An Edu Review of the Nexus 7

As a fan of Apple's minimalistic packaging,
Google did a great job with the
presentation of the Nexus 7

So what is a self-proclaimed Apple fanboy doing purchasing a new Google Nexus 7 (Google Nexus 7 Black Wi-Fi 16GB Tablet - NEXUS7ASUS1B16 (Google Affiliate Ad)? Curiosity, for the most part. See, there's been a lot of hype about the Nexus 7 and its potential (like every other new product, it seems) to "disrupt the educational market." Hype aside, but given the price tag, I was very interested about two things: the 7" form factor as a primary device (for students) and how well the Nexus 7 could handle the tasks that a typical student taking part in Operation LAPIS would need it do. As we move to a BYOD policy this upcoming year, if the Nexus 7 fits the criteria, the $199 price tag could be a very attractive solution for parents and students alike.

The 7" Form Factor and Screen

Lots of space for icons and informative
widgets on the home screen

The size of the Nexus 7 is no foreign entity to me. I have a plain vanilla Kindle that I've come to adore for reading. Previously I was using my iPad as my primary eBook reader but now that has been almost completely supplanted by the Kindle. The Nexus 7 fits very comfortably in one hand. The textured back makes a good surface to grip and for general browsing or reading, one handed operation is perfectly natural.

The screen, at 800x1280 pixels, is crisp and bright. Because most 7" tablets have a lower resolution, it certainly feels like there is a lot more screen space with the Nexus 7. Many complaints from professional reviewers have centered around the quality of blacks on the screen, especially when viewing movies. To tell you the truth, I generally keep my devices at low brightness to preserve battery life and so I haven't found the black level to be worthy of complaint.

Outside, I found that with the brightness turned up, the screen was very usable. This is a positive thing for students thinking about using the device on campus in areas other than the classroom.

The on-screen keyboard is good, but I find it slightly less accurate than the iPad. I'd imagine this is on account of the screen size although subjectively I might argue that my iPhone feels more accurate as well. For teenagers with smaller (and slightly thinner) fingers, the keyboard might feel a bit more natural. I've also found the predictive typing to be less accurate than on my iPad, especially with my frequent misspellings.

Focus: Google Drive Integration

One of the largest complaints that I have about the iPad is how poorly Google has developed the mobile application of Docs. The document text editor (even in Chrome) is poor at best and the spreadsheet editing feels very antiquated for 2012 going on 2013. Google Drive (the app) on the Android platform is thankfully slightly more advanced than it's iOS counterpart.

There's a number of rich formatting options, including colored text and colored highlights - something students need, especially in the documents which serve as their virtual 'workbook' of sorts. 

It is also very easy to cut and paste text from Chrome into a document in the Drive app. For the most part, formatting is preserved with two major exceptions. First, tables are still not support within the mobile editing interface, even within the Google Drive app. This is unfortunately problematic from my point of view since tables allow for neat formatting of various things, especially in language instruction. Second, in-document comments (one of Google Docs most amazing features) appear to be inaccessible.

Spreadsheets, unfortunately, still haven't received any kind of interface overhaul. Even within the Google Drive app, you still have a line-by-line editor. This is a bit unwieldy from a student's point of view, especially since the collection mechanic is housed within their Operative Dossier (a specially constructed Google spreadsheet.)

I know that Google has recently acquired the company behind the QuickOffice app and I hope that over the course of the next year, they will improve the mobile interface for the various Docs components. Until then, the experience is slightly cumbersome for students to manipulate anything more than a simple document or spreadsheet. I'd also like to see them figure out how to improve the ability to read (and respond to) comments within the mobile experience. 

However, one positive change is that docs opened within the Google Drive interface will show you live editing from additional users. This is an incredibly important feature with so much of Operation LAPIS being focused on collaborative learning.

The Edmodo App

So much wasted space.

This is a short section. The Edmodo app, unfortunately, is designed for Android phones, not the tablet. As a result, you have a lot of wasted space and a very limited feature set. The iPad version basically wraps the normal web interface in a frame. Hopefully the wonderful folks over at Edmodo will develop a tablet specific app which will leverage the form factor in a more advanced manner.

