Sliced Bread

credit Ben Hasic & Happy Devil Cartoons

Ok, I’ll admit it, I have more than a passing interest in what the 200,000 compact learning devices (CLDs)our schools will receive in April may look like. Most DET teachers reading this will too.

Australian IT reported yesterday that “the department’s proposed learning device, which can be likened to a ruggedised netbook, is the first of its kind in Australia and one of the more unusual hardware specifications globally“.

Observations from DETs Chief Information Officer Stephen Wilson also caught my eye.

We intend to make the devices available to other schools for other purposes, so watch that space. Any vendor looking at this is going to be looking at a very large market because other states are very interested in what’s going on in NSW“.

More questions than answers are raised and It will be interesting to see;

1. what a “ruggedised $500 CLD” actually looks like, considering it may be a hybrid design blending netbook, laptop and notebook features. We trust the tech boffins, doing the top secret cull this week from 21 tender submissions to 5, will have their hands on it.
2. if the tight tender to implementation timeline can be met efficiently, for all stakeholders, not just political expediency of being seen to ’rush the shiny baubles out’. and
3. will other markets & DETs, global and local, really want them too? We trust our leaders that the CLD’s will be that good, so other’s should flock to order.

Educational innovation is measured by effectiveness of the changes in learning. Measures are in place to rigourously assess the transformative 21st century learning these devices will bring, aren’t they? Well we trust they are.

This simple nuts and bolts phase, despite political chest beating to the contrary, is the easy phase, its only a box of wires, the “21st century toolbox” as Deputy PM Gillard and PM Rudd muttered on DER launch.

What really matters for learners are the 571 state wide school plans to ensure teachers of year 9 to 12 students use the CLD’s as transformative learning devices, far better than the last 20 years of school PC use, that is. We trust these plans are in place and deeply understood before April.

The jury is still out on this last point but we do trust ourselves to deliver the expected learning changes, this time, don’t we?

The governments have provided the tools, again, now it’s up to us, again, or else, again! Dripping with it, yes, again. I’m worried, again. Simplistic motherhood statements and boxes of wires do not a revolution make.

Those who have taught in schools on a full time basis for an extended period of time have seen much of this hype before, in fact since the first PC lobbed into our schools in the mid 1980’s. It’s still NOT new learning, CLD’s are just the latest embodiment. Wireless flexible connectivity and 4 year CLD student ‘ownership’ have more potential, for those facets reflect 21st century more than the device themselves.

I hope CLD’s don’t become more expensive portable pencils, more technology sprinkled on top.

We all want better outcomes for learners, how we best achieve that is far from decided. But I certainly trust this latest DET NSW roll out of CLD’s will help deliver them, whatever it is we end up deciding on and believing to be the 21st century direction we need to have. You can’t choose the best mode of transport when you don’t yet know the destination.