i-Pad vs Laptop

[SimpleSi]

Its that

Appropriate

word that's the Elephant in the Room

Do we lock the the sharp implements away or do we just put them in a draw and say don't touch - discuss

Do we lock everything in the safe overnight (or course we do with the money or a childs medical records) but we don't put their excercise books (with teachers comments) in there as well

Si

[rdk]

@rdk - Oh, good, I was being used as the example of the evil lockdown wizard. I do find that funny as I generally run some of the least locked down school networks - that still work reliably - that I know of. My view point is heavily jaded by the few, generally most vocal and most self proclaimed 'technically skilled' users that break stuff so badly and with so little respect.

Here's the thing, teachers are not gods, they aren't! Now with that in mind lets put foward that the same loarding over, can't possibly understand mindset is exactly what you are wineing about and exactly what you are displaying. The end best end result is the best education for the students, this is not always helped by every teacher wandering off in their own direction doing their own thing as there are different qualities of teacher as in any job. Some of the are bad, don't deny it, they are. These are helpfully kept in their jobs by their unions preventing decent assessment of them. These are usually the ones claiming their superiority to everyone including any lowly pond scum that dares to inhabit a school without being a teacher and by extention load of the universe along with infallable. Guess what, everyone has jobs to do and some people are better at certain things hence why they get jobs in those areas. As a teacher you are generally presentation rather than implementation and may not take into account considerations that others might, such as your standard cavilere disregard for copywrite - another trait seemingly common with teachers. Your 'Apple is the answer' to every question viewpoint also probably ruffles a few feathers - mine included as many of the 'features' could also be seen as excuses for not having better solutions to start with.

Sorry to everyone for quoting this in full, but it's worth a re-read just for the spelling and grammar mistakes.

So anyway, what have i done to annoy you SYNACK. All I've done is describe a system that works, in a school that works, where different members of staff get along and respect one another. Obviously not your school then. Then after I've described our system I've defended it against criticism from others on here without trying too hard to attack their way of doing things (or at least, trying not too much).

So, I've never said teachers are gods. Also, I haven't whined about anything - I'm very happy where I work and the system & people (whether teachers or not) I work with. I even like the kids and look forward to going to work each day. Again, doesn't sound much like you. As for having a "cavalier disregard for copyright" if you read what I wrote, beyond saying some copyright issues are a grey area I explicitly said it was wrong to download youtube videos which was what the whole discussion was about.

However, two things I strongly feel about are as follows:
1) whether things such as youtube are blocked in a school should be a curriculum/leadership issue, not a tech issue
2) a mindset where you expect the worst of the people you work with, and set up systems on that basis, is generally a self-fulfilling expectation

I have been reading (and contributing) to these forums for about four years and have learnt quite a lot technically of which I am quite grateful. I have even directed the tech staff at school towards here as the forums are a great resource.

One thing that is striking when reading the forums is the level of disdain that seems to exist across schools in the UK. A common theme in many posts (usually not all at once) is that the kids are odious little vandals that can't be trusted with anything (searching for "scrotes" or "gits" throws up lots of results); teachers are idiots, borderline psychotic and generally have no idea about anything and don't deserve a job; SMT have been promoted up the ladder in inverse proportion to their competency; and local authorities have no idea about what really goes on in schools.

So if you work in a school where you're nodding "yes!" to all those things I imagine the sentiments directed back towards you are somewhat similar and school would bring about a certain siege mentality. Must be a lot of unpleasantness in a lot of your schools. So in one sense I understand that when I have expressed a reasonably mild disagreement on some aspects of network management from the point of view of a user I get strident criticism. But that's OK - I'm looking forward to going to work tomorrow. Are you?

[GrumbleDook]

Its that

appropriate

word that's the Elephant in the Room

Do we lock the the sharp implements away or do we just put them in a draw and say don't touch - discuss

Do we lock everything in the safe overnight (or course we do with the money or a childs medical records) but we don't put their excercise books (with teachers comments) in there as well

Si

Yes ... that is the key word and where our technical expertise and the managerial / leadership expertise of various people (in a number of cases this will include us) to deal with it, but it is not much different to how we have to deal with H&S for science labs, PE, School trips ... building infrastructure, contract management, etc ... and you get some good schools and some bad schools doing it.

If people want specific risk assessment courses for security of technology then BCS do a number of good ones, including where you learn how to compromise depending on the sector you work in. To some extent it is very much like project management. Go and do PRINCE2 foundation and you learn the terms and tools ... do the practitioner and you learn how to apply it and when to bend things, or even ignore things (and before anyone jumps up at me saying 'ignore things' please think back to what I have said about the compromise between technical and organisational responses to security / data protection / etc).

Some people appear risk adverse because the environments they work in have a number of high probability factors or high impact factors and they have to take appropriate action, sometimes to the detriment of other aspects of the business. The institute then has to decide to address the risks or change how the business operates ... or ... work out a compromise for both. Some people appear risk adverse because they do not have the time, the resources, the expertise, the will or the position within the institute to try to achieve a workable compromise position. For these ... I would simply suggest that explaining why it doesn't / wouldn't work for them is the best option and accepting that others will have a different position. It is not that you are wrong ... or others are more right ... just different positions.

As for the techie / teacher thing ... please remember that this sort of things happens everywhere. Ask a squaddie what he/she thinks of someone from the RAF and you get one view. Ask a tankie what they think of pay clerks ... ask what a civil servant thinks of an MP ... again, it is not that others don't know how the other part live and work, a good number do and are supportive and can even do it themselves ... and we are always going to hear about the negative more than the good stuff ... we just need to "accentuate the positive" to quote a certain Mr Crosby.

[mylearningltd]

Personally, I'd still go for laptops or netbooks.
Yes, I like my tablet but for browsing, messing about - not doing actual work.

The biggest fundamental problem with tablets (in my own opinion) is: -

1). They make you work slower. I don't care who you are - whatever you are doing on your tablet is going to be done slower and more restricted than if you had a mouse and keyboard. I will give you a race at writing a paragraph of text then selecting the second letter in the fourth word and deleting it, then continuing the paragraph at the end. If they slow you down doing your work, they can't be good for you, no matter how cool it is to swipe stuff with a finger. When I'm using a tablet I feel like a caveman. Yes, you feel modern but there's a time and a place for them and only as a nicety at the moment - for viewing things, browsing things but not doing work things. A Primary School audience would probably be the best place for browsing big pictures, videos, playing an educational game or two (if flash works).

2). Keyboard - Laptops have a keyboard. You can type much quicker with one and typing is surely something that's important for school work.

3). Software - Everything is useable on a laptop. With tablets, certain sites are just not ready for them yet. Many places that require WYSIWYG editors have alternatives or nothing at all. You get issues with Flash, PDF downloads (the lack of embedding etc). I'm not saying tablets are useless - it's just that personnaly I think educational sites are just not ready for them yet - maybe another year or two. For convenience sake everything just works on a laptop because the operating system has been around such a long time that well know applications have chugged along with it and solidified. With tablets, all of those well known apps are having to reinvent themselves to try and work in a new way and there's still a learning curve going on.

Again, that's just my opinion.
From a work point of view, a laptop is still the way to go to get things done quickly and without the hassle of "lack of support" in various situations.

[romita06]

Just wondering: if you were about to implement a wi-fi facility for your 6th Form, would you opt for i-Pads as the client device or laptops...and why?

for less required ways to use i opt to laptops especially when it comes to personal use..