Fortunately Chrome on the Nexus 7 is a full featured browser and the standard Edmodo interface runs fairly well, albeit a bit slow, inside of it. With pinch and zoom (wait, is that an infringement now?) it is easy to navigate around the various sections and zoom in on posts and discussions. With the impending launch of the Edmodo redesign/overhaul, I'm eager to see how the mobile experience changes. Hopefully there will be a speed and responsiveness increase.

In addition, for an instructor, the LAPIS Console app (which is located in the Edmodo app store in order to post the immersion sequences) works just fine in Chrome on the Nexus, including the edit function before posting. There's plenty of space to zoom in without obstructing a wider view of the material. It's responsive and just as snappy as it is on a desktop browser.

The CODEX inside of Chrome

Speaking of Chrome, how does the rest of the LAPIS experience play out on this 7" tablet? Surprisingly well. Again, on account of the pixel count, you end up with a lot of visible space on the screen. The rollover tooltips work like a charm, text is crisp and clean, and even the integrated Google Maps portions load without a hitch. Overall the mobile implementation of Chrome is almost as good as the desktop version. This is true on the iOS version as well.

 Other Thoughts:

The tight integration of Google's core services into the device is outstanding, especially GMail, Calendar, and Google Talk. I especially like the automatic download and update feature for keeping apps at their latest version in the most unobtrusive way possible.

The battery is solid and a student could expect (with conservative management of the screen brightness) to easily get through the day on a single charge. Most of the "must have" apps on my iPad are available in the Google Play store which is great to see if you are platform agnostic, but not fully committed to a pure web-based environment for your students.

The native display mode is portrait and the Nexus 7 is clearly designed with this layout in mind. In fact, it took me an embarrassingly (for me) extended period of time to figure out how to disable the screen lock and rotate it to landscape mode. I did find, however, that the Nexus 7 felt a bit unnatural to hold in landscape mode (unlike the iPad) and I've mainly found myself using it in portrait like I would my Kindle or iPhone.

The lack of a rear camera may be a turn off for some educational settings. Given the improvement to apps like Evernote, I think the lack of a rear camera may be an unfortunate oversight on the part of the design team, especially since the rumored iPad Mini is all but assured to have that rear camera. While the full sized iPad is a bit unwieldy to use as a camera, the Nexus 7 would fit the bill just fine.

The Bottom Line:

I didn't expect to like the Nexus 7 as much as I do. This has proven to me that the 7" tablet form factor, if done right, is a force to be reckoned with -- especially at this price point. The screen, speed, battery life, and tight Google integration are all big selling points in my eyes. The web experience is almost as good as it is on my iPad at a fraction of the size, weight, and cost. However, if the rumored iPad Mini does hit the $249 price point (as many predict it will, although for my part I think $299 is far more likely), the Nexus 7 fame could be short lived.

As I mentioned above, Google still needs to do some work on it's mobile implementation of Google Docs. This one area holds me back from fully embracing the Nexus 7 as a top tier device for students and parents to consider. If Google can find a way to make that experience work better, the Nexus 7 becomes a homerun in terms of features for the price. Without that, though, it's tough to argue that a $199 (or $249) Google Nexus 7 is a better option than, say, an Asus Netbook or something similar.

If a student has access to a traditional computer at home for some of the more complex tasks (which is how I feel about the iPad), I think the Nexus 7 is, with only slightly reservation, something that I could recommend at this point in time.

The Computer as a Barrier

We finally got the school year underway this past week after a delayed start due to Hurricane Irene ravaging New England. Last year at this time I was just embarking on an amazing journey known as Operation LAPIS in one of my Latin I sections and I spent a great deal of time in that first week posting my thoughts here (you can find the links on the right.) With the new year starting, and the plan to go “all in” with practomimetic learning across all of my Latin courses (both Latin Is and a Latin II), I was eager and excited to get the year going.

Unfortunately for me, I found out on the first day back that the level of tech integration that I had last year was actually going to be worse this year. Our building (one of many on a campus that serves 2500+ high school students) traded a single mobile laptop cart of 30 computers for a stationary lab of 26 desktops -- only 23 of which were actually working on day one. Our building houses almost all of the world language classes and about half of the science classrooms in addition to special education and a sprinkling of history classes. In all, there are between thirty and forty classrooms in the building alone and yes, you read that correctly, one physical lab of 26 desktop computers is what is available to those classes. In 2011.

