Four hundred faculty members teaching about 1,200 courses now have to take more time entering final grades than before. I guess someone cared more about ease of programming an application than about the program's user interface. Rule 2. Not all users are alike in what they need or will use; match the technology to the user. Here are a few examples of the importance of rule 2. My eyesight is not what it used to be, so I have some trouble when I write on the computer--which I do a lot. Every few years, the university updates its computers to keep the faculty current. The last update was two years ago, and I was to receive an iMac with a 17-inch screen. I scrambled around and persuaded my department chairperson to pay the difference in price so I could get a 20-inch screen. The larger iMac screen is a blessing and allows me to write comfortably with my aging eyes. Someone needs to remember to ask users what they need. A prime example of designing technology to fit the user is allowing teachers to have a say in the kind of technology that is placed in their classrooms. Many teachers, if given the choice, would choose to have a document camera and a data/video projector instead of new classroom computers. The point here is that users are different and they have different needs. Several years ago, when I was in charge of my college's program to update technology, I classified users into three categories: power users, regular users, and occasional users (i.e., computer haters). Power users taught our high-tech courses like Instructional Design for Multimedia, and they needed workstation- class computers with very fast drives. Some regular users needed desktop computers; others needed laptops. …

HO, HO, HO! It's time for me to offer my seasonal gift-giving suggestions. Technology-wise, it has been a busy year indeed, with all sorts of new gadgets, more convenient devices, more compact devices, and steep declines in price. Before I get to the technology, though, it has been my tradition to make a few suggestions on music CDs and DVDs that make great gifts. popular artist Josh Groban has a new CD, titled Noel. Every review I have read gives it a top rating, and I concur. You can preview the CD tracks at www.amazon.com. Being able to preview music before you purchase it is both prudent and enjoyable. Other new CDs of note include Bruce Springstein's protest album, Magic, and Mark Knopfler's Kill to Get Crimson. At the time I wrote this column, Spring-stein and Groban were number 1 and 2 on Amazon's list of best-selling CDs. This year's can't miss CD is Wonderful World--or any other CD--by Eva Cassidy. This a posthumously produced album that is several years old. In prior seasonal columns, I have recommended Cassidy, who passed away at a very young age--before she became popular. Her versions of the title song and of It Doesn't Matter Anymore are my favorites. About a dozen of Cassidy's albums have been produced, and you can sample them all at amazon.com. My all-time favorite seasonal DVD is the Trans-Siberian Orchestra's The Ghosts of Christmas Eve, which is narrated by and stars Ossie Davis. Neither Trans-Siberian Orchestra nor Mannheim Steamroller have new Christmas DVDs and haven't for a few years. This year, I recommend the DVD A Christmas Celebration 2007, by Celtic Woman. Though the group name is singular, various artists perform. And one final musical suggestion, a DVD that children under 5 will love: Yule Be Wiggling, by the Wiggles. If you give this gift to a preschooler, you might want to leave town immediately before you get trapped. Kids love the Wiggles, but they drive adults crazy. Speaking of gifts for children, I have received a lot of positive feedback from parents who really like Floam, the Play-Doh substitute I've mentioned in a prior column. While I think it is overpriced, it is unique. Several other alternatives to Play-Doh exist, including Aqua Dots. These last are small pieces of what looks like plastic that stick together when sprayed or misted with water. Perhaps the most unusual gift for children that I have seen is, believe it or not, a sewing machine. Montessori Services publishes a catalog called For Small Hands. online version can be seen at www.forsmall hands.com. catalog features all kinds of objects that adults might use, such as a flour sifter, but down-sized for children's smaller hands. sewing machine offered is a real sewing machine made for adults who are into handcrafting small objects. According to the catalog, the $79 machine is appropriate for children 8 and older, but younger children can use it too if they are properly supervised. That would depend on the child, of course. Speaking of catalogs and shopping for children, I repeat my recommendation from years past of Edmund Scientific. You can reach the online version at www. edsci.com. Children of all ages are enthralled by such science toys as gyroscopes, prisms, hand lenses, diffraction gratings, batteries, and bulbs. Children in most elementary schools don't get very much science instruction, so anything a parent can do to help out is likely to be beneficial. This year, I would like to name a Product of the Year. Drum roll ... and the winner is the Flip Video, an all-digital video camera from Pure Digital (www. theflip.com). This diminutive video camera has a list price of $119.99, but I have seen it online for under $100. camera is 4.12 x 2.25 x 1.25 in size and weighs just a few ounces, so it is easy to tuck into a pocket or purse. camera records to its internal memory--not to a tape or disc--so the total recording time is limited to 30 minutes. …

