Voicethread

A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or phone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). Share a VoiceThread with friends, students, and colleagues for them to record comments too.

Some examples include providing a mathematical problem and getting the students to explain how they would solve it; building a Wii wand, students' poems and many, many more. Students can 'doodle' or write on the slide in order to aid their audio comment.

You can sign up for free with limited access - click here for a detailed solution for secondary pupils. So for $60 (£34) a teacher can:
• Create and manage groups and classes
• Create an unlimited number of VoiceThreads
• Maintain a media library up to 10 GB
• Unlimited commentary - voice / text / webcam
• Upload archival MP3 files as commentary
• Quickly access all their students' VoiceThreads
• Collaborate unrestricted, on or off the network

Certainly worth a look!

School Websites

Some of our Post Primary and Primary schools have brilliant websites which they use as a portal into their school's life for all the stakeholders involved in the school community.

There are other schools, however, who either don't have a presence on the web or their websites are outdated. Websites can be vital in providing relevant and up-to-date information on the school and allow students to have a means to showcase their work.

We provide advice and support in this area. We ran a web design course last year using Joomla, an open source (free) piece of software and over 15 schools now have a fully operational website.

If you are interested in creating, developing or redesigning your school's website, please contact the ICT team at Clounagh:

Averil Morrow, ICT Adviser, averil.morrow@selb.org
Ciaran McCrumlish, AAO for ICT, ciaran.mccrumlish@selb.org
Aidan McCanny, AAO for ICT, aidan.mccanny@selb.org

Yacapaca Developments

The people at Yacapaca have been working hard at improving the process of creating new questions.

The new look includes the ability to drag and drop images and sound - yes, sound - files. This now means that you can have audio/music for the question e.g. narrate the question/scenario for the less_able student or in another language.

You can also include sound in the possible answers.

You can also preview the question in action before committing to it. Yacapaca has become even more slicker.

In the diagram below you can see that the question has an image and sound file added and that option 2 also has a sound file added. This was simply a matter of dragging the file from the list on the left to the appropriate place in the question.



Do remember that once the questions/quizzes have been created, you have a student assessment which is automatically marked accompanied with an extremely detailed analysis.

Term 1 2008/2009

Welcome back! There have been a number of exciting developments since the last post. I will be talking about these over the next week or so. The developments (in no particular order) include:

Udutu
Updates to Yacapaca
Linux on the E500 (v old) laptops
Voice Threads
Comic Life for PC
Podcasting and Photostory
Google sites
ePortfolios for Using ICT and the 5e's with Yacapaca
The ICT Roadshow
Voki
Clounagh.org
SETT 2008
VUE
Flowgram

Other issues include:

GCE Applied ICT - OCR or what?
The Self Review Framework
Disseminating Good Practices
Scratch (revisited) and the 5e's
Ning (revisited) and the 5e's
Virtual Learning Environments in your school
Your School's Website


Remember, This BLog is Only As Good As you Want It To be, So Let Us Hear From You!

Empey Backs 'Open Source' Software Drive

Public and private sector organisations could save millions of pounds if they used free ‘Open Source’ computer software instead of expensive proprietary products, it was revealed today.The cost savings would result from not having to pay expensive licensing fees to software developers – and from reduced costs.

The benefits of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) were outlined as Employment and Learning Minister Sir Reg Empey MLA today launched 'OPEN-NI', an important new private and public sector network established by the University of Ulster and the Southern Regional College under his Department’s Higher and Further Education Collaboration Fund - “Connected”.

The aim of the OPEN-NI network is to support the private and public sector organisations within Northern Ireland that acquire and use FOSS – software which, unlike more expensive propriety software packages, can be built on or developed by users to suit individual companies' specific requirements. Speaking at the inaugural 'Open-Island' conference, Sir Reg said: “I believe the timeliness of this initiative is critical given the strategic importance of “Open Source Software” to the longer term sustainability of our software sector.“Embracing ‘Open Source’ will become fundamental to building and maintaining market share in the future; providing start-ups with a simple, fast and efficient way to build a client base and so gain market share.”

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne is on record as indicating that over £600m per year could be saved through the adoption of ‘Open Source’ software by Government agencies alone – a saving of 5% on their IT expenditure.It is estimated that free and ‘Open Source’ software represented 13% of the global software market in 2006, and is set to grow to 27% of the market by 2011. Conference Chairman Jonathan Wallace of the University of Ulster, said: “Increasingly, Universities and other bodies are seeing ‘Open Source’ software as a low risk method for exploiting their existing work, sharing good practice and improving their national and international reputation without the need for a large marketing and distribution infrastructure. “Indeed, University of Ulster-created open source software has received national endorsement and international interest.” Last March Ulster released two free ‘Open Source’ software tools. One of them, OPUS, a tool for managing all aspects of work based learning on-line, has elicited 20 expressions of interest from universities in the UK and abroad. A number of universities have already installed the software and others are planning to do so soon.

