December 2005 Archives

If you are using the Firefox browser, the performancing extension will allow you to easily post to your blog(s) right from the browser window! Supported platforms include: blogger.com, wordpress.com, typepad.com, LiveJournal and MSN spaces.

After installing the plugin, you'll notice that your right-click context menu has an additional "Perfomancing --> Blog this page" option, another quick way for bookmarking your favourite sites to your blogs :-)

A HOWTO guide is available here for quick reference.

Another reason to try out Firefox if you have not already done so ;)

The result's out. Visit the blogs for some good inspirations for upcoming the new year :)

Most innovative edublogging project, service or programme 2005
James Farmer: Edublogs

Best newcomer 2005
Konrad Glogowski: Blog of proximinal development (follow up)

Most influential post, resource or presentation 2005
George Siemens: Connectivism: Learning as Network-Creation

Best designed/most beautiful edublog 2005
D�Arcy Norman: D�Arcy Norman Dot Net

Best library/librarian blog 2005
Joyce Valenza: Joyce Valenza�s NeverEnding Search

Best teacher blog, joint winners 2005
Konrad Glogowski: Blog of proximinal development
Anne Davis: Edublog Insights

Best audio and/or visual blog 2005
Dave Cormier and Jeff Lebow: Ed Tech Talk

Best example/case study of use of weblogs within teaching and learning 2005
Thomas Hawke, Thomas Stiff, Susan Stiff, Diane Hammond (YES I Can! Science team): Polar Science

Best group blog 2005
Rudolf Amman, Aaron Campbell, Barbara Dieu: Dekita.org

Best individual blog 2005
Stephen Downes: OLDaily

The full list of nominees can be found here. Do visit the other quality edublogs too!

Ken Smith has a rubric to grade his students' blogs :)

Read about this digital picture frame off podcasting news. It has integrated speakers, memory cards slots and support for mp3 files, cool stuff for the (boring) desk ! Just need to plug in and ... ...

This is the second thing which GK shared today. The URL to the two parts of the report is here and here.

Part I takes a look at curriculum strategies and leadership development; Part II examines public policy and emerging technologies.

Grabbing some Part I headlines and interesting excerpts:

- Survey: Teachers embrace tech tools
According to a new survey, about 86% of teachers say technology has changed the way they teach to some extent ...

- Study finds half of U.S. teens create Internet content
A survey from the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that half of all teenagers have their own blog or have contributed photos, text or artwork to a blog or other Web site...more than half of the population of teens online report downloading music ...

- Pioneering teachers embrace interactive technologies
Tech-savvy educators are pushing their students to develop online blogs and podcasts to refine their reading, writing and research skills ...

- Reading online: Helping students make sense of Internet content
Reading on the Internet is a part of daily life, but many students do not have the proper skills to use online texts meaningfully ...

- Study extols benefits of online learning programs
This meta-analysis ... suggests that online education programs may have the same ability to raise students' achievement as traditional classroom programs.

- Student blogs educate, engage and entertain
Teachers find blogging helps students to hone grammar and creative writing skills ... blogs have afforded them an online voice.

- Technology helps special education students transition to the abstract
According to seventh-grade teacher Susan Hall, 22 years of experience have taught her that Piaget was right. Children do progress from concrete knowledge to more abstract understandings...

- Whiteboards enliven lessons
Educators using interactive whiteboards, which are beginning to replace chalkboards, handouts and even textbooks in a growing number of schools, find the devices appeal to youngsters who've grown up with technology.

- iPods as language tools
... English language-learners in all grades are using iPods to master vocabulary through preloaded songs and course lessons.

- Web project fosters deeper understanding of human condition
... The Web's greatest educational strength is also its most characteristic feature: connectivity.

- Trailblazing teachers use classroom blogs
A small but growing number of innovative teachers nationwide have set up classroom blogs to improve communication with parents and build class cohesiveness.

