Is this a "Foundation for Excellence"?

"Digital learning can customise and personalise education so that all students can learn in their own style and pace, which maximises their chances of success at school and beyond ...." So says the report "Digital learning Now" from the Foundation for Excellence in Education.

The report lists 10 elements of high quality digital learning. Those of you who follow the push for educational reform won't likely find much new here. But what you will find is a list of a few key policy directions that stand a chance of delivering on the promise that technology has for education. Let me give you an example or two ... then you can digest the report yourself ... luckily it is one of those reports that is only a few pages long and doesn't waste time on putting in irrelevant stuff ...

Point 2: All students have access to high quality digital content and online courses.
Policy directions:

• do not restrict access to courses or content using class numbers, budget or enrolment caps or other such traditional measures ... just make them available
• do not restrict access due to geography
• do require school diplomas to have at least some online course completion requirement

Point 3: All students can personalise their own learning using digital content from approved providers
Policy directions:

• allow students to take online courses full time, part time or by individual class
• allow students to enroll in multiple courses from multiple providers
• allow enrollment all year round
• no limit to number of credits take

Each of the 10 elements has a similar "simple" look - a brief statement of the element and a few policy directions.

I wonder how this might play out in our environment? I have made several suggestions in the past in varying formats that I believe it is inevitable that the nature of learning in schools must change - and I liken it to Chris Anderson's view of Long Tail Economics - I just can't see education in its current form for some students being valid for too much longer. There will likely be a need for bricks and mortar for some - but for others, why? Why when there are better options?

Anyway, read the report, and keep the discussions going - and try and implement a little of the directions every day in your schools.

Four months with an iPad

Little bit late this one. The reason is time. Just so much happening at the moment. Still, am happy to report that this little iToy is still a favourite tool of mine.

The awesome battery life is a huge plus. The ability to type a few notes is great - though I sometimes wonder just where the predictive text comes from - some the interpretations are bizarre. I have pretty much given up my Pulse Smartpen since becoming attached to this iPad. I record all notes from seminars or meetings directly into Pages and sync either via iTunes or DropBox with my other laptops.

I haven't looked to print anything - why would you when you've got the live document with you. I'm really please Google has finally brought a basic form of editing of Google Docs via iOS or Android. I can now create new documents on my iPad and iPhone without using Docs to Go - though Docs to Go still has more functionality.

I still think Feedler is good as an RSS reader for my Google Reader account.

The biggest draw back is the 3G network ... Last weekend we used the iPad when geocaching around the Miranda coast - the network performance was pretty poor even though the indicators showed full strength 3G.

So yes, the iPad is great. I've upgraded to iOS 4.2.1 and look forwardbto seeing if the multitasking is any good.

Stay tuned!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Just what is the point of the current curriculum in schools?

Conrad Wolfram gave a talk at TED in Oxford earlier this year. it's just been posted on the TED site. And wow, does it pose some big questions. If you are a maths teacher, you will likely form an immediate view of what he is saying. I don't think there is any middle ground here. You will either agree with him or you won't.

But there are bigger questions here too than just those pertaining to maths. The way in which we very likely approach many subjects in the school curriculum, for example. And the point about exams ... I think I've made this point several times in the past.

I've shown WolframAlpha to Year 12 students about to embark on their IB extended essay research over the past 12 months. What I find truly scary is not so much that they haven't seen WolframAlpha before, but that many of them still don't even know that there are search engines other than Google. And even scarier, that Google even has an advanced search tab, and worse, you can look through Google Books or Scholar.

The whole point of using computers for powerful things ... not trivial things ... comes out in Conrad's talk. (He makes reference to an online tutorial showing how to manually solve a problem.)

So, this is I think one of the better TED talks I've seen. It asks some serious questions. It hints at a solution. I wonder if you agree? I rate this talk up there with those of Hans Rosling and Ken Robinson, both of whom I have featured on this blog in the past.

So - take 17 minutes of your valuable time and have a look.

Credit where credit is due

Well, despite my less than satisfactory experience in getting my iPhone 4 repaired/replaced I am pleased to give some credit to the actual speed at which the local repairer (and the Vodafone store I took my phone back to) turned around the repair. OK - so like the Apple helpdesk person who said "the handset needs replacing" - the repair wasn't a repair - it was a straight replacement. BUT - I dropped my dead phone off late Monday and had a phone call first thing Thursday morning saying the replacement was back. Give a day either side for the couriers, the turn around was pretty much OK - and certainly well under the 5 working days Vodafone stated.
As for the new phone - the camera works like it is supposed to - even created my first iMovie HD yesterday.

A Test - Customer Service or Not? An iPhone repair in NZ.

Over recent months I've had the opportunity to use some Apple kit. I've had an iPad for a couple of months (actually writing this post on it), have had a MacBook Pro for a month or so and for the past couple of weeks an iPhone 4. Lucky me!

Now, the iPhone has a Vodafone plan (so does the iPad). I bought it from the Vodafone online store. Everything about the iPhone is great but for 2 things.

