In the reference to schools in remote areas, the author refers to inequitable access for rural and remote students. In particular this affects Schools of Distance Education students. Isolated families establish home schoolrooms where most educational activities happen. Direction and assistance is supplied by Schools of Distance Education staff who communicate with students through telephone lessons and email. Lots of activities involve the use of the internet. Many of these students live in isolated areas where ICT, electrical power and road/air infrastructure is limited. Power supply may be self generated and therefore restricted. Access to technical assistance, ie., repairs and maintenance is limited, time consuming and expensive. The author has mentioned the limited broadband capacity; as well, the plans are expensive; plans are designed to go over the allocation rather than adjust. In many states, families bear the cost of providing computers, software, other digital equipment and the internet plans with limited subsidies from the state and federal governments. Home tutors or governesses require opportunities to develop ICT skills. Families may have more than one student enrolled with a School of Distance Education at any one time requiring computers for the home tutor as well as more than one student. Increasingly curriculum developers are utilising ICT for the delivery of Distance Education programs. Small rural schools also experience similiar problems. It is important for rural and remote students to benefit equitably from government initiatives.

VP, Monday, 6 October 2008 10:37:58 AM commented on my article:

"In the reference to schools in remote areas, the author refers to inequitable access for rural and remote students. In particular this affects Schools of Distance Education students. ..."

Yes, I hadn't considered home schooling in relation to the government's Digital Education Revolution. It would seem reasonable that students in a classroom at home should get at least the same help with Internet access and computers as other students do.

In terms of the technology needed, I teach the students at ANU how to design web sites accessible by the disabled: http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/webteaching.shtml A by-product is that these web sites work better on slow links in remote areas. Australian law requires web sites to be designed this way and it would seem natural for educational content, but a lot of educational designers are either not aware of the requirement, or choose to ignore it.

At present I am designing "blended learning" courses. The idea is that the material for the course is provided via a computer in such a way it can be used for distance education, in a face-to-face classroom, or a combination of both. The delivery method can then be changed to suit the facilities available and the needs of the student. If content for the government's Digital Education Revolution is designed for blended learning, it can then be used for distance education as well as classrooms.

The notes for short talk I am giving on blended learning are at: http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/blended_learning/ The people at Edna (a government funded education web site), set me up a forum where educators can discuss the topic: http://www.groups.edna.edu.au/course/view.php?id=2019

But keep in mind that I am not an educational expert, just a computer person who strayed into teaching technology. Mostly this is for software engineers, managers and public servants.

Tricky area. Teachers like to see nice, shiny laptops or VDUs. The problem is that you have to know how to write before you use one. Network systems are great because you can watch a whole lot of 'stuff', call it education and wrap up a 50 minute lesson with a pat on the ITC back. That could be a KPI!

Change is going to come where content - or lack of it - rises up and bites the state on the bum. It ain't the hardware, it ain't the software, it's what is being taught.

Images are great entertainments, and they should be studied, they're great for X-rays, MRI's and doing advertising, art, etc, but when they are relied upon as a core teaching tool, beware. Go back to McLuhan, Postman and all of the 'Mediumists' - they said - and rightly - that the primary tool for instruction is text, the rest are ancillary 'stuff'.

No no no Tom - in your post you said "But keep in mind that I am not an educational expert, just a computer person who strayed into teaching technology. Mostly this is for software engineers, managers and public servants."

This is mostly for teachers. You are right in your arguments around the focus on the bling and not the brain. Governments are politically driven and schools are forever filling in bureaucratic bunkim about how many computers they have to appease the public relations exercise.

Whether the technology is a few sticks (which enable South Sea Islanders to navigate with blistering accuracy across oceans) or a GPS (which allows others to compensate for their own nautical incompetence) it is the interaction of the teacher that makes learning happen.

We have lost this, Tom. If we don't get it back and start the education revolution from the classroom up we might as well pack up our laptops and go home.

Then there's the entire neuromuscular system that's attached to the eyes goggled on google...........

As a parent of a student now in year 12 of high school studies having an ICT emphasis, I have an acute interest in this subject. These are issues, whether it is known or not, of profound significance to all users of OLO.

A key point Tom Worthington makes is this: "The Australian Government is placing undue emphasis on computers for students. The $1.1 billion of the $1.2 billion budget is for the National Secondary School Computer Fund, to provide Year 9 to 12 students with computers. This only leaves 8 per cent of the funds for networking, content and training."

The essential electoral committment was seen by the electorate as being the provision of a reasonably state-of-the-art (laptop) computer for every student in those years. Personal, hands-on, 24/7 access to independent computing capability for each student. With respect as to my own child, I have had to already make this provision privately. In the light of what Tom is saying, I have to question whether, for those students not yet provided for, the taxpayer is standing to get value for money in the proposed purchases of computers.

The link which Tom provides to the statement by the Minister (The Hon Julia Gillard MP) by hyperlinking the word "addressed" in his opening sentence, yeilds this information: "Eight hundred and ninety six secondary schools across Australia will receive 116 820 new computers through Round One of the Fund." As the scheme aims to provide a computer per student for four years of high school studies, years 9 to 12, are we to assume that the 116,820 new computers of Round One represents a quarter the total number required to fully implement the scheme?

If that is so, it would appear that the cost per laptop is forecast as being around $2,300. Given the emphasis placed by the author on the change from making "...much faster, slightly cheaper computers each year" to "...slightly faster, much cheaper, energy efficient computers" the apparent cost per unit seems, even at retail prices, WAY too high.

TBC

Having privately purchased over the six years of my child's high school course the several computers necessary for an ICT oriented education, I found the greatest cause of frustration to be what amounted to the forced obsolescence of hardware. This forced obsolescence is primarily operating system, that is, software, driven.

It is all too frequently and annoyingly the case that older, but still otherwise fully functional, hardware and application software is incompatible with newer versions of proprietary operating system software. Equally annoyingly, it is also frequently the case that new hardware is incompatible with older software.

This profoundly irritating lack of tempobidirectional character of proprietary software has been the driving force behind our move to open source software, specifically the Linux operating system, and within the vast range of distribution choices available, primarily Ubuntu Linux. The transition has by no means been straightforward, but old gear tends to run like new again.

I suggest that in getting value for the taxpayers' money the specification that all new computer procurements be Linux compatible should be paramount. Not just because there are no licencing fees associated with having a Linux OS on any new computers, but because the Linux stable of OS's can extend the usefulness, both over time and in capabilities, of existing equipment.

Taking the electoral committment to be to the provision of $1.2 billion, and purchasing the somewhat lower specification laptops that, running Linux, can still deliver the performance in the areas required for ICT education that otherwise are going to require extensively upgraded hardware, it should be possible to make the budgetary savings with which to fund the other areas Tom sees as having had insufficient provision made within this program.

In the light of Tom's DEWHA brief to cut energy usage by 50% by 2020, somewhere amongst the many links he has provided is a reference to savings in the PC and monitors area, as being 'low-hanging fruit'. This program of a laptop for every student will harvest that 'fruit'. The very move from desktop computing to laptops achieves the goal.

By 2009!