A Vision for Learning

Twitter Space about Local Software
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Jethro Jones: [00:00:00] So I mentioned that people can join in ~to the ~to the chat room if they want. You know, obviously you can, be in the chat on, and that's cool. But you can also, that I just put as a reply to this, I'm gonna put like, notes of things that we're talking about and stuff like that in there also.

So it's kind of like a running record. And then I did set this to record and hopefully I don't need to push a button to make it record, do I? ~Because that would ~

Damon Hargraves: I'm seeing it as recording.

Jethro Jones: Okay, ~good. Okay. ~

All right. Well, you know what's interesting? The last major space that you and I did ~was ~was talking about AI just over a year ago. And that led to some pretty remarkable things happening in my life. So. Who knows where this one's gonna lead, Damon. But anytime you and I get on a call together, magic comes from it.

So that's exciting. Well, that's good, man. I think

Damon Hargraves: I think there's definitely some things to talk [00:01:00] about.

Jethro Jones: Yeah, for sure. ~So, ~so if you go to that link the chat rx makers.net ~and, ~and you go in there, you can see some of the things that we put on the agenda to talk about today, and you're gonna wanna go to the school software.

Because that's where it's gonna be. So if anybody's listening to this later, that's what you wanna do. I'm not sure if I'll keep this link open, but if you want it, you can just reach out and ~I will, ~I will get it to you for sure. ~So, this is ~ so let's get started. Yeah. ~There's, ~there's a lot to talk about.

So where do you wanna start, Damon?

Damon Hargraves: Well, you know, I think we were kind of chatting a little bit earlier today and we need to just kind of pick that back up. There's just some exciting things happening. If you're following certain topics on X right now or if you're paying attention to software development there's some new kind of business models coming out and some new kind of ways of [00:02:00] thinking about.

Browser based software development. There's some new technology that's come out recently and been adopted by all the major players in the form of PWAs ~that Mm-Hmm. Is, is now out there. ~And so there's just a kind of a, planets are aligning in certain ways and that. ~It ~is always very exciting for educational technology, and I think ~there's some new, ~there's a new horizon popping up that it's kind of like, oh wow, ~there's a, ~there's a mountain over there.

I want to go climb it. So ~it's ~it's pretty interesting. So, yeah, PWAs. So first of all, yeah, go ahead.

Jethro Jones: Yeah, let's talk about PWAs because I think that that's a very interesting thing. This is a way to, they're called progressive web apps and basically they're ways that you can add them to your home screen and they act like apps on your phone or on your computer.

But they are actually just a web app inside the window and, all the browsers have a version of this that works where it can basically run in a window. ~The, ~the tool that I've been using [00:03:00] for the last, I think about a year, is a tool called Audio pen ai, which is pretty dang cool. And I'm gonna put that a link to that in here also, because. ~It's, ~it's a cool AI tool that allows you ~to, ~to record your voice and then have it take your stumbling audio, ~your ~your crazy thoughts and put 'em into something that's clean and simple and, and really clear and focused.

I really like it a lot, ~but that it does, that doesn't have an app, ~but it does have a progressive web app that you can use ~to ~to install on your computer and ~get, ~get your thoughts out. So. ~I,~ I like that idea of a progressive app. It makes it so people can design for the ~can. They can ~they can then have it on any device basically.

Yeah. So if you've had an iPhone with all the technologies of web

Damon Hargraves: iPhone, ~if, ~if you've had an iPhone forever~ forever ago, ~you've been able to save a website to your home screen. So this is like taking that up a notch because what it does is it allows ~the.~ The website to issue notifications and so that it [00:04:00] really acts like an app.

So, and it looks like an app. It feels like an app on your phone. ~It doesn't, ~it doesn't have the little, ~you know, ~safari search bar down at the bottom anymore on your phone. ~It's, it's ~looks and feels like a native app and has those notifications ~and it's. ~If you think about it, it's a way to quickly develop something and ~make, ~make essentially an app without having to go through or maintain something within an app store.

So it really makes app development much more accessible to everybody. Yeah.

Jethro Jones: Yeah, a hundred percent. And, and it's really cool because ~it, ~it doesn't have to be as complex as an app. But it does, and it doesn't require you to write in all these different code formats and all that kind of stuff.

