Blogged – Is apple now the logical choic

Blogged – Is apple now the logical choice for schools? http://ow.ly/8BteB

Is Apple Now the only logical choice for schools?

As perhaps we have reached the tipping point of technology becoming invisible, I come to the question of where might be the best investment for schools now in terms of technology. In look at the PC and see the advantages of cost in terms of hardware, but see the disadvantages of the cost of software to keep it safe and secure as well as the cost of educational software with perhaps little return on that investment.

I look at school perhaps thinking of a cost effective decision interns of a better proofed investments and I see Apple products as being educationally effective. The product range is well designed, straight forward to use and integrated. This in conjunction with the IBooks authoring tool is perhaps the key to opening the door for that decision to be made.

I think perhaps that the investment in the infrastructure is crucial, and reducing the number of school purchased devices available. These devices could be a small range of IPads and IMac laptops and desk tops. Perhaps one desktop per classroom, 5 laptops and class set of iPads available through the school.

The software investment is much smaller, since much of the software available is either free or a very low cost. This software cost needs to be taken into account. I also think that email should now be ditched as a form of communication in schools, as the maintenance of this is expensive for little educational return.

The other key area is the move to allow students to use their own personal devices in the classroom. This in conjunction with intelligent E-safety could reduce the need for schools to invest in ICT hardware.

Ibooks Author – The final piece of the jigsaw?

Has technology finally reached the tipping point of becoming invisible?

I ask this question in its most positive sense, and comes from the development of a piece of software which perhaps is the final piece of the jigsaw; the start of technology now supporting learning.

I say the final piece not as an end but at beginning, to see the bigger picture, to realise the vision, the technology now becomes invisible and the learning shines through.

We have the mobile tech, the apps – hundreds of varieties and hues. We have the connectivity and the computers, but where was the impact.

We have the Virtual Learning platforms and the social media. It is the Six Million Dollar Man Investment Question - “Steve, we have the technology” to “Steve, we have the pedagogy”.

Perhaps with the addition of the one slither of software we can explode the potential of all this, all that and all the other.

Ibooks 2 could be conduit, the black hole which attracts through is gravitational potential, all the kinetic energy that surrounds and orbits,;combing, chewing and digesting – then releasing, ejecting its product through all types of social media.

Has learning now the potential to become Open Source, through one product that sublimes the notion of technology supporting learning?

Can we realise it or is it just another false dawn of the dead ideal?

iBook author could be the tool of choice

iBook author could be the tool of choice for students to develop the next generation of text books #ictcurric

IBook2 – THE IExcersiseBook (IEB)

Just had a look at the IBooks author application for the MAC, creating the books for students to read. Yet I am struck by the simplicity of the design and immediately how this could be harnessed as a free quality word processor in the classroom as well as not just creating an Ibook but an IexcesiseBook (IEB).

It already allows a student to configure their IEB, Titles, Chapters, media – it is already half fit for purpose (the other half is the content and its quality).

It also allows the student to integrate their own personal device with this technology. Example: students use their own device to collect images and videos of relevant parts of a lesson, then add this to their handwritten or digital notes to create the next page of their IEB (Using bluetooth to share media)

What does the sharing option add – perhaps group edits of IEBs using drop box – publishing – save and export locally to your own IPAD - Ibook reading device (I am still looking into this).

Homework/projects, create and share your Ibook on a particular topic – focus on the media.

The issue: cost of technology – not all will have access to a MAC – perhaps there is a need to port this software over to other operating system?

The Ipad and the IWB – The giant IPAD.

The motivation for this post was in reponse to a blog item on Nic Peachies blog spot http://nikpeachey.blogspot.com/. The item was suggesting that the Ipad was going to replace the IWB in the classroom and Nik was suggesting a tool which was effectievly a wireless share of the Ipad on the IWB.

The issue for me here is about the pedagogical use of the IWB, or its lack of use and perhaps the synergy between the IWB and the IPad which suggest a route forward for the “Now” classroom.

IWB - interactive whiteboard which im many institurions should be re-branded as TIWB – Teacher Interactive Whiteboard as often the student is passive in the activity.

So the suggestion that the IPAD would replace the IWB misses the point, it is suggesting that the technology is replaced but the pedagogy remains – perhaps with an added spice of sharing – granted by the teacher.

But I stop for a moment and suggest that there is a developmental relationship between the IWB and the IPAD, that may impact on pedagogy. The IWB is interactive, and its iteraction is upclose and social, the IPAD is up-close and personal. The IWB allows a more kinesthetic social learning in conjunction with the IPAD.

So what is the developmental impact on the IWB, where does it have to go to survive. Well it has to take the interactive ideas of the IPAD and add in the social space that the IWB offers. How will they do this – bu creating an IWB app that allows the IWB to be the IPAD screen, to utilise the interactive space of the IWB, with the interactive tools of the IPAD.

Thus the IWB connects to an IPAD, allowing the IWB screen and the projector to be the interactive space ofthe IPAD, not just a projection of an IPAD but a giant IPAD.

The technology then is seemless between the close up space and the social space.

Perhaps then we may see the pedagogy emerge from the technological noise in the classroom.

The Blog will eat itself.

The title of this blog post changed from “the 18th Century blog’” and was initially around a motivation from listening to the audio book “The Adventure of English, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_English (Melvin Bragg). In this work he mentions the development of the English Novel in the 18th Century, and its key developer – Jane Austin. From “Just a Novel” to a replacing the poem and the pamphlet as the key cultural, political and social tool. This move of the novel was instigated by technology and the production of affordable publications to the public; here the Influence of Jane Austin is depicted as being critical with the expression of clarity of language being important.

