Pinboard (guardiantech)

L.A. Unified halts contract for iPads >> LA Times

guardiantech — 2014-08-26T17:11:17+00:00

LA schools Supt. John Deasy suspended future use of a contract with Apple on Monday that was to provide iPads to all students in the nation's second-largest school system amid mounting scrutiny of the $1-billion-plus effort. The suspension comes days after disclosures that the superintendent and his top deputy had especially close ties to executives of Apple, maker of the iPad, and Pearson, the company that is providing the curriculum on the devices. And an internal report that examined the technology effort showed major problems with the process and the implementation. "Moving forward, we will no longer utilize our current contract with Apple Inc.," Deasy wrote in a memo sent to the Board of Education on Monday. "Not only will this decision enable us to take advantage of an ever-changing marketplace and technology advances, it will also give us time to take into account concerns raised surrounding the [project]," Deasy wrote.

(Thanks @pxr4t2 for the link.)

Seven reasons why the Year of Code is just Am Dram… >> Emma Mulqueeny

guardiantech — 2014-02-09T23:13:45+00:00

Mulqueeny has been running the Young Rewired State program for some years, and has just resigned from the board of the "Year of Code":

IMHO this is damaging two very important movements:
• girls and tech: a PR girl who has no idea
• computational skills for young people
So I just do not want to know, and if the Year of Code becomes the *thing* that pivots this whole movement – I will celebrate its success obo the next gen, my daughters and yours (and sons too :))
And I do not support this government policy.

The Year of Code is turning into a car crash, and it's only been a week. (Via @adrianshort.)

L.A. Unified School District takes back iPads >> LA Times.com

guardiantech — 2013-10-01T20:17:26+00:00

A week ago, district administrators were scrambling to respond when they learned that students skirted security measures that were intended to block free browsing of the Internet. In interviews, students said they had been disappointed at their inability to get to social networking and music streaming sites. Their work-around involved a couple of clicks — and soon hundreds of students were reaching any website they wanted.

2,100 iPads distributed; most of them now back.

New augmented reality glasses let teachers know when their students are falling behind >> GigaOm

guardiantech — 2013-06-20T04:30:36+00:00

Lauren Hockenson:

Researchers at la Universidad Carlos III de Madrid have developed the Augmented Lecture Feedback System (ALFs), a HUD glasses interface that teachers can wear while giving a lecture. From the display, teachers can see little icons that appear above each student’s head, indicating their comprehension of the given lesson as well as an overall chart indicating how many students are “getting it” compared to the rest of the class. The symbols the system supports also include a request for the lecturer to slow down, and a notification that a student knows the answer to a question posed in class.

"OK Glass, warn me if Jenkins is throwing paper planes when my back is turned..."

Teaching Programming on iOS >> Fraser Speirs's blog

guardiantech — 2013-04-03T11:37:06+00:00

I'm a huge fan of strategic outsourcing. We are rapidly moving towards a situation at Cedars where we will have essentially no infrastructure in the school except for WiFi (and possibly not even that). This is deliberate: I am the only technician, systems administrator and network manager in the school. I simply don't have time to deal with deploying and looking after servers on the premises. Neither do I want to. I would much rather spend my expensive and valuable time working on things educational rather than things technical.
In order to run my class with computing resources on-site, I would have to manage a suite of laptops or desktop computers, with some kind of file server and directory infrastructure. Alternatively, I can pay Amazon a penny an hour and I don't have to care about hardware at all.

Try guessing the cost of his Amazon EC2 instance over a school year.

Given tablets but no teachers, Ethiopian children teach themselves >> MIT Technology Review

guardiantech — 2012-10-31T06:08:49+00:00

With 100 million first-grade-aged children worldwide having no access to schooling, the One Laptop Per Child organization is trying something new in two remote Ethiopian villages—simply dropping off tablet computers with preloaded programs and seeing what happens.
The goal: to see if illiterate kids with no previous exposure to written words can learn how to read all by themselves, by experimenting with the tablet and its preloaded alphabet-training games, e-books, movies, cartoons, paintings, and other programs.

Motorola Xooms, since you're asking.

