Chalkface Blog

The best teaching materials in the most practical format.

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  • The next step towards universal internet access

    When I first floated the idea of Paperless School three years ago, one of the common concerns voiced was that parents would object to the cost of their kids being online all the time. “Don’t worry,” I said, “everyone will have broadband soon, and permanent connection to the internet will be seen as a civil right, just like permanent connection to the water main.”

    Could they see it? Could they heck. Bah! Luddites!

    Um….until I tried to get an ADSL connection for my own house in Milton Keynes that is. It turns out that MK is a broadband blackspot, partly because of its very early cable system, and partly because of its unique town plan. Somewhat embarrassing for the inventor of the leading electronic publishing platform for schools. I solved the problem by moving out – but that’s not a practical option for many.

    So I’m delighted to discover that MK has been selected to pilot a next-generation solution in the form of a 600kps wireless network across the whole city. (thanks ICTSN for the link) Although the vast majority of the population will wind up using wired broadband, the significance of functioning wide-area wireless networks is huge for teachers. It means that in the near future, you will be quite sure that every child in your class will have access to broadband at home. Not some. Not most. All.

  • Hard-to-remember username or password?

    You can change both your username and your password any time you want on your My Profile page. And if you add an email address, we’ll soon be able to email lost passwords direct to you.

    [UPDATE] The Lost Password system is now working.

  • The dog ate my homework

    dogThe single biggest concern that I hear from teachers taking their first steps into elearning is that “computers are unreliable”. They fear lost work, broken connections, crashed servers – all things that can and do happen. Whilst I take full responsibility for problems that happen on Yacapaca, and work very hard to prevent them, I’ll confess to feeling a tad frustrated that the same standards are not applied to paper learning materials.

    Lost or even destroyed books and folders are an everyday reality in schools, as are textbooks stuck in locked cupboards and worksheets jammed in photocopiers. Analysing these problems we find two types of problem; either of which is enough to give the average digital security consultant the screaming habdabs.

    Only one copy of the data exists

    All data is fragile stuff and it’s easily lost or destroyed. At Paperless School, we lock it all away in a secure facility with a controlled environment. We also take a complete copy every night and it in a separate, safe place. Exercise books, by contrast, are left on buses, burnt or dropped into ponds whilst looking for frogspawn.

    The data is only accessible in one physical location

    If you’ve left a book at home, you’ve had your chips. You just can’t access your data until the evening. Not that there aren’t restrictions on digital data; typically you need access to a browser. But digital access gets easier every year; paper access does not.

    The real benefit that paper has is that we have become inured to its failings. We’ve simply resigned ourselves to the fact that someone in the class is going to be homework-less or textbook-less. It is high time that we realised that this state of affairs is not inevitable and that we can and should demand reliability of access to data, whether digital or on paper.

  • Balloon Flight Winner

    Congratulations

    Mr T. McKee, IT Co-ordinator at Archbishop Tenison CE High School in Croydon. You are the lucky the winner of our free Champagne Balloon Flight.
    Click to enlarge

  • The Temple of Books

    Feeling somewhat remorseful at having taken a pop at the British Library building last week, I took the opportunity to visit it today. Approaching through the lychgate on Euston Rd, I crossed the courtyard and entered by the main doors.

    The entrance hallway is arranged in a series of ascending platforms, some containing rows of web browsers where visitors can check the library catalogue before proceeding. Beyond the upper platform, a screen of hanging balconies partially occludes the Tabernacle containing the King’s Library. The Tabernacle itself is six-storey high box of wood and glass that penetrates the full height of the building. The books, leather-bound and ancient, are arranged with their spines outward so they can be viewed through the glass. They are softly but directly lit, somehow encouraging devotions to be whispered in a hushed tone.

    I confess I was wrong; the communal areas were busy enough with staff, students and tourists like myself. Only the inner sancta, the reading rooms, seemed largely empty. So the place does retain a function. Not a practical one for the majority of visitors, but a symbolic one. The book, and I mean specifically the printed-on-paper variety, remains an object of devotion for our culture. And the British Library is the holiest site of the Book Cult.

    Update: it seems the British Library itself agrees with my thesis, at least to some extent. If, as a tax-payer, I hadn’t had to pay for Britain’s poshest wi-fi hotspot, I’d still be laughing at the irony of it all.
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