Hi again, Thank you all for the responses. Now its time for some more information. This initiative is ours to run in partnership with Redbrick. I have spoken briefly to Dave Larkan about this and he too is happy about this. We'll talk more about it now. Everything we do has to be above board, so how we decide who receives a Chromebook has to be fair and has to be documented. Noel O'Connor has asked for a meeting with us, all of us to discuss how we will distribute them, more on that later. There is a possibility that there will be training given to those who receive a Chromebook in Week 1 of Semester 2 by a Google representative. Now Derek and myself were a bit apprehensive about this training. We were both concerned that because this training is going to be given to everybody in DCU who receives one and not just students from Engineering and Computing that it may be a step by step of how to turn on the Chromebook and get online or something to the same equivalent and we feel that it would be a waste of time to have 30 Engineers or CA students there wasting their time. One idea that came up was to have a small number go and if the training is useless to us have those people ask harder questions like how are we going to compile Java or C++ programs on these Chromebooks or something to the same equivalent in the hope that we could get a contact from Google who would be able to come in and give us a personalised talk or those few who go can then give a 30min tutorial highlighting anything that came up which is relevant. This would also seek to help the society gain some contacts within Google. They are looking to roll the Chromebooks out to early in Week 1 and it will be done through ISS. Derek is trying to find out of ISS what exactly people will need to do to sign a Chromebook out. He reckons it will be a form stating the person will have to return it and they are responsible for any damage to it, he will let me know when he gets the details. So this isn't all good there could potentially be some bad points to this for whoever does receive one. Noel O'Connor has asked for a meeting to discuss how we are going to distribute these. Noel has previous experience with distributing equipment due to his role in research and as he is the President of our society he is there to give us advice and that is what he will be doing in our meeting. Noel Murphy has advised me that even though they hope we (the whole society, committee and members) will get involved that it is not a requirement and that those who do will do so voluntarily. Noel O'Connor is free to meet all Friday afternoon next so I would appreciate your timely manner in filling out this doodle poll please. This meeting is for our whole committee and I will also be informing Redbrick although I think they are away on a trip at this time. We have to decide how to distribute the Chromebooks, so it is time to start throwing out ideas. The Munich trip will be a good chance to chat informally and come up with ideas before Friday about the initiative. Any questions you have about anything ask me if I don't already know the answer I'll ask Derek and if he doesn't know the answer he will find it out. This is not perfect there are bound to be flaws in it which we will need to overcome. So thoughts, opinions, etc? P.S. Just because we are on board does not mean you will receive a Chromebook, we have to make sure the distribution process is fair so that nobody complains about not receiving one and if they do that we have a fair process documented so that any complaint can be dealt with promptly and in a timely manner. Is mise le meas, Ian On 27 Jan 2012, at 19:11, Ian Kavanagh wrote:
Hi all,
I hope the exams went well. I would ask that you read this and respond to it before Saturday at 6pm if possible please.
I have been contacted by Derek Molloy about an initiative they are looking to run with us.
DCU's Education committee are looking to run a trial with Google. The trial consists of giving out Google Chromebooks to students to use in the second semester. Each faculty has been allocated 30 of these Chromebooks and all of the other faculties have distributed them to individual classes. The Engineering and Computing Faculty however would prefer to distribute them through ourselves and Redbrick because of the 3 separate Schools within the Faculty. They have received approval to do this.
I had a meeting today with Derek Molloy about this. Nobody is under any obligation to participate in this and everybody who does will be doing so on a volunteer basis.
What they propose is that 30 volunteers are chosen by our societies to partake in this trial. They see oour societies as containing ‘expert’ users that could provide them with feedback on the devices and their suitability for students in our faculty – e.g. Can we program on them? (maybe using Cloud9?), Do our notes work? Moodle, Wimba etc? Do you like them? All feedback, positive and negative. That each volunteer would be allocated and would be responsible for a Chromebook device for the entire second semester. This distribution would happen through ISS. The faculty will investigate the possibility of a prize for the most (academically relevant?) use of the Chromebooks. That each participant would complete a survey at the end (run by ISS). There are two conditions Derek needs to seek ethical approval for the distribution! He is currently working on this. That Noel O’Connor would work with me as the President of the society to ensure that we have documentation to show that the allocation process is fair, transparent and equitable to all members of the societies. Also arose today is that whoever is going to take on a Chromebook would need to be prepared to receive something that they do not like but to persist with it and to give valuable critical feedback at the end of the semester. We also thought that whoever was going to take one would need some sort of project or would have to want to try something out with these Chromebooks to see just how far they can be pushed and what could be done with them. The two of us where concerned with how useful they would be for students in our faculty at this particular moment but we both agreed that the social network which can be created using Google Apps, Google+ and Hangouts could prove very useful to students in their studies.
Derek is concerned that all of the other faculties will come back to the Education committee and tell them that the Chromebooks are brilliant and they have no flaws but that they won't actually be very useful to us at the moment because we are being taught technology instead of just using it like the other faculties. The Engineering and Computing Faculty need realistic feedback so that in a few years they don't find themselves in a position where students are told to buy these and then they find that they are useless to them in Engineering.
I think this is a very good idea and a brilliant initiative that the society should get involved in. I understand that the email is very long but there was no point in my only telling you half of what is going on.
What do you think? Do you think this is a good idea that we should jump on board with? I would appreciate your thoughts on this as soon as possible due to our pending trip away.
Is mise le meas, Ian