Lucas Moffitt

The beauty of Teched is that it’s room after room, hall after hall, packed full of passionate people who devote their lives to IT. A secondary benefit of teched is that Microsoft has a chance to run an Academic Day, for those equally passionate IT Educators.

One of the sessions was named upon the countless questions to Microsoft and Students in general, “How do we get students through the door?” or “The Future Student”. I was fortunate enough to be able to present this session. However, I believe in the heat of the moment some of the key ideals were lost by some of those in attendance. And I mean only some.

I have a gift / curse where I can be passionate about nearly anything. But Technology Education and Technology in Education is where I’m at. I make no apologies if the truth hurt you, it doesn’t change the validity of my claims. However, I do want to clear some things up.

Because I’m studying Education and have been in a fair share of classrooms already, (as an external observer, engaged student and interactive teacher) I can see the problems faced by school students, high schools students and university students. I’ll be the first to admit, I’m not an expert, but to make the claim that “you don’t understand” is a complete cop out. DO NOT use me to mask your guilt of the roll you play in educational mediocrity.

In addition, “This has been the same for the last 20 years” is not an excuse. We don’t look at third world countries and say “well, i mean it’s been the same for so long now, might as well just get used to it”. There are people out there trying, they’re doing what they can to help. If anything, comments like this reflect poorly on you as a educator for recognising an issue and doing nothing about it, Not to mention the fact you are in the wrong session.

I started my discussion with “This isn’t a presentation, this is a call to action”. It was fantastic to see the enthusiasm from @CurtinUni And I’d love to see the results from the other Universities who got the message.

I do appreciate all forms of feedback, and if it wasn’t for some of the feedback on the day all would have been lost, however if you:

You want Ideas on how to use technology in education? Call me

You want ideas on how to use technology to achieve what i discussed? Call me

You want to brainstorm ways to remove mediocrity from our universities? Call me

You want to piss and moan because I told the truth? Bite Me.

Lucas.

Within the next few days I’ll be posting information about the first of many MSP events at the University of Newcastle! Our maiden event is scheduled for:

Room: ICT3034

Date: Monday, 19/10/2009

Time: 13:00-14:00

I have a lot of good stuff for you all to hear about with the addition of pizza and prizes at the end.

I was having a good think the other day about what i can actually put here, to be honest I’m not so good with the whole blogging thing and i was trying to think up decent content as I have no desire to post shit here. Anyway, moving along working on an assignment the last few days and as usual uploading it all to my office workspace. Office What? No seriously What?

Office Workspace:

Think of it this way. A thumb drive for all your uni work on the interwebs, secure in your own little section. A place for all your word documents, PowerPoint’s, Excel etc, anything you work on your desktop you can now work on within your internets!

Now you may think, So what? Well let me break it down.

• No Backups:

It keeps version information about each document so after you make changes, it makes another copy

• Can’t Loose them

I’ve gone through most probably over two dozen usb drives since starting uni. Can’t loose something that’s on the internet!

The best part of all is group work. I hate group work, working with the undesirables of the course, the ones who do minimal work or even just the fact you have to rely on other people to get your mark. All of that makes me a sad panda. But by using Office Workspaces you can share folders and documents with groups, allowing you to cut back on the group meetings by doing it online. It also allows for sharing work online that’s fully documented with who did what and when. Meaning you can smack the bludgers before it gets out of hand.

As an IT teaching student this also has phenomenal aspects for teaching by minimizing paper, allowing students to collaborate on ideas, getting content to students that are home sick etc. For me the list is truly endless.

Taking this free service out into the real world can be beneficial for all.

• Event Planning / Management
• Study Groups
• Meeting Planners / Logs
• Household Information (i.e. Shared house, jobs etc contact information)
• Job searching
• Sports Team management
• Travel Plans

That’s just a small list of what you can achieve with it.

It’s free to sign up you just use the same windows live login to create your account (The same one you used to register for Dreamspark!)

Click HERE to get started!

tldnr: Office on the internet! Do your work online @ OfficeWorkspaces

Lucas

I heard the word about the bird, and the new Zune a few weeks ago but it totally slipped my mind until right now.

If my memory serves me well the new Zune should be released around September 15 (Not too far away now ) and is next on my gadget list!

The new Zune HD boasts a 3.3inch 480 x 272 OLED touch screen. build-in HD radio receiver with additional HD output.

I’ll be keen to see how the marketplace and xbox360 are integrated into this bad boy but never the less it shall be interesting.

Even Better… Wi-Fi and a web browser. Checkout the full specs here…

So ah… Anyone want to buy a second-hand iPod???

Edit: Karo confirmed today that the Zune will not be available for purchase within Australia immediately following the launch, however that wouldn’t stop you from finding it by other means