I-pads do they work in middle school?

2604 said :

I hope everyone remembers the OP the next time teachers and their feral union go on strike in an attempt to secure another above-market pay rise.

God forbid we pay more to attract teachers what can speel good and string thum word thingies together proper-like…

You’ve got to love it when people (quite understandably) correcting grammar come up with a bunch of their own errors! It’s the greatest hazard for us pedants…
“your”? “abated”? 🙂

The real issue here is with Apple.
They have a created a device which, by design, is almost useless in corporate environments that require multiple users to log onto it securely.

If you want an iPad at home, then go for it, they’re great. If you want to use it securely a corporate environment(which is what our public schools are), then forget about it.
Hell, if you don’t need internet access and you won’t be storing photos on them, then they’d be great for that too.(and this has been the case in some ACT public schools already)

I think we’ll find that the Windows 8 tablets on the horizon will be far more practical solution compared to the iPad in the workplace and in the school due. This is due to the fact that they’ll actually be able to be used and managed on the networks securely and seamlessly with 1 log-on. Only issue is that software developers need to make the right apps to match the iTunes catalogue!

The other culprits here are the people who have pushed the iPads into our schools without any sort of diligent testing. If they’d bothered to do their research, we wouldn’t have this issue.

rookie said :

Take me out of your grammar sites … Maybe I’ll except essays by sms … The written word is not the be all and end all to communication … you probably think their smart to. Rookie

I noticed one horrible bish, but when I started editing it down, found more, and stopped looking!!!

1. Grammar SIGHTS. Not sites. I assume you’re asking for people to stop targetting your grammar.
2. ACCEPT essays. Not except. If you except their essays, you’re removing them from the process.
3. be-all and end-all OF communication. Not “to” communication.
4. They’re smart TOO. Not their smart to. Well done, two errors in a three word phrase.

Your grammar is poor, but your English is the real problem, it’s really poor.

Why can’t Shared Services ICT just set all teachers up with generic user logins or open and unauthenticated tablets/PCs – oh wait….

rookie said :

Take me out of your grammar sites and focus on the issue of Authentication and how your children’s education is being managed by INTACT.

Personally, I don’t have any site dedicated to grammar, but if I did, I would certainly ensure that you weren’t featured on it, as you request. As for INTACT, the best thing you can do is learn quickly that you will be defeated. INTACT ‘serves’ the entire ACT Government and does so with an iron fist, determined to stop or undermine all progress. The best you can do is find a way to bypass their system entirely.

gazket said :

Middle school ? what sort of teacher calls it middle school.

Australia don’t become America
http://youtu.be/neMZr1uAoV0

Middle School isn’t an Americanism. In Australia it’s usually used to refer to years 5 to 8. Many private schools in this country who have separated this part (or a similar range) of schooling report improved results from a more gradual transition between primary and secondary methodologies, and this is often called ‘Middle School’ or ‘Intermediate’ or something like that. I don’t even think the Americans use the term ‘Middle School’, though I could be wrong.

bigfeet said :

I call ‘troll’ on this. There is no way a teacher could have such a poor grasp of basic writing and grammar skills.

Bigfeet, you obviously haven’t many new teachers! There is absolutely no literacy test for teachers, so even those who confuse ‘then’ with ‘than’ and ‘except’ with ‘accept’ and don’t have any instinct for punctuation can be qualified and recruited. Rookie’s problems however, have little to do with grammar. The errors evident in Rookie’s posts are mostly related to diction, syntax or punctuation customs that are usually taught in primary school; there are very few errors of grammar in either.

colourful sydney racing identity said :

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

rookie said :

Point taken with my use of grammar! I will not make that mistake again, very often in my posts.

Thankyou.

Big thanks to the rioters who posted some encouraging feedback on the topic of Authentication.

To those that think sending their kids to private school is going to help them survive our community, what a joke, send them to a private community you’ll be more successful. $$$

To those that think I’m a poor teacher from my post, you’ve made links to my pedagogy these statements aren’t accurate.

Take me out of your grammar sites and focus on the issue of Authentication and how your children’s education is being managed by INTACT.