So until the development of the internet and Web 2.0, the novel was the key to cultural and social standing. Yet are we now seeing the development of technology through into a new phase, where the Blog replaces the Novel (and here I use Novel to encompass Book). Has the blog now become this cultural, political and social tool and the blogger replacing the term “author.” We can see (hear) this is many media programs e.g. X is a comedian, cook and blogger…”

So who will be the Jane Austin of the Blogosphere?

So initially this is where the post ended, but a further motivation came from the chaining of people’s brains due over exposure of multi-tasking fuelled by online opportunities. Allegedly the brain is being re-wired, to be very short term, with a lack of focus and there is a concern that further technological improvement will be stunted due to a lack of ability to concentrate for more than a minute on one subject. This is perhaps a western view, where we are accustomed to broadband access to all sorts of temptations. Thus will the Blog eat itself, will is disable the technological future. Will we be so re-wired that we are so multi- tasked that nothing gets done?

Will the Blog eat itself?

From Geek to Greek – A rebalanced curriculum for a rebalanced economy.

So Computer Studies is back, but did it ever go away? Are we witnessing the rebalanced economy away from the superficial and consumer to the Geek with Greek? In the past (particularly in the UK) the Geek was derided, downsized and outsourced and perhaps with it went the economy. So with a small step has the deletion of GCSE ICT and the paste of GCSE Computing redressed the curriculum to meet the need to re-address the economy? Are we in a period of significant transition which will revitalise the Engineer, the Geek the technical innovator?

Perhaps we are seeing this on the high street with the carnage of the loss of shops? Are we no moving away from society supporting the needs of the high street to the high street supporting the needs of society?

Can we now look at a future where we are at the centre of the technical innovation – a return to our glorious technical innovate past and to discard the tatters of the superficial, consumerist onlooker.

From Scripting …

From Scripting to Programming.

With the very interesting news about the scrapping of the “boring” ICT GCSE ICT and the move to a more traditional concept of computing I begin to think about the progress of computing from Year 5/6, through KS3, toward GCSE Computing and A Level.

This leads me to think about the idea of what is computing and the difference that some schools are teaching. Computing for me is the design of software systems that perform a generic function. Scripting is the configuration of a generic function to suit a task or organisation. Thus is scripting concepts like Web design and computing the development of the operating system? In essence scripting is a simpler notion to understand and to develop than computing.

I ask this because if we are to integrate computing into the UK curriculum, then perhaps we need to start with basic scripting, moving towards computing.

Schools currently try to deliver some scripting via control, this is the scripting of a machine or software to perform a function. For example Logo or SCRATCH. Thus should this be moved towards the KS3 curriculum and away from the use at GCSE level (particularly scratch). Control should therefore also be re-branded as computing, where computing is the catchall phrase of dealing with computers.

At KS3, control should morph into more scripting, perhaps using HTML for web design with an emphasis that this is constructing a product based upon a computing product. SCRATCH is useful here as it introduces notions of object orientated programming to the user (but not explicitly). At KS3 – perhaps at year 7-8, structures of programming languages can be introduced as well as the architectures of computing systems (here online  computer situations can be useful – or indeed constructed in SCRATCH). Integration of the syllabus here with Science and Technology is crucial, particularly with the use of the new rasberryPi http://www.raspberrypi.org/, now in manufacture. Here I can also state that we remove references to business or core ICT, and leave this to individual subjects to deal with, such as English, Maths and Science. Perhaps it is time that ICT moved on from being a service to other subjects.

At KS4, this is where it becomes much more dedicated to the notion of computing, allowing students the freedom to code, to be creative. Allow them to choose their own program, use old laptops as computing machine, get them to experiment, give them the laptop and allow them to take it apart, upgrade and change, program, put on different operating systems, construct networks. Give them the freedom to develop their own IT network. Get the scientists to develop simulation games, the mathematicians to develop puzzles, encourage the creativity of the students to dig deep into the computer and what it can offer. Allow them to experiment!

At A Level. extend this idea of computing but introduce notions of professional design, without boring them rigid. This perhaps should be more focussed on new and up and coming technologies such programming Apps and thinking about business implications.

These are just a few ideas about where computing could take us. Exciting times to be in ICT – but when is it not – perhaps currently in the classroom?

Paper.li and Twitter to create an auto schools learning news paper.

Over the past couple of days I have been experimenting with Paper.li and twitter. What these two products do together is to link in various tweets over the last day from your followers or twitter list and the creates a categorised newspaper, and then tweets that.

I was then thinking about what schools do in terms of communication, and one main aspect of this is the newsletter. This comprises of weekly exciting news from around the learning campus (physical and virtual).

Quite a lot of work for all!

So how could twitter and paper.li make this process simpler.

Firstly create a main school twitter account for the school.

Second, get all your learning professionals to create a twitter account for the school – e.g. Mrs Grimshaw Maths. (perhaps give all staff an Ipod touch to twitter from, just connected to the professional account)

Train your teachers on what messages you want to send, emphasise the good news, get them to link to work done by students on the school intranet/VLE/ online learning resources (Youtube etc.). This could also link to E-safety, learning articles, DFES stuff and learning news from a variety of newspapers.

Get all your twitter professional accounts to follow the school.

Create a twitter list with all the learning professionals in it.

Create a paper.li, which creates a learning paper from the tweets on that twitter list.

Hey presto, an automatic newsletter, with links to the teachers etc.

Thinking about E-Safety, parents and students could follow the professional twitter account, as it relates directly to teaching. The downside is perhaps for HeadTeachers, is that you are giving control of the message to the teacher, without the corporate thinking of the “message”.

It would be interesting to instigate a project in a school to see if this idea was feasible.