Handheld Learning

It's the Learning, Stupid! Written by Graham Brown-Martin on Saturday, 01 March 2008 A thirteen year old from Peckham taught me a new word this week. We'd been looking at some new devices from gaming tech to the new breed of ultra low cost laptops when he said of one particular model, "that's not a laptop, it's a craptop". Perhaps a little harsh but it did get me thinking about young people’s relationship with technology. My 7 year old, a keen iBook owner, an iPhone want-to-have and Nintendo Wii demon, is quite taken with the RM miniBook / Asus EEE PC wanting one in pink to go with her DS. She's not especially unusual in her collection or interest in gadgets, many of her friends from the same inner city primary are hooked. Unfortunately none of these devices can be taken and used in school so any learning with them is performed outside hours with little motivation to share it at school. The argument about technology being embedded in the lives of learners has been rehearsed many times in these forums and at our conferences. So let's not dwell on whether we want to call these learners "digital natives" less the fogies that are clinging on to their respeck get offended. Let's accept the principle that these guys wear their tech like clothes. By this I mean they take it for granted and use it/abuse it, often in ways that previous generations haven't considered. Also like clothes their gadgetry and use of tech are used as identifiers of trend, fashion and tribe. (9) Leave a Comment  Read more...

Identity, Ownership and Mobility Written by Graham Brown-Martin on Monday, 21 January 2008 A few years back disgruntled by some dental work that left me with the prospect of looking like the dashing yet rough-edged, , I suggested to my dentist that I would change practitioner. I therefore requested my dental records assuming that it was I who, as the subject, was the owner of the aforementioned documentation. Until that point it had struck me as obvious that the ability to easily transfer my data from one practitioner to another would afford benefits for me in terms of choice of future practitioners and make any future transitions seamless. But, as I discovered, I was wrong. It doesn’t work that way. Whilst I was paying for the diagnosis and clinical judgement I wasn’t paying for the clinical records. I’m sure if we’d got into negotiation I could have paid for some copies but instead we settled on a new set of veneers. It’s a similar situation with our medical records, all of which seem a little tricky to get a look at, although we’re told they are currently a bit more transferable than those concerning your molars. If, like me, you run a business you may have shareholders who believe that you are worth more alive than toes-up (better that way around). So this leads to things like “key man” insurance policies where you get prodded around and various documents get passed between the state and private sector. About you. (2) Leave a Comment  Read more...

<< Start < Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next > End >>

Forgot your password?