What's New In Facilities: Lutron Athlite and Big Ass Fans

Well that title gets your attention, doesn't it? I decided to do a quick post on some facilities products, since I rarely blog about them. Lutron is a really interesting company, they not only make all sorts of energy saving lighting products for schools, they also have a curriculum program called Greenovation that coincides. One of their recent new products is called Athlite, a great solution for anyone looking to upgrade and modernize their schools' gymnasium lighting, the old fashioned kind that have hotspots, take forever to warm up and suck up tons of electricity. Athlite lights are high efficiency, high performance gym lights that start right up, use far less energy, and actually allow you to choose from four distinct, programmable lighting levels for use in different activities. Pretty smart.
And that brings me to the rather provocatively named company Big Ass Fans. Their new Isis ceiling fans (pictured) are designed for larger scale operations like schools, available in 8, 9, and 10 foot diameter sizes. This is a rather huge commercial-grade fan designed for "smaller" spaces, kinda like a "small" dumptruck. They're designed to reduce energy costs by circulating air from your HVAC more efficiently. Also pretty smart.

And with that, have a great weekend!

MSI's New X340 Notebook Slim As They Come

MSI seems to be enjoying the benefits of the wild popularity of netbooks, their Wind series was one of the first, most critically acclaimed and least expensive line of netbooks out there, ranging from under $300 to $500. They've also marketed the Wind pretty heavily to schools, based on their presence at ed. tech conferences... though I haven't seen any news of large scale one to one implementations (like, say, the release I received yesterday, to be posted online later this week and I'll link to it ASAP, about just such a district rollout of the Asus Eee PC, for example).
This week, MSI released the X340, a super slim laptop that pushes the limits of what could be considered a netbook, though the company doesn't refer to it as such. At 13.4" across, with 2GB RAM and a 320GB hard drive and integrated webcam, some of the specs aren't too unusual. What really makes it stand out is the Intel Centrino 2 ULV processor, which uses 1/6th the power of a regular mobile CPU, and the physical proportions, weighing just 2.86 pounds and an amazing .78" thick at its widest point. That is ultra slim indeed. Starts at $899.

Video: New MSI U123

No Joke: Buy Seven Epson Projectors, Get One Free

The Brighter Futures is getting brighter. For anyone out there looking to purchase a bunch of projectors, you might want to consider Epson's new PowerLite 84, 85, 825 and 826W models, as Epson is offering this "Smarter Choices" promotion from May 15, 2009 until July 15, 2009: buy seven projectors, get the eighth free. Go to Epson's Brighter Futures site to learn more.

Kinda like Subway's now-defunct Sub Club (I still consider myself a lifetime member) or frequent flyer programs. I think they should issue Epson Projector Club cards myself. Pretty interesting though, Epson's Brighter Futures program also offers buyback discounts for recycling old models. They are working this promotion thing hard.... is this a sign of their success or of hard economic times? At any rate let's hope some other manufacturers give them some competition in other ed. tech segments.... 

Dell Joins School Netbook Party With Latitude 2100

Not to be outdone by the likes of the Intel Classmate, Dell just released their own K12 student-friendly netbook, the Latitude 2100. This rubberized, carry handle-having little unit is available in a wide variety of colors to match your school colors, or just to look hip and stand out in the crowd. Some specs are pretty standard netbook fare: 1.6Ghz Intel Atom processor, integrated wireless, 1GB RAM, 10.1" display, up to 250GB hard drive. And others are pretty rare for a netbook: available with Vista, XP or Linux, for example. Also very unique: it's available with a touchscreen as an option, but apparently not as a convertible tablet. That's a bit odd. And a very smart idea: Dell simultaneously released a cart designed to hold up to 24 of these called the Mobile Computing Station, encouraging administrators to purchase by the cartload. The Latitude 2100 starts at $369 for Linux or $399 for Windows.
I'm just finishing up a video post on education netbooks, and of course this spiffy new one comes out. Perfect. Well I've reached out to Dell and hopefully I can get my hands on one of these and if I do, you'll be the first to know.

Google Went Down Yesterday: The Risks Of Cloud Computing?

In the research I did for my May issue story on cloud computing in K12, for all the benefits, convenience, power and glory that is cloud computing, the one question that always comes up is security. Is it smart to keep your important info off in some mysterious location, stored in a server you know-not-where, depending on some corporation to keep it safe? 

Some of you out there were probably affected by the slowdown yesterday that left 14 percent of Google users up a creek. Apparently, an Asian data center was vulnerable to a good old fashioned traffic jam. How's that for globalization?

PC World has an interesting reflection editorial today about the incident, raising the question of the wisdom of cloud computing.

True, it's an interesting question, but the conclusion I came to about the security concerns in cloud computing still holds: server security is all that these companies offer really, without it they are nothing. So you can bet Google is putting every resource they have into making sure these incidents just plain don't happen.

Imagine a bank gets robbed or explodes in a freak accident. Do you say "There's no way I'm trusting someone else to store my money, I'm withdrawing it and keeping it in my dresser drawers with guns locked and loaded by my side?" The chances are pretty slim overall that this could happen to you. Ah, but your money is insured by the federal government, that's a big difference. So perhaps that's a solution, somehow? Can data be insured? Or perhaps regulations enacted that ensure multiple levels of redundancy, and guarantee that users can retrieve everything in the event a company goes out of business? Or will the free market end up creating these guarantees, as Google competitors arrive with more reliable track records? Something to think about. But clearly, I think cloud computing is in no danger and the trend will continue at a rapid pace. 

CODiE Award Winners Announced....

