Creative ICT News

Do you really need whiteboard tools?

Yesterday I had the privilege of watching Doug Dickinson working with some teachers at Manor Road Primary School in Lancashire. It was a Textease CT training session, a product for which I am a trainer, and I hoped I was going to pick up some good tips on its use. I wasn't disappointed, it's always a pleasure to watch someone who is passionate about their subject and passionate about their product.

Afterwards Doug and I were chatting about Textease on a whiteboard and wondered why any schools using a product as powerful and flexible as Textease CT would be bothered to used the whiteboard tools supplied with their board. His argument was, "Why would you use software to teach and demonstrate, when that software is not available to the children on their pc?" And, to a large extent, I agree. If you have a Smartboard, your software licence allows you to install it on any pcs in your classroom, and I am certainly not alone in advocating that you install their excellent Smart Notebook software on every pc and laptop in your school. With a Promethean board this is much more problematic: a board only comes with five software licences so installing it on all your workstations will be a breach of your licence conditions. This amounts to a powerful reason not to buy their product, in my opinion.

The conversation got me thinking, "what would I miss in Smart Notebook" if I just used Textease on my whiteboard? Certainly Textease has some brilliantly simple tools  such as the spreadsheet tool and branching database tool which are a joy to use on a whiteboard and there is nothing comparable in Smart Notebook. I would miss the screenshade and spotlight tools in Smart Notebook, but the biggest loss for me would be the brilliant camera tools and screen recorder that Smart Notebook comes bundled with. In practice this is not a problem, as both of these utilities run independently of Smart Notebook, so it's quite straightforward to run these utilities while using the superb  Textease CT package as my  software of choice on my whiteboard - let's face it, if you've paid for a site licence for this product you want to extract maximum value!

Textease CT: Top Tips

Incidentally, if you haven't upgraded to Smart Notebook 10, then do so (get your Smartboard serial number noted before you go to the download site). There are some nice new features such as the new spotlight and magnifier tools.

Asus Eee PC Review

I'll begin by saying that I don't normally do hardware reviews as I am not really qualified to write them. However, Phil Birchinall from Computeam let me play with his Asus Eee PC the other day and was really excited about the potential of this device. First off, it's small and light, being only 9" across and has a brilliant 7" screen: much bigger than those you get on a pda/eda/smartphone. Add to that the ability to plug it in to your school network or work wirelessly, as well as a proper (compact) keyboard, and you have a device that could really make you think again about investing in laptops.

Plus Points for Schools

• No moving parts (solid state memory), i.e. rugged
• Very fast boot up (around ten seconds)
• Good battery life >3 hours
• Great screen - easy to read most websites
• Open Office installed
• Cheap (around £195 for the 4gb memory version)

Minus Points

• Very limited range of software
• Browser may not support all video formats  and Shockwave Flash e.g. I'm told it doesn't support the videos in Espresso
• Limited internal storage (2gb or 4gb versions) - won't be a problem in school when on your network, but may be a limiting factor on the road - solution: add a memory card
• Don't write essays on the compact keyboard

There are further developments in the pipeline, however, that give this device even more potential. An 8gb version is on the way, as well as a version that is running Windows Xp instead of Linux. I'm also told that they will add a GPRS version in the spring to enable you to hook up to the internet anywhere you can get a mobile phone signal (contracts for this type of service can be as little as £10 per month or can be bought casually, whenever you need to be mobile, e.g. on a residential.

In the brief time I used the device, I logged on to my blog site and found that it had no problem supporting Wordpress or Twitter or most of the other web services that I use, in fact it was a dream to use on these sites - particularly on Teachertube. My only word of caution, noted above, is to make sure that that it's compatible with any content that you've subscribed to.

In short, don't think of this device as a replacement for a laptop; it has nothing like the storage capacity or flexibility. However, if you want a device that provides an excellent browser and a suite of productivity software (wordprocessor, spreadsheet, presentation etc) it could be a great solution. The very fast boot time and long battery life alone should be enough to entice those among you who have (and I include myself) experienced endless frustration with under-specced wireless networks trying to cope with too many laptops at once with the added fun of batteries dying all over the place.

The only real problem may be getting your hands on one - they are proving extremely popular.

