Dell, a year later.

Well, after being given bad marks for their Windows 8 model lineup last year, Dell have been back to the drawing board and come up with some options that are more School-friendly.  It's nice to see the fight to take Dell private isn't interfering with the day-to-day business.  Well, at least not right at the moment.

After being given detention last year for the bizarre juxtaposition of the XPS 10 and the Latitude 10, Dell have done their homework and handed in a couple of decent assignments.  Or at least they turned up to class and made it look like they were working, the product looks promising but we haven't been able to assess it properly yet.



Dell have been getting around doing roadshows for their clients again and at the one I attended recently, the sales guys came armed with a couple of new models that piqued my interest.  The first was a new 11 inch touch enabled Netbook available in Intel or AMD (pending confirmation), starting at AUD$500.  The jury was still out at Dell as to whether the machine would actually ship with an AMD (Kabini core) CPU, but the Intel version was confirmed.  It will bear the recently revived Celeron brand, which is just the Bay Trail Atom platform in (poor) disguise.  Having adopted the Clover Trail Atom this year, we can assume this will represent good computing power for the dollars.  That and a touch-screen for that money makes for a decent little device that should run Windows 8 quite competently.  Much better than the previous generations of Netbook, that were too crippled to even run Windows XP Starter Edition, which was one or two generations older than the current Windows OS at the time.  The device itself looks and feels nice too, but that's all I can say at this point.  The example I saw was a piece of wood and plastic, not actually a working example, and some specs such as the SSD/eMMC used were a little hazy, but it's clear that Dell are aiming this at schools, who previously bought up tons of these sorts of machines.  It'll remain to be seen whether those schools can wash the bad taste of old-school Netbooks out of their mouths and put down their fisher-price tablets or cheap-and-cheerful Chromebooks to consider this sort of device.

Dell is also packing a Surface competitor in it's new lineup.  By that I mean, they'll be selling an Intel Core i series tablet with a magnetic keyboard-cover.  Sounds familiar.  The Dell Surface knock-off isn't as pretty as the Microsoft device (I have no pictures to back that up, it wasn't allowed), but it is designed to be more serviceable, including things like a removable battery and some clue how you might open it up.  It does come with an active stylus - also like Surface - which should make those schools that drank the pen based computing Kool-Aid happy.  Pricing was indicated to be competitive with Surface Pro as well, so it looks like there might be a viable enterprise-grade alternative out there soon.

Not bad Dell.  I'd give you an A, but I'll wait until I'm able to mark your work first.  Last year, I went to two of these Dell Roadshow events, and this one had more interesting new gear than the last two put together.  Last year, all they had was the XPS-12, which was fine, but not student-friendly.  Nice to see some improvement.  I await further details and the NDA's to lift.

Surface Pro 2, Better for Schools (maybe)

After the announcement of Microsoft Surface last year, many schools got excited about the prospect of this highly capable device raising the bar for tablets in an education setting.  Then it shipped and the reality was that it was incredibly hard to get hold of, the service arrangements were poor, and the battery didn't have a full school day in it.



Recently though, word has leaked on a new and improved Surface Pro 2 is on the way, which thanks to Intel's new Haswell CPU architecture may promise more than a school day on battery as well as a RAM bump, a better kickstand and even some interesting accessories. There are even rumours of a new type cover that will contain a second battery (because although v2 may sport up to 7 hours battery, that's still not as good as competing Haswell devices).

the device was only available through retail channels, with the usual return-to-base-and-wait-until-the-next-ice-age warranty

Sounds great doesn't it?  It might even be released and available in time for the end of the summer school break... in the U.S!
Of course there's the catch, those of us in countries outside of the U.S. had to wait so long for Surface Pro last time that the tablet was practically obsolete by the time we saw it.  Moreover, the device was only available through retail channels, with the usual return-to-base-and-wait-until-the-next-ice-age warranty, making it even less appealing to education.

So, I guess I'm being pessimistic, but based on previous form, I have to say that while Surface Pro 2 could be the best tablet for schools, possibly the only thing likely to stop it is the company that makes it.  So there's a challenge Microsoft, prove me wrong!

Digital Tourists

Maybe it's slightly off-topic for this blog, but I recently read this great article titled Kids Can't Use Computers... And This Is Why It Should Worry You and I thought I'd add my 2c worth to the debate.  After all, I've spent the last 15 years watching students and teachers use of and attitudes to Computers change.

Some time ago, a very intelligent man called Marc Prensky temporarily abandoned his intellect and coined the term "Digital Natives".  That term has probably been unfairly extrapolated on and taken out of context, but is largely taken to refer to those who were born in a world with computers and the internet and therefore can better use their "native" technological gadgets.  That theory is wrong.  Kids certainly don't have the fear of technology older generations might, but that's about where it ends.  A teacher/techie I know once used the term "Digital Contiki Tourists" which meant, to paraphrase a little -  they were on the tour bus, supposedly getting an appreciation for the actual natives, but all they want to do is hang out the side of the bus and go "wheeeheeyyy", hit the nightclub and go on the rollercoaster.



Firstly though, I have to say although I did enjoy the article linked above, the author crosses the line more than once, slipping into the chest-pounding "I am UberNerd, Hear me Roar" persona.  Which, as he's a Linux fan reminds me again that this slight disconnectedness from reality is a little too common from that corner of the computing world.  In particular, the author opines:

"He asks what he needs to do, and I suggest he reinstalls Windows. He looks at me blankly. He can’t use a computer."

