Technology

TED – Al Gore’s Impressive Talk…

Slightly off my normal posts, but as did the first Al Gore talk on Climate Change his recent talk at TED 2008 has moved me just as much, but also made me shall we say a little despondent.

Al Gore as ever is an eloquent and incredibly convincing speaker, that has done so much to bring the truth of climate change onto the discussion table. I remember showing the first talk over two years ago, in my school in Egypt and watching a small group of students become incredibly involved in the issues. BUT what has happened over those few years seems very little. My return to English life has led me to want to at least do simple things like recycling, all political discussion shows that this would be easy that the council collections would be wonderful. Hmm…after trying out Runnymede’s recycling collections which are both erratic, and then stop if one item that is not on their list (e.g. they only collect paper and glass bottles) then they say your box has been contaminated and stop collecting.

So to stop my impending doom, I suggest the one thing that can be done is to show Al Gore’s latest video in all of our schools. To continue the fight, and maybe there will be less rhetoric and more actual constructive action on the parts of those in positions of power.

The Tethered Self…..a Student/Teacher Quandary?

It is strange sometimes how you keep back some articles for reading for such a long while, that when you finally sit down for a supposed skim through you suddenly realise what an interesting piece you have been missing. This was true of Sherry Turkle’s article entitled – ‘Always-on/Always-on-you: The Tethered Self’ – which I believe is a chapter from a book called Handbook of Mobile Communications and Social Change. The article deals with more than the any studies into ubiquitous and embedded technologies that we can now carry and wear, by seeing how these technologies are affecting simply who we are.

She describes that we are ending up with a new sense of self which is not anymore simply a ‘separate world, plugged and unplugged.’  As Turkle describes it:- ‘The self, now attached to its devices, occupies a liminal space between the physical real and its lives on the screen. It participates in  both realms and the same time.’ As such as she describes with ubiquitous technologies like the mobile phone even if we are half way around the world, emotionally and socially because of this always on connection means we are really as much at home as away. When I traveled many years ago backpacking through such areas of the world as Kashmir I was completely along, only able through some convoluted way in the largest cities to phone home if necessary. I even remember sending letters home telling my parents where I would be in a few months so that they could send things via Post Restante to that country or city.

Still I do not have the connections with technology, that the students I teach feel. As Turkle says: – ‘Whether or not our devices are in use, without them we feel adrift.’ Social networks have taken this a step further, forcing you to always check in – being the mediator to many friendships and communications. How does this feeling of having to be always connected with technology mediating that affect our abilities to be alone. Turkle goes even further to suggest that we are not only tethered to technology for communication, we are now ‘…tethered to the gratifications offered by our online selves.’ 

So how does this al affect the world of education, well I guess most of it is pretty obvious. But how many meetings as an IT teacher have I been involved with parents discussing this very problem of being tethered to a technology, which leads to students trying to multitask entertainment, communication and work activities at the same time. We all do it – at the moment while writing this blog post, I am listenign to the football on the internet streamed radio, making a CD, browsing my bloglines account – in fact I have two computers on the go…but let’s not go there. As Turkle says :- ‘The pressure to be always on can be a burden. Teenagers who need uninterrupted time for schoolwork resort to using their parents’ account to hide from their buddies.’ The answer to the problem of ‘continual partial attention’ is a difficult one to which I have seen no real answers.

When I ask students how they cope, they often say they simply have to rely on will power. But what of those that cannot stop chatting to their friends via MSN, checking their Facebook account – especially if you take it in terms of being part of ones self, ones tethered self rather than as an addiction as some would say? Although as Katie Coleman suggests, this maybe is not all bad as the ability to work with in so many disparate communities holds many promises.

As a teacher that always shares with my students that I am not the ‘font of all knowledge’ but am in fact a facilitator able to guide all students in the right direction, maybe to the right communities to be able to learn and understand if not as such remember then maybe the tethered self will become a necessity to live and work in this century. The abilities to live and survive and depend on ones self and ones knowledge will become less and less valued.

Well as I said an interesting article that links in with many ideas, that at this moment I do not think anyone has any answers to. If anyone has the answers to give to parents about multitasking and practical ways to help their chile concentrate, please comment! The worries that Turkle brings up are however I believe a little overstated, as a final quotation from her might suggest:- ‘ These questions ask what we will be like, what kind of people are we becoming as we develop increasingly intimate relationships with machines.’

