It was not meant to reflect negatively on Butte, Montana, but the MCCE Board of Directors found it difficult to assemble themselves in that fine city this year for their annual meeting. It seems that there is always something conspiring against the yearly assemblage such as the weather or conflicts with the members’ other commitments. President Anne Stenberg moved this year’s January meeting to March 3rd in hopes of forming a quorum only to find more schedule conflicts among the members who found it difficult to set aside the full day required to allow everyone to travel to a central location.
Technology came to the rescue and new ground was broken in the history of MCCE as ten board members gathered on Met-Net for a group conference. Anne worked with Met-Net’s Steve Meredith in configuring the private chat room that board members were invited into as soon as they logged on to the system using the First Class client software. The meeting convened at 9:00 am and lasted for almost 3 hours.
The obvious advantage to this type of meeting is that there is no travel involved, but it goes beyond that. Not only can one “dress down” for such a meeting, but it is nearly impossible to miss any part of the conversation. A user types their contributions in a small window, and as soon as they “Send” that text, it appears in a scrolling window on all the other users’ computers. The contributors’ names appear in front of their text making it easy to keep track of who is saying what. If one was to miss out on part of the conversation, it is only a matter of scrolling back through the text in order to catch up.
This is not to infer that this method of meeting can, will, or should replace the conventional, face-to-face meetings that organizations hold. The online conference has many limitations. One is that it lacks the visual cues that one gets from others that indicate emotion or when the speaker is relinquishing the floor. During this meeting there were several times that it seemed like several people were talking at once and that there was more than one thread of conversation taking place. These “sidebars,” as Bob Gunderson referred to them, are a normal part of the online chat world and something that takes a bit of getting used to. However, Anne did a great job of pounding her virtual gavel and kept the group on task as we moved through a busy agenda.
There were a few technical glitches, something that most computer users are probably used to. A few of us got the “boot” and were disconnected from the chat. It was necessary to log back in to Met-Net and hope that Anne noticed our renewed presence and invited us back in, which she always did. Luckily Anne was not the one to get disconnected during this endeavor. Some old technology came to the rescue when the system told me that I had exceeded my daily time limit and logged me out, refusing to let me back in. Julie Schopp immediately gave me a call on the telephone and kept me up on the conversation as she watched it on her computer.
Looking back on the experience I find it interesting that when I think about some of the discussions we had, I do not see scrolling text but rather I hear the voices of Bob, Anne, and the rest as if we had met in Butte, face-to-face. Perhaps the immediate limitations of this type of meeting are forgotten as our cyber-enabled minds fill in the gaps and we store this information in our own memory. However, the virtual food at these meetings is quite tasteless.
For anyone who has not used Met-Net or First Class in a while, it really pays to give it a try. The client software is very user friendly, much more so than a web browser, and provides a seamless link to the Internet’s World Wide Web when required. The system has all types of information of interest to teachers, Montana teachers in particular, and I found the availability of educational software price lists and the Microsoft training materials to be a great use.
Note: Another advantage to this type of meeting is that the secretary gets a complete transcript without taking a single note.
MCCE Board Meeting Minutes
March 4, 2000
Metnet Online Chat
Present: Anne Stenberg, Julie Schopp, Suzie Flentie, Bob Gunderson, David Thompson, James Gregg, Cathy Stone, Vince Long, Dennis Monson, Randa Siegle.
Meeting called to order at 9:08.
Minutes of October's Board meeting and General Membership meeting, part of the last newsletter, were discussed. Motion to approve made by Dennis Monson and seconded by James Gregg. All voted in favor.
Treasurer's Report had been mailed to members ahead of the meeting. Randa Siegle presented report. Net worth of MCCE is currently $11,151.01. Net profit on t-shirt sales for fall conference was $699.30. Net loss on fall conference was $0.54. IDS accounts discussed. Randa commented she would like to begin doing comparative balance sheets to determine how we're doing from year to year. Julie Schopp moved to approve Treasurer¹s Report. David Thompson seconded. All voted in favor. Compliments to Randa for clarity of reports.
Membership Report made by Randa Siegle. Currently have 92 members. Membership cards sent to people whose membership had expired in the fall. Ten of the 30 reupped. Membership received after the first of the year will be extended to the following fall. Dennis Monson moved we accept the membership report. Julie Schopp seconded. All voted in favor.
