Gone are the old days

When I first got into IT in the education sector my school was at the front of the pack. 

We had just purchased ten desktop machines to have in the classroom. a big step for a school at the cost of $3000 each. How things have changed technology has got faster smaller and cheaper and will continue to do so. 

As such we have to move with the times as well to keep up with current trends to give our students the opportunity to compete in our fast paced world.  Which means constantly investigating new forms of technology as they come available and determining there value and use in the classroom and the work place.

With most phones now outstripping the performance and capacity of those ten desktop machines we first perchased one has to wonder what the next ten years will hold.

The changing face of ICT in schools

In a few short years the face of ICT in our schools has changed dramatically!

From huge stand alone machines to wireless networks, laptops and now ipads and iphones!

The change in technologies has made my role very different, and the way the students learn with the ipads has removed so many of the challenges we used to deal with daily.

we started with 2 when the first released the ipad 1 and had such huge success that we very quickly purchased starter sets to trial in our senior school, we now have 9 classes using sets of 6 ipads on a daily basis with more ipads available for booking for classes from other areas of the school.

The touch screen technology makes learning so much more accessible for younger and younger students, they can save pictures from the internet with a touch of a finger, send emails just by adding the address after pressing one symbol and be instantly on the internet with a single touch on the safari icon. Gone are the days of endless logging on time from of at lease 15 mins to turn on, log on and access the internet with a laptop.

The world of technology is moving at an unbelievable rate and we need to make sure we are preparing our students for the future that is coming, touch screen, voice recognition . . . . . . . who knows what will come next!