1. The 3G coverage seems pretty average at best to me - this is partly due to the fact I work in a concrete bunker and coverage is poor anyway, but it just seems to me that in other places coverage just drops off for no apparent reason. This is a problem for a phone!

2. But the bigger issue is actually the iPhone 4 camera app - just doesn't work. Now there are plenty of instances of this recorded on the Internet - just thought they would have sorted this out by now. Seems that this is not the case. I've tried all suggested fixes - none work - the app/hardware combo for me is just not working.

And this of course is where it gets interesting. Who will I contact for support? - to me it's clear that there is a known issue here that Apple is hiding from. But the phone is sold via Vodafone locally.

So - with trepidation I head to Vodafone's website - find the link for support and am advised to contact a Vodafone store. The website gives me a list of stores and so I contact a store not far from where I work. "Ah, you need to contact Apple support" I'm told. Somehow I knew this is what I'd be told.

I call Apple support - presumably in Australia, but certainly not NZ - and after describing symptoms and the fact that resetting the phone has had no effect I get "please hold while I talk to my supervisor". To me this means - "ah! Another one. Replacement likely required, but I'm not authorized to say so." Two minutes later I'm told I need a new phone - but this needs to come from the Vodafone online store - fair enough. I ask for, and receive, a job # from Apple.

So - back to Vodafone. I call their help desk - because that's what the website said to do. I explain the problem. "You need to contact the online store" I'm told.

At this stage my customer service experience is exactly what I expected it to be - most unsatisfactory. No one at Vodafone will take responsibility here.

I call the online store - get told that I need to take the phone to a store and they will send it in for repair/replacement. Somehow I think I've gone full circle here. At any rate I've wasted an hour of my time at this stage, but off I go to a store - explain the issue and they take the phone to send away. 5 working days I'm told before it will be repaired.

I ask for a credit to my account for the lost time - "you'll have to take that up with the online store" I'm told. I can't be bothered trying to argue with someone who can't affect anything. I'll deal to this if and when I get the phone back.

I wonder after the now 2 hours I've wasted on this how many other poor people have been put through this run around - it seems unbelievable that today I get shunted from Vodafone to Apple to Vodafone - and then to various sections within Vodafone with no accountability anywhere. This is crap with a capital CRAP.

I look forward to
1. Getting a phone that works.
2. Seeing how I get on for some compensation for loss of access.

By the way - on the reception at the Vodafone is a sign offering a replacement phone - I was not offered this as an option. Not that I wanted it - but just a further indication that this company doesn't understand customer service.

Let's see what happens over the next week - I'm not expecting things to go well. And my perception of Vodafone NZ is not good.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Sir Ken Robinson at RSA

Sir Ken Robinson is a favourite of mine. This presentation is a great animation and a different way of looking at Sir Ken's main points. If you are a visual learner, you might find this version of interest. In any event, RSA Animate is pretty cool!

More fundamental change coming - this time via Google Instant

We all know that the rate of data creation today sees us create as much new data every two days as existed from the dawn of civilisation to 2003. That in itself is staggering - but how we all have access to that information is more staggering ... anyone with an internet connection can get access to this vast amount of data. And herein lies the problem - sick of those searches that give you thousands or millions of hits ...

Google is about to bring Google Instant to your browser here in New Zealand - well, when I say about to I'm not sure when, but they released it yesterday in the US and parts of Europe.

Have a watch of this intro to it ...


So, what's so big about Instant?

It redefines how we do search. 

It redefines how we are going to need to model search to students.

I grabbed this image from Google's Instant page - sums it up ... 







Not sure when it will hit New Zealand, but I want it now!

How lucky are we to live in such times.

Two Months with an iPad - the journey continues

Ok - two months in and what can I add to the mix.

Well, firstly I can report that the lack of multitasking is in fact a bigger pain than I'd like - the fact that it is pretty quick to change between applications makes it bearable - but only just.

The lack of corporate tools to manage and navigate through firewalls and filtering systems is a pain - made more so by the fact that my office on the ground floor is beautifully sheltered from any sign of significant 3G coverage by the concrete that surrounds me - so heading out over 3G needs me to move location.

Last gripe is Vodafone's 3G coverage - prone to drop out far too often for my complete liking - might investigate Telecom or 2Degrees in another few months. That said, I have been surprised at the fact that I have not used the full 3GB of data I pay for each month ...


Blogging tools   (that I've found so far) are average - they allow me to do some basic stuff like text and images, but I want more.



But that's about it for the negatives ... the positives are ....

I can access my Google account via Google's mobile app - email, docs, etc. The shame is that I can't edit or create Docs or Presentations - but at least I can edit Spreadsheets if I need to ... but that's where ...

 Docs To Go comes in. I have had a few issues getting documents created in Google Docs to even open in Docs To Go - the issue seems to have been some of the newer versions of Google Apps - but this appears resolved now and for the last week I have been able to pretty easily create new and edit existing documents on the fly - so I'm happy with this.

