Merlin Johns Blog

You will notice in my link in the side panel I have added links to Merlin Johns personal blog Merlin in my opinion is one of the countries top technology journalists relating to education. He has a great blog ( I wish I could write so well.)


well worth a look another legend in his own lunchtime . Link is there permanently but is here as well www.merlinjohnonline.net

go on have a look !!

New Toy Gyro transporter

Just got a Gyration transporter a nifty presentation tool from the makers of my favourite presentation tool the GyroMouse and Keyboard .


Its a really small mini mouse but with 1 Gb memory built into the receiver that plugs into your PC that can transport your presentations around.


http://www.gyration.com/en-us/gyrotransport.html

Will blog how it goes !!

TWO E-LEARNING CONFERENCES, OXFORD UNIVERSITY

TWO E-LEARNING CONFERENCES, OXFORD UNIVERSITY
22nd and 23rd March
Said Business School

I sadly cant go but theses events look interesting !!!

The Shock of the Old 6: The Shock of the Social
One-Day Conference on Educational Technologies

Said Business School, University of Oxford, March 22nd 2007
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/events/shock2007/

The Learning Technologies Group at Oxford University Computing
Services is pleased to announce its sixth annual one-day conference
on educational technologies.

Shock 6 will explore the issues arising from the rise of social
networking tools, Web 2.0 software and related collaborative
technologies, and how best to make use of these innovative tools in
teaching, learning and research.

For more information and online booking please visit:

http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/events/shock2007/

Beyond the Search Engine

Said Business School, University of Oxford, March 23rd 2007
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/events/beyond2007/

Beyond the Search Engine continues the successful ‘Beyond…’ series
of talks and debates hosted by the Learning Technologies Group at the
University of Oxford. This year the theme is plagiarism and academic
integrity in the modern world of social networking and private learning.

* Does the ready provision of information in the public sphere
detract from students’ ability to develop their own knowledge?
* Does the pressure to perform undermine students’ academic integrity?

The day will consist of talks by experts in the field, and two debates.

This event follows on from the Shock of the Old conference on ICT in
Teaching and Learning, 22nd March 2007, held at the same venue and
with similar charging.

For more details and online booking please visit:
http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/ltg/events/beyond2007/

JISC conference proceedings as e-books

The JISC have produced three e books as proceedings of the Jisc Innovating e-learning online conference last March .

site with links http://andysblackhole.blogspot.com/

Worth downloading reading and reflecting upon

Free web conferencing V room by elluminate

Ok it only allows three way conversations but it is free file ,application sharing and video conferencing. sound like a groove lite .

http://www.elluminate.com/vroom/ hey I wonder how goroove networks are doing ???

Reflections on BETT 2007 The show and exhibits

The first of many posts .
My first reflection is the changing nature of BETT and it's audience.
It is now :-

• Huge bigger (maybe better) with almost an American feel about it ! Though Olympia doesn't have the huge presentation theatres of US venues.
• The current venue is quite difficult to orientate yourself in.
• The international component is growing all the time huge numbers of European visitors and vendors had international sales people on stands.
• Its still great and if I am honest getting even better.

My predictions were partially correct.

• Wireless was every where in kit. Coolest kit in show was wireless see later .The problem now is to much wireless in terms of finding the network you want.
  

• Handheld well wow what a prediction loads of handhled stuff Dave Whyley of www.learning2go.co.uk did a key note or two . Graham Brown Martin of www.handheldlearning.co.uk had a better placed and bigger stand that last year and was bonkersly busy . Future lab www.futurelab.org.uk where there and I gather had seminars that were over subscribed. Samsung and Intel were showing very cool ultra mobile PC's (yes they are still handhelds). Tribal CTAD were there showing there cool mobile offerings
  

• Blogging was everywhere but not in your face it has the feeling of a stealth technology on education that along with other web 2.00 tools appear to be a small technology with enthusiastic followers ( how wrong they are !!) but will pop its multiple heads up and change the world !!! The fact BCS asked Terry Freedman and Miles Berry to present on Social software in the classroom was testimony to this , Both are complete legends in their own lunchtime. As regards suppliers study wiz seemed to have integrated a lot of blogging tools into there existing great offer
  

Kit at the show

• Whiteboards every where prometheans new software looks cool, Mimio the whiteboard emulators just gets better for certain uses it appears to be thee solution. Smart had some interesting mounts and combinations with projectors.
• The orange coloured for education only projectors ( a Becta suggestion I believe) were much in evidence a simple but great idea !!!
• Sound speakers are getting such good quality (Bett was very loud !!).
• Toshiba and Samsung laptops 3 g enabled and 8011N ready
  
• Beautiful Apple stuff its looks so nice and works well ( I must buy one!!).

• Go to gyration site and see the

its a wireless presenter combined with 1GB memory and I think non PC related presentation software. plug into any PC wander off and present its needs checking out more. At £130 odd pounds isn't cheap.
But my major reflection even if you were there all week you couldn't see it all and the chance and planned conversations with friends at the show was the only way to get an overview. A very verbal blog type approach maybe web 2.00 is gossip by another name !!!

Moodletxt

Interesting on again by TXTtools and plug in for moodle very clever eh details here

Lets talk about text event 27th March in Leeds

Interesting event by TXTtools with yours truly doing the key note details here

BETT 2007

Iis it really that time of year again going to be a the BETT from Wednesday to Friday .

Main aims

• Survival
• See whats news
  
  
• Meeting with contacts

Any predictions

• Handheld learning will continue to grow
• Wireless will be everywhere
• blogging will be everywhere in and out the classroom

I will try and blog but beware it maybe a bit rambling postcards from the edge of sanity so to speak .

Bill Gates hails digital decade

Some of us thought it was already here ;-)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6239975.stm
BBC NEWS | Technology | Bill Gates hails 'digital decade'

Panorama software

Just been mucking around with autostitch software I mentioned a while ago software can be found at http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html

Install the free download and just drop your shots that make up your panorama and it does the rest. Here is an attempt from shot taken from drigg dunes in Cumbria looking back to the Western lake District very neat indeed, No work on my part apart from selecting the images it does all the rest !!!

Another reason to use Firefox 2.00

If your spelling or typing is dreadful ( mine definitely is !) Firefox 2.00 has a great spell checker built in. Great for your wiki writing or blog ramblings very cool.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/2.0/releasenotes/
Mozilla Firefox 2 Release Notes

future lab blog

Thanks to Dan Sutch for making me awre of this really useful blog to watch in my bloglines from now on !!
http://flux.futurelab.org.uk/index.php/2006/11/28/hello-world
Flux » Blog Archive » Welcome to FLUX!

One Laptop per child blog

Worth a look described by the olpc team as Your independent source for news, information, commentary, and discussion of One Laptop Per Child's computer, the OLPC Children's Machine XO, developed by MIT Media Lab co-founder Nicholas Negroponte.http://olpcnews.com
One Laptop Per Child News

BBC news story is also worth a look http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6224183.stm
BBC NEWS | Technology | $100 laptop project launches 2007

http://andysblackhole.blogspot.com/
Andys Black Hole