I don't believe the ability to install an operating system is a core skill the average user should need.  Sure, it's handy to know how, but I actually think the need to do this is a result of poor system design in the first place.

"While I was busy deleting my on-line accounts and locking down my machines, my friends called me paranoid and made jokes about tinfoil hats."

This is as a direct reaction to Snowden and PRISM?  Your friends were right, you are paranoid.  You're worried about privacy while happily blogging every second opinion that occurs to you?  Those two things are incompatible.  Also, traditional privacy doesn't exist on the internet, forget about it.

"When they hit eleven, give them a plaintext file with ten-thousand WPA2 keys and tell them that the real one is in there somewhere. See how quickly they discover Python or Bash then."

This is the author suggesting that you tease your own kids using wifi access as bait.  Now that's just being an arse.  How about the kids hide your car keys somewhere in the house and make you search a list of locations to find them.  Not so clever now you're late for work eh?

"Google and Facebook give kids money if they manage to find and exploit security vulnerabilities in their systems. In schools we exclude kids for attempting to hack our systems. Is that right?"

Yes, it is right.  I and every teacher I work with would agree to draw the line at any 'learning' that has the ability to negatively impact everyone else.  <sarcasm>Why don't we teach kids about combustion by giving them a box of matches and a can of petrol and letting them go nuts!</sarcasm>

... But I Digress.

Sorry for staring the article by going off on a somewhat negative tangent.  Despite that, I do agree with the premise of the article.  Modern computing is easy to use, which is a great thing when you need to get work done.  It just has a downside of no longer forcing people to learn as much about using their computing device, which means when things go wrong they feel more confused and affronted than ever before.  So, I've picked out the bits I don't agree with, now let's look at some positives:

Oh… I guess these days you must find that the kids know more about computers than the teachers….

This isn't just a teacher being offended at the suggestion that some hormonally imbalanced adolescents might be able to teach them a thing or two.  They probably could, but most of the time it'd be how to complete a level of Angry Birds.  The fact of the matter is, our little "Digital Natives" save documents and have no idea where they went or what they were called, and that's just the start of it.

The parents seem to have some vague concept that spending hours each evening on Facebook and YouTube will impart, by some sort of cybernetic osmosis, a knowledge of PHP, HTML [etc].

The parents?  How about the teachers, administrators and many involved in designing curriculum for the past decade?  Thankfully we may be out of that period now, but schooling for a while now has operated under the assumption that IT skills didn't need to be formally taught, that it could be 'integrated'.  Which meant teachers who "can't use computers" asked students who "can't use computers" to use computers in a vicious cycle of the blind leading the blind.  It even worked sometimes (because of better teachers, probably), just to muddy the waters.  But generally, it didn't and formal IT of some sort might even make a comeback soon.  Hurray!

Not really knowing how to use a computer is deemed acceptable if you’re twenty-five or over. It’s something that some people are even perversely proud of

I had to highlight this.  It's something I've noticed for a long time now.  It's usually the same person who sounds offended at the mere suggestion that they understand the thing they're using to access Facebook or Instragram.  Those that proudly espouse their ignorance like we should give them a medal for it.  These people that still think a person who can use a computer competently is some sort of 1980's stereotype, something straight out of "Revenge of the Nerds".  People I've known like this tend to extend this attitude to the knowledge of anything else they deem uncool.  These are the people Martin Luther King Jr. was talking about when he said "nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity".

Mobile has killed technical competence

Has it?  Mobile technology is still in its infancy and I really don't think it's that mature you can blame it completely.  Certainly a whole community of Android hackers was given life by mobile technology.  I will certainly concede though that the 'point, shoot, upload' mentality has dulled the average user.  This is a disappointing consequence of convenience, more than anything.  The real enemy here might be distraction.  It started with web-based games.  It's just too easy to waste time in class gaming, rather than waste time in class tinkering! ;)

Stop fixing things for your kids

Not a problem for most parents if this article is accurate.  Apparently they couldn't fix much anyway.  They probably know someone who can though, so it's a valid point and I'll certainly by trying this out with my own children when they're old enough.  "I had to fix my own computer sonny, and walk 30 miles through the driving snow in bare feet to get a copy of Asteroids, then another 30 for the joystick, then it took a week to load!".

A hundred years ago, if you were lucky enough to own a car then you probably knew how to fix it

These days, everyone should know how to install and remove software, and everyone should know how to change a tyre.  I get it.  But I 'tyre' (sorry) or the analogy, it's wheely bad (okay, I'll stop now).  Cars are probably the most recent, pervasive new technology that people can think of so they keep trying to liken computers to cars.  The fact of the matter is that computers are almost everywhere, and will be everywhere else eventually.  The need to understand them is greater.  There's a computer in my car, there's not a car in my computer!

So, I think it's evident that there's a problem.  The real question is, are we able to fix the problem, or has it got away from us?  The last decade of rapid technological change and increasing ease of use, against a backdrop of ignorant educational philosophy has probably driven the wedge too far.  I feel like we can stem the tide, but never turn it back.  Not a wholly cheerful way to end, but probably the most realistic way.

Will Acer be the post-PC era's first casualty?

UPDATE: - Acer have refuted the claim below in this official response.  ARN also dismisses the original article, and we've been contacted directly by an Acer BDM with a similar objection  We've received some assurance that Acer will still support education customers (see comments section, below), although to what level and whether it includes all customers in all regions remains unclear (if unsure, you should contact your local Acer person).

