I've been wondering if the One Laptop Per Child project could be used. There's all sorts of benefits here...

• These computers are robust
• The computers are cheap... USD100 was the target price
• They're open source, so there's no licensing fees
• The computers are learning mechanisms, with learning tools and scripting built in
• They're built to be wireless and low power, minimising the infrastructure concerns

At my school in the Yarra Valley we have introduced notebooks, learning management systems, electronic attendance tracking, IWB's in the past two years and have now moved past the PD phase of showing teachers how to use a piece of software and are more concerned about the pedagogical appropriateness of the ICT.

We have found that we desperately need more ICT infrastructure to increase access to match demand, but we now have problems fitting it into buildings constructed in the 70's. :(

I don't care what is delivered, as long as I can give "on demand" access with a fast net connection (current service and prices are a joke!) to teachers and students is all I care about.

We are phasing out pods as they created a mindset of "now we are off to do a computer task" (and very few of the students stayed on task unsupervised anyway) to making sure the ICT is available in the classroom or very near. Pods are becoming notebook storage areas.

The thing that I am most wondering about is that Rudd started by concentrating on Seniors. In my experience ICT is often an inefficient use of time with Yr 12's as they don't have the time to develop skills to solve problems due to the tight timeline. For example using a spreadsheet is entirely appropriate in Physics to record data, but I don't have the time to show them how to do it properly.

The students need these skills developed further down the school so they are able to use these tools to actually save time and achieve greater depths to their investigations when it is really needed.

Flootoonie is right on the money. In fact much of what he describes applies on a much broader front. The way computers are deployed, used, and abused in the workplace is every bit as wasteful and counter productive as in schools.

From observation, only about 10% of end users know more than just enough to get by on, and perhaps 5% are what you might reasonably call skilled users, by which I mean productive rather than technically skilled. The vast majority use their expensive playthings to do email and not much else, other than browse sites (such as Bleeding Edge!) that have little or nothing to do with their job, annoy/entertain each other with intrusive instant messages, and play games.

Users who dabble in word processing and spreadsheets usually know enough to be dangerous. Amateur spreadsheets in particular are notorious for their poor structure, use of invalid formulae, manual replacement of formulae with typed values, etc.. It frightens me to think how many important financial decisions have been made on the basis of wildly inaccurate data.

In similar vein, slide presentations (Powerpoint, et al) are generally either a triumph of style over content (those lucky enough to have laid their hands on a decent template) or a collection of barely literate and frequently illegible opinions masquerading as facts and laid out as endless streams of bullet points. These are presented as "business cases" and once again it is disturbing to consider how many management decisions are based on this dross.

I've long since given up being shocked by the willingness of corporates to waste huge sums of money on computers, operating software, and applications that are much more frequently abused, or ignored, than they are ever used productively. A large part of the problem is the unwillingness of the self same corporates to spend a brass razoo on teaching people how to get the most out of the expensive and powerful tool that graces their workplace. They simply assume that we all know this stuff, despite clear and widespread evidence to the contrary. How many of your corporate friends and acquaintances have even the most basic computer savvy? Simple things like keyboard shortcuts, how to use the file manager, how to find things on their hard drive, how to search the net, awareness of built in tools like the task manager, etc., etc..

Kevin is full of good intentions, at least according to his party's election rhetoric, but before rushing to "invest" our tax money in school computers and high speed broadband I'd like to see a coherent and considered strategy that is not based on the naive and demonstrably flawed assumption that access to a computer and a high speed connection magically produces productive and computer literate users.

One more comment, while the rant is upon me... I'd also like to see the punters - i.e. the little dears who will be the beneficiaries of Mr Rudd's largesse - taking responsibility for the investment that you and I are funding. If they lose their laptop through carelessness (or sell it for cash!) or stuff it up, their parents should be required to fund a replacement. One strike and you're out!!

I have to be honest with you aussieboykie. At best I am a dabbler in technology and yet I am seen as one of the goto IT people at my school. Dangerous indeed! :)

As for your comment about powerpoint presentations. My students love them and I hate them. They make very little work look good to the unaware. I feel my blood pressure rise instantly when a student insists on reading directly from a PP presentation for any length of time.

Spoken4, it sounds like your school is where we are headed. I just wonder how long it will take us to get there. The technology is arriving quickly now (We too are a part of the 'laptops for teachers' program) but I wonder how long it will take to change the static mindset and methodology of teachers and their students towards this technology.

Hi Flotoonie,

Your remark about Powerpoint is not unusual. There are recommendations and ideas about delivering a speech and public speaking where Powerpoint is used. These are worth preaching to the masses - because Powerpoint is used unwittingly as a crutch, not an enhancement of one's public speaking ability. In other words, a good speaker is encouraged not to read off the slides but to actually speak around the slides.

Unfortunately I capped my day of teaching just now with a visit to parents night where an undecipherable font was used for the Powerpoint titles - and fortunately, they didn't read off the slides - but on the other hand, the slides were showing incidental, decorative photos, rather than used to reinforce the points of delivery.

I'd like to get your comments on the Asus Eee PC, Spoken4. Would you mind emailing me your address at cw@bleedingedge.com.au?