Ketchum a pour client mimio®, tableau interactif mobile (mimio a rejoint en 2006 le groupe Newell Rubbermaid© qui emploie plus de 22000 personnes de par le monde et réunit les marques telles que Waterman®, Parker®, Rubbermaid ou encore Dymo®.) – Et, nous organisons, jeudi prochain, une table ronde avec pour thème : TICE : « Professeurs / élèves, une rupture annoncée ? »

Le pitch de cette rencontre est : LA révolution numérique est en cours dans l’enseignement. Les nouvelles technologies qui apparaissent devraient impacter, à terme, le monde éducatif et la façon dont les savoirs sont transmis aux élèves. Mais au-delà des débats sur les technologies, se posent aussi des questions fondamentales sur les changements des rapports humains entre les professeurs et leurs élèves induit par l’arrivée des TICE.

Dans le cadre de cette mutation mimio organise une table ronde autour du sujet « professeurs / élèves, une rupture annoncée ? ». Au cours de ce débat, plusieurs intervenants s’exprimeront sur des thèmes complémentaires :
•    Alain Cazes, Chargé de mission au CNAM pour le développement de la formation à distance, qui s’exprimera sur les décalages entre les outils et les pédagogies traditionnels face à des élèves « génération Y », qui évoluent dans un monde hyper-connecté.
•    Jana Hladikova, qui délivrera ses attentes sur le système éducatif ‘‘idéal’’ en tant qu’étudiante.
•    Jean-Michel Perron, Responsable de l’Agence nationale des usages des TICE au Centre National de Documentation Pédagogique, qui apportera sa vision en tant qu’expert sur les inconvénients et les avantages de l’arrivée des nouvelles technologies dans les méthodes d’apprentissage et les relations avec le corps enseignant.
•    Athéna Global Services (distributeur IT) qui partagera ses connaissances du marché des TICE, des équipements déployés et des processus d’achats dans l’Education Nationale.
•    mimio (fournisseur de TICE) qui partagera son expérience terrain en France et à l’étranger sur les principales différences d’équipement dans les systèmes éducatifs.

Plus d’info ici : http://mimio.wordpress.com/

Date :  jeudi 26 novembre à partir de 17h30

Lieu : Agence DDB Paris 55 rue d’Amsterdam 75008 Paris Métro Liège
Agenda : 17h30 Accueil 18h00 Début de la table ronde 19h30 Cocktail

Venez nombreux

A few weeks ago I gave a presentation I’d been trying to put together for the best part of six months and this evening I’ve sent it on to the users who attended and who were unable to attend but showed an interest.  I realised at this point I hadn’t actually blogged about it so I thought I might put together a little post about it.

The aim was simply to share some ideas and some bits of ICT that could help people do their jobs quicker/better/cheaper/economically/more easily.  Many of these were based upon queries from users and solutions  found or in some cases pre-emptively finding options for issues that have yet to be raised.

A note was put into the staff briefing and some posters put up around the office to try and get people along to the presentation.  The attendance was surprisingly low and it’s unfortunate in terms of what people missed out on but I thought I’d highlight the areas that were discussed and some high level points on what was demonstrated and discussed.

The presentation was split into four main sections – software, hardware, web sites and engaging with the ICT team.

Software

• Skype
• Working with PDFs
  • Microsoft Office plug ins
  • PDF printers
  • PDF Bulder Toolkit
  • Drawloop.com
• Public Folders in Outlook

Hardware

• Photocopiers
  • Printing
  • Scanning
  • Secure printing & scanning
• Data Capture
  • Dictaphones
  • Digital cameras
  • DigiMemo
  • MIMIO
• Communication
  • Teleconferencing units
  • Audio/telephony cabling

Web Sites

• Collaboration
  • Microsoft SharePoint
  • Google Docs
  • Etherpad
  • Writeboard
  • Dabbleboard
  • Mind Meister
  • Vyew
• Online Presentations
  • Instant Presenter
  • Microsoft Communications Server
  • Dim Dim
• Meeting Scheduling
  • Doodle
  • Meet-o-matic
• To Do Lists
  • To Do Ist
• File Sharing
  • Orbit Files

Engaging with ICT

• Service Desk
  • Queries
  • Training
• Invitation
  • Project meetings
  • Team meetings
• Communications
  • Presentations
  • Briefings
  • Mailings
  • Bulletins
  • Newsletters

I don’t plan on publishing the presentation widely as much of it is only directly relevant to Academy ICT users in the way it is presented, but the outline above gives an indication of the content and areas in which the user community is developing.