Newsletter Report made by Vince Long. No Learning Services ad in last newsletter due to some kind of problem. Have received one for next issue. Need help with contributions of regular columns. Vince would continue with handling production and techie articles. Discussion of possibilities ensued with the following volunteers emerging for future issues: Julie Schopp: Software Evaluation; Bob Gunderson: Lake County County School Historical Society project to publish histories of the country school in Lake county and/or other student projects; Suzie Flentie: Grants and awards that relate to the use of technology in the classroom; James Gregg: How eliminators use fund raisers to generate monies for technology; Sally Brewer: Possible article on the TALES project. Last newsletter of the year out in May, so deadline is midApril. Julie Schopp moved to accept newsletter report. Bob Gunderson seconded. All voted in favor. Kudos to Vince for all his hard work on the newsletter over the years.
Convention 2000
Bob Gunderson will handle tshirt sales for convention again. Will use Total Screen. Can order extras to have on hand at convention. No hats. Bob moved to raise price of the longsleeved tshirt to $16.00. Julie Schopp seconded. All voted in favor. Shortsleeved shirt will stay at $12.00. Meeting in Billings about the convention May 12. Anne, Suzie and Julie will meet. 20 rooms at the Radisson have been blocked for MCCE. Anne brought up a concern expressed by Debbie Hanna at MEA about the manning of the tshirt booth. Much discussion ensued about how best to ensure there is someone there at all times. Julie Schopp moved that we pay an adult person $6.00/hour to man the tshirt/registration booth. Randa seconded. Motion amended by Vince Long to reflect a fixed stipend of $60.00, rather than a per hour fee. Motion voted on and approved by all.
Anne Stenberg will be in attendance at the MCCE informational booth (not the tshirt booth). Members will try to provide her with "breaks." Anne solicited suggestions for key note speaker. Mentioned were: Roger Taylor, John Kuglin, Del Siegle. Call ISTE for possibilities. A motion made by Julie Schopp to form a Key Note Committee. Includes Suzie, Sally, and Anne. Seconded by Randa Siegle. All voted in favor. Discuss how much to allocate for a speaker after one has been identified.
Technology Using Educator of the Year Award
Send nomination forms to board members so they can nominate people. Bob suggested sending nomination forms to all membership.
NCCE Conference
Portland in April. Encourage attendance
Pastpresident's Incentive
Intended to allow past president to attend NECC which is in Atlanta this year. Amount to be provided is in question. Suzie suggested a $500.00 award. Randa suggested $400. based on the interest in our investment account. Should be pastpresident's choice on what professional development the money gets used for.
Next Board Meeting
Wednesday before ME/MFT convention in Billings at the Radisson
Other
Montana State Science Fair and the Montana Computer Fair are being held jointly at UM April 911. Web site:
www.cs.umt.edu/COMPFAIR/wwwpg1.htm
A popular activity in many classrooms is a version of TV quiz show “Jeopardy” where participants provide questions when prompted with the answers on a variety of topics. For example, the answer “Helena,” in the category of “State Capitals,” would elicit the correct answer of “What is the capital of Montana?”
On the TV-version of the game, the contestants must wait until the host has finished reading the answer before they may press their button to indicate they know the question. Pressing the button ahead of time locks them out, giving their competition first crack at the correct question. The first person to speak the solution, in the form of a question, wins that round and gains a number of points. An incorrect response results in a deduction of points.
Quiz in the Classroom
When playing the game in the classroom, most teachers rely on “hand raising” to determine which student to call on for their chance at coming up with the correct question. The problem inherent here is how to resolve who, of the several hands going up at the same time, was first. On the TV show this is all handled electronically by a device that separates the button pushes to the millisecond. Now, with a few spare parts, teachers can have the same type of device in their classroom.
As follow-up to the MCCE News article on recycling old computers (Winter, 2000) I started looking around for some non-traditional ways of utilizing what makes these boxes so unique in the first place. After all, they have central processing units (CPU) that are capable of being programmed for a variety of uses and just because they do not run today’s software does not mean that they’ve lost their ability too control devices in the real-world. In this case, we will use one to make a Jeopardy game controller that will determine which of four student pressed the their button first.
Our older IBM-type computers, especially 286s and 386s, are just what is needed to bring programmable control into the classroom. All of these machines have a parallel port, the printer connection, that allows for bi-directional communication with the outside world. The port is easily controlled through the BASIC programming language which came, pre-installed, on all of these machines as part of DOS, it’s operating system.
The Parallel Port
Let’s take a quit look at the parallel port to see how this works. The port appears on the back of the computer as 25-pin, female connector. (The computer might also have a 25-pin, male connector, but that one is the serial port.) Not all of the 25 pins are used and of the ones that are used we are only interested in a few.
Figure 1. DB-25 Connector Pin Locations. This view is looking at the connector on the computer.
