Apple iPad's release TODAY!!

Customers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK can finally pick up their shiny new tablet that Apple fanatics across the Atlantic have been so actively championing these past few weeks.

The iPad will be stocked in 139 Currys and PC World stores across the UK today which could provide a welcome alternative to queuing outside the Apple Store.

Pricing might come as a bit of a blow to some fans though, as the iPad has come out a little worse for wear after a fight over currency conversion. The Wi-Fi only, 16GB model translates from $500 to a hefty £429; a good £90 premium for the privilege of living in the UK.

In an attempt to to steal a march on Apple's iPad ahead of today's UK launch - Dell announced on Tuesday that their Android-powered mini tablet, the Dell Streak, will be released on O2 in early June.

The Streak will be available exclusively on O2 in 'early June', although an exact release date has not been confirmed. Price and tariff details will also be announced soon, O2 said.

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Michael Gove and the coalition government are calling it “radicalism”; NASUWAT are describing it as a “recipe for educational inequality and social segregation". We want to know what you think about the blanket invitation for all schools in the UK to become independent academies?

Education Secretary Michael Gove is writing to all primary and secondary schools in England inviting them to become academies. He says that “it's about saying to heads, and boards of governors and teachers - it's up to you.”

Academies are state-funded schools which are independent of local authority control, and this proposal could mean thousands of schools decide to ‘opt-in’ to the scheme. Schools that are rated as outstanding could be eligible for fast-tracking and be free of local authority control by the autumn.

The government argues that schools are improved by having greater autonomy – more choice will be given to parents as the ‘market’ opens up. Schools could find themselves managed by outside companies rather than local authorities.

To date the academy programme, which had plans for up to 400 schools, had been focused on improving standards in the most challenging areas.

However, under the new proposals, academies would be the most successful schools, often in more affluent areas.

Chris Keates, general secretary of the NASUWT, argued that it was wrong to stop local authorities from having a say in proposals for new schools.

She said that such "academies and free schools are a recipe for educational inequality and social segregation".

"Given the imperative to tackle the budget deficit, the Academies Bill represents a costly and unnecessary solution to a problem that simply does not exist."

What do you think?

The mobile phone that goes around your wrist!

They have been around for a few years, but were never taken seriously enough for the mainstream. However, it seems 2010 could be the year of the SWAP phone, as a renewed interest and a great performance at this year’s Gadget Show Live at the NEC has got people talking about them.

The Smart Phone and Watch (SWAP) may look like something straight out of James Bond but this is a new concept in mobile communications and is far less fantastical than it was.

They boast a plethora of features that you might find on an ordinary smart phone such as Bluetooth, high quality digital still and video camera, MP3 and MP4 compatibility, text and calling facilities.

At a UK retail price of £300, the watch is marketed as more of a gadget than a handset replacement. The success of the notepad, the iPhone, the iPod shuffle shows that we like to slim our lives down, we would much rather carry one gadget rather than a separate phone, camera, computer etc. But do we really our phones strapped to our wrists? Is that really practical? So is it a must have or just an object of desire?

I’ll leave you to decide. Before you do, bear in mind that they are bringing out a range of new designs later on this year!

George’s budget cuts!

The Honeymoon period is well and truly over as George Osbourne begins to list the first stages of the new Governments spending cuts.

They are cutting the budgets of Quango’s, delaying or stopping government contracts and projects to save £1.7 billion and hoping to save £95m through cuts in IT spending.

Whilst Mr. Osborne said that schools' funding, the Sure Start programme and spending on education for 16-19-year-olds will be protected. They are cutting the education department's budget by £670m.

The 20,000 extra university places promised by the Labour government will be reduced to 10,000. Most worryingly is perhaps the promised closure of the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (BECTA) as the government hopes to save £80m.

Becta's Schools website currently offers advice and guidance to school leadership teams on how technology can be built into teaching, learning and management, and its closing could prove detrimental to the future of technology in Schools.

This is the same technology that has proven to increase pupil attendance, parent engagement, and pupil interaction.

With further cuts planned for the not so distant future, Schools are starting to have to consider other ways to drive forward the provision of technology.

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Quote of the Week!

"Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out."

Robert Collier

Budget cuts in education means new ideas are needed

"The last 11 years have been very successful in enabling schools to build a modern infrastructure and to develop learning and teaching, of and with, ICT very effectively."

