Here is a short (one question) quiz:
It's the finishing touches that make the difference. The artist Patrick Boswell at work.
What do the following have in common:
- a computer lab or set of laptops or tablets that is untidy/grubby/insufficiently charged (delete as appropriate)
- a school’s computer technical support room with a workbench covered in bits of wire, cannibalised computers, mugs that look like they’ve never been washed and an old 308z on the floor just inside the door, making it impossible not to trip over if you didn’t know it was there
- a set of digital cameras that have no instructions and look like neither the lens nor the bodies have been graced with a cloth since they were taken out of their original packaging?
What they all have in common is that they look horrible, and by so doing they deter you wanting to use them. It may be that the computers/laptops/tablets/cameras work brilliantly. It may be that the computer lab houses the fastest computers that money can but (within a school budget, naturally). It may be that the technicians are grand masters of the techie world.
But they all look horrible and/or uninviting.
Read more.
cross-posted at www.ictineducation.org
Terry Freedman is an independent educational ICT consultant with over 35 years of experience in education. He publishes the ICT in Education website and the newsletter “Digital Education."