Obviously, neither you nor I are developers, but we're just nerds and pay attention to this stuff. Mm-Hmm. And a lot of people don't even know what progressive web apps are and how they can be beneficial or anything like that. [00:05:00]

Damon Hargraves: Yeah. Well, ~the, ~the link that you're sharing is a good example of that. Mm-Hmm.

You know, ~that's.~ That's something that takes advantage of that. So you're using, ~I think you're, ~are you linking to ~the, ~the chat? ()

Jethro Jones: Yeah. So linking to the chat, ~which, ~which is chat Ruckus Makers net, and then also linking to Audio Pen, which is also another progressive web app. But let's talk about ~the, ~the chat that we have set up, which is different from Slack, but to Slack ~in, ~in some unique ways.

So did you, I saw that you were in that campfire early access one. So what did you ~bought? ~You bought it, I presume. And what did you buy it for and how are you using it?

Damon Hargraves: Well,

~I, ~I bought it today. ~I, ~I have some ~I ~ideas for how to use it. So I'm a principal of a elementary school here in little old Kodiak, Alaska.

Oh, beautiful place. But, ~this, ~this chat tool that's developed by 37 signals allows you to host [00:06:00] a chat application essentially, so ~I can, ~I can have ~a~ a chat system running locally on my network. I was thinking, ~I've thought about, I, ~I haven't implemented anything yet, but I've been playing with different ideas and talking to my teachers about things, about how we might.

There's just some features ~that, ~that we need, that we aren't getting in the platforms that we're using right now that may be able to be solved by something ~like, ~like Campfire is the name of the tool by 37 Signals. Mm-Hmm. ~We, we have~ we're an iPad school, so we've got one-to-one iPads, K. Five and the iPads ~are, ~are great.

It's a great tool, great multimedia tool. They have attached keyboards and so ~it's like, ~it's almost like a little mini laptop for our kids. It's great, but we have to have the devices locked down. You know, we ~don't want, we actually ~don't want to just put our kids on the wide open internet. You know, that's can be pretty irresponsible. ~Yeah. ~For good reason. But so, ~but ~in the process of locking all [00:07:00] that kind of stuff down we have to take away some of the built in features in the iPads. However, we're a school, right? Like ~we're, we, ~we really work hard to create a safe environment within the walls of our building.

Mm-Hmm. We, everything that you see on the wall, there's no content anywhere put up on the walls that. ~A a ~a student shouldn't see ~there, ~there's no content in our library that a student shouldn't see. There's nothing in our curriculum that our students shouldn't see at some age, you know? And it's too bad that our iPads can't be that way a hundred percent, right?

So ~we, ~we have filters, we have internet filters, we do all these things to try to protect ourselves, but there's very rarely. Kind of a, ~you know, ~an open environment ~to just for, ~for students to be completely open and safe in ~and mm-Hmm. ~With these tools that we're starting to mention here, there's some potential to create that. So if you think about, you know, some examples over the last 10 [00:08:00] years, Minecraft edu. ~Is ~is another, maybe a good example of creating a safe environment ~for, ~for students? ~Yeah. ~Something that's not running on the internet. You know, there's no strangers involved.

Everybody's just here locally, that Minecraft edu server is running, you know, in a closet behind the teacher's desk. And, students can safely use it while they're at school. They don't have access to it at two in the morning at home. But when they're at school and they're physically at school within the boundaries of the school and being helped by their teachers, they can log into Minecraft edu.

Well, there's a whole host of tools being developed right now~ that can be run. Locally or what else is out there? You know, open source tools or different pro productivity tools that are already out there ~that can be run locally. And I don't really see anybody thinking about this or doing things this way.

But I think there's just a lot of potential for that. You know, I want my environment that I present to my students to be. Completely comfortable and accessible and safe for them to access. We, it's easy to think about that in the [00:09:00] physical environment, but we often don't really think that way when it comes to our tools.

We think of more like, we need to block, or we need to filter, or we need to, you know, how about just, you know, have the environment fundamentally controlled and safe ~because it's ~because it exists down the hall in the principal's office, you know?

Jethro Jones: Yeah. And, and like that, that idea is so, crazy and yet exactly what we want.

