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school website yourself. What will you write today's school news to be?Edu business
"We have not had sight of any evidence to support the argument that the costs of upgrading to Vista in educational establishments would be offset by appropriate benefit," it said."
The unit has an integrated 0.3-megapixel (VGA) webcam and 802.11g Wi-Fi, along with a 10/100Mbps Ethernet port and an on-board dial-up modem. RM also said it plans to offer an optional 3G datacard for the device. There are earphone and microphone ports, an SD card reader and three USB 2.0 ports too.
The MiniBook will run Linux, open source operating system fans will be keen to hear, and RM touted the laptop's 15s boot time. We're more impressed with the price: £199 inc VAT for for the 256MB, 2GB model, rising to just £234 if you want a MiniBook with 512MB of RAM and a 4GB Flash drive.
The machine's pitched at schools, but we can see plenty of folk considering the MiniBook as a simple, inexpensive web surfing device.It's meant to compete with in the one-laptop per child initiative. Here's another one.
Both models are due to go on sale over here on 1 November.
The Guardian has a story on it today. How it currently just runs Linux, Firefox and Open Office. You can't add any more software. If it screws up, you reset it to it's defaults. Just like the applications on your mobile phone.
At this price, you don't need any more. Certainly not in the classroom, with all the support issues that go with futzing. Certainly not in the homes of non computer literate parents.
This approach has been tried a few times. The sealed computer in a box. But I think this is nearly there, maybe the next billion computer users will not be through a smart phone but through a sealed laptop.
As for me and mine. We have enough computers here. They love big screens, use Firefox, Thunderbird, Word well and will be moving on to Photoshop soon. But still I was nearly tempted at this price level. I think many schools should be thinking of them.
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Hiring help is not the privilege of only the wealthy, of course. According to the Independent Educational Consultants Assn., 22% of first-year students at private colleges--perhaps as many as 58,000 kids--had worked with some kind of consultant.
Families pay Hernandez as much as they do because she promises not just substitute parenting but parenting in the extreme. She selects classes for students, reviews their homework, and prods them to make an impression on teachers. She checks on the students' grades, scores, rankings. She tells parents when to hire tutors and then makes sure the kids do the extra work. She vets their vacation schedules. She plans their summers. And through it all, she is always available to contend with the college angst that can consume whole families. Parents value her confidence; kids, mostly, appreciate her enthusiasm."
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Interesting, I find a trackback ping in my email from BECTA. It looks as though they're listening to any blogger who mentions BECTA in a post. They listen via BlogLines and Technocrati, probably with Google Alerts too. They picked up my post, saw that it was 'interesting' and added it to the negative to BECTA department.
I think it's great that BECTA are listening, and listening properly. They're using the right tools, and openly publishing their finds. Many more organisations and companies should do this too.
It's a great read to look through the negative and positive and other departments. Lots there, a useful resource.;newWindow.focus())
With so many mentions in this BECTA post, I feel like the blasphemer in "Life of Brian."
MATTHIAS:
Look. I don't think it ought to be blasphemy, just saying 'BECTA'.
CROWD:
Oooh! He said it again! Oooh!...
OFFICIAL:
You're only making it worse for yourself!
MATTHIAS:
Making it worse?! How could it be worse?! BECTA! BECTA! BECTA!
Those learning platform service providers in full...: "
Fellow fans of The West Wing will be familiar with the notion of 'Take out the trash day", on which public announcements are made at such a time that they get lost in the midst of other events and thus perhaps miss the media scrutiny they deserve, not dissimilar from Jo Moore's notorious "A good day to bury bad news".
On the Friday just before Christmas, Becta made public the names of the ten companies that are the approved suppliers under the LP framework agreements. They are:
Azzurri Communications Ltd
Etech Group
Fronter
Netmedia Education
Pearson Education Ltd
Ramesys
Research Machines plc
Serco Learning Solutions (Serco Ltd)
UniServity
Viglen Ltd
It comes as no surprise, although still a disappointment, to see that these are pretty much the usual suspects, with, as far as I'm aware, no open source suppliers on this list - thus schools, teachers and pupils are going to end up with learning platforms that lack the flexibility to adapt to a their own way of working. Interesting that some of the big names like Blackboard, MS and Capita aren't there either though: I suspect that in the case of BB and MS the hoops really didn't seem worth jumping through.
