One School of Thought

The laptops must weigh less than 1.75 kilograms with battery, be no bigger than an A4 sheet of paper and include a 8.9- to 12-inch screen with built-in webcam. A disk drive was optional but the battery must be able to run for six hours of the school day under normal use.

Aesthetics has emerged as a key consideration. Design options “may include a range of colours or styles for the case, or options for individualising its appearance” such as the ability to insert a sheet of paper into the lid, an adhesive plastic overlay that can be drawn on or stickers.

The laptops will be locked to the DET’s network. Students will be able to install their own software but they will not be able to remove the DET’s applications and will be forbidden from modifying operating system settings.

A capability to provide voice and video communications will be particularly important.

All for $500 …I want to see this!

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/12/03/1228257109543.html

The natives are still restless about the plan to provide mini-laptops to all Year 9-12 public school students.

Would seem there is now a search for reasons why laptops, or perhaps mini-laptops should not be provided to students. These are some of today’s comments:

One school principal has publicly “slammed” the proposal (as reported)

http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,24897,24744301-15306,00.html

And more from the School IT Managers:

“Student’s may love them, but I wonder if it is ergonomically advisable for us to recommend to students that they use these screens for many hours a day – (if they don’t use them for many hours during the school day what was the point?)”

“The real concern is the poor ergonomics of laptops, and this would be worse with mini ones. Your arms end up stretched uncomfortably to type and your head/neck is pointed downwards instead of relatively straight ahead like it is naturally and with a properly located monitor.”

“I have had a very few Stage 3 kids say they just can’t finish (something) because their arm hurts – which is usually traceable to posture.”

“Unfortunately, most of the research looks at the usage from a commercial standpoint in that it assumes users will be in the same position for long periods of time. Laptops are badly designed if they are to be used that way, but they aren’t (at least in this school they’re not)
Our kids use computers for approximately 10-15 minutes per period on average (survey taken last year) so they are constantly looking around etc. They are also constantly moving!”

“Also… apparently not everyone in New York (the school system run by Joe Klein, who is so highly praised by the Deputy Prime Minister) is enthusiastic about laptops.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/04/education/04laptop.html 

“We should, as leaders, stymie this silliness propagated by the press, even esteemed rags such as the NYT”

I’d have to say that there has been a distinct head-in-the sand attitude to educational technology over the last 10 years. Some schools, mostly the private, independents, realised the need to change and did not wait for government hand-outs.

Very few administrators seem to have a handle on 21st century learning and all that embodies …….. the status quo is too attractive. So they have waited, and waited and left ICT out of their budgets, year after year. There has been little, if any preparatory PD; little if any infrastructure readiness, and little, if any, consideration of the need to even think about school improvement plans.

Congratulations to those Australian schools who have bitten the bullet and begun the change process, as hard as it is. At least we don’t have to bother too much about this poorly conceived plan. Let’s just keep our own balls rolling.

So, according to the recent announcement, the States have come to an agreement with the Feds and all Year 9-12 public school kids will be given a wireless laptop ….as early as term 2 next year.

According to the NSW Premier, Nathan Rees,

“These custom-made laptops are about three-quarters the size of a regular laptop – compact enough to fit into a schoolbag or a locker but powerful enough to support all the IT needs of our high school students

We can deliver the digital revolution by putting wireless networks in every public secondary school and buying a laptop for all the 197,000 students in years 9 to 12.”

One suggestion as to what this is going to look like is shown above, and the following comments were collected from an IT Manager’s Forum:

As the laptops run on a wireless network, there was no need to build expensive computer labs or banks of network servers. Man I knew I was doing something wrong, going to buy some more wireless access points today and get rid of those pesky servers!

Huh? Does this guy have an adviser?

Hearing the horror stories from NSWDET teachers about stringent filtering policies barring access to even educationally-valid websites at school, I wonder what this is going to look like in reality.

LOL. Perhaps they heard about storing data in the cloud?

Some golden haired bay in a back room will receive a pat on the back for another crazy scheme!

So how do we go about receiving this additional $1,500 per PC?

