Today I read and learnt about Conditional Activities. Now this a very motivating tool for students. Unlocking is something young people often experience in their gaming worlds. Complete XYZ and get a bonus level, the mystery room, new character, new move/power or end level boss. Exciting.

Other Learning Platform issues being discussed;

Integration with College MIS.

Visual appearance and skinning, this links with rebranding and renaming Moodle. Probably through student voice.

Accessing Moodle Moot.

Staff Training and wholeschool deployment and how this integrates with a Netbook progect and development on Sims.

We now also have Live Sync which allows you to sync any kind of file to the 25GB of space that Microsoft’s SkyDrive online storage service now offers. Now this has potential. I had read somewhere that the LIVE OFFICE would include OneNote? I have not seen evidence of this yet? Anyone?

Regardless we move forward. I am considering to use a folder and group to develop a group of Moodle ICT teachers. A place to share information and documents. I let you know how we get on – my only reservation with this option is that the Moodle group will set up a Moodle LP for this purpose.

In reflection, I realised that this information may be welcomed by our students parents, guardians and carers. A full review is far beyond this forum, however I thought that I could share some links and tools with you.

Within College we have an infrastructure of whole-college awareness, designated responsibilities, acceptable use policies and procedures. We also have a range of tools to help us filter and monitor students online activity. What is readily available for you to use in the home?

Information: Parent Centre is a government support advisory service covering a wide range of topics. Simarily Child-net offers a host of projects, presentations and interactive materials designed to support the role of parent, guardian or carer.

During my conversation, the focus quickly turned to ‘Messenger.’ the hugely popular chat service. Interesting Microsoft have responded to parents call for assistance and recently launch their FREE Family Safety module offering safer browsing with Web site management for parents, including monitoring of MSN Messenger.

Now there are many more technology topics we could discuss, Thinkuknow outline the most widely used online tools. Should you have any further topics you think we should be discussing then emailThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it me.

This ties in nicely with my investigation of the WINDOWS LIVE options.

Before I go on to explain our journey at Hamble College, let me summarise the variable I have encountered that influence the decision making process. Its a lengthy list and each variable could be expanded, so to spare you, excuse the brevity.

1. Budget.

2. Previous experiences of the school, of governors, of the teachers and of the potential users – the students.

3. County decision making, decision makers, IT agreements and partnerships with VLE providers.

4. Onsite expertise, or lack of expertise.

5. What are the Jone’s using?

6. National deadlines.

7. MIS data interoperability.

8. Who is going to implement the training, drive the VLE and support the teachers. This should include the students but it is generally accepted that the students will be more easily included.

9. What are your local education Consortium using?

10. Additional impact on current IT infrastructure?

11. IT infrastructure maturity with the College?

12. How the VLE impacts on other strategies in the College, eg Netbooks, website, MIS.

For the past 12 months I have been trying to find the answer (really its a solution) to this question. Within 3 months I had looked at a number of VLEs and concluded that either Moodle or Studywiz were right for our College. Then the process become more complicated as more variables were uncovered. A further 7 months on and we have gone for Moodle. I have learnt that regardless of the final decision, right or wrong, make a decision. I have consulted with a range of schools with various VLE solutions and what is clear, it is the nect 6 months that is important. We are not looking to go for the ‘big bang’ approach to the VLE but for a slow, organic deployment with significant departmental support.

What institutional changes have left us in a position to use Moodle? An opening in the office staff to share Sims integration with Moodle deployment permitting more personal support. A partnership with an IT firm with the expertise to integrate Sims and cosmetic branding. As this experience unfolds, I will update the blog.

The 4th Screen

LogMeIn (Windows/Mac)

LogMeIn offering a quick, no-hassle set up to remotely control your computer from the comfort of any web browser. LogMein has Free and Pro accounts, with the pro account adding more features to the service, including drag-and-drop file transfer, file sync, and meeting tools.

There are a number of other remote access solutions, there Remote Desktop Connection in WIndows and uNVC for example.

OR upload your Powerpoint to a hosting services, available for download by delegates, students or not, its your choice, but always there as a backup. Slideshare and Authorstream (which I blogged about previously). Or use an online Office solution.

There are other options, but thats more than enough.

The project has been developed, in association with LEAs and Teacher Unions, to support teachers and educators in addressing their ever-increasing workloads by funding the provision of 750,000 USB memory sticks across the UK. Simply register and they will send you your FREE USB memory stick preloaded with a range of educational resources. The project launches at BETT 14-17 January 2009.

http://www.memory4teachers.co.uk/index.asp

We then looked around the exhibition, I liked one or two products, in particular nComputing who were offer low-cost virtualization software /hardware to tap into the unused capacity of the classroom PCs and share it with other users. 1 PC acting as a host to 6 PCs.