According to Channel News, Acer Australia has taken a serious hit from the recent decline in PC sales, and are reacting by scaling back their Australian operations, sacking staff, stopping manufacturing and ending field-service operations after seeing an almost 40% loss in sales.

This puts things in an interesting context for us as a school.  Have we just dodged a bullet?  The Acer w510 was one of a shortlist of devices in contention for our 1:1 computing program.  It only missed out by a narrow margin, but now that I hear quotes like these, some of which were sourced from Acer employees, I think I should be happy the Acer just missed out:

"Acer Australia will cease production of PC's for schools"

"The intent is to wind down all field service operations and move to a return to base warranty model across the board"

This reminds me of another recent disaster that befell a number of Australian schools when Optima went out of business.  While not that same level of disaster, this still doesn't look good for those relying on onsite service contracts.

Of course, Acer will still be able to service their equipment, albeit in a return-to-base manner, but it would seem they now intend to operate more like a Samsung, ASUS or Apple in future.  Leaving the Enterprise hardware supply to the big boys (Lenovo, Dell and HP).  Enterprise wont miss them, but I'm sure some schools and small businesses will.

Did Google just disrupt IT in the Classroom?

I think they did, and for $35 no less!

The recent announcement of the Google Chromecast creates some interesting possibilities for streaming content to TV's and projectors in classrooms.  Sure, I know what a lot of people are thinking - AppleTV can already do this.  But the difference here is that this is genuinely cross-platform, and not content dependent.  Unlike the AppleTV, you don't have to worry about whether the app you want to stream supports it.  Because it's relying on the Chrome browser to initiate the stream you're effectively locked in to web content, which is actually a good thing as far as I can see.  We know The Cloud is the future of education, so this helps accelerate that switch by encouraging teachers to think in a "cloud-first" way.  Let's also not forget that you can use this from any Windows, Mac, Android, Chrome OS or iOS device, so schools with multi-platform or BYOD environments should love it.

We know The Cloud is the future of education

The way the Chromecast works is limited, in that I assume you can't just broadcast everything that's happening on your screen like you can with something like MiraCast, but it bears the tradeoff that the Chromecast device is largely autonomous in the process, so once the stream is started the end-user stands less chance of interfering with it accidentally and they can continue using their device as normal.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/Tp9VA71eBew]

It's early days yet, so it's unclear if the little gadget works exactly as it appears, but at this point, who cares?  For $35 you can bet we'll be trying it out, and even if you only get half the expected functionality, at that price it's still great value!

... now all they need to do is release it outside the US!:

We Have Liftoff!

We're done!  I know there's still work to be done supporting the initiative, but our 1:1 program has been officially launched - and Houston, we don't have a problem.  The computers were distributed to students and parents at a series of presentations given last week and early this week.

The turnout was great, and the reaction of both parents and students was similarly great.  Our little Windows 8 based Envy x2's impressed both them and us.  They have an appealing aesthetic and a sturdy quality about them, both of which parents like to see.

Our presentation to parents was a mix of playing hardball with the "care and use" message whilst trying to convey some excitement about the program.  We used a bit of video in our presentation.  My favourite was this ad for Windows 8 (see below), which uses a young boy, very close to the age of our students to show that Windows 8 is easy to use (which it is, given the right device):

[youtube=http://youtu.be/ckEGxTeEOtE]

Our presentation content was reasonably good, and our delivery improved with each one.  We learned a few things about what's important to parents, so next time around we should be able to refine and improve the process, and the program itself.

Windows 8 Apps for Education

With our new Windows 8 tablet program about to debut, I thought I'd post some resources.  The app environment for Windows 8 (through the Windows Store) has got off to a good start with a lot of new software available in the store.  There are about 100,000 apps available at the time of writing, according to metrostorescanner.com. So here are a few lists of apps relevant to education:

• Microsoft Australia, Education Blog, Windows 8 Education Apps


• Microsoft Australia again, with another list of Education Apps


• Babbel's Language Learning Apps


• Another short list from Microsoft, this time from MSDN


• A list of apps produced by the people at "teachnology"


• A list from app indexing site, Applooker


• The full list of (currently) 14,000 education apps on Metroscanner

That'll do for now.  There are more apps being added every day, I'll update with more lists as I find them.

Just sayin'

Okay, I don't want to start a fight!

But I am going to draw an Apple / Microsoft comparison here so if you're the sort of person who's head is likely to explode as a result, taking this post down the same road as these guys, then look away now!

Microsoft have started producing some ads that compare Windows 8 tablets to the iPad.  Some of the ads are a little tongue-in-cheek, and some are bizarre (unless there's a cultural thing I don't get).  But this simple one actually cuts through to a couple of truths that speak to why we and our teachers couldn't bring ourselves to adopt the iPad as a platform.  There's more to it than just these few features (it's quite a complex issue actually).  But these are some of the things people struggle with initially when considering an iPad anywhere where they might need to do work, and these are some of the stumbling blocks our iPad trial kept on hitting.  So, here it is, make of it what you will:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/zgu9uo2UpPg]

... Oh, and there's a third side to this comparison, which is Android tablets.  That's another similarly complicated thing altogether.  All I'll say on that is, always remember it's at least a three-horse race! ;)

1:1 Program Device

http://youtu.be/BXb4m7ZeiTw

It's a little late but I can reveal that the device selected for our 1:1 program for this year is the HP Envy x2 (as shown above).  The device was clearly the most robust and solidly built of the three on our shortlist.  We're quite confident that it'll be the best way to get started with Windows 8, and Tablet devices.  The combination of sturdy and attractive design with long battery life and a few other bonus features meant the Envy was a great all-round performer with no considerable flaws.

