Today sees the release of Moodle 1.9.
Our latest release fresh from over 5 months of community beta testing and improvements. This release is like a “gold reference” version, but usually the daily build above will be even better. Moodle 1.9 not only has lots of requested new features but some very large performance improvements over Moodle 1.8. We recommend all sites upgrade to 1.9 as soon as practical, especially if you are seeing poor performance in some areas.
Thanks Gary.
From the Guardian…
Read more.
At a recent MoLeNET podasting event, my colleague John Whalley spoke about PhotoStory 3 for Windows.
Create slideshows using your digital photos. With a single click, you can touch-up, crop, or rotate pictures. Add stunning special effects, soundtracks, and your own voice narration to your photo stories. Then, personalize them with titles and captions. Small file sizes make it easy to send your photo stories in an e-mail. Watch them on your TV, a computer, or a Windows Mobile–based portable device.
You can download the software from Microsoft (follow the link above).
A quick demo of how it works.
Interesting report from Macrumors.
Analyst predictions of a 3G iPhone are nothing new, but a new report points to specific sources knowledgeable about this anticipated update. After meeting with Taiwanese electronics companies Citigroup’s Richard Gardner claims that his sources have confirmed that the 3G iPhone will be released in 2nd Quarter calendar year. If correct, this would pinpoint the release between April-June 2008.
I decided not to get an iPhone as it was not 3G.
BBC reports on how Microsoft has signed a deal with Nokia to put Silverlight on Nokia phones.
Silverlight is seen as a competitor to Adobe’s Flash, which is already used by popular websites such as YouTube.
The software will first be available on Nokia’s high end smart phones running a Symbian operating system.
Read more.
When is an UMPC not an UMPC?
When it’s a 9″ UMPC.
The infamous little EeePC is getting bigger by two whole inches.
Coming out next year with a bigger screen, the EeePC will still be running Linux but will also be available with Windows XP.
Compared to the original 7″ EeePC the 9″ model is not that much bigger, so will still be relatively just as portable.
Engadget on the 9″ EeePC, ASUS’ 9-inch Eee PC and Hands-on with the 9-inch Eee PC.
I really enjoyed reading Bill Thompson’s column on the BBC News website this week, where he wonders about how technology will change teaching.
If every student has a powerful network device that plugs them into the network, and work on digitising every book and other forms of knowledge has been successful, then what is the point of teaching “facts”?
He makes the very valid point.
Just as we try to encourage kids today to learn enough mental arithmetic to decide whether to believe the calculator’s answer, so we need those using tomorrow’s vast supercomputers to have a sense of what is going on that will allow them to judge the validity of the answers they get.
Overall an interesting column, well worth a read.
BBC reports on the end of an era for the web icon which once had 90% of the browser market.
A web browser that gave many people their first experience of the web is set to disappear.
Netscape Navigator, now owned by AOL, will no longer be supported after 1 March 2008, the company has said.
In the mid-1990s, as the commercial web began to take off, the browser was used by more than 90% of people online.
Its market share has since slipped to just 0.6% as other browsers such as Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) and Firefox have eroded its user base.
BBC reports
The European Commission is spending 55m euros (£42m) on making the net a safer place for children.
The money will be spent over four years on educational efforts and ways to protect children from inappropriate content and cyber bullying.
Read more.
As part of our Glossy Project (part of the MoLeNET programme) we are looking at the differences between learners using their own devices and the college providing devices.
One particular lecturer was interested in using PDAs with GPS capability. After difficulties in finding a suitable product, in the end I went for a “cheap and cheerful” product, the Acer C530
Summary of features
The key thing with this device is that it has a rather small screen for what is quite a bulky device.
I was impressed it came with Pocket TV which is a much better application for playing back video than the included Mobile Windows Media Player which comes as standard with Windows Mobile.
So far all I have really done with the device is charge it up (well once I remembered to put the battery in it).
I have not yet managed to get the GPS working, but I know that is because I am indoors and GPS can be so flaky when you are indoors. In a previous life I had a TomTom GPS unit I used with my Sony Ericsson P910i phone and that never worked until I took it outdoors.
It’s raining, so I am not going outside.
The problem with GPS is that it kills the battery fast, so it’s nice to see that the box comes with an included car charger (not that our learners will be using that) but also that it can be charged via USB.
As for expandability it comes with a SD card slot which means at least I am not going to need to find another different memory card format as I seem to be having to do with phones.
Alas it doesn’t have sound recording capability which would have been nice, but then at the price it was much cheaper than more powerful PDA GPS options, currently £176 at Amazon