Eight of the pins, numbers 2-9, are the outputs. See Figure 1. It is down these wires that data flows, usually to the printer. Pins 10 through 17 are control or status lines, some of which are used by the printer to send data back to the computer, for example, to tell the computer when it is out of paper. For this project will will use some of these control lines since we are interested in sending data back to the computer. Pin 18 is an electrical ground.
A Quick Test
To send a signal to the computer we need to connect one of the control lines to the electrical ground. We will do this with a push-button switch that we connect between the control pin and the ground. A short program, written in BASIC, can show which pin has been grounded. There are two versions of BASIC available in the DOS world and what version of DOS you are running will determine what version of BASIC you have. GW-BASIC was supplied up to DOS version 5 after which QuickBasic become the standard. To test out your switch enter and run one of the following BASIC programs. Connect your switch to the port by connecting one wire from the switch to pin 18 (ground) and the other wire from the switch to pin 13 (printer on line.) The number on the screen should change when the button is pressed.
GW-BASIC QuickBASIC 10 CLS
20 Y=INP(889)
30 PRINT Y
40 GOTO 10
Start:
CLS
Y=INP(889)
PRINT Y
GOTO Start
While this test demonstrates the very basic function of how a controller might work, there is a bit more to it than that. I need to mention that not all parallel ports work the same on all computers. The numbers that are output on the screen might vary between computers so some experimentation might be equired. Also, I have found that connecting a resistor across the control pin and the ground tends to stabilize the circuit resulting in a more consistent reading from the port.
Building the Controller
The two drawings show both the schematic diagram for the controller and the physical construction. The cost of building one complete, 4-person unit should be about $5.00. The electrical parts are available at Radio Shack or through Mouser Electronics. The PVC pipe is available at any hardware store.
Solder all connections. Tying the wire around the washer inside the pipe will prevent the wires from being pulled off the switch during the frenzy of game play. You can connect the pipe caps to the pipe with PVC cement or by wrapping them with tape.
Click here to see the schematic.
Click here to see the construction details.
The Software
As I developed this as an exploratory project in the world programmable controllers, I have not written a complete software package to support it. However, I do have a beta version available that will let you utilize the controllers and even have the “answers” appear on the screen as you play. The software is available on the website listed below.
The software lets you enter your answers into a database. You can then select to play with the stored answers or to play “live” where you read the answers to the contestants. Either way, the controllers are not activated until you press a key on the keyboard. If someone jumps the gun and presses ahead of time, a message appears on the screen telling you so. Once you activate the controllers, the button number of the first person to press is shown on the screen and the other buttons are deactivated. You then have a choice to give the others a chance or to continue to the next question.
The software is provided in both executable and source codes. The executable will run on any DOS or Windows computer whether or not you have BASIC installed. The source code requires you to have QuickBasic on your computer, but is provided so that you can add on to the program yourself. Again, not all computers have the same type of parallel port and this software works best, or only, on 286 and 386 class computers running in DOS. The software has a calibration feature which will determine the settings for each of the contrller buttons on your computer.
Resources
Hardware
Mouser Electronics
(800) 346-6873
www.mouser.com
Radio Shack (there's one near you)
www.radioshack.com
Software
The software mentioned in this article is here:
Source code of the program. You need QuickBasic installed on your computer to open this.
Source code of the program in plain text format.
Configuration file. Put this in the same directory as the program. It contains system settings and the database information.
Executable code for the program. You do not need QuickBasic installed on your computer to run this. Copy it and the configuration file, above, into the same directory.
More about Controlling External Devices
Senior High Robotics Page
This page features more information about external control using the parallel port.
http://senior.billings.k12.mt.us/robots/index.htm
Ian Harries Web Site
Great site that covers everthing that one might need to know in getting that old computer to interact with the real world. Highly recommended.
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~ih/doc/
Career Links
The career field of “programmable controllers” is huge and is found in virtually every aspect of industrial manufacturing. When a tomato goes from the factory door to the catsup bottle, every aspect of the peeling, the boiling, the mixing, and the bottling is controlled by a myriad of computers that work in concert with one another. The temperature of a boiling kettle is maintained as a computer reads a sensor and used that information to control a valve that throttles the gas supply to the burner. When a bottle lands in position to be filled it hits a limit switch that tells the controlling computer that it is there.
Programmable controls fall under the broad field of Industrial Technology and covers most areas of engineering. Since they are electro-mechanical devices, their use is interdisciplinary and implementation is generally a team effort involving specialists from several fields. Computer programmers, electricians, and mechanical engineers all find themselves working with programmable comtrols.
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