netbooks and schools version 2

I presented about netbooks to the teachers at my school last Tuesday. The feedback was positive. Quite a lot of interested discussion and questions immediately after and some teachers telling me that I had given them something to think about in the days that followed.

The truth is that I cut a lot out of my original presentation (after an earlier smaller trial with a few selected staff). Why? Because I felt the pressure of trying to explain too much - philosophy, epistemology , history, technology. So, this time I followed the KISS principle and conveyed a few simple messages:

1. computers are not well used in schools in labs
2. new technologies have evolved - XO and netbooks
3. everyone has an opinion, so we need to talk about it more. I used a Rorschach to symbolise this point

Next Wednesday I'm presenting to CEGSA (Computer Education Group of South Australia), which again is a different (more tech savvy) audience. For this audience I've modified my presentation yet again, breaking it into two parts:

1. unstoppable force? (kept the same as my presentation to my school staff above)
2. why does it have to be so complicated? (new)
   

My subheadings / slides for part two are:

• What’s in a name?
• Limitations of netbooks
• School of the future
• Our internal model of the computer medium (tool, damnation, salvation)
• Entertain us
• Commercialisation
• Disruptive innovation
• Personal dynamic medium
• Immovable object

At some stage there needs to be a part 3 which covers the software and curriculum issues

the xo is not a netbook

Interesting that Negroponte doesn't like the netbook name applied to the xo (at 7:55)

The word Netbook is a portmanteu of the words internet and notebook. But the xo is intended to also be a machine containing a wide variety of educational software which can also be used in situations where children don't have internet access.

Negroponte: "Kids in Ethiopia don't have the internet in a nearby cloud ..."

I think the way we name things is important so I checked some of the names that have been used for these machines:

• netbook
• smartbook
• MID
• thin-and-light
  
• low cost small notebook PC
• low cost ultra-portable notebook computers (Microsoft mouthful)
  
• ultra-portable
• mini notebooks

Most of these names focus too much on physical characteristics. xo symbolising a childrens machine is superior:

update (5th July): Here is a an attempt to classify the suggested names of these computers by their functionality and purpose or their failure to do that

PURPOSE
Childrens Machine
xo

FUNCTION
Connection Machine
Dynabook
smartbook

TECHNO CENTRIC
netbook
MID
thin-and-light
low cost small notebook PC
low cost ultra-portable notebook computers (Microsoft mouthful)
ultra-portable
mini notebooks

netbooks and schools: an evolution

I am presenting on this topic at Computer Education Group of South Australia (CEGSA) in July

I have finished my slides and notes. If you want a copy then leave a comment or send me an email (billkerr at gmail dot com) and I'll organise something.

Synopsis:
The presentation consists of a review of some modern technologies and attitudes towards technologies.

Technologies reviewed: smart phones, ebook readers, (educationally customised) handhelds, enhanced screen (Mary Lou Jepson), Cloud computing, OLPC and netbooks.

Attitudes reviewed: Just a tool, Them and us (damnation, salvation), Us as them (augmentation), The pencil metaphor (Seymour Papert), Misuse of computers (Larry Cuban), Disruptive innovation (Clayton Christensen), Software as medium, The historical analogy of the printing press, Personal dynamic medium (Alan Kay, Adele Goldberg)

It is only intended to be a broad introductory document to the interaction between these technologies and attitudes. Hopefully it will lead to further discussion

Update (15th June): I now have the presentation uploaded to my website: netbooks and schools: an evolution

computers as transformational media

I remember this quote or part of it from years ago but then lost it. Eugene Wallingford quotes it in a recent blog entry, Computer as Medium, and his comments about it are worth reading too.

I've been looking for a clear expression of this idea for my netbooks in schools presentation. Because of the way computers are often used in schools (as instrumental tools to support a paper and ink derived curriculum) their potential revolutionary or transformational significance is often lost sight of. The virtue of this quote is that it clearly and concisely compares the difference between the computer medium and other media.

"Devices" which variously store, retrieve, or manipulate information in the form of messages embedded in a medium have been in existence for thousands of years. People use them to communicate ideas and feelings both to others and back to themselves. Although thinking goes on in one's head, external media serve to materialize thoughts and, through feedback, to augment the actual paths the thinking follows. Methods discovered in one medium provide metaphors which contribute new ways to think about notions in other media.

For most of recorded history, the interactions of humans with their media have been primarily nonconversational and passive in the sense that marks on paper, paint on walls, even "motion" pictures and television, do not change in response to the viewer's wishes. A mathematical formulation -- which may symbolize the essence of an entire universe -- once put down on paper, remains static and requires the reader to expand its possibilities.

