An Aggregation of some scots-edu-bloggers

Recently Posted…

1. Links for 2009-11-06 [del.icio.us]
   → edu.blogs.com | 7 Nov 2009 | 8:00am GMT
   
   • Derek's Blog » UK update #1 – computers in exams
     a project involving 14 colleges in Denmark that are piloting a new system of exams where students are allowed full access to the internet during their final exams. According to the article, in the exam, students can access any site they like, even Facebook, but they cannot message each other or email anyone outside the classroom. The Swedish government are quoted as saying, “if the internet is so much a part of daily life, it should be included in the classroom and in examinations.”
   • Julian Bellamy on C4 & Creative Provocation - 38minutes
     The internet is obviously an increasingly powerful influence. But where television still just about unites, the web fragments. When social media does manage to deliver a collective experience, it’s remarkable how often it revolves around tv content. Television still has greater power than any other creative medium to influence public attitudes. And yet it is increasingly characterised by the lack of places in which mainstream audiences can engage with provocative, non-conformist ideas. If our most universal and influential medium fails to challenge and provoke, if a fear of offending the audience begins to proscribe creative freedoms, then I believe the danger to our broader cultural life is clear. Our society will become less democratic. Less enlightened. Ultimately, less free.
   • Technology Strategy Board | Live Q&A Session | Live webcast
     As our Creative Industries Technology Strategy outlines, innovation is key to developing new business models for the digital future. In this live session we explore the key issues with our panel of experts and contribute to the debate.
   
2. Fun On Friday #48: Too Big For My Boots?
   → EdCompBlog | 6 Nov 2009 | 11:06pm GMT
   John and David have done a smashing job with EDUtalk and I honestly just posted an audio file because I thought it was a good idea. However, apparently, I won the competition. :-)
   
   I am well pleased but, as the saying goes, pride comes before a fall. Today's Fun On Friday site is therefore perfect. It will cut me down to size and stop my head becoming too inflated: Despair Inc.'s Demotivators. Just what I need.
   
   I think the Winners poster is the most appropriate. What do you think?
   
3. Links for 2009-11-05 [del.icio.us]
   → edu.blogs.com | 6 Nov 2009 | 8:00am GMT
   
   • Culture of compliance is making British TV 'bland' says Channel 4 boss - Telegraph
     A “culture of compliance” in British television is in danger of making programmes bland, according to the head of Channel 4.
   • Lesley Booth PR
   • Social Isolation and New Technology | Pew Internet & American Life Project
     This Pew Internet Personal Networks and Community survey finds that Americans are not as isolated as has been previously reported. People’s use of the mobile phone and the internet is associated with larger and more diverse discussion networks. And, when we examine people’s full personal network – their strong and weak ties – internet use in general and use of social networking services such as Facebook in particular are associated with more diverse social networks.
   • Cinque Terre - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
     The Cinque Terre is a rugged portion of coast on the Italian Riviera. It is in the Liguria region of Italy, to the west of the city of La Spezia. "The Five Lands" comprises five villages: Monterosso al Mare, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola, and Riomaggiore.
   • Excellent HTML Newsletter Templates – Best Of | Tools
   • Robbing Students of Recognition | Ideas and Thoughts from an EdTech
     While this confidence and self esteem can be and should be established offline even more so that online, we do a huge disservice to our students when in efforts to protect them we inadvertently rob them of the opportunity to be recognized.
   • Download Keynote Tweet - A simple Applescript Application for automatically sending tweets from Apple Keynote during a presentation - Softpedia
     Keynote Tweet is a free, simple to use and open source script that provides the capacity to participate in the backchannel by combining Twitter with Apple Keynote. All you have to do is add text wrapped in [twitter] and [/twitter] tags in the presenter notes section of a slide. When that slide comes up in the presentation the script grabs that text and sends it to Twitter on your behalf. Out of the box it will ask you if you want to add any #hashtags or @mentions to all the tweets (e.g. for a conference #hashtag), and will watch your presenter notes for [twitter]twitter this[/twitter], ignoring the rest of your notes, while in presentation mode only.
   • Conflict History
     Browse a timeline of war and conflict around the world
   • PrairieSouth Staff Sites
     Canada does eduBuzz
   • New not improved | David Airey, graphic designer
     Funny: Just because something is new, doesn’t mean it’s better.
   
