Idea for a workshop

Is New Zealand behind or waiting to catch up...

Netbooks, they seem to be being made available everywhere at the moment, you look at countries like Australia and the OLPC scheme that is running in Africa, what is happening in New Zealand.

Could it be an idea to have a presentation at Ulearn about this, and come up with an opportunity to present to the ministry.

Netbooks and Schools
The rise of the netbook provides schools with the opportunity to unchain computers from labs and put them into the hands of students and their families 24/7. Come along to discuss the prospects and problems of this vision.

I look around and what they are putting on them

There is a big netbook rollout underway in primary schools in Northern Victoria. The support wiki is netbook trial:

• 10,000 netbooks for 1:1 use in Year 5 and 6 classes (in Victoria Year 6 is the final year of Primary school)
  
• software is a mixture of proprietary (Microsoft, Adobe) and FLOSS (see list below)
• running Vista operating system (hard to figure since most netbooks are sold with XP)
  
• cost of each netbook is $550 - computer $480, bag $30, software $40 - this includes insurance
• costs are shared by the families, school and government; families end up paying a dollar a week, spread over 3 years
• Anywhere Anytime Learning has been involved in the consultation process. Their 21 steps to 1:1 success presentation is available from this page of the wiki.
  
• the netbooks are Acer Aspire One and Lenovo S9, detailed specifications here

Here is a list of the software on the machines:

Adobe Flash Player
Create and view animated content

Adobe Reader 8
Provides options for basic PDF viewing and comment-making

Adobe Shockwave Player
Displays web content that has been created by Adobe

Apple Quicktime
A multimedia framework capable of handling various formats of digital video, media clips, sound, text, animation, music and interactive panoramic images

Audacity
Open source software for recording and editing sounds

Blender
Open source, cross-platform suite of tools for 3D creation

CD Burner XP
Application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs

Cute PDF Writer
Create PDF files from any printable document, save PDF forms using Acrobat Reader, make PDF booklets, impose, rearrange pages and more

Debut
A simple, easy-to-use video recorder program that lets you capture files directly

DEECD Fonts Victorian Cursive
Downloadable electronic font of Victorian Modern Cursive script to make handwriting exercises, posters, crosswords, flashcards and other classroom resources on your netbook

DVD Flick
A simple DVD authoring tool

Free Mind
A Mind Mapping application

Gamemaker
www.yoyogames.com
Make exciting computer games, without the need to write a single line of code

GIMP
Stands for the GNU Image Manipulation Program and is a raster graphics editor used to process digital graphics and photographs

Google Picasa 3
Helps you organise, edit and share your photos

Google Sketchup
Create, modify and share 3D models

Irfan View
An image viewer and convertor that opens and edit images, as well as multiple media formats

Jahshaka
An open source video editing and effects application

Java runtime environment
Run Java applications

Kahootz V2
Create, explore and invent in 3D (V3 upgrade available soon)

Microsoft Internet Explorer
Web browser

Microsoft Office 2007
Word, Excel and PowerPoint

Microsoft Office Media Content
Includes the Microsoft Clip Organiser and a library of clip art and other media files that users can insert into Office documents

Microsoft PhotoDraw 2.0
Graphic software

Microsoft PhotoStory 3
Create multimedia video presentations using still images

Microsoft Producer for PowerPoint
Provides users with many powerful new features that make it easier to synchronise audio, video, slides and images to create engaging and effective rich-media presentations

Microsoft Silverlight
Delivers high-quality, interactive video across the web and mobile devices.

Microsoft Student with Encarta Premium
Encyclopaedia software

Microsoft Windows Media Player
Store and play music, video and pictures

Microsoft Windows Vista Enterprise
Operating system

MonkeyJam
Create stop-motion movies

MSW Logo
Logo is a computer programming language used for functional programming

NVU
Create web pages with a program that does not require previous web editing knowledge

Paint.NET
Image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows

Scratch
Create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music and art

Symantec Client Security (anti-virus)
Anti-virus software

Tuxmath
Educational maths tutor for children starring Tux, the Linux Penguin

Tuxtyping
Educational typing tutor game starring Tux, the Linux Penguin

VLC Player
VideoLAN Client is a portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats