Commonsense media

Common Sense Media has an amazing selection of tools and information to help your school with digital citizenship planning and implementation.

Dangers of sharing photos online

People Chipping Underway

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-31042477

Want to gain entry to your office, get on a bus, or perhaps buy a sandwich? We're all getting used to swiping a card to do all these things. But at Epicenter, a new hi-tech office block in Sweden, they are trying a different approach - a chip under the skin.

Felicio de Costa, whose company is one of the tenants, arrives at the front door and holds his hand against it to gain entry. Inside he does the same thing to get into the office space he rents, and he can also wave his hand to operate the photocopier.

That's all because he has a tiny RFID (radio-frequency identification) chip, about the size of a grain of rice, implanted in his hand. Soon, others among the 700 people expected to occupy the complex will also be offered the chance to be chipped. Along with access to doors and photocopiers, they're promised further services in the longer run, including the ability to pay in the cafe with a touch of a hand.

On the day of the building's official opening, the developer's chief executive was, himself, chipped live on stage. And I decided that if was to get to grips with this technology, I had to bite the bullet - and get chipped too.

The whole process is being organised by a Swedish bio-hacking group which was profiled by my colleague Jane Wakefield recently. One of its members, a rather fearsome looking tattooist, inserted my chip.

First, he massaged the skin between my thumb and index finger and rubbed in some disinfectant. The he told me to take a deep breath while he inserted the chip. There was a moment of pain - not much worse than any injection - and then he stuck a plaster over my hand.

Before trying my chip out, I wanted to know more about the thinking behind it. Hannes Sjoblad, whose electronic business card is on his own chip and can be accessed with a swipe of a smartphone, has the title chief disruption officer at the development. I asked him whether people really wanted to get this intimate with technology.

"We already interact with technology all the time," he told me. "Today it's a bit messy - we need pin codes and passwords. Wouldn't it be easy to just touch with your hand? That's really intuitive."

When I tested my chip, I found that it was not all that intuitive - I had to twist my hand into an unnatural position to make the photocopier work. And while some of the people around the building were looking forward to being chipped, others were distinctly dubious. "Absolutely not," said one young man when I asked him if he'd sign up. An older woman was more positive about the potential of the technology but saw little point in being chipped just to get through a door.

But Hannes Sjoblad says he and the Swedish Biohacking Group have another objective - preparing us all for the day when others want to chip us. "We want to be able to understand this technology before big corporates and big government come to us and say everyone should get chipped - the tax authority chip, the Google or Facebook chip." Then, he says, we'll all be able to question the way the technology is implemented from a position of much greater knowledge.

I've returned to Britain with a slightly sore hand - and a chip still under my skin which has my contact details on it. Not that useful, but no doubt more sophisticated chips will soon replace wearable technology like fitness bands or payment devices, and we will get used to being augmented. All sorts of things are possible - whether it becomes culturally acceptable to insert technology beneath our skin is another matter.

Special effects Dad part 2

It looks like these videos have gone viral.

Special effects Dad

Rather amazing when your Dad is a special effects guy!

Are Apple being taken for a ride or are we?

This is a strange one?  It opens a few questions and I'd love to know the real answer but I doubt i ever will. If what I've found out in the past few days is true then it's not just appalling but also down right stupid.
Being in charge of many MacBooks at work, and having just purchased another 50 or so I wanted to buy protective cases for all of them. Not wanting to pay 50 US$ for each case i looked to purchase locally.  Being in Asia this shouldn't have been too much of a problem as most cheap plastic accessories are no doubt made here right? Right!
Order made I was told I had to wait a few days as the cases had to be shipped in from Singapore...no big problem till customs got involved and refused to let the items into Thailand!  Why?  Because, the hole in the cases, or more importantly in the top case held an Apple logo!  Hello!!!  They're MacBook cases.
OK, I'll cut to the chase in case you're not with me yet.  I understand Apple wanting to protect their logo, but why the hell would Apple not want their product to be advertised?  I could, after all put a cover on my MacBook that said MICROSOFT IS BEST!  But instead i choose to show their little glowing Apple logo because I'm a proud Apple owner.
So what's gone wrong?
Well i see it pretty simply.  Either Apple have become so greedy over selling their own 50c plastic cases for 50 US$  that they've lost the plot, or they are being betrayed by copyright laws who are trying to protect them.
A 10 cent Apple logo car sticker created by some 'odd bod' company isn't seen as copyright infringement?  Why is a MacBook case that promotes the product within?
I know what I'm going to do....look out for my new cases on the market soon.  I guess we can say what ever we want as long as it doesn't promote Apple!

Where do our morals lie?

Do we always live up to the standards that we expect of our students?  One question that was asked at a conference I attended some time back raised the issue of morality and more importantly teacher morality.  For example, smoking was discussed. Most teachers, even the smokers, would discourage students to even consider taking up smoking.  Regardless of the Social Pariah status placed upon smokers these days we all know the health risks.  As a result of all the health warning most, if not many would shy away from tobacco.
So what happens when it comes to pirated digital media?  What about DVDs? Music?  I'm pretty sure teachers would be able to point out the 'wrongs' of this media, but when we are surrounded by it, when it is the widely accepted norm should we care?  Do our students even know that it is illegal and why, and what the real consequences of piracy are? Or are the music and film industries far too rich for us to be concerned about?

