Tuesday 30th January 2018 If you are planning to present a YouTube video as part of a prepared lesson you want it to run immediately when you click the Play button. If your school’s Internet connection is slow or overloaded you may not be able to watch the video ‘live’. The solution to this problem is to download the video … Read More
Getting started with BYOT in your school
The first item on the checklist of many schools planning for the introduction of BYOT is ‘what type of devices do students need’? In fact, experience in schools where BYOT has been a success suggests that this consideration should be towards the latter end of your BYOT planning checklist. So, where should we start with BYOT planning? >>>
School Planning: Learner-centric bandwidth requirements
Friday 2nd September 2016 Schools and educational organisations often calculate how much bandwidth to provide based on budget allocations. A recent aarnet paper considers bandwidth requirements based on the needs of individual learners. For example, aarnet’s research finds that an individual student or teacher requires between 0.2 and 0.5 Mbps to use Google Apps. For a school of 100 concurrent users that … Read More
Is your school ready for an ICT Makeover?
Tuesday 15th March 2016 Of the many components in a school’s learning environment, the most constantly-changing physical component is undoubtably ICT. The speed of this change has been accelerating as the broader community rapidly adopts and ‘normalises’ the use of online and mobile technologies in their day-to-day lives. In comparison with this community background, many schools’ ICT offerings are now … Read More
The problem with driverless cars
Monday 4th January 2016 The self-driving car, that cutting-edge creation that’s supposed to lead to a world without accidents, is achieving the exact opposite right now: The vehicles have racked up a crash rate double that of those with human drivers. The glitch? They obey the law all the time, without exception. This may sound like the right way to … Read More
Getting started with Google Classroom
Tuesday 1st December 2015 Learn how to use Google Classroom to provide an online classroom environment that you can ‘blend’ with regular class activities. Classroom is available free for schools using Google Apps for Education, and is integrated with your Google Drive. Students and staff can access Google Classroom from any computer or iPad (or other tablet) at school or at home, fitting neatly … Read More
What makes an ‘outstanding’ school?
Wednesday 25th November 2015 A five-year pilot study by a team of Southern Cross University researchers has identified four elements critical to creating an ‘outstanding’ school. The results of the study have been published in a book titled ‘Creating the Outstanding School’, authored by Professor David Lynch, Jake Madden and Tina Doe. Professor Lynch said governments across the globe were … Read More
Preparing for BYOT
Monday 16th November 2015 Is your school planning for the introduction of BYOT (or BYOD)? The first item on the checklist of many schools planning for the use of students’ and teachers’ own technologies on the school network is ‘what are the minimum specifications of permitted BYO devices?’ In fact, experience in schools where BYOT has been a success suggests that … Read More
Is your school making the ICT transition?
Thursday 27th August 2015 Schools are moving from an ICT deployment model where desktop computers were located in secure computer rooms, to a model embracing the widespread use of mobile devices – available when and where they are required to support learning activities. Where is your school on this transition continuum? Read more (and download the transition indicators) >>>
Cloud Data Policies
Monday 24th August 2015 How private is your staff and students’ data when it is stored with a commercial cloud provider? Will students and teachers be targeted with advertising, based on the content of their emails and documents stored in the cloud? Who owns ‘your’ data, once it is stored on a remote server, possibly in another country? Can you retrieve … Read More
Google Apps: hands-on workshops
Wednesday 12th August 2015 Are staff at your school embracing new Cloud technologies? Think3’s Scott Barnham will be presenting a one-day hands-on workshop on Google Apps for Education at Port Kembla PS on Thursday 20th August, at Port Kembla PS. These workshops are always popular, and are a great opportunity for all school staff to keep up to date with the … Read More
Off the screen and into the playground
Monday 10th August 2015 At Ravenswood School for Girls the playgrounds are full of girls who are not texting or even updating their social media status. A large group of year 10 girls are shrieking with delight over a skipping game where at least 12 jumped together. A group of year 11 students try a new version of Twister. Other girls play the old-fashioned … Read More
BYOT & BYOD K-12 Checklist
Wednesday 5th August 2015 The first item on the checklist of many schools planning for the introduction of BYOT is ‘what type of devices do students need’? In fact, experience in schools where BYOT has been a success suggests that this consideration should be towards the latter end of your BYOT checklist. Device specifications are not the most important consideration when planning for BYOT … Read More
Create a website for your class
Monday 3rd August 2015 A class website can be used as a gateway to online resources to support class activities. Check out some examples and read the step-by-step guides to making a free website for your class. It takes less than 15 minutes to create a web site that not only looks very professional, but will also play a key role in ‘normalising’ … Read More
Are you making the transition? – Check your school budget
Tuesday 28th July 2015 When considering ICT services, schools are rapidly transitioning from being providers of desktop PCs for students and teachers, to being providers of network and Internet services over which students and teachers interact with their own technologies. No longer do schools need to maintain on-site file servers or expensive software licensing contracts – this is now mostly available … Read More
Internet boost for schools in Wales
Monday 27th July 2015 In the post-PC era, schools are striving to build collaborative learning environments supplemented by BYOT programs, using online tools such as Google Apps for Education, Weebly, YouTube and a myriad of other ‘cloud’ options. There is one component common to all these tools that is vital to the success of the technology supporting the curriculum – reliable high … Read More
Planning – ICT supporting the Curriculum
Thursday 23rd July 2015 ‘ICT in the curriculum’ is not the same as ‘learning about computers’. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can become an engaging tool to support the learning environment. Is your school developing school management and planning structures that foster the exploration of new and emerging technologies, to support and enrich classroom learning activities? Our goal is to ‘normalise’ technology use … Read More
Technology is not a learning outcome
Tuesday 21st July 2015 A few years ago I walked into a classroom with a local District IT manager. The class of 9 and 10 year olds were working in groups, all engrossed in producing videos about their chosen topics. Some groups were constructing stop-motion videos, others were outside the classroom conducting hard-hitting interviews with staff. Other students were off in … Read More
BYOD / BYOT – Getting started
Thursday 16th July 2015 When schools begin their journey down the BYOT path – leveraging students’ own technologies to support the curriculum – much planning time is often focussed on which device (or devices) will be acceptable, how these devices will connect to the school network, how apps will be controlled, and other ‘technical’ hardware and software support issues. (Not to mention policy … Read More
Time to ditch Flash?