Benefits are; creating desktop space, dramatically reducing your e-waste and recycling costs and a reduction in power, well your are only running 1 PC for 6 access points. All PCs are recognised by any classroom management software you have running.

Another interesting product was Vivo Miles. Vivo Miles is a very comprehensive rewards and sanction system and very current in its design and application. Plugins allow it to integrate with websites and they have plans to marry up with the VLE providers. A powerful way to raise standards but also for students understand and achieve economic well-being. Its a schools club card – complete with its own hole in the wall. What I will note, is that its visual presentation is excellent, a very web vogue, social networked, internet market place user interface will, IMHO engage.

Next Sir Michael Barber, again a very impressive public speaker offering an aliens aural feedback from a recent Earth inspection – the written feedback to be posted later. Outlining where perhaps organisational failing are impacting on education. Concluding with E(K+T+L) an the equation / solution left by the aliens to prompt thinking. That Knowledge plus Thinking plus Leadership underpinned by ethics is required for effective leadership, and from his tone, not only in education.

Charles Leadbeater - web thinker / innovator highlighted the shareability of the web, and that term again, web 2.0. For the SSAT conference, I felt that the pitch was excellent, as web innovators / enthusiasts often engulf their audience with techno speak / babble. I wise decision considering the next keynote information….

‘The web allows them (Charles Leadbeater referred mainly to learners, which this context inferred students, but I am confident his view is broader than that) not just to publish but to share and connect, to collaborate and when the conditions are right, to create, together, at scale.’

His analogy of big organisations as boulders, including schools, being hard to move was coupled with the new technologies as pebbles more fluid and flexible, slowly swamping the cumbersome boulders. I enjoyed the analogy of User Generate Content (UGC) as pebbles, but I think the boulders are a little further up the beach than he perhaps presented, but that would have been a far less impressive communique. And yes, perhaps Google and little brother Youtube are the best pebble examples in the mainstream. In fairness he touched on others, World of Warcarft, Sims, Flickr.

(What would a seminar follow up with? Twitter? Social BookMarking)

Should any educator stumble upon the post FREE animation tools and some great examples! Now stickman may look simple, but our Year 7s and 8s spend hours creating and share it and there is a huge back channel / community sharing ideas.

Finally, the impact of generations and eras on leaders and leadership and Dr Graeme Codrington keynote. Although not obvious to me as an aspiring young teacher, this is very important. Ironically, it was as important to the seasoned professionals in the audience. It would appear, few of the professionals in the audience, either young or seasoned, had fully considered the imapct of their default settings on colleagues they worked with. Something to reflect upon. Dr Graeme Codrington has promised that these slides will be available but a short cut to the download section of his site.

So, another very good day. Now for the informal learning.

What does it cost? FREE as part fo the Google Earth tool. Another great amazing tool.

How it could be used for teaching?

I recently read about hi tech 3D immersive education at a school costing serious investment and although not fully immersive, it is free. This product allows you to;

• Fly into Rome as it looked in 320 A.D.
• Tour the interior of famous buildings.
• Visit the sites in 3D such as the Roman Forum, Colosseum and the Forum of Julius Caesar.
• Learn about how the Romans lived.

Dont expect me to tell you how to use this tool, be imaginative, but Google also announced a curriculum competition in conjunction with the release. Educators who create the most interesting curricula based lessons around the Ancient Rome 3D layer will receive a range of goodies. Maybe HIAS can offer goodies for the best shared resources? Would that encourage educators to share?

Watch the Youtube press video here.

How it could be used for learning?

Not having spent that long in ancient Rome, you could certainly set an orienteering task, a Roman treasure hunt. As the competition gaunlet has been laid down, can we put forward an offering to compete with our Amerian counterparts? Post your ideas here of contribute to the Google Doc.

I hope to send out the invites real soon.

So let me highlight a very different approach. I searched the internet and arrived at www.pchelpforum.com. I created an account, read a few posts and followed their instructions on posting to the PC Security forum. I join and first spoke to ‘Upgrader’ and ‘Jellybean.’ Jellybean was professional and welcoming, he was not dismissive of my lack of computer literacy, but still reinforced the neccessity to fulfil the requires outlined on the site before posting to the forum. He explained that once the information had been posted, their PC security would look at it for me.I asked how this service was supoprted to which he outlined the voluntary, supoprtive nature of the site. I was impressed. We talked about security, about PC Guard, about replacing PC Guard, and one or two issues that might be causing the problem. As I said, welcolming but professional.

Shortly after I have posted, maybe the next day, ‘Pancake,’ left me more instructions to follow and a list of further notes to post. I dutifully completed these, re-posted. Pancake gave me the thumbs up and so ar so good. As recommended, I ran AVG security, Malwarebytes and I am back up and running two days laters. So three months with Virgin vs 3 days with PChelpforum, you chose. So here is my recommendation of thanks. Did I mention there is a whole host of extra support there too?