Steve Borsch, are you listening in on my conversations?
One of the techs in school today asked me about whether or not we would be moving to Office 2007 in the near future. I had no idea about whether or not we as a district would do that, but I immediately loaded the machine in front of me with Zoho. Our conversation then shifted to how reliable these web-based applications applications are at the current time. Like most districts, the struggle with cost v. performance is one that is constantly bandied about, and I have no information regarding the cost of such a move, I can only imagine that running something like Zoho, or OpenOffice, could have cost benefits.
The sword has two edges, as they say, because my experience even today showed exactly what Steve referred to in his post. Even something as reliable as Google Video caused me hiccups today as I tried to load a video over a fairly fast connection. Until our confidence is boosted to the point where we can rely without worries on web-applications, we will have more doubters than champions.
Yet, I can't stop grinning when I watch that Zoho Notebook Video that is being passed around. Imagine telling a student that there is no format to follow when taking notes. "Just pull in whatever you are comfortable with--audio, video, picture, draw it freehand--whatever gets you plugged in to the information." The power of such an application to be so all encompassing, and yet not live natively on your machine blows me away, and I am giddy at the possibility at getting my hands on it. Howard Gardner might have to add a few categories to his intelligences just to keep up with this push.
So what am I going to do? Use it all, naturally. Students and their needs don't fit squarely into neat little pictures (as an aside, I love the title of Brian Crosby's blog Learning is Messy). Just as we ask our teachers to differentiate their lessons to accomodate various learning styles and heterogeneous levels, I think we shouldn't approach this web-based, software-based question with blinders. Once you get past the wow factor, you have to find what works the best and exploit it.
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One of the techs in school today asked me about whether or not we would be moving to Office 2007 in the near future. I had no idea about whether or not we as a district would do that, but I immediately loaded the machine in front of me with Zoho. Our conversation then shifted to how reliable these web-based applications applications are at the current time. Like most districts, the struggle with cost v. performance is one that is constantly bandied about, and I have no information regarding the cost of such a move, I can only imagine that running something like Zoho, or OpenOffice, could have cost benefits.
The sword has two edges, as they say, because my experience even today showed exactly what Steve referred to in his post. Even something as reliable as Google Video caused me hiccups today as I tried to load a video over a fairly fast connection. Until our confidence is boosted to the point where we can rely without worries on web-applications, we will have more doubters than champions.
Yet, I can't stop grinning when I watch that Zoho Notebook Video that is being passed around. Imagine telling a student that there is no format to follow when taking notes. "Just pull in whatever you are comfortable with--audio, video, picture, draw it freehand--whatever gets you plugged in to the information." The power of such an application to be so all encompassing, and yet not live natively on your machine blows me away, and I am giddy at the possibility at getting my hands on it. Howard Gardner might have to add a few categories to his intelligences just to keep up with this push.
So what am I going to do? Use it all, naturally. Students and their needs don't fit squarely into neat little pictures (as an aside, I love the title of Brian Crosby's blog Learning is Messy). Just as we ask our teachers to differentiate their lessons to accomodate various learning styles and heterogeneous levels, I think we shouldn't approach this web-based, software-based question with blinders. Once you get past the wow factor, you have to find what works the best and exploit it.
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3 comments:
I haven't been listening in to your conversations Patrick...but rather I'm listening...to your thoughts!
Oh dear.
Seriously though, I'm seeing and experiencing people getting really excited about the onrush of online apps without much regard to what happens if it's not available at the moment they need it.
Case in point is my post today (http://www.iconnectdots.com/ctd/2007/02/yahoo_pipes_is_.html ) about Yahoo Pipes...a new "plumbing" development offering by Yahoo and they seem to have horribly misjudged demand.
It's hard not to get caught up here, but I really feel it is always going to be a matter of picking the best product for you needs at hand. As more and more people tap into the read/write possibilities, they will be more and more discerning in what they use.
I have to check out the Yahoo Pipes deal. It sounds, as you pointed out, to be ideal for disparate groups to pull off something really dynamic.
Thanks for using Zoho and for your appreciation for Zoho Notebook, Patrick! We aim to have our public Beta in March. Zoho is indeed being used by educators world-wide.
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