The Space Race

Hopefully you all know that iPads and laptops are two completely different spaces. 

Although there is some significant overlap in key areas such as media consumption on the internet, e-reading, social media, and even light word processing, in most cases the two classes of devices, in my opinion, should be viewed as totally different tools designed for completely different tasks.

Although many schools are reverse-engineering tech integrations (and a few are even doing post-mortems) it sounds like some tech directors have found themselves ahead of the curve (which you are as long as you can still provide viable input into the nature and trajectory of the rollout). So I hope they take advantage of it and discuss with their teachers the potential benefits and drawbacks of all devices under consideration. But they also must read between the lines of the teachers’ wants and dreams and apply their wisdom according to their needs, not necessarily your own as the tech director.

I’m often quick to say if I could only have one technology device, it would be my 11” MacBook Air. Hands down. No questions asked. Period. End of story. But that is because a significant amount of my work involves traditional office utility applications, email., digital video and uncompromised access into State computing systems.  However, if I were to truly integrate a piece of tech into the curriculum, or across a handful of curriculums, I might find that a laptop will encourage mundane or traditional educational outcomes. Or worse, just become a redundancy that’s mobile.

The iPad, when used effectively, can cause a change in the educational outcomes; a good one if used effectively, and a negative one if the iPad is forced into a laptop role. If your heart is set on traditional I/O computing, then nothing but a traditional computer will work. But if you are considering venturing outside the world of word-processing, presentations building, spreadsheets, website construction, code writing, and desktop publishing etc. then the iPad has tremendous merit.

As far as security, it is not just schools looking to harden the devices. In fact, collectively they are rather late on the scene. Tri-letter agencies like the NSA have guidelines for many OSs including iOS. Oddly, I don’t see any of the many flavors of Android listed, and as expected, Windows makes up the bulk of the spots on the list.

http://www.nsa.gov/ia/mitigation_guidance/security_configuration_guides/operating_systems.shtml

I think enough of the dust has settled on the tablet space to make informed decisions about their role in education, all grounded in realistic expectations of performance and impact. That also means we can be frank about the device and speak ill of it when it fails to function as advertised. I tried to express these feelings in words, which ended up in an essay, that ended up in a blog contest. The content of my contest blog post is my passionate plea for the perfect tablet for education, and is presented a blog post here titled "Great Technology Melts In Your Hands."

Great Technology Melts In Your Hands

Great technology melts in your hands

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

-Arthur C. Clarke

As I watched the latest crop of tablet computers graduate from drawing board to Christmas list, I am again thrilled to have plenty of choices for use in education. But my standards are high. I expect nothing short of magic from my tablets. I expect them to become invisible. To disappear before my eyes. To melt in my hands.

You see the tablet is not important. It is what the tablet does that justifies its existence. Tablets are conduits to something else. To somewhere else. To anywhere else. The tablet is capable of doing so many things to such a small extent that if ever we successfully label a technology a tool, and really mean it, the tablet is a worthy recipient.

When a student uses a tablet to read, the experience must be immersive. No, really immersive. Like beyond the cliché. On the stage of education, the electronic device must never expect its role to be more than a supporting actor. To do its job well, the tablet must blend into the background silently serving up words while hoping desperately to be forgotten. And it must be really happy in that role. Just like when the physical book dissolves away the moment it gets good. Really good. Goosebumps good. You know what I mean.

Yet if the interface of a tablet requires hard touches, multiple swiping attempts and emits enough alerts, popups, hangs, hiccups and chirps to scare a horse, then the tablet is overshadowing the star of the show; biting the hand that feeds it content. You know the feeling. Like when a great thought is lost with the snap of pencil lead. Or when the crux of the plot is wedged between two stuck pages now holding hostage three hundred pages of priceless tension.

Watching students, and even my own kids devourer a foot-high stack of Harry Potter, I know they are different people afterwards. They have been to a place in their minds where the magic truly is real, and they want nothing more than to plow into another book, damn the big words, full speed ahead! Literacy can be a noun, but I prefer it as a verb. Literacy is an experience. A feeling of confidence. An acquired dimension that can never be taken away. 

The books, however, fare far worse; cover torn, pages bent, spine broken; the souvenir scars of a wonderful adventure that still brings a grin even when alone. But none of that matters if the book is more important than its words. And the same is true for a tablet. Neither is to be placed on a shelf and venerated as the next big thing. It is to be consumed. Used. Pushed. Threatened. Challenged. Loved.

