BYOD and 1:1

There's been a lot of nonsense about mobile device provision in schools talked in recent weeks. The South African Heads of Independent Schools Association  conference held recently appeared to have a very one sided exposure to this debate. Here is my take on this issue, gleaned from many years of working with both 1:1 provision of netbooks and tablet devices, as well as Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) following wifi provision in schools. I think it is necessary to have this experience of both forms of device provision before forming an opinion. I have, and my view is that there has to be a 'meld' between the two.

The fact is that funding and rolling out 1:1 provision of one particular device is very easy in a very small school where there might only be a hundred or so kids, as is the management of the devices,  however, I've worked with schools where just one year group had double that number and it is this 'scalability' factor which appears to have been ignored in the conversations about 1:1 roll outs. Also, device suitability will almost certainly change with age. Whilst iPads and iPad Minis's might well be fine for younger kids, older pupils might prefer the familiarity of the Windows 8 mobile platform with its Office productivity suite. This means that a variety of devices might well be used in a school of over 1000 students. Android is making inroads into education territory previously inhabited solely by Apple. Some of the comments on Twitter I read about homogeneity being the most suitable approach to mobile device provision were quite concerning when made without the experience to backup that particular paradigm. We limit ourselves to one particular platform or device type at our peril....in my experience.
Tablet Academy Africa, launching in January next year will be completely platform agnostic, with advice given to schools on the various possibilities open to them across all platforms and devices.

And as to BYOD, this is in fact, already the reality in many schools particularly with the increasing ownership of smartphones and tablets by students. We would be foolish not to use this computing power in education. Yes, it does throw up issues of teacher workload (planning may well be more detailed) but also brings the advantage of using students as digital leaders in the classroom, which takes much of the responsibility away from the teacher over use of the technology. The wider psycho-pedagogical issues around teachers giving up 'control' in the classroom also swirl around BYOD, but as the prevalent reality, we must grasp this and run with it. Unless schools provide the same facilities as nearly every other place our students encounter in their daily lives,they will continue to mark themselves out as increasingly irrelevant to education,which is becoming increasingly informal. Wifi is becoming as essential to education in this century as textbooks were in the last.

 It comes to something when you can use your mobile device in the Mug and Bean but not in your school...

Microsoft Surface Pro - a serious player for the education market?

I've been working on my new Microsoft Surface pro this past couple of weeks. It's certainly been an experience, and a steep learning curve. I've spent the past five years completely reliant on Apple products, including the incredible iPad and iPad mini's. I had to get used to different screen swipes at first as the instinctive reaction is to use the iPad movements which have become almost like a form of automatic processing.  And this machine is starting to grow on me. The windows 8.1 platform is pretty cool, and of course, all the Office productivity apps which are included make using documents, spreadsheets and presentations across my Windows machines pretty seamless.

The Tablet it'self has a USB port, amongst the others, which is incredibly useful for printing and connecting other devices, if thats what you need to do. Whilst this might appear to be an advantage, the increasing use of the cloud and wifi for printing might soon make this superfluous? The keyboard is useful too and provides a useful cover for the screen when not in use.  Magnetic attachments for this keyboard and the charger are pretty cool too...

It's been said that the Windows App Store is the big let down for this tablet platform,but the range is increasing all the time. Might this soon erode the dominance of the Apple App store?  who can tell. But with Microsoft making a version of this tablet available for an incredibly low price, it certainly becomes an attractive alternative to the iPad particularly as Microsoft Office still dominates. The rest of the public sector might also consider this Tab a serious player too, on the same basis. Schools,provinces and districts using the Microsoft 365 for Education will also no doubt find this tablet a worthwhile alternative to consider. It is pretty chunky compared to the more stylish iPad, but in the mass market public sector, do looks really matter that much?

I'm going to continue working on mine. This doesn't mean I've abandoned Apple and my iPad - far from it.personally, I still think Apple have the education market dominance,particularly with their quite brilliant support and apps such as iTunesU, Garageband , and iMovie. And making the iLife suite available free from September 18th is a very canny move which will further cement their number one position at the moment.

...But the competitors, like this Surface pro and Samsung are determined to chase them hard all the way, and if I was Tim Cook, I'd be looking over my shoulder for sure. 

 All in all, good competition for the tablet market will be good for education too.

So when will Microsoft be making it available in Africa?

Here's an interesting article link  to some more information about using the Surface tablet.

  Unlock your Surface RT tablet’s hidden superpowers.