Clearing out your Bloglines….

Old habits die hard, but even ones picked up over the last couple of years when it comes to RSS feeds seem to also take a while. So for the past few years all my feeds have been coming down to my bloglines account. The problem is you always seem to keep adding and adding feeds, until reading them all can take at least 30 minutes plus a day.

So I tried to swop over to a client based desktop RSS feed reader – called NetNewsWire. It has just become free to use and download for the Mac. So I thought why not? However after messing around with all the features, setting up the preferences which were shall we say a little complex I am not convinced. The lovely feature that it enables you to download and save the actual page where the feed is on, is undeniably fabulous and much better than the clippings feature within Bloglines. But the program would make no difference in my reading habits I believe and probably might make it worse. Beyond this there is something undeniably flexible and accessible about a web based feed reader.

Maybe the new Bloglines Beta might help, but in the end I just think it is time to prune all of those feeds that I never really read. I don’t think technology this time can improve my reading work flow as much, as the discipline of deleting those feeds from 103 to maybe 53. Any ideas might help, as would any ideas about how to get students involved in using feed readers for their research. I have somehow failed even if showing and discussing the power of these RSS feed readers to get students to use them on a regular basis. It may be due to them seeing how long it takes me to read my feeds?

Technologically Illiterate – Rants, Arguments and More in the Small World of Educational Bloggers

Interesting that the educational blog post of the year (yes can you believe such a thing exists) is related to the argument related to whether every teacher should today be technologically literate. Terry Freedman – Techlearning Blog, sets out a set of basic rules and limits of how technogically literate you are, anything beyond this should lead to educators finding employment in another profession. Harsh, well yes and the post by Karl Fisch over at Fischbowl (the one that one the award) does suggest this but in fact both end up on the side of agreeing with the following statement:-

“If a teacher today is not technologically literate – and is unwilling to make the effort to learn more – it’s equivalent to a teacher 30 years ago who didn’t know how to read and write.”

But is it really the fault of the educator, who has to be able to move between a variety of applications, of an variety of platforms/ operating systems and has to stand in front of students who expect that you as the teacher should KNOW everything. Is the fault not on us as educators understanding and technological literacy OR that as educators we often still want to fulfill the central role rather than making sure that we and our students both understand our role is only as a facilitator who can help solve problems and points students in the right direction. As a teacher I always make this abundantly clear that I do not always know but CAN given time and also the rest of the classes help solve or find out? It is often a way that students feel is an ‘opt out’ clause, but students do eventually realise the benefits but also the responsibilities that come with this.

So maybe I can only agree with the ‘unwilling to make the effort to learn’ part of the above statement, and then on the understanding that the willing to know does not necessarily mean spending hours at training sessions and at home working to improve our technological literacy but more the willingness to understand that at a given time with students we can learn and problem solve in a collaborative group.

OLPC/XO – Dr Tech’s Review Pt 1

Well it arrived, and it works. But is all the hype or the degradation of this laptop worth the amount of posts and print that have been published? Is there not a grey area in the middle as often it has seemed the XO laptop has polarised views either against or for the programme that it is only one part of.

My immediate and probably everyone’s first reaction is ‘blimey it is small’ but considering I tend to opt for laptops of the 17″ screen size variety is probably not a very good comparison. As many other reviewers have pointed out the feel of the XO laptop is pleasing almost rough and dimply compared to the slickness and metallic of so many laptops around. BUT can you get into it without being told….hmm…only one out of five people managed it. Weirdly it makes sense however straight after the first time you do open up the laptop see the screen, and realise the consummate skill that has led to a design which is robust and will obviously stand up to the dusty surrounds it was meant for. Trust me after living in Cairo for three years, changing laptop fans and cleaning keyboards was a nightmare.

Once booted, you are met with the Sugar interface and cover for the Linux OS under the hood. I have been lucky enough to try the emulator for this and can say that it again does take a bit of getting used too, but the premise almost Expose like is a good one whereby moving your mouse to the edge of the screen will bring up icons that move onto or off of the screen. The buttons to link to the different main areas of neighbourhood and so on, are an excellent and quick way to navigate around the environment. This laptop is though very difficult to review, as you can come up with many niggles, including that the mouse movement with pad can be very niggly and lead to a sometimes tetchy navigation experience..however remember it will eventually only be 100$.