We want our students to be able to come use the devices and tools that we have and, and be safe with it and not get into. All kinds of trouble or, or find things that are inappropriate. And ~like even ~like even if we locked down all the technology or took all the technology away, kids would still find and do inappropriate things, right?

And, and so that's just the nature of kids. They're curious. They wanna learn about things, they wanna figure things out. And so just the nature of who they [00:10:00] are, they're gonna run into some of those things, I'm sure. And you and I both did when we were kids, and that's, that's just, that's what happens. And so I think with, with this idea of having technology be safe like that and be siloed off, I mean, what you're hinting at is really this idea that especially in an elementary school, kids don't even need access to the open web.

Right. And ~or ~to anything really that is hosted on the internet. We should be able. Everything that we do in our school is here on our local network, and there's no danger for kids to go outside the network and find something inappropriate because they can't even access it because we don't need it. Is that, is that kind of what you're saying?

Damon Hargraves: Yeah, and I mean, Jethro, you've known me a long time. I think that this, I've come to this. Early on in my career, it was so, and this is the way the internet used to be, right? It was about breaking down the [00:11:00] walls, ~breaking down, ~breaking out into the worldwide web, getting access, you know, that's so much of what used to be in educational technology was the push for that and fighting for that.

Mm-Hmm. And, and I think that we're becoming more nuanced ~and, ~and better at. Our technology in ~as, ~as an educational system. I think we're ready. Both me personally, I've been thinking about this a lot over the last few years but I think schools ~are, ~need to really start thinking this way. And, and yeah.

Do they, do you really need full access to the wide open internet to your first grader? You know, is that really needed? ~Or. ~Or do they really just need access to the learning tools? ~The, ~the curriculum? Yeah, and ~the, ~the things that we're trying to teach them. ~You know, just~ just a couple days ago~ so two, ~two weeks ago, ~I, ~I was having some discussion.

With some coworkers about~ you know, ~really ~we, ~there should never be ~a, ~an app that students are presented with in an educational [00:12:00] setting that services ads. If it services ads, then that's a red flag. One that shouldn't happen. But also that's a red flag that ~that kind of were the product or ~the student becomes ~the, ~the product ~that ~that should never happen.

Well, you know, try to find a typing app out there that's gonna work well within a. Classroom setting. You really have to play around~ to, ~to find something ~that, ~that doesn't serve you ads at some point. And even if you found one to access it, you're having to access the wide open internet. Why on Earth ~Yeah.~

Can't there just be a typing app served locally that, ~could, could do that for you, could, ~could teach you typing, you know? Yes. And let me,

Jethro Jones: let me just say real quick about typing specifically. I've had a longstanding challenge to my kids that if they learn how to type 50 words per minute, then I will give them a hundred bucks.

Ooh, that's a good idea. Or buy something worth a hundred bucks. And I've wanted them to learn how to type, because I believe it's a valuable skill. [00:13:00] Even if they're doing all their typing on screens, even if they're not going to have a computer keyboard, and they're going to control things via ~their, ~their voice in the future.

I still think it's valuable for them to know how to type and type well and type fast because it'll be beneficial for them. ~And, ~and I have been on a long search ~for a, ~for a keyboarding practice program that doesn't serve ads that I can just buy, and it's been exceptionally hard to find it. But I did finally find one, by the way, would to hear what it.

~Master, I believe ~Master Key, that's what it's called. ~And ~and it's a good program ~and it's not it's not the fanciest, most amazing program, but it, it works ~and it does ~what, ~what I need it to do, which is teach my kids how to type. So is that an

Damon Hargraves: app or is it a website?

Jethro Jones: An app that you download on your computer that you have a license key for, and that does not go out to the web.

It already has all the lessons built in and all the drills and all kind of stuff. Already all taken care of.

Damon Hargraves: [00:14:00] So, see, that's a great example. Pay for it. Get the app. You've got it local. It doesn't rely on, you know, going to a website or navigating anywhere else. ~You've, ~you've got it. It's right there. And ~your, ~your kids can use it.

So, I got a raspberry pie and downloaded tux typing. And so my kids have been playing around with that. Who knows how old that is? Is it 30 years old? I don't know, but yeah. I'm sure your app is much better, but,

Jethro Jones: ~I, ~I don't know that it is, to be honest, because mine looks like it's about that old also, and it just happens to have been updated to still work with modern devices.