The mobile version of Google Earth is awesome - we used it to find our way to places we had no idea about during a recent motorhome holiday - the awesome detail coupled with 3G access was brilliant - don't need a GPS in the truck to do this!!

And while I am still not overly happy with the file structure and management the iPad offers (maybe I just need to accept there is another way of arranging stuff than my untidy way of filing on my other computing devices!) But DropBox works well for me shifting stuff between my PC, Mac and iPad - so this all works OK.

My worst purchase to date is the Apple Keyboard doc - thought I'd need it - haven't used it since the day I bought it.

Best purchase - the iPad itself, the Apple case for it and everything else I have installed.

Best use to date - recording feedback directly onto a Google Doc (via Docs to Go) as the students were presenting their research - laptop and tablet both too heavy and awkward to do this - iPod Touch too small, iPad - just purrfick!

Next best app - Feedler - my RSS feed (or my way of a reading my Google Reader account at the moment). there is still something missing from what I think I want - just haven't found a better way yet.


Basically I love the iPad (well, love is a bit strong ... but it is way cool) - haven't even thought about trying to print anything from it - no need to. Just add the document to my iBooks library and read it when I want.

My next exploration will be to sign up for some digital magazines via Zinio  - have resisted the temptation so far, but can see that is where I'm heading.

A Look at Live@Edu

I had the chance to sit down with Live@Edu for an hour or so yesterday. So a few observations ...

1. the gear I used - a MacBook Pro with no sign of MS Office or IE on it anywhere. My browser - the latest version for Firefox (3.6.9)
2. worked from behind our firewall at school.

What did I find?

Two things really. Firstly the good ... I was pleasantly surprised at the functionality of the Word Web App and the overall interface of the system.

I can create Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote documents, and according to the various menu options I should be able to share them online with whomever I choose.

 This part is where I came horribly unstuck first time through.  I shared via Send a Link but that's pretty much where any semblance of sharing, and as it turned out, and "resurrection" of the file ended. It didn't matter what browser, computer or attempt I made, the file was just plain gone ... closest I got was this message ...

Well, I didn't turn tracking on, and even attempting to open the document on my PC with Office 2010 (as it suggested) resulted in zero.

Normally at this stage I would have consigned the exercise to the bin - if I have this experience with software, then i wouldn't try and wish it on anyone else.

But this time I was interested enough to give it another go ... I think because my brief look at the interface seemed to indicate that the Web Apps might actually be reasonably functional, if at the basic level - but then, that's what I see most people use in my school.


The Word App seems to support most of the basic functions and you can insert images simply.

I've now successfully created and shared a Word App file - seems to work this time, so perhaps Office Web apps and Live@Edu may be an option for those not wanting to work with Google Apps or Zoho ... and that's the great thing from my perspective ... the user has choices ... and to be fair, the 25 GB SkyDrive and 10GB mailbox are appealing aspects of Live@Edu.

If you haven't had a good look at it, maybe you should.

200 Years that Changed the World - Gapminder for Teachers

Anyone reading this blog regularly will know I'm a Hans Rosling fan. His Gapminder website and accompanying desktop version are powerful tools for making sense of world data.

His latest newsletter highlights Gapminder for Teachers.

Two things struck me about the information on the teachers' page - the first was that there is a very cool 3 minute look at the 200 years that changed the world - a look at how the world has changed in terms of per capita income and life expectancy. This video shows just how powerful the software is. You can watch the video here.



The second thing that struck me was that there are now teacher guides for using this data with students.

So, again, if you are a teacher looking for some inspirational material to help get students thinking about some of the important issues facing the planet - you could do a lot worse than head over to Gapminder and use the wonderful tools that Rosling has contributed.

Learn, Guide, Protect - Netsafe's new approach to cybersafety

Was able to spend an hour or so at the launch of the new Netsafe website aimed at promoting cybersafety for students (in fact aimed at everyone, not just students) last night. There was s small group of teachers from schools around Auckland and we were shown a brief look at the new website that Marty, Sean and Nancy have put together.

While I haven't yet had the chance to look in detail at the site I think the approach the team has taken is admirable - allowing users to add "bits" to the system - very much a social environment where those who want to can contribute to the greater benefit of all in this area of helping people make good choices out on the net.

The new approach is Learn/Guide/Protect and rather than be prescriptive, attempts to make the best information available and under a Creative Commons 3.0 license allows any user to reuse/remix and of the "bits" of information" for themselves. I will certainly be looking to use the reference materials in the site with our staff and parent communities at every opportunity over the next few months.

The site is due to go live at Ulearn in October, but have a look and provide some feedback to the team at Netsafe from next week when you should be able to register for an account.

Another inspiring TED talk - visualizing data with David McCandless

Making sense out of data is an art. Hans Rosling has shown this very graphically event times with his wonderful bubble charts. And now we have David McCandless, a UK journalist turned data analyst, bringing clarity to a wealth of data sets. And of course, if there is one thing that the Internet has brought us over recent times, it's a wealth of data.