PEOPLE WHO teach technology courses often debate the utility and ethics of teaching students to use software that they either won't buy or can't afford to buy. Microsoft Office, which costs from $250 to $400, is a good example. Many schools and universities have institutional licenses for Microsoft Office, but many do not license the program for home or off-campus use. Furthermore, if a student does buy a computer, Microsoft Office may or may not be bundled with the computer (the bundled software may be Works instead of Office). OpenOffice is a readily available, free alternative to Microsoft Office. Unfortunately, the tech press often ignores this powerful suite of programs, so finding reviews of it is difficult. The reviews I have found are positive, and the software is even used by several large corporations, including Novel. OpenOffice is software, which means it has been developed over time by volunteers, much like Mozilla, FireFox, and Opera. Some years ago, Sun Microsystems purchased the rights to develop its own version of MS Office, but open-source development continues by the organization that originally wrote the software (www.openoffice.org). I won't be reviewing Sun's Office, at least not in this column. OpenOffice was originally developed for the Unix operating system, which is at the heart of Mac OS X. OpenOffice is currently available for the following operating systems: Windows 2000, NT, and XP; Linux 2.2.13; and Mac OS 10.3 and 10.4. Downloading and installing OpenOffice varies by type and version of the operating system, so you'll need to be careful. You really have to be sure to download the version that matches your operating system exactly. Before I continue, a disclaimer is in order. My Mac has AppleWorks 6, Microsoft Office 2004, and now OpenOffice 2.X software. I prefer to use AppleWorks, though I am sometimes forced to use Microsoft Office. In general, I write in AppleWorks and if need be I save my document as an MS Word file. If people send me MS Word documents with a lot of tables, then I am forced to use Word. To write this column, I downloaded and installed OpenOffice, but I admit that I have not used it extensively. So far, I have used only the word processor called Writer and the presentation program called Impress. The other programs in OpenOffice are Calc, Draw, Base--a database manager--and Math. I would suspect that math teachers would find many more uses for Math than I will, since it lets you create mathematical formulas with ease. In a future column, I might be in a position to share my views on the rest of the OpenOffice suite of software. Here's how to download and install OpenOffice on a Mac. A more general discussion of the software itself follows. First, keep in mind that Mac OS X, which comes with installer software, does not include uninstaller software. So if you botch the install, you will have to hunt around for an uninstaller. For more information on uninstalling Mac software, I recommend you visit Indiana University's helpful knowledge-base pages at http://kb.iu.edu. Before you can run OpenOffice on a Mac, you will need to install X11, which is a Unix Window Manager that is totally compatible with Mac OS 10.3 and 10.4. Installing on a machine running OS 10.4 requires that you use the installer that came on the system discs. To use the system discs, you go to Install Bundled Software Only, find X Code Tools, and install X11.user.dmg. Don't install X11 SDK.pkg. After you have completed this step, download OpenOffice. On my Mac connected to the university network, the download of 140 MB took about 15 minutes. (Incidentally, both the website and the software are called openoffice.org.) I believe that installing X11 on a Mac running OS 10.3 can be done without the system discs. Once you launch OpenOffice on a Mac, Writer will be opened. From there, you can move to the other program modules by using the New button, which is located on the top left of the tool bar underneath the File and Edit menus. …

RECENTLY, my relatively negative perception of the availability of online books and audiobooks changed radically. It started when I read a short blurb on the website http://manybooks.net. Manybooks was created by Matthew McClintock, who graciously runs the site as a service the Internet community. Currently, the site has nearly 18,000 books online. Unlike Project Gutenberg, which specializes only in public domain books that are usually very old, Manybooks also has recent public domain books and books licensed under Creative Commons agreements. (More on Creative Commons below.) For example, Halo, a science-fiction thriller by Tom Maddox, is relatively recent and was published in 1991. An example of a recent addition the site, though not a recent book, is Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. The