Nov 15 2008
What would you do with a Nokia N810 in your classroom?
I’ve received an email from Nokia saying that they would like me to test their N810 internet tablet in my classroom. I’m keen to try this out but am unsure of where I can make best use of it. One thing in it’s favour, of course, is the fact that it is not a mobile phone – at least not unless you run Skype on it. This should make its arrival slightly less unpalatable for school management.
It can access the web via wifi, except there’s no wifi in my school. That might not be so much of an issue as I suspect I could sneak a wifi router under my desk for the duration of a 2 week trial as long as the ICT technician doesn’t notice an unrecognised device requesting an IP address. I’m interested in how I can integrate the N810 tablet’s features into lessons. For example, could I get the tablet to talk to my digital projector or SMARTboard. I’m not sure what that would take but I guess some form of Bluetooth connection to my laptop would be a step towards achieving this.
I’ve had a quick run through this device’s specs and have read a review or five. Now I just need to find some ideas of how to link it into the technology that is already in place and somehow extend my use of ICT by bringing the unique experience of an internet tablet into pupils’ learning.
Have you tried this in your school or do you know of a blog post about this topic? I’d be interested to hear other people’s ideas as the tablet will only be here for 2 weeks.
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
Gah! I wish they’d got in contact with me too!
I’m green with envy! I’d love to have a play!
This sounds like a wonderful opportunity! It looks like you posted a while ago, but I am curious to see what happened with it all.
If were are able to sneak in your router, I might have had them do quick online survey/quiz as a class. For instance, “If I shoot a bullet and drop a bullet, what happens? A- shot bullet hits the ground first, B- they hit at the same time, C- dropped bullet hits first.” The sort of question where it leads to a discussion of an easily misunderstood concept or something.
Otherwise, I might have looked for short video clips or maybe some of those mini-games I keep hearing about. I just played an interesting one that had to do with managing numbers of sheep and wolves. You change the initial variables and the rates and see what happens.
I suppose it would depend on what your content is, but there must be some fun tech-y sorts of things you can play with. I hope to hear about what you ended up doing!