But let me tell you, ~it looks. ~It is like it is from the 1990s. Well, so

Damon Hargraves: ~this is, ~this is interesting. I was thinking about this the other day too, like ~in, ~in regards to typing. I kind of had this thought like if I could go back to catch a can [00:15:00] where I grew up and find the old typing textbook that. I used when I was in high school dig it out of the landfill probably.

Right. I would still be able to learn typing Well, from that old textbook that's my school district bought that textbook and used that textbook with I don't know how many hundreds of kids that cycled through khi. ~The, the apps that we have, the. ~The tools that we have now obviously are much, much better, but there's something romantic or appealing about purchasing once and then utilizing over and over and over ~and over the, ~the typing app that we have been using that ~that potentially, ~potentially using that was gonna serve ads to our kids.

Well, you have to buy the pro version to get ad free. That would be a yearly subscription. So, and you might think at first, well, it's just a couple bucks, but, you [00:16:00] know, ~after year, ~after year after year, I feel like some of our schools and some of our educational systems were weighed down by yearly software fees.

And ~we're, we're, ~we're stuck in this model of just having to pay for everything over and over and over. It didn't used to be that way.

Jethro Jones: No, it didn't. ~And, ~and here's the other thing, like the issue that you're talking about is very much answered by 37 signals tool or product suite called ~once ~where ~they're, ~they're promoting this idea that you buy something ~once and, and then get, and. ~

~Purpose is to have you buy it ~once and then not have to rebuy it again every year. And so if you've got 200 kids in your school ~and ~and you are paying, ~I don't, ~how much was that typing app? $5, $10 a year? Yeah. I mean, any, that's two.

Have access to typing when really that should be like ~a, ~a onetime two or $300 [00:17:00] purchase. Even one time $2,000 purchase is better than $2,000 every year.

Damon Hargraves: Absolutely. Yeah. ~It's, ~it's interesting how all of the software models out there for educational tools, it almost all of it's on a subscription. Model.

~It's, yeah, ~it's kind of rare to see things that you can just buy and have, especially when it comes to software, right? Mm-Hmm. I mean, textbooks. Yeah. But we're getting more and more digital textbooks. ~Wouldn't it be interesting? ~Wouldn't it be cool to have, you know, something along the lines of an Encyclopedia Britannica or a World Book encyclopedia that was hosted locally, that had all the content.

You knew that it was safe. You knew what was there, you knew that it was trustworthy. You knew that it was vetted, and ~you, ~you just bought it. You bought it once. ~And~ you know, I don't necessarily need it updated. Every second. You know, I might pay [00:18:00] for updates every couple years, but there would be a lot of benefit that would really be awesome for our kids doing research and looking things up and just exploring and, and we would be able to know that it's safe for one.

Yeah. But then also we're not paying for these massive subscriptions year after year after year for stuff that. You know, just over time you look back and you're like, wow, we, over the last 10 years, we've spent tens of thousands of dollars on, on stuff that, and, and we still don't even own it. You know, ~we, ~we still don't really have anything to show for it.

Yeah.

Jethro Jones: ~E ~exactly. So ~let me, ~let me illustrate this with a story. When I was ~a, ~a kid, my mom would say, when we didn't know what a word meant, she'd say, go look it up. So we would ask her what inappropriate words meant mostly just to, you know, get under her skin because that's what kids do to their mom. And, and so we would say like, what does this [00:19:00] inappropriate word mean?

And she would say go look it up. So we'd go look it up in the dictionary and. He could say that and trust that we were gonna go look it up appropriately or find an appropriate definition for it. And then now the internet exists. And ~you can't, ~you can't say, go Google that. ~Yeah. ~Look up on the internet.

~No. ~Oh, man. ~Or,~ or go look at that ~in a, in ~on Urban dictionary. That's not a good place to go either.

Damon Hargraves: Oh, that's a great example. Yeah. ~You can't.~ You can't really just look stuff up like that, you know? No, ~you need to, you'll have to be right there and you kind of, you kind of do, ~you need to be right there as the parent, but your mom ~could, ~could send you over to the encyclopedia and you could browse around in it. (ad here)

Jethro Jones: Well, and here's the thing ~is, ~is you could totally do that. We don't really have a system for free exploration right now that is safe for our students because Seth Godin famously said, I don't have the exact quote, but says something along the lines of eventually the internet, everything on the [00:20:00] internet leads to porn, and that's where you can go.

