Portable Application Drives To Cross the

Digital DivideTimothy Kaar

Assistant Professor of Graphic DesignElgin Community College

NISOD 2006

What is thedigital divide?

According to the Wikipedia, the digital divide is the gap between those with regular, effective access to digital technologies and those without.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide

What are PADs?

They are USB flash memory sticks (512 mb)They are high speed (15 - 25 mb/sec)They have applications copied to them

apps have small footprintsapps are self containedapps are often open source

Kingston Data Traveler

Kingston Data Elite

OCZ Rally

LET’

S C

OM

PARE

Kingston Data Traveler

6MB/sec read, 3MB/sec write

Kingston Data Elite

24MB/sec read, 14MB/sec write

OCZ Rally

28MB/sec read, 15MB/sec write

SPEE

D

Kingston Data Traveler

6MB/sec read, 3MB/sec write

$24

Kingston Data Elite

24MB/sec read, 14MB/sec write

$56

OCZ Rally

28MB/sec read, 15MB/sec write

$27

CO

ST

OCZ Rally

28MB/sec read, 15MB/sec write

$27

OU

R C

HO

ICE

Because speed is important!

Why use them? Addresses Digital Divide

provides students with tools for successlow cost

Consistencyamong students, improving supportacross computers i.e. home-school-library

Shallow Learning Curveavoids feature bloatsimple interfaces

Surprise Reasons

Reduced PlagiarismFewer Lost PapersIncreased Sense of Worth

Examples of Portable Applications

Abi WordNVUInkscapePhotoFiltreFileZillaAudacity

Abi Word

AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft Word.

Uses tables, bullets, lists, images, footnotes, endnotes and styles to enhance a document.

Supports many common file formats, including Word documents.

NVU

NVU is a WYSIWYG HTML editor.NVU publishes files to a website.NVU does simple file management of a website.

Inkscape

Inkscape is an open source vector based drawing program, similar to Adobe Illustrator.

Inkscape uses SVG format, which is supported by Adobe.

PhotoFiltre

PhotoFiltre is a raster based image editing program. Similar to Adobe Photoshop.

Common image editing techniques and formatting for the web are available.

FileZilla

FileZilla is a fast FTP and SFTP client for Windows with a lot of features.

Audacity

Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. Record live audio.Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files.Cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds together.Change the speed or pitch of a recording.

More Examples

PStartSunbirdThunderbirdGAIM

PStart

A utility “desktop” for the USB drive, in order to manage files and applications.

Sunbird

The Sunbird Project is a cross platform stand alone calendar application.Only pre-release versions currently available.

Thunderbird

Full-featured email applicationSupports IMAP and POP mail protocolsHTML mail formatting

GAIM

GAIM is an instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and WindowsCompatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Lotus Sametime, and Zephyr networks

Where Do You Find?

Portable Apps Suite:http://portableapps.com/Links to downloads also at:http://faculty.elgin.edu/tkaar/conferences/NISOD_06

Set Up

1) Download apps to a computer.2) Combine apps in appropriate folders.3) Copy Files to a USB drive.

In Use

Prototyped in 3 classes:

Developmental EnglishIntro to ComputersColor Theory & Typography

Developmental

Mainly used AbiWord word processor.Benefits of the simplified interface:

reduced cognitive loadstudents could concentrate on improving their english skills vs. computer skillsimproved chances of incremental successes

English

Intro to Computers

The class examined many applications.AbiWord was the app they were most likely to use.Plagiarism was cut down because students stored their projects on their USB drives.

Color Theory & Typography

Color Theory & Typography

Generally used InkscapeMain benefits:

take home and work on PCused for both color & typography projectscould import into Adobe Illustratorcould export raster image for web display

Summary

PADs are USB thumbdrives installed with applications.PADs make applications portable.PADs provide students with tools for success.PADs make support easier.PADs reduce cognitive load allowing students to focus on lesson objectives.

AbiWord: http://www.abisource.com/Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/FileZilla: http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla/GAIM: http://gaim.sourceforge.net/Inkscape: http://www.inkscape.org/NVU: http://www.nvu.com/index.phpPhotoFiltre: http://www.photofiltre.com/Sunbird: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird/index.htmlThunderbird: http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/

Portable Apps Suite: http://portableapps.com/

Links

Thank you

Carole Robertson, V.P. of Finance & Administration; Ned Coonen, Director of Information Technology and Barb Dohrman, Director Academic Computing and Network Support for funding and supporting the project.Mary Hatch, Dean of Visual and Liberal Arts for her tireless support of innovation.Gena Glickman, V.P. of Instruction & Student Services and the ECC Faculty Development Committee for funding this presentation to NISOD.

Thank you for attending