The Next Woz?
This post will highlight some of my own recent struggles through some of the strategies I coach teachers to implement with their students and the skills we work to develop in them-logical/critical thinking, technology literacy, creativity, successful failure, knowing what to do when you don't know what to do, and more.
As an Instructional Technologist I am often confused with a computer programmer. Lots of people think, "if you are the computer guy, you should be able to fix my computer". While that is not necessarily true I will take the time to try and figure out the problem. As a matter of fact, I actually enjoy it a little more when I am not sure how to fix it. It becomes a challenge and a way for me to learn something new. I couldn't possibly count how many times this has happened to me over the years so I'll just say that I have learned a lot of new things.
Recently, I had a conversation with our STEM Director and suggested a digital signage setup for the STEM announcements. I was all excited about it and talking about all the things we would need-"We can get a Raspberry Pi and a monitor and program it to show the announcements...". He liked the idea and quickly purchased the equipment needed. The problem was that I had never done something like this before. I had a good idea of all the components we would need. What I didn't know was anything more than a teaspoonful about the programming. I've picked up a little html code through managing our school websites but I would consider myself less than amateur. But I am a fast and motivated learner.
I quickly recalled a blog post that I had previously read by Mark Samberg of the Friday Institute. This post was about his quest to create a digital signage setup for a very low cost. This was obviously very similar to what I wanted to do so I reached out to him. Mark graciously sent me all of the information that he had posted on how to go about setting this up. So I got to work. I realized that, although there should have been enough information for someone with a little programming experience to get going, there were quite a few gaps for a "learner" like myself. I reached out to Mark a few more times and he was very helpful. Well, short of doing the work for me, he was as helpful as he could be.
I continued working on this off and on for about a month. I began to realize that I needed to consider other options. I started to think, "Even if I figure this out I am going to have to teach someone else how to manage the announcements (it was never the plan for this to be my job) and convince our networking crew to allow us to bypass any filters that would cause problems for us. There has to be an easier way for us."
Suddenly, a lightbulb went off. Why can't we just create a Google Slides presentation? I can program the Raspberry Pi to play it automatically and even refresh at a specific interval to always be up-to-date. Also, there will be nothing new for anyone else to learn. We can all update Google Slides. This was exciting but I have to admit that I did wonder if this was also out of my league. I began researching and found plenty of blogs and sites talking about similar setups but there was nothing step-by-step. I guess this was a good thing because what would I have actually learned by following step-by-step directions?
There was a lot of information about scripts and repositories and languages, etc.
All of these things were familiar. I just didn't quite understand how to make it all work together.
After spending so much time researching, trying and failing, things started to make a little more sense to me. I began experiencing some success and understanding what needed to be done.
Ultimately, I accomplished my goal. In part, that is what this blog is about-me experiencing the struggles that our students need to experience and how perseverance pays off.
The other part is this... I also wanted to provide information on how to accomplish this for anyone else wanting to do so. I had to piece many resources together to finally figure it out. So, the step-by-step instructions I was looking for (AKA the easy way out) can be found below.
Ok, so I will not be the next Steve Wozniak but I am quite proud of what I have learned and what I have accomplished so far!
Digital Signage/Presentation Setup Instructions
**If you plan to use Google Slides like I did you will need to be sure to Publish the presentation to the web and make note of the URL**
We used the Raspberry Pi 3 and any monitor you can connect will work.
You will need to download the Raspbian OS before beginning.
Once the OS is setup you can begin the programming.
1-Open the Raspberry Pi Terminal (or connect via ssh-I loved being able to do this with my Macbook)
2-Install xscreensaver by typing the following in the command line: sudo apt-get install xscreensaver and press Enter
*Follow the prompts to install
3-Install xdotool by typing the following in the command line: sudo apt-get install xdotool then Enter
*Follow the prompts to install
4-In the command line type in ~/.config/lxsession/LXDE-pi/autostart and press Enter
*this will open the autostart folder or allow you to
create it.
5-On the new screen type the following:
@xset s off
@xset -dpms
@xset s noblank
@unclutter -idle 0.1 -root
@chromium-browser --noerrdialogs --kiosk --incognito http://www.domain.com/etc (this is the URL you want to auto open)
6-Press CTRL X to Save
You have now setup the Pi to automatically open a specific page on boot with the cursor gone and no screensaver (that way it will always show your announcements and not go to sleep)
Now let's make sure you do not have to manually refresh the page.
1-In the terminal, type in nano start_URLrefresh.sh and press Enter
*this will allow you to open or create the file
2-In the file type the following
/bin/sleep 6
/usr/bin/lxterminal --command watch -n 90 xdotool key ctrl+F5
*note: the 90 above is for 90 seconds. the time will
will be in seconds. Change this to fit your needs
(ex: to refresh every 30 minutes, change the 90 to
1800-this is 1800 seconds)
3-Press CTRL X to Save
Now let's make it executable
I'm not sure which of these actually works so just do both.
1-In the terminal type sudo chmod 755 start_URLrefresh.sh and press Enter
2-Now, in the terminal, type sudo chmod +x start_URLrefresh.sh and press Enter
Now reboot the Pi by typing sudo reboot and the chosen URL should automatically launch on boot.
In case I have left something out and this doesn't work for you, feel free to contact me and I will try and help you out. Remember, I'm not "the Woz" quite yet.