Manybooks website is one of the best-designed sites and could serve as an exemplar of a clean user interface. One of the most amazing aspects of the site is the availability of books in 21 different formats, including Acrobat (pdf) regular and large type, rich-text format (rtf), iPod notes, and formats that many cell phones can display. In cases, audio versions of the books are available. The site also features book reviews, lists by popularity, lists of most downloaded, and so on. It's hard believe that the site runs on a Macintosh Mini running public domain Apache server software. Incidentally, the last time I checked, about 60% of the world's websites run on Apache server software. Creative Commons at http://creativecommons.org is a volunteer organization that helps writers, artists, musicians, videographers, and others change the copyright on their work from all rights reserved some rights reserved. Effectively, the creators of works can retain ownership and commercial rights, while allowing others use and share their work so long as it is not for profit. Material that offers a Creative Commons (CC) license differs from material in the public domain. With the latter, you can do anything you want, including copying it, altering it, and selling it. An interesting video titled Want Together? appears on the CC website. At the home page, click on the Find CC Licensed Work button. It was while exploring the Creative Commons home page that I found out about Libri-Vox. (www.librivox.org) was started in August of 2005 by Hugh McGuire. Its objective is to make books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the Internet. The following principles guide that work. LibriVox is a noncommercial, nonprofit, and ad-free project. donates its recordings the public domain. is powered by volunteers. maintains a loose and open structure. welcomes volunteers from across the globe. As of this writing, the site has had over 1,000 volunteers read books aloud and donate the recordings. Here are a few of the hundreds of titles: The Three Little Pigs, by Leslie Brooke; Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe; and, of course, of Mark Twain's books. You can browse the collection, but using the search function works better. Out of curiosity, I searched for audiobooks about Christmas and found over a dozen. I listened a portion of A Christmas Carol, which was read by various people including a father/ daughter team reading one poignant section. If you would like get ready for the holiday season early, you might think about downloading a few Christmas audiobooks and poems. The site also has a few readings of classic carols and hymns. Another interesting site for audiobooks is Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D) at www.rfbd. org. RFB&D is a nonprofit organization that has over 30,000 audiobooks available, including recent best sellers and textbooks. For example, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is now available. Individual students with a letter certifying a visual disability can register for a one-time fee of $65 and an annual renewal fee of $35. …

WHEN IT comes to computers, I am a minimalist. I have only two peripherals on my office computer: a fast, portable external hard drive and a printer. For software, I greatly prefer a program like Microsoft Works or Apple-Works over the Microsoft Office suite. I am extremely happy with Apple's Safari RSS Web browser, and I like Apple's OS X mail reader. But, even though I am a minimalist, I have what many technology columnists call the perfect computer, a 20-inch iMac. This iMac is a wide-screen LCD with 1344 x 840 resolution. My iMac has the Intel dual core processor and can boot up in either Windows or Mac OS X--although I never use the Windows boot feature. The only option I added to the computer when I ordered it was an additional one gigabyte of memory. The wide screen monitor is handy, because you can easily do things like open two word-processor pages side-by-side. If you are still using an old tube type monitor, give your eyes a break and buy an LCD monitor; your eyes won't get nearly as tired. I do like to keep up on software updates, especially updates of Web browsers. Since January, most popular browsers have been updated, including Mac OS X's Safari 2 RSS, Opera 8, Firefox 1.5, and Internet Explorer (IE) 7 Beta for Windows XP with Service Pack 2. Microsoft quit developing IE for Macs several years ago, and IE 7B requires XP to run. Because I use a Mac that can run only an older version of IE, I will not be discussing this version at any length. I should mention that Microsoft seems to be doing a lot to add security features to make IE 7 safer for users. This is a necessary fix, and most experts have advised against using IE because it is riddled with security problems. Of course, every browser maker claims that its browser is the fastest. Thanks to Mark Wilton-Jones of the U.K., we have some precise comparisons, which are displayed in Table 1. The cells with boldface numbers indicate the fastest browser for a given task. (The fastest Cold Start and Warm Start times were obtained by niche browsers not included in the table.) The third column reports