1st PSP on the Network

Is there no stopping them! Last week one of the boarders in my class noticed he could pick up southwellhost (our wifi connection) on his PSP and asked me if I could connect it for him. Well no sooner had I done one, when another one came out of the woodwork, then another, and another, and another making a total of six in three days. One boy even told me he had two and would be bringing in the other one tomorrow. Pretty amazing really! I wonder what the tally will be by the end of the week.

Well, what can they do with them once they are connected, I hear you ask? Quite simply just about anything you can with a mobile phone browser. They connect to the internet using an Opera mini browser or so Mark tells me.

They can pick up our school webmail and we even managed to post a comment to a forum in Moodle this morning. We haven't tried to connect to Elgg (our private social network) on them yet, but I don't see any reason why not! I can do it on my mobile so I expect to see them blogging from their PSP's before long.

The PSP doesn't have a camera and you don't have a flash enabled browser but the screen size is pretty good and it fits nicely in your pocket. Not bad for a gaming device but then again wasn't that what the first computers were?

Where to from here.

It's coming to that time of year, when we are beginning to think about, whether or not, we roll out more class laptops to other parts of the school next year?

Well let's see, has the trial worked? Well of course 'YES'. Why wouldn't it. I really don't get this concept of a trial not working because surely you'd make it work wouldn't you? Especially if it was your initiative and you believed in it.

Why would you invest thousands of dollars in something you didn't think would work?

But that's not the real issue is it? Whether we like it or not the real issue is money, always is and always will be money. Let's be honest about this, the only reason every child at our school doesn't have a laptop is because it would costs too much?

Which leads to the 100 dollar question who's going to be paying for them?

Personally I believe it's an ownership issue, I think students should own and take responsibility for their own devices, whether that be laptops, phones or PSP's They should look after them, care for them and repair them if they are broken. It should be their tool and their responsibility. The school should concentrate on ensuring the infrastructure is capable of accepting all devices, ie ensuring we have a fat internet pipe and a wireless network that any machine can sit on. The Ict department shouldn't have to fix computers. The Food Technology Teachers don't have to fix the microwaves do they?

Which leads me to my dilemma, if they are going to belong to the students, can we really specify which make and model they have. Can I really answer that question from the ICT manager. 'Well Lesley what make and model of machine would you recommend next year'.

I know in the ideal world students should bring their own devices to school ibooks, PC's, mini laptops, phones etc and the school would have the power capabilities, wifi, storage and internet capacity to accommodate them but this isn't the real world, is it? This is a primary school with range of students and teachers with differing ICT skills and fears.

A primary school that needs to ensure the roll out is successful, not only for its students but its teachers too. Both teachers and students need to feel confident using the device (or devices as the case maybe). Our students need to be able to carry their device too and from school, back and forth from lessons and store them safely. As a school we need to ensure we have the infrastructure to support the devices (power/internet/wireless). Our teachers need to know that the machines are going to be reliable, charged and capable of been used for the lessons they plan. They also need to know that they are going to be supported in their use and integration.

So maybe we will have to accept that this isn't the ideal world (well not yet anyway). Maybe we do have to make that call and decide which model of machine we are going to recommend. It's just that there are too many other issues to consider at this moment in time, real estate/screen size, Microsoft vs Linux, software availability vs cloud computing, functionality vs features and last but not least cost vs memory size.
One thing for sure though, I will definitely be recommending a mini laptop. How every tiny the screen and small the memory you can't beat the form factor for primary school students. But which mini laptop that's another question, one that I'll need to do a little more research on before I'll commit myself to an answer.

1st in the Waikato

I feel so proud, one of my students came first in the Waikato, (Year 7, Girls, Speech Competition).
Now I'm not naive enough to think that it was all down to my teaching, and not in anyway related to the particular student, in questions own natural, innate ability but I can't help thinking that the increased access to Technology in the room this year did help. I believe that this access to Technology not only improved the winning speech but also contributed to improving the quality of all the speeches in my room. Last year not one of my students made the school final, this year 3 did and one well you already know about that.

Having access to 1:1 laptops, cellphones, video cameras, googledocs and Elgg (our private social network), ensured we had a successful learning programme from start to finish. Having the ability to prepare, practice, improve and assess class speeches really improved not only the outcome/finished product but the whole learning process.

We used our 1:1 EeePC's to research speech ideas on the internet via a Firefox browser.

Students own mobile phones to record initial ideas and gather thoughts.

Open Office documents to plan, design and write the speeches.
Open Office draw documents to produce cue cards.

Mobile phones/the microphone and web cam on their computer to record, practice and improve the delivery of speeches.

A digital camera to record students first attempt at their speech.

A blog on our schools social networking site (Elgg) to upload students first attempt of their speech from the class digital camera. These were then viewed by themselves and the rest of the class who then commented on each speech and gave guidelines for improvement (content and delivery) on the blog.

Finally we used googlespreadsheet to grade the final speeches during the class speech competition.

The class are presently in the process of using their mobile phones/class digital camera to record their final speech and place them in the eportfolio, Myfiles section on Elgg our social networking site to keep for prosperity and viewing by their family and friends.

Not all students want to place their final speech in their eportfolio. Not only do I believe this is how it should be 'their choice' but I'm really not worried if they chose not to. It was the learning that was important and that's all about the process not the outcome. Even though it's nice to be placed first in the Waikato it's even nicer to have access to Technology that can improve the learning for all the students in your room.