While I don’t want to spend time talking about the logistics of that set up, and the need for a real push for better access in our school, I do want to spend a little bit of time talking about the new lab and why it is actually a terrible space for learning to occur.

In my classroom last year, with the mobile laptop cart, I was able to group the students into their year-long teams for LAPIS on day 2. They had their laptops in front of them and they were sitting face to face with their teammates, interacting in both real space and the virtual one. The first night last year, and the first night this year, were identical: the operatives rushed home to create their Google accounts, register with the TSTT and post welcome messages to their new teammates in their team forum.

Here’s what I wrote about the class when they came in for day two:

I saw the non-LAPIS class first and it was a fairly standard experience: they file in and sit in silence before the class starts, it is still a struggle to get them to open up to myself, to their classmates, to volunteer, to answer questions or contribute. Nothing new or nothing surprising there. Usually by the third week they start to come around and by the end of September we’re really in full stride with the atmosphere that carries through the rest of the year. The LAPIS class, on the other hand, which came in directly after the non-LAPIS was an entirely different story. They came in chatting to one another and immediately started talking with their teammates. The dynamics for the rest of the class stayed at that elevated level. While doing activities, a far greater number of hands shot up to volunteer, they more readily engaged in discussion back and forth about topics. They responded to comments made by fellow classmates. They more actively engaged with me. To say there was a stark difference between the two classes after just one day would be a gross understatement. There is absolutely no question in my mind that this came as a direct result of the relationships that they began to forge online the night before in the Team Forums.

This year, during the whole first week, the new recruits in Operation LAPIS couldn’t remember who was on their team, nor pick them out of a crowd. In fact, there was almost no socializing among the students. They looked very much students in the first week of a traditional classroom setting. I might even wager to say that they were even worse. How could the same process (creating accounts, registering, posting, etc) produce such different results?

Turns out I was actually a little bit wrong in my analysis then. It wasn’t only the fact that they were communicating in their team forums the night before -- although, it certainly had a big impact. Comparing notes from last year to this year I’ve found out that there’s another variable that has a huge impact; the traditional computer lab.

The new computer lab is laid out in, what I would consider, a terrible fashion for any kind of community learning or even learning in general. There are computers along the back wall (the student backs are turned around from the IWB in the front of the room), and on the sides there are a couple short rows of 2-3 computers, face to face. This means that some of those students, too, are facing away from the visuals on the IWB. Because the towers are on the tables, along with the computer monitors, the students cannot physically see the students sitting across from them, making communication across the table virtually impossible. There are also only 26 stations -- most of our classes are now getting dangerously close to 30 (both of my Latin I sections are now at 28).

The traditional computer lab and the computers in it, in this case, is actually a barrier to the kinds of social and collaborative learning that we’re hoping to foster with our style of game-based learning. Heck, the kinds of learning any classroom should be trying to foster. Even the returning Senior Operatives (my Latin II class) already mentioned that they really dislike the lab and want to return to our old classroom with the laptops. The computer lab is a relic of the past; something that has no place in a modern educational setting. With as many different kinds of internet enabled devices out there, and the prevalence of wireless infrastructures in other parts of the “real world”, any place, any where, can become a computer “lab”. The computer shouldn’t be the focus, the main attraction, like it is in the traditional lab. The device should just be one of many tools at the learner’s disposal.

Collaborative Productions

Yesterday I promised that I would continue the discussion about some of the collateral effects that the simulated 1:1 environment has created in my LAPIS classroom.  As I noted, the students quickly realized the potential of the social aspect but they also began to pick up on some of the other more important collaborative tools at their disposal.

We've been using Google Docs since the start of the program to keep their Character Sheets, Operative Dossiers (grade sheets), and their Carta Collectionis.  For the most part, all of those items were individual pieces of information shared between individual students and myself so they weren't viewed as a real collaborative tool.  Something interesting happened after, on the fly, I created documents for the teams to share with the .jpg image of the inscription that they were working on deciphering.  For the first time the students saw how instantaneously a collaborative experience could unfold.  They also saw how, in an instant, four of them could be working on the same document trying to figure out the meaning behind a very cryptic (albeit fake) inscription.  Believe me, if you want to see true bewilderment on the eyes of teenagers that have never been exposed to a lot of these tools, watch what happens when they can see three other people typing in a document simultaneously.  It blows their minds.

