[Yr7-10it] RE: Year 7-10 IT structures

Wed Oct 24 11:39:14 EST 2007

Hi

Very big question!

I read an article this morning, Schools debate bogged down in negatives,
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,22623552-27197,00.html 

I thought the wish list was a good idea, to have goals/aims/ideals.  Maybe
something like this from an IT perspective needs to be worked out so that we
can "really help our students make this world a better place for us all to
live in?"

Cheers

Anne-Marie

P please don't print this e-mail unless you really need to.

  _____  

From: yr7-10it-bounces at edulists.com.au
[mailto:yr7-10it-bounces at edulists.com.au] On Behalf Of Roland Gesthuizen
Sent: 23 October 2007 17:14
To: Year 7 - 10 Information Technology Teachers' Mailing List
Subject: Re: [Yr7-10it] RE: Year 7-10 IT structures

I am really excited to read all these posts and all the right questions that
we seem to be asking each other.

I agree with Bill. The OLPC is a fascinating invention. Like the student
that freely dips into the wireless access spilling over the school fence
from his neighboring home, the mesh technology has even enough range to
bridge between the different islands in the Solomons. Whilst the original
vision for the telephone was that it could be used to pipe music directly to
homes, we would be equally narrow minded to think that the Internet was for
edumail and piping music to pockets filled with iPhones. 

I have some Sudanese lads who are struggling with renaming files yet can
happily play computer games and chat online. Is it appropriate to measuring
their learning from their understanding of a computer desktop, a metaphor
based upon the workings of a small business office? The different ethnic
groups at our school have vastly different traditions and ideas of what it
means to 'be working together'. I am now not sure if the collaborative,
learning model that I carry about in my head is best and only way forward. 

I have had some indirect contact with of the huge technology issues faced by
countries on our doorstep. From young computer technicians trained in
Melbourne to set up Ubuntu Linux networks for East Timor, the KhmerOS group
that has managed to retain a Cambodian keyboard and recover their language
using Open Office and the network manager on Naru who is experimenting
recycling old hardware using Kbuntu. 

I would like us to engage with what it really means to transform ICT
education, beyond rubbing the latest shiny new toy or unboxing the latest
bit of commercial software. I like asking the big questions in my IT
classrooms so here is one. What can we do to really help our students make
this world a better place for us all to live in?

Regards Roland

On 23/10/2007, Bill Kerr <billkerr at gmail.com> wrote:

hi Cameron,

The OLPC has wireless mesh networking and a new user interface (sugar) based
on a community metaphor, which invites extensive collaboration with each
child having their own laptop. In that respect (and some others) OLPC is
superior to its new low price rivals from Intel etc. 
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/2007/05/community-user-interface.html 

If each child owns the laptop then that open up potential for home use - as
well as the clearly important "sense of personal ownership" 

I agree with you that if the laptops are introduced and teachers keep to
their old techniques and lesson plans then its not going to work very well
at all

That is sort of the point of this discussion - where would / should it lead?

Papert has argued for years that maths could be transformed with one laptop
per child but that it doesn't  work with other ratios. The pencil argument,
it would be poor education to chain up pencils in a lab or to insist on
sharing of pencils

As you say:

The laptop struggles to break out from being a glorified word-processor,
file storage and email client to the off the shelf tool that gets used as
needed, to develop a solution for the problem at hand.

With OLPC the laptop does or should develop or appear to develop some sort
of agency of its own, it demands to be used in new and different ways - are
the teachers up to it?

btw I attended a conference at Methodist Ladies College (Melbourne) in circa
1980 when every child  had a laptop and they were using logo extensively
(David Loader was the Principal). 