Hopefully some imminent developments might help create a greater sharing of such ideas and information within a community and build a better culture of knowledge sharing and management.

As anyone who’s been following the RebootIT Twitter feed today will know, I’ve been at the first day of the BETT Show 09. BETT (or British Education and Training Technology) is an education focussed technology event with the global industry giants of IT such as Microsoft right the way down to businesses run by individuals providing specialised learning materials. Whilst the Academy is not dealing directly with educating students, we do work in the HE sector and so the suppliers are often the same. Additionally we do need to train our own staff in technology and so there’s some parallels there too.

I spent a few minutes at one of the two large Microsoft areas watching a demonstration of Microsoft Surface. This has been all over the Internet and in the media in general for some time now but this was the first opportunity I’ve had to see it actually being used. I had expected it to be a bit sluggish or non-responsive, but it was working really smoothly and Microsoft have obviously been investing in developing software specifically for using it in a school environment with a range of demonstrations including – wiping the screen to reveal an underlying image a bit at a time, building a photo collage and interacting with an intricate 3D model of the human heart.

The reaction from the audience was verfy positive and the people around me were audibly impressed with it. This became particularly so as small groups were invited up to have a go themselves with some of the software and they all had no difficulty with it finding the interface very naturalo and fluid to work with. It was interesting to note that Microsoft had adopted the use of some finger based pinching gestures that Apple have used on the iPhone … but these gestures seem to be appearing on many of the laptops these days as “gesture enabled glide pads”.

I had been looking forward to looking at some of the latest offerings from ASUS that might be useful for the Academy’s mobile workers. Unfortunately the tempting news item on the BETT web site about the new EEE tablet was a bit of a let down as there wasn’t one available at either of the ASUS stands. There were a variety of other ultra mobile laptop developers showing off their latest and greatest including Dell, HP and MSI.  I also got a close look at the Sony TT Series laptop.  Whilst the integrated web cam was not the best I’ve come across it is dockable and has the most amazing flexible screen I’ve seen – it looks much more durable than past Vaio machines.

I revisited a couple of suppliers who I spoke to last year to see what updates they had. The first was a supplier for AceCad DigiMemo a clipboard that acts as a real time scanner and captures whatever you draw or write. This can later be exported or even OCR’d (handwriting recognition). Their update was a plugin Bluetooth module for the clipboard, but at significantly over sixty pounds (+ VAT) I think most people would stick with the ubiquitous mini-USB cable that comes with the clipboard.

My other visit was to Mimio. They now provide a portable tablet device to remote control this portable interactive whiteboard and data capture system. This probably won’t be of much use in the Academy, but I can see how this would free a classroom teacher to be able to walk amongst the class whilst teaching and also allow children who maybe aren’t confident enough or are unable to stand in front of a class to use the system without leaving their desk. What I did discover however was that there has been a significant update to the Mimio Studio software and this is available from the Mimio web site as a free upgrade for existing customers.

The Academy York office has both of these technologies available for staff to make use of, but I’m hoping to run some sort of show, tell and use session in the not too distant future to highlight some of the underused and unknown technologies that the ICT stores have to offer.

BETT has a whole section on assistive technologies and since the Academy hosts and provides ICT support for JISC TechDis I also had a chat to some of the suppliers. One of particular note was HumanWare who provide a number of products for supporting people with visual impairments and visually related learning difficulties such as dyslexia. The item I found most interesting was an item called the BrailleNote – a kind of Braille laptop. It features WiFi, a Braille output, text to speech, and text entry for the onboard applications (word processor, e-mail, etc.). At the same sort of price as a low end laptop or a netbook this appeared to be a very functional and versatile device. Apparently there are cases that allow it to be worn at the waist and “used on the move” … but I’m not exactly sure how safe that is whether your sight impaired or not.

