News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
News, Reviews and more from Australia's Macintosh Authority
There’s been a bit of a ruckus lately on the Australian MacEd listserve about upgrading software. Essentially, the complainant’s beef was that, due to some new iMacs arriving in the school, there was now a mixture of iPhoto 6 and 8 in his labs, and one could not open the others’ photo library. There was also an implication that this wouldn’t happen with Microsoft products, as they can be updated. Apple offers educational institutions two options to stay current: one is the Apple Maintenance Program (AMP), and the other is a purchase of new software at discounted rates.
Martin Levins | Jul 28, 2008
Ian Jukes session begins with seemingly random "cute" images of animals and bloopers entertaining the crowd before his 12.30 timeslot. Lots of "Oohs" and "Aahs" as only US audiences can do. Good technique though: let images from the web warm up the crowd. (He provides them on his website) "Literacy isn't enough" handout available from his website. Turns out this is more about those wacky kids (as Mark Pesce would refer to them)
Martin Levins | Jul 1, 2008
Howard teaches at The Urban School, San Francisco, a 1:1 school for 6-7 years, for year 9 and up. (Howard is no relation, even though he has a cool surname ;-) This session is essentially the same as his presentation last year, entitled "Making the laptop disappear" He maintains that the essential ingredient for any 1:1 laptop program is a supportive Head of school (although a 1:10 staff:student ratio with average class size of 10 may help ;-)
Martin Levins | Jul 1, 2008
James' "The wisdom of crowds" is the topic here. He goes through several examples ranging from predictive economic, electoral and sports markets where the crowd generates surprisingly accurate results. He relates this to the delicious and flickr tagging exercises and to Google's ability to find what you want using, essentially, the wisdom of the crowded internet. The argument extends to the wikipedia idea that chaos can conceal an order. He compares to the common perceptions of crowd behaviour in terms of stock market bubbles bursting and meetings, where everyone becomes as dumb as the dumbest person attending. But, he maintains that groups can be "made smart" if three conditions are met
Martin Levins | Jun 30, 2008
I’m sitting in the keynote of this conference (known colloquially as NECC) where over 18 000 educators have come together in San Antonio Texas (site of the Alamo) for what is arguably the biggest education conference to address curriculum issues involving Information Technologies in the world, with the theme of Convene, Connect and Transform. Some may argue that the British Education Technology Trade show is bigger, and it is, but it's more of an "expo" with far fewer spotlights, keynotes and workshops than International Society for Technology in Education's NECC.
Martin Levins | Jun 30, 2008
What tickles your fancy? The Geography of Europe. Nanotechnology, Philosophy or perhaps Astrophysics and Supercomputing? The University of Melbourne, Swinburne, Australian National University, University of Western Australia, the University of NSW, Griffith and Otago University in New Zealand, are just some of the Antipodean tertiary institutions now joining their US cousins in providing public lectures, courseware and recordings of ceremonial events such as commencement and valedictory speeches.
Martin Levins | Jun 9, 2008
Once everyone realised that Kevin Rudd’s government policy of ready access to computers for all year 9-12 students was actually going to happen, the market suddenly changed. The goalposts weren’t just moved — we now have a different game and the rush of blood to the vendors’ heads has made them readier than ever to play limbo with pricepoints. We’ve seen $700 desktops from PC vendors and even $999 MacBooks with a .Mac account, onsite warranty, iWork and a carry bag thrown in from Apple in Australia.
Martin Levins | Jun 2, 2008
Imagine you're a principal in our deep northern state, concerned to get the best for your staff. You note that the Queensland state government has introduced a "Computers for Teachers" program. Bravo. Good to see that this teaching and learning tool is being recognised as essential. The program gives an option for a Windows or a Mac laptop in a seemingly ecumenical way. I write “seemingly” because there are traps: traps that make it difficult — some would say impossible — to get a Mac for members of your staff.
Martin Levins | May 7, 2008
I've had one of "those" weeks as we upgrade our network to fully integrate Leopard and, in the process, discovered some things that may assist others who are moving the same way. As has been mentioned many times elsewhere, you wouldn't have considered moving to Leopard on the server side before 10.5.2, but there are still problems even with this release. First, a little background on what we were trying to achieve. We'd upgraded student laptops, but left Open Directory at OS X 10.4.11 — preferring stability over the improved parental controls ...
Martin Levins | Apr 7, 2008
"Assessment for learning" is one of the buzzwords you'll find in many a syllabus and educational blog. It refers to assessment that concentrates on identifying areas that can be improved and celebrating areas of achievement rather than ranking or scoring a student relative to a benchmark or to other students. It has various components, but includes the practice of reflection: what went well, what didn't, how could I change things for the better and so on. As part of any good approach to learning, reflective practice has elements of repetition and mental rehearsal that are key to an effective revision which will lead to mastery.
Martin Levins | Mar 10, 2008
Our current network-enabled, instant-messaging, mobile-phoning, BlackBerry-toting world demands immediacy. With shiny things calling like sirens we try to deploy the latest and greatest for our students. In an attempt to satisfy the crowds baying for new we look to Leopard server to provide Web 2.0 goodness, but, down here at the institute, we've discovered that this emperor is scantily clad. It should go without saying that computer systems need stability, otherwise users will lose confidence and, rather than striding out, leading staff and students to learning Nirvana, you'll just be taking a walk.
Martin Levins | Feb 11, 2008
A young guy with this modification of John Lennon's famous "Imagine"printed in white on an Apple classic black T-shirt is high fiving hisfriends who have just produced "Lotus-eaters", a short music video warning of the dangers of unthinking submission to seductive technologies. They did this in less than 24 hours using the facilities of the new John Lennon Bus, being shown at Macworld Expo 2008 in San Francisco, after its re-launch at the Consumer Electronics Show in LasVegas earlier this month. (The concept has been in existence since 1998).
Martin Levins | Jan 17, 2008
Australian free-to-air television guide IceTV is now available via the iTunes App Store for people to install on their iPhones. Usage of the free app requires registration with the IceTV service, which is free and provides a one-day TV listing. Paid subscribers to the IceTV service get a seven-day listing. Other features available to subscribers are the ability to record programs remotely using EyeTV, a personalised TV guide and recommendations based on shows you've previously recorded.