So enjoy McCandless' talk - he's got some great examples to share, and enjoy the data right at the end about that volcano that shut down Europe in the middle of the year.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Hans Rosling on Population Growth and Raising Livng Standards to check it.

I've referred to Hans Rosling several times before - his graphical view of complex data is just so compelling. So enjoy his latest 10 minute presentation from a TED talk in Cannes. "The world's population will grow to 9 billion over the next 50 years -- and only by raising the living standards of the poorest can we check population growth." This stuff is important.

A Month with an iPad

So, 1 month in to my iPad journey - some thoughts. I started this exercise with an objective of trying to replace my laptop as my prime computing tool. That's a big ask - because in my role as an IT director at a large independent school I have a number of different functions that I need a computing device to do.

In no particular order I need to
1. Provide pd to staff at all levels
2. Presentations to staff, students and parents
3. Research into new and emerging technologies
4. Teach - I teach ICT to middle school students and we do anything from web design to 3D modeling. So I need applications to do video editing, photo manipulation and animation.
5. Interact with our various administration systems, including how we manage these devices in a large deployment.
6. Maintain my blog and other websites.
7. Have full editing access to Google Docs or other such cloud tools.
8. Must be capable of projecting via a data projector.


We run pretty much a Windows environment for our students - they have laptops running either Vista or XP - and while we are almost clear of running Windows only software, there are still a couple of areas where we have a dependence on that platform.

So, in my explorations over the last few weeks I've been asking myself the question - "can we introduce an iPad as the student device at our junior levels?" All of this while being mindful of the fact that the absence of support for Flash will make an impact?

Some findings so far ...

1. While the iPad doesn't support most applications via a data projector, if you jailbreak it and install TVOut2 you can get pretty reasonable projection capabilities - enough to satisfy me that this aspect of presentation and teaching is well enough covered.

2. It would be fair to say that while I can manually configure proxy connections for the iPad and Safari works quite happily over our network, none of the other applications that use the network by default currently work. For example I can not access the App Store or mail etc. Now, we do have an issue with iTunes on our PCs too - unless you have Safari installed on a PC and have it configured, then iTunes doesn't connect properly - this is a relatively new phenomenon for us and as yet we have not spent any serious time trying to resolve this issue. So, this is looming as an increasing priority if I can satisfy myself that other issues of multimedia creation are doable for students.

3. I have found the lack of Flash support more annoying than frustrating. That said, there are a couple of apps that we are currently deploying that make use of Flash - MyPortfolio.school.nz is one, and the Aviary suite of tools is another that I was planning to introduce but will now have to find an alternative to.

4. I must that when I spoke with a couple of our DPs a week or so ago I made the comment that perhaps we may be a year away from an iPad type device in our environment. I based this on not having found a video editing package or a 3D modeling tool. I now have - at least at a superficial level - but enough to make me not too concerned about this.

5. Google currently have an issue that they only allow editing of spreadsheets through their mobile application - this is a pain. In addition, there is a bug in the new Google Docs that stops you being able to download and edit documents created in Docs through such tools as Docs To Go - I understand that several attempts have been made to fix this issue but it remains unresolved as far as I can tell.

6. If we can get a web front end to our main admin system sort then we should be ok with our various admin connectivity for teachers - the rest of our stuff is based around SharePoint and Moodle - there is a mobile app for Moodle should straight web connectivity prove an issue. We are still very early in our Moodle stages with no deployment yet, so if we manage this component with our developers it should not prove an issue.

7. Maintaining blogs and websites is proving a bit more problematical. The likes of Yola and Weebly make extensive use of Flash and so are not a happening thing. I've yet to try the likes of Google sites or other tools, so have a little more work to go here. Maintaining my this blog with BlogPress (as I'm doing now) is OK for basic stuff, but not really a good enough editor for my liking. I'll explore the WordPress app for some new blogs we're setting up for a couple of classes and see how they go.

8. At this stage the iPad still relies on having access to another computer of some type for various functions - the extent of this for a school environment has yet to be considered (by us) to any extent.

9. The "instant on" is a huge benefit to a mobile student population.

10. The battery life is awesome. Easily get a day without a charge - so students won't need to bring a charger to school.

That's about enough for the moment - more to come as the exploration continues, but suffice it to say that I am getting happier with the iPad as a primary computing device by the day. Sure there are some big issues still to resolve, but with functionality in other areas (application wise) seemingly clo to being resolved, at least we can look at the big issues with a purpose.

More as we continue our journey.

IWB Conference, Auckland, Day 1 and 2 : Best of the rest

The second IWB conference here over the past 3 days did not for me have the same impact as last years' conference. That's not to say it was poor - it just seemed to me that it was possibly a little smaller than last year and the trade show was a little smaller ... And perhaps there were not for me as many stand out sessions as there were last year.

That said - yes I got some value out of it and here are some of the highlights for me.

Craig and Tania Lineham are a husband and wife team from James Hargest College at the bottom of the South Island. They gave a thoughtful presentation about how they are charged with training and support of teachers in their school, and then they both had separate sessions - Tania is Head of Science and Craig head of Health and PE. More about Craig's session later.

