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!

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.

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.

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.

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":

Pre-Christmas Update

Well, a little while has passed since my last update and a fair amount has happened.  So much so that it's hard to detail it all here.  For that reason I'm going to dot-point list the goings-on for the last month and a half.

- it turns out Dell salespeople wouldn't know an active stylus from an active volcano

• The big news is that we've chosen the Dell XPS-12 as our staff computer for 2013.  Samsung couldn't produce a decent machine in time (or at all) and all the other options were either problematic in some way or just plain awful.  It turns our however that there is no support for an active stylus with this machine, so we're going to have to go without or use a capacitive stylus (it turns out Dell salespeople wouldn't know an active stylus from an active volcano anyway).  A shame, but not the end of the world.  The upside is that the XPS-12 is a really nice piece of kit, it's very fast, light and small.  Our teachers seemed quite impressed with it when we demoed it to them.  So we're quietly confident that we've chosen the right device considering the options.  Now we just have to get them delivered on time and get the staff used to Windows 8!


• We'd already decided we weren't interested in the Dell XT3, but it's worth noting here that Dell shipped us a demo that was not only heavily used, but broken.  It was also an awful clunky looking machine.  It's probably best if they don't keep that line going.


• We've been in communication with our parents about the plans to run two new programs next year.  Year 11's and 12's will need to supply their own computer next year, and year 7's will have a hybrid Windows 8 tablet supplied to them.  Parents of 11 and 12 students have been told they can supply a range of devices, basically anything that's a computer or a 10" and above tablet.  We'll set them up with network access at the beginning of the year, as well as some other tips and information.


• Our iPad group will continue into 2013.  I mention this because it's relevant as I was recently accused of being anti-iPad by an influential individual associated with the school.  I find this interesting because we run an iPad program with one particular group of students, and it was my interest in the iPad that got it going in the first place (I have two iPads myself).  Rather than unsettling that group by making changes, they'll keep plugging away with their iPads into next year.  The program was a trial, and it hasn't exactly set the world on fire, but it's not terrible either.  I quite like the idea of a multi-platform approach, as long as it doesn't put to much strain on the teachers or the I.T. Department.


• Finally, after much in the way of shenanigans, we've decided on a new Learning Management System (LMS).  Originally the decision was made to delay this decision until sometime in the future, however after coming to their senses the College leadership went with the recommendation of their 1:1 Working Party (or sub-group thereof) to implement the Scholaris LMS.  This is a widely used platform run on Sharepoint which can integrate well with our existing student data systems, making it something of a logical choice.  The Working Party went to great lengths to assess varying LMS options, create a comparison matrix of features and justify their preferences.  I'm quite glad that the recommendation was taken onboard, I only wish it had been immediate, rather than second-guessing the skilled and experienced people who arrived at said recommendation.

I think that's it, now it's off for a nice and hopefully relaxing Christmas break.  I say hopefully relaxing, because with the usual workload plus a 1:1 program, BYOD program, staff tablet rollout and a new LMS 2013 is going to be a HUGE year.

Some doors close, some more open (but not enough)!

So the search for a Windows 8 based computer continues.  The OS launch has been and gone, and it’s now early November.  I’ve had some small wins, like making a contact at Samsung, who was quite positive about the likelihood of them being able to provide enterprise-grade local support for their upcoming products.

We’ve also been let down on a few occasions though.  The most recent being that I’ve received confirmation that the Lenovo X230T will not be supported running Windows 8.  So that’s off the table.  Also off the table are the offerings from Fujitsu and Toshiba, for reasons I’m about to cover.  The result of this though, is that the field is much more narrow than it was.  With Lenovo, Fujitsu and Toshiba out, that leaves Dell, Acer, HP and Samsung.  Acer don’t really have anything suitable and neither do HP, so it remains to be seen whether Dell or Samsung can produce something.  I’ll be meeting with Dell in a couple of days to find out about their two possible machines, and Samsung are showing some promise, although I have my reservations about their Ativ Pro running a ludicrous 1080p resolution on an 11” display.

That’s enough looking forward, lets look back at what went wrong with the Toshiba and Fujitsu machines.  I’ll start with the Toshiba, it’s problems are basically self-explanatory.

The tablet we received was the M930, which comes with a multi-touch display, a stylus, a core i5 and a range of connectivity options.  On paper this unit looks good, but as soon as you take it out of the box it begs the question “WTF?”

[gallery ids="37,38,39"]

then your lead balloon is going down like it was filled with Sulphur Hexafluoride.

Probably the most bizarre aspect of this device is the lack of a mouse.  Oh wait, there is a mouse, it's just that it's possibly the most pointless token effort imaginable.  In my experience, users aren't so keen on ye olde pointing stick, a technology that some manufacturers still persist with for various misguided reasons.  I could only assume that if users don't care for the pointing stick, then having it built into the right-hand bezel of the keyboard with sideways mouse buttons is going to go down like a lead balloon.  Then if you concede that those sideways mouse buttons are what most would consider upside-down (that is, most of our users initially, and wrongly assumed the top button is left-click and the bottom is right-click), then your lead balloon is going down like it was filled with Sulphur Hexafluoride.

