Hollie1985 Posted November 16, 2009 Author Posted November 16, 2009 (edited) I use an iPhone and have been for over 18months now. I often connect through wireless at home and work. Since I have had my iPhone i have noticed a change in the way i work, much more productively and hittng my goals set by my managers. I have been able to work more productively accessing my applications on the move I wouldn't want it any other way. The company i work for encourage it's employees to use latest technologies to help with our work, not sure why some people are so anti-innovative technology. It is good to see some of the schools are adopting these kinds of technologies to prepare them for when leaving school. This is the digital revolution whether we like it or not.. Edited November 16, 2009 by Hollie1985
somabc Posted November 16, 2009 Posted November 16, 2009 (edited) I use an iPhone and have been for over 18months now. I often connect through wireless at home and work. Since I have had my iPhone i have noticed a change in the way i work, much more productively and hittng my goals set by my managers. I have been able to work more productively accessing my applications on the move I wouldn't want it any other way. The company i work for encourage it's employees to use latest technologies to help with our work, not sure why some people are so anti-innovative technology. It is good to see some of the schools are adopting these kinds of technologies to prepare them for when leaving school. This is the digital revolution whether we like it or not.. Fair enough, but does your employer provide you with all this technology or do you do it yourself? Most firms do not give their staff an iphone or even a generic smartphone. It seems unfair for an employer to reap the benefits of your mobile working via an iphone or VPN from home but not to contribute to the cost? If it is your iphone what happens when it breaks? You also have the problem of being expected to answer emails or remotely login and fix problems 24/7. What if you don't want to work on the train home, or when you are out with your kids at the weekend? Why You Can't Use Personal Technology at the Office - WSJ.com Edited November 16, 2009 by somabc
Hollie1985 Posted November 17, 2009 Author Posted November 17, 2009 (edited) Fair enough, but does your employer provide you with all this technology or do you do it yourself? Most firms do not give their staff an iphone or even a generic smartphone. It seems unfair for an employer to reap the benefits of your mobile working via an iphone or VPN from home but not to contribute to the cost? If it is your iphone what happens when it breaks? You also have the problem of being expected to answer emails or remotely login and fix problems 24/7. What if you don't want to work on the train home, or when you are out with your kids at the weekend? Why You Can't Use Personal Technology at the Office - WSJ.com Good point. At first it was my own from home device iPhone -It just made my life easier i wasn't thinking "this is unfair" my work are benefiting from me bla bla bla -my work pay me to do a job to the best of my ability. Then about 12 months later the employer i work for noticed how much of a difference this was making to my produtivity to the point where they said to me have an iTouch for nothing!!! So If my iPhone breaks then I have my new iTouch whilst my colleagues are still using generic standard. The point i was trying to make is that I am a young lass and have not long left full time education and would of really loved it if we had new technologies to help us with studying. It is a positive that the young people of today have the technology available to them to help them achieve their goals in life, like this technology is helping me to achieve mine now :-) Edited November 17, 2009 by Hollie1985
fayfrancis Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 Fair enough, but does your employer provide you with all this technology or do you do it yourself? Most firms do not give their staff an iphone or even a generic smartphone. It seems unfair for an employer to reap the benefits of your mobile working via an iphone or VPN from home but not to contribute to the cost? If it is your iphone what happens when it breaks? You also have the problem of being expected to answer emails or remotely login and fix problems 24/7. What if you don't want to work on the train home, or when you are out with your kids at the weekend? Why You Can't Use Personal Technology at the Office - WSJ.com Thats interesting, looked at this link - this is a difficult argument actually but the link refers to business rather than education. The business point of view will always be not to adopt new technologies until they are proven to be a stable environment, which is obv reference to the link rather than itouch scenario. You will sometimes see a business with cutting edge views, this is the reason that your equipment at home is sometimes seen as better or faster than the work environment. The reason is very important for a business they will not choose the shiny equipment you have at home they will buy something that is fit for purpose, something that is more durable and hard wearing. They will often have chosen a standard of equipment for their policies and often a standard image that they roll out which will mean that they will have a standard specification. The cost of not having a standard image to business can be immense. Usually if you can convince an employer that there are benefits to having a smartphone they will not normally object in a business environment, education is a completely different ball game with very unique requirements
