Ryan Collins

🕹️ Do Something Great! 😄

Tag: 1to1

  • Ubiquitous opportunity

    How To Use Real-Time Technology In 1:1 Classrooms

    A concern about 1:1 programs I sometimes hear (and that I once held myself) was that students will always be “plugged in” and connected to a device. What seems to be happening on 6 Lime, though, is not ubiquitous use of devices. Instead, it is ubiquitous opportunity. Each teacher on this team has the option to make the best instructional choices each day, each class period. Each student on this team has opportunity for choice in his or her learning activity, growing awareness and taking greater responsibility.

    I love that term, ubiquitous opportunity!

    Via: Twitter – @patrickmlarkin

  • iPads for all

    A School’s iPad Initiative Brings Optimism And Skepticism

    One of California’s poorest school districts, the Coachella Valley Unified southeast of Los Angeles, is currently rolling out iPads to every student, pre-kindergarten through high school. It’s an ambitious effort that administrators and parents hope will transform how kids learn, boost achievement and narrow the digital divide with wealthier districts.

    But, as with tablet efforts across the country, this one faces skeptics and obstacles. Some wonder if its projected benefits are being grossly oversold.

    Everytime I read one of these articles, the emphasis seems to dwell on the device. It’s as if there exists the perfect device and every district that picks something different is doing it wrong.

    Concentrate on what you can do with what you have. The best camera is the one you have with you, just like it is with you and your students.

  • Solve BYOD consistency issues with VirtualBox

    In my district we are currently planning our 1 to 1 program. We settled on 11.6″ laptops running Ubuntu as the device. The problem that has arisen is how to we ensure consistency with students who wish to bring their own laptop. If they were Chromebooks, the BYOD students could just run Chrome. But with the flexibility of Ubuntu comes the complexity for BYOD. That is, until one considers VirtualBox.

    VirtualBox is a program that lets you virtualize operating systems on your computer. For example, your computer (host)can be running Microsoft Windows, and run a virtual machine of Ubuntu Linux. The virtual machine (guest) is separate from your current system, anything in the virtual machine does not affect the host. The guest can even be running the same operating system, running Microsoft Windows in a virtual machine on a host running Microsoft Windows. There are some legal implications to running Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X in a virtual machine. For Microsoft Windows you will need to purchase an additional license for each copy of Microsoft Windows that you would run in a virtual machine. Under Mac OS X 10.8 you are allowed to virtualize up to 5 virtual machines on Apple hardware. Since we are looking at Ubuntu, these licensing restrictions don’t affect us.

    With Ubuntu, a standard image can be created with the exact same set up as the laptops. Even management of the virtual machine would be the same. So for our students and teachers, it won’t matter whether or not they have a school laptop or their own laptop. Everyone will have the same setup. It’s a brilliant solution to issues that have been brought up on BYOD.

  • The $99 mobile Internet Device

    Nvidia Plans To Power \$99 Mobile Internet Devices

    Nvidia has announced that it plans to power \$99 mobile internet
    devices with its Tegra 600 series chips, perhaps as early as this
    summer.

    If they can get an Android version released at \$99 that is something
    that could be a game changer in education. Although I’m a big fan of the
    iPod Touch being an option for a 1-to-1 program, a \$99 device with
    keyboard and more openness would easily make one-to-one programs a
    reality.

    It seems like I’m always waiting… 🙂

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