Update on "This was a bittersweet assignment for me."

On Tuesday, my boys just started a STEM class led by Mike Murphy. Mike is a homeschool Dad who just graduated his 16 year old son off to Brown University. His son, Ben Murphy, is the the one who taught the class last year which introduced my sons to Scratch (a programming language for children, developed by MIT) last year. So, I was super excited for my sons to learn more. In the first class, my sons were able to use Makey Makey to make joysticks for the computer. This is exactly the type of technology I would love for them to be exposed to and feel a bit intimidated to do myself.

The point of all this, is that I now really need laptops in a hurry. One son was able to use my lap top, but the other one was stuck.

Since my last post, I read an article about codestarter.org using chromebooks to teach kids programming. They made it work by wiping out the operating system of the chromebook and installining linex (which is free/open source). They then donate these machines to low income children who are interested in learning to code. I sent the article to my husband, who could see the advantages but is concerned with the fragility of chromebooks and most laptops.


What my husband really likes is toughbooks, a laptop built to military specification. They are strong enough to withstand being driven over. However, toddlers are still able to destroy them by ripping off the keys, which can sometimes be fixed, sometimes not. (Ask me how I know this, I dare you!)

While expensive new, inexpensive toughbooks can be found. We have ordered three, two for the boys (about $235 & $400) and one for my husband (a newer model for $1000). The older toughbooks have an old windows operating system which is longer supported, so the plan is to wipe it out and then install linux. He has done this with the first computer & successfully got Scratch going. His blog post on how this worked is here. My husband's computer has a newer operating system which he needs to run some of the translation software (mainly Trados) which he uses. (His last laptop recently died, so he also needs another computer. Especially as we sometimes lose power & internet, so he occasionally needs to be able to take the laptop into another town to work on assignments.)

On other fronts, I have a friend with a raspberry pi which was played with for awhile and is now sitting gathering dust. So, it may be coming our way.

Just wanted to share our tech adventures.

Here is a fun ad, but remember, toughbooks can be destroyed by toddlers!



References

"CrunchGear.com - Running over the CF-30 Toughbook with a Truck" 
[you tube video]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41lXVKSTOGQ

Fisher, Mathew. " Ubuntu 14.04 + Scratch Offline Editor on a Toughbook CF-29". [web article]. Retrieved from: http://planetcubicle.blogspot.com/2014/11/ubuntu-1404-scratch-offline-editor-on.html

Preston-Werner, Tom. "How we turn $199 Chromebooks into Ubuntu Based Code Learning Machines for Kids" [web article]. Retrieved from: http://blog.codestarter.org/post/93985346780/how-we-turn-199-chromebooks-into-ubuntu-based

Makey Makey [web site], Retrieved from: http://www.makeymakey.com/

Linux [web page]. Retrieved from: http://www.linux.com/

Raspberry pi [web page]. Retrieved from: http://www.raspberrypi.org/

Scratch [web page]. Retrieved from: http://scratch.mit.edu/

"Toughbook 31 vs ATV" [video]. Retrieved from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n6mX8Q1waA

Toughbooks [web page]. Retrieved from: http://www.panasonic.com/business/toughbook/laptop-computers.asp

Trados [web page]. Retrieved from: http://www.sdl.com/products/sdl-trados-studio/