Corporate IT Support and the 21st Century User 9 November, 2011
Posted by paralleldivergence in ICT in Education, Internet, technology.Tags: ICT, IT support, Service desk, technology
8 comments
TRADITIONALLY, ICT Support is a regimented service, based on providing known or predictable support for a limited range of products in a carefully structured business environment. Users are supplied with access to standardised hardware systems and applications that have been approved in the standard operating environment and their range of access is limited according to their status. When they are faced with a problem (aka ‘incident’), they are usually directed to one recommended path to gain ICT support, but often they have a negative perception of it – too arduous to report and too long to wait for action, leading to a view that ICTs are too unreliable to use.
Courtesy: The IT Crowd
The Digital Education Real Illusion 18 July, 2011
Posted by paralleldivergence in education, ICT in Education, Internet, Politics, technology.Tags: DER, DERNSW, Digital Education Revolution
28 comments
THE PROMISE. The challenge. The delivery. The difference. The Australian Digital Education Revolution was rightly heralded as a real gamechanger in school education nation-wide. When Kevin Rudd as opposition leader proclaimed, “This is the toolbox of the 21st Century” while holding up a laptop computer and subsequently promised access to a computer for every student in years 9 through 12, we knew this was something big. This truly was an Education Revolution.
iPad Changes Everything 2 June, 2010
Posted by paralleldivergence in apple, education, ICT in Education, Internet, ipad, Life, technology.Tags: apple, education, ipad, Life, technology
24 comments
Every so often an invention comes along that is a game changer. Most of the really good ones like the Wheel, Electricity, Light Bulb and Plumbing pre-date me, but I am fortunate to live in a time where the rate of progress now is such that I can witness many of the newest breakthroughs first-hand. Arguably, the Apple iPad is one of these breakthroughs.
Image courtesy of philderksen
How many light bulbs does it take to change teaching? 3 January, 2010
Posted by paralleldivergence in education, ICT in Education, Internet, My Thoughts, technology.Tags: DER, Digital Education Revolution, edtech, ICT in Education
54 comments
Everyday my email inbox alerts me to at least one teacher who has become a new follower on Twitter. Now while I’m definitely not the best ed-tech guy in Twitterland to follow, I like to think that for each of those emails, a light bulb has switched on somewhere and a teacher is working to change, or at least keep up with the change that’s continually going on all around them.
photo courtesy of purplemattfish
You Better Start Swimmin’ or You’ll Sink Like a Stone 4 September, 2009
Posted by paralleldivergence in education, ICT in Education, Internet, Life, My Thoughts, Politics, technology.Tags: Digital Education Revolution, education, edutech, ICT in Education, iwbnet09, learning
21 comments
Today I “attended” an educational technologies conference. Well sort of. I wasn’t there, but then again, I was. IWBnet’s “Leading a Digital School” conference was on at the Gold Coast in sunny Queensland and while I was unable to be a delegate at the venue, I had the next best thing. Many of the delegates who were there, were happy to instantly share their experience with the rest of the world via Twitter.
Relive the IWBnet Conference via Visible Tweets
Is this Technically the Best 1:1 Rollout in the World? 20 August, 2009
Posted by paralleldivergence in education, ICT in Education, Internet, Life, My Thoughts, NSW, technology, windows.Tags: 1:1, Digital Education Revolution, education, laptops, Lenovo, NSWDET, students
15 comments
October 20, 2007 – Australian Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd is on the election campaign trail making a promise that made state governments, educational authorities and teachers shudder in their boots. While holding up a laptop which he referred to as “the toolbox of the 21st Century“, he promised to provide a computer to every high school student from grades 9 through 12. Then he became Prime Minister and the pressure was really on, because while he would provide the funding, the Federal Government does not control school education and would not be responsible for implementation – the individuals states would.
Which Teachers Should get a T1 Laptop? 26 June, 2009
Posted by paralleldivergence in education, ICT in Education, technology.Tags: 1:1, classroom, education, education revolution, laptops, Laptops4Learning, NSWDET
68 comments
The initial rollout of Laptop Computers as part of the New South Wales Digital Education Revolution is pretty clear-cut when it comes to students – ALL year 9 students will get one this year. But when it comes to teachers, the T1 rollout sees high schools receiving enough to cover only one-third of their staff. This begs the question, which teachers should get a T1 Laptop?
Lifelong Learning is NOT a 9 to 5 Job 14 June, 2009
Posted by paralleldivergence in education, ICT in Education, Internet, Life, technology.Tags: education, Life, lifelong learning, schools, teaching
12 comments
Late last year I attended my son’s high school graduation where speech after speech espoused the knowledge and skills that the Class of 2008 have gained over their thirteen years of schooling. As the students prepared for the next phase of their lives, it was heartening to hear that they all had been instilled with the fundamentals of lifelong learning. I wish.
Image by Tragicomedio
Still Waiting for the Revolution… 26 January, 2009
Posted by paralleldivergence in education, ICT in Education, Internet, NSW, Politics, technology.Tags: Alan Kay, Digital Education Revolution, education, ICT in Education, revolution
7 comments
Date Log: January 2009. Still waiting for the revolution.
Australia’s Digital Education Revolution is coming. Even before it started, it was identified that the $1.2 billion promised was not going to be enough, so now with the injection of a further $807 million, Educational Authorities across the country are investigating hardware options including laptops and wireless connectivity. But Dr Alan Kay is still not convinced that this will be the revolution our children need.
“Clickers” or “Virtual Clickers”? 8 January, 2009
Posted by paralleldivergence in Brad & Phil, education, ICT in Education, technology, windows.Tags: clicker, education, student response
4 comments
For a few years now, Personal Response Systems (PRS) and Student Response Systems (SRS) have been making major inroads into classrooms and lecture halls, particularly in Universities and Colleges. These “clicker” systems literally put engagement, motivation, participation and instant feedback into the palm of each student’s hand.
Getting Started with Class Blogs 21 April, 2008
Posted by paralleldivergence in blogging, Brad & Phil, children, education, ICT in Education, Internet, Life, technology, Web 2.0.Tags: blogs, classroom, education, schools, students, Web 2.0
7 comments
In the article “Why Teachers and Schools Should be Blogging“, I discussed the reasons and benefits of blogging in the classroom, but for the blogging-novice, there are student privacy, security and policy concerns that must be considered. Assuming you took notice of the content of that first article, this one will take you through the first steps of creating a class blog and is part of a series that will clarify and develop this process for teachers and schools starting out.
Brad & Phil’s Information R/evolution 25 November, 2007
Posted by paralleldivergence in Brad & Phil, education, film review, Half-Life 2, Humor, ICT in Education, Internet, Life, My Thoughts, technology, Web 2.0.10 comments
In early 2007, I discovered an amazingly-constructed video on YouTube by Dr Michael Wesch, an Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Kansas State University. The title of his video is “The Machine is Us/ing Us” and in under 5 minutes he managed to grab my attention like nothing else in recent times. If you’ve never seen this video, you really must- but you also must concentrate on it for full effect.
Unique and Complex Passwords for Everything 19 August, 2007
Posted by paralleldivergence in Brad & Phil, Internet, Life, passwords, security, technology.14 comments
When we were children, our “world” was a very small place. Everything that I knew was within a five-kilometer radius of my home. From time to time, I would catch a bus or a train that would take me out of my world, and into another. My little circular world was joined by a line to another small, temporary circular world when I went on holidays. While I realised that planet Earth was enormous, my world never got close to any of it. Then along came the Internet.
Parallel Divergence 