Ric_ Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 This does indeed seem like quite a negative thread at first... however, IMHO, this sort of project sounds amazingly exciting. Ignore all the drawbacks about ropey wifi, filtering, policing policies, etc. Imagine that every pupil has a device that they can view the VLE with in ANY lesson. How much easier does that make it to integrate your VLE acrosss the curriculum. Think about an IT theory lesson... you might not have access to computers but diagrams, etc. might be needed for the lessons. Now think about a non-IT lesson (English is mentioned in the article)... you could allow the students to use online encyclopedias, dictionaries and the like. It's just genius! Just think how much you use your smartphone every day... checking the odd bit of news, finding out the weather forecast, etc. It's all finding little nuggets of information in the quickest time possible - the kind of thing that students need to do in lessons. Now for the policing and restricting thing... 1. Anybody who's buying a couple of hundred iPods isn't going to be paying anything like £150 a piece and the insurance is probably subsidised too. 2. It's pretty simple to apply a harsh filtering level to the iPods via the wifi infrastructure. 3. If you don't allow earphones in lessons (i.e. confiscate them if they are seen), then you don't get the whole distraction thing. It's easy to find problems but solutions aren't far away
Guest Guest Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 (edited) What it keeps coming back to for me is why an iPod? It strikes me as "we're cool" rather than we've choosen the best product for the job. Do iPods support flash yet? As alot of our VLE content is flash based. Id be interested to know what made an iPod better than a netbook. As apart from the slight advantage in portability (remember netbooks are smaller than 1 text book so its really not a big issue) netbooks win in managability, the fact that you can do the work on them rather than them just being a research/"these are your lesson instructions" tool, they can work at home on them, replacable batteries, and most importantly consistancy of variety of general and educational software (you can run your science software on a netbook, you cant and never will be able to on the iPod). Edited November 17, 2009 by Guest
rogerblue Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 ipods, mobile phones etc etc when for example using technology to allow kids to access the vle on their mobile phones, so they can watch the lesson as their going home on the bus, as suggested by one of our tech obsessed HOD he had no answer to my statement ' if they haven't listened to you in class because your boring the pants off them why on earth would you think they would waste their own time on a repeat viewing?' he slunk away without a word!! PS Boring he is, technology does not mask crap teaching!!!
tmcd35 Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 What it keeps coming back to for me is why an iPod? It strikes me as "we're cool" rather than we've choosen the best product for the job. Do iPods support flash yet? As alot of our VLE content is flash based. Id be interested to know what made an iPod better than a netbook. As apart from the slight advantage in portability (remember netbooks are smaller than 1 text book so its really not a big issue) netbooks win in managability, the fact that you can do the work on them rather than them just being a research/"these are your lesson instructions" tool, replacable batteries, and most importantly consistancy of variety of general and educational software (you can run your science software on a netbook, you cant and never will be able to on the iPod). I questioned this at first. I mean great idea - but why an iPod. But then I looked at the pro's and to be honest don't think I can come up with a better alternative Small design, fits in shirt pocket excellent touch screen interface full web browser wifi support The App Store iTunesU Podcasts vlogs support Calendar Pocket e-mail Battery life I'm sure there are other reasons. Your quip about the range of educational software is actually the very reason why the iPod is ideal. Have you seen the amount of apps available in the app store or the growing range of content on iTunesU. Both my sister and my brother-in-law are at uni and swear by the iPhones for study content. Besides, a netbook is too big to fit in your pocket!
bossman Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 This is a very interesting question. How many people can remember 'playing' with beads of mercury on the bench? Nowadays it is a major chemical alert needing the fire brigade & breathing apparatus if any gets spilled.... kids can only do 'safe' experiments in science now. QUOTE] I recieved coperal punishment for this (6 strikes of the cane accross the behind in front of the whole school) Thanks for reminding me Broc
somabc Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 Just think how much you use your smartphone every day... checking the odd bit of news, finding out the weather forecast, etc. It's all finding little nuggets of information in the quickest time possible - the kind of thing that students need to do in lessons. That is not a recipe for learning anything, that is a recipe for googling the answer and then not understanding why it is the answer. Don't make me break out the learning pyramid! http://www.northlakecollege.edu/studentlife/pyramid_large.gif
mac_shinobi Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 I questioned this at first. I mean great idea - but why an iPod. But then I looked at the pro's and to be honest don't think I can come up with a better alternative Small design, fits in shirt pocket excellent touch screen interface full web browser wifi support The App Store iTunesU Podcasts vlogs support Calendar Pocket e-mail Battery life I'm sure there are other reasons. Your quip about the range of educational software is actually the very reason why the iPod is ideal. Have you seen the amount of apps available in the app store or the growing range of content on iTunesU. Both my sister and my brother-in-law are at uni and swear by the iPhones for study content. Besides, a netbook is too big to fit in your pocket! Nothing to do with the ipods but LOL @ this too...bet the teachers are loving this "To help to create a culture of democracy, teachers will also have to drink their coffee and catch up on administration in spaces shared with children." 12. Use your ipod / iphone to listen to your own music to as to drown out noise from kids lol
webman Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 What it keeps coming back to for me is why an iPod? It strikes me as "we're cool" rather than we've choosen the best product for the job. Do iPods support flash yet? As alot of our VLE content is flash based. Not forgetting the minute screen size compared to that of a netbook. How many existing educational resources are a) in a supported format and b) readable at that screen size.
