christopher dawson

ZDNet Resources

• sort by:
• Relevance
• Date
• Popularity

Is the Crunchpad an education game-changer?

The San Francisco Business Times ran a feature Friday on Michael Arrington, the brains behind TechCrunch. While not the most popular guy in the blogosphere, Arrington is well-respected in many business circles. As a result, when he announced that he was creating a new hardware company to crank...

Tags: E-reader, Education, Linux, Web Browsers, Operating Systems, Software, Internet, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-07-04

Is Michael Jackson telling us not to use Google Apps?

Michael Jackson, of course, isn't telling us much of anything anymore. However, when news of his death brought Internet news sites to a crawl and hurt traffic Internet-wide, one has to worry about the effects of serious traffic spikes on cloud-based, mission-critical applications. A fire at...

Tags: Google Inc., Google Apps, Michael Jackson, Internet, Cloud Computing, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-07-04

"Windows 7 is the same as Ubuntu"

Obviously, this isn't true. Their underlying architectures are quite a bit different, Gnome looks different than the 7 UI, etc., but to an average 17-year-old, there just wasn't any meaningful difference between the two operating systems. The other day, I posted a blog titled "Windows 7:...

Tags: Ubuntu, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-07-03

Hey, Mac users! Need to make flash cards

I stumbled across a free, open source program today that makes creating flash cards incredibly easy. I was looking because I had a meeting today with some members of our middle school math department who were looking for new ways of reinforcing math facts, given that all too many...

Tags: Card, Apple Macintosh, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-07-01

So about those illegal downloads

PC World posted an interesting article today about the sale of The Pirate Bay. Titled "Pirate Bay Sale Signals the Death of an Era", the article brings up some important potential implications for education in secondary schools as well as for enforcement at colleges and universities. ...

Tags: Software, Music, Michael Scalisi, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-07-01

Maine remains at the forefront of 1:1 with 64k Macs on order

InformationWeek is reporting on Maine's latest efforts to expand its 1:1 computing initiative. According to the posting, The massive order stems from the state Department of Education's decision to expand the Maine Learning Technology Initiative into all public high schools. Maine has been providing Apple...

Tags: Maine, Apple Macintosh, Teacher, Notebooks, Recruitment & Selection, Desktops, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-06-30

Good enough to pay for, part 2: Microsoft Office

I don't have a secretary, unfortunately, so I do all my own word processing and desktop publishing. Suffice to say, this was not the sort of document for which Google Docs was created. It's also the sort of document that is a lot easier in Word 2007/2008 than...

Tags: Document, Microsoft Corp., Desktop Publishing, OpenOffice, Microsoft Word, Word Processors, Microsoft Office, Open Source, Software, Office Suites, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-06-30

New Google Apps education community sites launched

Having just made it through a successful rollout of Google Educational Apps, I was looking for interesting sites and easy training materials for teachers to ponder over the summer. Along comes @jkeltner on Twitter and points me towards two community-driven sites devoted to Google Apps, Education Edition. ...

Tags: Google Inc., Google Apps, Cloud Computing, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-06-29

ARRA, affordability driving interest in Latitude 2100

Not long ago, I wrote a post concerning what I saw as a high price and somewhat limited value for Dell's new educational netbook, the Latitude 2100. It seems, however, that a lot of school districts disagreed. According to a brief on Yahoo News, "more than 500 U.S....

Tags: School District, Dell Latitude, Netbook, Computer, Netbooks, Nettops & MIDs, Productivity, Notebooks, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-06-29

Windows 7: Good enough to pay for?

I finally installed the Windows 7 release candidate that the folks from Microsoft were kind enough to pass on a couple weeks ago at the Intel Classmate Ecosystem Summit. I could have installed it on my Mac, but I already have Vista running with Boot Camp with a fair...

