Portable Life! March 12, 2007
Posted by Mark Tennant in : Computing , add a comment
The idea of portable apps is something I have been following for a while: flash memory prices keep falling, meaning larger capacity USB flash drives are now available at cheap prices. (Amazon had a 4Gb one for £20 last week!). What all this means is that is should be possible to treat the flash drive like any disk and run applications off it. The problem of course is that most applications require settings to be installed into the windows registry, so they would only run on one machine.
I’m pleased to say that is all in the past - several technologies now allow you to install applications and their settings directly onto a USB flash drive. One of the easiest solutions comes from portableapps.com - All the software is well-known open source programs, hence they are completely free to distribute.
One of my favourites is Mozilla Sunbird - a personal information manager similar to outlook’s calendar. Full versions of openoffice, mozilla applications and even a web page editor (NVU) are available.
Web2 in Computing - CPD session 1 March 9, 2007
Posted by Mark Tennant in : Computing, Dunbar Grammar, Subject Support , 1 comment so farEast Lothian Computing teachers had their first session with Ewan McIntosh of LTS today; part of a three afternoon programme of CPD activities looking at Web2 technologies and how they can be used to enhance learning and teaching in Computing.
The session consisted of a demonstration of the best technologies Ewan has discovered during his time at LTS, covering sites such as flickr (and splashr), google docs, phixr, and jumpcut. We also had time to discuss ideas about using these in classrooms and practical problems such as bandwidth issues.
One big theme emerging was the idea of having to teach pupils how to use all these technologies safely and responsibly. I’ve been one of a number of people to raise concerns about this in the past, and it was good to hear Ewan talk about these issues and the importance of tackling this through education. I couldn’t agree more with his sentiments that we as computing teachers are best placed to do this in the curriculum, and it is surely a duty of our subject to make sure all pupils can keep themselves safe online and not abuse the technology.
Over the next couple of months (the next session is on 11th May) computing teachers have been invited to try one idea in their classrooms that uses a web2 technology. I’ll shortly be setting up a google doc, so that we can document what we are all trying out in one place!
Watch this space!
I’m alive March 9, 2007
Posted by Mark Tennant in : Uncategorized , add a commentWow - talk about a lapsed blogger! It’s been nearly 3 months since I last posted. It’s not like I’ve lacked things to say, guess I’ve just been to busy. Ah well… here goes…