Category: school

What a Google purchase of T-Mobile would mean for schools

Posted on by primaryt
I’m not going to speculate on if Google are going to buy t-mobile. I’ve been asked about it a lot today and here are some things that could be of interest to schools.
Q) Will google provide completely free handsets and phone contracts, funded by Ads + % revenue from Google Market (Androids App store)?
A) Android is open source, even if an Ad is required the openness of the operating system makes it very easy to work around any Ad delivery so it’s a BIG risk for Google.
Q) Would a Google purchase of T-Mobile mean my kids would get free handsets and phone contracts?
A) Probably not. Google know they can’t advertise to kids and the cost of the handset is too high to give it away without any ads.
Q) Would a Google purchase of T-Mobile or another phone carrier make perfect sense?
A) Due to all the augmented reality computing being pushed out of both Microsoft and Google then yep.

Q) What do I want a Google/T-Mobile purchase for my school?
A) I’d love free handsets and contracts for all staff. Do I expect this? No.
Q) Do I want my phone provider to change from T-Mobile to Google?
A) Only if Internet connectivity (as in 3/4G/HSDPA coverage) improves dramatically because of it. Google has an incentive to get you online, especially onto their search pages so it is in their best interest to make the web aspects of the device as accessible as possible.
I kinda get the feeling Google is going to be the provider of the famous star trek communicator..

Is Email a form of Social Media #edchat

Posted on by primaryt

Yes it is.

Social media are media designed to be disseminated through social interaction, created using highly accessible and scalable publishing techniques. Social media supports the human need for social interaction, using Internet- and web-based technologies to transform broadcast media monologues (one to many) into social media dialogues (many to many). It supports the democratization of knowledge and information, transforming people from content consumers into content producers. Businesses also refer to social media as user-generated content (UGC) or consumer-generated media (CGM).

Email does allow multiple recipients. Email is user generated.
Email is a form of Social Media. Email as a standard (SMTP) has been used for years and will continue to be used. It is one of the oldest protocols used on the Internet today. So why do some people forget that Email is a social media tool?
Who broke email’s social appeal? Blame your boss.
The phycological impact of using the same tools at work as at home is measurably negative. We like the ability to separate our work and play and we consider “socializing” a play event. Play is something you do with friends & people with similar interests. Can you say that is true about all of the people you work with?
Do we need to fix email’s social appeal? Not really.. We seem to know it’s place in society, we like where it is. We will keep using it for what it is. Having alternative media platforms such as micro blogging, blogging and other platforms where you control who can send and receive posts is what I would call “Controlled Social Environment”.
PS I hate the term Social Media. Educationalists come up with these ridiculous terms to try to summarize a new tech in as few words possible – get over it.

Explaining the #edchat poll options – Need help!

Posted on by primaryt

I found some of the options for the #edchat poll a little confusing so I figured someone else must too.. Please help me try to clarify the options.

Option: Should teachers digitally open their gradebooks to parents?
Explanation: Teachers and educators assess pupils performance constantly throughout their education, do you think that this information should be constantly available to the parents of the pupil throughout their entire education, some of their education or not at all?

Option: What edtech standards should be included State wide?
Explanation: Some states are starting to incorporate standards for using technology. However, these standards are not uniform and often filled with difficult jargon. What standards would we include if asked by our schools to come up with standards? What should students be able to do with various technologies- problem solve, collaborate, etc.?

Option: How should administrators and school leaders take an active part in edtech Professional Development?
Explanation: How should school administrators and leaders be trying to encourage other teachers and leaders to improve on their technology skills

Option: How do you prevent burnout on Social Media?
Explanation: We become much busier as the school year starts. However, teachers still want to keep up with their Twitter, Ning, LinkedIn, Facebook,and other social media accounts. How do we balance our lesson planning, grading, personal lives, etc. and still keep active with our personal learning network?

Option: What objectives are necessary for effective edtech integration?
Explanation: What goals are necessary for effective technology integration into education? How can we assess these goals and decide what they should be? Can be it “Graded” or is it a mistake to think a grading system will not get dated quicker than a system is implemented?

The poll is available here: http://twtpoll.com/oh1hfj

Please provide comments to help me update this post! Some updates thanks to Shelly

EEE Desktop is super slick

Posted on by primaryt
Had a demo of the EEE desktop in our office today.
The unit was sent to us to use in a primary school. They cost about £340 exc vat or so.
My only beef, no VGA/HDMI output on the model we had 🙁 This may not be accurate for all models.

But first meet our moody Engineer aka Cuddles

webcam

handle

clean -_-

cables + ports

low profile kb

slick design

save desktop space

School ICT ownership model

Posted on by primaryt

I am in the process of writing an article on how schools can adopt and approach an ownership model which means parents/pupils contribute towards the cost of the ICT used inside of the school.

The principle idea is that the parent/child then owns the device and can be used in the future outside of the school.
Various schools have offered to contribute already to this paper but if you know of any school that has adopted this model and wants to talk about the advantages, disadvantages and the learning curve experienced throughout their deployment then please get on touch VIA twitter, email, a comment on this thread or facebook.
I am hoping to have this article completed by the end of the summer holidays 2009 and as always I will post for free on my blog.