TEK » Mark

iPads in Schools

Mark — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 09:22:45 +0000

If you are wondering if it is worth rolling out iPads in your school check out Fraser Speirs blog. Fraser has journalled his experiences in removing computer labs and replacing them with iPads.

Free Documentaries

Mark — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 09:09:12 +0000

One of the good things about doing break time duty is that you get to talk to staff that you would normally not get to know. You also find out things that you didn’t know and some of them turn out to be useful. Top Documentary Films is a site which catalogues a bunch of free documentaries found on various video sites on the web. I scanned a few and some were English with foreign subtitles, others vice-versa and regular English no subs. Using the VideoDownloadHelper plugin for Firefox I can transfer these videos to our internal PHP Motion server so that students can watch them without cranking through the bandwidth. Another great resource.

iPad Guitar Amp

Mark — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 11:02:07 +0000

Was just looking at guitar amp apps for the iPad and found a cool peripheral and app from ikmultimedia. If anyone has given this a go let me know before I drop NZ$95 + NZ$25 for the app but it does look very cool.

While I was looking around I also found this:

Time for some inspiration.

Mark — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 09:28:18 +0000

There are times when I start to feel a little stale cocooned in my world and I have forgotten to look outside. Thanks to my new iPad I found this as I browsed video podcasts on iTunes.

Academic: On a pedestal it doesn’t deserve?

Mark — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 11:14:46 +0000

As jobs get more scarce young people are opting to stay in education and some universities are starting to put caps on their intake, they just don’t have enough seats. The result of more people in tertiary education is bound to result in more people coming out with the same qualification, often a degree without an obvious career route, therefore creating even greater competition for the few jobs available.

I was recently involved in a discussion about the Technology achievement standards vs ITO (Industry Trade Organisation) unit standards in which it was suggested that one (unit standard) was lower in value to the other. Compared to what? There is no comparison, they are very different routes. In fact I would argue that the ITO has more long term value because it can lead to paid apprenticeship and clear pathway to employment, whereas tertiary education leads to a now common qualification and a lifetime of debt.

It is nearly 2010 and we still think that we get the most value from academia, even though both founders of Google and the founder of Microsoft dropped out of college to pursue their businesses.

It is time we stop looking from the top down to looking from the bottom up and asking ourselves, as teachers, what is the value to the individual student? What is the point in driving them hard up a road which doesn’t suit them just because of a perception of prestige?

I happen to have a degree which I earned later in life (27) and my childhood friends who left school at age 16 now run successful businesses. I feel that we expect so much of our young people at school that we forget that they a just kids and maybe we should allow them to enjoy it a bit more. In the words of Jeff Jarvis author of “What Would Google Do?” – Youth is something we only get once, education is something we can do at anytime in our lives. He is not saying we should not educate our young people rather have less emphasis on the type of academic achievement we expect.

For me the things I learned at school make up a tiny amount of the useful knowledge in my head, most of my knowledge has probably been learned in the previous 4 or 5 years of my life. I’m not really sure what that means but I guess it has something to do with trying to stay relevant, which will no doubt get harder as I get older.

Teach Tech

Mark — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 19:52:27 +0000

I recently received a request for information on how ICT is used in a Hard Materials Technology class so I decided to start a new blog. I bought teachtech.co.nz back in January intending it to be a wiki for New Zealand Technology teachers but I realised that the Tech Teacher community was probably not ready for it. So when Toni Twiss the ICT facilitator at Matamata College asked me for information about how ICT can be used in a Hard Materials workshop it seemed logical to create a blog which Technology teachers can visit and get ideas. I realise it is very much a niche audience, but that is what the internet is about, and hopefully it will help Technology teachers, new and old.

If you are a Hard Materials teacher and have some great ways to use ICT in our subject you are more than welcome to become a contributor on Teach Tech, or if you know a Hard Materials teacher who is using ICT as a teaching and learning tool please let me know.

mark@tek.net.nz

New Draft – Section 92A

Mark — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:16:33 +0000

During the holidays the Creative Freedom Foundation sent me this email regarding the new draft for section 92a. It is worth a read so that you understand the potential impact on your school and yourself.

Office 2010 – The Movie

Mark — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 21:16:37 +0000

OECD Factbook eXplorer

Mark — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:52:40 +0000

This is probably more up Richards alley but I can’t help thinking how much more interesting Geography A level might have been with resources like this. Check out the video on the BBC website and visit http://stats.oecd.org/oecdfactbook/.

PHPMotion Redux

Mark — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:55:02 +0000

Back in April 2008 I did a post on a YouTube clone called PHPMotion which was then in version 1. The software is now in version 3 and we have just installed it on our school server. The latest version is still a bit of a pain to install, it runs on PHP and MYSQL like wordpress, but is not as well supported or documented. The bottom line is you better be keen but you will save a heap on bandwidth and be able to give access to all those great videos available online. As well as YouTube videos you can also add clips from DVD’s. If you did this on YouTube they would quickly receive a take down notice from the copyright holder but with PHPMotion only accessible from the internal network people in the outside world are non the wiser – of course you must own the material to start with. As a Hard Materials and Graphics teacher I find some fantastic instructional videos on using tools and techniques which I can now share without using extra bandwidth.

Version 3 also has photo sharing which means you can keep photographs of students safely in the gated village if you so wish rather than using public photo sharing like Flickr.

If you want any help setting up a video sharing server let us know and we will see what we can do to help.