So. If you're looking for almost anything, there is some deviant type of a approach to that thing that exists that is going to lead kids to porn. And that's why we have to have all those blocks and all those filters and all that kind of stuff. And it would be really great if we could say, here's a place that we know you can go, and here's this device that you can do anything you want on and it not going to.

It's not gonna cause problems unless you're actively trying to make that happen. You know? And you can look up naked pictures of statues and things like that ~in, in~ in encyclopedias for sure. ~And, ~and that was an issue. But you, at least you knew what they were and you knew what was going on there.

And you, you could trust that it was a certain thing and not something else. Mm-Hmm. And you can't trust on, on the.

Damon Hargraves: No, absolutely [00:21:00] not. Well, I don't know. We keep mentioning 37 signals. I know that they're working on future software. ~And ~and also ~they, ~they have established a new business model where basically anybody can, ~can.~

~You know, ~spin up ~a, ~a server that can then service, provide a little cloud service either online, ~you know, ~for everybody or on a local network. ~So, ~so the same exact software that you are running your chat in I could run that same software and I'm looking at. Applications for this on my local network.

And it's, and I know that the only people who can physically access it have to be located physically there. And they~ yeah. ~Are so I can be pretty open about it. You know, ~I can, ~I can have the QR code to automatically log in, post it in the office, and maybe during an open house. ~Mm-Hmm. ~We're doing a scavenger hunt, you know, or, ~you know, new, ~new families that are coming to town, they can snap that [00:22:00] QR code and while they're in the building getting a tour or ~you know, ~meeting their new teacher, they can have a little side chat going on. I don't know if that's a good application or not, but ~those, ~those are kind of models that can happen.

Those are kinds of avenues that can be explored when you're running something locally.

Jethro Jones: Yeah, well, and think about the collaboration that can happen when that's what you're doing. That's the other thing ~that's, ~that's amazing is when, when you know that your kids are only able to access people there within the building, then you can have those things running and you don't have to worry about some.

Getting on and being inappropriate, and if somebody is inappropriate, you'll be able to know who that is and be able to go talk with them and say, that's not how we do things here. Those kinds of things are really powerful. Of the other things that, that you and I did several years ago in Kodiak was we created a student [00:23:00] flexible scheduling software that we ran on a computer that was sitting in my office ~at, ~at the middle school.

And each week we would have kids just come in or come into the software and the two. That was awesome and it didn't cost us anything extra to use it. We could make it work however we wanted it to. ~And ~and we developed it in an open source way with Carnegie Mellon, which was a very cool experience.

~And, and, and that. ~Software was incredible. And then I used it at the next school that I went to by just taking that little computer and plugging it in at that one. And again, everything was local. We didn't have to worry about kids going outside and, you know, doing something they weren't supposed to. It was all there, had a very specific purpose and it was amazing and so beneficial.

Damon Hargraves: ~One of the, ~one of the beauties of that, one of ~the, ~the features that having it local really gave to us. The ability to [00:24:00] flip it on and off. So all the, you think of the authentication issues that you have with anything working on the worldwide web, with the entire world, potentially going to your website if it's local.

You know, we were having the students log in with their lunch codes and ~the, ~the server would you know, pop up. It would be up for like two hours and then we'd take it back down and ~the, the, ~the students would've logged into everything and done everything that they needed to do. And it was up and down and everybody could see what they needed to see.

~And then,~ and then that was it, you know, and ~it, ~it was beautiful. Worked great.

Jethro Jones: Yeah. ~It, ~it worked so well, and exactly how we needed it to.

Beautiful. So ~here's, ~here's three ideas ~of, ~of tools that we could have a typing app. This app which already exists once.com, called campfire and encyclopedia or some other sort of knowledge base, which I think is ~a beautiful, I didn't say this before, ~[00:25:00] a beautiful marriage of textbook ~that are, ~that are obsolete.

A piece of software that does have the potential to get update information but is not connected to the internet so that it stays there locally. Very powerful. And then the other thing that I was thinking of is some sort of assessment software. And let me explain what I mean by that because I don't want like this big assessment, I want like formative assessment where you can answer two or three, maybe five short question.