As I mentioned, the unit sports some bonus features that helped convince us of it's worth.  The inclusion of an NFC chip opens up some interesting possibilities with tap-to-share and other things such as smart posters.  The use of Beats Audio in the device appeared to be a gimmick at first, but it certainly helped it punch out sound that was much more clear and audible than it's competitors.  The keyboard dock sports a full-size HDMI port, which is a welcome addition as well, micro ports are okay, but the heavy cable attached by such a small connector seems like it could break easily (and it's easier and cheaper to source a full-size cable).

So, we push on with our program, and thank HP and Anittel for supplying us with this cute little machine.

Battery tests and a battery of tests.

So, we're about done with testing all of our three candidate devices (see previous post), and it's been an interesting time to say the least.

Our testing consists of several parts.  There are several layers of technical evaluation these machines go through such as hardware performance, battery life and suitability for our imaging systems (Symantec Ghost currently, but increasingly this will be Microsoft SCCM).  Then there are the more subjective tests such as staff reaction and feedback and our own take on durability and functionality (such as connectivity options and other hardware features).  I can honestly say that I don't know of a school who puts their candidate machines through such a series of tests.  I also don't know how those schools manage to make informed decisions without it.

So, the results of our tests are below but before we move on to them, a quick word about the problems we've encountered with these devices so far.  Particularly the HP.
None of the three devices is without fault.  The biggest problems with the Samsung are the poor design of the mechanism that holds the tablet into the keyboard and it's video drivers.  Sometimes the Tablet comes loose from the keyboard when it's being transported and the video drivers seem to have real trouble playing back video with effects and transitions in Movie Maker.  The Acer had issues connecting to our wireless network and staying connected, and it's tablet flaps about in the keyboard dock like the sail of a Tall Ship.  The HP doesn't have any noticeable design or software faults (except for maybe being too top-heavy, but they all suffer from that), it's problems come from HP being HP.  After a lot of painful to and fro with our reseller HP have finally confirmed that they will be able to repair the device for the 3 years we'll be using it.  We asked all resellers to provide pricing on parts for out-of-warranty repairs, and only HP failed to do this.  They've now come through with this information but it was incredibly difficult to get a response out of them.  At one point the reseller was preparing to withdraw their quote because even they'd lost faith in HP.  The reason for this is probably because HP no longer have a representative in our state, instead they've split the role between three states.

Finally, I also should note that all three machines are very difficult from an SOE (image) deployment and maintenance standpoint.  They all use a 32-bit pure UEFI BIOS, which is inherently difficult to work with to boot off the network or manage the HDD partitions, but it's also quite new, meaning there's not a lot of good information out there on dealing with it.

Anyway, enough with the waffle.  Our test results for the three machines are below:

[caption id="attachment_297" align="aligncenter" width="604"] Not a lot of difference here, HP using slightly faster chips for their eMMC (not to be confused with a genuine SSD) drive. Nowhere near as fast as a 'proper' solid-state drive.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_295" align="aligncenter" width="604"] The light weight of the Acer seems to come at a cost of build-quality, and the surprise here is the Samsung, being the most 'plastic' of the lot but still the heaviest. The HP falls in the middle despite being the most solidly built.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_296" align="aligncenter" width="604"] This is definitely the strength of the Acer, it's near 20 hour battery is the best we've ever seen. It carries the problem of taking an eternity to fully charge though. We tend to find the 'real-world' battery life falls between the times in the two tests we've run here. The Samsung is the only one with a single battery, which let it down a little.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_294" align="aligncenter" width="604"] This test is quite subjective. The scores represent an interpretation of our reactions and those of other staff, and show the Acer's main failing being it's general appearance of cheapness vs the HP's more pleasing aesthetic. In my opinion, the only thing keeping the Samsung from falling further down the list was brand-recognition.[/caption]

The tests probably show the HP as the leader overall, not failing any test and excelling in the user-reaction portion of the tests.  I should point out that more tests were done on video-encoding speed, CPU benchmarking, software-imaging compatibility and wifi reception.  These results were either uninteresting or in the case of CPU and video-encoding, almost identical results.  We've not shown them here to keep the length of the article short(er).

Lies and Damn Lies Not Included

Recently, we've been gathering some information on the progress of our BYOD program, which reminded me of some research we did last year when planning for our 1:1 program.

We'd been keen to know what other schools were planning for their computing fleet, particularly given the recent changes to the I.T. landscape (I'm speaking specifically of the iPad, Android and touch-enabled devices).  Using connections I had with networks of I.T. Managers and E-Learning people I put together a survey.  The survey was constructed with the intention of finding out what the future computing device plans were for schools in general.  It received over 100 replies and helped dispel a few myths that were emanating throughout our College and other's.  Below are the pretty graphical results of that survey, with my take on what the statistics (lies, damn lies not included) mean.  I figure 15 years experience with Education I.T. puts me in a good place to interpret the responses:

