Jugglernought

Have been wrestling with the prospect of purchasing and installing interactive whiteboards.  Much of the early research seems to have been focussed on anecdotal evidence about the value of IWBs and It would appear that much of the research makes the assumption that IWBs must be good for teaching and learning.

I have a sneaking suspicion that (in a Secondary environment), that the reverse may be the case. If the most powerful interactivity for learning involves students interacting with each other, then any object that focusses away from this would seem to devalue that interaction. Perhaps IWBs encourage a way of teaching and learning that is “front - focussed” and while there is a place for this, is the teaching any better?

A very interesting and brave project was undergone by Futurelab, putting pros and cons of interactive whiteboards.
Do interactive whiteboards have a future in the UK classroom?

What will be the future of schools’ infrastructure for teaching and learning? At one stage schools were putting in labs to take the students to the learning. If you could get access to the limited resource then you were doing well. As the price of hardware came down the number of labs increased until now some schools can purchase the technology, but do not have rooms to house them.A different approach commonly used is to now take the learning to the user, by using COWS. This works pretty well in Primary Schools where a decent block of time can be set asisde, but less so in Secondaary Schools where timetable constraints are not conducive to setup, use and packup. Perhaps we have reached the end of the S curve in relation to suitable provision of end-user devices to users. Perhaps it is time to consider the user having the device and schools providing the connectivity to resources and learning materials (and power outlets).

Alongside the development is the interesting dilemma of intranets, extranets and learning management systems. Proprietary systems such as FirstClass appear to attempt to be all things for schools, but fail in connectivity to outside resources. First class requires significant investment in time by technicians to maintain and develop. (But it is safe?).

Microsoft sharepoint has multiple flavours. Windows Sharepoint services is free with Windows 2K3. It is designed to be a flexible system that can be driven by end users and its connectivity with other applications. (While not a learning management system, it is possible to link to other applications still providing a consistent look and feel.). There are a significant number of free webparts to provide additional functionality. Perhaps real power comes with the big brother versions of Office Sharepoint Server - but then big $$$ are required and schools become tied to a particular solution. (And many a technician would say being tied to Microsoft is not a good thing).

Perhaps Google for education is the answer. We could provide email for all our students, google sites for our classes, and calendars that link to Microsoft Outlook. Isn’t google that friendly organisation that nicely provides stuff for free. Maybe so, but is this just tying ourselves into a different, and yet unknown set of principles???

Sanity check: Will the Google revolution engulf IT departments? 

“The two most interesting points were:
1.) The best way to think of Google is as a disruptive technology.
2.) Disruptive technologies create big losers and big winners, and one of the biggest losers in the Google disruption could be traditional IT departments.”

How best then to move forward taking advantage of opportunities, while still able to leverage opportunities without redesigning our infrastructures?

Is SMS the way to go. sms as in instant messaging. Great idea for the New Zealand market, including schools. TxtStream integrates with Outlook and other applications (notable Kamar SMS).

My experience is that students do not check emails on a consistent basis unlike most adults(?). However a text message almost guarantees getting the message across.

Tensions exist between models of change in organisations. The paradigms of the Newtonian linear model versus the more chaotic and organic non-linear models surface frequently.

It would seem that when there is stress on a system, the commonly held models are the ones that surface. As linear, controllable, measurable models are far more comfortable, these are the models we tend toward. But does this model lead to long term sustainable change - or compliance due to pressure exerted. Perhaps there is a new measure in the offing that could be used for a measure of the resources used in a system to achieve commitment (or compliance).

Just as we have (or used to have psi), the effect of top down force exertion compliance could be measured as fpc. fpc is force per compliance. Force can be measured in any number of arbitrary ways for things used, such as hours or dollars, particularly where external trainers are used (facilitators are exempt and have a lower f factor) c is measured in any desireable unit of time, pages (where reports are necessary). It is important that the measurement of c is related to reluctance and doing something because we have to. (If something is done voluntarily, this lowers the c component).

The smaller the fpc the better. There is a flaw in here.

I do confess that I have postponed my beginning on web2.0 and blogging… Each time it has been suggested that the future of communication and learning is electronic, I have been skeptical. After all, if most of our communication is non-verbal then the level of communication that is possible through the internet is only a small proportion of what we are capable of. Is it really possible to develop true connnections through a medium that is quite sterile. Ah, but maybe it isn’t. The journey begins…..