Maybe I’ll except essays by sms in text speak just for you and give them A’s for creating their own language and then I’ll mark them on their creative process for their mine craft assignment.

The written word is not the be all and end all to communication in education, yes certainly it’s a foundation but seriously most of you are good readers, do what good readers do, use your brains.

I’ll still post on my progress of using tablets as tools rather than toys, you haven’t scared me, why would you? your kids don’t scare me and you probably think their smart to.

Rookie

Well said.

No, no it wasn’t.

Well said.

As someone who works in IT, I did have trouble understanding everything the OP had written. A second reading helped. firstly I don’t know if blaming inTACT themselves is the real issue. This is probably not their decision, but that of policy makers.

You yourself say that you have access to parents and students emails. Not imagine your iPad is used by someone else, maybe at home, maybe a friend or maybe someone you don’t know. If there was no authentication on the iPad they would have easy access to information they should not have. Society demands a level of privacy and thus policies are developed to meet these demands.

Trust me I’m asked to do a lot of things in my job I don’t agree with from a technical or political point of view. Maybe suggest to inTACT that they need to find a quicker authentication method. Perhaps usernames could be shortened and minimum password length decreased to say 8 with 3 types of characters.

Another idea is to have the iPads on their own seperate wireless network and they can be used normally, however to access any resources on the school network, they need authentication then through a proxy.

IT security is difficult, because people over react thus meaning the security is also over the top. Then there is the issue of doing it cheaply. Functionality is always the loser.

So sorry OP, I doubt you’ll get anything to change. Its a much bigger problem than just how long it takes to log onto your iPad.

bigfeet said :

I call ‘troll’ on this. There is no way a teacher could have such a poor grasp of basic writing and grammar skills.

Please, please, please let this be a disgruntled High School student, rather than a semi-literate teacher.

My school has 20 iPads. We disabled the WiFi as it was deemed a concern for our Primary-aged students to use without 1-1 supervision. inTACT were just fine with the set up, but not especially effective. We coped and solved the teething issues in-house.

As my main concern of the OP, I do not know of any Principal, executive member, teaching collegue or parent who would fail to have grave concerns for your hard to read, badly spelt, mindless dribble you have placed into a public space. I would have a concern if my own students wrote that badly. Year One students know the different uses of the homophone ‘to/too/two’.

Please stop embarrassing our profession.

bigfeet said :

I call ‘troll’ on this. There is no way a teacher could have such a poor grasp of basic writing and grammar skills.

Seconded.

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

rookie said :

Point taken with my use of grammar! I will not make that mistake again, very often in my posts.

Thankyou.

Big thanks to the rioters who posted some encouraging feedback on the topic of Authentication.

To those that think sending their kids to private school is going to help them survive our community, what a joke, send them to a private community you’ll be more successful. $$$

To those that think I’m a poor teacher from my post, you’ve made links to my pedagogy these statements aren’t accurate.

Take me out of your grammar sites and focus on the issue of Authentication and how your children’s education is being managed by INTACT.

Maybe I’ll except essays by sms in text speak just for you and give them A’s for creating their own language and then I’ll mark them on their creative process for their mine craft assignment.

The written word is not the be all and end all to communication in education, yes certainly it’s a foundation but seriously most of you are good readers, do what good readers do, use your brains.

I’ll still post on my progress of using tablets as tools rather than toys, you haven’t scared me, why would you? your kids don’t scare me and you probably think their smart to.

Rookie

Well said.

No, no it wasn’t.

As an ex-public servant, the only thing I have to add to this discussion is that I am somewhat concerned by the behaviour of people who are identifying themseleves on this post as current public servants. A quick read of the Public Sector Management Act 1994 (http://www.legislation.act.gov.au/a/1994-37/current/pdf/1994-37.pdf), shows that these staff are clearly in breach of their terms of employment:

General obligations of public employees
A public employee shall, in performing his or her duties:

treat members of the public and other public employees with
courtesy and sensitivity to their rights, duties and aspirations;

not disclose, without lawful authority—
(i) any information acquired by him or her as a consequence
of his or her employment; or
(ii) any information acquired by him or her from any
document to which he or she has access as a consequence
of his or her employment;

not make a comment that he or she is not authorised to make
where the comment may be expected to be taken to be an
official comment;

I’m sure they would have also breached numerous department codes of conduct and ethics, however, I am too lazy to look them up and reference them…

Not to mention the sheer lack of professionalism they are displaying. If there is a problem with the equipment they have been given to teach with, it should be raised through the correect channels.