- Study: Teachers find it difficult to integrate digital materials
A small study ... explores the barriers teachers face when they seek to use digital libraries and other electronic resources in the teaching of science, technology engineering and mathematics ... complained most about hardware shortfalls, poor training, a lack of support and a lack of time.

and here's some of Part II:

- Education Department study finds schools slow to adopt technology
A U.S. Education Department report on school technology released in January found that students often are far ahead of their teachers in computer literacy. The report also found that in general schools lag behind many other parts of society in the use of technology, despite recent advances.

- Maine pushes envelope with ambitious laptop program
The state of Maine ... has become the first state in the U.S. to give a laptop computer to every student and teacher in grades 7-12. Although it's too early to tell whether the ambitious program has raised academic achievement, educators say it is showing tangible benefits including more in-depth instruction.

- A look at ed tech in "the most wired island in the world"
Seng Chee Tan of NIE in Singapore ... says that while students are quite comfortable using PowerPoint, video technology and other programs, some teachers aren't yet ready to shift from didactic instructional approaches to ones that give the students more power over their learning.

- Wikis challenge textbook model
Wikibooks, a set of open-content textbooks, based on the same user-generated, user-edited model of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, could one day replace printed textbooks as a major source of information for students...

- Open-source software offers schools new freedoms
... free software, including the Linux operating system, is helping to bridge the digital divide by offering schools attractive alternatives to costly commercial products.

- Experts from ISTE share their thoughts on educational technology
... They had this to say about the kinds of technologies today's young people respond to:
"Younger students, and those 'young at heart' are always looking for tools that engage as many senses simultaneously as possible. They gravitate toward technology they can carry with them, and that connects them to their peers and a broad array of information sources. Therefore, to find a tool that provides great visuals and sound is incredibly important to young learners. The key word here is 'engaging.' These students are active learners, not passive."

Guat Kheng shared this useful guide with me. Published by Saskatchewan Learning, this guide is a "Level I Guide" which outlines some generic activities for reflection." 60 pages of good useful reference., may be able to pipe for other modes of reflection :)

was trapped in my win95/98 mindset that we need fdisk to partition a new hard disk, then searched and realised that ms has a whole article on it; anyway, the "magic" is to run compmgmt.msc :O

also came upon the "ultimate boot cd" from BootDisk.info, if you need a boot cd/disk that is. how useful it is i have yet to evaluate :O

and if you are looking for bootable floppy (assuming you have a floppy drive to write to), here's a link.

BitsCast is a new audio/video podcast receiver/player, supporting Microsoft Media PlaysForSure mp3 devices as well as iPod.

The application is freeware, and is currently in beta.

[Source: podcasting news]

PBWiki - Make a free, password-protected wiki as easily as a peanut butter sandwich.

If you own a LCD monitor or a laptop with failing LCD backlight, this guide teaches you to do a DIY fix :)

Gotten this off Podcasting News:

The Oxford University Press, publishers of the New Oxford American Dictionary, has selected podcast as the Word of the Year for 2005 ... ... Oxford University Press defines podcast as "a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar program, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player." While the Oxford definition would be considered incorrect by many podcasters, it reflects common usage without being overly technical.

... and the full report goes here.

Will Richardson has this interesting post on his conversation with his son. His son is 6 years old and blogging away! Tell us much about our upcoming generation and it reminds us teachers to constantly attune to our young :-)

Odeo is a creative way to record and share audio�and it's free.

* Record Audio Create recordings from your browser�or your phone
* Share with People Send your voice to friends, family, or colleagues
* Podcast to the World Make shows that people can get with iTunes
* Discover New Audio Hear friends, favorites, or something new

Check out some featured podcasts and this is the sign-up link.

Podcastamatic would be useful if you are currently subscribing to some (web) server space and would like to host podcast/audioblog in that space. The software allows you to customise the look and feel of the page. The standard 'look and feel' can be found here and here.

Find out more here.