russdev Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 Right been watching this.. I like the idea and any school willing to push the boat like this great. I can see lots of educational benefits to this think of Ipod yes got videos of the classroom teacher but heck lots of other good education videos out their. If got a school cutting edge like this maybe get someone with the skill to write an apps for the Ipod. Students will always engage with new technology in better way then traditional methods if nothing else than cool factor (key is harnessing that surge). Also in few years time doesn't matter what we think should be used it will be what ever the student brings in. Sorry some of you may have missed some of the opportunities here..
fayfrancis Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 I like your thinking on this, it definately doesnt have ropey wifi though, mentioned a few things I hadnt thought of either
webman Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 (edited) Sorry some of you may have missed some of the opportunities here.. I don't think we're missing the opportunities at all. I think what we're trying to do is highlight some of the potential pitfalls of using devices like this in an educational setting with the types of children we have experience with. Here's just a few questions that spring to mind. I'd be happy to consider it a good idea if most of these are met with sensible, sustainable and manageable solutions. How do you prevent users swapping inappropriate material (pornography, copyrighted music/video) with each other? Would you even know if that was happening? What happens two years later when the batteries will no longer charge? What happens when kids get frustrated with the device (see last point?) and decide to slam it on the floor/desk/out of the window? How do you manage what software is available? How do you prevent them from removing proxy server settings? What happens if a student loses/forgets and is unable to partake in lessons? I'm desperately not trying to be defeatist, but for my own justification I want to know how things will work in the real world. It's all well and good saying "this school introduced iPod Touches and it was fantastic" - but that's not very helpful to me. Edited November 17, 2009 by webman
Guest Guest Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 Small design, fits in shirt pocket - see below * excellent touch screen interface - its not better than a keyboard though full web browser - afaik without flash, so not so full wifi support - same as just about any portable device nowadays The App Store - Is it better than the software we already have? Id doubt it will be Podcasts - Again most devices can do this Calendar - fair enough, the calenders better than most, but again isnt an exclusive feature Pocket e-mail - most devices do this Battery life - This really depends how you look at it. With it being a "cool music/video/games thingy" its going to be used before and after school and during lunchtimes... * personally i dont see having a keyboard and bigger screen as a disadvantage, especially when it can potentially replace several textbooks, and even workbooks.
broc Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 I need convincing; I would like to see how the use of iPods fits in with the curriculum; how & when it is used, in what subjects, and also what other technology is available to students in school and at home? It is clearly not a substitute for desktop PCs where processing power or screen real estate is needed, such as media studies, graphics, photography, technology? It am not convinced it is tool for sustained use in office type applications, for writing, preparing presentations, desktop publishing, preparing coursework either.
fayfrancis Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 I don't think we're missing the opportunities at all. I think what we're trying to do is highlight some of the potential pitfalls of using devices like this in an educational setting with the types of children we have experience with. Here's just a few questions that spring to mind. I'd be happy to consider it a good idea if most of these are met with sensible, sustainable and manageable solutions. How do you prevent users swapping inappropriate material (pornography, copyrighted music/video) with each other? Would you even know if that was happening? What happens two years later when the batteries will no longer charge? What happens when kids get frustrated with the device (see last point?) and decide to slam it on the floor/desk/out of the window? How do you manage what software is available? How do you prevent them from removing proxy server settings? What happens if a student loses/forgets and is unable to partake in lessons? I'm desperately not trying to be defeatist, but for my own justification I want to know how things will work in the real world. It's all well and good saying "this school introduced iPod Touches and it was fantastic" - but that's not very helpful to me. the school do have security measures in place as they would on their network anyway,I cant disclose the schools full information, the school have undertaken some insurances to cover eventualities, there was a lot of development went into this, not just from the school but the also apple, wirless vendor and itunes as this is the platform that the media runs on. If the device is lost this is covered by insurances. iTouches have not replaced all pc's. They are a learning assistant for the students, this is to assist students that may not engage generally very well within certain topics will have podcasts and information around this subject to assist them. (not my employers view or the schools)
fayfrancis Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 Small design, fits in shirt pocket - see below * excellent touch screen interface - its not better than a keyboard though full web browser - afaik without flash, so not so full wifi support - same as just about any portable device nowadays The App Store - Is it better than the software we already have? Id doubt it will be Podcasts - Again most devices can do this Calendar - fair enough, the calenders better than most, but again isnt an exclusive feature Pocket e-mail - most devices do this Battery life - This really depends how you look at it. With it being a "cool music/video/games thingy" its going to be used before and after school and during lunchtimes... * personally i dont see having a keyboard and bigger screen as a disadvantage, especially when it can potentially replace several textbooks, and even workbooks. I think that the size was very important, based on the location and what (i interpreted) the school felt that it had a duty of care to the students to not make them targets of crime. Your reference to pocket email? laptop in pocket?