[caption id="attachment_267" align="aligncenter" width="604"] This represents the way things are now. The Windows platform accounts for the large majority, but that’s less than the 90% or so it accounts for outside of education.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_268" align="aligncenter" width="549"] Schools were asked whether they intended to change from their answer in the previous question. Interestingly, over half of schools have no plans to move away from what they’re doing now.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_269" align="aligncenter" width="547"] Here we see what those changing are switching to. Investigating multiple platforms or just Windows 8 seems to be the theme. Note the interest in BYOD.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_270" align="aligncenter" width="548"] This essentially combines those two situations in the previous graph.  It shows all responses that indicate a change to one platform, or multiple including that platform. Note again, the BYOD.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_271" align="aligncenter" width="604"] Most of the schools changing are doing it on what they consider to be a large scale, few seem to be small-scale changes.  This gives the data on proposed changes more credibility.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_273" align="aligncenter" width="545"] This shows which grade-groups schools are targeting with the change in their fleet.
Very few primary-only schools responded, so they aren’t well represented here.
This probably indicates that most schools are changing school-wide (note middle-school grades weren't an option, this may have yielded more information).[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_274" align="aligncenter" width="546"] No surprises here, this may just mimic the wider installed base of systems. It may also indicate those involved in laptop computing on more mature platforms seeing little need to change.[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_266" align="aligncenter" width="545"] NSW respondents number the highest, with Tasmania well represented.
Many thanks to the TISIT and MITIE forums for providing the responses.[/caption]

To sum up.  The information gathered shows few schools diverging massively from what they were doing before.  This is apparent when you take into account that most moving to Windows 8 are probably using a previous Windows already, which is more of a logical upgrade path than a sweeping change.  Schools changing to iOS aren't nearly as widespread as some may have thought and poor old Linux an Android lag behind the rest.  With respect to the latter, that story is far from over, particularly if Google can sort out a few interoperability issues.  Time will tell.

I hope you found this as interesting as I did.

Too big for your boots!

Okay, so Microsoft produced a great product in Windows 7, and a good, but rough product with Windows 8. Windows 8 feels like early Windows XP in some ways, given a few updates to the OS, it could be great.  In fact if you factor in what they're trying to achieve with Win 8, it's pretty darn good.  Nobody else has even come close to being able to unify a desktop and mobile OS yet.

Anyway, so one of the quirks of Windows 8 is the App Store, which bears a few problems that stem from Microsoft's apparent need to be more 'Apple-like' (for reasons known only to them). The Apple App Store model is primarily an online retail beast, designed to sell software to individuals, rather than entities like corporations so it baffles me when I try to understand why Microsoft have decided to replicate that at the expense of the large installations (like businesses and schools, for example) that they've gone to great lengths to help over the years.
One might think that if your modus operandi was to develop software with these organisations in mind that you might build in some features appropriate to them. Failing that, one might think that you'd at least try not to make it IMPOSSIBLE to use!

If you're not following, what I'm referring to is the complete inability to purchase apps from the app store on any basis other than a purely individual one. Something that schools in particular, require. Currently the only way to buy an app in the Windows Store is to use a credit card or Paypal. So if you're a teacher who's identified a paid app you'd like your students to use, you might find that few of your cohort of 12 year-olds have their AmEx handy!
Microsoft have in their organisation a division (business unit, or whatever they call them) called Volume Licensing whose concern is to help people purchase, access and deploy their software en masse.  So you could be forgiven for thinking that maybe, if you were setting up a store to sell software (en masse), you might include the expertise of this division.
But if you did think that you'd be wrong, because if you're a business, school or some other group and you want to buy an app for all in your organisation you have absolutely no way of doing so. None. I know you can side-load apps from the store, but only if the app developer creates a specific type of package and sells it to you using some method other than the store. I somehow don't think that makers of simple educational apps are going to be bothered with doing that.

Have Microsoft thought about what this does to their App ecosystem at all I wonder? If I put myself in the shoes of a developer of a popular Windows 8 Store App targeted at education I have two choices when putting my app in the store. I can a) release it for free, taking the kudos and no money, or b) put it up as a paid app that students can't buy, have no-one download it and still not make any money.
Forget distributing it as an appx package, no one is going to do that apart from the big software houses, and why should they have to? Have Apple beaten Microsoft at their own game by having a Volume Licensing scheme for their own apps?

In trying to research this problem we've spoken to Microsoft employees at the App Store, and Volume Licensing (two divisions which in true MS style, don't appear to talk to each other). Our question to the app store about this problem was met with a bemused "we'd never thought of that" response. Moreover, the person at the App Store helpfully suggested that a way to purchase apps for a group of students might be to purchase them all under one account, then you can just install a copy on each machine from that account. Great, until we mentioned the device-limit of 5 installs per app (yes, believe it or not we had to tell them about their own limit). So the app store people failed us, and the volume licensing people told us it wasn't their problem.

It turns out there might be a solution on the horizon, albeit a bad one. But frustratingly the people at the app store didn't know that literally days after asking them the question "can we give students some sort of voucher to buy their apps with" and being told "no", that we soon will be able to. Pending reliability of The Verge and its sources, we've discovered there will be a voucher available soon that works across all Microsoft stores that we can give to kids to buy apps. It's still not the most elegant solution, but at least it's something (albeit essentially where the Apple store was at 3 years ago).

[caption id="attachment_158" align="aligncenter" width="423"] Real or fantasy? The unconfirmed Microsoft giftcard, according to The Verge.[/caption]

So, I'll finish this off by inviting Apple and Google fanbois a rare opportunity. I know you love to laugh at Microsoft when you get the chance, so pull up a seat and poke some fun at the Redmond clowns with me over this insulting oversight.

UPDATE: - No more news on the gift-card concept.  Either it's planned for release alongside Windows 8.1 or The Verge were merely peddling their usual quality of rumour.

UPDATE 2: - This feature of Microsoft SCCM 2012 SP1 looks quite promising.  No indication that it can handle paid apps at this stage but I'd bet that's in the works.

 

And then there were three.