Come on guys, this is so easy to bag out, it’s like taking lollies from a baby. The tough bit will be to make it work. I think it will be a great thing in the long run, but utter bedlam initially. Or maybe the kids will just use the laptops instead of their folders and take notes on them, not much more. Better than nothing.

Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that for the same amount of money, governments could have supported a traditional classroom model by reducing every class size by one. Imagine taking the one worst student out of every classroom in the state! Instead, they have aimed at disrupting existing models by giving every student a new communication tool.

There are obviously a ton of details to be worked out. What struck me in particular was the government’s plan for dealing with the e-waste generated by this program: take the laptop home when you leave school!

If you have a look at the DET proposal they appear to want to use web apps or open source. No licences required. I do wonder how it will work in the real world though when “little Johnny” is used to use Word and Excel on a dual quad cored PC and 8 gig RAM etc and now he is told he has to use an ee-pc at school

….when this process started the press releases talked about laptops for 9-12 but fortunately we got to choose what we needed – actually letting the educational needs drive the technology. If this release is accurate and every GOVT school is going to have to have a laptop for every 9-12 student then that seems like the technology driving the education.

From a parent perspective, it’s great that they will receive a free laptop for their kids but what happens when a child breaks or loses their laptop or has it stolen. How important does it become that it is replaced? Who foots the bill & will same model replacements be available. Who becomes responsible for warranty.

Who is paying for the software and the applications to make these work and, therefore, who owns the license?

What happens to the software licenses when the student leaves the educational facility? Do they revert back to the school? Or are they transferred to the student?

as per the movie Jerry Maguire – “SHOW ME THE MONEY”

Do these comments accurately reflect how we feel about this issue?

In the first of the 2008 Boyer lectures, Rupert Murdoch touched on the need to revitalise our education system.

In short, we have a 21st century economy with a 19th century education system, and it is leaving too many children behind. That is an injustice to these citizens, and it puts a future burden on Australian society.

In the second in the series he expands on this theme,

“Technology is making the human side of the business equation – skills and knowledge – more valuable than ever. But technology will do you no good unless you have men and women who know how to take advantage of it”.

I can’t argue with any of that. Do you think anyone is listening?

This latest report from Becta contains many gems, such as 

“Currently, most children are prevented from engaging in any social activity on the web at school. While this may remove the immediate danger to children and protect the school or local authority against lawsuits, it may also store up further problems for society at large. Now that most children have home access, safe behaviours are essential, but a strongly protected online environment at school may not provide the opportunity to learn these”.

“Lack of significant sophisticated activity by learners that involves more than consumption and social networking suggests that there is a role for teachers in supporting effective learning using Web 2.0″.

I found this graph of particular interest:

I wonder how this compares with student use in Oz. I’m surprised that of the 2600 learners surveyed, 76% have never edited a wiki.

I have been fortunate to be a part of a PL Project over the last 12 months or so, involving a group of schools in Queensland, ISQ and

Heulab Pty Ltd.

Under the auspices of and funded in part by the Quality Teacher Project we have been investigating

• the use of Tablet PCs,
• classroom use of Heulab’s excellent and innovative software
• Learning by Design
• LAMS – the Learning Activity Management System from Macquarie University

And now for the final session I’m looking at the use of various web 2.0 tools and the development of personal learning networks in the hope that the group will remain together in a virtual forum and continue to assist each other.

Throughout this series of events, I’ve borrowed heavily from my RSS Feeds, and that’s one of the main points I’ll be trying to get across next week…… I just wish I could remember where I got some of the materials from! I will get more organised now that I have Diigo on my toolbar.

Coincidentally, I noticed that Miguel at Around the Corner was doing exactly the same thing with Pageflakes as I was……. my effort can be seen here and it’s also embedded in my overall presentation on wikispaces.

I am intending to use Diigo as the basis for continued collaboration. We’ll all sign up, start up a group, create some lists of relevant topics, and share our bookmarks. Should be a piece of cake to keep these people talking after the event ……. but I’ve thought that before!!

For reasons too silly to discuss this is a new blog, a new start with (hopefully) some old friends.