Every message is, in one sense or another, a simulation of some idea. It may be representational or abstract. The essence of a medium is very much dependent on the way messages are embedded, changed, and viewed. Although digital computers were originally designed to do arithmetic computation, the ability to simulate the details of any descriptive model means that the computer, viewed as a medium itself, can be all other media if the embedding and viewing methods are sufficiently well provided. Moreover, this new "metamedium" is active -- it can respond to queries and experiments -- so that the messages may involve the learner in a two-way conversation. This property has never been available before except through the medium of an individual teacher. We think the implications are vast and compelling.

Update (6th June 2009): There is a copy of the Kay / Goldberg paper, Personal Dynamic Media here

notes on cloud computing

QUESTIONS
What is cloud computing?
What are the differences between cloud computing, web2.0 and the internet?


EVOLUTION – TECHNICAL AND FINANCIAL

Prerequisite: Cheap broadband
Software as a service (SaaS): remotely accessing software from someone elses data centre using a web browser
Virtualisation: initially apps were difficult to deploy but then came virtualisation, the packaging of applications with everything else they need to run. Virtual apps can run anywhere (ie. in the cloud)
Financial model is PAYG, more economical than alternatives

This video explains the basic concepts:


THE NETWORK WILL EAT THE PC

... data management and computational processing is moving away from personal computing frameworks into a collaborative workspace that is managed in the network
- Cloud computing, Science2.0 and the Social Web

INEVITABLE TREND

It is an inevitable trend in computing, because of the need to reduce complexity and data-management/computation-management costs. It's clear that, in the near future, the backup storage and computation will continue to evolve into collaborative workspaces that you never have to administer
- Cloud computing, Science2.0 and the Social Web

HELPFUL METAPHORS AND EXPLANATION
from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PNuQHUiV3Q:

Dan Farber, Editor and Chief CNET News:

We currently have three platforms: the desktop, mobile devices and the cloud ... increasingly things will start to lean towards the cloud ... when there is enough bandwidth, reliability, security and so on then there will no longer be a notion of a cloud ...it will be just like serving up electricity, serving up data, applications and even writing those applications directly to the cloud

Tim O'Reilly, quoting from a Clay Shirky presentation:

Thomas Watson once famously said (allegedly) that there is no need for more than five computers in the world

We now know that he was wrong

He overstated the number by four!

Everything we think of as a computer today is just a device for connecting to this one big computer that we are all building

EXAMPLES
Google docs

Zoho: It includes tools for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, databases, note-taking, wikis, CRM, project management, invoicing and other applications

SOME OF THE CONCEPTS DEFINED

Software as a Service
Software as a Service (SaaS, typically pronounced 'sass') is a model of software deployment whereby a provider licenses an application to customers for use as a service on demand

Virtualisation
Virtualization is the creation of a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as an operating system, a server, a storage device or network resources

Utility Computing
Utility computing is the packaging of computing resources, such as computation and storage, as a metered service similar to a traditional public utility (such as electricity, water, natural gas, or telephone network). This system has the advantage of a low or no initial cost to acquire hardware; instead, computational resources are essentially rented. Customers with very large computations or a sudden peak in demand can also avoid the delays that would result from physically acquiring and assembling a large number of computers
(traced back to a john mccarthy, 1961 quotation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_computing

Grid computing
The application of several computers to a single problem at the same time – usually to a scientific or technical problem that requires a great number of computer processing cycles or access to large amounts of data.

netbooks in schools: unstoppable force versus immovable object

1:1 netbooks in schools, summary of my analysis so far

unstoppable force:
a device which can be used educationally which has become -

• cheaper
• lighter
• take home 24/7
• personal ownership
• robust
• world wide communication and collaboration
• cloud computing
  
• free software and hardware (the latter linked to communication plans)
• pressure on schools to be up to date, cutting edge (update 11th April)

immovable object:

• teachers as gatekeepers of standards
• historically packaged curriculum which eschews diversions
• resistance to unguided youthful exuberance
• technology is everything invented since you were born
• the disturbing aspect of young people being generally quicker learners of new technology than older people
  
• teachers overworked, don't have time
• incredibly diverse nature of teachers work
• available teacher time is small chunks not large chunks required for paradigm shift

Larry Cuban's critique of computers in school: a discussion we have to have

Computers only work well in schools when there is a high degree of access and teachers who are enthusiasts

At the moment in most schools computers are stuck in labs and students on the average obtain 35 minutes per week access, or something like that (figure from excellent Steve Hargadon interview of Larry Cuban, reference at bottom)

By my reading Larry Cuban is not a Luddite, far from it - he acknowledges that 10% of teachers do wonderful things with computers in schools - but a realist who is aware of and sympathetic to the enormous pressures on teachers. His description of pressure on high school teachers is spot on:

Although information technologies have transformed most corporate workplaces, our teacher's schedule and working conditions have changed very little. She teaches five classes a day, each 50 minutes long. Her five classes contain at least three different preparations. She has two classes of Introductory Algebra, two of Geometry, and one Calculus class. In those five classes, she sees 140 students a day. She has one period a day set aside for planning lessons, seeing students, marking papers, making phone calls to parents or vendors, previewing videos, securing a VCR or other equipment, and using the school's copy machines for producing student materials. Our math teacher, like most of her colleagues elsewhere is a very busy person who could use rollerblades as she tries to meet all of her obligations...