Wednesday 15th July 2015 The recent tidal wave of critical vulnerabilities in Adobe’s Flash Player has prompted many security professionals to call for the much-maligned software’s demise. Flash has been particularly popular for use on animated web sites used by K-12 schools. Adobe has patched more than twenty Flash vulnerabilities in the last week — some of them days after … Read More
Planning for BYOT in your school
Thursday 25th June 2015 If your school is planning to move to a BYOT model, this information may be useful in developing program resources, infrastructure and policy. The first thing to understand is that setting device specifications is not the most important factor for success! Learn more about implementing BYOT >>>
Glued to the screen
Monday 22nd June 2015 A third grade class where kids spend 75% of the day on iPads? Is this the future of education? When the 24 third-graders in Morgan Mercaldi’s class arrive at the Jackson Avenue School every morning, they take their iPads out of their backpacks and put them on their desks. The tablets will remain there, or in … Read More
K-12 ICT Infrastructure Planning
Tuesday 16th June A sound ICT infrastructure is an essential foundation of a successful modern learning environment. To be successful in supporting the curriculum, school ICT infrastructure development and implementation (computers, mobile devices, the network cabling, wireless access points, etc) must be considered in conjunction with, and in response to, the needs of the school learning environment. Is your school’s … Read More
Is that the right tool?
Tuesday 2nd June 2015 Yesterday I made reference to an article highlighting the inappropriate use of slide show software, such as PowerPoint. (Powerpoint should be banned) We can (and should) apply similar judgments to the use of technology in the classroom – digital technologies aren’t necessarily the best tool for many learning activities. It doesn’t hurt to be non-digital – in … Read More
Digital normalisation – the imperitive for all schools
Tuesday 19th May 2015 Digital normalisation occurs when the use of digital technology across all facets of the school operations is so natural, and so accepted, that it appears to be almost invisible. While the young people of the world, their parents and developed societies have normalised the use of digital technologies in their everyday lives, and moved their daily … Read More
The Evolution of the Employee
Monday 18th May 2015 The structure of the corporate workplace can be very different to that found in schools. While the infographic below (reproduced from Jacob Morgan) is designed to demonstrate the differences that our current students might find in their future workplaces, it also neatly captures the structures and purposes of current K-12 school activities, and the role of … Read More
NAPLAN: Computers to mark written exams by 2017
Wednesday 29th April 2015 Computers will mark the written component of Australian NAPLAN exams from 2017 under plans from the Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). ACARA’s general manager, Stanley Rabinowitz, said he was “very confident” that the auto-scoring method would work when introduced in 2017. Schools with low Internet connectivity will be able to download the tests securely beforehand to avoid overloading broadband connections. USBs could also be delivered to remote … Read More
Getting started with Google Apps
Tuesday 28th April 2015 Think3 is presenting a series of Google Apps workshops for teachers….. Google Apps for Education provides a mature, web-based suite of apps to support learning and collaboration in the classroom – on any device. Getting Started with Google Apps is a one day workshop that equips teachers, school executive and IT staff to explore the collaboration, flexibility … Read More
Create a ‘Heat Map’ in Google Sheets
Tuesday 21st April 2015 Google have updated the Conditional Formatting feature in Google Sheets, with a major makeover. The example below shows how a business might use a ‘heat map’ in Sheets to provide a visual indicator of comparative success across financial periods. Teachers could apply a similar model to gauge student progress in academic indicators, such as reading levels, etc.
Govt online policies for Australian students
Thursday 19th March 2015 Many schools now use Google Apps for Education, and other online services, on a regular basis for both curriculum and administrative functions. However, the companies providing these services have a minimum age restriction for the use of their services – usually 13 years of age. In the US the use of such services by children is … Read More