Thailand signs the world’s largest educational tablet distribution deal >> Digital Trends

guardiantech — 2012-05-16T06:00:09+00:00

Thailand reportedly also looked at some of China’s largest tablet manufacturers, such as Lenovo and Huawei, but the pricing per unit was too high for its budget. Conversely, a lower bid from another company was offered but rejected by the government, perhaps due to less specs for the value.
The select device model, priced at $81 per unit, is the Scopad SP0712: An 7-inch Android device running the 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. It’s also got 1GB of RAM, 8GB of internal memory, 1.5 GHz single core CPU, and comes in four color options: Red, blue, silver, and gold. Shenzhen Scope will also set 30 help centers around the Southeast Asian country to provide user support specifically for tablets received from the campaign. Not too shabby of specs for tablets for elementary school students.

Now consider what those childrens' reaction will be to a standard PC when they're older. (Thanks @undersinged for the link.)

Education in Peru: Error message >> The Economist

guardiantech — 2012-04-10T05:16:47+00:00

One Laptop Per Child arrived in Peru. How well did it fare?

An evaluation of the laptop programme by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) found that the children receiving the computers did not show any improvement in maths or reading. Nor did it find evidence that access to a laptop increased motivation, or time devoted to homework or reading. The report applauded the government for providing much-needed hardware: less than a quarter of Peruvian households had a computer in 2010. But it now needs to improve teacher-training and the curriculum, said Julian Cristia of the IDB. Above all, the classroom environment needs to change.

Girls and coding: female peer pressure scares them off >> The Observer

guardiantech — 2012-03-31T21:22:16+00:00

Emma Mulqueeny:

In my opinion, Year 8 is too late. We need to start teaching digital literacy and coding as a part of the curriculum in Year 5, when most children's maths is strong enough. The curriculum has fostered a familiarity with computing and computers and the young minds are ready to start learning programming languages. Indeed primary school children are creative, excited and less likely to have developed associations, good or bad, with certain subjects.

Daring Fireball: Regarding the Scope of Apple's Education Initiative

guardiantech — 2012-01-19T07:26:12+00:00

John Gruber on Apple's expected swoop into education on Thursday:

"I’m guessing Apple’s pitch to the textbook companies is something like this: 'Digital transformation of your industry is inevitable. Here’s our plan; we’d like you to come along for the ride. But if you choose not to, we won’t hesitate to leave you behind.'"

My head teacher won’t let me teach computing >> Emma Mulqueeny

guardiantech — 2011-11-29T22:43:11+00:00

"I am not speaking out of turn here in saying that this is a very common theme and a common argument and it drives me insane and most of the teachers in the group were wearily starting to accept defeat. I have also, to my utter despair, seen members of Young Rewired State fall at the same hurdle, where they have gone into schools and suggested running computing clubs or events, only to be patronised and dismissed. "There are so many counter-arguments to it aren’t there? But you know that in fact, these are not the real reasons, if they were Physics would not be taught, nor music, nor high-jumps, back-flips or burpeez – who cares, right?" If people were suggesting not teaching history, or physics, or English, we'd laugh at them. When they suggest not teaching coding, everyone agrees.

Coding For Kids wiki >> codingforkids

guardiantech — 2011-10-13T05:26:52+00:00

A resource only created on Wednesday night but which is going to improve and improve - bookmark it, take part, improve it. Really, it matters that our kids can code: if you wait until they're past 10, it can be too late to create the best.

Teach our kids to code e-petition >> Emma Mulqueeny

guardiantech — 2011-09-22T20:44:55+00:00

"So after declaring that this would not become a personal mission for me in my post: year 8 is too late it has become a personal mission.
"The petition is appallingly written. In my defence it was a brutal, and random, word count; I had to keep removing chunks of copy and keep trying to submit it, until suddenly it worked (no the word count that it eventually allowed through bore no relation to the word count originally stated… bug?). Anyhow, this terrible prose means that many have tried to explain it through writing their own explanatory blog posts and I thought I had better have a bash at explaining the background better myself.
"What do I mean by code?"

She explains. Meanwhile, go and sign the petition (linked from her page).

How to initiate kids (or anyone) in coding >> Emma Mulqueeny

guardiantech — 2011-08-22T21:16:20+00:00

Interesting roundup of languages to let your ...eight-year-old upwards?.. teach themselves with. (Perhaps with a little help.)