RichardRadio

A reminder of how worthwhile meeting other teachers from other schools is – and a great lunch too.

• geo-caching: I finally got a chance to have a go and found questions with QR coded answers. Although getting kids to use their phones isn’t their yet. C:Geo didn’t work for me.
• Lego We do. Yes I’d like to but there are more important things to spend the money on (£70 per motor kit with usb, £160 for software site licence
• Edmodo: Free VLE plus social networking platform. This could be big.
• Programming: Small Basic, CodeAcademy.com and mobile apps (below)
• Building up links with local business (a reminder)
• BTEC Information & Creative technology level 2&3 might be interesting.

Some great links to mobile App creation

• RedFoundry see video Add modules eg. Menus, Modules (Flickr, twitter)
• Live Code (£££) long Video
• AppMakr
• Stencylworks (free software) great Video. Scratch type interface. Find and share resorces in market place. Sell your game
• App Inventor (was run by Google Labs) for Android Scratch type interface – looks good
• XCode (Mac only) see video
• Apple SDK need to register
• YouSRC.com pc & mac great video Webbased simulator program. With android player. Apps can be shared with others. Source code available.

PROJECTION & 3D

We are to get a 3D projector so Sally and I went to a seminar With Anne Bamford reporting the results of an academic study that was pretty bullish on the use of 3D for Science. Students understand more from seeing a 3D beating heart than a 2D beating heart. Interestingly its preferred to looking at a 3d Plastic model of the chest and to dissecting a real sheep’s heart (because they don’t move?). Students recall more and ask more and better questions.

To use 3D projection in science we are going to need more than one projector, fortunately that might prove to be more affordable than we first thought.

• Most projectors coming out now are 3D enabled – costs less than £800
• New projectors use long-lasting LEDs instead of bulbs which means they pay for themselves in about 3 years.
• Active 3D is the only option native option in projectors. This requires you to buy 30 sets of expensive (£25) glasses. The consumer market drives projector sales. Most consumers only need to buy 2-4 sets of glasses.
• Cinemas use passive 3D which allows you to use cheaper (£2.50) glasses.
• HURRAH There is a solution(Volfoni.com) that allows you to add a device to a project make it produce a passive 3D image. So students can use cheaper more disposible glasses – they might even have their own from their last cinema trip. See the Smart Crystal Pro for around 500 Euro.

PRINTING

We waste a lot of paper and toner on printing. The last time I moaned that we needed software to control and monitor printing credits I was told it was too expensive. It seems now that they are giving this software away for free. Not only that (RUBBING MY EYES) they will replace all your printers with colour printers for free just to have the privilege of you buying toner from them. Sounds too good to be true, I will have to investigate further. Surely there must be a minimum spend.??

http://www.printersforschools.co.uk

I met with one of the directors of the company.

Jolicloud has been the most successful OS on my cheap Acer Aspire One netbook. However the first update from 1.0 to 1.1 stopped Skype working on the Internal Microphone and the recent switch from 1.1 to 1.2 stopped Flash working in the browser. Other people have had these problems but there doen’t seem to be enough of a community to get solutions for obscure bits of hardware. I’m going back to version 1.0 but in the end if it doesn’t work, I’ll be looking some where else.

I have tried many replacements for the originally installed version of Linux, Linpus Lite. My Girlfriend who uses the machine most would have preferred Windows XP and I even went as far as buying a version off ebay with serial number but it didn’t work past the months trial period  (if only I had paid the extra to have XP preinstalled.)  She didn’t like the ultra lite Linux’s like Crunchbang nor Ubuntu netbook remix. Jolicloud has been the one that has stopped the cries for XP to be fixed.

Jolicloud is fast with a Chromium browswer, Spotify and Skype – our key applications around the house.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jakecaptive/3205277810/

Summer holidays are time for thinking. Teachers need to learn. But how long to think before producing something? (eg. blog posts, emails). I’ve been thinking about democratic schools and have actually found something similar in Brighton, the South Downs Learning Centre. The Self Managed Learning (SML) technique it seems was also trialled in some East Sussex schools in 2005/6 but of course they couldn’t let go of the curriculum so it didn’t get anywhere.

I’ve discovered that youtube on a large TV is an amazing resource as I have watched testimonies of students from democratic schools discuss their experiences as is Google books (See Daniel Greenberg’s “Free at last” especially the chapter on fishing.

Given the bombardment of rhetoric from the establishment its good to realise that its critics have been around for a long time. I’ve been looking at books from Myles Horton & Paulo Freire (thanks Kata), Ivan Illich (Deschooling Society) and John Dewey.

