Saturday 21 June 2008

I am sitting here working on my minibook as usual and I noticed that there is an article about the RM Asus Minibook in the Times Educational Supplement this week...

Ben Egerton thinks that while the minibook is not perfect it could be just right for schools. I agree with some of Ben's reservations but like Ben think that overall it is a magical little box of tricks... small, beautiful and almost perfect for schools and young people. If RM could increase the screen size and get it a bit cheaper still the RM Asus Minibook would steal every show!
Chris

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Chris,

Are you on an RM commission or what? As I said before, the RM Minibook appears to have some serious limitations, not least the inability to easily combine with existing networks and the screen size that messes up the appearance of our learning platform. They have also yet to provide a mobile internet 'dongle-type' solution. The Windows version will probably be expensive and the LINUX can't run most of our legacy software.

The TES article was very basic and didn't address these issues. Have any Leeds schools actually tried using a job lot of these? I hear almost nothing strategic from Ed Leeds ICT in terms of really detailed case studies. I appreciate that you have had a positive personal experience but does that necessarily translate at a school level? I have a Mac at home that is the absolute business, but integrating ten into school has been a pain for many of the reasons I suggest could apply to the minibooks. People always go 'Wow you've got a cool set of Macs', but I always explain the pros and cons in practice.

What do your ICT colleagues think of the minibooks, and how do they disseminate their professional opinions to the likes of me?

Peter Harris
Farfield

Chris Edwards said...

Hi Peter,
I wish I was on commission. I welcome your feedback which highlights the limitations of the minibook. I'll ask my ICT colleagues what they think are the strengths and weaknesses of this little black notebook I am working on now.
Chris