Specifically in relation to events I had a chat to some guys from TxtTools about their SMS system for use by the Academy at the larger events such as the Annual Conference or Academy Away Day. The system essentially allows the routing and collating of text messages for groups. This allows an events team to text delegates reminders or changes to an event schedule and delegates to text in responses for evaluation of a session or questions for a live debate. Whilst I think that an RF based remote control system would be good for a consolidated session such as a main presentations (allowing for instantaneous responses, feedback in zero cell reception areas and typically more sophisticated data collection), the SMS approach allows people who are spread across a site to have simple, direct and personal interaction with the event when it suits them. So if you’re attending one of the aforementioned Academy events in the furture it may well be worth ensuring you have your mobile phone with you to take advantage of this sort of offering.

An interesting theme throughout the event was that of robotics. Whilst not relating to the work of the Academy it was something you couldn’t really help but notice. As usual LEGO Mindstorms had a popular demonstration though they were having trouble with their coloured brick sorter when I wandered past – red and blue were good but yellow proved a bit of an issue for the new colour recognition sensor. There were also a couple of Wow Wee robots (such as Robosapien) suppliers providing programming software and another one from the Far East (probably Japan) that I’m sure was aimed at encourging kids to build little robots for the next series of Robot Wars. Finally Dell had brought along their robotic salesman.

I was hoping to get some information at BETT around Virtual Learning Environments (VLE), remote and self-supported computer based training systems (CBT) and services for broadcasting and arranging online learning sessions.

Most of the VLEs were heavily focussed on fulfilling the needs of primary or secondary education which was not surprising but I hadn’t expected the focus to be such that it really didn’t look professional enough to be used in a progressive corporate HE environment (for supporting the training of Academy staff). There was an organisation who support the leading open source VLE of Moodle, but I was amazed that there was no representative for Blackboard – the leading commercial package.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find any CBT or broadcast based products to examine and talk to someone about. There were plenty of course materials bundled with the VLE packages on offer and also various video recording systems with online functionality, but there was nothing for really allowing the sort of CBT functionality and webcast/webinar functionality I was really looking for.

I came across many others at my day in BETT and apologies if you didn’t make it to my blog post … but from my point of view you just weren’t quite interesting enough for me to blog to the masses about – so please don’t take offence. Hopefully I’ll be able to use some of the informaiton and contacts I made to good use and progress the efficiency and effectiveness of the Academy’s ICT services.

Few things.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

Hells yeah, half off candy tomorrow at the store…SCORE!!!!

Also, I reached 10,000 views on my other blog today.
HELL YEAH.

Isn’t that awesome?  I think it is.  How is it not awesome?

So, just, yeah.
The trip is this weekend.  I want to go, yet I don’t want to go, all at the same time.  It will, hopefully, be fun, but I don’t know if I’ll like being with those people for two days.  I dunno.  I’ll have to see.  I hope it won’t be terrible.

So, like, I just really don’t have anything to share from today.
Oh, but I do…!!

So our school got this awesome new software, called Mimio.  It’s this thing you attach to a white board, and then you write on the white board and it records onto your computer.  It’s really cool.  So me and Miss Van Natta got it all set up and stuff in the computer lab.  It was awesome, cuz once we got it to work, we took turns drawing awesome pictures on the board, which came up on the computer screen.  It’s really cool, and handy, and fun to mess with.
We couldn’t figure out how to make the pens work though.  There’s a mouse-like pen, that you can just write/draw normal with,or use as a mouse thing, and then there’s these four color pens, that you put a real whiteboard marker into, so it writes on the board, and then it sends the info to the computer, so it’s on the board and computer….And there are like eight different color caps that you put on the pen thing so the computer knows which color it’s supposed to be.  It’s really cool, actually.
I so want one.  They’re kind of expensive, though, I’m sure.
I also want one of those tablet PCs.  Miss Van Natta has one, that she uses to give us math notes on – she writes it on the computer, and then projects it onto the screen-thing.  I’ve messed with it multiple times, and it’s really awesome.  I like the stylus part of it the most, I think.  And being able to use that instead of a laptop mousepadthing.  They can be very annoying at times, sadly.  But I did just get a new laptop in January,  so a tablet is out of the question.
Oh well.

L’il Phoenix: Welcome back everybody. Today is the continuation of my interview with someone who has been called many things, including “Rokuro Makube,” “Rock,” “the most evil human being in the world,” “you bastard,” and “that other kid who’s not as sweet and innocent as Ken’ichi.”

Phoenix: He has also been called “The Boy of 100 Faces.”

