10 years of LEGO Mindstorms celebrated by firing them into space...

I only just had a chance to read about the H.A.L.E. project today (this pesky job keeping me busy!), hours after the launch and return to earth of the weather balloons carrying LEGO Mindstorms robots that reached 100,000 feet above the Nevada desert. (This vid is of BalloonSAT 2007, a similar program run by Nevada college students, that will give you an idea of the images, complete with odd jam-band music). At peak altitude, above 99.9% of the atmosphere, the balloon burst and multiple Mindstorms robots fell to earth, gathering atmospheric data and taking pictures along the way. Custom built robots were contributed by a professor from Indiana University, and a team of Virginia middle school students. Launching your own custom built robots, with more computing power than the Apollo missions used, into space: not your average middle school science experiment.

Amazing what students can do today, enabled by technology, before they're teenagers. No word yet on how it went. Do you use LEGO Mindstorms in your district? If so, this could be an inspiring example to let your teachers know about!

HP's small laptops get a big deal in Fresno.... but is it enough?

 

HP announced their big deal with Fresno United School District, the 4th largest district in California and the 39th largest in the country, at NECC. The Fresno Bee was all over the story. The district received 7,000 HP Mini-Note laptops, a mini laptop designed for students, at about $500 each, $3.85 million total. The Mini-Note has an 8.9" screen, 120GB hard drive, rugged aluminum casing, integrated wi-fi, weighs 2.8 pounds, has an optional webcam and a variety of other features and options, and it's designed to be small and light enough to be easily used by students, at school rather than home.
That's great and all, but I can't help wondering: 7,000 laptops....76,504 students. I love the quote by District Chief Technology Officer Kurt Madden: "Because of this, students will have to share the computers." So... what's that, just about 11 students per machine? 2-3 computers per classroom? Kinda defeats the purpose of a small, portable lightweight laptop, a "personal" computer, doesn't it? And it really demonstrates the true challenge of "one laptop per child" initiatives and the "one-to-one" computing ideal, despite the fact that we're getting closer and closer. Here's a huge district that spent millions--and that's a specially priced mini-laptop at a considerable discount--just to get 1/10th of that goal. Maybe we should scratch that and start another "OPEC"... One Laptop Per Eleven Children? Much more attainable.

Hitachi says "We're smarter than SMART"

SMART Technologies are certainly proud to be the inventors of the interactive whiteboard, as they should be. They debuted their first model in 1991, one of the first steps in the "touch" technology direction a teenage-lifetime before the iPhone. Now HP has a new computer out with a touch screen as the primary user interface, everyone's getting all touchy feely all of a sudden. But I digress. SMART has had a lock on the segment for a long time, and that means they also have a huge bullseye on their backs. And so Hitachi is firing off rounds with its own interactive whiteboards which it marketed heavily at InfoComm a month ago, the FX Duo 77, hoping to make a dent in the 50+ percent of the market SMART commands at present. They're offering it in a complete package with their CP-A100 projector and a custom built mount for $3,995. One big thing Hitachi has going for them is that they can manufacture all the components and create such a one-stop package. Have one? Have a SMART board and love it? Have some gripes to unload? Comment here and tell us about it!

Simplifying Webcast Presentations

The folks at Sonic Foundry released two new webcasting appliances, the Mediasite RL and ML, and the complementary EX Server v5.0 platform at InfoComm. Mediasite is a great way to record presentations and make them available to everyone in your district, solving universal challenges like new technology training: how do IT staff members give a presentation to every teacher about new equipment, procedures, programs, etc.? Most would have to present over and over: in one case study, Richmond (Ind.) Community Schools Staff Development Coordinator Valerie Biggs recalled giving the same presentation 18 times. Now the district uses Mediasite recorders to record lectures and presentations, and any teacher can log in whenever and wherever they want to see the video, hear the audio, and watch PowerPoint slides or other visual aids. Teachers can easily record lectures for students to watch at other times, parents can see what goes on in the classroom, board meetings can be recorded for the community to see... it's a technology with a lot of possibilities for applications, which is why a lot of colleges and universities, businesses and school districts already use Mediasite to make presentations easier to access.

Weidenhammer at NECC

Zach Miners again from NECC in San Antonio! Today I had an interesting talk with Frank Heins, vice president of Weidenhammer, in addition to other company representatives. For those of you not in the know, Weidenhammer is an education management software leader and developer of alio software, which is a comprehensive, fully integrated library of financial management, payroll and human resources software applications for the K12 market.

Weidenhammer currently supports over 1,000 school districts--ranging from single-site schools to sites with more than 70,000 enrolled students in more than 100 buildings--in more than 20 states.

The news I gathered at the show is that the company is releasing the latest version of its alio 8.3 software, and for the first time it is fully available as a Web-based application for clients.

As a customer, you of course can still opt for the client server version, but what makes this new release interesting is that, through special technology, the new version duplicates the function of the previous software. Unlike most computer programs these days, which take on a completely different look and feel when based online, the new alio operates the same, which is a blessing for school business officials wishing to embrace today's Internet trends without having to spend time and resources learning a new product.

According to CEO John Weidenhammer, one of the most important decisions you'll make is choosing the finance management and human resource software that fits your district's needs like a glove.

What do you think of this development? What do you use for your payroll and processing needs that might function differently?

Greetings from NECC

Zach Miners here, DA's news editor, reporting from the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC) in San Antonio, Texas! Today, June 30, was the first day of the annual conference--presented by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE)--that features hands-on workshops, interactive sessions on key education issues, discussions with key industry leaders, and of course the largest exhibit of educational technology products in the nation.

If the consistent battles today's educators face are of the utmost importance--identifying and helping special needs students, developing innovative teaching strategies, improving standards and assessment--here at NECC they're on full display and acted out like the Ringling Brothers Circus. As I walked (or ventured out rather) onto the show floor, from countless booths didactic outbursts of "Do you want ROI?!" or "It's the technology, stupid!" punctuated the airwaves with vigor.

At one point I believe I even saw a man dressed as Darth Vader emerge from behind a curtain at a densely populated large company booth, in what must have been some thespian illustration of one group's particular method to engage students.

I hit the ground running on the first day of the show, and had some very interesting meetings with companies on the forefront of educating today's K12 students and working to change the conversation on school policy and reform in a changing 21st century world.

One especially profound meeting I had was with Rebecca Kilduff of ePals, the Internet's largest global community of connected classrooms. ePals is currently engaged in some very innovative work, and it was announced just at the NECC show that the newest models of Intel's low-cost Classmate PC personal computers are shipping with ePals preloaded.

Interested more in revolutionary ideas and discussion than a single product for reaching today's youth, ePals is currently aiming to start a national conversation on building 21st century skills. To keep up with students, the company is asking--through a series of online and offline initiatives and grassroots efforts (sites.epals.com/necc2008)--how can administrators move beyond technology integration to authentically embed it into curricula across content areas to transform learning?

And so I ask you: How do the services you, as DA readers, address the needs of ALL students? What  programs or products enable true collaboration and teamwork in the classroom? 

More to follow from NECC...