I was behaved and kept my mouth shut (uncharacteristically) but I really wanted to scream out “Why are we hamstringing kids with such primitive tools in 2009?!” The argument of the presenters, who were from the US, was that every student would not be able to present with a computer so why not make the most of the computers in their pocket? I really want to take issue with the first part of that statement. Surely in an age where every professional in even the most basic of desk jobs uses a computer, why are we still wondering if they might be of use in schools?

Graham Wegner recently reflected on this failure to move ahead in schools in a recent post he called Immunity. Whilst governments make decisions to try to find funding to put computers in front of kids in poor and remote communities, it amazes me that schools who can afford the technology are still wondering if they should do anything with technology in classrooms. We know that getting students to create, the top level on the new Blooms Revised Taxonomy is what we should be aiming to do and yet, we still think that using mobile phones, essentially tools for delivery of content, might do the trick in schools.

Shouldn’t we at least be saying that there is a minimum spec tool that first world economies should be insisting on for students, especially if we want them to be used for creation of digital artifacts that demonstrate that our students are creators, collaborators and all round thinkers?

Photo: Netbook http://www.flickr.com/photos/ekosystem/3153286618/

I have been both pleasantly and unpleasantly surprised by what I have found.

On the positive side, I was warned that the screen refresh/data transfer rate meant that the projector might be very poor at displaying the images from PC tablets using core subject software like maths and English activities or even graphics intensive presentation slides via the wireless connection. I found this not to be the case and was very impressed in the fast data transfer by wireless. Whilst it was not possible to transmit a movie satisfactorily, I did not observe delays of anywhere near a second for even the most data rich pictures.

On the downside, something that did not occur to me but should have, was the fact that the connection

between the projector and the wireless laptop/PC tablet is via the single WiFi network interface card in the device. As all vendors are only across connecting in an “Ad Hoc” mode, this means that the laptop or tablet is connected to the school network or the projector but not both. I think that you can see a clear and obvious limitation in classroom applications where a student wants to share with a class what he or she is doing on the internet.

Given that I have been meeting with Audio Visual companies and not system integrators I was not surprised to hear that they had not really tried the projectors in an “infrastructure mode”. By this I mean in a mode where you can connect your projector to an organization’s existing wired or wireless infrastructure. If it is connected to wired infrastructure, the projector has a 10/100 Ethernet port with more bandwidth than any wireless connection could provide. If an Ethernet cable run is not feasible, the projector is put in Infrastructure mode, where it acts as a wireless client and connects to the wireless network specified. With either approach, the goal is to connect the projector to an existing network, which serves as the path over which the projector sends the screen images.

The student or teacher would then connect wirelessly to the network on which the projector is installed. He or she has installed the Projector Software Utility, which allows for selection of the projector, and the student or teacher’s screen is mirrored automatically. This more complex deployment lets clients simultaneously access other resources–the Internet and resources shared on the network, for instance–in conjunction with the projector, and also make presentations on the projector from anywhere on the network.

Whilst connecting the projector in infrastructure mode sounds like the solution that a school should be looking at, it does come with some challenges. Here are a few I can think of.

• There is a potential that a clever and boisterous student might decide to connect to the projector in his least favorite teacher’s room and choose to broadcast a very inappropriate message on the projector.

• In Ad-hoc mode the connection between the wireless device and the projector will be a dedicated 54Mbps. In infrastructure, the wireless device could potentially be sharing an AP with 20 other students. This might limit the data being sent to the projector to 2-3Mbps making it useless.

• Given that the School that we are currently working with has up to 13 Wireless projectors being installed, this is going to mean a lot of projector IP addresses on the network. This is an issue for teachers and students looking to connect to the right projector in their room.

I am not sure of the right way to go here but I have shared this information with quite a few experts in my network so I lookforward to sharing the best advice I get and our experiences moving ahead.

I was discussing Portable Technology User Policies with Dr Peter Leesinsky, Principal of Korean International School yesterday. In a far ranging conversation we spoke about the need to have staff and students on the same page with regard to the use of technology in schools. A crucial part of this is what schools say to kids in their technology Acceptable Use Policy. I actually spent some time yesterday afternoon looking at some available online and revisting the one I put together for All Saints’ College in Perth to see what I would now change 8-10 years later.

Amazing to see that David Warlick just posted about his new wiki site, School AUP 2.0

 I think that this will be a welcome and much needed  resource for edcuators worldwide and I really encourage educators to share on it. Judging from a brief hunt among what I have seen our there so far, there are a lot of AUPs still written for a web 1.0 world where there is very little consideration of the use of the mobile device for web-browsing, email and the vast array of other things these phones can do.

It is amazing how many of the schools I go into where the stated policy is no phones to be used during school hours and I find all of the kids using them. If we are going to have these things, let’s make them effective!

Let me know about the AUP in your school.