Your points about forcing collaboration are interesting and I'd like to hear
more about the tool you mention that facilitates a process whereby students
"produce work that reflects their own knowledge, not the groups knowledge"

I'm wary of formalising collaboration in an institutional sense. I think
learners have the right to choose their time and place for collaboration.
When setting up groups I often do permit a group of one.  I'm aware of one
very good educational blogger who has been arguing this for some time: 
blog of proximal development
http://www.teachandlearn.ca/blog/
(I will dig up some of his posts about this particular topic if you want) 

cheers,
-- 
Bill Kerr 
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/

On 10/23/07, Cameron Bell < bell.cameron.p at edumail.vic.gov.au
<mailto:bell.cameron.p at edumail.vic.gov.au> > wrote:

But Bill, lots and lots of schools have implemented laptop programs - some
for many years now. We have found that you don't need one laptop per child -
in fact, I believe that insisting each child having their own laptop can
stifle pedagogical progress. When each child has their own laptop or they
are working in a lab, the teacher is generally just using the same teaching
techniques and lesson plans they always have, insisting on personal work,
students working in isolation (communicating, but in isolation) with the
whole class doing the same activity at the same time. The laptop struggles
to break out from being a glorified word-processor, file storage and email
client to the off the shelf tool that gets used as needed, to develop a
solution for the problem at hand.
We have run with a one-between-two program here for the past couple of years
(I was skeptical as I had just come from a 1-1 school) and apart from a
couple of dedicated labs, we now deliberately aim for one-between-two for
all our technology infrastructure. It means students must collaborate as
teams on producing work and we are being forced to develop methods for
students to be able to collaborate- but then produce work that reflects
their own knowledge, not the groups knowledge. It's tricky but I have found
a very useful little tool that enables that to happen in my classes and the
rest of the staff have adapted too! Some of us are creating digital
portfolios, this requires group prac work, but individual reflections. How
do you do this with one-between-two? You are forced to examine individual
learning plans, multiple lesson plans within a lesson, rather than the
one-size-fits-all approach that we have always done. (Primaries have done
this for years!) While 1/2 the class use the laptops for part of an
activity, the other 1/2 are doing another part. For us, this is also
essential to break up a 72 min period and help keep the students focussed.
One between two is cheaper too!  ;-) 
Cheers
Cameron

Bill Kerr wrote: 

There is a large elephant in the room that no one has referred to so far:
the OLPC

The one laptop per child non profit project not only plans to deliver
millions of laptops to third world children but has also become a hand
grenade in the commercial world - and has succeeded in forcing down the
price of other laptops now on offer 

"... the whole global mind-think around technology has changed. 

No longer is low cost computing in education a fantasy, no longer are big
technology companies secondary, and everyone wants to sell technology into
classrooms. Intel introduced
<http://www.olpcnews.com/countries/brazil/olpc_classmate_mobilis.html>
Classmate PC to Brazil, Asustek is
<http://www.olpcnews.com/sales_talk/intel/negroponte_100_laptop_asus.html>
selling Eee PC's in the USA, and even thin-client manufactures
<http://www.olpcnews.com/sales_talk/competition/stephen_dukker_anti_olpc_cam
paign.html> compare themselves to OLPC."
http://www.olpcnews.com/sales_talk/countries/sales_inhibiting_xo_distributio
n.html 

How will schools and education departments in the wealthy west react to the
fact that in a few years we will have the capability for every child to have
their own laptop? 

Will we treat them like mobile phones and ban them or try to figure out a
way to utilise them for optimal educational development?

The use and misuse of computers in schools has up until now been based
around the idea that computers mainly belong in labs and / or that access is
limited. The fact of limited access has acted as a powerful brake for many
teachers not to extend their knowledge much beyond the basics. 

Most (all?) of the maths curriculum could be taught using laptops. In fact
MIT produced a series of books in the 80s for teaching much of maths and
aspects of language and art using logo.

Shouldn't we factor this potential into the discussion? If we are talking
about the future it might be incorrect to assume that the pattern of
distribution of computers in schools will remain similar to the present. 

-- 
Bill Kerr
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/

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Year 7 - 10 IT Mailing List kindly supported by 
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and 
http://www.vitta.org.au  <http://www.vitta.org.au> - VITTA Victorian
Information Technology Teachers Association Inc

_______________________________________________ 
http://www.edulists.com.au - FAQ, resources, subscribe, unsubscribe 
Year 7 - 10 IT Mailing List kindly supported by 
http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au - Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority
and 
http://www.vitta.org.au - VITTA Victorian Information Technology Teachers
Association Inc

-- 
Roland Gesthuizen - ICT Coordinator - Westall Secondary College
http://www.westallsc.vic.edu.au

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change
the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has." --Margaret Mead
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Year 7 - 10 IT Mailing List kindly supported by 
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