I know exactly what rookie means and anyone using iPads in a school would too. My answers:
1. This is totally the wrong forum to discuss this (there are forums within the department)
2. yes it is a real problem which severely limits the usefulness of iPads in schools
3. No, making a request to Shared Services will not solve the problem
4. Our solution is to use iPad apps but with the wireless switched off
5. Maybe one day the department will address the problem but form their perspective there are security issues (which i don’t really understand)

rookie said :

Point taken with my use of grammar! I will not make that mistake again, very often in my posts.

Thankyou.

Big thanks to the rioters who posted some encouraging feedback on the topic of Authentication.

To those that think sending their kids to private school is going to help them survive our community, what a joke, send them to a private community you’ll be more successful. $$$

To those that think I’m a poor teacher from my post, you’ve made links to my pedagogy these statements aren’t accurate.

Take me out of your grammar sites and focus on the issue of Authentication and how your children’s education is being managed by INTACT.

Maybe I’ll except essays by sms in text speak just for you and give them A’s for creating their own language and then I’ll mark them on their creative process for their mine craft assignment.

The written word is not the be all and end all to communication in education, yes certainly it’s a foundation but seriously most of you are good readers, do what good readers do, use your brains.

I’ll still post on my progress of using tablets as tools rather than toys, you haven’t scared me, why would you? your kids don’t scare me and you probably think their smart to.

Rookie

Oh come on! I’m not normally a grammar Nazi but this is beyond a joke. There are almost as many errors in this comment as the original. I can’t even be bothered listing them all.

Surely as a teacher you would understand that to convince us you need to make clear and coherent statements?

I call ‘troll’ on this. There is no way a teacher could have such a poor grasp of basic writing and grammar skills.

rookie said :

Point taken with my use of grammar! I will not make that mistake again, very often in my posts.

Thankyou.

Big thanks to the rioters who posted some encouraging feedback on the topic of Authentication.

To those that think sending their kids to private school is going to help them survive our community, what a joke, send them to a private community you’ll be more successful. $$$

To those that think I’m a poor teacher from my post, you’ve made links to my pedagogy these statements aren’t accurate.

Take me out of your grammar sites and focus on the issue of Authentication and how your children’s education is being managed by INTACT.

Maybe I’ll except essays by sms in text speak just for you and give them A’s for creating their own language and then I’ll mark them on their creative process for their mine craft assignment.

The written word is not the be all and end all to communication in education, yes certainly it’s a foundation but seriously most of you are good readers, do what good readers do, use your brains.

I’ll still post on my progress of using tablets as tools rather than toys, you haven’t scared me, why would you? your kids don’t scare me and you probably think their smart to.

Rookie

Well said.

I really can’t decide whether to be amused or horrified. Rookie, might I respectfully suggest you stop concerning yourself with authentication issues, and return to basics ? The manner in which you have chosen to defend your post indicates immaturity and lack of logic. Whilst I’m sure you have a trophy cabinet full of encouragement awards from your teachers college, forgive those of us who belong to a generation where praise had to be actually earned.

I don’t want to push the issue too much, but serious questions need to be asked of the institution that permitted this person to graduate at their current level of achievement.

Point taken with my use of grammar! I will not make that mistake again, very often in my posts.

Thankyou.

Big thanks to the rioters who posted some encouraging feedback on the topic of Authentication.

To those that think sending their kids to private school is going to help them survive our community, what a joke, send them to a private community you’ll be more successful. $$$

To those that think I’m a poor teacher from my post, you’ve made links to my pedagogy these statements aren’t accurate.

Take me out of your grammar sites and focus on the issue of Authentication and how your children’s education is being managed by INTACT.

Maybe I’ll except essays by sms in text speak just for you and give them A’s for creating their own language and then I’ll mark them on their creative process for their mine craft assignment.