In this joint session they shared their observation chart they use when they drop in to asses how their whiteboards are being used in class - accountability it would seem is alive and well in their school. They run drop in sessions each Wednesday after school for staff too - we used to do this several years ago but stopped it due to lack of interest - they say sometimes they have no one turn up, but they still offer them.

They are big on Blooms revised taxonomy - good to see that a school has a clearly identified pedagogy and that it keeps coming up in what they do.

I can't help but think that so much of what these guys are showing reflects the buy in that their school has - it's clear that their school has a culture of learning that their staff share.

I attended several sessions that were specific to Promethean's ActiveBoard - the software that comes with their boards. In reality there seems little difference between this software and Smart NoteBook. Perhaps the ActiveInspire software interface is a little more cluttered?

Without question the highlight for me was the session Craig Lineham, HOD Health and PE from James Hargest High School. His session had little to do with interactive whiteboards and more to do with ICT in health and physical education in general. For a great example of using technologies in PE, he was inspiring. Some of his ideas...

1. Orienteering - students create the courses they taken their cell phones with them and photograph evidence that they had actually done the course - they show the photos to their peers when they return as proof that they did the course.

2. VisibleBody.com have a great subscription based web service for anatomy - $20 per license for 6 months.

3. They use MentalCase to create flash cards for student cell phones - then key messages they want students to learn they save as a series of jpg files.

4. Mindjet Mind Manager Pro for mind mapping.

Overall comments:

1. there are a lot of activities that you can do well on an iwb but that take time - a lot of time - to develop. But as Craig Lineham has said though - it is an investment. An investment in the future.

2. One nagging thing - the term interactive whiteboard used to refer to the fact that to use the board you had to interact with it. More and more over the past year or so I hear that the interactive part comes from the way that a "well used" board promotes interactivity within the students in the classroom overall. I can't help but think is this true, or is this a way of deflecting the fact that maybe these boards don't deliver everything they promised in an interactive way?

3. Not withstanding what I said in 2), put a tool like an IWB in the hands of an already good teacher, then they will do some pretty amazing things with it.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

IWB Conference, Auckland, Day 1: Setting the Scene

Here are my notes from the sessions I attended today.

Keynote 1

Delivered by Peter Kent from Australia. Before a few of Peter's comments, one from the Prinicipal of host school Westlake Girls ... "Remember that we were all there once"... Alison Goernhoffer in reference to new entrants into the tech workplace. Worth remembering - not everyone comes to the classroom with all of the skills they might want to have as far as digital technology is concerned ... To this you can add pedagogy and practise too!

From Peter's talk, I guess the prime message he was giving ... "If you try and teach without technology ... it's a fools errand - you won't be successful."

Do I agree with this? Like everything ... It needs to be taken in context. John Hattie's research doesn't necessarily support this if you take it at just face value, but if you dig deeper ... What Pete is saying (I think) is that there has never been the array of tools for teachers to make teaching such a compelling thing to do as there are now - and of course this is only increasing at a rapid rate. Kids are growing up with this stuff, so we'd better join in.

Pete points to UK Research that struggles to find a relationship between technology spend and use and student outcomes. He cites the BECTA (RIP) research between 2000 & 2007 to support this. But why would we expect otherwise is my question. We have these terrific tools and the web, so called 21st Century tools, but we bring an assessment regime steeped in the industrial model to our classrooms still and to be fair in secondary classrooms we still teach to this assessment regime - so why would we expect anything different?

Hattie says good teaching makes a difference and his research shows that feedback (relationships and opportunity for reflection are included in this I guess) is high on the agenda of good things. But how many of us use the technologies available to us to better facilitate these fundamental things?

"Success is not always strategic" - I can vouch for that I'm sure!


Pete's final words ..."As a teaching professional - what is our responsibility?
We have the tools that no other teacher has had before ...."

So that's the keynote - some food for thought - nothing really new here - but always good to hear that we're on the right track.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Nice one Apple ... not!

Now, let me start this by saying that I've been an Apple fan for a long time - in fact I worked with and for Apple over a number of years from 1987 to 2000. Apple do make some seriously cool products. While the school I work at is predominantly a Windows laptop environment I have an iMac at home and an iPod touch, and more recently have had this great little iPad to work on. 

I bought the iPad outside of the Apple channel in NZ as the device only went on the market in NZ today. 

And this is the source of my beef with Apple. You see, I registered with Apple for notifications about the iPad as soon as you could on the NZ store site. I did the same on the Apple Australia store. Two weeks before the iPad went on sale in Australia I got an email from them telling me I could order on line - except being in NZ they wouldn't ship. But at least I got an email!

But any info from the NZ website? Nope. Even after the news broke a few days ago that the iPad was to go on sale from today, nothing. In fact the Apple NZ store doesn't even have them listed as of today! Go figure that.

So - why the hell did they bother with the registration for notifications of the iPad? Just to annoy me? They probably succeeded. What do they intend to do with the database of emails they collected?

