I’m just back from a completely un-planned visit to Hermitage Academy in Helensburgh. I got a phone call this morning from Nicola to say that they were testing out a product they had on approval called an eBeam, and could I go over at lunchtime for a quick demo. Of course, said I. The demo was given by George Coyle, a classroom assistant who has a particular interest in ICT.

First of all, I think Drew sums it up quite nicely.

Secondly, it removes the problem I have with SmartBoards, yet is significantly cheaper than any other whiteboard option. You could kit out two classrooms with this for the price of one SmartBoard.

It works by attaching a USB device to any flat surface, and you use a wireless pen to control the interactivity. I’ve no doubt that as with any technology there are limitations, but in a half hour of playing with it, it seemed fairly fantastic to me.

Has anyone else tried one to breaking point?

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A while ago I blogged about Roxik – I didn’t notice this on the site when I was there last though!

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I hate ‘buzz-phrases’, but a chance discussion with Karen-Ann from RM this morning got me thinking about the importance of content availability, and possibly the only thing the McCrone deal has given Scottish education. It was great to catch up with her and hear about how the Glow project is progressing. The more I hear about it, the more I can’t wait to see it in action with kids.

Some in the edublogosphere pointed out that it was difficult to make the most of the pilot phase of testing the Glow portal, as it was only available during certain hours. For class committed teachers, it was difficult to get ‘quality time’ to sit down and try it out.

Having been involved in the planning for the central residential training of the Glow mentors, we had hoped that everyone attending would be able to familiarise themselves with the online training materials prior to attending their training. In my mind, it would mean that ‘learning how to’ would have been dealt with first, and the residential training would have been about contextualising, networking and learning how to be an effective mentor.

The fact remains however that time is a huge issue. I’m really writing this to find out what people think – is it too much to ask that Mentors look at online training materials prior to attending a course? If it were up to me, I would completely alter all forms of ICT training – I would have all the training resources online, and then training days are not about ‘how to’ at all, but rather they are about ‘what to’ – sharing practice. The problem is that this eats into the dreaded ‘35 hours’ or into your own ‘free time’. What do people think?

When I was in school and McCrone was being implemented, I remember huge discussions around the phrase ‘at a time and place of the teachers choosing’ with regard to the spending of ‘non-contact’ time. If I chose to go shopping in the afternoon with my non-contact time, I should not feel remotely concerned about how this reflected on my professionalism if I chose to spend time in the evening in front of my computer learning, preparing or marking.

Totally unrelated – but have you searched for glow on rm’s site? I’m particularly fascinated by item 8?

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The notion of how moral it is to blog is not the intention of this post, but rather I’d like to point out one instance where blogging could potentially begin a discussion on the rights and wrongs of a situation. As a teacher of Religious and Moral education, I would have found a link like this a fascinating starting point. The image is harrowing, so would have to be dealt with the highest sensitivity, but the surrounding story and the moral questions it brings into play are deep.

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Every so often, you find something on the net that makes you bury your head in your hands and wonder about how ‘invasive’ using technology can be. This one defies belief. I know doing this activity can be a bit messy, and that some poor soul will have to pick up lots of tiny little bits of paper at the end, but the entire point of this activity is that it is ‘hands-on’ – you learn by practical application about symmetry.

A similar story (which I can’t remember if I have shared here before) – at SETT this year I bumped into Dick Edie, HT at Glassary Primary in Argyll. The question I asked everyone was “What have you seen that’s good?” – Dick’s response was surprising, but made me think. He pointed out that he was apalled by the number of companies selling pointless whiteboard resources – for example – a whiteboard resource that taught kids how to count coins. Why would you spend all that money on a resource to count coins? Why not just give them coins? Would it not be more realistic, and possibly cheaper?

In lots of ways, technology is the last thing you should use to achieve an outcome. In many cases however, it is the first thing you should turn to. I guess our role in an advisory capacity is to help people realise the difference?

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This morning on Radio 1 Chris Moyles et al were talking about the recently reviewed rules for how the singles charts are compiled. It turns out that downloads are now included, and the charts are not determined by songs ‘eligibility’, but rather it’s popularity.

This couldn’t help but catch my attention. I’ve no doubt this is a brilliant marketing ploy on the part of the record companies and those that manage official download sites, but it does mean that ‘the people’ now have more of a voice. The system is obviously open for great abuse, as Chris Moyles’ plan is to convince enough people to download a Billie Piper ‘classic’ just to see if it works.

Imagine adopting the same kind of strategy in secondary education? Instead of our prescriptive curriculum, covering all the right ‘modes’, imagine saying to our learners ‘what do you want to learn?’ and having those results direct the options?

What am I saying… imagine asking someone what they want to learn…!?

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This one was just too good to miss blogging about. It looks like The Pirate Bay have started proceedings to buy Sealand – if you donate, then you become a citizen.

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This is just a really cheeky post to say that Dynamism is accepting pre-orders for the OQO 02 – it will ship in February/March. I’m more than happy to check this device out for educational purposes and report back on it on a regular basis right here on the blog, if someone is interested in funding it?

Well, you never know unless you ask…

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Having read far too many posts on the infringement of a Cisco trademark, I wasn’t going to make comment until I saw this – absolute class.

Oh, as we are in the UK though the countdown is wrong, as Apple Inc’s new milestone/monumental creation/most astounding marketing development creation since sliced bread/act of God (delete as applicable) won’t reach these shores until 2008. Yawn… Can we all get back to work now please?

It does look good though.

UPDATE: I’m not going to get drawn into Apple marketing hysteria, but I found this blog entry about a very interesting LG product…

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Just found this on the Macromedia blogs news roundup. Sploder is an online Flash game creation engine. This looks really good, and you can put them on a blog! Lovely Flash development.

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