Category Archives: stuff

stuff

A battery life of days…

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Though I do think netbooks have a future (even if Intel don’t) however what computer do I carry around with me to meetings, events and conferences?

My MacBook Pro!

So is it just that I prefer OS X over Linux and Windows?

Well not really, I do like OS X, but do like Xandros and Windows 7.

The main reason I don’t carry a netbook, is the battery life.

Now it is getting better than it was, but the three cell batteries most of the netbooks I have only last an hour or two, which isn’t good enough for a long train journey or a conference.

This is also an issue with learners having netbooks, they arrive at college at 9 am and most will be there until 4 or 5 pm. What’s the point of carrying a netbook, if well before lunch the battery has run out? Most colleges I am aware of, don’t allow non-college devices to be plugged in, so unless you have an enlightened institution with a sensible “personal applicance” policy, they won’t be able to charge up their netbook during the day.

So was quite pleased to hear from the Computex trade show via the BBC that:

some manufacturers are convinced cheap, low power computers with days of battery life are the future…

The new Tegra system has a lot of potential

Nvidia boss Jen-Hsun Huang claimed a Tegra system could play HD video for 10 hours, compared to 3 hours for a netbook powered by Intel’s rival Atom CPU, and an astonishing 25 days of MP3 playback, compared to 5 hours for current netbooks.

The key to embedding and transforming learning through the use of mobile technologies is dependent on many factors, decent battery life is certainly in there.

These new chips could make a difference.

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FENC Symposium

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I have spent the day in Birmingham at the FENC Symposium. Colleges who had submitted Beacon applications for the FENC award were invited to show and tell what was in their application.

Our original submission was on how we had embedded the use of Interactive Whiteboards across the college to enhance and enrich the learning experience for our learners.

At the Symposium thanks to Promethean we had a mobile board in place and we were able to show and explain not only how we had embedded the practice of using the boards, but we also could demonstrate the board itself.

Quite a few colleges were presenting and had stands. A few caught my eye. Telford College reminded me that not everyone can read text and using images for navigation can be a useful way of presenting course information, especially course information for courses that teach people how to read, or ESOL or EFL courses.

Dumfries and Galloway College showed how they were using WordPress for ILPs. A simple way to allow students to post information about their learning.

Overall an interesting day and again realising that it is never about the technology, it is all about the people, learners, staff development and key figures moving things forward.

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Phone Applications

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Nice little BBC news item on the growing market for applications for smartphones.

Sales in the world’s mobile phone industry are expected to fall this year but downloads of phone applications is one area which is thriving.

Applications create new things to do on a phone and almost a billion of them have been downloaded to Apple’s iPhone.

Rory Cellan-Jones examines the emerging new trend.

Nokia N73 mobile phone

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A vision of FE in 2020

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This is a vision of FE in 2020.

Stuart Edards of DIUS has said

Sion Simon, Minister for FE, has stated his ambition to see further education recognised nationally and internationally for its commitment to technology. We have now put together some simple statements on where things could be heading towards 2020 and how that compares with evidence of where the sector is overall at the moment. These build on discussions that we and our partners have had with experts within and outside the sector, with employers and with learners. They cover five main areas:

  • content and digital resources
  • blogosphere, social media, web 2
  • provider and workforce capability
  • learner experience
  • employers

So what is your vision for FE in 2020?

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Mobile users at risk of ID theft

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BBC reports on a survey about the possible identity theft issues from mobile phones.

A survey of London commuters suggests that 4.2m Britons store data on their mobiles that could be used in identity theft in the event they are stolen.

Only six in 10 use a password to limit entry into the phones, according to the survey by security firm Credant.

The survey found that 99% of people use their phones for business in some way, despite 26% of them being told not to.

Of course from an educational perspective, if an institution is giving mobile devices to students, they do need to be informed about what data the students put on that device and what to do if the device is stolen?