Backyard

A couple of reflections from a recent school visit. Every now and again I am forced to realise that this landscape changes despite our attempts to control it!!

The school is a large secondary school with a network that is pretty locked down. Inevitably the growing tensions between curriculum demands and network “safety” protocols leads to much frustration on both sides ….. a couple of creative workarounds.

•  Annoyed by the fact that “relevant” video is so hard to show in the classroom for lots of reasons (plugins not loaded, no codecs, youtube blocked, network too slow) one young teacher simply plugs his iPod into the TV (or projector) and shows what he wants!!
• The HSIE department wants to use Google Earth on their smartboard but the Network Guy says it sucks too much bandwidth and everyone will want to use it (correct). Unbeknowns to anyone else, the HSIE department have their own Telstra 3G wireless usb account and stream directly into their classroom!!! No filters to worry about too!!

Nothing like the promise of money to get everyone buzzing!! Everywhere I go (in the Carbon or the Silicon world) people have an opinion on what should be done… Let’s hope they listen to some of those who know the issues!!