FOSS methodologies confer many competitive advantages to business, including:Cost Savings - A government report in 2005 said the use of open source software could produce savings of 44% per computer in primary schools and 24% per computer in secondary schools compared to the cost of standard commercial software. Compatibility and Competition - because the way in which data is handled is clear for everyone to see, FOSS helps interoperability between products. This makes it easy for products from different vendors to use the same data.

Governments are increasingly adopting open source and open standards to promote interoperability.Brian Doran, Head of the Southern Regional College, said: “This important development for the software sector also presents an opportunity for the College to further enhance its reputation as an organisation that supports local business through research and development activities. The Southern Regional College is committed to embedding the use of ‘Open Source’ software within our day-to-day business process operations and to ensure that all students across the College are exposed to the benefits of the wide range of ‘Open Source’ products available.” Mel McIntyre of OpenIreland, the sister organisation in the Republic of Ireland, said:“When we consider public bodies, who are responsible to the taxpayer for obtaining value-for-money and who often deal with public information, these issues are increasingly important. Significant cost savings can be made by opting for FOSS products that are as capable as their proprietary counterparts, that are free-of-charge, and use open, interoperable document formats that ensure freedom from vendor lock-in.”

The £99 Elonex laptop: how can it be so cheap?

A new budget computer aimed at schoolchildren is about to be launched. One A new laptop computer for just £99 sounds like the kind of offer found in a spam e-mail or on a dodgy auction website. But the British company Elonex is launching the country’s first sub £100 computer later this month and hopes to be making 200,000 of them by the summer. It will be aimed at schoolchildren and teenagers, and looks set to throw the market for budget laptops wide open.
Called the One, it can be used as a traditional notebook computer or, with the screen detached from the keyboard, as a portable “tablet” – albeit without the planned touchscreen that Elonex had to abandon to hit its £99 price tag. Wi-fi technology lets users access the internet or swap music (and homework) files between computers wirelessly.

Personal files can be stored on the laptop’s 1GB of built-in memory or on a tough digital wristband (1-8GB, from £10) that children can plug into the USB socket of whichever computer they happen to be using, be it the One, a PC at school or their parents’ laptop.
So how can Elonex make a computer for so little? After all, UK consumers paid an average of £477 for a new laptop in 2007, according to the retail analyst GfK.

The secret is simple: open-source software. The One runs on Linux, which is a rival to Windows but completely free to use. Open-source software can be freely swapped or modified by anyone who wants it. In the past such operating systems (there are several of them) have been outgunned by the more sophisticated Windows programs. However, an open-source operating system is ideal for low-cost devices as it performs well on less powerful, cheaper hardware.
Naturally, the One is more basic than all-singing, all-dancing notebooks. Nonetheless, it includes a free word processor and spreadsheet, a free web browser and free e-mail software. It has a 7in screen, a rubbery little keyboard and no CD drive. And it all runs on an ageing chip that was designed before its target audience of seven-year-olds were even born.

InGear had an exclusive hands-on look at a preproduction One. The keyboard was slow and spongy and the built-in speakers could be louder but the screen was bright and the software package impressively varied (if rather sluggish) on this prototype.

Preloaded programs ranged from instant messaging software and a photo editor to games and an MP3 player. Moving files to and from the USB wristband was easy enough – and there’s a Bluetooth version with 2GB of memory (£120) that lets you swap files with mobile phones too.
Elonex will be launching the computer at the Education Show at the NEC in Birmingham at the end of this month, and is targeting schools as potential buyers.

The Elonex One isn’t the only low-cost educational laptop out there, however. Asus launched an open-source laptop in the run-up to Christmas last year. The Eee PC (about £200) has proved popular with adults as well as children, with its first shipment selling out nationwide within hours of its November release.

The One Laptop per Child initiative, which began in America, hopes to offer a “Give one, get one” event this year in Britain, where consumers can buy two computers – one for themselves and one for a child abroad – for about £200.

But open-source software has its problems. If no one owns it, there’s no one to complain to when things go wrong – and the One has no antivirus or firewall software built in. The old-fashioned feel of the One’s programs could also flummox modern cyber-kids used to the slick menus, wizards and plug-and-play simplicity of Windows.

Of course, in the context of laptops costing more than £1,000 – and even copies of Microsoft Office software retailing at as much as £120 – paying £99 for a fully functional, internet-ready laptop packed with software isn’t a huge risk to take.

And it’s this magic price that is the One’s biggest asset. The more that parents choose to buy Ones, the more music and games their kids will share, and the more sought after it will become. A laptop as the coolest thing in the playground? Stranger things have happened.

Article Source: The Sunday Times.

Mobile phones - the future

Whilst educationalists discuss the value of and the issues associated with young people using mobile phones to learn, a recent conference in America has agreed that mobile technology is the next stage in the development of the internet.

"The breadth of the new ideas floating around and the different ways that people are thinking about information and using the web further away from browsing into more personalised information is exciting," said Ms Baker, speaking to the BBC News website at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco.

She is convinced that mobile phones will be one of the forces that will help people make better use of information pertinent to them

"Information that matters to me is what the future is about," she said.
Read more about what the future offers in mobile technology at BBC News Technology.