Tek4L

I have just been looking at frameworks for reviewing IT systems in schools. We have used the ITIL version 3 framework as the basis of reviews in the tertiary sector, but I thought I would look at BECTA’s adaption of ITIL for primary and secondary schools.

At first glance it appears to be based on the ITIL version 2 framework, which is ‘process’ driven. I like the version 3 approach which is instead ’service’ driven. I think this was a sensible move on the part of ITIL. It is too easy for IT people to get focused on the processes and forget that the delivery of services is the key reason for IT to exist - and the version 3 framework helps to keep the focus on this. It is largely just wording, as the underlying processes of v3 are much the same as for version 2, but is still a worthwhile change in my view.

I wonder if BECTA are going to revise their framework to keep current with version 3 of ITIL. Must have better hunt through the above site to try and find out.

I was lucky enough to get a small contract in the middle east country of Bahrain a few weeks ago. It was my first time in the middle east, and it was a great experience. Click on the photo below to see a few snaps from the visit.

I was reading the South China Morning Post in a cafe in the City Gate mall in Hong Kong, as you do on a Saturday morning, and spotted an article about a great scheme to kick start the economy in the Fujian province. They were offering 10 bonus marks on the high school entrance exam for children whose parents spent more than $284K on property. For some reason there was a bit of an outcry against the scheme and they had to withdraw it. I think someone in the NZ ministry should pick this idea up and run with it

If you are interested in online discussion, discourse based learning, etc. then check out Google Wave if you haven’t done so already.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/04/22/AR2009042204036.html?hpid=topnews/

Here is a an idea - not as pointless as it first might seem - picture this, a classroom full of kids busy concentrating on the stimulating worksheet that you the teacher have just given them. Their headsets are attached and their ping pong balls are floating. By scanning the room the teacher can quickly identify who has stopped concentrating and dropped the ball so to speak. Perhaps this could be just the sort of 21st century tool for monitoring student achievement that the government is looking for

I have recently finished reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. I really enjoyed it. There are some interesting thoughts in it for the education sector, like the fact that given 3 seconds of video of a lecturer, with no audio, a group of students came up with an identical evaluation of the lecturers effectiveness as a teacher as another group of students that did the evaluation after being taught for a semester. Universities could save thousands on their course evaluation processes by getting a group of random people to evaluate 3 second videos of the lecturing staff rather than analysing thousands of end of semester evaluation forms

With numerous examples Gladwell shows that with flashes of insight humans can make split second decisions that are sound and reliable - particularly when backed by years of experience in a particular field. But he notes that

“This insight is not a lightbulb that goes off inside our heads. It is a flickering candle that can easily be snuffed out”

In some ways it backs up the ideas of extreme/agile programming which in a lot of ways operates around the split second hunches of the programmers as the cards are shuffled around the table, rather than the endless analysis and documentation of the waterfall methods.

If you are someone that feels you need to thoroughly research a topic and write a detailed bibliography in APA format before you can even think about making a sound decision then I suggest you read this book.

Here is something that every teacher should have on their iphone or ipod touch.

http://theragis.us/

Well done Tom.

For a view of the type of wearble technology that is just around the corner the following TED talk is thought provoking.

If you were in a school thinking about investing heavily in SmartBoard technology you would have to seriously question the value for money you were going to get from it with this sort of thing just around the corner.

Imagine if every student in your class had one of these units!

I have just been having a play with a Kodak Zi6 HD (720p at 60 fps) Video camera. It is a small unit similar to the flip mino, with a usb connector that flips out the side.

It has two advantages over the Flip Mino that I can see:

• It takes removable NiMH AA batteries, so you can have spare batteries on hand if you are out in the field doing a lot of recording
• It has a memory card expansion slot so you can easily expand the amount of on-board storage
• It produces an h.264 mov file so no special software is need to convert the codec for use in other programmes - they can be sucked straight into iMovie

It has very little onboard memory though so you really need to buy a card upfront to get started - it would be good if they included a 1gb card out of the box.

I haven’t had time to do extensive testing but the video quality is pretty good, but seems a little jumpy in HD mode - not sure if this is related to the speed of the SD card I am using or not - will have to try and get a high speed card and see if there is any difference. In lower light the image did get a little grainy, which is normal for this type of camera, but outside in sunlight it produced a clear image. It has a good close up mode which would enable some great closeup shots of insects, etc.

On a single charge I was able to record approx 1.5 hours of HD video, which produced a 1gb file. These are available in New Zealand from Edsoft for approx $400NZ.

Kodak Zi6 Sample mov

We have been evaluating a couple of iPhones with the view to wider use of this technology within our organisation. Here are some of the pros and cons to-date:

Pros:

• Provides quick and easy access to email. While many other cheaper phone handsets also give email access, the iphone provides almost usable two way email, ie. you can read and send email. On a standard phone handset sending emails is painful on a number keypad - with the iphone it is much easier, but still slow compared to a proper keyboard.
• Calender, contacts, etc. are all easily accessible, but probably not much different to a standard phone handset.
• Excellent device for collection and listening/watching of material for professional development, podcasts, videos, etc. The screen size is more than adequate for watching video whilst on bus/train/plane - so a great way to make use of downtime to catch up on those TED Talks you have always been meaning to watch.
• Reasonable camera and good application for storing/viewing/sharing photos
• Almost usable web browser - for quick access to small amounts of information the web browser is usable. For large amounts of web surfing the screen size makes it painful with lots of scrolling and zooming required - maybe that is a Con  - you decide
• Excellent and easy to use map tool for finding your way around
• Provides a single device for phone, ipod, camera (providing you don’t have a need for high quality photos), so no need to carry multiple devices around.

Cons

• For heavy phone use the battery life is limited. If you are making a lot of phone calls battery life can come down to less than 8 hours. If you are watching a lot of videos it can come down to 4 hours. With no backup battery this means that you can’t afford to leave home without your charger.
• The text input is not brilliant. The iphone is a great device for consuming information, but sharing info is still clumsy with 1 or 2 finger at the most typing on a slightly too small keyboard.
• The need to have a compulsory data plan. For a lot of people you could mostly get away with using it on wifi networks only, so could get away with only casual data useage plan if it was available
• The inability to use it as a modem for your computer
• No inbuilt video recording - but you can get an add-on app for this
• On our corporate plan the cost is an extra $400 for each device above a standard phone, plus at least $30 extra per month for data plan - so with 50 staff you do the figures - rolling out to all staff would be a reasonable investment.