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!:

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! ;)

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sowing the seed.

It's been an interesting year so far.

The uncertainty about the College's next principal (which I have my suspicions about) has allowed time to ponder some things.  Particularly about future directions and trends in I.T.  With a change in leadership possible, it's not been the right time to try making any big changes, so we've been doing something different with our ICT Committee this year.  We've been running what I call 'New Technology Sessions".  Instead of meeting and going through the usual administrivia of budgets, apllications and policies we've been delving into some concepts that I felt a committee of ICT decision makers should be aware of.  From simple things like Web 2.0 and Cloud, to some of the programs that are going on in other schools, and even more confusing concepts like BYOD.  So far it's been received well by the group, who actually seem far more interested in these sessions than the regular meetings which I know from experience that some loathe.

This year is intended to be the I.T. Department's "break" year, with the DER rollouts finished and less College PC's to be renewed than in years to come, we'd figured this to be a good time to consolidate, to look at getting caught up on some infrastructure upgrades and generally not have to push all year.  That fits in well with the idea of New Technology Sessions, the Committee is also out of the DER rollout phase so they should sit back and take stock too.  Work out what the priorities are for using what is certainly more technology than the school has ever had.  Those thoughts might even be able to guide our infrastructure upgrades somewhat.