"The issue now is one of being able to maintain that standard, if budgets are constrained or reduced."

Mary Copeland, Head of Belle Vue girls school in Bradford

ICT has become so embedded in most subjects that it is taken for granted, especially by pupils. However, with a new government promising funding cuts and policy changes, where are schools with technology and, more importantly, where do they want to go?

Michael Gove is a politician that has been notoriously tight-lipped about his attitude to technology. As he settles in as the new schools secretary, he will be evaluating how much funding schools will be allocated for ICT.

He is already reviewing the £55bn Building Schools for the Future program, with insiders saying some savings from the annual £8.5bn new school budget could go towards the Conservatives' plan to start Swedish-style new schools.

Little wonder, then, that teachers, long used to generous budgets for new technology, are starting to fret about the future. "Clearly, infrastructure gets outdated very quickly, that's a real issue," says Paul Butler, an ICT teacher at Didcot girls' school in Oxfordshire. "Because of the national debt, there isn't going to be as much money around. That's going to be a worry."

With worries about future budgets becoming a real threat, schools should be looking for new and innovative ways to maintain the standard of their projects. With regards technology and ICT, we can only move forward, and we should adopt the same stance when it comes to creating innovative ways to funding new technology.

Mobiles in Meetings?

One of David Cameron’s first moves as new PM was to ban mobile phones from around the cabinet table during meetings.



What would happen if the same concept was introduced in all offices and work spaces?



Sure, cutting out the possibility of texting and tweeting, e-mailing and Googling during a meeting would eliminate distractions but this is the 21st Century, and we are masters of multi-tasking aren’t we? People are reassured by the fact that if something happens, we are contactable anytime, anywhere so is it a good idea to take that away from us?



Answers on a postcard…

How we use the internet is changing

British web users are spending 65% more time online than three years ago, according to research of net habits.

The average surfer spends 22 hours and 15 minutes on the net each month, according to the UK Online Measurement company (UKOM).

The largest culprit for this is obviously due to social networking, the likes of facebook, twitter and blogging has risen to a 22.7% share of our time online. This means that Instant Messaging and email has taken a hit as consumers find lees of a need for it.

However, online news has seen strong growth with 2.8% of online time spent browsing such sites compared to just 1.5% three years ago. Another potential future grower is online software information and products which is currently taking a 3.4% share of time spent online.

Cisco to acquire innovators of design MOTO Development

This week, network equipment giants Cisco Systems Inc. have announced their intention to acquire design consulting firm MOTO Development Group.

Cisco is the worldwide leader in networking equipment that transforms how people connect, communicate and collaborate. This year celebrates 25 years of their technology innovation, operational excellence and corporate social responsibility.

MOTO Development Group, is a privately held design consulting firm that is based in San Francisco. Founded in 1991 it has been instrumental in the development of innovative product lines such as the Flip Video, Valet and Linksy.

MOTO's talent base should complement Cisco's and enable Cisco to rapidly enhance its consumer product development road map or at least that is the idea! The acquisition of MOTO is another step toward embedding consumer design and ease of use into Cisco products for the consumer market.

The acquisition is subject to various standard closing conditions and is expected to be complete in the fourth quarter of Cisco's fiscal year 2010.

Quote of the Week!

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."



Thomas Jefferson

Expansion promised for BT’s super-fast fibre network

Two-thirds of the UK is to receive super-fast broadband services as BT announces that it will expand its next-generation services.


BT originally promised a £1.5bn investment in its fibre services, offering speeds of up to 40 megabits per second (Mbps) that were due to reach around 40% of the population by 2012. However, with the announcement of big profits in the year leading up to 31st March they are now able to invest a further £1bn.


This investment promises to see the project roll out to a further 20% of the population by 2015 with the first four million people will be connected by the end of the year. The expansion of fibre services has been enabled by the firm's return to profit.


Many rural communities have become frustrated by the slow roll-out of fibre services and have begun to offer their own. Rutland village Lyddington broke away from BT after the telco said it was too expensive to offer fibre services.


After successfully "unbundling" the Lyddington telephone cabinet, locally-based Rutland Telecom has had enquiries from 200 other villages keen to do the same thing.

Grey Matter Challenge...

What comes once in a minute, twice in a moment, but never in a thousand years?

Answer

Could you give up paper to save energy?