In addition to these daily tasks, our math teacher is expected to know the subject inside and out; she is expected to maintain order in their classrooms; she is expected to be both friendly and demanding of each and every student; finally, with higher academic standards and the mandate to take tests that can spell the difference between graduating high school or staying in school longer, she is held accountable for her students doing well on high-stakes tests. So teaching high school, besides knowing one's subject-matter thoroughly, requires the grit of a long-distance runner, the stamina of a boxer going 15-rounds, the temperament of a juggler, and the street-smarts of a three-card monte dealer...
- SO MUCH HIGH-TECH MONEY INVESTED, SO LITTLE USE: HOW COME?

Putting 10,000 netbook computers into primary schools in Northern Victoria (see here) will change the readiness of access issue but how is it going to transform teachers who are not currently computer enthusiasts into effective teachers of computer rich classrooms? It will provide far more opportunity but it's not going to happen overnight and in some or many cases it won't happen at all.

I've always been against this approach. I argue for computer saturation at schools but if and only if there is a computer enthusiast teacher on the job. There we have it. I want computer saturation in my classes because I have done the hard work of figuring out how to make it work. But I don't think it should happen in classrooms where teachers, often for legitimate reasons, have not done that work.

This 2006 audio interview by Steve Hargadon interview of Larry Cuban critically discusses a range of important issues. Go to this page and search for "Cuban" and download the mp3 or ogg version (46 minutes)

Mary Lou Jepson: it is about the screen

Some extracts from Mary Lou Jepson's Pixel Qi [pronounciation : chee] Mission Statment:

In 2009 we are on the cusp of "cloud computing". 3G wireless services, WiFi and mesh networking are widely deployed. Ebook readers, digital photoframes, and richly-featured touch-screen phones abound. Mini-notebook computers – netbooks – are growing rapidly in adoption ...

Pixel Qi has a belief on the future of the computing - it's not about the CPU or the OS - It is about the screen ...

We see the future of the portable electronics as simply the display - with embedded electronics eventually right in the display glass itself. This is the future laptop, the future cell phone and the future PDA. Instead of focusing on higher speed (more MHz) and larger memory (more GBytes), we work toward new device designs by focusing on displays that we can read, as easily as paper - indoors and out - with battery life measured in days not hours ...

Displays for computers need to be optimized to crisply display text, they need to be optimized for a reader just 30 centimeters from the screen; they need to allow for widespread variations in ambient lighting; they need to support lowering the overall power consumption of the entire device

The display is the most expensive component in a modern laptop, and the most power hungry, and it's uncomfortable to read when compared with paper. We aim to fix this ... The battery is the second most expensive component in the laptop or portable. We propose to massively lower the power consumption of the screen and thus also slash the cost of the battery and dramatically boost how long your machine can run on it before you have re-charge it

We will do all of this while making LCD screens lower cost, higher resolution, easier to read and sunlight readable. We've already shown the first step of this at One Laptop per Child by creating a display that is 5X the resolution, 1/3 the cost, 1/10th the power consumption ...

10,000 netbook trial in victorian primary schools

There is a big netbook rollout underway in primary schools in Northern Victoria. The support wiki is netbook trial:

• 10,000 netbooks for 1:1 use in Year 5 and 6 classes (in Victoria Year 6 is the final year of Primary school)
  
• software is a mixture of proprietary (Microsoft, Adobe) and FLOSS (see list below)
• running Vista operating system (hard to figure since most netbooks are sold with XP)
  
• cost of each netbook is $550 - computer $480, bag $30, software $40 - this includes insurance
• costs are shared by the families, school and government; families end up paying a dollar a week, spread over 3 years
• Anywhere Anytime Learning has been involved in the consultation process. Their 21 steps to 1:1 success presentation is available from this page of the wiki.
  