Phoenix: ?_? What!? That’s not me!!! I’M me!!! That’s an imposter!

*Rock steps out of his disguise, there is much applause*

Phoenix: Cross-dressing can be easily misconstrued these days.

Rock: No one asked you.

Ookaaay….. So, today we’re here to discuss your interesting career.

As long as you promise not to pull a Dr. Phil on me and bring out a bunch of human rights and environmental activists later on.

Wasn’t planning on it. So, anyway, Rock, when did you first become an extortion and disguise artist, and why?

Well, I went to a private school with a bunch of bratty rich kids.

I can understand that, I suppose. Was it difficult for a middle schooler to pull it off?

Of course not, it was the opposite. They never suspect someone as innocent-looking as me. Watch this. *takes off sunglasses* ……..I kill puppies for fun.

Audience members: Awwww, he wouldn’t hurt a fly!

Amazing. So, where did you learn to make yourself into a plausible woman?

No comment. But every good spy and disguise artist should be able to pull off the opposite gender!

I have here an anonymous tip that you took compromising photos of yourself dressed as a certain ex-girlfriend and….posted them around her workplace?

Serves her right for trying to break up with me!

Sources say that you broke up with her.

My mother made me.

It says here a computer told you to do it.

Are you saying a computer can’t be a mother? Oh, there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, L’IL PHOENIX is an insensitive fictional character who HATES COMPUTERS!

That’s not true and you know it. NEXT QUESTION! You tried…to kill your own artist?!

Look, I think you’ll agree with me that the old man was getting a little too cocky, inserting himself into his comics and not even bothering to change the name that time! And not only that, he was having adventures and making himself cool! He needed to get back to reality. So what if I tried to help him get there? Weren’t we supposed to be discussing ME, not all this malicious GOSSIP and LIES about what I’ve done?

Errr…of course….It says on your website that you headed an organization devoted to making the world a better place. What kinds of things did you do?

Well, we…..wanted to promote freedom of expression. *evil smile*

Voice from the audience: LIES!

Hey, keep it down, this isn’t Jerry Springer!

*Hinotori flies out of the audience*

*gasp* 0.0 Hinotoriiii!!!!

Hinotori: This boy is lying to all of you, he has done nothing but evil.

I think that Hinotori here is misleading all of you! Anyone can make someone else look bad by using broad subjective terms like “evil.” You have NO IDEA what this bird has done to me. And besides….why are you trusting a bird? Do you believe everything a PARROT tells you? No.

Can’t we just work out our differences here?

Okay, so there was no one left in the world but me and this one guy who’s a wuss and his pet, right? Like it’s THAT HARD to give immortality to ONE MORE person. NOOOO, miss high-and-mighty-firebird here has to go and PASS ME BY for this wimp. That’s just….cold.

You ran away when everyone was dying in nuclear war! You’re selfish!

Selfish? Or maybe just interested in keeping the human race alive? Hmm?

L’il Phoenix: This is intense!

Did you ever think that maybe what’s-his-name wanted a FRIEND for all those milennia, eh? I guess you thought that pet of his would be enough?

Let’s talk about that “world-improving organization” of yours, boy, or should I say the VAMPIRE REVOLUTION, trying to restore mankind to a state of nature?

We were protecting freedom of speech and the pursuit of happiness!

If letting people kill each other makes you happy!

Hehhehe, saves me some work.

Audience: BOOOOO!

Who’s a hypocrite? HINOTORI! Look I have photos of her LITTERING!

Audience: *GASP*

*chair-throwing and cursing commences. Burly samurai bodyguards enter to break up the fight*

We’ll continue this another time…..*hides under table*

—-cut to commercials—-

Hey everybody! Live your wildest dreams! BUY A MOOPIE TODAY!

My team is distributed across the US and various sites in Europe. Pervasive email, cheap telecom, and WAN/Internet connectivity have made it possible for us to be effective, but we have not yet found a way to successfully facilitate the creative process beyond physically meeting. As a lead, I am always interested in technologies/gadgets that may reduce our otherwise prodigious appetite for plane tickets and hotel rooms.

The usual approach to start ideas flowing is to gather participants in a conference room with a projector/display and whiteboard to debate, analyze, and brainstorm. Sometimes others will join by telephone, and maybe we share what is on the room’s screen using Netmeeting. Despite careful meeting management and tenacious facilitation remote users usually feel like secondary participants. This is especially apparent when there is no handout and what’s on the screen isn’t the focus of discussion.

