Tag: Devices

Bookmarked Laptops – The Daily Papert by gary, Author at The Daily Papertgary, Author at The Daily Papert (The Daily Papert)

During the (US) summer of 1990, I had the great fortune of leading professional developments in the world’s first two 1:1 “laptop schools.” This work was rooted in the vision of Seymour Papert and sought to reinvent schooling in a modern progressive fashion.

Gary Stager reflects on Coombabah State School and Methodist Ladies’ College, the first two schools to engage with the 1:1 laptop revolution. He reflects on the experience and provides a number of associated links. What interests me is that even with all the visionary leadership, what does the program in those schools look like now for the students in those school? Does it still resemble a ‘modern progressive fashion’?
Bookmarked Framework Laptop (Framework)

Finally, a high-performance, thin and light notebook designed to last.

An easily upgradable laptop.

This is a beautiful, functional, sustainable, thoughtful and even luxurious (Framework offers a 2TB SDD, while Lenovo has been stuck at 1TB drives for years and years) computer.
Based on a month’s use, I am prepared to declare myself a Framework loyalist, and to retire my last Thinkpad…forever.

Cory Doctorow explains how it is an example of ‘graceful failure’:

My Framework “failed” – it needed a new hinge – but it failed so well. Framework shipped me a new part, and I swapped my computer’s hinges, one day after my hip replacement. I couldn’t sit up more than 40 degrees, I was high af on painkillers, and I managed the swap in under 15 minutes. That’s graceful failure.

Liked Germany demands an end to working cryptography (Boing Boing)

Making it possible for the state to open your locks in secret means that anyone who works for the state, or anyone who can bribe or coerce anyone who works for the state, can have the run of your life. Cryptographic locks don’t just protect our mundane communications: cryptography is the reason why thieves can’t impersonate your fob to your car’s keyless ignition system; it’s the reason you can bank online; and it’s the basis for all trust and security in the 21st century.

Replied to New Research Answers Whether Technology is Good or Bad for Learning by Michael B. Horn (educationnext.org)

Initiatives that provide computers to every student in a classroom do not improve learning outcomes. That is very predictable given our research on the perils of cramming technology. I’ll repeat myself again here: You have to focus on the learning model first followed by the technology in service of that learning model. Initiatives that start with the technology almost always fail in my experience.

I would say that this is why Invent to Learn starts with a massive discussion of projects and pedagogy?
Replied to The Importance Of Students Using Their Own Digital Kit by Mal Lee, Roger Broadie (The Digital Evolution of Schools)

Critical is that digitally empowered students can use their ‘own’ suite of digital technologies largely unfettered within the school walls, and have ready connectivity.

That carries with it the school’s and teacher’s appreciation of how best to build upon that ownership to grow the learners and their learning. It entails a willingness to trust students to use in their everyday school learning the technologies they already use 24/7/365, the need to empower them, recognise, to value and build upon the students being digital, while understanding how they can take advantage of that capability in their teaching.

It obliges the school to understand this is a digitally empowered generation, with a digital mindset, ever rising expectations, who have long taken charge of their learning with the digital, who will do so lifelong, who have grown being digital by naturally using the apt technologies in near every facet of their lives and knowing how best to take advantage of that digital skillset.

I am all for handing over control and ownership to students. Agency is not my concern. I just wonder how much agency students can have when rather than schools (or education departments) making critical decisions, it is the market?

The way that you describe the take-up of technology it becomes about what was learnt when three? If you asked me ten years ago if I would recommend Facebook, I might have said yes, it is where everyone is, why not. Now, I would definitely say no. Thankfully no one I worked with agreed with me back then.

I have similar concerns about ‘devices’ and software. Although I like the idea of digital agnostic, especially Matt Esterman’s idea of a toolography, I just wonder about position we put students in following this path? Who is responsible for any data breaches in this circumstance? Even more so if that compromises a whole network?

Liked A Study of 1 Million Teenagers Reveals This Much Screen Time a Day Leads to the Happiest Kids (Inc.com)

The key is to not just say, but do. Offer more attractive alternatives. And don’t just encourage other activities; actually get involved. Do things your kids like to do. Take them places they like to go. Help them learn a sport. Help them learn to play an instrument.

Make it easy for friends to visit, and for them to visit friends — in real life, not virtually.

Via Glen Cochrane