Skip to main content

Home/ EdTech/ Group items tagged laptops

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Sean McHugh

Is it time to swap your Mac for a Windows laptop? | Technology | The Guardian - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...ook-pro-microsoft-surface-book

windows technology swap mac

shared by Sean McHugh on 08 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • It’s one thing to have to relearn behaviours when you switch machines, it’s another to have to re-learn them every time you plug in a peripheral.
  • the necessity, or not, of drivers for accessories was a big part of that competitive push by Apple, which made a point of ensuring out-of-the-box support for many of the most commonly used peripherals like printers, cameras and mice. When Steve Jobs said “it just works”, this is the sort of thing he was referring to: the ability to plug in a mouse and have it Just Work. Installing drivers for a mouse to enable a niche behaviour is no great hardship, but it still left me moderately concerned. Microsoft made both the mouse and the laptop, yet the two weren’t able to play nicely together without my intervention. This digging in the nuts and bolts of the machine was not something I had missed.
  • It’s a fantastic machine. Small and powerful, with a long battery life, it impresses as a laptop, but its real strengths are revealed when you undock the screen from its base. Being able to carry my laptop around the kitchen when doing the weekly shop, before docking it back and typing up some recipes, was genuinely cool.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Unfortunately, cool is all it was for me. The ability to pop out my laptop and write on it with a (very accurate) stylus was never that useful. If anything, it served to underscore how efficient the keyboard-and-touchpad combo is for a lot of hefty tasks.
  • I simply didn’t do it much, and most of the time when I did, it was just to see if I could.
  • Two-fingered swipe on the touchpad? The answer, of course, is to reach up to the screen, and swipe that way. A shortcut it is not, particularly if the screen is up on a dock and you’re already using a keyboard and mouse.
  • I was shocked by the amount of advertising and cross-promotion riddled throughout the OS, from adverts for apps in the start menu, to a persistent pop-up offering a free trial of Office 365. I was surprised by the paucity of solid third-party apps in general, and particularly by the lack of any good consumer productivity suite.
  • Most of all, though, I couldn’t stand the small irritations, from the failure of Chrome windows to correctly adapt when dragged from a high-res screen to a low-res one, to the trackpad’s inability to accurately click when I used it with my thumb rather than my finger.
  • Ultimately, the question comes down to how much you’re prepared to pay to keep things the same as they have been
Sean McHugh

Let's Ban The Classroom Technology Ban. - 0 views

www.thetattooedprof.com/...n-the-classroom-technology-ban

technology criticism classroom ban

shared by Sean McHugh on 18 Sep 18 - No Cached
  • The claim that the students who didn’t use tablets performed better academically is based upon exam scores, which were only one-third of a standard deviation higher for the non-tablet crowd than the others. Some might see this as a large difference; I do not, and I doubt a majority of statisticians would either. But hey–why let the fact that this was a superficial study conducted with a small sample size of atypical students examining only one type of technology deter you from claiming that all technology in the classroom is bad? This is what people in the psych business call “confirmation bias,” I believe.
  • no mention of pedagogy at all
  • They don’t even acknowledge, much less control for, pedagogy.
    • Sean McHugh
      Sean McHugh on 18 Sep 18
       
      Although to be fair in terms of the study all students would be experiencing the same learning environment and would be equally "disadvantaged". Given that the actual impact of the technology was negligible this would explain why, the technology wasn't really able to be much of an advantage in that kind of teaching and learning environment.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • If students in a large lecture course with no laptop or device policies are doing poorly, is it because they’re on Facebook or because they’re in a cavernous auditorium with several hundred other captives, being talked at by someone who’s likely had no formal pedagogical training whatsoever?
  • unilateral bans on technology in the classroom accomplish nothing but demonstrating an off-putting rigidity and an adversarial view of students.
    • Sean McHugh
      Sean McHugh on 18 Sep 18
       
      "Adversarial" the tone of the entire study clearly spoke to this as the dominant perspective when considering tech use in classrooms.
  • If you’re the grumpy faculty member who kvetches about students not being taught penmanship in primary school, and who makes their classes take notes by hand to build character or whatever, take a step back and think about what you’re actually saying to your students: that some are inherently deficient, that they will fall short, and that your way is the only possible way to learn.
  • But if two-thirds of the class is doing non-class related stuff on a laptop or cell phone, why is that happening? Are they incorrigible internet addicts, or is it a pedagogical issue? If they’re not getting to where you want them to be, is it Twitter’s fault? Or is it the side effect of a lecture-based, passive pedagogy that doesn’t engage anyone?
  • Let’s be real: it’s not as if students paid rapt attention to everything faculty said until the smart phone was invented.
  • Of course, there are situations where you’ll want your students to not use devices. But there will also be occasions where you’ll want to encourage their use (quick polling, checking something online). That’s the whole point–there are no hard and fast rules, nor should there be. Good pedagogy is, above all, flexible. And, rather than an end unto itself, technology is a tool that can support good pedagogy if it’s used appropriately.
  • Rather than banning the tool because of an instance where someone used it improperly, we should work to prevent the processes which led to that instance. Our students need to be our allies, not our adversaries, if genuine learning is to occur. Students cannot experience the transformative effects that higher education can and should inculcate if we refuse to treat them as responsible agents who are the co-architects of their learning.
Sean McHugh

Screen Time? How about Creativity Time? - Mitchel Resnick - Medium - 0 views

medium.com/...ut-creativity-time-928528c0214

creativity screen screen time time childhood kindergarten early

shared by Sean McHugh on 22 Jan 18 - No Cached
  • Too often, designers of educational materials and activities simply add a thin layer of technology and gaming over antiquated curriculum and pedagogy
    • Sean McHugh
      Sean McHugh on 22 Jan 18
       
      I think because the designers of these apps are not educators and are therefore assuming that they often traditional education they experienced is the norm or at the very least is still a desirable outcome for the kids that they are designing their Apps for.
  • But I’m also sure that some students found it very discouraging and disempowering. And the activity put an emphasis on questions that can be answered quickly with right and wrong answers — certainly not the type of questions that I would prioritize in a classroom.
  • In many cases, the skeptics apply very different standards to new technologies than to “old” technologies. They worry about the antisocial impact of a child spending hours working on a computer, while they don’t have any concerns about a child spending the same time reading a book. They worry that children interacting with computers don’t spend enough time outside, but they don’t voice similar concerns about children playing musical instruments. I’m not suggesting that there are no reasons for concern. I’m just asking for more consistency.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • For kids growing up today, laptops and mobile phones aren’t high-tech tools — they’re everyday tools, just like crayons and watercolors.
  • Of course there’s a problem if children spend all their time interacting with screens — just as there would be a problem if they spent all their time playing the violin or reading books or playing sports. Spending all your time on any one thing is problematic. But the most important issue with screen time is not quantity but quality. There are many ways of interacting with screens; it doesn’t make sense to treat them all the same
  • Rather than trying to minimize screen time, I think parents and teachers should try to maximize creative time. The focus shouldn’t be on which technologies children are using, but rather what children are doing with them
1 - 4 of 4
Showing 20▼ items per page