• the netbooks are Acer Aspire One and Lenovo S9, detailed specifications here

Here is a list of the software on the machines:

Adobe Flash Player
Create and view animated content

Adobe Reader 8
Provides options for basic PDF viewing and comment-making

Adobe Shockwave Player
Displays web content that has been created by Adobe

Apple Quicktime
A multimedia framework capable of handling various formats of digital video, media clips, sound, text, animation, music and interactive panoramic images

Audacity
Open source software for recording and editing sounds

Blender
Open source, cross-platform suite of tools for 3D creation

CD Burner XP
Application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs

Cute PDF Writer
Create PDF files from any printable document, save PDF forms using Acrobat Reader, make PDF booklets, impose, rearrange pages and more

Debut
A simple, easy-to-use video recorder program that lets you capture files directly

DEECD Fonts Victorian Cursive
Downloadable electronic font of Victorian Modern Cursive script to make handwriting exercises, posters, crosswords, flashcards and other classroom resources on your netbook

DVD Flick
A simple DVD authoring tool

Free Mind
A Mind Mapping application

Gamemaker
www.yoyogames.com
Make exciting computer games, without the need to write a single line of code

GIMP
Stands for the GNU Image Manipulation Program and is a raster graphics editor used to process digital graphics and photographs

Google Picasa 3
Helps you organise, edit and share your photos

Google Sketchup
Create, modify and share 3D models

Irfan View
An image viewer and convertor that opens and edit images, as well as multiple media formats

Jahshaka
An open source video editing and effects application

Java runtime environment
Run Java applications

Kahootz V2
Create, explore and invent in 3D (V3 upgrade available soon)

Microsoft Internet Explorer
Web browser

Microsoft Office 2007
Word, Excel and PowerPoint

Microsoft Office Media Content
Includes the Microsoft Clip Organiser and a library of clip art and other media files that users can insert into Office documents

Microsoft PhotoDraw 2.0
Graphic software

Microsoft PhotoStory 3
Create multimedia video presentations using still images

Microsoft Producer for PowerPoint
Provides users with many powerful new features that make it easier to synchronise audio, video, slides and images to create engaging and effective rich-media presentations

Microsoft Silverlight
Delivers high-quality, interactive video across the web and mobile devices.

Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium
Encyclopaedia software

Microsoft Windows Media Player
Store and play music, video and pictures

Microsoft Windows Vista Enterprise
Operating system

MonkeyJam
Create stop-motion movies

MSW Logo
Logo is a computer programming language used for functional programming

NVU
Create web pages with a program that does not require previous web editing knowledge

Paint.NET
Image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows

Scratch
Create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music and art

Symantec Client Security (anti-virus)
Anti-virus software

Tuxmath
Educational maths tutor for children starring Tux, the Linux Penguin

Tuxtyping
Educational typing tutor game starring Tux, the Linux Penguin

VLC Player
VideoLAN Client is a portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats

ARM architecture is coming to netbooks

Because of their low price and power saving features (which extends the battery life) ARM is the dominant chip (32 bit) architecture in mobile phones, mp3 players, PDAs, handheld gaming units, calculators, computer peripherals (hard drives, routers) and ebook readers such as Kindle (ARM_architecture) The ARM chip has now evolved into being incorporated into netbooks.

Watch this video to obtain an initial look and feel of the ARM netbooks that will soon be on the market:

• ARM demos slim, low-power netbook prototypes
• |
• ZDNet UK videos

Some of the features:

• ultra thin, light and low cost $199 - $250
• No fan or heat sink required – this enables new design features
• 8 hours battery life
• movies on high resolution screen

Summary: Microsoft threatened by ARM / Linux

Currently Windows runs on 90% of the netbooks and Linux on 10%. The possible threats to MS netbook market dominance include the Google Android OS and low power ARM processors

The software / hardware currently behind the above mentioned 90% of netbooks is Windows XP Home Basic and the x86-based Atom processors-Intel's smallest and lowest-power microprocessors

So far Microsoft is staying with their x86 architecture due to their historical inertia, which now works against them

ARM-based netbooks running Linux (or Google Android) will be on the market soon for prices as low as [US]$199

OLPC may use ARM chips in the XO-2. But there is a problematic irony here, for Negroponte. If Windows does not develop an OS that runs effectively with ARM then the XO-2 would not be able to offer dual boot linux / windows (source)

Apple may be another winner arising from ARM architecture

Look on these netbooks as a larger iPod touch with a hinged keyboard. At twice the length and width they would still fit into a large pocket. With a 7" screen the resolution would be 960 x 640 - four times the screen space of the iPod touch....

While the biggest netbook companies, Acer and Asus, can build ARM netbooks, they would have to be based on Linux or Android, as the only version of Windows that works on ARM is Windows Mobile. Indeed, Asus has already started work on an Android system

Predicted Losers: Microsoft, Intel (at least in the short term), AMD

Predicted Winners: Apple, RIM, Nokia, Asus, Acer, Linux or Android

Thanks to Joel for alerting me to the new evolution of ARM