20th December 2015

I finally have time to catch up and get my teeth into the first assignment, the ideas for it are in my head, now I need to extract them and put them in writing.

Topic:  Hardware in the classroom

Post to your blog your experience of different types of hardware in your classroom or educational organisation.  What hardware has appeared over the last 12 months?   Why has it been introduced?  Who is driving its introduction?  What have been the reactions?  Has it made a difference to teaching and learning?

Over the last 12 months or so there has been considerable investment in hardware in classrooms in my organisation.  Notably:

• wireless reception in all rooms
• data projectors
• interactive whiteboards (in some rooms) 
• screens to project onto
• speakers
• connectivity for laptops
• visualisers - project pages from text books or newpaper articles for e.g. on the screen
• wireless keyboards

Over the last few months computer classrooms have started to be decommissioned due to lack of use, the organisation is encouraging the BYOD trend, this is quite a cost saver as it is expensive to maintain computer classrooms.  Most students in my organisation now have access mobile technology - smart phones, I-phones,  IPads or laptops.  All students are given free log in and passwords to join the network.  Its introduction is being driven by the state government and the Institute in line with the recommendations in the AEDG report.

The reactions of students and teachers has mostly been positive, some of the less technologically-minded teachers were resistant at first but they are coming on board.   I can see the difference to teaching and learning in classrooms where the hardware is being used with appropriate software.  For example Prezi.  One teacher in my section creates all his lessons in Prezi and presents them to the class using the data projector and speakers to play lectures or dialogues.    Another teacher uses "Google translator" and has this open and projected on the screen, he also encourages his students to download the app on their mobile devices so they can look up new words quickly.