Archive for April 2009

The Cloud and the power cut

7:01 AM Add Comment
Monday evening was eventful to say the least; there I was happily watching a movie when the lights start to flicker, �oh� I thought to myself �a small power surge�.

The latter was true, the former distinctly not.

I�ve got an energy monitor that displays your current (badum tish) energy consumption, my normal evening power draw is circa 200-300 watts, when the surge hit it spiked to well over 1.4kw, it continued to spike in this manner for over 20 minutes. Even though all my electronic equipment is on surge protectors, I still ran to the circuit breaker to kill the power and then proceeded outside to see how it was affecting the rest of the street. The power surge eventually changed to an all out power cut and with that Honiton road was cast back to the literal dark ages. So grabbing some candles, I wondered round the house checking things out to make sure nothing was on fire, I then I smelled oh so familiar smell of burnt electrical wires and equipment. However with no power I couldn�t check to see if anything was broken, so I went to bed.

On waking the next morning I hustled downstairs and flipped the circuit breaker back on and nothing happened, no lights, nothing.

There was no power, I was cut off.

Now alongside the usual inconveniences of no kettle, hot water or being unable to cook food, I had no internet.

Big deal right? Wrong

Humans are creatures of habit as am I, before walking to work my routine is this Shower, get dressed and then Whilst making and eating breakfast (via laptop or iPod touch):

* Review twitter feeds and respond
* Read/write personal and work email s
* Check news, games and other websites
* Download podcasts & other content for the day
* View e-learning blogs for new content
* Check up on current Chess games

So by the time I walk to work I�m:

* Fully informed of current happenings in the world (useful for generating student polls),
* Have a reasonable idea of what awaits me at my desk (ensures I can hit the ground running)
* Have responded to any mission critical emails (Quality of service is important)
* Already musing about blog posts based on websites I visited that morning

In short I am a more effective employee with the internet at my disposal; I can respond to things quickly, ensuring that if something has gone wrong, by the time I arrive at work, I already know about it and can get on with sorting out.

But not on Tuesday morning (I don�t have an iPhone as of yet, so I had no external internet connection).

I then realised that my entire online life is based in the Cloud: Google apps, Gmail, Flkr, Twitter, Facebook etc. Nothing resides on my local machine, all the data and content is stored on some data centre and processed on a web server. My machine, be it laptop, pc or iPod only presents that data to me, nothing more. Of course I have some applications installed on my netbook but it is no where near the amount it used to be. If you think about it, you can pretty much do everything you would traditionally use a locally installed application online.

Word processing, Calendars, Spreadsheets are well served by Google apps, photo editing by Flkr, you don�t even have to have a printer in your house as you can use an online printing service that delivers direct to your door.

The only application you need to facilitate this is a web browser, nothing more.

Cloud computing is the future (although one could argue that it�s actually a return to the Mainframe and Dumb terminal relationship from the 1980�s), the device is becoming almost an irrelevance, merely a point of access that enables you to connect to your application and services held on the internet.

The cloud is the future; it�s the next logical step in the evolution of both the PC and the internet, but my experience on Tuesday morning leads me to think it can never replace traditional application access methods until internet access is universal.


mLearning-World Welcomes our Newest Author- Thomas Curtis

mLearning-World Welcomes our Newest Author- Thomas Curtis

4:38 PM Add Comment

(From Thomas)

Hello, I'm Thomas Curtis and this is a little about me and a mini blog post combined.

I'm an e-learning developer at South East Essex College a FE/HE institution located in Essex, United Kingdom

I've worked at a range of Colleges and Academies, all of which pursue e-learning & ICT as a medium to enhance and support the learner experience. My education was interesting to say the least, I barely graduated from School as I had become disaffected with the learning experience, the traditional teaching methods used at that time and struggled with both the learning difficulties of Dyslexia and Dyspraxia.

It was not until I went to College (ironically it is the same institution that I work for now) that reignited both my passion for learning and computing in general. Through hard work & the support of lecturers I managed to secure both a recognised computing qualification, acceptance on a university degree and without sounding too melodramatic forge a new path for myself. I also feel having studied at the same College where I initially studied gives me a unique perspective, enabling me to see both sides of the coin so to speak.