That's not the only problem either.  The device converts from tablet to pseudo-laptop using a hinged slider mechanism.  The mechanism is not only quite stiff and difficult to use, it also makes the most awful noise you've ever heard.  When I first used the hinge to convert the device everyone else in the office turned to look at what I was doing, with looks on their faces that said "what are you doing to that poor computer?"

Other than that, the machine was fine, it was quite speedy, the touchscreen was responsive and the keyboard was decent, but none of that mattered.  After seeing the two flaws mentioned above we spent some time laughing about this clownputer, put it back in the box and returned it.

Okay, so what was wrong with the Fujitsu then?  The Q702 (pictured below) also looked good on paper, and even had a proper touchpad.  It's core i5 was fast enough, and with the dockable keyboard containing a second battery it got great battery life.  It even looks as neat in person as it does in the promotional material.

The big issue with this machine was the touchscreen.  It's multi-point screen felt strange to begin with, not as smooth as the gorilla-glass coated tablets we're used to.  It felt like the resistive screen on an oldschool Tablet-PC.  None of that would matter normally, we don't think our users would be bothered by the feel of the screen (and if they were, we wouldn't be).  What they would be bothered by would be the lack of responsiveness the touchscreen exhibited.  Sure it worked well enough that normal touch and swipe operations worked perfectly, as did multi-touch gestures.  The problem was evident when swiping rapidly and repetitively to scroll through a long document, or sometimes even a heavily loaded Start Screen.  The screen would miss one in every few swipes.  This meant you couldn't flip neatly through your start screen and you couldn't get the fast scroll going down a page like you could with an iPad.  To anyone that was used to that on their phone or tablet, it felt like something was broken.  We therefore couldn't put this in front of our users and say "here, this is your wonderful new machine with Windows 8" knowing that the experience would be less than ideal because of the touchscreen problem.

So, after trying and failing to communicate the problem to Fujitsu and get a fix, we've struck the Q702 off our list as well.  I might add that the price-point for the Q702 was such that you'd expect it to be flawless.  It's not cheap, so we felt this made it even harder to justify the machine.

Now, on we go, the list is ever shorter, as it our timeframe.  With only a few weeks until I absolutely must order something new for our staff, we've not got a lot of options remaining.

Eek!

BYO, but not the kind I like.

This is old news now, but I thought it worth an update here on our timeframes and requirements for 1:1 and all the rest (yup, it's grown).

I've recently notified all teaching staff of our intentions for computing going forward so here's a potted version of that.

1:1 in Year 7
Identified as our best area to target with a new program (for a variety of reasons), we'll be rolling out new Windows 8 based, touch and pen enabled PC's to Year 7 next year, but not at the beginning of the year.  This will take place mid-year at the beginning of third term.

New Staff Devices
It's time to do away with the old Lenovo laptops which are suffering badly from a higher than expected rate of hardware failure.  We're replacing these with Windows 8 based touch-enabled devices with a pen.  This will happen in December/January next year. 

BYOD in 11 and 12
Our senior students (year 11 and 12) will be asked to provide a machine of their own from the beginning of 2013.  They'll be given access to our network and some network resources and provided limited I.T. Support (ie. their connectivity will be maintainted, but not their PC).
They'll be allowed to bring anything, within limits.  Basically, anything that has a screen-size 10" or larger and has a keyboard (and probably some software requirements as well).

LMS
We've got a sub-group of our Working Party underway investigating different Learning Management Systems with a view to selecting one and running with it in 2013.

1:1 Planning Workshop

So, we've recently had our workshop on planning a 1:1 Computing rollout.

I didn't personally have a lot to take away from it, most of the content was the sort of thing I'd heard before, but I think our teaching staff really did get a lot out of it.  Our consultant (Travis) has a lot of experience with 1:1 computing and was able to articulate the need for teachers to update their teaching to coincide with the rollout.  Also, the importance of a Learning Management System was very apparent.  The key to a 1:1 rollout is students being able to learn anywhere, anytime.  If they have a device of their own this could be in class, at home, somewhere outside in the school grounds, at a friends place or anywhere with connectivity.  The best way to allow for this is with an LMS, where lesson content is stored online and is available to the student anywhere learning doesn't have to stop when the timetabled class does.

So I guess we're going to need a new LMS, or to start taking the one we've got more seriously.

The other big takeaway from this workshop was the idea of pen-based computing.  Teachers were instantly impressed by the idea that they can use a pen on the screen of a tablet PC to annotate documents and take notes.  This was identified as a requirement for new staff computers (due at the start of next year) and the 1:1 student computers, as was the need for these machines to be the same(or similar).