Okay, so let's start by skipping to the end.  We have our quotes in for the Year 7 1:1 program devices and the three candidate machines are:

The Samsung Ativ Smart PC 500t

[caption id="attachment_287" align="aligncenter" width="543"] A tablet that unlike the others features an active stylus. It's the best equipped with connectivity options. It's also the same as the machine I've been using to test this form-factor and the hardware platform in general.[/caption]

The Acer Iconia w510

[caption id="attachment_285" align="aligncenter" width="543"] The cheap and cheerful one in the bunch. At first it seems like a slightly tacky unit but as soon as you witness the insanely good battery life it becomes apparent that this unit is a about function over form.[/caption]

The HP Envy x2

[caption id="attachment_286" align="aligncenter" width="522"] The pretty-boy of the bunch. If the Acer or the Samsung are function first, this one is probably form first, but it shouldn't be assumed that it's build quality is any less because of it. First impressions are that HP have the most robust contender.[/caption]

 

Choosing between these three will be a difficult process.  Presumably, it'll be more about the form, robustness and connectivity than it will the performance.  All three machines are based on the Intel Atom platform, which is quite tightly controlled specification wise.  The similarity is likely due to the price cap we'd been given for the program.  An Intel Core i series chip would've been too expensive, and that only leaves ARM-based hardware or the Atom, and ARM would mean running Windows RT, which we've no interest in.  The other reason resellers have picked the Atom platform is for its exceptional battery life.  All three tablets boast 10+ hours on battery (and many times more in sleep mode).  The Atoms also have the 'connected standby' feature, which is particularly interesting, plus allow for the lightest ant thinnest designs of any chipset out there.

We received quotes from seven resellers, two of which failed to submit a quote and another two submitted quotes for machines that didn't meet our specifications.  In both cases the sub-spec hardware was the Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet 2, another Atom tablet, which lacked a suitable pointing device in its Bluetooth keyboard and only had one USB port.

So, we have three to choose from.  It'll be interesting to see how they stack up, particularly from the teachers' point of view.

Bring it!

So, we've had our BYOD program running for a couple of months now, and I recently felt it was time turn our attention back to it, and it's users.  We firstly needed to catch up and fix a few things we'd promised to do for the students, and secondly we needed an update from them and their teachers on how it's going overall.

In our "setup sessions" (run at the start of the year to get BYO students connected) we alluded to a few more services we'll be putting at their disposal, and that we'll be keeping them informed with some help and documentation.

An example of such a service is the Terminal Server we've recently given the students access to.  The idea here is to allow them to use software and network services they can't get at from their own computer.  For example, some students have a Mac, but some subjects use Windows packages that don't have a Mac alternative.  The Mac users can use the Remote Desktop client for Mac to access those incompatible programs.  Another advantage provided by the Terminal Server is access to a standard Windows print environment.  The students currently access printers from our Papercut installation, they upload a document to a web-interface and it's printed for them.  It works well, but doesn't allow them to access the more advanced printer features provided by the native driver.  This means they can't select double-sided as an option, select different weight or size of paper, or easily print only a selection of pages from a document.  By logging on to the Terminal Server  they get access to all the features supported by the printer.
The Terminal Server is a good solution to these problems, but it's a little more difficult than I'd like.  A serious VDI solution is definitely the best way to go here, but that sort of thing is far too pricey at the moment, sadly.  If the price comes down we'll be very keen to move to something like that though.

When we set our BYOD students up at the beginning of the year we asked them to keep an eye on their e-mail for new developments, and we've made use of that several times now.  Recently we've started sending out a bit more documentation.  How to access the Terminal Server mentioned above was one example, but we've also followed up on our setup sessions with reference documentation on the topics we covered.
We're not content to stop there though, while we've got an audience we figure it's best to offer them some help and tips where we can.  So, given the surprising number of Windows 8 PC's we've seen students using, we emailed them a cheat-sheet of Windows 8 shortcut keys.  Many students have a non-touch Windows 8 computer, which isn't the ideal device for that OS, but it can be much better if you know the keyboard shortcuts.  We've also mailed out little helpers for configuring Internet Explorer to work best on our LAN and a few other little tips too.

I think all of this is very important, so that the students know they're not being left to their own devices (excuse the pun).  We need to convey that they're a welcome guest on our network, and that they can still expect a level of service from the I.T. Department.  And in speaking to teachers and students, they certainly seem happy enough with everything so far.  There's probably not enough access to power for charging, but the feeling was generally positive.  I'd like to get a more solid measurement of that feeling sometime, so we might look into that later in the year.  But for now, all seems well.

Atomic Testing

So, I’m currently typing this blog post on the first test machine that we’ve actually spent money on (as opposed to getting a temporary eval. model from a reseller).

It’s a Samsung Ativ Smart PC.  The entry-level Windows 8 tablet from Samsung running on a Clover-Trail Intel Atom platform, with a 64Gb eMMC (more on that later) and 2Gb RAM.  The dual-core Atom immediately felt like it was in a totally different league to the old Atom-based HP Mini netbook I used to have.

[caption id="attachment_259" align="aligncenter" width="567"] Samsung's Ativ and Intel's Roadmap for the Atom.[/caption]

It’s probably a testament to Microsoft’s work on keeping the system requirements for Windows from getting ridiculous like they had in the days of Windows Vista.  The overhead for Windows 7 and 8 isn’t really that different, which has allowed the lower-level hardware to catch up a bit.

There's a very tiny jitter in the start-screen when scrolling back and forth, probably due to the lower-power integrated graphics chip.  But said jitter is occasional, and so hard to notice that you have to point it out to people, and even then you can blink and miss it.  So no big deal there.