I have created a new category to keep up with the latest developments in audioblogging (better known as podcasting). It's gonna be the next hot thing in the blogosphere! Past entries have been reclassified to the new (sub)categories :)

Some interesting points that I have noted from the reports/articles:

1. First Asian Game Developer Summit held on Oct 11-12: "Bottom line" for game developers/companies: "MONEY, PROFIT"

2. Apple launched 5th generation iPod with support for video files.

3. Your printer may be SPYING on you: Xerox admitted use of customer-tracking code(dots) on printouts.

4. Merger of IM giants - Yahoo and MSN; eta 2Q 06

5. Tiny Flash Drive - How small can a thumb drive be? Pretec's iDisk Tiny can be used as earring(s) *hmm*

6. "The Internet Mafia" - a 6 full-page writeup on the latest trend on how hackers control your computer to crack/spam/phish/DDoS more computers; and some tips to counter the attacks.

7. "Getting the Most Out of Your iPod" - an article on how you can tweak your iPods.

8. "Going Incognito on the Internet" - author writes about how we are leaving trails on the internet, and some tips on maintaining annonymity. there's no guarantee of 100% anonymity though.

9. Alcohol120% - a CD/DVD emulator software that allows one to work on software (that needs the disc in the drive) w/o the disc in the drive; comes at a cost though (url: http://www.alcohol-soft.com) :O

that's all for now folks :)

"Finding Open Options" -- a MSc thesis by Karin van den Berg, touches on a model for OSS evaluation.

The summary is as follows:

The Open Source software market is getting more and more attention. Large IT corporations such as IBM and Novell are investing in Open Source software. Open Source software development is very different from traditional proprietary software. In order to understand Open Source software better, this thesis offers a model for
Open Source software evaluation, which can be used as a tool to find the right software package to meet the user�s needs.

This research project was performed at Tilburg University in the Department of Information Systems and Management. The goal was to get a better understanding of Open Source software and to make the Open Source software process more understandable for those who evaluate this type of software.

An introduction to Open Source software is followed by the Open Source software evaluation model, using the criteria found in Open Source literature.

Community � the driving force behind an Open Source project
Release Activity � showing the progress made by the developers
Longevity � how long the product has been around
License � is one of the general Open Source licenses used
Support � from the community as well as paid support options
Documentation � user manuals and tutorials, developer documentation
Security � responding to vulnerabilities
Functionality � testing against functional requirements
Integration � standards, modularity and collaboration with other products
Goal and Origin � why was the project started and what is the current goal

These criteria form the key terms of the model. The evaluation process is described using these criteria. The practical part of the model consists of two steps. In the first step selection on the candidate list is performed, using four of the above criteria: Functionality, Community, Release Activity and Longevity. These criteria were selected
because they can be evaluated quickly for each candidate in order to eliminate non-viable candidates and select the best ones. This step results in a �short list� of candidates that can be evaluated in depth in the second step, taking a closer look at the software and the project using all ten criteria.

In order to test this model on real Open Source software, a case study was performed on Course Management Systems. In this case study the model is applied on a candidate list of 36 systems, and evaluation is performed on the top two systems found in the selection step. This evaluation led to a clear conclusion. The best system in this
evaluation is the Course Management System called Moodle. The results of the case study are consistent with real life performance of the Course Management Systems.

Darren @Problogger.net summarised 20 types of blog posts he has observed. Having the awareness of the types may allow you to blog in more ways? :)

20 types of Blog Posts � Instructional � Informational � Reviews � Lists � Interviews � Case Studies � Profiles � Link Posts � �Problem� Posts � Contrasting two options � Rant � Inspirational � Research � Collation Posts � Prediction and Review Posts � Critique Posts � Debate � Hypothetical Posts � Satirical � Memes and Projects

For full description, read this post.

For teachers who want to work on freely available blogs, with more control over students' blogs, check out The BlogMeister. You'll need to email David Warlick for a school code before you can proceed to register.

Saw this post off Podcasting news, with the appearance of such an indepdendent device, podcasting/audioblogging is really going to be our next generation radio. Let's see if/when the 'official' stations catch up with this trend :O

Hostsearch.com reports that Gcast is offering FREE space for podcasters! Check it out :)

Gcast is the only solution available on the Internet offering free hosting and the system offers access to the world's largest library of �podsafe� music. Gcast also offers a significant range of features including an Online Playlist Manager that auto-generates podcasts, and podcasting by phone (where users actually create a podcast on the telephone).