Good Morning

listen to ‘Good morning Junior School’ on Audioboo

Tech talk with student at Prem

Welcome via SoundCloud

Internet safety in schools

Photoshop makes anything possible

Peterborough Zombie Walk 2013

Nothing technological...but a little something from my home town! Great idea!

So do you remember all of these?

Inventions that have changed our lives

Collaboration ideas from Kevin Honeycutt

Collaborate, innovate and educate from EDtalks on Vimeo.

Internet safety

Internet safety from EDtalks on Vimeo.

So what's coming up next?

Educational ideas now and for the future from EDtalks on Vimeo.

Cheap and easy document cam-Zero cost

What a simple idea for creating your own document cam for use in the classroom.

Short URL

Treated myself to a new domain http://jwict.it so I now have my own URL shortener!  Here's the first. http://jwict.it/1aNZkm4

Year 3 Superheads

Some of our year 3s used ICT to combine various impressions of their own faces as part of an art project.  Some fantastic results!

iPad problems

 

iPads are still relatively new in the world of technology and their value in the classroom is becoming recognised more and more.  With the more recent release of the iPad mini these child friendly mobile devices are being snapped up in bulk by many schools around the world.  The small problem here is that when Apple invented this wonderful device it was designed for personal use – one person with one iTunes account.  I don’t think apple even foresaw the interest that schools would show.

The iPad really is an all singing, all dancing piece of kit, but as with most technology it needs to be well managed, updated regularly and have software (apps) installed manually.  Whilst this isn’t an issue for a small number of devices, once a school has a large number of them the manageability becomes problematic.

The main issue for schools is the organisation of iTunes accounts.  In some parts of the world Apple now have Volume Purchase Program (VPP) for Education that does make things a lot easier, but is limited to a few countries around the world. Without it schools are left with a massive headache and financial conundrum - the biggest problem for schools being legality.

We met recently with representatives from Apple Education who came up with a number of options for us, however I was somewhat shocked that every solution they gave didn’t provide anything that we ourselves hadn’t already considered.

Option A

Create one image on one (master) iPad and clone the other devices. 

Apple made it very clear to us that option A was not an option!  Many schools had started down this route and Apple were insisting that this changed immediately.

I don’t think anyone could argue with this – it’s certainly not fair to app designers, and schools would want to stay legal anyway.

Option B

Create an iTunes account for each iPad and use them as you would use personal devices by purchasing what you need on each device each time.

Personally I see this as a ridiculous solution.  Has anyone ever really tried doing this with 50+ devices!  And…who’s credit card would be used for this?

Option C

Create iTunes accounts for every device, but only use one account to purchase from and then ‘gift’ the apps to all the other accounts.

A couple of major issues pop up here.  One is that every iTunes account must have its own email address.  This can be solved by using a ‘+’ sign when creating the accounts which emails will bounce past to the main account.  For example, myschoolipad@gmail.com is the master account and myschoolipad+1@gmail.com myschoolipad+2@gmail.com can all be used.  Email servers will ignore everything after the ‘+’ sign and send everything to the master account.

The second issue is that iTunes will block a credit card if it used for multiple purchases in a short space of time, so schools would have to contact apple to let them know their planned purchase dates to ensure they don’t block the creditcard.  The whole process is still massively time consuming and schools would need to employ someone to do this tedious job.

We asked if it would be possible to buy the apps in bulk and not bother with the gifting.  Although their could be ways to do this with the help of Apple HQ it was felt that if the apps weren’t gifted then they hadn’t actually been used as such.

There are other issues at play here too - which iTunes store to use, who’s credit card to use, giftcards not being available in all countries.  All of these elements leave schools with a bigger and bigger headache.

OK, I accept that the volume purchase program is coming, but it may not be available in all countries for a few years.  Until it is schools have this issue to contend with on a daily basis.

Oh yes, and to top it off, once the VPP is in place, any purchases made before hand will be lost.  For some schools this could amount to thousands of dollars!

I can’t say I really know the solution to this, but I can’t say I blame schools who take the risk of operating illegally and choosing option A whilst waiting for the VPP to be put in place.

The best solution in my opinion is to accept the iPad for what it is - a personal device.  Opt for a BYOD (bring your own device) program, or even if you provide the iPad for staff and students, let them manage their own device and iTunes account.

If not, insist that your school employ someone to manage them, or alternatively expect some very long hours for you and your technical team every time an update is released and every time someone asks for new apps to be installed!

Comments below please!

Countdown timers can be fun to use in class

A great way to use countdown timers is to find a website that generates the HTML code for a timer and get the students to create their own.  Possibly count down to the end of term, holidays, birthdays or special events.

The HTML code can easily be added to a blog or class webpage.

Great graphic to understand data usage

Standard Operating Procedure !

A blogsite worth following

A few great Ken Robinson quotes in here

RCC 2/23/13 "The State of The Arts"  Just ignore the 'whoops' from the audience!

Do you need to move to think?

Twiddla.com

Twiddla.com is a great way of introducing online collaboration to very young children.  Worked brilliantly with my Year 1's today!

Total Recall

The next generation of recording our lives is probably here to stay.

Sharing our lives online

Flight Diary

Managed to add a few more of my latest flights to flight diary. Now completely up to date I believe. CLICK HERE This is a great one to get your schools to do.  Get your whole school to complete one (give them the username and password and see what happens!
 

Time, time, time

Pope and Mac

 

The photograph at the top is from the announcement of the new pope Benedict XVI back in 2005; the photo at the bottom is from the announcement of Pope Francis I yesterday. Says everything that needs to be said about how Apple has changed the world .