... about setting up Mac Mini-controlled iPad clusters in schools.
My educational charity under the patronage of Nelson Mandela develops educational content to support teachers, learners and parents within the framework of South Africa's national, schools-level curriculum. The service compensates for the shortage and limited nature of printed textbooks. We believe that our relational database driven wiki would enable teachers and others to pool their collective knowledge to create an open-source, open-society protected knowledge commons that would replace static, cumbersome textbooks with a living inventory of knowledge that is lived and improved in day-to-day teaching, learning and tutoring.
Here's my vision of the intended ecosystem and the 'new culture' that it could facilitate:
On the supply side, a network of wiki authors would create, increase and validate the envisaged living inventory of educational knowledge that is available but not orchestrated in an integrating manner.
The demand-side would emerge as a network of Mac Minis in schools (or other local learning nodes) that would receive information from the cloud and push these packages of curriculum-referenced content into the local cluster of iPads.
In the first phase, each teacher would use an iPad and something like a PICO projector, to enable and support the teacher during lessons.
Where the local Mac Minis are not connected to the Internet, we would distribute curriculum-referenced content packages on DVDs that would be used to load the node's Mac Mini.
As a local, within-node server, the (Mini x iPad) cluster.
Let me stop here, because I'm sure that my technical naïveté is glaringly obvious—at least, I hope it is
because I'm hoping that the many smart, generous and experienced people frequenting this forum, will take pity on my ignorance and in support of my public good cause, teach me how best to make this idea work out in reality.
Thanks to all in whom the genius to create, which was sparked and fueled by Steve's magic mind, is also matched by generosity that drives what we in South Africa call "Ubuntu" = 'I am because we are; We are because I am". I really look forward and will appreciate your help.
My educational charity under the patronage of Nelson Mandela develops educational content to support teachers, learners and parents within the framework of South Africa's national, schools-level curriculum. The service compensates for the shortage and limited nature of printed textbooks. We believe that our relational database driven wiki would enable teachers and others to pool their collective knowledge to create an open-source, open-society protected knowledge commons that would replace static, cumbersome textbooks with a living inventory of knowledge that is lived and improved in day-to-day teaching, learning and tutoring.
Here's my vision of the intended ecosystem and the 'new culture' that it could facilitate:
On the supply side, a network of wiki authors would create, increase and validate the envisaged living inventory of educational knowledge that is available but not orchestrated in an integrating manner.
The demand-side would emerge as a network of Mac Minis in schools (or other local learning nodes) that would receive information from the cloud and push these packages of curriculum-referenced content into the local cluster of iPads.
In the first phase, each teacher would use an iPad and something like a PICO projector, to enable and support the teacher during lessons.
Where the local Mac Minis are not connected to the Internet, we would distribute curriculum-referenced content packages on DVDs that would be used to load the node's Mac Mini.
As a local, within-node server, the (Mini x iPad) cluster.
Let me stop here, because I'm sure that my technical naïveté is glaringly obvious—at least, I hope it is
because I'm hoping that the many smart, generous and experienced people frequenting this forum, will take pity on my ignorance and in support of my public good cause, teach me how best to make this idea work out in reality.Thanks to all in whom the genius to create, which was sparked and fueled by Steve's magic mind, is also matched by generosity that drives what we in South Africa call "Ubuntu" = 'I am because we are; We are because I am". I really look forward and will appreciate your help.