Windows 8 is clearly going to be a feature here next year.  Travis reinforced the advantages to that platform, meaning that we in the I.T. Dept. had better get familiar with supporting it ASAP.

Finally, I heard a great statistic that casts doubt on the efficiency of new touch-screen devices.  Apparently research has shown that you're three times more efficient using a physical keyboard than you are using an on-screen keyboard.  So typing on a touch-screen sucks... who woulda thunk it?

UPDATE:

So it's time for a budget re-visit as a result of all this.  The addition of pen-based devices adds overall cost tot he machines themselves.  Also an LMS looks like adding a mimunum $10k as well.  The biggest budget yet just got bigger!

It's not Travis Bickle.

... and I need to get that out of my head, seriously.

Anyway, Travis is the name of a consultant we've engaged to help us work on our 1:1 approach.  He works for a company whose primary concern is to help schools with technology programs, and has previously been a teacher and run a program of his own.

It'll be good to get some outside help, a bit of perspective, and hopefully an impression of the scale of this (for those who seem to think it's just a matter of getting some computers).  It will also be good for me to get an idea of where we stand with getting the teachers (and the way they teach) up to speed.  That's obviously going to be crucial.

What's the rush?

So, in a recent meeting of the College ICT Committee, the 1:1 plans were discussed, and critically, the budget for said plans has started to take shape.

The budget will be the biggest I've been responsible for putting together.  Although the idea is that we'd be asking parents to contribute to the cost of the program, it still represents a considerable dent in the College's cash-flow.  But I guess that's the price we need to pay to ge the program started.

Timeframes have also been discussed.  There was some talk of looking at kicking it off at the beginning of 2013.  I can't see how that's even possible.  There's only 1 term left in 2012 and for a normal sized rollout I'd already want to be looking at some candidate machines.  Then there's the question of our staff laptops, which are due to be replaced at the start of 2013.  I think a 2013 start is going to be pushing our luck.

I Like More Beer at My Parties!

So, today it's been suggested that we form a Working Party to work out how to implement this 1-device-per-student program.

The thought has been that we target Year 10 as a starting point for this program. If we figure that we've got 6 grades (7-12) then the computers we buy will be best run as two 3 year cycles (they can hardly last 6 years), the second will start in Year 10.  This means getting the students in Year 11 and 12 with machines in their hands sooner, there's a difinite need there.

So, it looks like our Working Party will be small.  Featuring myself, our e-Learning Coordinator, a member of the Board, and our English Faculty Head (a keen technology user, and teacher of year 10's).  That's fine by me, a smaller group should be much more nimble and decisive.

UPDATE - Our Working Party is now 5, we welcome our Librarian onboard.  This will be handy when we come to looking at e-texts.

A funny thing happened...

I've recently been asked to attend meetings of the College Building Committee / Master Planning Committee.  The idea is that the current building projects we're working toward need some guidance from I.T.  That's great, I couldn't be happier, as there have been a number of things that haven't exactly been ideal in previous construction projects (the comms racks that were too small for the servers, the expensive A/V systems that noone can use to name two examples).  So now hopefully we'll have less problems in our new buildings, or at least avoid repeating the same mistakes.

So anyway, what does this have to do with this blog?  Well my first one of these meetings took us off on a bit of a tangent.  We got very heavily into the future of I.T. at the College and how that affects new teaching spaces.  Take for example the four computer labs we currently maintain.  Should they be allowed for in a new construction project?  I couldn't imagine that would be a good idea, the use of desktops is going to receed in the coming years and these spaces with them.  But it's not simply good enough just to leave them out or remove the labs, you need a coherent plan for the future.  That's the road this meeting started to go down.

The meeting ended up with the Principal suggesting that the conversation is best continued at a Board level.  So apparently that means I'm about to see what happens at Board Meetings.  I hope I can remember the secret handshake! ;)

All a-Board.

There's nothing I love more than a meeting, particularly one that happens hours after I finish work.  This one was particularly unusal, first because I barely knew anyone at the meeting, and second because I appeared to be an agenda item.

Just going back a little to the days before this meeting.  I had conversations with the principal to get a feeling for what we might be saying to the members of the board, and was asked to bring a little bit of content with me.  Just a nice video to show and some notes.  It was all quite last minute, but I got them together in time to get to the meeting.

So, after the meeting starts I'm annouced as being there to tell the board something about our plans for computing.  Frankly, that wasn't quite what I had in mind, after all, I wasn't even clear on why I was there in the first place, let alone aware of any plan.

Anyway, so I deftly deferred to the principal, who got things rolling.  We showed our video and chatted about the future of computing, 1:1, different approaches, and a false start turned into a very productive meeting.

We even got to the point of talking about Windows 8 and the changes I could see coming, about how this would be the basis for a 1:1 computing plan and the desire to start moving in that direction.

So, the principal and I came away from the meeting with the support of The Board to go ahead and start working out how to move to an environment where every student has a computer of their own.

I feel my hope for 2012 being an easier year slipping away very quickly.