As e-learning & the Internet itself was just getting started as a learning medium when I studied at the College (99-01), teachers and students were just getting used to the Internet as a resource let alone a method to evolve learning. It was as a result of my personal experiences as a student that I decided that once I had completed my Degree that I would try and return to the education sector to 'give something back' for lack of a better cliche, as I had personally benefited from the range of e-learning tools which enabled me to attain a level of education I had initially dismissed as an irrelevance, if not an impossibility.

From the abacus to the mobile phone, technology has always been used with varying degrees of success, at College & University I was introduced to the benefits of word processing, mind mapping, spell check, font and colour manipulation to improve readability and a whole host of other resources and techniques. The tools on offer to today's learner far, far exceed anything I could have dreamed of, case in point; teachers can communicate with Students in an instant, show multiple videos on a interactive whiteboard without having to wheel in a 28 inch CRT, via mobile technology we are providing students with the ability to send/receive course content from anywhere that can connect to the Internet, be that the gym, on holiday or even in bed (now that's personalised learning)!

Enough about history, I should talk about the present, what I do and where I hope to go from here.

In my role as an e-learning professional I develop applications & solutions to support teaching and learning (based primarily on Microsoft ASP.net and related technologies), this can range from simple web forms, event management systems to project managing multimedia recording solutions and full upgrade to lecture theaters. I also Blog about ICT and Twitter with other e-learning colleagues, both inside and out of College about e-learning, what it is and how it can benefit students and teachers.

The future..

I hope to continue blogging and establishing contacts with e-learning providers across the world, one thing that hinders e-learning is standardisation. From playschool, to Junior, to high school to university we all have differing systems, schemas, teaching methods and datasources. We do not teach in English Junior school and then switch to French from College onwards, so why do we do the same when it comes to e-learning? Moodle, BlackBoard, Bespoke software, some training, no training.

E-learning is supposed to make things easier for the learner, so why do we change the game at each step? It is this that I hope to change, perhaps open source is the key, perhaps not either way I'm looking forward to finding out.

- Show quoted text -



iLearn program launching next year

iLearn program launching next year

8:06 AM Add Comment

Friday, April 24, 2009

KILGORE � Some high school students might have more than textbooks to lug to class next year.

School officials in the district of 3,700 students are launching iLearn, a new program aimed at incorporating iPods with daily educational instruction.

Director of Technology Mark Lane said Thursday that teachers will upload curriculum, lectures, study plans and homework assignments to computers at the high school. Students will then download the lessons onto an iPod Touch, where it can be completed at home or on the go.

"We plan to start out with 60 iPods and introduce the program to our math and science classes at the high school. Later in the year, we will introduce it to our English and social studies classes," Lane said.

"By the start of the 2010-11 school year, we hope to have the program started at the middle school and phase it into our other campuses each new school year. The goal is to provide every single student in Kilgore ISD with an iPod." he said.

Lane said the school district estimates it will cost $135,000 to operate the program. He said about $95,000 will come from the school district, while the newly chartered education foundation has pledged funds for the remainder of the project to upgrade and integrate software at the high school, to purchase iPods and to send teachers to training for the project.

Lane said the goal of the program is to give students another resource to grasp educational concepts that some find difficult learning during traditional school instruction. He said school officials hope the new program will raise test scores and overall student achievement.

Kilgore won't be the first East Texas district to use the handheld electronic devices in school.

Hallsville High School students participate in a similar program using iPod Nanos and iPod Touches.

Toni Erickson, assistant technology director for Hallsville schools, said the program has been successful.

"We have added 450 new iPod Touches this year at the high school for math and science classes to continue the program," Erickson said. "So far, so good for us."

Lane is hoping Kilgore schools will experience the same success.

"The community has been so supportive of this project," Lane said. "I think our residents and businesses realize that our economy is changing, and we must prepare our students for it."






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