The tablet as an e-reader is a portal to another land, another time. A beautiful place that has not gone unnoticed by non-profits who are delivering tablets by the thousands to sub-Saharan Africa where books made out of actual paper are unknown. Each pencil-thin rectangle of screen real estate is a world-class library filled with an ever-growing collective record of humanity. A record that is as much a birthright on this planet as food and water.

The perfect storm of technology and literacy empowers my students to go far beyond grade-appropriate childhood dreams. Students actually trust us to fulfill our promise of educating them better than any child before has been taught. And through technology, today they know more, they see more, they demand more. 

And at no time in human history have teachers had the tools to actually deliver on that promise.

©2012

Shiny Semantics: Why the Chromebook is not 121

I think first, we need to be on the same page with the overall topic since many 121 discussions bog down in semantics. Here are two definitions of one-to-one (121) computing. The first from the Center for Digital Education’s One-to-One Computing Handbook:

“One-to-one computing simply means "anytime, anywhere technology for every student.” http://media.centerdigitalgov.com/reg2view/K12_6_23.pdf

And the second from Wikipedia citing an Educational World article.

“One to One Computing in education refers to a computer for every student which is an initiative created by many companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Dell, HP, and Intel. One-to-one computing means that every student or teacher is given a computer, the Internet and software anytime and anywhere. The term computer is used to mean a personal computer, laptop, netbook, handheld, or tablet.”

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

So the short explanation for my comment is that although the Chromebook provides access to an extensive array of online resources, Web2.0 tools, and digital storage/sharing solutions, it works only* with an active and fast enough internet connection, only with software tools available online, and only with peripherals whose drivers are installable on the device.

I did incorrectly profess that the Chromebook is incapable doing anything in the absence of an Internet connection. Since June, Chrome has had limited access to recently updated word-processing Google Docs, calendar, and Gmail, and quite recently, more companies are making offline apps beyond games and reading material.

Here’s what seems available thus far for offline use:

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/collection/offline_enabled?utm_campaign=en&utm_medium=social&utm_source=en-social-na-us-social-gplus-post

I’m sure there will be great advances in offline use as the Chrome/Google Docs interaction matures, however, at the moment the blogosphere seems undecided as to what apps actually work well offline, and what provide such limited access as to not qualify as “working” offline. Other’s still require a mandatory “downloading” or “updating” of content ahead of time to have any offline capabilities, which, of course, requires preparation and forethought. Not deal breakers, but certainly concentration breakers.

But back to the question. The spirit of a 121 as defined above does not impose limits on use or connectivity, but instead encourages the anywhere-anytime access to the technology. It is within that “anywhere-anytime” aspect that I find the Chromebook concept in its current iteration as a “substantial limitation” if applied as the one-to-one device.

Personally I am a fan of the Chromebook, and enjoy watching it evolve just as I have many other technologies. It is especially exciting to consider it as a disruptive tech that in many cases unabashedly plays by its own set of rules. But that said, I do not feel that the Chromebook should be endorsed as a true 121 solution. I do feel comfortable supporting it if the integration effort assumes the limitation of the device, and does not overrepresented or oversell the instructional capabilities of the Chromebook.

As you know from my prior writings, I might react quickly and viciously when a technology tells me what I can and cannot do. And I feel qualified as an advocate for students and teachers who want to use technology in pursuit of the best educational experience possible.

I know first-hand, as do you, the importance of an Internet connection in education as well as almost everything else.  But I also know that there is a very rich world of instructional technology that does not need a dedicated Internet connection. My fear with the Chromebooks is that through their current dependence on an active Internet connection they will begin to dictate curriculum after we have fought so hard to put the teacher back in charge of the classroom. If the only realistic solutions a teacher, administrator, curriculum director, or parent has involve an active Internet connection, then we are wildly underestimating what we can do with instructional technology.

The Chromebook is dancing a fine line between its dependency on the Internet and stand-alone apps. At the moment, the internet rules, but even within a year, there could be an effective compromise that 1) won’t open up the machine to mal-everything, 2) require an expensive “hard drive” storage platform raising the price, and 3) diminish Google’s bottom line which is completely invested in devices being tied to the internet.

Remember, all the above is strictly my opinion. It should be take with a gain of salt, or heck, perhaps the entire shaker full. But if the true spirit of a one-to-one requires anytime, anywhere, then the Chromebook, great as it is, has, in my opinion, substantial limitations.

That said, I believe the Chromebook would make an ideal platform for a school-wide integration where the strengths of the device are maximized, and its limitations are minimized. But the term one-to-one should be avoided in that case.

Of course this being tech, and especially Google, it could all be a different story tomorrow.