So within a few days of that exercise (and it was very successful to get them working both face-to-face and digitally at the same time) a few of them starting making 'class notes' documents, and color coded spreadsheets with noun endings and verb forms.  Then they began to ask the best question that students can possibly ask: "How can I share this with so-and-so?"  And then came the realization that they could share with everyone in the class.  They also realized that they could start more collaborative documents with their teammates to work through difficult sections together or sketch out ideas.  It was amazing to see them figuring out new ways to use this brand new magical power.  Again, we forget that without any guidance at any stage in their careers, these students don't know how to utilize or harness this untapped power in front of their noses.  But to stress the above, the most amazing thing is that after they discovered how to start using it as a personal organizer (like any old notebook), their next thought was how they could share what they created with their classmates.  Incredible.

Something so foreign in just a few days became so natural.  Within a few short weeks, a group of Latin I students took another big step in empowering themselves with tools to further their learning experience.  I wish that I had the resources to provide this kind of experience with all of my classes.

Unintentional Hiatus

I've been quite busy trying to juggle all of the various responsibilities over the past two months and I hate that fact that I haven't posted anything to techna virmumque cano.  I hope to make up for it this week with five straight nights of "quick-ish hits"-- a few things that I've wanted to post about and just having found the time.  Starting tonight, I'll make the time.

One thing I do want to mention is a project that I've been collaborating on with a host of very intelligent humanities people (who, by the way, love to talk about games as well.)  That is, of course, Play the Past, spearheaded by Ethan Watrall of Michigan State University.  If you are at all interested in intelligent conversations about games, keep PTP on your radar.  We publish new articles Tuesday through Thursday and we'll be coming back from holiday hiatus starting next week.

So what's new with Operation LAPIS?  Well, we're about to let the Recentiī (the student-controlled characters) perish in the eruption of Vesuvius.  Of course we'll bring them back albeit a couple of years ahead in the timeline, and in Roman Britain, but who's counting?  However, that's just the start of things.  Since around Thanksgiving I've endeavored to create as close to as 1:1 laptop environment as I can during the actual class time portion of the class.  This is not without extreme challenges; we have no wireless network readily available for anyone, students are not allowed to use their own devices while on campus, and we have a single mobile laptop cart for an entire building.  No problem, the system allowed for me to book the cart every day for the rest of the year during my scheduled period. (You can insert a devilish grin here.)

I can't stress enough how foreign this setup is to the students.  Having access to their team discussion forums, Google Docs, and a plethora of other resources on a daily is something that just doesn't happen in any other class in which they are enrolled.  As a result we've had to do a lot of scaffolding on how to use a device like a laptop to your advantage while in the classroom.  For me, it's painful to see how lost they are with something that I see vital to my daily life.  It doesn't take much searching to find the mounds of anecdotal evidence that disproves any thought that this is a "technologically-savvy" generation.  They aren't.  At all.  With the only exception being chat and social media-- which they discovered how to take advantage of with great facility inside of Google Docs.

They (wrongfully) assumed that once I discovered what they were doing that it was going to be shut down.  But then again, given the climate and the culture, I'm not surprised.  However, we had a little discussion about just the nature of a back-channel chat, how it could be useful and why I was so happy to see that they had created one.  Surprised that I wasn't going take away that outlet from them, they willingly added me to their chat document (in case any issues arise), which was complete with a set of rules that they created and a couple of self-promoted moderators to keep people on task and focused on class material.

A lot of the comments that they post in their back-channel chat is drivel about when lunch starts or any number of other senseless things that are of the utmost importance to freshman.  Since it's creation, though, it's been perfectly clean and occasionally provides an opportunity for students to ask each other to explain something in greater detail.  An opportunity that many are eager to respond to and, as a result, strengthen the community of learners inside of the classroom.

Tomorrow I'm going to talk briefly about how the make-shift 1:1 laptop setting has sparked an even greater degree of collaboration and community in the classroom.

The Culture

Today, some food for thought.

A small quote from Dangerously Irrelevant on the topic of Technology Directors (the writer is one).

