Derek Chirnside

Why not xPads or tablets? Why just the iPad?? I know this is a sideline question to the current debate.

As far as I know there will be some new tablets coming on the market soon.
The HP got scathing reviews.
"HP's Slate is official, with an $800 price tag, iffy specs (at least for something running Windows 7) and an N-Trig touchscreen-'n'-pen display. That'll make it interesting for digital artists, but for everyone else, it's just a pretty keyboardless netbook.

Its most interesting characteristic is a bizarre slide-out tray that exists only to display the Windows 7 licensing information. It's like something from some kind of screwball comedy about awful product design: HP was apparently obliged to do this because it didn't want to mess up the exterior with this compulsory information panel.

When explaining to people why iOS and Linux (i.e. Android and WebOS) are the only credible options in the near future for consumer tablets, I used to have to explain to people exactly why non-touchscreen desktop operating systems like Windows 7 make them suck. Now, however, I just have to point out that Microsoft's lawyers get to impose design decisions on their hardware partners" (Maybe I just answered my own question)

Plus:

Dell Streak Dell vs iPad vs Samsung

I have not really engaged with the critical question: what does Apple have against Flash? Can someone point me to some critical links?
Apologies if you have covered this off in the current discussion: I missed it.

-Derek

What a remarkable metaphor Paul!!
I originally was just planning to dip in a little here during this 14 days, but some new work that emerged means I may need to get a little more involved in the eportfolio question, and I was a little more interested than I had thought.
I remain indecisive about the eportfolio specific tools. It seems to me the critical factor where things are going well in the e-portfolio world are to do with the questions and the issues and thought environment and the faciltation provided by 'experts' in a field - rather than tools.
And: is our concept of an eportfolio really the best container to receive and nurture reflection? I don't know yet, the question was asked (which we never really engaged with): what encourages reflection?
Well, thanks everyone for the conversations . . .
I may ponder my perennial question: what now? What happens if I encounter a thought or a question sometime in the future on the eportfolio question? Do I ever come back here and post?

I'm now gone for 36 hours, need to pay attention to some more domestic things like choir competitions.

Catherine Paul wrote,

How do you model being a reflective practitioner?

Do we in general really DO it ourselves? In a former life, out of more than thirty practicioners who taught critical reflection and reflective practice as assessed components in courses - I found only ONE who did it consistently, ONE who did it sometimes and a few others (say 8) who did it as part of assessed courses for upskilling their own lives.

I also sometimes saw lectures on constructivist pedagogy. But that's another hobby horse.

Hmm.

Julia mentioned this as a possible thread to talk about Mahara . She wrote,

We need to hammer out what we need to see from our various perspectives--capstone, ASR (Attainment of Standards Reports for BC College of Teachers)--that will drive the Mahara view templates. Do you have experience with using Groups vs. Communities? Maybe we could create a Mahara thread.

This is a new thread for this. I am not sure what my personal future holds with respect to Mahara. I am sort of interested.

The Mahara discussion itself is also here. http://mahara.org/interaction/forum/index.php?group=1

The roadmap is here: http://wiki.mahara.org/Roadmap I notice no comments in the blog.

But this particular workshop finishes very soon.