Hi all
If you are a first aider at work or interested in first aid maybe for public services courses I have come across a brilliant site using podcasting.
http://www.sja.org.uk/firstaid/info
Now I reckon that’s one of the best uses of this technology I’ve seen for a while revise for your exam or update your skills on the bus or the tube. Neat fit for purpose blah blah
Andy Black
VOIP kits for use without a pc are hitting the highstreet
Simon Turner, managing director of DSG International, which owns PC World, Currys, The Link and Dixons, said Freetalk, was a "wake-up call" for traditional telecoms companies.
"The days of old-style fixed-line phone calls are numbered," he said. DSG expects about half a million users to sign up for the new service within a year.
Its also predicted according to the International Data Group, up to 11% of UK broadband users will have a Voip service by 2007. I reckon that’s a conservative figure . See full article on the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4289488.stm
The mobile market is changing and spreading into new markets and technologies such P2T Push to talk broadcast from mobiles using a kind of voice packet is catching hold. In the developing world away from its major core use area in the states worth a look.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4290528.stm
Getting into followoing blogs and other feeds using say active book marks in Firefox and finding your browser favourites looking like a disaster area. Then try bloglines a web based blogg /feed agregator http://www.bloglines.com try the sign up its free icon create your account add your feeds and off you go.
Sure there are other services of this type I just havent heard of them yet let us know via the blog of course.
Bloggs in schools
Interesting link re blogging and use in schools
http://www.shambles.net/pages/school/blogs/(note: there is a link to a second page at the bottom of this first one)
ESRC report: 'InterActive Education: Teaching and Learning in the Information Age'
From the NAACE newsletter
The Press release from ESRC accompanying the publication of the report 'InterActive Education: Teaching and Learning in the Information Age' claims that 'despite the government's £1bn commitment to increase the use of information technology in schools, few teachers make full use of computers in the classroom.'The release proceeds:'The findings of the four-year project at the University of Bristol confirm recent reports by Ofsted and OECD, which found the use of ICT in schools was 'sporadic' and 'disappointing' in the UK and internationally. The ESRC study reveals that many teachers fear that computers would interfere with 'genuine' or book-based learning, particularly in the humanities and creative subjects, and use ICT only for administration and routine tasks.Professor Rosamund Sutherland, who led the research, says that teachers could be helped to make more effective use of computers in a wide range of subject areas. The project centred on partnerships between researchers, research students and teachers from ten institutions, which explored ways in which ICT could be used in English, history, geography, modern languages, science, music and mathematics.'Seventy per cent of the teachers who took part in the study were able to incorporate computers into their classroom,' says Professor Sutherland. 'After working with researchers they generally had a more positive view of technology and said that it enhanced their role as a teacher and had a beneficial impact on the learning environment.'If you would like a copy of the report emailed to you,(it has not yet been placed on the ESRC website) please contact Lance Cole, Lesley Lilley or Becky Gammon at ESRC on 01793 413032/413119/413122 .
Wallace and Gromit The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Topical bit of fun
Oscar Stringer writes: Film Education have released a free interactive CD called Wallace and Gromit The Curse of the Were-Rabbit, one copy will be sent to every school in the country or you can get a free copy from the website. http://www.filmeducation.org/ The CD has an excellent section on story-boarding for animation, well worth a look.
Consoles to plug digital divides?
We need more computers for the developing world - so what about old games consoles, wonders technology analyst Bill Thompson writing for the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4275448.stm
Bill points how new games platfroms leads to old ones been thrown away . The thought provoking piece talks of linux of Playstation (yes Sony do supply one legally) see article at http://www.linuxdevcenter.com/pub/a/linux/2004/03/25/ps2_linux.html
and Xbox can also support linux but Microsoft obviously don’t allow it.
The argument is that simple games platforms can be modifyed to allow access to those in developing countries to the internet and other computer functions ..
Sounds a great idea.
Interesting piece of Intel view of African market for Mobile Computing and interesting one as this year’s mobil learn conference is in South Africa
http://www.int.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=qw1127231101752B232
Mlearn conference web sites worth a good look. http://www.mlearn.org.za
Safe blogging
A real hot issue from the BBC A handbook that offers advice to bloggers who want to protect themselves from recrimination and censors has been released by Reporters Without Borders.
Read article here
Becta Expert Technology Seminar on Sustainability Thursday 13
October 2005 British Library, London
Are current levels of investment in ICT in education sustainable?
What policies need developing to ensure that current and planned ICT
provision and training can be sustained at local and regional level?
How can institutions assess the true total cost of ownership of ICT?
What is effective re-use and recycling, and what are the financial
implications?