I guess I won't hold out any more hope to get an iPhone notification - they are due here end of next week, but I don't expect Apple will let anyone know.

Strange behavior for a company that is supposed to sell things.

 


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

A Week with an iPad

I picked up a 3G iPad ahead of their release here in NZ exactly a week ago. Resisting the temptation to post an initial impressions type entry, I've held off until now. So, what are my impressions one week into the exercise?

Positives:
1. the size - I've had an iPod Touch for a while, and one of the things I've not liked about it was it's small screen to use with the on screen keyboard. The iPad has a look and feel about it that suits my big fingers. The size is great.
2. The battery life - quite simply I can get a day's useful life from a charge. That beats the best laptop I have used by several hours.
3. Instant on - no wait for extended bootup times on a PC. Just turn it on and you are in action. Certainly makes it easy to do that last minute forgotten task - like booking the movie tickets I forgot to do last night. Took no time to do compared with having to reboot my PC - which inevitably takes 5 minutes to be usable.
4. Applications launch instantly. Get working quickly.
5. Screen - awesome clarity.
6. Weight - you hardly notice it. I've longed for a device that was both light enough and had enough battery life to allow me to read RSS feeds and the like from the comfort of the couch - this is it - light as a book - I've read more this last week than I would have with my laptop a much more.
7. Availability of applications to do work.
The App store makes it pretty easy to spend money! I splashed out on the iWork suite (Keynote, Pages and Numbers)for around $40NZ






and last night decided I couldn't be without editing access to my Google Docs accounts so paid another $19 for Docs to Go.






Other than that - all the apps I have so far are free and while I haven't spend that much time looking - there are literally tens of thousands available. The low cost nature of so many of them is both a good and bad thing in my view - low enough to entice me to pay for them without plenty of research.
8. Diigo has an iPad app - just found this yesterday and have enjoyed using it. It seems to work just fine with all the usual Diigo features.
9. Blogpress - decided that I just couldn't use the web version to edit my Blogger account so splashed out the $4 for BlogPress - already worth the spend by being able to insert graphics. Still need to sort out video and some other formatting basics though.

Negatives:
1. No multitasking - having to head to the home pages each time to launch a new app is slight drag - if therr is a mitigating circumstance it is that the instant switch from one app to the next is bearable.
2. No folder structure for organizing apps - so I have several home screens that are kind of in an order that I like, but I'd much rather have a few folders on one screen with my apps organized - I know that both of these issues will be fixed with iOS 4 (which I have installed on my iPod) - but I want these now!
3. No Flash. Yes, like most others I've read the press about Apple and Adobe and their very public falling out - but I'd be a lot happier if all the web sites I wanted to use were fully functional. No Flash is a pain.

There are still a number of things I need to get used to. I'm typing this on the iPad - and am about to go back and try to put in the links for this post - this is where multitasking would be handy and I don't have it! BlogPress makes is a bit easier.

My aim is to make this my main tool for most of my work ... So far I'm pretty happy with the functionality, but there are still a few things I need to resolve before I can go completely over to my iPad.

I have now completed my first KeyNote presentation and am more than happy with how that application comes together. But my biggest issues seem to be that I have yet to completely master editing my blog posts and that moving files around is not as "intuitive" as I might like.

Location:Christian Rd,Waitakere,New Zealand

The Surprising Truth about what Motivates Us

Take 10 minutes and 48 seconds of your busy schedule and watch the presentation by Dan Pink about The Surprising Truth about What Motivates Us. Then I have some questions/observations for you.



Questions/observations:

• can you/do you identify with the research findings in your educational setting? I certainly do - once the basics of pay are out of the way - dam would I love the chance to do a 24 hour development with the 5 minute chance to show what I'd done to colleagues at the end  - kind of like the TechCrunch Disrupt events.
• would something like this 24 hour (or whatever) event work with students? This is a bit rhetorical because I've seen what our Year 12 media students do over a weekend of intense film making.
• What a cool way to present ... the geeky part of me ... what a stunning presentation. I want to know how to do something like this. Anyone know of some software/hardware which might help?
• isn't Youtube great

What's happening with my world?

I waited several moments. Like my brain really. It's been over capacity with a full disk for way too long.

Office Web Apps Arrive

Well, they are here. The much hyped Office Web apps as part of the launch of Office 2010. I've only had a quick look at the functionality of the Powerpoint module (as I have a presentation tomorrow I thought I might try it).

Initial impressions were that yes, you can create a presentation of sorts, but you are limited by what you can create to some pretty basic stuff. One image per section for example. But hey - it's a web app, and maybe simplifying presentations is not that bad after all?
I'm looking forward to experimenting with OneNote to see how this goes - more on this later in the week.

"Tread Softly on My Dreams" - Sir Ken Robinson at TED 2010

He's back. Sir Ken Robinson spoke again at TED earlier this year. Entitled "Bring on the Learning Revolution" Sir Ken makes another passionate case for transformation of education systems - not just a reformation of them.
He talks of "dislocation",
He talks of "how do you innovate fundamentally?"
He talks of how we "are enthralled by the linearity in education" and how we take this for granted.
I recall hearing him speak at a conference on the conditions for growth to flourish in Death Valley in the US a few years ago. He makes this point again in this talk.
And he concludes with a very poignant quote from a Yeats poem - hence the title of this post.
Enjoy the 16 minutes.

