morningsong: Comments

Comment on "Importance of Infrastructure"

Thu, 27 Mar 2008 13:45:38 -0500

This is an interesting proposal. It is much like the No child left offline program in the state of Kentucky. The governor announced this effort in 2005, would be interesting to see recent stats on this work. It is also joined by the ConnectKentucky effort funded by the state as well as business partners.

There is quite a bit of discussion about the middle class being wiped out because of technology. Would that be as likely if efforts such as this did receive funding. On the other hand, there are families who still struggle to heat their home and feed their children. Perhaps this shouldn't be a top priority. hmmm....

- Renee

Comment on "Importance of Infrastructure"

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 13:38:18 -0500

Jeff ... I find this to be an interesting proposal -- on so many levels. One that is becoming more apparent to me is the growing divide we have as it relates to educational opportunities. I am teaching outside the College of IST for the first time and am seeing new perspectives on very old issues. We talked all the time about the Digital Divide in IST, but in a way that made it feel very far away. Now that I am working with graduate students in the College of Education I am seeing these issues in a whole new light.

It is amazing that every time we start down the path of discussing the use of emerging/disruptive technologies for teaching and learning a decent segment of the class raises their hands and tells me to back up and consider the fact that not everyone can participate. I try to work around it, but for teachers the idea that only a handful of your students can truly participate in learning activities outside the school ... well, it is a deal breaker for them.

I wonder what we would do with the bandwidth? Could we pull our teachers and educators up to a level to where they would have the faculty development to truly take advantage of it? Clearly there are issues all of the place with this topic, but providing infrastructure to the home would empower a generation to participate in so many new ways.

- Cole

Comment on "Goin' Green"

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 12:29:47 -0500

I would like to suggest that we as ITS employees take responsibility for all the catalogs and junk mail we receive on a weekly basis. Contact vendors and have your name removed from mailing lists - most catalogs are online now and catalogs are not necessary. Or be sure only one copy is coming per department or building!

Many trade journals can be accessed online as well - investigate that possibility.

Recently I sent a suggestion to PSU HR suggesting that they come up with another way to more efficiently advertise their educational offerings (those colored, folded, sheets of paper in everyone's mail box). Beginning January 1 we seem to be receiving one sheet of paper in calendar format of HR offerings - KUDOS! (Kudos also to ITS Training for their 4-month format)

By encouraging departments and vendors to reassess their bulk mailings could result in less trucks (less gas, less emissions) being required to deliver and dispose of the unfathomable pounds of paper PSU handles each day!

Do this at home too!

- Debbie Pepple

Comment on "Goin' Green"

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 09:38:52 -0500

ITS may want to consider a more formal and more structured deployment of virtualization technology within ITS and across PSU.

Servers are critical to supplying computing services. In order to maximize availability, many organizations use multiple servers for the same (or closely related) functionality. Normally, these are left powered on with all other servers. Further, all servers must follow security update procedures, which require staff administration time.

Presently, the cost of a server is nominal, almost commodity, so services can more simply be provided by throwing more servers into racks. What gets lost in this simplification model is the support of that server (both the green and the staff) will be facing you tomorrow and as long as you have the server running on the network.

Especially disturbing is that many servers are grossly under-utilized. However, they continue to gobble green and staff resources regardless of their utilization.

Virtualization (e.g. VMware) is a technology which is mature enough to help reduce loss of green and staff resources. However, there is a learning curve cost to be paid. Normally, this learning is up to individuals, teams, or up to departments. A better practice may be to create a guided team of ITS virtualization experts that will work to minimize the learning curve.

- Greg Ritchey

Comment on "The Importance of Sharing"

Fri, 27 Jul 2007 14:39:16 -0500

You say:

There seem to be three main problems that cause this:
- difficulty in thinking broadly.
- difficulty in thinking long term.
- the ambiguity of many words and phrases.

Avoiding problem one is very important at Penn State. We need to think about the implications of everything we do to the broader Penn State. We need to make an effort to include representatives from those IT groups and administrative units not just as a matter of politics, but to endeavor to represent IT needs and requirements across Penn State.

By being wary of problem two, we avoid "one-offs" and think about interfaces, APIs, and systems that will exist to satisfy more than one problem.

Dealing with problem three speaks to the heart of some of the work we are doing with workflow. We need to set controlled vocabularies. We need to be consistent across systems with these vocabularies and nomenclature to encourage reusability and foster unexpected "mash-ups" of information.

- JimLeous

Comment on "Apple Harvest"

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 11:37:57 -0500

Don't forget that Apple stock split in early 2005....

Eric

- Eric Aitala

Comment on "Apple Harvest"

Fri, 22 Jun 2007 07:52:41 -0500

These are good points. I do recall when Steve came back to Apple he went into a mode of slashing products to get a single 2x2 grid -- consumer and pro on one axis and desktop and portable on the other. The simplification of the product line allowed them to, in Steve's words, "innovate through the downturn." Just as most of the other tech kings laid people off, changed course, and spent money in product lines, Apple increased its R&D budget so they would be ready with a battery of new and innovative products on the other side.

There are lessons to be learned in that strategy for us -- our users depend on powerful and stable services from us. We may not need to be the fastest to "market" with them, but it seems critical to me that we do deliver stability. I wonder, however, as expectations in technological advances approach the levels as in the consumer space if our audiences will expect faster releases from us? IF that is the case, we need to continuously find new ways to have things "cooking in the labs" that we can release, test, and decide upon. I love the failing wisely perspective -- it makes for an innovative culture internally and provides lots of opportunities to work with our audiences.

BTW, I remember all the doom and gloom around Apple. If you remember correctly, right before Apple bought Next there were some serious rumors that Be OS would be the basis for Mac OSX. Funny how it all works out.

- Cole

Comment on "The end of open networks."

Mon, 28 May 2007 18:25:38 -0500

Jeff, this is interesting and something I have heard others discuss. I wonder as we continue to find new and innovative ways to leverage the Internet in and around education what is our stance? What should we be thinking about, talking about, and working towards?

I see students embracing the web in new ways everyday and I have to say, in general, they seem to be using it more intelligently. If you look at their use of FaceBook and pay attention to the fact that over half now use privacy features with their profiles you have to see an advanced perspective -- at least compared to where we all were last year. I wonder, in this article, was the author discussing security or privacy? Security is a technical issue, while from my perspective privacy seems to line up with policy and personal choice. It always feel like technically we find ways to protect ourselves, but we are always challenged on the policy and personal decision side of the fence.

Just interesting stuff. I'd like to read the article.

- Cole