The written word is not the be all and end all to communication in education, yes certainly it’s a foundation but seriously most of you are good readers, do what good readers do, use your brains.

I’ll still post on my progress of using tablets as tools rather than toys, you haven’t scared me, why would you? your kids don’t scare me and you probably think their smart to.

Rookie

grunge_hippy said :

….

BTW, we read for meaning. This was poorly constructed yes, but still understandable. If you didn’t understand it, you don’t have the schema (background knowledge) required to understand it. Any teacher from ACT dept of Ed who read this would probably have an idea of what he is talking about.

…

He (?) is writing for a general audience. If we have to squeeze a piece of writing like a teabag to get a decent cup of meaning, there is something wrong with the author’s approach. I found this difficult to understand, although I am interested in education.

Meaning and elegance of expression are always linked; it doesn’t have to be poetry, but the prose should at least flow and be clear.

grunge_hippy said :

Jethro said :

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Gotta love moronic grammer nazis who do no more than flame somebody just for asking advice.

stay classy RA

The point people are making is that a high school teacher should be able to write something that can be deciphered by the average reader. The occasional typo isn’t a big deal, but that was illegible.

While it was poorly written I knew what he was talking about because I work in the system. InTact are a bunch of tossers who make working with IT in schools a complete and utter frustrating waste of time.

BTW, we read for meaning. This was poorly constructed yes, but still understandable. If you didn’t understand it, you don’t have the schema (background knowledge) required to understand it. Any teacher from ACT dept of Ed who read this would probably have an idea of what he is talking about.

He also obviously works in one of the super schools, as they call years 7-8 middle school.

I did work in the system for a long time. The issue with this isn’t that s/he was using language specific to the job but that the lack of punctuation and the poorly structured sentences made it exceptionally difficult to process what was being written.

As other people have said, all teachers are responsible for teaching literacy. When people post on public forums as teachers they should ensure that their writing meets basic standards of literacy. The public is right to expect that the people teaching their children can demonstrate an ability to write in a fluent and coherent manner. It is not a good look for a teacher to make a post so riddled with basic errors, and I do think some questions need to be asked about the literacy standards of some people entering the profession.

I hope everyone remembers the OP the next time teachers and their feral union go on strike in an attempt to secure another above-market pay rise.

Jethro said :

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Gotta love moronic grammer nazis who do no more than flame somebody just for asking advice.

stay classy RA

The point people are making is that a high school teacher should be able to write something that can be deciphered by the average reader. The occasional typo isn’t a big deal, but that was illegible.

Seems to only be illegible to noobs.

Jethro said :

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Gotta love moronic grammer nazis who do no more than flame somebody just for asking advice.

stay classy RA

The point people are making is that a high school teacher should be able to write something that can be deciphered by the average reader. The occasional typo isn’t a big deal, but that was illegible.

While it was poorly written I knew what he was talking about because I work in the system. InTact are a bunch of tossers who make working with IT in schools a complete and utter frustrating waste of time.

BTW, we read for meaning. This was poorly constructed yes, but still understandable. If you didn’t understand it, you don’t have the schema (background knowledge) required to understand it. Any teacher from ACT dept of Ed who read this would probably have an idea of what he is talking about. He also obviously works in one of the super schools, as they call years 7-8 middle school.

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Gotta love moronic grammer nazis who do no more than flame somebody just for asking advice.

stay classy RA

The point people are making is that a high school teacher should be able to write something that can be deciphered by the average reader. The occasional typo isn’t a big deal, but that was illegible.

The correct answer to whatever your question was, depends entirely on whether you work in a public or private school. Please enlighten me, my children’s education may well depend on your answer

As for all of you who superficially criticised the post, go smoke a turd. It’s very easy to tell someone they’re wrong; it’s a better person who can successfully convince someone to improve. Especially if that someone is an immature student!

I don’t know if this is relevant or not, but at my child’s primary school all homework is delivered to the student on computer; some is completed by the student on-line, and some involves actual writing by hand in a book. Each student has a password. All notices are delivered to parents by the same system, which cuts down on lost notices.

The student is required to have access to a computer at home.

Middle school ? what sort of teacher calls it middle school.

