I am sitting with the creator of a new and exciting blog entitled LetsGoLoolala It promises to be an entertaining blog with an invitation to share your tales of travel,
The eTwinning Conference is in full swing in Seville. Great atmosphere! The hotel is alive with 500 delegates form all over Europe. Unfortunately, many of us are trying to access the WiFi service at the same time with the result that no one can get on and those that do are crawling along. Other than that everything is rosey.
The CESI Meet event will be held on the Friday night of Conference 2010.
It will run from 7.00Â to 9.00 p.m. with refreshments afterwards.
Presentations will range from School Cloud Computing to Virtual Classrooms to Creative & Collaborative Pedagogies.
Of course no CESI Meet would be complete without a few friendly competitions and spot prizes. So, rest
assured – there will be plenty of craic on the night!
CESI Meet – 7.00 – 9.00 p.m., Friday 5th February 2010,
The Heritage Hotel, Portlaoise, County Laois.
I have just finished reading eSchool Newsand the main article is about a new projector which will turn any wall into an interactive surface. Epson and Boxlight are pitching their “ potentially game-changing technology” at the education market. “ The development means schools no longer have to buy separate hardware to enjoy the benefits of IWBs, whose interactive surface and ability to engage students have made them quite popular in classrooms.”
It sounds like Epson and Boxlight have fine tuned a Mimo type application. It also reminds me of the butchered Wii offerings of 2008. I am sure many homemade look alikes will surface on YouTube.
The article goes on to mention that RM Education have been brought into the frame by Epson and there is a possibility that the RM Easiteach interactive whiteboard software may be bundled with the projectors or offerd at an additional cost.
It sounds very like a re-tweaked version of the Boxlight ProjectoWrite LCD Interactive Presentation Projector which featured on the CESI Dublin site in October 2008. Interesting!!
Whatever happens there is a new kid on the block. The question is whether we should hold back on the purchase of conventional projectors until an Irish price is announced.
Time flies! eTwinning has entered the 6th year of its fruitful existence and its 5th anniversary is on the horizon. Â
I enjoyed the last 5 years and Iam sure the students and teachers involved in their various projects experienced many enriching momnets and have gained insights into the cultural and pedagogical praxis of their eTwinning partners.
One of the sad facts about the progression from primary school to 2nd level, in Ireland at least, Â is that many post-primary schools do not “eTwin” until Transition Year due to timetabling restraints or lack of staff. That situation can only worsen in the present climate of cut-backs and higher pupil-teacher ratios.
eTwinning is free and should not impact on the curriculum as the eTwinning project should be designed to enhamce the subject in question. It serves as a platform for the enhancement of real-time ICT skills and offers Modern foreign Language (MFL) students the opportunity to converse with their peers in their native tongue.
The new eTwinning Portal reflects the growth of the “partnership site” over the last 5 years.
Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology
At TEDIndia, Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data — including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper “laptop.” In an onstage Q&A, Mistry says he’ll open-source the software behind SixthSense, to open its possibilities to all.
Pranav Mistry is the inventor of SixthSense, a wearable device that enables new interactions between the real world and the world of data.
I have just read Simon Lewis’s atricleHeads in the Cloud on his blog Anseo.net and he has managed to rekindle my interest in Google Apps as a viable administrative resource suite for schools. Simon is the tech-savvy principal (headteacher) of a primary school located in County Carlow, Ireland. The “heads” referred to in the article’s title refer to teachers in general and not only to Heads.
The most important consideration to take on board when embarking on any all encompassing venture like Google Apps is the support or the lack of same from the staff. Such an endeavour should not be bourne by one or two members of the staff. Unfortunately, many staff members view the provision and maintenance of IT infrastructure as a labour of love and leave it to the few. Google Apps flourishes when everybody participates.
Of course when everyone does get hooked and the archived content begins to accumuluate the ogre of storage charges will raise its ugly head. There is also the possibility that throughput and download tiered costings could become a reality sooner than later. Bloggers, podcasters and anyone who uses a multimedia storage and retrieval service is already a cloud user. Wordpress, YouTube, Flickr, to name but a few.
A further concern in the case of Google Apps is the host company’s constant crawling and trawling of content for commercial opportunities and market research purposes. No system is invulnerable! Powerful regimes and the opportunity to gain a significant market share are already calling the shots in relation to content and privacy issues. One only has to look at China as a case in point. Whos is to say that heretofore private content may be not no private after all.
I digress! Simon’s comprehensive article covers everyday school admin chores tackled by cloud computing solutions. The “electronic roll book” should prove to be a boon for hassled teachers at the end of term. The Learning Support Booster Sessions sounds great but I have not worked out the timetabling / logistics yet.
The article is very positive and practical in nature. It is also one of the most concise and empowering pieces I have seen in a long time.
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