Godzone falling in the international education ratings

[mashman]

It seemed to be largely along the lines of being able to set quizzes or do surveys, setting up collaborative electronic "pinboard" type things that students could contribute to. The idea being that with a piece of software that acts as an appletv, wirelessly transmitting what's on your iPad to your classroom projector, you can all hook up the devices (wirelessly, of course) so as to show each person's (teacher's included) monitor onto the projector and everyone can view each other's work simultaneously.
There was more to it than that, but the most basic gist of it was the ease of information sharing as well as stuff like the surveys/voting stuff being able to be done anonymously etc.
A number of websites also can be accessed with students all being able to be directed to specific exercises etc. that are answered online (again, using the appletv substitute - damn, I'm trying to remember what the app was called ) the teacher can immediately see who is doing what on their devices thereby monitoring who has completed stuff, or where various students are at in the exercises.
I feel I haven't explained that very well, but we are encouraged to increase our use of IT in the classroom as a way of making education more relevant and "authentic" (the educational word-of-the-year) to students. We still have a library etc. but educators obviously feel that IT is the way of the future so pushing to have it at the forefront of how we teach makes it more meaningful to todays kids rather than the old fashioned methods of research and note taking.

You painted a lovely picture . I'm aware of how good this sort of technology is and what it could become. Was just curious about what you were being shown. Sounds cool.

You could have fun with your spy software

[mashman]

I dunno - I used to think like this.....but then something clicked.
I have a library - I kid you not a fucking library of books. I had a room dedicated to crap like school computers, books, portfolios.....

The average school student is collecting this crap and hording it.

As much as I had Apple - getting my son an ipad is a fucking godsend when I think of the mountains of shit he would have got if he didn't have it. It doesn't replace a bike or a ball. But fuck me could you imagine consolidating a DVD collection or a book collection.

So I put the "take a device to school thing" with the same grain as buying your kids a computer or a encyclopedia Britannica. Times have moved on......if kids can now have shit consolidating to 1kg of electronics. I am all for it. At its worst at-least it will fix their back problems.

Though in saying that - there needs to a budget limit - possibly even a government plan to sort that our. WINZ sponsored tablets? Sure if it makes kids as quick as the first world. But right now schools waste money on having computers and libraries......not even companies do that these days. Its all BYOD and wikipedia.

My folks had an encyclopedia set. Zen von for ze children. I should really look into getting some. I do love the idea of technology in the classroom, but I think it's still a bit young as they're always making older ones obselete. I'd rather schools weren't caught in that trap... or parents for that matter.