Selling a product to people that don't want it - the future of maths in schools?

"I sell a product to people that don't want it but are forced to have it by law." These are some of the opening remarks of Dan Meyer, a maths teacher from New York. In an 11 minute TEDx talk he goes into his method for making math problems more meaningful and realistic for students. He makes the case that text books and their approach to problem solving are "buying you out of your obligation" to be a successful maths teacher.
This short video is worth the look - and if you are a math teacher and you have access to some technology in your classroom, then try and take up the challenge. It might be worth it - especially for those who struggle a little.



You can get an idea of some of the stuff Dan has tried from his blog - the general address is here.
For some specific approaches to curriculum try this link.

iTunesU as a resource for schools

I guess I've always had a soft spot for Apple - they do make some of the coolest kit around. And so too, their software. Take iTunes for example. Sure - everyone uses it for music and maybe for iPod games, but increasingly it is serving as a resource for all manner of educational material for anyone to consume. A large number of universities have used iTunesU for some time now, but over recent years a growing number of K-12 institutes have added resources that you might find valuable.


According to Apple iTunesU is ..."The world’s smartest download.
Discover iTunes U and never stop learning. Download lectures, discussions, language lessons, audiobooks, podcasts and other opportunities for enlightenment — all from top universities, museums and other cultural institutions around the world. So whether you’re a college student or a student of life, learn for free with iTunesU.


This post just gives you the instructions to find some K-12 content and download it. Have a good look around - there is some good stuff here that you can use tomorrow,

Gapminder Releases Desktop Version

Hans Rosling's awesome visual statistics on the Gapminder site just got more accessible for everyone. The most requested feature on their web site was a desktop version for those times when you don't have the web or can't rely on it - like in a classroom, or for a presentation. Well, they've just released a desktop version which is just brilliant - probably even easier to use than the web version.

Here's a quick map looking at CO2 emissions since 1820 - interesting graph to track by the way.

The easy to use help file looks like this

If you haven't seen Gapminder, you should. It is a great discussion starter for mathematics, statistics, philosophy, geography, social sciences, science ...

And if you haven't seen Hans' TED talks - they too are just incredible. Here's his 2007 talk I've referred to before ..

Stephen Wolfram: Computing a theory of everything | Video on TED.com

In my inbox this morning was the usual TED update - and I noticed that Stephen Wolfram was speaking on "Computing a Theory of Everything". I've not heard him speak before, but I have used (at a very low level) his Mathematica software when it first came out in the early 90's. And I have used and actively promoted use of the Wolfram|Alpha search engine he released last year.

I'll need to rewatch this talk at least a few more times to get a better understanding of some of what he said. But a couple of immediate observations ...

1. He's very, very, very smart.
2. He has ideas that are difficult to explain to a lay person (from a physics view point anyway), but he understands that - that's the reason he is investing so much time and money into exploring if the universe is computational. And that's why Wolfram|Alpha is such an awesome tool. The thought that a human language interface (like Wolfram|Alpha uses) might be available to create hitherto extremely complex models of "everything" is mind boggling.

The first part of his talk I found a bit slow - but once past the first 5 or 6 minutes and he gets onto Wolfram|Alpha - then it gets interesting.

The talk is below - watch one of the best brains around in the physics/mathematics space and see if you are inspired to learn more. If so, head to this link for a 13 minute overview by Stephen on what Wolfram|Alpha can do for you right now. Any teacher or student at secondary level can use this.

Photosynth and ICE: Make a Geography Field Trip Come Alive Back in the Classroom

I had the opportunity yesterday to spend the day with some senior geography students on their field trip to Bethells Beach. My reason for tagging along - to see if the free tools from Microsoft Labs that I have been playing around with, Photosynth and ICE, have an application in the Geography space.

The first part of the field trip was across the "inland" dunes to Lake Wainamu . These dunes are pretty cool and they have dammed a river to form a dune lake - but to get an idea of of the scale of it from a single picture is hard to do. That's why I used ICE - to take a series of 360 degree shots and stitch them together using ICE, then output to Photosynth. By doing this you not only get a true sense of the scale of the dunes and their position relative to the rest of the surrounding terrain, but the ability to zoom in that is provided gives you the opportunity to do what niether a video nor a still image can do.

The Photosynth web site sums it up pretty well: "Different than static photos and video, Photosynth allows you to explore details of places, objects, and events unlike any other media. You can’t stop video, move around and zoom in to check out the smallest details, but with Photosynth you can. And you can’t look at a photo gallery and immediately see the spatial relation between the photos, but with Photosynth you can."

Here are a couple of panoramas stitched in ICE and uploaded to Photosynth.

This first shows the view you first get as you approach the dunes - the lake is over the mound of sand - still some distance away.