Sawtry Community College has done just that by focusing on technology to provide some cost-cutting solutions and hopes to save up to 20% of its whole school budget over the next year.



The Huntingdon School is planning to replace its desktop computers with thin client PCs as existing hardware wears out. These operate simply as interfaces allowing them to function without hard drives with all the processing done by servers. As a result they use less energy and consequently emit less heat, which, in a room of 30 machines, has the knock-on effect of diminishing air-conditioning costs.


In an effort to make a big difference quickly, one department has completely disposed with the use of paper. The science department has taken to scanning things directly into a virtual learning environment. Associate principal Alan Stevens says that "It has saved £1,000 a quarter on paper, laser cartridges and general running costs, and is environmentally friendly."


Less paper and energy used means money saved. The dovetailing of sustainability and efficiency is exactly what children's secretary Ed Balls called for at the end of 2009 when he urged schools in England to make £2bn worth of savings in part by thinking green.


School leaders have been skeptical but, according to the Carbon Trust, a government-funded, not-for-profit company, ICT is one area where UK schools could definitely cut costs.


Alongside more switching off and powering down, better use of ICT applications, such as videoconferencing, offer a much greener way forward.
To speak to an advisor about ICT Health Checks, “Green Audit’s”, or donating to a School of your choice through Adodo Community and cheaper bills call 0800 092 1471

Electronic Voting for Electoral reform

Chaos at the polls in this general election has urged experts to claim that e-voting would prevent future problems at the polling stations.


The US is planning to introduce e-voting after the controversial election that made George W Bush president following the disputed US general election in Florida 2000.


The world's largest democracy, India, has been using electronic voting across the entire country since the general election of 2004.


However the British Electoral Commission has expressed concerns about the security of such systems.


Proponents argue that electronic voting is very quick for voters, helps to prevent spoiled ballots, and counts votes in an instant. If e-voting had been in place this year, there may have been less people ‘missing out’ and a few less people staying up all night to watch the count.

 In 2007, five alternatives to paper ballots were run in local elections. However, in a report assessing pilots, the Electoral Commission found that there were "issues with the security and transparency of the solutions and the capacity of the local authorities to maintain control over their elections".

 So is this a realistic option for the 21st Century, in keeping with modern day life or just a fantastical idea that comes with a real threat to security?

Quote of the Week!

"This is about helping children become themselves. What is a school if it isn't helping people find what they want to do? I don't just mean careers. I mean teaching how to sing, dance, paint, act, write poetry, play tennis, play the guitar. We'd be a better, more harmonious society if people had these interests developed when they were young."

Anthony Seldon, writer, educationist, school head, and advocate of developing young people's personal potential.

Guardian Classroom Innovation

The Guardian Online has launched a new website dedicated to Education that claims to be regularly posting "new material bridging the gap between the rapid advance in technology and the practical realities of teaching in class."

Futhermore, they are tackling some of the biggest issues facing Schools today which includes highlighting "how to offset some of the looming budget cuts in education by examining sustainability in schools, assess the latest use in mobile technology."

Adodo does all of the above; we are a forward thinking Voice and Data company that offers cutting edge technology with the wisdom of traditional business values.  We have National Award worthy experience of creating bespoke solutions for Schools.

The Adodo Community Initiative is what makes us truly different as we also offer the opportunity for Schools to make donnations to themselves through our services.  Therefore, providing them the opportunity to offset some of the "looming budget costs" themselves!

Link to the Guardian's new site here.

Google set to take on the digital book giants in 2010!

According to Analysts at the Yankee Group have predicted that the US ebook reader market is "about to catch fire sparking from $1.3bn (£0.86bn) in revenue in 2010 to $2.5bn (£1.65bn) by 2013".

Currently Amazon’s Kindle is leading the market, but is only able to link to it’s own store it’s the same story with their closest rival’s Apple and Apple’s iBookstore.

Google is set to join the party as they have announced that they are going to launch their own online e-book store later on this year. However, Google Editions books will not be tied to a specific device. They will be readable on any web enabled device from a mobile phone to a netbook and from a tablet to a desktop, the implications are clear for e-book stores tied to a single device.

Google said it would make "millions of books searchable via the web", which in the past has got them into legal difficulty as critics have long claimed Google's deal with US publishers and authors would give them a monopoly over online book sales.

Watch this space!

Quote of the Week!

"I want freedom for the full expression of my personality."

Mahatma Gandhi

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