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.