Within 13 months we have made netbooks available to students in Years 9, 10 and 11 at Hamble College. The percentage uptake this year has not yet hit 50%, a little disappointing, but we have not received 100% of answers. That is down from 83% (final uptake) in year 1. That said, I am confident that this is a performance dip and not a cul-de-sac.
We have tried to address observed and reported issues ready for our Windows 7 / Office 2010 roll out. The units are 12 months improved, already at our stockist and will be imaged before students return to school. Available from the first week of term we believe they will have the X-Factor, especially on the wireless upgrade. Our next major effort is to address the opportunities for use in lessons and the teaching practices of staff. Our first step has been to redefine a School Improvement Group ‘Technology for Learning.’ This year it was a generic group of staff, next year an invited, select group of teachers looking to use technology in planning lessons and during teaching.
Finally two articles publish within an hour of one another, by two different journalists helped me connect the dots. Netbooks are now affordable, mobile, efficient information finding, data input tools. Tablets are definitely the next evolution, the form factor of school hardware 2015. The evolution is simple. Lightweight, mobile, efficient, information finding, reading and data input tools (and hand writing of course?).
Some analysts predict that close to 20% of textbooks sold in 2014 will be in digital form.
Students will be able to bring to class the entire encyclopaedia Britannia-pedia, all the classics, modern day blockbusers, e-textbooks, VLEs and ubiquitous internet access in the same space that once housed their notepads.
3 years ago I started to track netbook development, Asus eeePCs, MSI Winds, Toshiba NB100s. Within 12 months the netbook market moved away from Linux to Windows XP, costs had reduced by 35% and pricing finally dropped to a point where a 1-2-1 programme was affordable to the school and our students.
The now era. The Ipad, I-Slate, to generic tablets will start to appear from the US holiday season onwards, so look for more press released from October. Running Windows 7 (which has touch capabilities) to start with but Windows 8 (2013-14) will redefine the user experience? What of Chrome OS, Linux and even possibly Android? Where will we store the data / software?
Steve Balmer believes we are
We are at an inflection point in technology history
Which roughly translates into ‘education speak’ as
How much is this new technology going to cost?, how long before its much cheaper?…. 2015 you speculate…. Phew.