Guest Guest Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 I think that the size was very important, based on the location and what (i interpreted) the school felt that it had a duty of care to the students to not make them targets of crime. Your reference to pocket email? laptop in pocket? Sorry was just running through quickly. So out of my list of reasons all you can do to counter them is be pedantic? Im not trying to be deliberatly obtuse, im just trying to work out why the decision was made to go for iPods over netbooks? And really, what difference does it make if a kid recieves his emails though his pocket or his bag...?
fayfrancis Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 Ok, I think ive given a clear picture of what the school has as a solution - so I would like to invite you to offer your ideas of a better solution - ????? the brief was as follows, want to provide each student with a device that can assist them curriculum wise in and out of school, that can provide a daily planner, that is good for media, that is very small and cannot be seen visibly when travelling ie no laptop size devices to make children a target, that has a long battery life, that can engage the students in learning, that can utilise voting software, provide email functionality, is good on the application side. Any ideas? Id be interested? (also please remember there is a directive which has a deadline for each student to have a device so all schools should have this on their to do list)
neon Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 What about nokia n810? Nokia N810 on eBay (end time 15-Dec-09 18:19:49 GMT) can pick them up really cheap... full web browser, upto 16gb hot swap sdhc cards, camera for stills or vid, sound recorder, bluetooth... symbian os aswell... Also there was something I remember seeing at bett couple of years ago htc advantage? not sure but had windows mobile on it looked good? not sure about price etc...
fayfrancis Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 Sorry was just running through quickly. So out of my list of reasons all you can do to counter them is be pedantic? Im not trying to be deliberatly obtuse, im just trying to work out why the decision was made to go for iPods over netbooks? And really, what difference does it make if a kid recieves his emails though his pocket or his bag...? Sorry my sense of humour, I think thats probably the argument of portable vs mobility, ie why have email on your phone. Virtually everyone in business has email on their phone, plus this is just my interpretation not anyone elses, but how would i know if I have an email if my laptop is in my bag? Not being argumentative about it at all but the school wanted real time as much as possible im sure so isnt this what we all like about twitter and other such applications. The emphasis from the school was a small device, not to make them targets of crime I personally think this should be any schools primary concern
webman Posted November 17, 2009 Posted November 17, 2009 (edited) so I would like to invite you to offer your ideas of a better solution - ????? I'm not sure what I'd provide for that scenario; but I also don't think the brief is/was such a fantastic idea in the first place - for mainly the reasons mentioned by myself, j17sparky and several others. (also please remember there is a directive which has a deadline for each student to have a device so all schools should have this on their to do list) Just because we've been given a directive (the Government I imagine?) doesn't mean it's a well-thought out good idea to implement. (Hmmm... sounds like BSF again...) Virtually everyone in business has email on their phone, plus this is just my interpretation not anyone elses, but how would i know if I have an email if my laptop is in my bag? There's a huge gap in self discipline and respect between kids and responsible adults. The emphasis from the school was a small device, not to make them targets of crime I personally think this should be any schools primary concern The best way to prevent them being a target of crime is for them not to have a device like that at all. But of course now the school has lots of coverage for giving their kids a popular device, everyone now knows they are carrying iPod Touches that will just be replaced at the drop of a hat. I would say that makes them more of a target. Edited November 17, 2009 by webman
Hollie1985 Posted November 17, 2009 Author Posted November 17, 2009 What about nokia n810? Nokia N810 on eBay (end time 15-Dec-09 18:19:49 GMT) can pick them up really cheap... full web browser, upto 16gb hot swap sdhc cards, camera for stills or vid, sound recorder, bluetooth... symbian os aswell... Also there was something I remember seeing at bett couple of years ago htc advantage? not sure but had windows mobile on it looked good? not sure about price etc... nice try there Neon.....1 big flaw there...you can make phone calls with the nokia. This is not wanted in the brief for the students -iTouch still the only device suitable
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now