This seminar will look at different models which address these
questions at the national level, the LEA level and at the
institutional level. It will also assess how common standards and
specifications can help support a sustainable infrastructure
Becta Expert Technology Seminars are aimed at
* LEA ICT support staff
* National and regional organisations involved in advising,
delivering or procuring ICT services for schools, colleges and the
cultural sectors
* Central and local government representatives
* Government agencies
* Established educational ICT suppliers and companies wanting to
know more about the UK education market
Registration is now open for this event at
www.becta.org.uk/etseminars/forthcoming.cfm
Opera now free . this alternative browser to IE and Firefox etc used to come in a version that was free with banner adds or a paid for version without adds. Well basically the add free version is just that free !!! Download it from http://www.opera.com/
Paper on M learning
M learning my prediction for the next big thing coupled with bloging. The Epic group have produced a white paper on m learning which you can order for free via the following page worth a read and its free :
http://www.epic.co.uk/content/resources/white_papers/m-learning.htm
A great find yet again on educause the site that gave us the guide to e-portfolios .But this series seven things you should know about. the following
Blogs
Video Blogs
Podcasting
Wikkis
Clickers
Social book Marking
Great no nonsense stuff especially liked social book marking
I know you all know about Bectas TechNews but just in case you don’t!! The September edition of Becta’s TechNews is now available.You can subscribe and download from link below.
http://www.becta.org.uk/technews
It’s got stuff on the:
BBC backstage support for developers
Talking Online
Research on games in Education
And of course anlysis of blogging (oops I said it wasn’t about Blogs) well sort of !!!
And of course much much more !!
ResearchBuzz is designed to cover the world of Internet research. To that end this site provides almost daily updates on search engines, new data managing software, browser technology, large compendiums of information, Web directories -- whatever. If in doubt, the final question is, "Would a reference librarian find it useful?" If the answer's yes, in it goes!
ResearchBuzz is available in two flavours:
Writely a webased wordprocessor that allows you write a document and store it securely on the web and for you to choose who you allow to accessit. You can make it more public by publishing to blogger directly from it.
Writely is a web word processor that provides simple and secure document collaboration and publishing on the web using only the browser.
1. First, you create a document:
Either by typing it in, or by uploading a Word document, html, text or image file. Use our editor to format the text, add tables, images, etc.
2. Next, you share it with others:
Enter people's e-mail addresses to grant them access to the document.
Send them a message from Writely to tell them about it.
3. Then, you can edit it together online:
If another person starts editing the same document, a small notice will appear. Your changes will be automatically sync'd with theirs every few seconds.
Try it here
Google unveils blog search site
Google has just taken a huge step in the maturing of the blogginig phenomena. The site imaginatively called “Google Blog search” (catchy eh!!!)
Google will index all bogs that publish so-called feeds that automatically tell readers when they are updated. It will also gather data about blogs that tell other indexing sites about the entries they have made.
As well as searching via the dedicated blog search page, Blogger users will be able to look up other blogs via a special box on the web-journal writing site.
See how the BBC perceived view on the matter
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4244944.stm
Google blogg search site
http://blogsearch.google.com
About Google Blog search on google http://www.google.com/help/about_blogsearch.html
Mobile life gets a new tool
The projector even for those who use PDA’s or smart phones to run presentations as always been a much heavier item but not anymore. Toshiba and Epson are both producing battery powered projectors using LED bulb technology to cut down power useage.
But Toshiba will continue its proud history of launching ground breaking technology first see article at :
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7957
No news if they will support wireless connect to PDA, smartphone or PC/Laptop but heres hoping.
More exciting news from the BBC see the news story here http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4225914.stm
More importanltly creative archive website here.
http://creativearchive.bbc.co.uk
The 4th World Conference on Mobile Learning, mLearn 2005, will take place from 25 to 28 October 2005 in Cape Town, South Africa. This annual conference is the key research and networking event for researchers, strategists, educators, technologists and practitioners from all over the world. Previous mLearn conferences have attracted participants from more than 60 countries, and is, therefore, the world's largest conference on mLearning and emerging ambient technologies. Including Geoff Stead of Cambridge Training and Development (CTAD) and Bob Harrison of Toshiba
Check the website out
http://www.mlearn.org.za
Great mobile learning links by Jari Laru who works at The Research Unit for Educational Technology in Finland. Jari works in the Department of Educational Sciences and Teacher Education at the University of Oulu, Finland. The unit focuses its research and teaching on the issues dealing with the use of technology in learning and education. Our core functions include research and teaching in the area of educational technology. Worth a look http://www.mobilelearning.tk
Hi all
Having recently prsented a short paper the Assocaition of Learning Technologists (ALT) annual conference (ALTC). Entitled “Give em the tools and they’ll talk” .
Below you will find link to Paper absract and related prsentation will soon follow you are also directed below to past papers that will inform you as to my other work.
Link to Abstract
1) Mainstreaming and Cultural Change with a Learning Platform - how to do it, or how not to do it: the Dave Allen approach to cultural change
http://ferl.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=4951
2)Collaborative Technologies: Overview of collaborative technologies
http://www.becta.org.uk/etseminars/presentations/presentation.cfm?seminar_id=30§ion=7_1&presentation_id=74&id=2608
Interesting white paper by the epic group. Worth a read.
Link here
Blogging tool for Word
Our friends at Blogger one of the widely used blogging tools have just made bloggers lives easier. The plug in for Microsoft word allows you to write your blogg posting in word and publish direct from Word. So allowing you not to use bloggers own editor. It also allows you to spell check in Word (great news for me)save a lot of cutting and pasting.
Check it out here
Thanks to Geoff Stead at CTAD for this Have you ever googled backwards?
try http://elgoog.rb-hosting.de/index.cgi
try typing in a search term, but remember to type it backwards!