Australia don’t become America
http://youtu.be/neMZr1uAoV0

Deref said :

Jezuz – I’m very glad that you’re not teaching English. Does your iThing have an English Grammar app?

Have you ever heard the expression “every teacher is a teacher of English”?

In twenty or thirty years’ time, when the kids in middle school (or high school, whatever) are running the joint, the only reason they’d have to rue their supposed poor teaching is that they’d find it difficult to communicate us, the people running the joint today. Our language, grammar and ability to comprehend one another is constantly evolving. The very fact that teachers are being encouraged to use a portable, dynamic and graphics-oriented window into their professional lives is something so very different to the way in which teachers operated and behaved in the past. Does it really matter if the exact symbols on the page are slightly at odds with our current standards if the intent behind those symbols is so much more piercing? Or more flexible? Or more nuanced?

My sadness in the knowledge that teachers are using iPads (or tablets) is that it centralises the authority and curricula, and to some extent takes away the independence of the teacher. On the long term and for society at large, it’s probably a change for the better.

As to the meat of the post: the authentication does need to occur somewhere in the system. An alternative, but perhaps most costly, approach would be to use two-factor authentication of some sort. Two-factor (or more than one factor!) authentication would possibly allow for shorter passwords as they would be augmented with a shared secret. Maybe less emphasis should be placed on the cost of replacing the tablets and more emphasis placed on the cost of an unauthorised person gaining access to the data via the tablet.

Thank you Duffbowl. Now I know what the OP was trying to say.

Maybe I should just stick to VHS and paper booklets rather then pursue this technology.

Sounds like it.

Jezuz – I’m very glad that you’re not teaching English. Does your iThing have an English Grammar app?

Have you ever heard the expression “every teacher is a teacher of English”?

Actually, I understood rookie first read.

Breast feeding Nazis are worse….

But seriously, I worry for the future literacy skills of our kids if this is the standard.

Duffbowl said :

Why are you calling High School “Middle School”?

I can’t speak for anything else the OP has said, but Middle School isn’t High School. In the monster P-10 schools, middle school is Year 5 – Year 8. Year 9 and 10 are apparently all that high school consists of, because after that it’s college. Early Years are P-2, so there’s a wee gap for Years 3 and 4 as well.

No idea what it’s all about, but it wreaks havoc with uniforms.

Duffbowl said :

[snip] I await your answers with abated breath.

Oh Christ, someone get the OP back here to answer before we lose an RA member to asphyxiation.

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Gotta love moronic grammer nazis who do no more than flame somebody just for asking advice.

stay classy RA

“grammer nazis” should be spelled with a capital N…

davo101 said :

I can live with quite a lot of errors in text, but when it gets to the point of being unable to figure out exactly what they’re on about it starts to look like this.

Yes, very like that … only, I didn’t laugh out loud while trying to read the OP.

Postalgeek said :

If you’re asking someone to take the time to read your blabber, at least take the time to write in a coherent manner.

Bottom-lined it right there.

Henry82 said :

Can someone please translate? (I’m quite serious)

Here’s my best effort…

I have been asking myself the subject question; however, I will provide some background.

Recently, I started teaching, and have been employed in the IT team. I graduated recently, so believe that my skill set is up-to-date. On top of that, I really enjoy my job, which is teaching high school students.

I have an iPad, provided by the school, and make use of an application called “Teacher Pal”. This allows me to keep a profile of the school’s students, and gives me the ability to contact them and their parents using email. This is very handy, particularly if you know what it’s like to collect more than 100 student email details, as well as the email contacts of their parents.

What’s that you say? It couldn’t be simpler? Well, there is this peculiar procedure inTACT, or whoever set it up, that I like to call “Every time you want to use your iPad, or go to a new page, or just have your iPad function in the Library or your office or the Mac Labs or the Workshop without interrupting you”. It asks for authentication. Now, this is not really a big problem, if you only have to do this once.

This problem doesn’t just affect me; it happens to the students as well.

Two, three, four times… Wait. Can’t I just hit “Cancel” or “OK”, or why don’t I reset my iPad or maybe it’s just me. Maybe I should just stick to VHS and paper booklets rather than pursue this technology.