I love the way that you connect to nodes, the internet through a visual interface and it it is that easy as to choose a wi-fi point (or other node of the mesh, although no other XO’s around Egham I think :(~) Connecting to my wireless connection at home was a breeze but at school a major problem was trying to connect through to the proxy server. And yes with firefox if you do goto about:config you should be able to change the proxy but for some reason I am unable to modify this setting whatever I try. Any help would be much appreciated.

I was very much taken with photographs of the way the XO can be turned into a simple ebook reader, and the manipulation and design of both the screen into position and the way you can with one button click and change the direction the screen is being read is ingenious. As is when you pop in your USB with said PDF, go to the activities page and then with a click are able to read the PDF. BUT is that all that I have done, well I have to admit time has not allowed me to play with any of the inbuilt tools and I will leave that to a helpful student this Friday to review those for me. Although I could not help but install DOOM and have a go...and yes it works if a little slowly.

So initial impressions are very good, as long as you fully understand the principles that this is not a laptop built for the western market to play with, not even for geeks like myself, but as a tool for third world children to use and enjoy for many hours. With a few updates and improvements it should enable these children to have their first adventures into the world of communication and computing and who knows where that can lead them.

Part Two Coming Soon – hopefully with a review from a younger student…

BETT – back from Egypt its time to hit the wonderful Education Tech Show

Well believe it or not this was my first time at BETT, the main British Education and Technology show. The show for a first timer, was as large and ostentatious as others had suggested and at points it is astounding how the use of Technology within Education is so big business. I know that may sound a little naive but after quite a few years away from the UK International Schools with limited budgets it does make you wonder how often the amount spent on Technology does result in better learning and teaching within the classroom. Below is simply a small list of some items that I cam across and thought were either useful or interesting:-

  • Mindstorms the NXT Generation – However much I wonder at the losing bits and pieces scenario of Mindstorms and therefore its longevity within a school environment Lego’s new range looks a giant step up from the yellow bricks before. The amount of sensors and the ability to build and create relatively quickly the basic robot, along with drag and drop software which enables immediate results but also lends itself to a wide variety of much more complex tasks suggests that this might be a much better learning tool and one which could link in well with a Design and Technology robotics project.
  • Gigajam – One that impressed due to the company being a much smaller player inthe BETT arena. Also there was very little music based tutorial software out there that professes the idea of facilitation to learn rather than the teacher as content provider and centre. Worth checking out, especially if your school wishes to improve the equality of access to individual music tuition but students cannot afford the prices of real tutors.
  • StudyWiz, Kaleidos, Blackboard/WebCT , Serco MIS and other MIS/ Learning Platforms definitely seems the buzzwords at this BETT. This is such a large issue to even begin to discuss I will chat about this in a second blog post in the coming week, to see whether these all consuming platforms are the way forward.
  • Activote Promethean if Learning Platforms were the main buzzwords seems the technology item that has proliferated the most, with many companies offering active voting systems that link in with Interactive Whiteboard quizzes and tests. Myself and fellow teacher James had similar thoughts that maybe this would just be a gimic but after testing the system we were addicted and could see how this would work within a classroom. The setup of quizzes seemed very easy and would enable any teacher to construct quizzes within a matter of minutes. So maybe worth investing in a set or two.
  • Terry Freedman and Miles Berry Personalised Learning -over the rush of a day with so much to see it was difficult to fit in any of the seminars available. However I did manage to pop into Terry and Miles’s seminar on Personalised Learning. Unfortunately the seminar had been pre-booked and so there was only standing room. I managed to watch the introduction by Miles Berry which set out some interesting ideas. You can watch the seminar as a Google Video over at Terry Freedman’s site, note he does mention my studies into using NING as a social network for language learning. So pop along and have a look.
  • Tablet PC’s Asus eeeePC, as many reviews are raving about this new laptop it was interesting to see one and have a little play. My fellow conspirator at the event James is an avid Linux user so he was pleased to see that a version of Linux is the operating system running on these laptops.Being all open source software is fabulous and this would be a great portable computer for students, after seeing so many students this year without their laptops for often many weeks due to problems with screens breaking, due to general damage I can see how such a small durable laptop would solve some of these problems.
  • Weather Stations for Datalogging – I have always thought that this would be a good idea, and passed by a stall selling these contraptions. You can see from Barming Primary School how such a system could be used in lower school, but I am sure the data-logging and statistics produced would come invaluable across many areas of the curriculum throughout a school.