A Trip to the Seaside

I was recently lucky enough to be invited to speak at a conference in Sicily on Pen-based Learning Technologies. I knew that this would be an opportunity to meet with colleagues from around the world who shared an interest in such technology and it would also be a chance for the UMPC to potentially fraternise with some close relatives.

Sure enough, it was truly tablet-tastic with many a speaker extolling the vitues of tablet technologies for use by teacher and student alike. The little Tatung stirred some considerable interest, not least with a North American colleague who could envisage it being used in the field by vetinary students.

Microsoft Learning were also present and gave a practical workshop on how Onenote might be used in an educational setting with tablets etc (this was interesting). I moaned about how Onenote wouldn't work fully on my Tatung because of its apparent non-tablet status and there was an interesting solution suggested that has stretched my technical understanding somewhat. There may be a way to make it into a tablet apparently and this would involve downloading and installing the Microsoft SDK (software development kit) and then installing the XP Tablet Edition Operating System. I am yet to try this, watch this space.

Doubt creeps in

What am I doing? Have I made a monster? I wanted to free the teacher from the post-it. Have I just shifted the manacles onto electronic post-its? Having read some very impassioned and heartfelt posts on Debbie Hepplewhite's thread on the TES Early Years Forum and an article for the Guardian by Ted Wragg some worrying questions are arising in my head.
Don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer in assessment for learning and practice being informed by quality observations of children whilst learning. However, if there is an obsession with making observations and recording, then there is a danger that the skills of the excellent practitioner will be buried under a wave of over-observation. Shouldn't practitioners be spending their time doing what they do best and what is best for children - teaching, engaging, facilitating? Would the hand-held PC only serve to keep practitioners from doing what they do best?
Many of the teachers I've spoken to recently seem more concerned with the 'e-profile' as opposed to the 'e-portfolio' idea as outlined below. I think the distinction is that the e-portfolio idea is more about a record of a learning journey, reporting to parents, and, to a certain extent, evidence gathering. This, in itself, is not lacking in value. I could imagine what a wonderful 'document' this portfolio/record of learning might be once a student reaches the end of formal education. Imagine presenting relevant parts of it at a job interview for instance.
The e-profile, on the other hand, is seen by many practitioners as a once-termly chore, to be completed whilst sifting through a mass of evidence. The message I am getting is that what people are looking for is some sort of application that will allow e-profile updates 'on the hoof'. I'm not sure such a thing exists, but have contacted Target Tracker to find out more about their product.
I also spoke to a Headteacher of a Primary school today who is a big fan of Microsoft Excel for number-crunching purposes. Might some sort of Excel-based system be part of the solution? Might there be a need to somehow synchronise applications like Onenote with e-profile software? How?
Questions, questions...

The eportfolio - Powerpoint or Onenote?

Tatung (or more specifically Akhter Computers - their UK distributers) were keen to take back the blue-screening H70 and replace it (for a slight increase in price) with the 8.4" M84A. All I had to do was wait (the following week I was told).

To keep my mind off the wait, I set about thinking around what the eportfolio might look like. My initial thoughts had been along the lines of a Powerpoint file. My thinking being that it would be the perfect host for the eportfolio. I set up a template such that boxes are ready to receive either text (via handwriting recognition) or media (photos, sound recordings or video). This presented a challenge. I wanted 'content boxes' and text boxes to be on the blank Powerpoint slides so that the practitioner could point at the children with the device, take a picture or make a recording and drop it straight into the content box. This was possible in my version of Powerpoint (2003) as I could choose Format->Slide Layout from the menu and choose a layout with a text box and content boxes for the media. I then fiddled about with the look of the page by organising and resizing the boxes until it looked like this:

There would be an unlimited number of pages like this for the ongoing record of the learning journey.

Using the same principal, my first (title page) would look like this:

The child's picture would go in the big, central content box.

I also thought it would be good to have a three point record (given that the initial idea was for this to work in the Foundation Stage) - 'On entry' (to Nursery), 'On entry to Reception' and 'on exit'. So page two would look like this:

Maybe the child just writes their name onto the screen of the umpc for the 'Picture of child's attempt to write name.' box.

A photo goes into the big box and a sound recording of the child saying "My name is..." is hyperlinked to the speech bubble.

Bob's your uncle.

This could be the ever-growing document I had in mind for the eportfolio. It would not only be a record of learning that could be used for assessment for learning purposes, but could also be the report to parents, shareable with parents in electronic form (a CDROM, via a secure area on the VLE?). This raised another issue in my mind, that of esafety. Would there be any issues for parents given that video clips and photos would include their own and other children, shareable with a wide community of parents (albeit those parents with a PC at home - in the absence of Microsoft Office, a free Powerpoint Viewer is downloadable). Would this be covered by the permission slips that are signed and returned by parents as their children enter school - regarding photos of children and internet policy?

However, a school that is very keen to try the device and the eportfolio idea had started looking into Microsoft Onenote as a possible alternative to Powerpoint as the host software for the eportfolio. This definitely needed looking at as it has similar functionality to Powerpoint, can be handwritten staight onto, will support all kinds of media files, is easily manageable and has some astonishing export functionality (including html - could the eportfolio be a webpage?).