Open Source
High School 1:1 Laptop Program Announced
Penn Manor continuously cultivates a culture of learning to better prepare our students for life after high school. Educational technologies are central to this mission. Today, we are undertaking the next great step in student learning opportunities. Next school year, all Penn Manor High School students will be issued a district-supplied laptop as part of [...]
Student Programming Project Featured At PETE&C
Penn Manor High School students, Andrew Lobos and Ben Thomas, demonstrated their custom-programmed Career Day sign-up and sorting system at the 2013 Pennsylvania Educational Technology Conference and Expo Student Showcase. The web portal and accompanying scheduling system made student High School Career Day seminar selections simple and reduced the complex scheduling process. The program eliminated weeks of [...]
Nexus and Open Source at PA Educational Technology Conference
I’m thrilled to be delivering two presentations at the 2013 PA Educational Technology Expo and Conference (PETE&C) in February. The first talk is titled, Android Tablets: Power Up Mobile Classrooms. We’ve had great success with Nexus 7 tablets in our classrooms and I can’t wait to share our experiences. Here is the session description: Android tablets offer [...]
Rock the Schoolhouse with Open Source
I’m thrilled to be representing Penn Manor at the 2012 Central PA Open Source Conference at Harrisburg University on Saturday, October 27th. My session is titled: “Rock the Schoolhouse with Open Source” and will cover Penn Manor’s exploration of high-quality, affordable classroom technology. Along with our custom Ubuntu student laptop initiative, I’ll discuss how Android [...]
More Classroom Linux Laptops
Penn Manor technology staff have been busy with a huge summer upgrade for elementary schools. To support our goal of increased student access to technology, each classroom in grades one through six will be receiving 6 new Lenovo x130e laptops. Both middle schools and the high school will receive additional student laptops as well. Over [...]
Google Nexus 7 for Schools
Google recently roared onto the tablet stage with Nexus 7, an impressive Android tablet with a potentially bright future for educators. At less than half the price of Apple’s iPad, schools now have an exceptional tablet alternative. There is no doubt that Nexus 7 is positioned to crush a similar competitor, Amazon’s Kindle Fire. However, [...]
Raspberry Pi Arrives
Several months ago, I blogged about the $35 Raspberry Pi, a $35 credit card-sized mini-computer. Demand for the little computing powerhouse has been staggering, and the nonprofit Raspberry Pi foundation has been working overtime to fill orders for the revolutionary device. After months of anticipation, our Pi has arrived! Although we had expected the device [...]
Let’s Talk! New Open Source Phone System
Fans of the PM Technology Blog know that we’re huge open source advocates. It may not be a surprise to discover that when the time came to upgrade our legacy phone PBX system, we selected an open communications platform: sipXecs. Maintained by the SIPfoundry community, sipXecs is a modern voice and unified communications software server. [...]
Linux Laptops at PETE&C
Tuesday afternoon, Chad, Shawn and I will be presenting an overview of the district Ubuntu Linux project at the PA Educational Technology Expo and Conference (PETE&C) in Hershey. Our talk is titled, Linux Laptops: An open road to costs savings. We are looking forward to sharing our success story and having great conversations with colleagues both old [...]
