SLUA

Happy Saint Patrick’s Day

podmaster — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 23:01:18 +0000

Happy Saint Patrick‘s Day

Feb29th Let’s Blog

podmaster — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 23:01:53 +0000

It is a minute past midnight on February 29th 2012 in Dublin, Ireland. The leap day is well on its way elsewhere as the day began in Tonga several hours ago.

Do not put in the www before the feb29th.net or you will sent to an incorrect page on the site. Click on the logo above or follow any of the links on this post.

Feb29th.net is a global blogging project designed for all age groups and continents. It is now open for posts for today only. It is hoped that “this blog will capture posts from all over our planet on this rare day until midnight in the Western Pacific. The result will not only be a celebration of technology, but a celebration of audience and purpose, who will be the youngest author? Who will be the oldest? Which country will top the most posts? Will there be any marriage proposals?”

I will blog on the Feb29th.net site later on today as many of my teaching friends and colleagues are retiring today.

XBMC 11 Eden: RC1

podmaster — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 08:57:37 +0000

I just got my belated birthday present today in the form of the XBMC Eden Release Candidate 1. It literally gets better everyday The source code on this media centre is updated on a nightly basis. It even works on Rasberry Pi – check out the video in my Vodpod collection in the left sidebar.

Grouply to be or not to be

podmaster — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 13:59:09 +0000

I was shocked to find that the Educational Podcasters web presence http://educationalpodcasters.grouply.com on Grouply.com had ceased to exist without warning today

It was all working perfectly yesterday when I offered my few cents worth on the Berhinger XENYX X1222USB faulty special effects generator query.

Now nothing is visible or accessible. Apparently, all the postings, images and links seem to be lost for good. I was offered was a link to a zipped file of the membership database and that’s it.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who viewed the site. A special thanks to the 51 members who took the trouble to join the group and my deepest gratitude goes to the 14 regular contibutors who offered interesting shoe string solutions to everyday recording problems in a classroom and educational environment.

Facebook Awards Digital Citizenship Research Grant to European Schoolnet

podmaster — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:08:57 +0000

It is the second day of the second week of the second month and that can only mean one thing . . . it is Safer Internet Day (SID). Don’t forget to check out Webwise for great activities for primary and postprimary students.

But much to my surprise, my daily trawl of Facebook under the following searches: etwinning, insafe, european schoolnet and comenius, pulled up this nugget of information a few minutes ago. There is no mention of it on Twitter, the eTwinning portal or European Schoolnet. Maybe they don’t know yet!? Congratulations to everyone involved! Full press release on the following link.

Facebook Awards Digital Citizenship Research Grant to European Schoolnet.

“We are happy to report that one grant will be awarded in Europe, to European Schoolnet (EUN) for the SMILE (Social Media in Learning and Education) Action Research project. EUN’s mission is to transform teaching and learning through the integration of innovative technology and SMILE will be an important part of that work.”

” SMILE will focus on teachers who are eager to experiment with new learning scenarios and share their experiences with others in their schools, regions, and countries. The research aims to prove that active use of social media in class can improve teachers’ and pupils’ ability to address with online safety incidents such as bullying.”

I couldn’t find a link to SMILE so I presume it is in the pipeline. Once again – Well Done to everyone in EUN and a big thank you to Facebook.

Web Goes On Strike Today

podmaster — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 23:00:16 +0000

“When ideas are blocked, information deleted, conversations stifled and people constrained in their choices, the Internet is diminished for all of us.. There isn’t an economic Internet and a social Internet and a political Internet. There’s just the Internet.”

- Hillary Clinton (United States Secretary of State)

Blog Action Day – Let’s Talk About FOOD

podmaster — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 21:41:55 +0000

The TV channels are littered with food and cookery programmes. Despite the fact that obesity is reaching crisis proportions in the western world. Food ingredients are featured whose environmental footprints are unsustainable.

On the flip side, climate change has resulted in flooding and droughts on a global scale. The poor and vunerable both in the west and developing countries are the first to be compromised. The Euro crisis, the fuel crisis and the world water shortage are all impacting on the cost and availability of staple food items. The abandonment of a low paying agricultural life style in favour of a congested city life has led to a change in eating habits, further demands on urban resources and an exponential growth in urban populations worldwide. The sight of children and adults begging and scavenging for food in bins and at city dumps are testomtomy to a society failing to cope with a food shortage .

As recent history has shown, market forces respond to currency depreciation, crop failures, flooding and droughts. They don’t care about regional catastrophes. The overnight increase in market price reflects the products high supply and demand status and the ability of the better-off sector to pay the asking price.

Look at Dublin, the capital of the Republic of Ireland. Plans are afoot to pipe water from the River Shannon all the way across the country to the city as the reservoirs cannot cope with the increased demand. Vegetables are been imported while market gardeners are forced out of business. The sugar industry was closed down and now we pay through the nose for impoted sugar.

The World Trade Organisation and the European Union have a lot to answer for.

NextGen Slideshow Fixed

podmaster — Sat, 17 Sep 2011 19:53:34 +0000

I uninstalled the NextGEN plugin and reinstalled it but my gallery links were demolished. I will re-import them to set up a new link table - when I have time. Thanks again for the heads up.

Post Revamp

podmaster — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 11:59:30 +0000

No I am not giving up on blogging or podcasting!

On the contrary, I have 96 private postings from the last 14 months on various topics which I shared with 43 WordPress trainees. 29 of these WordPress enthusiasts are from the eTwinning community and the remainder are teachers from around Ireland and some PC users who attended last year’s Digital Bootcamp organised by the INTo and delivered by Apple last summer in Alexander College, Dublin.

I will tidy them up, especially the posts with links and publish them (publicly) over the next few weeks.

Thanks for the “Back 2 School” emails.

House Keeping Again

podmaster — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 10:06:19 +0000

Thank you one and all for pointed out that the NextGen FlashView Widget had died.

It was fine last night (Monday) as I was showing Tom Roche picture slideshow from the 2010 Seville eTwinning on my Android. I have been clearing out a lot of clutter and dumping deactivated plugins. I may have thrown out the baby with the bath water. I will check it out over the coming week. Thanks again.