OpenOffice.org 3.2 Deployment Issue

Okoboji Community School District uses OpenOffice.org nearly exclusively. To make it work for us, I have written scripts that install extra components such as additional clip art, a button taking users to a clipart website, OOo add-ons, templates, etc.

When we went to start the deployment of the latest version, this caused an issue. When the installer went to remove the old version it did not remove the 'extras' I had installed. It kept giving an error saying it did not have sufficient privileges to acces the OpenOffice.org 3 folder. So, I had to create a way to fix this issue to automate the install process as much as possible.

The latest OOo also wants to install the latest version of Sun Java and remove the old versions. This was also not working for us as it was packaged with the OOo installer. It kept erroring out on the uninstallation of the older versions we had. I think, I don't know for sure, that it was having issues with there being multiple old versions on some machines. We are working to get ALL old versions of Java uninstalled from our machines, but we are not there yet. So, I had to create a solution to fix this as well.

The solution I came up with has 3 parts, all GPOs. 2 startup script GPOs, 1 to remove all the 'extra' stuff and 1 to get Java installed, and 1 software installation GPO to do the install of OOo 3.2 with some needed transforms for our environment along with the 'extra' stuff, I had removed previously, pushed in another startup script.

Although, not ideal, it works. It does require 3 reboots, 1 for each GPO. I enable the first, reboot the machines. Once it is done, I disable the first, enable the second, and reboot the machines, and so forth. We will do this a group of machines at a time. It will take much longer than previously encountered with our OOo deployments, but it is doable. I am also working on combing some of the GPOs into 1 unified GPO.

Do we need textbooks?

Yesterday afternoon I met with our Math Leadership Team at the elementary school to discuss the purchase of a new textbook series. There was some very good discussion on the three 'finalists' they had chosen and the pros and cons of each. The discussion became very interesting when we once again started talking about whether we need textbooks at all. We have been talking about the need for textbooks for a few months now after it was brought up at one of these meetings. Since then, I have been slowly gathering online resources to help show them what teaching mathematics might look like if we didn't purchase a book. I believe the math team at the elementary level is ready to make the jump to  having no textbook. I showed them websites like the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives. A great site packed full of java based manipulatives. I also showed them resources containing more than just manipulatives like Computing Technology for Math Excellence. I only had about 30 minutes so I tried to show them the best, free resources out there right now. I hope they were impressed and as excited as I am at the possibilities.

Now to get each of those elementary students a laptop...

Here is the complete list of what I showed them.

• http://nlvm.usu.edu/en/nav/vlibrary.html
• http://arcytech.org/java/
• http://learnalberta.ca/content/memg/index.html
• http://illuminations.nctm.org/
• http://www.shodor.org/interactivate/
• http://harcourtschool.com/activity/elab2004/index_2004.html
• http://www.visualfractions.com/
• http://mathforum.org/mathtools/
• http://www.ct4me.net/index.htm