Category Archives: news

Amazon launches digital book reader

Big news yesterday was the launch of Amazon’s digital book reader.

BBC reports that:

Online retailer Amazon has unveiled an own-brand wireless electronic book reader called Kindle.

The paperback-sized device is on sale immediately in the US for $399 (£195). It can store up to 200 books in its onboard memory.

Kindle does not need a PC to be loaded with books, blogs or papers – instead content arrives via wireless.

Amazon said 90,000 books, including bestsellers priced at $9.99, were available for Kindle at launch.

I wonder if you could load such a device with institutional learning content?

YouTube tackles bullying online

BBC reports how YouTube is trying to stop online or cyber bullying.

The first online anti-bullying channel has been launched to encourage young people to denounce the intimidation.

YouTube has set up a site where youngsters can post their own videos and messages.

It follows growing concern about the increase in persecution by e-mail, mobile phone and on social networking sites, known as cyberbullying.

Happy Birthday BBC News Website

The BBC News website is ten years old.

Happy Birthday.

BBC News

I have been using the site for that long now, so it’s nice to see that not only is it still around and still very popular, more importantly, all the stories I was reading and using for learning back in the late 1990s are still available as well. For example this story about Sainsburys from 1999 is still online and the links still work!

Too often on the web sites will rebrand or rename and all their old links die or change or become redundant. At least with the BBC News it is possible to link stories from nearly ten years ago.

Becta complains about Microsoft

Becta have been complaining to the Office of Fair Trading about Microsoft.

The BBC reports that:

The UK computer agency Becta is advising schools not to sign licensing agreements with Microsoft because of alleged anti-competitive practices. The government agency has complained to the Office of Fair Trading.

Becta is advising schools not to move to Microsoft’s subscription licensing model. They are also advising schools to look at open source solutions as well.

Is your college e-enabled?

There was an interesting article in yesterday’s (Tuesday’s) Guardian about how un-e-enabled a lot of FE colleges are in the UK.

While not unimpressed with these statistics, the British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) puts a different slant on the overall state of ICT in FE. By its reckoning, barely a quarter of colleges are “e-enabled”, to use the quango’s unlovely jargon. A further quarter, by contrast, are either not convinced about the need to sharpen up their ICT or are late-comers to it.

So where would you put your college?

Are you working in an e-enabled college?

200th Post

This blog is not really new, I did blog about e-learning when I worked at the WCC, but I have reached a milestone with this blog, my 200th post (this one).  The blog has also had over 4000 visits. Thanks for visiting and here’s to the next two hundred posts.

Access BBC Online free over wifi

The BBC have come to a deal with The Cloud wifi service to offer BBC Online free at The Cloud’s thousands of wifi hotspots.

This means that if you are at a wireless hotspot you don’t need to pay anything to access the BBC News website for example. You can also download TV programmes (via iPlayer) as well.

Read more.

I do wonder if there is potential in this kind of relationship between educational institutions and wifi hotspot providers. Could we see college websites and vles available for free at local wifi hotspots. Something I am certainly thinking about.

eMentors – students teaching teachers

I see the BBC have a report on what Oaklands College are doing with eMentors.

A college is harnessing the power of students’ technical knowledge to teach their lecturers a thing or two about information technology. The college has appointed 35 “eMentors” to help staff with everything from laptops to interactive whiteboards. The scheme works on the premise that students are more technically adept.

Quite an interesting and innovative approach to getting staff to get familiar with the technology.

UCAS Form “Cheating”

The BBC are reporting that students are using content “lifted” from the web for their online UCAS forms.

Sixth form students are being warned not to cheat on their university application forms by copying material from the internet.

The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service has written to every UK school saying doing so could affect students’ chances of winning a place.

Ucas is to use plagiarism detection technology to scrutinise the half a million forms seeking entry in 2008.

Maybe it’s time to move away from a written statement on a form for applications.

The web may have made it easier, but when I filled in an UCAS form (some time ago now) I know people who were given extra guidance and help filling it in over and beyond what you would expect and that was never considered “cheating”.

Copying and pasting is cheating, there is no doubt, using the web to help fill in the form is fine, but who tells the sixth former filling in the form what is okay and what isn’t?