“One Netbook Per Child” Project Now Started January 9, 2009
Posted by Gilmour David in : eduBuzz, infrastructure, projects , 14comments
Now that netbooks offer low cost, portable computing - and will only get better - how can schools best exploit them?
That’s the question behind a new East Lothian project starting this term. There’s been a lot of discussion of the potential of these technologies over the last year or so and we now aim to make a start on learning about the real-world possibilities. We’re deliberately trying to push this as far as we can beyond what we already do to improve the chances of identifying new benefits - and force ourselves to learn our way past any barriers that emerge. That’s why the project willinclude, for example:
- a focus on web-based collaborative working, using services such as Glow and edubuzz
- issuing netbooks on a one-to-one basis to every child (92) in the Primary 5 cohort
- giving children ownership of the devices, and allowing them to take them home
- encouraging connection to home or other wi-fi networks, such as in libraries, where possible
- encouraging multimedia use through provision of a few Flip video cameras in each class
We have been fortunate to have full support from our IT department for the project. The arrangement is that they will enable wireless network access for the netbooks in the school, but cannot offer software support - if any configuration problems arise, the devices will simply be restored to factory settings by the teacher.
Today Elizabeth Cowan and I met with the Primary 5 teachers at Kings Meadow Primary who will be involved to make a start on planning. The day included an intro to Glow from Ian Hoffman of the Glow team which included useful examples of work going on elsewhere.
Blog directly from Flickr to your edubuzz blog September 28, 2008
Posted by Gilmour David in : eduBuzz , add a commentIf you - or your school - has an account with the Flickr photo-sharing website, you might want to set it up so that you can post photos directly from Flickr to your edubuzz blog(s).
In Flickr, go to Your Account, Extending Flickr, then add the blog to Your Blogs. There’s a test, which will post a message like this to check it’s working:
This is a test post from 
, a fancy photo sharing thing.
TeachMeet08: Live Flashmeeting Link-Up with Islay September 25, 2008
Posted by Gilmour David in : eduBuzz , add a commentFor Islayian’s benefit, and anyone else interested, this is a section of video just to show what his link-up looked like to those of us attending TeachMeet08 at the Scottish Learning Festival 2008.
This shows the sort of thing that Glow Meet enables within schools, where, for example, a visiting speaker in one school could be live linked to other sites.
If you’re interested, the original FlashMeeting can be replayed on-line, and Nicholas Hughes, who attended via FlashMeeting, has blogged a good summary of the presentations.
Satirists Attack “Bottomless Abyss Of Formal Schooling” August 23, 2008
Posted by David Gilmour in : eduBuzz , add a commentHave we reached a new milestone with traditional school practices becoming the target of satirists?
The concept of wasting a majority of daylight hours sitting still in a classroom when he could be riding his bicycle, playing in his tree fort, or lying in the grass looking at bugs—especially considering that he had already wasted two years of his life attending preschool and kindergarten—seemed impossibly unfair to Bolduc. Moreover, sources said, he had no idea how much worse the inescapable truth will turn out to be.
eduBuzz.org Gets Easier to Use July 29, 2008
Posted by David Gilmour in : WPMU, eduBuzz , 3comments
It’s become even easier to get publishing on eduBuzz.org following today’s upgrade to Version 1.5.1 of its WordPress MU software.
The interface redesign is the result of a lot of work by the WordPress community, including extensive usability testing. First impressions are good, but we’ll need to do some checks to see how students and staff react. Some differences bloggers will notice:
- a more up-to-date appearance
- a new arrangement for adding media
- the confusing term “slug” has been replaced with Permalink:…/ Edit
- a full-screen editor facility has been added
- “Timestamp” has been replaced with Publish immediately…/Edit
Testing is still under way, but so far at least things seem to be going well. An existing bug with creation of new blogs, which was leading to login difficulties under Internet Explorer, has also been fixed with this update, although a few existing faulty blogs still need to be fixed.