on rendering Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), which are commonly used to build websites. Rendering Tables means drawing them on the screen, and Script Speed refers to how fast a browser can decode Web-programming languages. Multiple Images refers to a page full of thumbnail-sized photos. Wilton-Jones compared about 20 browsers altogether, but I have reported on only the most popular ones. The times reported are for these browsers when they are running on a Mac with OS X. Wilton-Jones' website also has separate tables for browsers running on Windows and Linux. As I mentioned above, I am happy with Safari, but seeing this table prompted me to download and install Opera 8. Notice the difference between Opera 8 and Safari 2 on the test. Opera is substantially faster than Safari when going back to a page that was previously visited. The history speed of Opera 8 shows up dramatically when you are on a website that has a main or home page that you need to get back to from a sub-page. In short, Opera moves in reverse at lightning speed! Most newer browsers have a host of features, including tabbed and an RSS (really simple syndication) news reader. Tabbed browsing allows you to set up a single button that simultaneously opens several websites. Opera 8 goes one step further and has an e-mail application that will also read RSS news headlines. Opera calls this feature an aggregator. Another feature unique to Opera is its widescreen mode. This feature allows Opera to fill the widescreen monitor on my Mac. You can do something similar in Safari, but you have to grab a corner of a Web page and drag it to the right. Even then, Safari does not recenter the Web page image the way that Opera does. …

THE YEAR that's about to end was a banner year for new technology. Many long-envisioned devices became reality during 2003, and several cutting-edge technologies matured. What's more, prices for some great items fell dramatically. It's hard to believe that 60% of all new toys now contain a computer chip of some kind and that camera-equipped cell phones outsold digital still cameras by 25%. Furthermore, I sense a growing acceptance of new technology by people who used to be classified as late adopters. For example, a colleague who has a basic dislike for technology is now using a USB flash memory chain drive. More about flash memory drives later. For the past few years, I have suggested a can't miss audio CD for your holiday giving. This year, I suggest new ways to find and select a gift CD. On your way to work, tune the car radio to National Public Radio (NPR). Between every few news items, Morning Edition plays an interesting short piece of music. Make a note of the news item before or after the music you like. Then go to www.npr.org, click on the NPR Music button, select the NPR program in the right-hand column, find the news story, and read the artist, song, and CD title information. Then click on the button with the musical note symbol, and listen to a 30- second sample from the CD. Using the NPR site, I tracked down a piece of music that I liked. It turned out to be a CD by the Bill Cunliffe Sextet titled How My Heart Sings. Unfortunately, the release date on the CD is 30 December 2003. Maybe next year? If NPR music is too conservative for your tastes, you can do similar sound surfing at www.amazon.com or www.vh1.com. I used to think that Amazon had listings for nearly all CDs, but I found out that VH1 has music that's not available elsewhere. Here are a few new CDs you might consider for gift giving. I polled my undergraduate students, and the most popular new CD was Jack Johnson's Brushfire Fairytales. Jethro Tull has a new CD titled The Jethro Tull Christmas Album. I have not heard either of these, but I plan to buy the Tull CD. Several young teachers I know adore Norah Jones CDs. I find them too dreamy, but they say her music is relaxing. A popular gospel album this year is Heaven Bound: Best of Bluegrass by various artists. I plan to buy this CD for my wife, who likes gospel. (Don't tell her.) The true test of a movie DVD is how many times you have watched it. I have the DVD of The Bourne Identity starring Matt Damon, and I have watched it five or six times. This DVD has every high-tech feature you can imagine, including Dolby DTS stereo for great sound, and it's rated PG-13. Many people have both a computer at work and one at home. The obvious question is, How do you get things from one place to another handily? The easy answer is a key chain, thumb drive, or removable flash memory -- all just different names for the same device. These handy little solid-state memory modules are about the size of a small pack of chewing gum and plug directly -- without wires -- into a computer's USB port. Today, most computers have a convenient USB port on the side of the keyboard, so what could be handier? A 64-MB chain drive costs about $30, while a 128-MB version costs about $50. These drives are available in older USB1 or newer USB2 versions. I would buy a USB1 version, which is probably cheaper. Since chain drives have no moving parts to fail, files stored on them are very secure. A chain drive is also a convenient way to move MP3 music files or digital pictures from place to place. Incidentally, no device drivers are needed to use a drive like this. I plan to put one of these nifty flash memory drives on my Christmas list. Speaking of digital photos, digital still cameras keep getting better and cheaper. If you are shopping for a digital camera, here are a few features and specifications to consider. Cameras range from one megapixel to over eight megapixels. …