Seems like the only press releases I've received lately are about recent award winners.... so I might as well put a post together consolidating them!
Here's the complete list of SIIA CODiE Award for Education software winners:

Best Classroom Management Solution

ClassLink ClassMate, ClassLink, Inc.

Best Corporate Learning Solution

Adobe Captivate 3, Adobe Systems, Inc.

Best Course Management Solution

Digital Learning Environment, Learning.com

Best Education Game or Simulation

BrainWare Safari, Learning Enhancement Corporation

Best Education Reference or Search Service

The INTELECOM Online Resources Network, INTELECOM

Best Education Solution

Wimba Collaboration Suite, Wimba Inc.

Best Education Technology Solution for Productivity/Creativity

SMART Notebook software 10, SMART Technologies ULC
SoftChalk LessonBuilder, SoftChalk LLC

Best Educational Use of a Technology Device

DRA2 Handheld -Tango Software Edition, Pearson

Best Instructional Solution in Other Curriculum Areas

Kidspiration 3, Inspiration Software, Inc.

Best Instructional Solution for Special Needs Students

HELP Math (Help with English Language Proficiency), Digital Directions International

Best K-12 Enterprise Solution

EXCEED, Spectrum K12 School Solutions Inc.

Best K-12 Instructional Solution

ExploreLearning Gizmos, ExploreLearning.com

Best Mathematics Instructional Solution

Carnegie Learning Adaptive Math Solutions, Carnegie Learning, Inc.

Best Online Instructional Solution

Adaptive Curriculum, Sebit, LLC

Best Postsecondary Course or Learning Management Solution

ANGEL Learning Management Suite, ANGEL Learning, Inc.

Best Postsecondary Enterprise Solution

Timecruiser Solution Suite, Timecruiser Computing Corporation

Best Postsecondary Instructional Solution

Reading Plus - www.readingplus.com, Reading Plus by Taylor Associates
SoftChalk LessonBuilder, SoftChalk LLC

Best Professional Development Solution

www.kdsi.org, Knowledge Delivery Systems, Inc.

Best Reading/English Instructional Solution

SAS Curriculum Pathways, SAS Institute Inc.

Best Science Instructional Solution

Operation: Resilient Planet, The JASON Project

Best Social Studies Instructional Solution

CICERO: History Beyond the Textbook™, American Institute for History Education, LLC

Best Student Assessment Solution

Acuity 2008, CTB/McGraw-Hill

Best Virtual School Solution for Students

www.flvs.net, Florida Virtual School

Sanyo PLC-WXU700 World's First Wireless Projector

This new model from Sanyo, which was announced today but won't see the light of day until InfoComm in June, boasts some solid specs: wide XGA resolution, 3800 lumens of brightness, 3LCD chip, PC-free presentations with a flash drive. But what is really cool is the groundbreaking ability to stream content wirelessly from a Vista PC, no cable required, via embedded Windows CE and over IEEE802.11n high-speed wireless LAN. Pretty amazing. This feature would definitely simplify installation! No wires to run, nothing to plug in but power. It will go on sale in Japan starting in June, no word yet on a U.S. release, but I look forward to checking it out at InfoComm.

Free DA Web Seminar: Bright Green Schools

I'm writing a short piece on strategies to reduce energy costs for the June/July issue of DA. If that interests you, you might also want to attend the upcoming DA Web Seminar, Bright Green Schools: Saving Money and Energy With Building Automation Systems, Thursday June 4 at 2pm. You can register here.

Amazon Releases Kindle DX Today.... With Education In Their Sights!

You've probably heard of the Kindle already, when the original was launched in late 2007 the buzz spread like wildfire, Jeff Bezos was everywhere with the thing in hand. Today, the ever-secretive Amazon has released a new version, the Kindle DX. It has a way bigger screen (9.7") which auto-rotates so when you turn it the screen changes from landscape to portrait, and a larger storage capacity for up to 3,500 books. Everything's larger, including the price, of course: $489 instead of the original's $359.

But all those features aside, what really will get the attention of ed. tech enthusiasts is the declared strategy behind the larger size: to make newspapers, magazines and textbooks easier to read. And so, not only is Amazon teaming up with the Washington Post, Boston Globe and New York Times, but also with university-level textbook publishers Pearson, Cengage Learning and Wiley, together representing more than 60 percent of the U.S. higher education textbook market, to begin offering textbooks through the Kindle Store beginning this summer.

Will this catch on, and could K12 be far off? We'll see. As of now, I think the device is still way too expensive. "iPods are just as expensive!" some might say. Sorry, the comparison doesn't fly. iPod content, mainly music but also TV shows and movies, is timeless--my late 80's Rush collection notwithstanding--just as books are. Newspapers, magazines and textbooks are different in that they are much more temporal. People sit and listen to classic Motown on their iPods, or read Hemingway or Shakespeare on their Kindles... but nobody is going to casually peruse a Boston Globe from 1986 on their way to work or study a Biology textbook from 1980. These things are only relevant for a very short time, like a day, week or a year, unless you're an historian. That's why consumers will pay $400 for an iPod or even $359 for an original Kindle to carry 1,000 books around... but widespread use of a $489 device, plus the cost of content, to read the paper, District Administration or school textbooks? Not going to happen if you ask me.

The prospect is exciting, of course, carrying around a device 1/3 of an inch thick instead of the backbreaking load I remember taking to school every day is pretty appealing. But that upfront cost is the elephant in the room. If there could be a lease/rental program, or at least a significant discount for bulk purchases, then having licensing be cheaper for a district than purchasing paper textbooks.... we could be heading in the right direction. Here's hoping.