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You might have seen the items on today's evening news (both channels, I
think) on this new pilot program for more computer-intensive learning by
children in schools.

Turns out it's called "Project ChaOS"
<http://www.digiops.org.nz/projects/currentprojects/chaos/>, which stands
for "Children Have Ownership of Schooling". Great idea in principle, but I
can't help being worried about their reliance on particular
technologies--tablet PCs and PDAs--that 1) are expensive, and 2) have,
shall we say, less than rosy prospects for the future?

Hello Lawrence D'Oliveiro,

iirc, there are several 'CHAOS' type projects up and running in some of the
more athluent parts of the states, personally i think it is a great idea.

> have, shall we say, less than rosy prospects for the future?

are you referring to TPC & PDA's themselvs or the software that typically
runs on them ?

if its the software that typically runs on them - who cares. the fact is
that you can learn on one system and most of your skills are portable to
other systems. the way you use a stylus is the same, its just the software
itself that is different.

that is of course unless you learned on a Apple and trying to port them skills
to PC - im not trying to take a swipe at apple owners, just that some i know
have real 'issues' when trying to use a PC.

----------------
the madGeek

> You might have seen the items on today's evening news (both channels,
> I think) on this new pilot program for more computer-intensive
> learning by children in schools.
>
> Turns out it's called "Project ChaOS"
> <http://www.digiops.org.nz/projects/currentprojects/chaos/>, which
> stands for "Children Have Ownership of Schooling". Great idea in
> principle, but I can't help being worried about their reliance on
> particular technologies--tablet PCs and PDAs--that 1) are expensive,
> and 2) have, shall we say, less than rosy prospects for the future?
>

T'was the Tue, 25 Jul 2006 20:18:38 +1200 when I remembered Lawrence
D'Oliveiro <_zealand> saying something like
this:

>Turns out it's called "Project ChaOS"
><http://www.digiops.org.nz/projects/currentprojects/chaos/>, which stands
>for "Children Have Ownership of Schooling". Great idea in principle, but I
>can't help being worried about their reliance on particular
>technologies--tablet PCs and PDAs--that 1) are expensive, and 2) have,
>shall we say, less than rosy prospects for the future?

I used to work for the Ministry of Education as part of their ICT
Professional Development Clusters. There has been quite a few ICT
initiatives that I saw, such as Laptop Valley, Nayland College, CCNA
in schools, Video conferencing, etc...

I was always disappointed at all these high technology solutions being
put into schools without any thought towards whether there were more
cost-effective solutions than just what the vendors were coming up
with.

One idea I wanted to see was the purchase of cheap PDAs such as the
low end Palms that could interface with data-loggers. That would
really make sciences such as biology a lot more useful and
interactive.

Another idea was using digital cameras in primary schools. Instead of
getting one or two 6MP cameras worth $600 or so, why not get 4 $150
4MP cameras from DSE? It's not like the primary school students are
doing digital photography, and I always felt that access was more
important that quality.

Same as at a high school I was recently doing some consulting for. I
recommended that they network every classroom and put a couple of
terminal clients running off a K12LTSP server. However, the vendor
didn't like terminal clients saying they didn't allow as much to be
done as networked PCs. However, the cost of say 12 terminal clients
and a terminal server is about the cost of two networked PCs. This
would give 10 more students access to the internet and word processing
over just two who could do other things like scanning/video editing.
I'm not against networked PCs, I just think that terminal clients for
doing basic tasks provides more access and better value to students
than just a couple of expensive machines.

But alas, the school didn't see that, they sided with the vendor. I
wouldn't mind working with the Ministry of Education again. I hate
seeing schools getting taken to the cleaners by vendors with just
their own interests in mind. Schools aren't cash cows, they're there
to support the students.
--
Cheers,

Waylon Kenning.