Using VMware to teach Operating Systems

I'll admit it, I'm not normal. My classes are pretty high on the geek level, but, there are just some things that are really, really cool. You see, I love VMware Server. I used it way back when on my Red Hat 9 laptop, and I think I've loaded it on just about every Linux machine I've used ever since.

About a year ago, VMware made their server free to the public, and that, my friend, was all I needed. Now the joys of virtualization were no longer relegated to my own desktops, I could share this with my students too! As soon as the school year started I downloaded VMware Server, registered for my free serial numbers and began making plans to use this tool to teach whatever operating system I was teaching at the time. This meant I could install XP on machines that we built, then install VMware and any other operating system I wanted to use.

Fortunately for me, the VMware Server Documentation area is good enough for me to point my Honors CET 2 students to the site and they could do most of the install with very little guidance from me. Even better than that, though, was an article I found in Linux Magazine called "More Fun with VMware". This article showed how to use VMware Server to load DOS and play "old school" DOS Abandonware games.

Even better though, when the student becomes the teacher. :-)

I taught a workshop this summer to teachers entering the CET program and mentioned my use of VMware. Todd Thibault ran with the idea and created another tutorial demonstrating how to Install DOS and Windows 3.11 in VMware Server. I've included his very detailed documentation here for your download and perusal.

Todd gives detailed instructions to do this activity, but, you'll need a copy of Windows 3.11 (obviously). Todd is a member of the MSDN Academic Alliance and therefore has easy downloads for Win3.11 and many other legacy and current operating systems. MSDNAA is a great program and I would encourage anyone teaching an IT course to join. Others may have to rely on other means, like checking with your school system to see if they still have an old copy of Win3.11 laying around somewhere or maybe downloading it from somewhere else.

Enjoy and good luck goin' virtual!!

How to turn an eBook into a Website - Updated

I'm teaching a class the other day and I realize that I need my students to read a passage from an old eBook I've got... the book is way out of print and I really only wanted them to look at a page or two. At first I just printed the pages I wanted using PDFCreator. Then I'm looking over the book later and realizing that I'd like for them to see a couple of other sections, and wouldn't it be nice for students to be able to look at the Glossary?

I know, I know... I could just give them a copy of the CHM file that the eBook comes in, but, then they have to load the eBook, navigate it... just takes too much time to tell them what to do to find the info I want them to have. Then I remembered an article I stumbled on a while back on How to convert CHM files under Linux and an idea struck. Why not just post the eBook on my classroom Intranet server?

From the comments and the article I discovered two ways to do just that. I did try both methods and found KchmViewer to be extremely easy to use. The KchmViewer method did seem to produce files that were substantially larger, but, since I was only posting this on my Intranet server, I wasn't really concerned about file size. So, I've got the HTML files loaded on my web server and I'm ready to go, but, wait... there is no main index page for the eBook. Yes, the files are all there, but, they can be hard to interpret where to start since the pages are labeled things like 00co1a.htm. Hmmm... a little Googling found tree.pl.

Geek factor quotient increases here... this Perl script can only be run from a command line, and only if your Linux server (mine runs CentOS) has Perl installed. But, wow... this script runs through each file in the directory you just created and creates an Index page that lists the Title of the page and automatically creates a link to each page! A sample of a page created by this script can be found here.

So... that's what gave me a complete HTML version of an eBook in my collection. Just because I think it's kind of neat to do. :-)>

UPDATE:
I had to revisit this topic when my server's HDD crashed, so, I went back to that same article and discovered a new comment about arCHMage. This one blew me away... kept the left side menu and makes a really nicely finished final product. You can view example of a decompressed CHM file here (document is in Cyrillic).

Converting test questions with HTML symbols into Moodle

My latest "little" project (Thanks Todd Thibault & David Barbour) has been an effort to convert existing SkillsUSA tests into Moodle categories. It turns out NC SkillsUSA is interested in using online testing in their upcoming state competition so, David asked Todd & I to create a Moodle Server.

Next thing I know, we grabbed a couple of old servers from my friends at QTL and spent a few days getting Fedora & Moodle to install on these old Dell PowerEdge servers. Not a small feat, mind you, but doable. (In retrospect I probably should have just installed CentOS to avoid some of the installation problems, but, you live and learn.)

Anyway, it's time now to start entering in the questions. Now, I've done thousands of questions and put them all into Moodle using GIFT format. It's not all that difficult, you simply write the question, put an open bracket, then list the answer choices using ~ for incorrect answers and = for the correct answer. I've even embedded HTML in my GIFT questions so that I can insert images using the <blockquote> tag.

So, I'm thinking "this should not be a problem for me", and then I open the first test I need to convert and I see a question like the following (the answers have been hidden to protect the innocent):

Well now, there is something I hadn't seen... I had never come across the need to embed special symbols like (µ) into a question before. So, a little Googling brought me to the HTML Symbol Chart. It turns out that µ = &181; I had no idea that special symbols could be put into plain old HTML code. I guess you do learn something new every day. :-)

Oh, and for those interested... the question above was converted to GIFT format as:

What is the voltage across the resistor in the circuit? <blockquote><img style="border: 0px solid;" title="pic" src="pic.png"></blockquote>{
~ ** &\#181;V
~ *** &\#181;V
~ * mV
~ ** V}

Note that the image (pic.png) is put into a <blockquote> to allow it to stand out from the question slightly. Also notice that the HTML symbol is encoded as µ but has to be put into GIFT as &\#181; since # is a GIFT control character for feedback.