Various interactive products can be used to share the contents of a whiteboard, which (partially) addresses one aspect of real meetings. The most obvious technical gap is that, when people are together they can take turns actively contributing to the whiteboard whereas remote interactive users are almost entirely passive participants. Lack of nonverbal cues is also a limitation, but can be ameliorated (somewhat) by enforcing conference call etiquette.

The idea of sharing drawings in real time using a PC is far from new, but there seem to be lots of products to potentially facilitate the interaction of a virtual team. Because the basics are in place, it’s hard to know which will be worth the effort without trying them all…

Interactive Whiteboard Choices

• • We’ve tried these Wacom Intuos3 tablets for almost a year
  • Cheap ones are low resolution and don’t work very well (e.g. Graphire), Intuos3 is much better to
    use
  • Cost: $100-200
  • Microsoft thought this was a good idea and forced it on OEMs
  • Lenovo X60 is a 12.1″ example. Seems to be best in class
  • User draws directly on display using pen
  • Cost: $1,500-2,000
    • Overlays plasma display or includes integral projector (front or rear projection)
    • Intended for school classrooms
    • Cost: $5,000+
    • LCD display with integrated digitalizer (same as Wacom tablet peripheral), user draws directly on screen (which lays flat on the desk)
    • Same technology used by Tablet PCs, applied to a 21″ LCD display
    • Intended for graphic artists
    • Not intended for collaboration, but would be a nice interface to a good application
    • Like most Wacom products, this reportedly works great
    • Cost: $2,500
    • Needs to be calibrated to work. Vendors claim it’s easy
    • Works on whiteboards up to 8′ x 4′
    • Mimio can record whiteboards without a PC, no word on whether this works well
    • Mimio system is reputedly less accurate and slower
    • Both systems can generate a variety of image files, including PDF
    • Never seen either system in action
    • Some comparative reviews and Internet chatter, circa 2000, 2002, and 2003
    • Cost: USB: $850, Bluetooth: $1,300
    • Walkthrough of eBeam software
    • Web interface for meetings only works with deployment $800 meeting server or use of Luidia web
      site (free, for now)
    • Cost: $650 + 250 = $898
    • Overview of Mimio Studio, the software supporting the device
    • May need third party software to do interactive meetings?
    • Products like Ibid and Polyvision seem to have only obsolete models with RS232 serial interfaces
    • I notice these around various offices, usually waiting for someone to approve their disposal
    • Probably surpassed by products like eBeam and Mimio
    • The Panasonic Panaboard comes to mind
    • Still see these around, usually dirty and battered but people will pry unused plasma displays off the wall so they can plug these in
    • Probably the only device left in the office that uses thermal fax paper
    • MS ConferenceXP is for non-commercial use
    • Video Conferencing is available everywhere now (we have Tandberg units in several conference rooms per floor), but now that it’s here nobody wants to use it

  Pro	Con	Neat hardware Comparatively inexpensive	Windows XP Tablet Edition is underwhelming Includes nearly useless collaboration software (MS Journal, MS OneNote) Unfortunately it’s a whole PC Low performance systems: after Desktop Services gets done locking it down, how much functionality will be left? Each user needs one

  Touch Sensitive Display

  Pro	Con	Hardware is reportedly neat Not sure whether it will play nicely with laptops	Not useful without good software, which doesn’t come bundled Very expensive for a peripheral Each user needs one

  
  

  SMART Boards

  
  

  Wacom Cintiq

  Infrared+ultrasound Whiteboard Systems

  Luidia eBeam

  Mimio

  Resistive Whiteboards

  Print/Facsimile Whiteboards

  Some Other Choices

  Update: Have since procured an eBeam, and it works as promised– it is surprisingly accurate (similar precision to a digitalizer tablet).

Digitalizer Tablet

Pro	Con	Inexpensive enough that everyone can have one Solid drivers Widely available (CompUSA, Staples, etc.) Well supported in Windows Vista (and XP Tablet PC) Well engineered, high-quality peripheral	Requires uncommon eye-hand coordination Very hard to get used to looking at screen while drawing Poor results (primative/oversized drawings, etc.) It works as advertised, but it just doesn’t get used much

Tablet PC