Tags: Ubuntu, Microsoft Windows 7, Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-06-27

Massachusetts Educational Data Warehouse provides a host of tools

Massachusetts is not the first state to create a data warehouse for educational data, but it is early to the field with a really robust set of tools for analyzing a variety of student information. For those of you new to data analysis (probably not many of you, but...

Tags: Data Warehouse, Data, Tool, Massachusetts Educational Data Warehouse, Business Intelligence, Storage, Databases, Enterprise Software, Software, Data Management, Hardware, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-06-26

Don't be like China

China has been receiving enormous amounts of negative press lately for its so-called "Green Dam" content filtering and increasingly stringent requirements for Google to limit access to pornography via its searches. According to the Times article, At a news conference on Thursday, a Foreign Ministry...

Tags: Pornography, Content Filtering, Government, Content Management, Vertical Industries, Enterprise Software, Software, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-06-25

Do you have a knowledge store? You should

So I'm transferring domains in preparation for a switch to a new Internet Service Provider. GoDaddy and countless other domain hosts and web hosts make it really easy for you to switch to them. Obviously, it's in their best interest to do so. It's only easy, though,...

Tags: Knowledge, Admin Account, Strategy, Management, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-06-24

Would Jobs' illness make you think twice about a Mac rollout?

It's that time of year when we're all thinking about summer purchases and configurations. At least I hope you are and your budgets haven't been so severely slashed that summer will be a slow time of year for you. Most of us already know how our FY10 budgets are...

Tags: Job, Steve Jobs, Multimedia, Apple Macintosh, Desktops, Hardware, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-06-24

So what's it worth to you?

I spent a lot of time talking with people at last week's Intel Classmate PC Ecosystem Summit about "value propositions". I know that's marketing jargon, but as I sink deeper into the Twitterverse, I'm beginning to embrace a bit of marketing voodoo. What does that phrase really mean, though,...

Tags: Software, Netbook, Intel Corp., Classmate, Netbooks, Nettops & MIDs, Tablets, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-06-23

How about a Microsoft Security Essentials for servers?

Desktop PCs can always be reimaged. It's a pain, but downtime only affects one person. Servers, on the other hand, need to be up the vast majority of the time. Rebuilding servers affects lots of people, often in mission-critical ways. While most servers don't spend much time browsing...

Tags: Security, Microsoft Corp., Servers, Hardware, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-06-23

Breaking down the laptop wall with conferencing software

I've talked before about the so-called "laptop wall" that an increasing number of college lecturers and even secondary school teachers face. The challenge, of course, is to turn those laptops into learning tools instead of distractions, machines that engage students rather than letting them disengage. Last...

Tags: Distance Education, Clemson University, Information Technology, Student, Laptop Computer, Wall, E-learning, Notebooks, Training And Certification, Enterprise Software, Software, Hardware, Notebooks & Tablets, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-06-22

Google Edu Apps: So far, so good

I started working tonight with a quick tweet: OK, on to setting up Google Apps for our domain...can I finish a migration in a week? I'm not thinking so... I've blogged before about Google Apps for Educational Domains and our move to use this...

Tags: Google Inc., Google Apps, E-mail, Cloud Computing, Online Communications, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-06-21

Would your students hand over their passwords to Bozeman?

The first question most people probably asked when this story broke last week was "Where the hell is Bozeman?" As it turns out, I was born in Bozeman, Montana. I didn't stay there long since my dad finished up his graduate work at Montana State University and moved us...

Tags: Job, Password, Bozeman, Recruitment & Selection, Human Resources, Workforce Management, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-06-20

Free ArtRage Pro download for art teachers!

One of the cooler bits of software included with the Classmate PC is ArtRage Pro. It's an incredibly intuitive, full-featured art program for teachers that supports Photoshop layers, a variety of drawing tools, easy application on interactive whiteboards, and really makes the user of any age feel like he...

Tags: Art, Teacher, Artsonia, Tools & Techniques, Web Site Development, Productivity, Management, Internet, Christopher Dawson

Blog posts 2009-06-19