The equipment we are using - summary

All of the schools involved in the project are using Windows personal computers. The number of computers at schools varies, naturally.

As advantages is mentioned that pupils and teachers are familiar with it. A ministry get free licences for teachers, students and pupils and also mentioned is that using Windows the pupils will continue meeting the same platform. The ongoing challenge seems to be long startup times, updates that are time-consuming in addition to this and stability problems. It is also mentioned that a school is forced to use Windows pc’s because they are considered the safest solution and that it is decided so politically.

A device that could solve some, if not all of these challenges could be the iPad. Here stability and intuitive layout are mentioned as clear benefits, while the price and program constraints are seen as disadvantages. A disadvantage when using iPads is the missing keyboard. Other tablets are also used but only to a lesser extent.

The Chromebook computer places itself between these platforms and could be seen as an affordable solution to some of the problems of the Windows computer. The advantages is the cheap price, the direct connection to the user’s Google account and storage and many cheap online programs.

Cell phones and smart boards are used in classrooms to varying degrees.

As we all know software and hardware is constantly changing and what is considered a good solution right now might be outdated in a few months. When investing in new hardware it is very important to consider the price, the stability, the supply of software/freeware and storage (in the sky or on a local server). In our great cooperation we will continue to try out different software and different solutions. In the coming month we will focus on software both locally stored and online, Blooms Digital Taxonomy, Vygosskij’s thoughts about zone of proximal development and we will start making school plans about our own ICT education as teachers. When making all these steps we will also have to focus on the different software we use so the conclusions from this month’s work will be important to us.