Update: There’s an issue with inserting images in posts. I’ve encountered it under Firefox, but have found it’s working OK under Internet Explorer 7. Thought things were going too well…
eduBuzz blogs get tagging improvements May 15, 2008
Posted by Gilmour David in : eduBuzz , add a commentTags are one of the most important tools for finding information on the web. Edubuzz blogs are now much better equipped to make full use of them.
If it’s new to you, here’s an intro to tags from Wikipedia:
A tag is a (relevant) keyword or term associated with or assigned to a piece of information (a picture, a geographic map, a blog entry, a video clip etc.), thus describing the item and enabling keyword-based classification and search of information.
Tags are usually chosen informally and personally by item author/creator or by its consumer/viewers/community. Tags are typically used for resources such as computer files, web pages, digital images, and internet bookmarks (both in social bookmarking services, and in the current generation of web browsers - see Flock). For this reason, “tagging” has become associated with the Web 2.0 buzz.
If you’ve an edubuzz blog, you’ll have noticed a new “Tags” box has appeared below your editor window, and might be wondering what that’s all about. After all, you’ve always had Categories. How are tags different? If you think of Categories as being like big, clunky filing cabinet drawers you won’t go too far wrong. They’re a good thing, but you can have too many of them. It’s best if each post isn’t in too many Categories.
Tags, on the other hand, are used on a much bigger scale. A post may have lots of tags, and that’s not a problem. Tools like tag clouds make it easier to navigate them.
If you’re interested in using tags, the first thing to do is activate the Simple Tags plugin. This plugin, by Amaury BALMER, adds a host of tag-related features to take full advantage of this new capability. Have fun!
eduBuzz home page: makeover ideas? May 15, 2008
Posted by Gilmour David in : eduBuzz , 1 comment so farWhat sort of things would you like to see on the edubuzz home page?
At this week’s edubuzz Open Meeting the idea of it becoming a busy, one-stop shop providing an overview of what’s happening across East Lothian’s edubuzz community was proposed. It looks like we need to move it to something that needs minimal clicking, and provides the maximum information without the visitor having to scroll down.
What do you think?
edubuzz blogs help build East Lothian’s learning community April 24, 2008
Posted by David Gilmour in : communication, eduBuzz , 6commentsAn East Lothian teacher I met tonight mentioned how odd it seemed that, in her few years teaching here, she felt that she knew so many staff in the other authority schools, and so much of what was going on.
She’d been in a city school in a previous life, and had felt much less in touch with what was going on despite the relatively short distances between them.
She didn’t put forward any reason for this, but went on to mention how her class had been:
- using blog stats from other school’s blogs for data handling exercises
- stealing ideas from other class and school blogs to use in class
- enjoying publishing their own blog and getting comments back
She had been actively involved, too, in publishing the work of a project for others to share, and enjoyed browsing staff blogs.
Of course, this doesn’t in any way prove cause and effect, but more and more of this kind of anecdotal evidence is emerging to suggest that this spider’s web of connections between schools, classes, students and staff is gradually creating a strong sense of a single learning community.
The Top 100 Web2.0 Apps April 23, 2008
Posted by David Gilmour in : eduBuzz , add a comment
Via John Naughton, the Webware Top 100 (http://www.webware100.com/) . Webware provide a navigator to help with browsing them.
Organisations will soon be scrabbling to get people who can choose the right tools from the Web2.0 toolbox, and use them effectively. Schools that continue to churn out students who’ve been “protected” from them are going to have a lot of explaining to do…
Welcome at Do Not Call it a Blog! April 15, 2008
Posted by David Gilmour in : eduBuzz , 4commentsJust had the odd experience, while checking for WPMU news, of finding this “What if…?” post which describes a future vision that’s not a million miles from describing East Lothian’s edubuzz community.
Welcome at Do Not Call it a Blog!
What if we didn’t understand what we do in education with blogs as “blogging” but as a quick and easy way to publish online within a learning community? Or a place to feature a portfolio of students’ best work? Or a site where professors and staff track their professional and personal development? What if we understood “campus blogging initiatives” as a community publishing platform to share, learn, and integrate various resources from around the Web into a more specific community?