The fears expressed in EDM 179 seem entirely well founded now, and this short sighted approach to procurement is likely to do little for SMEs, or provide best value.
Becta's Stephen Lucey claims that
"purchasers can be confident they are buying robust and sustainable technology and services which give value for money",
which I suspect will be far from the case considering that the market might well not be able to sustain ten competing suppliers, particularly alongside popular and effective free alternatives, and the amount that will have to be spent on licence fees. Yet again we see the implicit assumption that these are products to be purchased!
Becta also claim that there was a rigorous, comprehensive (!) and
"intensive evaluation programme covering technical, commercial, value-for-money and quality assurance elements"
- such a shame that they didn't bother to look at the impact that these products would actually have on learning and teaching. And indeed that their notion of comprehensive effectively excluded open source software and SMEs.
Of course, as the DfES have acknowledge elsewhere, there's nothing to stop a school or local authority running its own procurement process, or using Moodle in house - the decision as to which VLE to use will, I believe, rest with headteachers, at least until BSF rolls out."
Knowing the technical competence levels of quite a lot of teachers, knowing how disinterested they are in computerising their teaching... This is going to be a long hard road to adoption and buy-in.
I know that some person at an LA will be sold one supplier or another, not on the brilliance of the service, but on the salesperson's personality. Thus, these large(ish) supplier will add a whole LA's list of schools to their client list. The fact that only maybe 10% of that LA's schools take up the LA's chosen solution, and even then, only half of those will actually buy-in to the solution, that is, actually use it. Then they've got to use it frequently and well.
I know this from experience. See the list of frequently updated sites in the left hand column? Half of my schools use it well. As I look through these supplier's websites looking at their mentioned schools, schools that should be good demos for their products, I struggle to find anything that I consider good, let alone outstanding. Most of them are abandoned. Some are infrequently updated. Nothing, nothing, nothing outstanding!Now obviously, I can't see what's happening with the learning platforms, I can't log in, I can't ask a child, "is it good, are you enjoying it, are you learning." I can only see the school's front facing website. To me, this speaks volumes. If the front website looks dull, uninspired, likely the hidden learning platform is too.
For little old me, I'm proud of the schools that are using my stuff and open about the schools that aren't. Also, we're not a Learning Platform, at least not in BECTA's definition. We're a front facing website solution, and a way to deliver parts of the curriculum.
No lock in here
An aside, the base technology that I use, allows any school to download their entire site, and move to another server, their own, or another supplier—no lock-in here. I prefer buy-in.;newWindow.focus())
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Decoding this... We fed your kids donkey's eyebrows and goat's tails disguised as turkey twizzlers, and made very good money. Now, we can't, and we're even losing the high profits on the branded sugary water, and fattening choccies. You gotta pay us directors and shareholders compo so we can maintain the lifestyle we've become accustomed to, or your kids can starve.
We'll have to see what Jamie Oliver can do to turn it around?
Under the terms of the deal, RM will design, implement and manage an ICT service supporting around 14,000 pupils in 24 schools in Stoke-on-Trent.
No financial details of the deal were disclosed."
Decoding this... The LEA just saved a packet. Which means they can spend more on dinners or buildings. The sales guy earned a packet after wining and dining the purchasing officer. The Directors and shareholders of RM dipped their beaks too. The people who do the work are badly trained, poorly supported, poorly paid, lack motivation. Too many are job's worths. The teachers will be pulling their hair out, the kids will be badly educated.
Of course, this is my opinion, based on anecdotal evidence from schools I've visited who have had RM in the past.Read the whole post. You may change your life. Perhaps you'll blog about it like I do
More users come out of the woodwork to tell the real story, and there's some corker horror stories in this Mefi thread. Looks like the US Patent Office is a laughing stock too. And good old Blighty's BECTA says it's all silly and not to panic. Apparently. Not that I was. Well, maybe when I first heard of the patent. Certainly, now I'm totally ignoring it.
The wiki is revealing as it illustrates how beneath the complexity of the language used in patents, many of the claims relate to simple functionality such as online chat rooms and exam submissions."
wikipedia: Virtual learning environment: "A Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) is..."
wikipedia: History of virtual learning environments: "The history of VLE development..."
I still get creeped out with these social networked sites. Guess, it just that I'm too old, perhaps.
Via Mefi.
Pearson is British.