I’ve typed a few pages on this device and I' have to say, for a small machine the keyboard is fantastic, I’m able to type at the same speed as I would on my expensive desktop PC keyboard (sadly, it can’t help my poor spelling though).

It’s actually not shy on connectivity options either.  For those of us who don’t share the iPad’s “less-is-more” design ethic, there's welcome inclusion of one full-size USB port on the tablet and two on the keyboard.  Real work requires USB, so that’s great.  The tablet also sports a micro HDMI port and a MicroSD slot.  The other bonus feature is the S-Pen, a proper active stylus that’s pressure-sensitive and as accurate as a Wacom digitiser.  It lacks the eraser found on some, which is a small shame.

It’s got some bad that comes with the good though.  The buttons on the touchpad have nothing to indicate where the left button and right button meet.  The charger is tiny, which is great, except so is the connector, it’s one tiny pin isn’t very kid-friendly, and is likely to get bent.  The biggest disappointment though, is the way the tablet docks to the keyboard, the bizarre clip mechanism fails a lot on this test machine.  More often than not, you’ll pick up the tablet and the keyboard will fall off.  You have to be quite forceful to be sure it clips securely.

But this test machine wasn’t as much about the individual features of the Ativ as it was about giving one of these new Atom-based tablets a thorough test.  Which isn’t going so bad at the time of writing.  Nothing I’ve tried to do has made the device seem horribly underpowered, although it’s mostly been simple content creation and web surfing so far.  I don’t think it’s going to be quite so pretty when I try Photoshop on it, or try to edit a video.  But I’m happy to be proven wrong.

UPDATE: - Actually, I might be at least partly wrong, editing in Photoshop is doable with Web-sized images, and short video editing in Movie Maker can also be done.

Either way, I’m feeling positive about these little tablets.  We’d prefer our chosen machine to be an Intel Core i based unit, but if economic realities force us to look at the little-brother (or sister) from Intel, I don’t think it’ll be so bad.

It's All About the Pentiums

Well, it's not about the Pentiums and if it were it'd be all about the Core i5's, which makes that Weird Al song sound even more geeky (if that's possible).

What it is about actually, is the very fast and slick hardware we got our teachers this year.  That extra spend has made them eager to receive their new computer, and the brief but important introductory tutorial that goes with it.  That tutorial is key to making a Windows 8 rollout work.

Past the halfway mark with our Windows 8 rollout, and there's been no negative reactions to Windows 8 or Office 2013.  I firmly believe that's because we chose the hardware well, and understood the training that was needed.  The training has ranged from a simple 5 minute intro by the I.T. Dept. to a more comprehensive introduction by our E-Learning person.  Neither is particularly onerous, but the effect has been that Windows 8 and Office 2013 have been well received to date, and any comments we have received were positive.  Most of the positivity relates to the light and easy to carry form-factor of the Dell convertibles.  I hope that optimistic outlook continues.
So, I think we've proven something here; that Windows 8 is an easy switch with just a little bit of thought given to the user, and the right hardware (anything with a touchscreen, really).  It also proves that large amounts of the tech. press don't know what they're on about.  They might do well to stop judging Windows 8 on the old crappy desktop or Virtual Machine they're testing it on and get something it's made for.

Finally, this tentative success couldn't have been achieved without Apple and Google (and probably wouldn't have).  The acceptance they've created for touch-first interfaces lead to the initial reaction we saw quite a lot from teachers.... "oh, so it's a bit like a phone then?"

Spicks and Specifications

[caption id="attachment_245" align="alignright" width="300"] The Bee Gees talk Devices with old Monkey Boy.[/caption]

It's probably a little late to be getting started on our Year 7 device rollout, but with everything else we've been asked to do, this is the absolute earliest we could expect to get things underway.

When I say "getting started" what I really mean is beginning the process of looking at devices, and as usual the first step is to work out what we want exactly, and get some quotes.  That, followed by; seeing some physical machines, establishing a shortlist, showing off the options internally, then picking something is roughly the process we'll go through.  It's worth sticking around to see that process, as over the years we've got it down to a fine art, particularly the part of assessing the candidate machines.

This time I've made one change though.  We'll be producing a serious and complete Request for Quote document to lay our our requirements fully.  One of the biggest problems we've encountered over the years is getting machines to meet a spec, a price, and receiving them on time.  I will not haggle this time, nor will I accept delivery weeks late.  I don't have that luxury when the program is being funded by parents who expect to get what they're paying for when we say they will.  I expect resellers and manufacturers to put up there best most reliable option first and expect no second chances.

The process of arriving at a machine spec. is an interesting one, and can be difficult when the industry is in such a state of flux as it is now.  Luckily we've been keeping a close eye on the Windows 8 device market since this time last year, and we now know what we can expect for roughly what sort of money.  We used that knowledge plus input on preferred features from our teaching staff to arrive at this specification:

That probably lends itself to one or two types of machine, but if we're to get something that matches the above, we've got to work with that.  Which we will do, I suspect I know what models the quotes are likely to bring, so it'll be interesting to see if I'm right.

I'm Too Sexy For My Laptop

The BYOD program we're starting this year is a bit of new territory for us.  We've allowed students to BYO for a while now, but it's only been ad-hoc supplementation of the machines we already provide.  Students had embraced that quite well, but making BYOD a compulsory requirement is a different thing altogether.  To begin with, we didn't even know how many students were going to take the new requirement seriously and start the year with a machine that met the minimum spec.  So when we ran our 'setup sessions' in the holiday break we had no idea what to expect.