Consider this: I’m talking about entering the 17 letters of my full name, and then using my strong password of another 15 or more characters. How long does this take? Maybe less than a minute. Ask yourself this: How many times do you have to re-enter a password and think of me, a teacher, relying on technology to educate your kids, and I’m hitting a wall a lot, sometimes too much to make it worth it.

So now you possibly understand my position. I haven’t talked about the other applications that I use for WH&S, or the site management applications I use for VET (Vocational Education and Training) students; but my point is that there is so much more to iPads than surfing or games. When you have over 100 iPads at schook, $50,000 to assist in student learning, and they are hitting the wall like I do, my question is: Do iPads work in high school?

inTACT, I’m only a new user, but you are a collection of staff set up to assist in the functioning of the ACT Government. I’m in the class; I use tutor control; I monitor my students’ computer usage; and, I have a tablet version of the software available to use.

This problem of authentication doesn’t happen only with iPads. This also happens with our desktops and laptops.

I will post again in September after some more trials.

Every parent, tax payer, and inTACT member out there should know about the impact of authentication on quality class time.

Rookie
————————————————–
TL;DR version
I’m a teacher and having difficulties using applications to teach. I may or may not have submitted a request to the Dept of Ed and/or inTACT to have the applications approved and necessary proxy rules modified. This happens to both myself and my students, on desktops, laptops and tablets. I feel this adds an impose on both the time and budget that I have to educate.

—————————————————
Quick questions for the OP, rookie…
Where did you graduate from?
What are your qualifications to teach?
What are your qualifications to teach or administer ICT?
Where are you teaching?
Why are you calling High School “Middle School”?

I await your answers with abated breath.

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Gotta love moronic grammer nazis who do no more than flame somebody just for asking advice.

stay classy RA

Your not Ron Burgundy.. Just saying.

Postalgeek said :

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Gotta love moronic grammer nazis who do no more than flame somebody just for asking advice.

stay classy RA

Occasional slip-ups and omissions here and there are fine. But the fundamental failure to use basic punctuation and consistent misspelling is not so good, especially coming from people who claim to be teachers.

If you’re asking someone to take the time to read your blabber, at least take the time to write in a coherent manner.

And this week we’ve seen a couple of teachers post here who seem to lack basic skills in written communication. It’s starting to get depressing.

+1

I can live with quite a lot of errors in text, but when it gets to the point of being unable to figure out exactly what they’re on about it starts to look like this.

No wonder most young people can’t even write a shopping list unless it is electronic.

Can someone please translate? (I’m quite serious)

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Gotta love moronic grammer nazis who do no more than flame somebody just for asking advice.

Tell you what CaGN.

YOU interperate the OP for us and post it here.
No, seriously, I challenge you to re-write it in a way we can all understand.
And that’s without trying to second guess what s/he meant to say.

davo101 said :

Ozhair said :

Ditto on what ps said. I really hope you’re not an english teacher.

And if I read your post correctly, aren’t these questions that should be addressed to either your school’s IT person (or whoever manages the school’s network) or the makers of the app you seem to be having problems with?

Oh, I’d just been trying to cross my eyes and see the 3D dolphin. Hadn’t realised it was supposed to be in English.

Golf clap for that one.

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Gotta love moronic grammer nazis who do no more than flame somebody just for asking advice.

stay classy RA

Occasional slip-ups and omissons here and there are fine. But the fundamental failure to use basic punctuation and consistent misspelling is not so good, especially coming from people who claim to be teachers.

If you’re asking someone to take the time to read your blabber, at least take the time to write in a coherent manner.

And this week we’ve seen a couple of teachers post here who seem to lack basic skills in written communication. It’s starting to get depressing.

Comic_and_Gamer_Nerd said :

Gotta love moronic grammer nazis who do no more than flame somebody just for asking advice.

stay classy RA

First, they’re not grammer nazis, they’re grammar nazis. Since the OP declared him/herself to be a teacher, people were understandably horrified at the amazingly poor writing on display. (I imagine the OP was prodding away at an i-thing).

