[Yr7-10it] deploying netbooks in schools

[Bill Kerr]

hi roland,

I read your googledoc (thanks for doing that) and the tech republic sanity
check article - am passing them onto others

I bought a dell mini inspiron 9 (9 inch display) last year and have a  more
or less permanent loan of an xo

aside: (and joel helped me put fedora 10 on it since part of my motivation
was to learn more linux, you can only buy them with windows in australia,
although they come with ubuntu in the US)

feedback on sanity check article: I have found the cramped keyboard an issue
but
(a) kids would adapt quicker than us oldies
(b) you can buy bigger netbooks, eg. 10 inch rather than 9 and it would be
less of an issue in that respect - next time I will get a bigger one

I don't think the other two negative issues raised in that article are
terribly important - you can navigate most web pages ok and multitasking is
nice but often not essential in school environments - you just adapt to the
new environment

feedback on your article:
I think a huge issue with kids is robustness. If you drop it will it break?
Without doubt some kids will drop them. Of course the OLPC is best in this
regard but the netbooks are robust probably far more so than laptops. My
Dell accidentally flew out of my backpack which wasn't zipped halfway across
the room and crashed to the floor without any damage. I need to check out
the meaning of the max shock specs in my users manual in more detail, the
figures are 110 G (operating) and 163 G (storage), if anyone can translate
that for me?

The reduction in weight (0.9 kg versus 2.5 kg) is also very important - the
netbook is really the equivalent of a textbook (and can replace all the
textbooks) - in practice people often leave their laptops at home because of
the weight issue

You can do most things on a netbook as the list of software going out in the
victorian country schools trial illustrates. eg. even GIMP is on there which
is pretty much a photoshop equivalent - will have to check out how it runs
on my dell

Also your article is about comparing laptops with netbooks but does not
mention the transformation involved in moving out of computer labs into 1:1
environments with take home, which is potentially huge IMO

cheers

On Tue, Mar 31, 2009 at 12:16 AM, Roland Gesthuizen
<rgesthuizen at gmail.com>wrote:

> Just doing my home work and  published this draft, one page googledoc
> worksheet for school listing differences between laptop and netbook
> computers
>      http://tr.im/hZ92
>
> Found the following advice helpful in this Tech Republic report "Sanity
> check: Three reasons to pause before deploying netbooks in business"
>        http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=1260&tag=nl.e101
>
> Any feedback welcome. Happy for others to keep the attribution and adapt my
> work, just post me back any modifications so I can add to the original.
>
> Regards Roland
>
> --
> 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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