I found this article interesting:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/sme/virtual-solution-to-a

It's interesting to note the steps recommended by the consultant to establish a reliable network, and it's particularly interesting to see that Google is mentioned as a solution.

I've been using Google Docs for some time (even found a way to write and edit documents on my phone!). The word processor application is very similar to Word, and documents are easily shared simply by adding an e-mail address to it. 

It will be interesting to see whether Fronter becomes as easy to use.

No - not a nostalgic nod to the "good ole days" when the cane ruled.

Rather, it's a reference to this article on the BBC News Website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8483615.stm

37% of Secondary Students use their home PCs (and Apples, if they are rich enough!) for  study. This contrasts with only 30% of them using computers at school.

"There is an increasing blurring between learning-time and leisure-time and so computers in the home are becoming as important as those in the classroom," says Ray Fleming, from Microsoft. This begs several questions:

• What are we doing to support students as they use their computers at home?
• How can we guide and influence students to use "good practice" outside of the school environment?
• How do we harness young people's enthusiasm for using ICT.

Just as an aside, an informal survey I did with some Sixth Formers indicate that at any one time in an evening when students are working on their computers, there are as many as 14 "friends" registering as on-line on a Facebook page. It does make me wonder whether the school based VLE's days are numbered, and schools will move towards using Facebook groups and Twitter to encourage study in increasingly innovative ways.

As the mobile phone ads used to say . . . "The Future's Bright!"

My thanks to Nadia for allowing me to drone on about computers at her seminar. The slides are available in the files area here on my Learning Community webspace. You'll also find the presentations I've done in other places on ICT.

A lot of people have been blogging, tweeting and generally being noisy about the BETT Event in London. The latest educational techologies are being showcased, including the latest software applications and gadgets.

The keynote speech from Prof Stephen Heppel was reported on the BBC Website - he makes some interesting comments about mobile technologies!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8457679.stm

I particularly liked this quotation:
"Turned off devices equals turned off children. Sensible schools use mobile technology to their advantage, putting up a telephone number about an issue such as bullying and getting pupils to text their views," said Prof Heppell.

 

On Holiday, so will be brief!

I'm a big fan of Google Docs - click here to see a little of why that might be!

http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/web/12-things-you-didn-t-

Have you seen the successor to the Overhead Projector? It's called the Visualiser, and it is basically a digital camera in a goose-neck mount which allows you to project an image from on your desktop (that's your real desktop, not your Computer Screen).

 

You can place a sheet of paper under the head of the Visualiser, and write notes on the paper while the whole thing is projected onto your screen for the class to see. I think it may be less useful for projecting text, but ideal for:

• Demonstrating techniques in Textiles, Cooking and Technology
• Showing small objects (such as Religious or Historical Artefacts) to a class.
• Demonstrating note taking or annotating a book.

The cheapest are around £250. The base on this model includes zoom controls, and it connects to a computer to allow video and stills capture (though it has a small memory of its own, so should work without a PC).

In the spirit of the classic Dewar bodge, I've got similar results from a high-end webcam, costing £60. Get one with a megapixel resolution and decent optics, and you're away!You could always gaffer-tape the webcam to an Anglepoise!

This is the webcam I used - the software includes special settings to correct for low light, and the autofocus keeps even text pin-sharp. The clamp on the back of the camera allows you to fix it onto something (like an Anglepoise...).

You can create amazing word-clouds on-line at Wordle.net.

Simply paste a body of text into the box, and click create. You could:

• Make Key-Word posters
• Summaries of notes or essays
• Test the quality of an essay - is its word-cloud understandable as an essay on a topic?

I made this Wordle out of the pre-amble to a GCSE Spec!

Hello

I have a large number of photos from a mosque visit last summer. I wanted to show the students something more stylish than a simple slideshow, so I used Cool Iris, an add on for Firefox.

Once you have found the folder of photos you want to display, Cool Iris creates a photo wall which you can "swish" along to find the photo you want. It tilts as it swishes, and looks fantastic, especially when you are "swishing" the wall along using an IWB. The effect is a bit like the computer interface on "Minority Report".

 Just touch a photo, and it expands to fill the screen! Since these were high-res 7mp photos, they looked stunning.

No - not the little mushroom coloured fellow with the stone-cleaning fetish on "The Night Garden"!

 I've just set up a VLE for my Year 10 students using Yacapaca, a free VLE from the Chalkface project. I've posted three GCSE Ethics questions for them to attempt, and I will be publishing their results weekly for them to keep track of their progress.

 Registration is free, and the service (currently) is completely free. I imported a list of students (a simple copy and paste exercise), and then created three assignments using specimen questions from the OCR website. The students get their own log on and password (the site even prints a sheet of cut-out labels for them), and they log on to tackle the questions. 

Their answers appear in my desktop, and I can mark their questions and comment - these appear in their desktops when they next log in. The site even produces a spreadsheet of results which I can add to my markbook!

Find out more at Yacapaca.com

By the way, the stone-obsessed one is called Macapaca!

Is Twitter simply another way for the self-obsessed Facebook generation to publicise their vacuous and pointless lives and loves on-line? While I admire Stephen Fry, knowing that he is about to go into a theatre, or take a bath, isn't exactly as life enhancing as reading his views on downloading music. So, is Tweeting a waste of time?

 I have to answer that with a resounding "no". I subscribe to the tweets of some innovative teachers from around the world, who post links to resources and ideas almost constantly. The problem isn't that I have to filter out the vacuous dribblings of the self-obsessed, so much as trying to keep track of all the clever ideas.