And this is what I did in a school before when I was a teacher, we would give kids assessments every week and everybody who passed the assessment went and did one thing. And everybody who did not pass the assessment, they came back ~and ~and worked on that work again. And this wasn't a dumb kids over here, smart kids over here because it would switch each week ~and, ~and different kids would go to different places based on how.

And we would use these little smart clickers. The only problem was that [00:26:00] was our only function ~and, ~and it wasn't they weren't very, ~they weren't ~good for anything else except for answering multiple questions. But some sort of internal assessment system that's tied in to your own system and you can connect it to other things and have it do things that are there locally so that you don't have to worry about student data being in somebody else's cloud.

~And. ~Worrying about whether or not they're going to get hacked or whether or not they're treating it right or any of that kind of stuff.

Damon Hargraves: That's awesome. ~That's a, ~that's a great idea. Talking about the hacking and the security part of it~ the, ~the liability, I don't think ~we, ~we all have really ~thought about the liability.~

~Or ~thought fully about the liability of all the data about our students ~that are, ~that is online. Yeah. And ~I, ~I imagine, or I could foresee here in the next few years, or sometime in the next, ~you know, ~decade there's gonna be a lot of rethinking about data online and what. Kinds of data is being put [00:27:00] online, hosted online just available in different ways.

What happens to the data when you stop paying for it? What happens to the data after the student is gone? You know, ~they, you know, they're, ~they're underage now, but what happens when they're 18? And that data's still there, or, yeah. Anonymized data, you know. Having, ~having keeping ~everything local, you just don't have to worry about that.

So ~the ~the big ~it, you know, ~if we're gonna pursue something as a school, ~there's a, ~there's a process through the IT department for us to vet and, ~you know, ~worry about all the security ramifications ~of, ~of anything that ~we're being is, ~is gonna be put online. We're just starting to wake up a little bit to those risks.

But. ~A a, ~a teacher can put a picture of their student ~and, ~and their latest example of their writing on a bulletin board outside of their room and not think twice about it. ~Yeah. ~'cause it's the local people. Well, ~you can, ~you can do a lot more within that local environment. [00:28:00] Just be carefree and comfortable~ with, ~with what's happening.

As you would with the bulletin board outside of the classroom door if it's on the local network, right? Yeah. So

~there's, ~there's just a lot to do. I mean, ~the, ~the number of apps, I kind of don't even want to tell 'em all 'cause I feel like there's a business opportunity here. But you and I, Jethro could come up with a long list ~of, ~of things. ~I don't, ~I don't know if we even wanna get into it, but, there are so many things, it's just ripe for building some apps ~and, ~and empowering teachers, and empowering the building principal ~to, ~to give their teachers tools to really collaborate and do things with each other and with their students and not.

~Not ~have to venture out into the open waters of the internet that's less and less appealing, you know? ~Yeah. As, ~as there's all kinds of weird stuff that kids get themselves into online inevitably. ~Yeah. Apps, ~apps that you thought [00:29:00] were okay and that we're vetted~ the~ business model changes a little bit.

And then the, some features get added ~and then, ~and then they're no longer something that we want, but usually we find out about those updates because ~you know, ~students getting in trouble. So ~there's, ~there's, and, ~you know, ~not anything major, but hopefully you catch it quickly, but. Maybe sometimes you don't.

Who knows what the ~mm-hmm. ~Risks are. ~And, ~and it's just, there's more and more comfort in things happening locally within your network, within your control. Something that you can pull apart and look at if you need to. ~It's it's a, ~it's a new business model. So do you fully understand what.

37 Signals is doing, like, are they hosting? So they have to have a host that is serving the app to customers. Right. Because when you buy, like when you bought Campfire Yeah. You got a, a [00:30:00] special basically command to put into a terminal. Yep. That was unique to you. That pulled the software down and then.

You can host it wherever you want, right? It could be exactly, it can be on the web. It could, it could, you could put it on a local machine, on a network. So for, for software to be delivered like this, you need a way to get the software, pay for the software, if it's paid, ~if it's for pay,~ but then even if it's meant, ~even if it's designed ~to be.

Put onto the internet, it, it can be put on the local network and run Totally fine. Yeah. I don't think people always realize that.