 A technology director ought to be a bit of a rebel, a diplomat, and a life long learner. Today's technology directors have to work together with curriculum directors and technology integrators to make sure that today's students are really being prepared for the twenty-first century. Today's technology directors must be agents of change, they have to envelope pushers but at the same time they have to work with other professionals who can shape curriculum. No one can do everything and certainly not everything well without help. We are bridge builders who should be familiar enough with the building blocks that underpin our networks. We have to be open to change too. 

A rebel?  Ensuring preparation for 21C?  Agent of change?  Envelope pusher?

I couldn't agree more.  I completely understand the logistics and the pragmatism that must accompany any kind of technological capital investment.  I get that, I'm not oblivious to dollars and cents.  What I don't get is resolved  defeatism and negativity.  What I don't get are decisions to put a stranglehold on access out of fear of abuse.  (I'll address this again further on below.)

On a campus with almost zero tech integration in the classrooms, almost zero student access to basic Web services (never mind Web 2.0 stuff), why are items like ten new IWBs heralded as a crowning achievement?  Shouldn't our number one priority, at this point, be how to increase the student's access, both at home and on campus?  Shouldn't we be figuring out solutions that allow more students to tap in the potential of the internet from their chair (probably on their own internet-enabled device)?

I've wrestled with why it has been so difficult to get a lot of the students to buy into the idea that having a central hub (my course website) for all of their materials is far better than the old alternative of making 100 copies of each worksheet, having trays and folders for when they inevitably lose them, having to update and make corrections (in class) when the assignment sheet gets off track or out of date... etc.  It has taken me an entire year to realize that it just is not in their culture (and I'm severely bucking the trend) because it isn't in the school's culture.  It is that simple.  Most of their other teachers, through no fault of their own, are relying on 20th Century instruction methods because that is the culture of our school.  I know this because I look down at the desk of one of the rooms that I teach in and see a pile of printed out emails.  How do you combat a culture like that?

My answer?  Open more eyes.  Decide to take a more active role in shaping the tech conversations.  I've made it a point to have some sort of tech and education integration discussion daily with my building principal; not out of some misplaced subversive nature, but because I'm genuinely interested and genuinely concerned for the lack of preparation we are giving to our students.  I'm hosting a tech workshop this Thursday on the untapped potential of Google Apps in the classroom (beginning with simply creating Google accounts, to using Docs, their wiki-sites, blogs, and even Wave to its fullest potential).  I'm going to make myself available to ANY of my colleagues this summer, at any time, to find better ways to integrate 21C skills into their classrooms while continually finding ways to improve my own.  I can't change a culture on my own, I can't change a culture overnight.  But that culture will change eventually because it must change.

Now, a couple of loose ends to tie up.

First, I promised to return to access and fear of abuse.  One of my colleagues was shocked (and in turn, so was I when she told me this) that none of our students can currently access any of Google's services while on campus.  No gmail, no Docs, no blogs, and I assume no Wave.  What possible reason could there be for blocking such a powerful (and free) suite of web based apps?  Every single time that I hear about frustrations with firewalls and access (again, pragmatism also applies here) I think of Princess Leia's response to Admiral Tarkin (yes, I'm a huge geek, deal): "The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your finger,"

Translation: the students know how to bypass most of the firewalls already.  They have access to their email through their smart phones and other devices.  They even know how to get on the very limited, but there, wireless network that is in select areas of the campus.  Restrict first, ask questions later.  That old paradigm needs to come down now.  Yes, you need to restrict certain things (although I'd even argue that Facebook should be let through, but I know that is an argument that you can't win).

Lastly, as I looked up while shaking my head at that pile of printed emails, I saw quite a few of my students taking out their iPod touches (and a couple of other devices) ready to start going over the story of Echo and Narcissus.

The culture can change because it has to change.

Open letter on wifi

What follows below is a draft of an open letter to administration and IT on the need for the Norwich Free Academy to make establishing a wireless network a top priority as a sort of table setter for all initiatives to follow. Your thoughts and ideas are welcome, I'll willfully admit point #3 is the weakest of the batch, but also part of the reasoning.

An open letter on the need for a campus-wide wireless network.

As we move into the second decade of the 21st Century, the necessity to establish a campus-wide wireless network is now greater than ever. The longer that we refrain from taking the steps required to advance the data infrastructure at this institution, the harder it will be to play catch up with the rest of the state, the rest of the country and the rest of the world.