THIS column has been rattling around in my head for several years now, and I think the time has come to write it. I frequently write about the benefits, or payoffs, of technology. But what about the technology penalty? The technology penalty is what happens when you do something using technology that you could do easier, quicker, or more efficiently without using technology. Allowing students to e-mail you their assignments is a good example of paying the technology penalty. If I collect papers in class, I can simply sit at my desk, read the papers, and scribble notes on them. This task usually takes an hour or so. If I allowed 30 students to e-mail me an assignment, I assure you I could not read and respond to 30 e-mails in an hour. Thus it is a rare occasion when I accept e-mailed assignments. Rather, I usually ask students to print out their assignments and give them to me in class or drop them by my office. Why would I want to do the printing for them? Using calendaring and address book software is another example of incurring the technology penalty. Keeping your calendar on a computer or PDA requires that you start--or wake up--the computer or PDA, go to the application, select the view (day, week, month, or year), and scroll or page to the specific date, time, or event. In contrast, I carry a month-at-a-glance paper calendar that I get free from Hallmark every year. Because the previous month's pages are dog-eared, it takes only about a second to find this month's page. The calendar fits in my shirt pocket, so I don't have to drag around any electronics. I also have a small paper address book that fits into the same shirt pocket. Call me old-fashioned if you like, but the systems work for me, and there is no technology penalty. Instructors who teach students how to use powerful software like Photoshop pay an immense technology penalty. Adobe releases a new version of Photoshop every six to 12 months with all kinds of changes and new features. Instructors must then relearn the program and change their syllabus and handouts. Explanatory handouts usually have screen captures in them, so the screen captures from the old version must be updated. If the instructor uses a textbook on Photoshop, that will usually change with each new release of the software as well. A colleague who teaches computer graphics and Photoshop has to go to daylong professional development seminars on Photoshop a couple of times a year just to stay sharp. Fortunately, my colleague has a technician who can upgrade all the computers in his teaching lab, but many teachers have to do their own upgrades. Another example of software that changes rapidly is Web creation software, such as Macromedia's Studio 8. What started out few years ago as simply Dream weaver morphed into Studio MX and is now Studio 8. The current version of Studio 8 contains Dream weaver, Flash Professional, Fireworks, Contribute, and Flash Paper. Each of these programs has its own learning curve that takes a good amount of time to negotiate. Shallow learning curves are certainly technology penalty. High school teachers are not immune to the technology penalty. Not long ago, I received an e-mail from a high school calculus teacher who had just received a Smart board. In order to take advantage of all the things the Smart board could do, the teacher was spending about two hours a day preparing for the next day's lesson. The payoff for his students was great, but so was the technology penalty he was paying. Still another example of paying the technology penalty is using computer grade book software. Many teachers who use grade book software also keep a paper grade book. Doing any job twice, with and without technology, is a definite technology penalty. An inherent penalty in grade book software is the time it takes to scroll up and down the list of students to enter a grade. Visually scanning a paper grade book page is much faster. …

ALTHOUGH I have always been fascinated with geography, I do not have fond memories of geography class. Most of my days in geography were spent labeling all kinds of black-andwhite outline maps of portions of the Earth. I even vaguely remember taking a test where I had to memorize and label 20 or so of the major rivers of Africa. Of all the curriculum areas that technology gives us the power to transform, geography may top the list. If I were building a high-tech middle school or high school, I would make a special computer lab for geography a high priority. I would also build a computer lab dedicated to the Earth sciences. Within the last five years or so, major websites such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and various U.S. government sites have made it possible to conveniently view all kinds of high-resolution images and maps of the Earth's surface. Today, there is no longer a need for outline maps in geography classes. Students can simply fire up a browser and study an aerial photograph of the features of interest. Google Earth, released last June, has garnered a lot of attention, but Google is just one site offering Earth imaging. In this column I present an overview of several major Earth-imaging sites. Of course, to incorporate Web-based imaging productively into the classroom requires some planning, but it's fun planning. Microsoft's TerraServer website at http:// terraserver-usa.com was one of the first sites to offer high-resolution aerial photographic images of the U.S., mostly obtained from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The TerraServer images are in black and white, but the resolution is incredible. You can zoom in close enough to pick out individual houses in towns across the country. The images on the TerraServer seem to be particularly detailed when they feature navigable rivers and waterways. I suppose the USGS likes to keep the Navy and the merchant marine industry well informed. Just last weekend I used TerraServer to study the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway near my house to help find potentially good fishing sites. Waterway features such as sandbars and deep holes are relatively easy to pick out on TerraServer images. (Incidentally, did you know that Microsoft CEO Bill Gates owns the rights to more pictures and images than anyone else in the world?) Aside from NASA, the USGS probably has more maps and images than anyone else in the world. There is an excellent listing of Earth-imaging sites at http://education.usgs. gov/common/map_databases.htm. The USGS also has a site that graphically displays image databases by category at http://rockyweb. cr.usgs.gov/outreach/mapcatalog. Categories on this site include topography, geology, image, culture and history, international and world, and environmental. I visited the culture and history site and found an interesting historical map of the Lewis and Clark expedition. My Mac's Web browser, Safari, crashed while trying to download the map, which was a 16.8-MB file, so I switched to Internet Explorer, which successfully downloaded the map. While at the USGS site, I also downloaded a high-resolution orthographic image of my home state of Nebraska. This was a 98-MB image file that took about 12 minutes to download using Internet Explorer. Once downloaded, the only software I could get to open an image file this size--19,593 x 11,922 pixels--was PhotoShop 7. I mention these details to point out why schools will need a specialized geography lab with fast computers, a high-speed Internet connection, and network storage. To further illustrate the need for a specialized lab, consider the recommended requirements for Google Earth. Google recommends the following computer configuration: Windows XP; 2.4-GHz processor; 512-MB memory (I would insist on 1 GB); a 3-D graphics card, with 32-MB video memory; and a 1280 x 1024, 32-bit true color screen. That is not to say that you can't enjoy Earth-imaging sites without such a computer. …

ONE OF the best parts about writing this column is that I have to learn something before I can write about it. That's the fun part. This time, I had to learn about home illumination. Specifically, I wanted to see if LED (light-emitting diode) technology was a feasible option for home lighting. Most of the sources I consulted predicted that LED home lighting was 10 years in the future. Because I think technology moves faster than this, I'm predicting three years. Obviously, I will report my findings, but first I think a primer on light, color, and the various technologies used to illuminate our homes is in order. There are numerous technologies used in home lighting, including tungsten incandescent, quartz halogen, fluorescent, and LED. Low-pressure sodium is more common in such outdoor applications as street lighting. These various technologies have distinctive advantages and disadvantages. The most familiar have been around for more than 100 years, and they are inexpensive. But a major disadvantage is that they are inefficient and waste a lot of energy in the form of heat. In addition, incandescent bulbs have a short lifetime. Incidentally, the regular screw-in base is called the Edison base, which can be useful to know for online searching. Fluorescent lighting is a great deal more efficient than incandescent lighting, but the tubes are fragile, require ballasts that sometimes hum, and contain mercury. Newer compact fluorescents eliminate many of the disadvantages of the large fluorescent tubes. Halogens are more efficient than incandescents but share many of their disadvantages. The newest kid on the block, LEDs are 10-20 times more efficient than incandescents, so they use substantially less electricity. LEDs are also rugged and have a lifetime of more than 100,000 hours. Because I get tired of changing light bulbs, this is a very attractive feature. LEDs are small, so they must be combined into arrays or clusters. And because LEDs are low-voltage devices, using them in home lighting requires a power supply. In an LED light bulb, this power supply