Jethro Jones: No. I mean, here's the beauty. ~You, you, you get that link or ~you get that link or that you type into ~the, ~the terminal for that remote machine, but you also just get that link for the terminal.

That the machine that is right there in your office, right? So it can be hosted on my Mac right [00:31:00] here in front of me, or it can be hosted on a server, you know, somewhere else in the world. So I'm paying 16 bucks a month to host it somewhere. Somewhere in the world. I could also not pay anything extra and host it on my computer right here at home, and it would work the same if my computer was accessible outside the network, but if I didn't want accessible outside the network.

I could just have it here for my little family, and we could have our own little chat going ~That was here. ~That's not really, you know, ~a, ~a great idea, but, you know, for a school that's a fantastic idea. Have that hosted there people are sharing files, sharing pictures, knowing that this is not ever touching the open internet.

So it is by its very nature, safe and not going to be exploited.

Damon Hargraves: There's just ~so many~ so many possibilities. Yeah. ~I don't know if~

I don't know if 37 Signals they're, they're [00:32:00] selling, you know, thousands of copies of campfire here in just the first month or so, two months. And I know that they're already working on their next app. And they're a productivity company, so it's gonna be something to do with productivity, you know, productivity related some way.

, but man, there's such an opportunity for this exact same model, like whatever they're doing on all fronts, that exact same thing with educational tools that absolutely could be hosted online for everybody, but. The beauty I see is that they can be hosted locally. I mean, what you just said is absolutely amazing.

It's also what we did like eight years ago or however long it was is That's hilarious. Yeah, I know. And we, we sought that out as a feature. We were pressured to put it online. Yeah. And we were like, no. I think the, the point for [00:33:00] us is that it's hosted locally. Like yeah, this is gonna be hosted on the principal's laptop or the counselor's laptop, you know?

Yep. And that's, it's like another feature, like having it on, not even on a dedicated machine. You don't need to buy a server. Yeah, put it, some of these tools, because of the nature of the way that the tool is used absolutely can be on just the day-to-day machine that you use because you're gonna be shutting it on and off.

So ~the, the, ~the tool that we had built by design, ~we, ~we needed it to be able to be shut on and off. Yeah. And there were advertised times for you to log in ~and, ~and kids were like rushing to school and getting there early. And I know because they wanted to get into ~the, ~the fitness class with the Navy Seals that we brought in, right?

Yeah. So, or another teacher who was ~like, ~super into coin collecting and they wanted to be in his class. And so these were all extensions for learning and there were also [00:34:00] interventions that kids were getting into. But yeah. ~Yeah, it was just, ~it was so cool, man. ~And, ~and there was a two hour window or whatever it was that it was up.

~And then, ~and then it, by design, it needed to be shut off. So. ~That, ~that is an absolute feature. So potentially, like in our chat sessions ~in, ~in my school, ~I wouldn't necessarily, I, ~I haven't really thought of an idea of a use for it where I would leave the chat on at all times. Mm-Hmm. There's just certain functions where we would.

Have the chat up and then take it down certain projects and things that we're doing where we would take it, put it up, and then take it back down. And it would be part of a fun collective activity, you know? Yeah,

Jethro Jones: yeah. I mean, ~I, ~I agree. ~There's, ~there's a lot of cool things that ~could.~ We could do with this.

And ~I'm, ~I'm excited to keep talking about it. And if you hear this and you're like, Hey, that sounds really cool, I want to be part of it reach out and let's chat because Damon and I are pretty open [00:35:00] to working with cool people and we'd love ~to to,~ to collaborate on some of these ideas because I think ~there's, I think, like you said, ~there's a lot more.

~And ~and if you, I mean ~the, ~the budgets that schools have for software. Just keep blossoming. ~And, ~and I think that's ~a, ~a bad use of taxpayer money, a bad use of school money. And ~we, ~we can definitely do better

Damon Hargraves: here. ~Here.~

Jethro Jones: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, hey, as always, man, this was a great conversation. Thanks for engaging in it with me ~and ~and for being here and anybody who's listening later reach out, let us know your thoughts, comment ~on the, ~on the thread here, and ~we'll, ~we'll be happy to reach back out to you.

Damon Hargraves: Jet.