This is a part of learning, the beginning of a cycle… just taking time following intuition. This post is nothing more than a collection of links to stuff that I might (I do hope) to get back to.

Straight forward(-ish) task design a poster to go in a leaflet for parents. “Top Tips for ESafety”

http://www1.edexcel.org.uk/D201_0909/html/SPB201Leaflet.htm

Planning/scoping on paper is good but some kids prefer to design directly onto the machine.  I reckon there are 4 things to go in a poster like this:

• Slogan (or title)
• Layout
• Image
• Top Tips (4-6?)

We know it would be quicker to get the Top Tips down first but could a students produce a good poster having thought up the top tips at the end of the process? Probably yes.

So how can you give students the independence to go it alone but not turn out with something of poor quality (or unfinished) at the end?  Take a step back. let them design their success criteria (a peer assessment sheet) and let them go?

My thought for today

It was nice to get out of school and meet other ICT leaders in East Sussex. There was the normal fare to be had – a veritable dinner of three letter acronyms (see this clever Bob Dylan starter) – but the best bit was to quiz the other leaders on their strategic decisions. The big decision that most are making at the moment is what courses to take on as the accreditation for an number of key courses ends in 2012 and that means changes impact next September.

Had some good chats with

• Chris Filkins at Priory
• Russell Prodger at Rattan
• Tom at Rye

All official resources are linked here

Also I liked

filmsforlearning.org

Where’s Klaus

Serif Web Plus

Crazy Talk Facial Animator ($69)

Comic Life ($24)

I don’t read self improvement books as a rule but this struck me as interesting. .. for school leaders

The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic as a Personality Ethic and a Character Ethic. (note the sub title) Covey  reviewed American self-improvement literature back to 1776…

I began to feel more and more that much of the success literature of the past 50 years was superficial [focused in a Personality Ethic]. It was filled with social image consciousness, techniques and quick fixes–with social bandaids and aspirin that addressed acute problems and sometimes even appeared to solve them temporarily, but left the underlying chronic problems untouched to fester and resurface time and again.

 He then goes on to distinguish the Character Ethic as follows:

In stark contrast, almost all the literature in the first 150 years or so focused on what could be called the Character Ethic as the foundation of success–things like integrity, humility, fidelity, temperance, courage, justice, patience, industry, simplicity, modesty and the Golden Rule. Benjamin Franklin’s autobiography is representative of that literature. It is, basically, the story of one man’s effort to integrate certain principles and habits deep within his nature.

Earlier this year I had a meeting with Gary Phillips who has very similar ideas to me in terms of getting technology into Ladakhi schools. It’s taken me a while to write it up – sorry!

Sending the Acer Aspire One netbooks for a cost of GBP 200 is a great solution. At 1kg + power supply they are light and cheap. These can be used with an external monitor & keyboard in school and be taken home by students. Linpus Linux is pre-installed. The 3 Cell battery only lasts 2 hours but makes the unit light. 6 Cell batteries are not worth the extra weight or money as electricity from solar power is available during the day.

People visiting Ladakh from UK can be asked to take a laptop with them. Visitors might even buy one themselves to donate, netbooks are useful whilst traveling then can be left at the end of the trip. Weight wise it would be feasible for a person to carry 2 laptops but this might cause customs problems.

Theoretically it might be tempting to find or customize an ideal version of Linux for our uses. But without reliable Linux knowledge or support in Ladakh this solution won’t fly. The netbook’s Linpus lite is ok and will allow us to standardize.

Why not Desktop computers?

Sending parts out to India is fraught with difficulty due to customs and getting people with the right expertise to build machines. Getting CRT monitors to Ladakh is still quite a costly due to relatively high resale value, large transport cost and possible damage caused in transit. CRTs also need more power. We estimate that at least two times the number of netbooks can be run off solar than desktop machines.

Windows is still the OS of choice in Ladakh but is virus ridden due to pen drives been carried around and machines are often out of service. Linux avoids the virus problem

Based on a Phone conversation today with Dorjee in Ladakh.

DWLS is still waiting for a computer teacher. But the solar power seems to be working well using 4 panels for 12 machines.

Solar power is also working well for the Siddartha School, recently installed in March.

Notes
Gary Visited Drukpa White Lotus School in 2007. I visited Siddhartha School in 2007 and 2008. In summer 2008 I stayed with my friend Dorjee in Choglamsar, and his brother in Law works at DWLS so I have a connection there and subsequently met Gary in London.