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Category Archives: stuff
Becta, they say yes to open source…
Though getting a large amount of criticism from various sources (including this list), the Becta Software for Educational Institutions Framework (SEIF) was never about banning software, but about getting a framework in place to allow schools to “purchase” software avoiding many of the problems and pitfalls that may arise from a school going it alone.
The problem that many found with the SEIF was that it favoured proprietary software vendors and discriminated against open source.
The Sirius Corporation revealed yesterday that it was among 12 software suppliers to have been awarded places on the £80m Software for Educational Institutions Framework (SEIF) agreement.
This means that schools that wish to use linux, Open Office, Moodle, etc… now have a framework which allows them to use the software more easily.
Sirius press release.
Are any colleges out there looking at open source alternatives beyond Moodle?
Parents ‘want texts from schools’
BBC reports on the survey from Becta about how schools need to use e-mail and SMS to communicate more with parents.
Many parents would like school reports on their children’s performance texted or e-mailed, a survey says.
One in 12 of the 1,493 parents polled by government education technology agency Becta said schools kept them informed using these methods.
But 68% of parents said they wanted schools to use such technologies to keep them up to date more frequently.
Of course if schools are to take heed of this survey, then FE Colleges need to do likewise. Does your FE College already communicate to the students by e-mail and/or SMS text messaging? Can the students communicate back?
So do your students cheat?
So do your students cheat?
Never?
They don’t hand in plagiarised work?
How do you know?
Did you know that essays by the bundle are sold on eBay?
Dave Foord (an external educational consultant) has written an interesting blog post on Turnitin which is a piece of software that can be used to detect plagiarised work. He believes that the software also has a value in acting as a deterrent to plagarism.
What are you thoughts?
Open source DTP software
Scribus is an open source DTP package for Mac OS X, Windows and Linux.
Scribus is an open-source program that brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/Unix, MacOS X, OS/2 and Windows desktops with a combination of “press-ready” output and new approaches to page layout. Underneath the modern and user friendly interface, Scribus supports professional publishing features, such as CMYK color, separations, ICC color management and versatile PDF creation.
Could be an alternative for InDesign, Quark and of course Publsher. Scribus website.
CherryPal launches $249 cloudy mini PC
Is this the future of home computing?
A small $249 box with access to the web (and 50GB of online storage).
The Register reports that:
Start-up CherryPal is taking pre-orders today for its partly cloudy “desktop” that mashes web-hosted computing, going green, open source, and social networking into a 10 ounce box.
The (self-titled) CherryPal systems are $249, and surprisingly won’t require a monthly subscription despite the fact that most of its storage capacity and several of its features hosted in the cloud.
CherryPals are thinned-down computers running an ultra-low power chip from Freescale. They’ve got 256MB memory and 4GB solid-state capacity.
The future of computing?
What do you think?
Intel Classmate now available in the UK
Intel’s cheap and cheerful (and in my opinion quite ugly) low end cheap laptop is now available in the UK.
The Register reports on the £239 computer.
Dubbed the JumPC, the Small, Cheap Computer is based on a 900MHz Intel Celeron Mobile processor and the chip giant’s 915GMS chipset. It has 512MB of DDR 2 memory on board and 2GB of Flash storage – though you can select a 30GB HDD instead.
The unit has an Eee PC-style 7in, 800 x 480 display; two USB ports; 10/100Mb/s Ethernet and 802.11b/g Wi-Fi. There’s a webcam too.
Oh it comes with a handle too!
It comes with Windows XP and is another entrant in the micro-laptop UMPC market which is having an impact on the UK educational IT scene.
Opera Mobile 9.5 beta released
Engadget reports on the release of Opera Mobile 9.5.
Today, it’s out for a beta 1 launch. In other words, it’ll be buggy but likely far more useful than the browser already installed on your touchscreen-based (PocketPC) WinMo professional phone. The initial release includes support for double-tap zoom, landscape flip, off-line page save, tab-like browsing, auto-URL complete, and a Google-search bar to name just a few of the 9.5 features.
Looking good. 
Wordle – a new way to look at tags
If you look to the right of this blog post you will see my tag cloud, which is basically a list, with the “importance” of tags (by number of times used) illustrated by the size of the font.
Wordle does something similar but looks very different.
Now unlike the tags on the right, the sizes here are not based on my blog, but some other indicator on the web; this is why windows is so large and molenet is so small compared to my own tag cloud.
However Wordle can use your del.icio.us tags, so the size of the tags is relevant to the number of bookmarks you have saved and the tags you have used.
It’s all just a bit of fun really, it really needs to be able to use other sites other than del.icio.us and the words need to be links.
Click either Wordle picture for a bigger version, create your own here. Thanks to Helen.
Buzzword
So I decided to create a quick video on how to use Buzzword, this time it worked.
Check out Buzzword.