Second, they’re not flaming him/her for asking advice, they’re mildly flaming his/her crappy English. If you are going to write things in public fora, you need to write them clearly. The OP’s post was anything but clear, in fact the lack of punctuation alone left me cross-eyed.

I think the issue here is that web access inside schools requires a username/password login to the web proxy (to keep the kiddies safe). This is something Apple did not consider or support and many other people have complained how many times the prompt comes up: https://discussions.apple.com/message/17192949#17192949

@rookie: you’ve lost a lot of people on a lot of education/DET content and jargon – this probably isn’t the right forum for your questions and comments; particularly with so many thin-skinned animals on here…

It might be worthwhile joining the INSPIRE Centre FB page, or creating one of your own (or perhaps in the cLc) – where you are more likely to have an audience with similar goals. I am a High School/College teacher, in Technology – with VET classes, and use an iPhone in much the same way you have described. However, the authentication issues peeved me so much, I simply turn the WiFi off and run the 3G (which probably isn’t an option for you – though you could tether through a smartphone if you have one). I wish they’d work out a way to get the authentication to ‘stick’ (it has only been an issue this year – last year authentication didn’t keep popping up).

I, for one, look forward to the day when the only thing I have to lug into classes is a tablet device, which contains my rolls, assesments, competency registers, access to my class resources etc… and this SHOULD be possible right now :/

Last time I enquired, there was no support for iOS devices through Shared Services – as they still classified them as a ‘hostile device’. But for education to truly get to grips with the modern world, schools have had to dive in – and this will happen more so as the new Australian Curriculum comes into effect and tablet devices become the cheaper option (over text books) – even if the Technology curriculum has been left in the ‘too-hard’ basket for the moment.

Gotta love moronic grammer nazis who do no more than flame somebody just for asking advice.

stay classy RA

Ozhair said :

Ditto on what ps said. I really hope you’re not an english teacher.

Language is a cultural construct, so all teachers have an impact on student literacy, regardless of their expertise. English teacher or not, this is why all teachers’ literacy levels should be tested before they’re given a qualification! Seriously, why can’t we extend NAPLAN to teachers? Even applying the year 9 tests would be sufficient to catch such poor literacy!

Have you tried turning it off and on again?

Seriously, call your IT department.

and who is hugh and what is a monitore – is it that mythical bull like creature?

Something about ipads, I understand that bit.

what is this i dont even

Firstly they aren’t InTACT any more they are Shared Services ICT.

Secondly, they like everywhere else in Gov, have to have the iPads locked down. They lock everything down so they can monitor what can go on them or what is going out of them. The problem why most apps can’t get onto locked down iPads is because the information is getting sent overseas and then can’t be used because it is a security breach. A no brainer that applies to everything, everywhere if you want to use something that is generally unsecure ie. The iPad.

I weep for our future after reading this.

STOP VIEWING PORN SITES.

Ozhair said :

Ditto on what ps said. I really hope you’re not an english teacher.

And if I read your post correctly, aren’t these questions that should be addressed to either your school’s IT person (or whoever manages the school’s network) or the makers of the app you seem to be having problems with?

Oh, I’d just been trying to cross my eyes and see the 3D dolphin. Hadn’t realised it was supposed to be in English.

Ditto on what ps said. I really hope you’re not an english teacher.

And if I read your post correctly, aren’t these questions that should be addressed to either your school’s IT person (or whoever manages the school’s network) or the makers of the app you seem to be having problems with?

/facepalm

I don’t know where to start.

Intact seem to have security as their number one concern above and beyond practicality. Aren’t they still trialling Iphones?

I wonder if the modified Cabinet ipads have the same issue? I expect so but that’s where you would expect high security.

I think you may be stuck with it due to the small and valuable items IT policy.

Christ on a bike … wtf was that? Can you really qualify as a teacher with this level of writing skill?

Having departed InTACT a good decade ago, it pleases me to note that nothing much has changed over there. Have heard stories that the useless middle-level numpties of old have floated up to now be useless high-level numpties.
Don’t expect anything even remotely complex or non-standard to work; be pleasantly surprised when the bread-and-butter stuff does.

I have no idea what you are talking about. I hope you teach your year 7-10 students better communication skills than you just displayed.