Other information about this device:

http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=3829

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC

http://eeepc.asus.com/global/

Smartboard Training at Haveley Hey

A screen recorder is a very useful tool. You can use it to make instructional videos of key skills, which could then be displayed on your school's blogsite or uploaded to a Virtual Learning Environment so that children or adults can view them whenever they need to. They can also be used to demonstrate learning, for example, make sure that you class has mastered the skill of totalling a column of numbers on a spreadsheet by making a quick video to demonstrate how to do it. As a higher order skill, get them to discuss critically the layout of a web page or presentation that they have made using the mouse to highlight points while they narrate.

Here's a link to a movie made using Smart Screen Recorder

The story of whiteboard safety is not a new one, but was flagged up again lat week on the BBC technology website.

Get Scratching

Teaching children about computer programming can be a very disheartening experience. Just make one mistake and the whole thing fails to work. It's true, there are children in your class that love to look at a set of Logo instructions to try and spot the missing square bracket, but for the majority, it's just another failure. Scratch is a brand new programming environment that allows children to "jigsaw" instructions together making it much harder to allow simple syntax errors to creep in. Produced by Massachussets Institute for Technology, Scratch is a brand new free download that allows you to animate characters, create games, your own virtual environments etc. There is plenty of help via simple tutorial downloads and videos. It is an absolute killer download for computer clubs, gifted and talented children (those kids in your class who are well on the way to becoming computer geeks already) and anyone wanting to extend programming skills beyond basic Logo. This software has such great potential that I can already imagine people setting up courses for teachers at your local teacher centre.

Just one thing, the BBC announced the software on their technology page today and the site is already creaking under the download strain, so you might need to wait a day or two to download it.

One of the best pieces of educational freeware ever?

I wish I'd found this before

Upcoming.org is a brilliantly simple web application that allows you to post details of any event that you are organising online. People can sign up online, view guest lists, add tags for searching. I wish I knew about it a few weeks ago when I started to promote my spring conference! You can now sign in at:

http://upcoming.org/event/174836/

Simple.

Video Conferencing and Some Free Web Apps

Video Conferencing

A few years ago video conferencing was set to be big news in education, yet it has singularly failed to take off. It has remained the preserve of one-off “special projects”, which while entirely laudable, have required so much organisation and technical back-upthat they were never going to become part of the everyday classroom. The reason for this is the local authority broadband network. These networks are so tight that it requires special access to allow video conference feeds through the firewalls, thus requiring extensive liaison and testing before a conference can take place.

Recently, I’ve spotted a couple of web applications that might just get round these issues and allow schools to set up web conferences without involving any party beyond the folks doing the conferencing.

Flashmeeting is a newish web app from the Open University that requires no downloads at all and works entirely in a web browser.

Yugma does require a download, but no tinkering with access ports and may be more secure than Flashmeeting.

Both look as though they are worth trying out, and I would be interested in hearing from anyone who wants to test either of these video conferencing applications by setting up a conference with me! Drop me a line and we’ll set up a date and time.

Displays

Despite the faintly disconcerting photo on its homepage, Blockposter.com is a truly great web application. Simply upload your chosen image, decide how big you want the poster to be and then download the resulting file for printing. It turns images into A4 tiles, so you just have to jigsaw the pieces together on your display board. The results can be absolutely stunning. I’d love to receive some photos of displays created with this site.

While on the subject of art, Artpad is a fun little package. It’s just a simple painting package, but allows you to “replay” the painting that you have just made as a Flash animation.

Harriers Greenzone

The northwest’s most prestigious athletics club has chosen Creative ICT to set up a blog site for its newly opened Study Support Centre in Wythenshaw. The official launch is this Friday and Creative ICT will be suporting children blogging and podcasting the opening event with celebrities such as British Olympic sprint relay champion, Darren Campbell and dignitaries from the world of UK athletics and Manchester City Council.

Click here to visit the Harriers Greenzone

To discuss how blogging can raise standards in literacy and create a truly interactive school website, email: john@creativeict.co.uk

Resources

Don’t forget that all these free resources and many more can be found at http://del.icio.us/creativeict

Birmingham NEC Exhibition

I still have a couple of seats left for my trip to the Education Show at the NEC on Thursday 22nd March (departure 8:30 from Stockport station). Drop me a line if you are interested.