is built into the base of the bulb. White LEDs have generally not been available, but manufacturers are working feverishly to change that. We have all grown used to buying light bulbs with various wattage ratings, such as a 40-watt or 60-watt bulb. Light output, however, is measured not in watts but in lumens. Don't ask for a simple definition of a lumen, because it gets complicated. But a standard 40-watt bulb produces about 390 lumens, while a 75-watt bulb produces about 1,055 lumens. (The figures are for Sylvania Double Life Soft White bulbs.) The efficiency of a light source is measured in lumens per watt. According to references in Wikipedia, the lighting technologies mentioned above have the following efficiency ratings in lumens/watt: 40-watt tungsten, 12.6; quartz halogen, 24; fluorescent, 56; LED, 131; and low-pressure sodium, 200. All light is not the same color. The sun at noon is nearly perfect light because all the colors of the spectrum are evenly present. Home lighting merely approximates There are several descriptors that manufacturers of home lighting use to describe the color of the light produced. The four most common are soft white, cool white, warm white, and sunlight. I believe that soft white means that the light is evenly dispersed from the bulb. …

If you wanted to remodel your house, you wouldn't do it all at once. Instead, you would do it one room at a time. School reform, like home remodeling, ought to be done one room at a time. Any plan that aims to reform a whole school all at once is a dubious one. After all, kids do not learn from schools. Kids learn from teachers in classrooms. A whole school is too large an increment of change. Building high-tech schools is a similarly dubious idea. Trust me. I have helped to build five of them. Only one of these two-to three-year projects was really successful. So if I were to do it all over again, my goal would be radically different. I would shift the focus from the traditional model of creating a high-tech school to a model of creating a high-tech schoolroom. The traditional model for a high-tech school is to simply put four to six networked computers in every classroom and one on every teacher's desk. The hidden assumption is that teachers will be flexible enough to integrate these computers into their instructional day. This is generally not the case, and no amount of staff development will make it work. Teachers in elementary schools have highly Structured--or routinized--days, consisting of activities like calendar time, board work, silent reading, story time, paired reading, author's chair, journal writing, math instruction, center time, and resource time (library, PE, art, etc.). About the only time elementary teachers are willing to let students use computers is during center time or while they are waiting to go to lunch or to go home. I know this picture is accurate because I have sat at many school network hubs and used network monitoring software to track computer use. Generally speaking, there is a surge of activity from about 10:45 a.m. to 11:45 a.m., depending on the lunch schedule. Rarely do students get to use classroom computers at other times. This has led me to say often in this column that "one computer used four hours a day is equal to four computers used one hour a day." The high-tech school model doesn't work all that well in secondary schools either. Teachers in secondary schools tend to use a lecture or lecture/discussion model of instruction. Secondary teachers seem to believe that every student needs to hear everything they say. Sending some students to work on the classroom computers while the teacher is "teaching" is not often done. Apart from the teachers' reluctance to integrate computers into their classes, a real problem with the traditional high-tech school model is that in a 40-classroom school, you would need about 250 computers--all aging at the same rate. In three years, these 250 computers would need to be replaced at a cost of about $250,000, plus a lot of labor. School districts often do not have a "currency plan" for computer replacement every three years, so the computers get to be four, five, or even six years old. When computers get this old, they fail, and the school's technology gets a "black eye." In addition to the computers in each classroom, the high-tech school model often includes a 30-seat computer lab and sometimes sometimes calls for a small television production studio. My experience has been that computer labs need a full-time computer resource teacher to be successful. Expecting every faculty member to schedule the lab and to know how to use it productively with students is simply unrealistic. Moreover, a school with 250 computers, all the network equipment, and several servers needs a full-time technician. My experience with small television studios is that they are usually in rooms that can accommodate only a dozen or so students. If I were going to install a teaching television studio, I would design it in such a way that some 30 students could use it at once. But that would require a double-sized room. As I mentioned above, only one of the five high-tech schools that I helped build was really successful. …