What follows below is an outline of five key benefits of establishing a wireless infrastructure here at the Norwich Free Academy. I believe that these benefits, long term, will far outpace the initial cost and growing pains that accompany the transition from a tethered environment to a fully wireless experience.

1) Space, facilities, access. As classroom space continues to tighten, more and more faculty members are forced to vacate their rooms during their prep and study hall duties. With an extremely limited number of desktops available which are not placed inside of a classroom, it is often very difficult for faculty to share resources. Take, for example, the faculty lounge in Tirrell. There is only a single desktop available for use that room and when multiple people share a common prep period, it becomes a race for the chair. That is not conducive to a productive work environment. By having an established wireless network in place, any number of faculty members could be engaged in productive work in the same room on their own laptops or other internet enabled devices. Per the wiki, I understand that there is a proposal on the table for a faculty computer lab. With all due respect, another physical space with a finite quantity of devices is not the solution that will serve the needs of a faculty base that increasingly will become more adept in Web 2.0 services.

2) Shifting the equipment burden to the faculty. By allowing open access and use of personal devices on the wireless network, the task of maintaining the numerous campus desktop machines would continue to trend downward. Given the option of working with your own machine, your own files, and your own programs, I believe that each year more and more faculty would move away from relying on the monolithic desktops in the corner of the room. With the sheer number and quality of open source software solutions, the task of equipping Individual devices with the necessary tools and programs to integrate into existing systems would be minimal. All of our existing needs are accessible in web based format as well as the traditional desktop application.

By encouraging the use of faculty owned devices, the institution could instead focus on purchasing equipment that would allow greater access for students, rather than supporting and maintaining the current line of faculty computers.

3) Reduction of downtime from class to class. This is especially true for the growing number of faculty members who teach in multiple classrooms. By allowing for a plug-and-play approach to data projection (VGA ports open and accessible, rather then be tied to a permanent desktop) and wireless access for Edline, web and other services, classroom teachers could be up and running in a fraction of the time that it currently takes to log in and set up for the rest of the period. The benefit of having individual devices again shines in this argument because the end user knows that without a doubt, the presentation, video, or any other type of file will work on the device because it was created and maintained on that device. No guesswork of saving down to the correct version, no wondering if the computer will read the flash drive. In the last decade, I have yet to encounter a data projector that would not display or interface with any of the numerous devices that I have owned with standard video connections. As the analogue VGA standard is phased out and replaced by the newer DisplayPort standard, this will continue to become an easier task over the next few years. There should be no reason why any teacher should not be able to walk into a classroom, attach the video cable, and be ready to go without a lengthy log in process. One cable for video and instant network access equals more time spent on instruction.

4) Encouraging collaboration and experimentation. With the inevitable shift to cloud computing and Web 2.0 services, the need for a stable and consistent connection grows by the day. We will be the last generation, without doubt, that makes the distinction between off and on-line. Having access to these services, anywhere on campus, at any time will more easily facilitate the collaboration of faculty in planning and experimenting via wikis, Google Docs, discussion boards, blogs and cutting edge things like Google Wave. As it stands now, it is virtually impossible to do any kind of face to face collaboration that is combined with digital collaboration anywhere on campus. The juxtaposition of the two is where the world continues to trend towards and we are doing a great disservice to our students by not modeling the very 21st Century skills that we expect them to master. We want our students to take risks in the classroom with their education yet we aren't willing to take risks in our teaching with new and innovated ideas and technology integration.

5) Growth for the future. Assuming that the initial network would be for faculty use only, it wouldn't take any leap of the imagination to envision a time when all students would have equal access on campus with either their own devices or school issued ones. Make no mistake, this is the direction that the world is not just moving towards, but already in. There are plenty of examples throughout the country of schools that are 100% wireless, 1:1 laptop to student, and working knee deep in Web 2.0 services. Foreign language students are collaborating on translations and compositions in Google Wave, history students are creating their own wikis and materials for us in aiding their learning, science students are compiling class data sets in real time via Google docs and other cloud services. We need to be the leaders in southeastern Connecticut and provide this level of access and this level of experience for our student body, especially for those whose access at home is not as reliable.