The Cisco cluelessness is really quite depressing.
Two suggestions for your brother (if he hasn't already seen them):
Moodle is a free, open source course management system out of Australia which combines blog, wiki, forum, and all manner of things. We're considering using it for an education business we have just started.
Wikispaces is a really nice and simple (cheap) hosted wiki environment (out silicone valley) which offers the service free to schools and teachers. We're using it on the local parish council for collaboration and knowledge management and it's working really well. Lot's of good US school examples listed on their site.
The Brother
· 3 years ago
The real problem is perception from all angles - business and education. What business wants is employees who can manipulate generic software. Education wants them to be able to problem solve and think - in fact ICT should really be renamed 'thinking'. What I want is for them to have relevent experience = fun. Can't do it in the target driven, content rich environment that is education today. It takes a real expanding of minds to get to where I want to be and I have yet to find a bunch of colleagues across the curriculum willing to share that vision... sad really. All you hear these days is assesment, target, % A-C,l evel performance - jargon, jargon, jargon. Hey, what happened to 'lets pod cast this module... or I wanna present this as a video'. Anecdote - I suggested to our Spanish teacher that pupils could submit mp3s for the home study.. poor gal freaked because she didn't know how to assess the work, download the samples or was even confident that it was a valid way of delivering content. So I said, let them text you. Oh well... haven't seen her since!
Sheamus
· 3 years ago
Dennis, important post on an important issue and... this issues is applicable around the world.
Students, teachers and educational institutions across the range of education (e.g., elementary, high school, university, and technical training) need appropriate tools for learning, including distance learning.
Many universities use WEBCT for distance learning and as a platform WEBCT is just barely adequate and not always the most user friendly.
I wonder if you and your brother might recommend your top 3 picks for excellent technology platforms, especially for distance learning needs.
Tom Raftery
· 3 years ago
Dennis and The Brother (!),
consider yourselves lucky. ICT isn't even a subject on the curriculum in Ireland!
Schools are woefully under-equipped with many having a couple of Windows 98 PCs or worse.
Educators are not trained in ICT and are terrified of going near the PCs in case the kids realise how much more than the teachers they know.
The government is not investing in computers for schools. Incredibly Tesco has contributed more to Irish schools in the last 5 years than the Irish government!
And Dennis, to be fair to Robert Scoble, he was the one who recommended to Microsoft that they hire me for Web 2.0 consultancy.
All Comments
Two suggestions for your brother (if he hasn't already seen them):
Moodle is a free, open source course management system out of Australia which combines blog, wiki, forum, and all manner of things. We're considering using it for an education business we have just started.
Wikispaces is a really nice and simple (cheap) hosted wiki environment (out silicone valley) which offers the service free to schools and teachers. We're using it on the local parish council for collaboration and knowledge management and it's working really well. Lot's of good US school examples listed on their site.
Students, teachers and educational institutions across the range of education (e.g., elementary, high school, university, and technical training) need appropriate tools for learning, including distance learning.
Many universities use WEBCT for distance learning and as a platform WEBCT is just barely adequate and not always the most user friendly.
I wonder if you and your brother might recommend your top 3 picks for excellent technology platforms, especially for distance learning needs.
consider yourselves lucky. ICT isn't even a subject on the curriculum in Ireland!
Schools are woefully under-equipped with many having a couple of Windows 98 PCs or worse.
Educators are not trained in ICT and are terrified of going near the PCs in case the kids realise how much more than the teachers they know.
The government is not investing in computers for schools. Incredibly Tesco has contributed more to Irish schools in the last 5 years than the Irish government!
And Dennis, to be fair to Robert Scoble, he was the one who recommended to Microsoft that they hire me for Web 2.0 consultancy.