Tag Archives: wifi

PD, PLN, reflection, Technology Enabled Learning, Technology in Education

We Dared to Dream

June 26, 2015 markwcarbone Leave a comment

Five years ago, we dared to dream – created our first teacher support role dedicated to focusing on in servicing and supporting elementary teachers to use educational technology in the most effective ways. It seemed like the right approach, at the right time to forge a new path forward, create interest, synergy, and impact the future. Susan Watt was the successful candidate for the position – and the journey began!

Standing now in 2015, and looking back, what a journey it has been. A new path was definitely forged. I look back fondly on all of the annual “system tours” as they were affectionately known – professional learning for staff at each school — using a dual boot Mac, what can I do with an iPad, we have wifi hotspots – now what, wifi in the classroom, GAFE, chromebooks, dropbox and more. Another important project was migrating our acceptable use procedure (AUP) to the responsible use procedure (RUP) where our initial thinking about staff as digital citizenship role models and use of social media for positive purposes was captured. I could of course, list many more highlights, but you have the idea of system impact.

In her retirement speech, Susan challenged her colleagues: “ So, I have some advice for our retiree supporters tonight: go off script, listen and respond to your students’ spontaneous questions and observations. Understand that every moment is teachable. Don’t settle for the status quo. If it doesn’t feel good for kids, challenge it. If it’s being done a certain way just because it’s always been done that way – question that rationale. Follow your heart and intuition. Explore new options. Take a risk. Embrace change.”

Susan, it has been a privilege to work with you. Thank you for your creativity, determination, enthusiasm, ability to see a big picture, having a huge positive impact, and, perhaps most of all, daring to dream.

I look forward to staying connected and following along your life journey via your new blog: Watts Up Next. Thank YOU!

~Mark

General, Tech

Free wifi, sort of

March 14, 2014 markwcarbone Leave a comment

Travelling is always an interesting time. For me, one of the perspectives I keep an eye on is technology use in other contexts.

Here in China, it seems that everyone has a cell phone, and some have smart phones. It appears that at least basic connectivity is deemed an important need. As a traveller of course you need to have an eagle eye (or an internal beacon) for free wifi opportunities. In conversation with tour guides, I believe that the cellular network is massive and quite robust. Three major telco’s dominant the market, and I will write more on this in a upcoming blog post. Wifi, and make that free wifi, is not readily available like it is in North America. Yes, hotel lobbies etc. but not necessarily in retail places.

I did come across a Starbucks in Beijing and HAD to check out the wifi. Of course, I have to admit to wanting a coffee too. While the venue offered free wifi access, the actual process to get access is controlled. In order to gain access, you must enter a mobile phone number and you are texted an access code. This process is oriented to cellular devices, not so handy for wifi only devices.

… you may prefer the translated version:

This verification approach seems to be used by a variety to vendors. So, no free wifi for my iPad on this attempt. Watch for my next connectivity update.

~Mark

General, Tech

iPad wifi tip

July 10, 2010 markwcarbone 3 Comments

In an earlier blog post I commented that the one ‘clunky’ aspect of using the iPad was that the wifi connection to known networks did not happen. With further experimentation, I found that different strategies were needed including:

be patient and wait, sometimes the connection issue would sort itself out
manually choose the network from the list stored in the wifi settings panel
on some occasions, I was asked to reenter my wifi password again
complete power off and restart
and in a more persistent situation, I went through the ‘forget network’ process and set things up again.

Interestingly, this challenge seems to be mainly with the combination of the iPad and the newest OS. My iPhone and iPod touch do not have this issue. Yesterday, when this issue surfaced again, and I decided to try something new. In the settings panel, I choose the Safari tab and used the options available to clear the history, cookies and cache. Immediately following this action, the wifi connection worked fine.

Maybe I am on to something here. I will continue to test this process to see if it yields consistent result.

~ Mark