Group items tagged

"The first thing that stands out upon arrival at Hellerup School, where 640 students between the ages of 6 and 16 study on the former site of the Tuborg brewery in Denmark, is the absence of a fence separating the school from the street. Inside, there is no office to greet visitors. Instead, small shoes litter the floor and children of all ages sprawl on couches doing homework, play foosball or run about the open space that substitutes for classrooms. "

"THE federal government's scheme providing high school students with laptop computers is on the brink of collapse, leaving parents with hefty bills and educators with a chaotic start to the school year. Schools are already telling parents they must lease approved laptops for pupils this year, at a cost of hundreds of dollars. Some are telling students to bring their own computers, raising a raft of problems around internet capacity, security and provision of software, as well as placing pressure on low-income families."

"While we've witnessed many effective approaches to incorporating iPads successfully in the classroom, we're struck by the common mistakes many schools are making with iPads, mistakes that are in some cases crippling the success of these initiatives. We're sharing these common challenges with you, so your school doesn't have to make them." "

"This article by Edudemic is the best summary of the 5 issues facing iPad rollouts I've read to date. But… many school principals I've met who NEED to read this wont as it's 1300 words. And so, here's my summary for the 'busy' Principal"

"You're a teacher at Park Lake Valley P-12 College, an ICT school of excellence. It is an old school with some amazing new buildings. The leafy suburb of Park Lake is located in one of Melbourne's major growth corridors. The school is in the midst of a process of reinvention, embracing change and facing the future." Sound familiar? Jump into this online game and enjoy!

"Proponents of "bring your own device" (BYOD) programs like them for a lot of reasons: budgets keep dwindling, students already bring devices to school, and technology isn't getting cheaper. "People are saying 'It's happening in the real world. Let's mirror that in our schools," says Lucy Gray, project director ofthe Leadership for Mobile Learning (LML) initiative at CoSN, the Consortium for School Networking. But this article isn't meant to convince readers to try BYOD. It's about how to make it work once you've decided it's the way to go. Here are the methods three districts took to make BYOD happen."

Alvaro González-Alorda has created a powerful presentation that's a must see for any educator looking to push his or her school / classroom into the future. He talks about what the leaders of today's major schools and companies have to say about what academics will look like in the future. Basically, it's decision time for schools who have been clinging to best practices from the past and not paying enough attention to future trends. In fact, Alvaro lists more than a few trends to be on the lookout for in terms of education technology. The following presentation is on Slideshare and worth spending the next minute of your day on.

Children given iPads to use at school are more focused on learning and less likely to misbehave, research has found. University of WA education researchers have been investigating the use of iPads and other mobile devices in 12 independent schools during the past 10 months. UWA's Grace Oakley said teachers found that students were more likely to finish their homework and do a better job.

"With budgets tight, many schools are hoping to bring technology into the classroom without having to shell out for a device for each student. A solution for many has been to make classes BYOD (short for "bring your own device"), which allows students to bring laptops, tablets, and smartphones from home and to use them in the classroom and share them with other students. It's a promising idea, especially for schools that don't have big tech budgets, but it has met with some criticism from those who don't think that it's a viable long-term or truly budget-conscious decision. Whether that's the case is yet to be seen, but these stories of schools that have tried out BYOD programs seem to be largely positive, allowing educators and students to embrace technology in learning regardless of the limited resources they may have at hand."

The trend line is very much suggesting that in time every school in the developed world will use some form of 'bring your own technology' (BYOT) school resourcing. It is not a question of if but when your school will make the move. The BYOT 'tsunami' is rapidly coming over the horizon.

Schools are needing increasing amounts of expensive educational technology at a time when budgets are shrinking. Many have started to explore BYOD policies - Bring Your Own Device - as a practical solution to integrate cost effective technology into their educational programs. With the convergence of widespread broadband and the growth of powerful, platform independent web based tools BYOD has finally arrived as an effective educational alternative to other plans that require expensive purchasing and maintenance. Viewed within a realistic perspective of both its benefits and limitations BYOD can provide a workable solution for the many schools seeking to upgrade their educational technology.

I visited Eric's High School on February 24th to observe Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and his implementation of a contemporary learning environment.  I was impressed.  I was most impressed at Eric's reflection that he was once part of the problem, banning devices from his school rather then embracing the use of the technology.  That has changed and Eric trusts his students to interact responsibly with media and communication tools.  These expectations are being met by staff and students. 

Following today's Apple Event, Apple has just released Apple Configurator, an app that "makes it easy for anyone to mass configure and deploy iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch in a school, business, or institution." Apple Configurator is likely of the same variety as what Apple uses in its own stores to reset its showroom devices, but now it's available for organizations and schools to make updating and resetting devices effortless. This should break down a few major barriers that kept organizations from widely adopting the devices before.

"Nordic Journal of Digital Literacy (NJDL) is aimed at researchers, school authorities, school leaders in primary and secondary schools, teachers in primary and secondary education, at colleges and universities, and others concerned with education and ICT"

"The debate rages within schools (both strategically and technically) and the wider educational Twittersphere regarding whether, how and why BYO solutions could and should be considered and introduced into a school. The mere contemplation of this approach to ICT in schools tends to elicit some very generalised (and opposite) reactions such as open-mouthed fear from teachers, red-faced apoplexy from the Network Manager and jigs of glee from the Bursar, and all in fairly equal measure! "

"What I gained from this exercise was a thorough understanding of issues surrounding Cloud Computing and the information I needed to be able to speak confidently with my school community about the move we were making. If you're a school looking to move into the Cloud Computing space, then measures like this are necessary. If you're an Australian school looking for links to assist you with the process, then take a look at the following."

"f the promise of mobile technology in classrooms has been to equalize opportunities for all students through access to the internet, that potential has yet to be realized. The reality is that while some teachers have found powerful ways to use mobile devices - both those owned by students and those purchased by the school - teachers at schools in very low-income areas are often battling a persistent student culture of disengagement. Many students have learning gaps that make it hard for them to stay interested in grade level materials and little desire to be in school at all. "

Based on US situation but still applicable to Australian situation. "Despite the increasing emphasis on technology as a learning tool in the classroom, many school districts still aggressively filter the Internet that teachers and students can access. While the federal Children's Internet Protection Act (CIPA) requires that schools filter for pornographic images, many districts are over-filtering, blocking sites that can be used positively for education. There are a lot of myths about how tight these required filters must be."

"Japan will soon start trialling electronic textbooks in primary schools, enhancing the role of IT in the classroom for a generation of "digital natives" born in the wired age. Under the "future school" project, 10 elementary schools will give all their under-12 pupils tablet PCs and fit their classrooms with interactive electronic blackboards starting as early as next month."

Interesting development in Japan with a pilot Tablet computer project.

OFSTED Report February 2010. Based on evidence from a small-scale survey carried out between April and July 2009 in 35 maintained schools in England. It evaluates the extent to which the schools taught pupils to adopt safe and responsible practices in using new technologies, and how they achieved this. It also assesses the extent and quality of the training the schools provided for their staff.