More on the setup sessions later, I mentioned the minimum spec, so I should probably point out what that was, and the thinking is behind it.  Here's the parameters parents and students were given for the device:

So, none of this "BYOD, but only the platform we like" business.  We've opened it up to any device that we feel a student can do work with.  We haven't allowed small tablets like the Nexus 7 because we've found they're too small to achieve serious work, but we have allowed 10" tablets because of the variety and market maturity of that size.  We haven't allowed students to connect their phones and iPod touches at this stage.  I wont say we're closing the door on that completely, but for the moment most students only want to connect that sort of device for non-educational purposes, and the sheer number of those devices is an overhead we can't deal with right now.  I'll be prepared to go back on that as soon as I have a teacher come to me with a genuine need (which is possible, but not probable).

So now that you understand the parameters of BYOD, lets look at what we experienced in our 'setup sessions'

The setup sessions were two days we set aside during the school holidays for students to come and join in a short workshop lead by the I.T. staff which was aimed at getting them connected to our network, to learn how to print, access file shares, use the internet, configure their browser, access their email and to overcome any problems before the year began.  We covered all those topics and also offered a selection of free software that students might not otherwise have known about.  The software was aimed at helping them meet the requirements above (if their computer didn't already) and encouraging them to go a bit further than that as well.

We'd allowed half an hour for the sessions, figuring we'd get small workable groups, but overall that we'd just see the most conscientious students, rather than any large number.  What we actually got in terms of attendance was both heartening, and surprising.  Over half of the entire senior cohort (all of year 11 and 12) turned up over the two days.  Some of the sessions were that full we really struggled to get through everything in the time allowed.  It was hectic, and at times stressful, but as we later found out it was very much worth the effort.  Nearly 150 students went away after those days with a machine that worked on our network, knowing how to access what they needed on our network, and with the confidence to learn unhindered.  I was proud of our efforts, particularly with the number of problems we fixed for students, and the variety of problems and computers we successfully connected.

students with laptops running Windows 8 featured heavily, and they appeared entirely unfazed by the new UI

That brings me to the next interesting point.  We allowed for a vast array of devices to be connected under the BYOD program.  When you look at the tech. specs above, we could've received anything from the most expensive Alienware gaming laptop to the cheapest generic Android tablet.  We didn't see a anything like the former, and only one of the latter, but to my surprise what we did see was a lot of laptops.  I could've counted the iPads on one hand, which was a surprise being that we knew for certain that at least two dozen students already owned them from a program they were involved in the previous year.  What really surprised me was that Windows laptops outnumbered anything else 20:1, and new Windows laptops probably accounted for half of those.  What's more, students with laptops running Windows 8 featured heavily, and they appeared entirely unfazed by the new UI.
It wasn't all Windows though, there was a happy and proud contingent of Mac owners, some of who came with the misconception that they'd in some way have to accept a secondary status to the Windows users.  I'm happy to say however, that their choice of Mac meant they'd receive the same level of connectivity and service that a Windows user would, despite us being an otherwise Windows shop.
The only users I think might possibly remain a little second-class, at least for the moment, are the iPad and Android users.  Particularly the iPad users where printing is concerned.  At the time of writing (February), we have no printing solution for iPads.  Not because we can't (although doing this while maintaining the ability to charge students with Papercut is a little tricky), but because there's a cost and time factor involved, and I've deemed it not justifiable for what amounts to about 5 users.  They've been asked to email assignments, and print by using one of our desktops for the time being.  If it becomes a problem, I have a proper solution drafted.

Finally, I'll say one other positive thing.  The students look happy.  They're proud of their machines in a lot of cases, and I think to them this is proper "personal" computing.  It's nice to see that, and I hope it continues.  In fact some are so proud of their machines they've taken to decorating them.  I'll leave you with one such example below, which when I see it leads me to imagine the lyrics to Right Said Fred's "I'm too Sexy":

Happy New Beer!

Well, a belated one.  The season of revelry is long forgotten and now it's down to business, sadly!



The return to work has been unbelievably busy but now that we're a few weeks in I can report on the progress of our Dell XPS-12 rollout.

Firstly, I'm happy that I actually have something to report.  Last year I gave Dell something of a hard time for being hapless with their model lineup, delivery of demo machines and poorly communicated information.  I'm happy to say they've redeemed themselves with delivery of these machines.  The turnaround was roughly 6 weeks between ordering and delivery including imaging by our local reseller.  Not bad at all for 80 machines over the Christmas period, particularly when you consider these models are only a couple of months new themselves.

So, delivery was a bit of a win for us.  I also have to say that imaging was as well, once we knew what to expect.  In having all our machines rolled out with our own software image, we hit a few problems initially (while preparing the master image machine), but it seems the process of duplicating that image was almost identical to Windows 7 machines.

Probably the biggest issue we hit was with getting sysprep to run on the master machine prior to committing it to be duplicated.  A word of warning to anyone else needing to do this - whatever you do, don't update the system Metro apps (video, people, news etc.) before sysprepping.  We had to start again from scratch after doing this, as it completely breaks sysprep.

Other issues we found were to do with customisations (like customising the Start Screen for users), we found ways around all of them with a bit of Googling, and they translated well into deployment en masse.

So the machines are here and we've handed some of them to teachers.  Now we wait to see what the reaction to them, and Windows 8 will be!  In the meantime we have to get prepared for the coming year and our new BYOD'ers!