This shows the view from the top of the first part of the dunes to one of the stream beds where the lake empties. As this is the end of summer, not a lot of water flow here.


This shows the lake (you'll need to scroll to get a view of it).

So, this is the first thing that you can do with ICE and Photosynth - take a series of photos and then use the two software tools to create the effect. Very simple. In case you are interested, I used a stock standard Canon A560 digital camera on wide angle (no zoom) and a tripod. I took a new photo every 10 degrees as I rotated from the same spot.

The other aspect of Photosynth I wanted to experiment with was how to re-create the feel of actually being at the live site for someone (eg a student unable to make the trip) - to provide a better experience than just watching a series of still photos or a video.

Bethells has the same geologic processes happening at each end of it's beach, but due to the variation in the rock at either end the results are different. (I learned that from the geography teacher on the day - to me they were just rocks at both ends ... but know I think I'm an expert!)

Each end has a cave - and while I'd been to the southern cave before, I had never been to the northern ones. So the following two synths show both sets of caves - the first is the northern end and the second the southern end.





For the record, I used 53 photos to make the first synth of the northern caves, and 78 photos to create the second synth of the southern end.

I'm very impressed by both pieces of software. From early indications, so are the geographers who let me sneak along on their trip. I actually shot just under 900 photos on the day (glad I took some spare batteries), and I still have some more to process and create some stuff with.

But its easy. That's the great thing. And it may just be really useful too. Just imagine being able to use these images on a SmartBoard ...

More Photosynth Exploration

I've continued my exploration of Photosynth - we have a school fair coming up and a number of art works are going up for auction. I took a number of shots of these today (even though the sunlight was not cooperating as you'll see from the top left of each picture) and uploaded the photos to the Photosynth engine. The result is below. (I have focussed on two of the paintings - the one in the centre (the large one) and the one immdiately to it's left as you look - so you should be able to see more detail of these as you zoom in.)

Just use the Photosynth navigation tools or your mouse and zoom-wheel to explore the images.

I'm pretty happy with the job Photosynth does and I'm learning that quantity of photos is good - have at least 50% overlap of images seems to be a good idea. Now knowing that lots of photos is good, overlap is good, and a few other things from the nice and short, but useful Photosynth guide, I need to find my way out onto a few field trips with some classes and see what we can do ...

To get an idea of just how way cool Photosynth can be if you know a bit about it before you begin taking your photos (and you have a nice day!) - try out these two ...



and the Grand Canal in Venice.

Microsoft Image Composite Editor - Part 2

OK, so it apperas Photosynth had a few issues this  morning and their servers were down for a few hours. ICE works fine with the Photosynth publishing and here is the Photosynth version of the stitched photo from my previous post. This works very well - cool applications - thanks to Microsoft Labs.

See if you can find the place where there is a person standing ...

Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE) - easy panoramas from multiple images

Microsoft Image Composite Editor does a nice job of stitching together a panorama photograph from images taken from the same viewpoint. According to the Microsoft web site for ICE "Microsoft Image Composite Editor is an advanced panoramic image stitcher. Given a set of overlapping photographs of a scene shot from a single camera location, the application creates a high-resolution panorama that seamlessly combines the original images. The stitched panorama can be shared with friends and viewed in 3D by uploading it to the Photosynth web site."

Here is a series of images I took in the school drive through today, pieced together in ICE.

And here is the completed "stitched" panorama.

This free tool from Microsoft Labs is simple to use and provides users with a number of options (check out the "perspective" option) for manipulating images. Cool stuff!!

The interface is pretty simple

Now, I've tried the Publish to Photosynth option and get a message saying that Photosynth is not available, try again later. Photosyynth is available because I have been using it all morning for some other testing - so not sure if our firewall or filter is getting in the way here - will try from home tonight and check.



I did manage to get the panorama into Photosynth using the Photosynth application directly and adding 3 pictures (to "fool it"). The result is below. As you scroll in you note the awesome detail that remains no matter how far you scroll in. See if you can zoom into the blue sign in front of the old building (on the left side of the screen.).

Seadragon and Photosynth ...

OK - I've been a bit slack this year. This is my first post for a few months. Just otherwise occupied. But, after messing around for a while, I've started to try and refocus on tools that might make a difference to the user experience in the web space - a difference for educators and students. So, recalling some of the Photosynth and Seadragon tricks I'd seen a couple of years ago I've headed off to my Flickr account to see what damage I can do to some of my golf photos from Natadola last year. These photos are just standard ones shot with my Canon EOS digital SLR.


As you zoom around you'll see the incredible detail that Photosynth can bring to the experience. Now, to find some useful images from science ...the ability to zoom in to such detail on an image opens up a host of opportunity for visual learning.

I took a school owned Canon 560 camera to a classroom to trial some stitched photos just to see how the "full" Photosynth experience worked. Some worked as I expected, but the complete 360 classroom effect is not there ... more trials required.

In the meantime, here are some examples using Seadragon - you simply give the url of your image and Seadragon does the rest - so here's Luc at Kariotahi Beach late last year.