Extension 437

VPN? We don't got no VPN. We don't need no STINKING VPN!

Clients ask me all the time for remote access. Up until recently the answer has been "Select, buy, install and configure a VPN router, then figure out how to train your end users to connect via VPN from home and manage to open files on a remote file server."

Now, more often than not, my response will be: "you need a new server anyway. Let's look at Small Business Server 2003 and the Remote Web Workplace feature".

Ninja Feature: Remote Web Workplace in SBS2003

Remote Web Workplace is (in my humble opinion) The Ninja Feature of SBS2003. In fact, it gets the inaugural EBTDF Ninja Feature award for being so cool.

Girls in Ghana Get Computerized

My childhood pal Trevor Harmon spent two years in Ghana with the Peace Corps. While there he taught computer classes. He shares some of his insights on his Web site.

Link: Girls in Ghana Get Computerized.

Lessons Learned

If you are thinking of starting a computer class for young women, keep the following ideas in mind:

 

• Don’t think you need a full-blown computer lab just to get started. Even a few computers can support around fifteen students if they triple-up. For larger numbers, you can teach the same lesson to different groups, or you can use the classes as a reward for good grades in school. (The best students are the ones who can do the most with computer literacy, anyway.) It’s not ideal, but it at least gives them exposure to computers and can take away the intimidation of technology that they might have had.

• Your lessons can never be too easy. You might think that a keyboard is simple once you explain what it does--you press a key and the letter appears--but what about capital letters? What does "Tab" mean? And why does the question mark key produce a slash instead? Remember: If it’s not obvious to your students, it’s not obvious.

• Classes without boys can make more of a difference than you might expect. I’ve discovered that when boys aren’t around, the girls ask more questions, help each other more often, and generally seem to enjoy themselves a bit more. They also have the opportunity to draw pictures, sing songs, and do other "girl stuff" (sorry) without fear of being mocked by the boys. In my classes, I try to promote any activity that shows the computer as more than just an electronic typewriter.

• Self-learning is, I believe, the best learning. At the end of each lesson, I like to quietly excuse myself and let the students use the computer on their own, without any teacher looming over them watching for mistakes. These days computers are quite forgiving about mess-ups; they can give a polite error message without crashing (usually). Students are free to make mistakes and correct them independently, so the computer is an ideal tool for self-learning.

• Beware of cultural traditions that might confuse your students. In Ghana, for instance, students often bring to school a "white board", which is a thin piece of wood about the size of a sheet of paper, with one side painted white and given a clear varnish. The students write on it in pencil, then erase it using a mixture of soap and water. It saves them money because they don’t need to buy paper for scratch work and practice problems. Naturally, my students carried this idea with them to computer class. Before shutting down for the day, they would carefully erase anything they didn’t want to save by holding down the backspace key. I had to explain that simply closing the document and not saving the text would erase it instantly.

extension 337: OPML file of Nonprofit blogs

What a great idea, making a list of feeds available to others as an OPML download.

Link: extension 337: OPML file of Nonprofit blogs.

I started collecting some nonprofit blogs on CompuMentor/TechSoup's Omidyar group pages. I just pulled those weblogs into a bloglines account, exported them as an OPML file and made that file available: npoblogs.xml.

CompuMentor RSS feeds

I just discovered that the PDER and CS blogs have RSS feeds. Very cool.
My feed reader supports HTTP basic authentication, so I can subscribe to
these feeds even though they are password protected.

PDER feed
http://pder.typepad.com/pder/index.rdf

CS feed
http://pder.typepad.com/cs/index.rdf