4. rssCloud Update
   → WordPress.com News | 5 Nov 2009 | 4:19pm GMT
   Two months ago we turned on support for rssCloud on WordPress.com. Today we’re announcing some improvements. Initially rssCloud limited update pings to the IP address that made the notification request. To get around this a domain parameter was suggested, that included a challenge mechanism to verify the notification request. WordPress.com now supports the [...]
5. Links for 2009-11-04 [del.icio.us]
   → edu.blogs.com | 5 Nov 2009 | 8:00am GMT
   
   • The New York Times - Innovation Portfolio
     Just beautifully presented
   • Andy Duncan: Next on Channel 4 - Telegraph
     While pundits posit a future of 3D TV and mood-based programme selection, Duncan points out that what technology is capable of and what consumers actually want to do are two very separate things. He thinks people will continue to watch an average of 25 hours of TV a week, but it will be through a mixture of broadband-enabled TVs and PCs. Interestingly, he says the more “tecchy people” who use VOD service regularly, watch even more TV than the average person – so the myth of online killing TV really could be a myth.
   • swissmiss | FingerFood Ring
     Haven’t we all been wondering at one point in our lives how to balance your pig-in-a-blanket with your Dom Perignon? Fortunately, Fred&Friends has got the answer – charming little plates with rings that fit right on your finger. Now you can balance your glass and your hors d’ouevres, and look positively in control the whole time. Genius! One size fits most, ten reusable plates per handy peggable pack.
   • Derek's Blog » How times change…
     2002: The question is, should we uncritically encourage students to participate in a global knowledge economy where at best a small minority only of the world’s population has access to the Internet?
   • BBC’s Canvas Doesn’t Have A Monopoly On Standardising IPTV VOD | paidContent:UK
     Various worldwide competitors to the settop box Canvas chip
   • BBC NEWS | Technology | The future of TV lies on the net
     Canvas, however, is touted as a platform, or a standard, allowing other broadcasters to jump on board. This may be the key difference. In simpler terms, where Kangaroo acted as a shop with selected products, Canvas will represent a shopping centre, with other outlets able to get involved.
   • Inside Procter & Gamble's New Values-Based Strategy - Rosabeth Moss Kanter - HarvardBusiness.org
     Values before profit, and the profit follows
   • Innovation Killers: How Financial Tools Destroy Your Capacity to Do New Things - HBR.org
     The misguided application of three financial-analysis tools as an accomplice in the conspiracy against successful innovation. We allege crimes against these suspects: • The use of discounted cash flow (DCF) and net present value (NPV) to evaluate investment opportunities causes managers to underestimate the real returns and benefits of proceeding with investments in innovation. • The way that fixed and sunk costs are considered when evaluating future investments confers an unfair advantage on challengers and shackles incumbent firms that attempt to respond to an attack. • The emphasis on earnings per share as the primary driver of share price and hence of shareholder value creation, diverts resources away from investments whose payoff lies beyond the immediate horizon. These are not bad tools and concepts, we hasten to add. But the way they are commonly wielded in evaluating investments creates a systematic bias against innovation.
   • Pixar's Collective Genius - HBR Editors' Blog - Harvard Business Review
     Short article and interesting podcast insight into how Pixar make great ideas become nine hits in a row: [excerpt]: Ed and his fellow executives give directors tremendous authority. At other studios, corporate executives micromanage by keeping tight control over production budgets and inserting themselves into creative decisions. Not at Pixar. Senior management sets budgetary and timeline boundaries for a production and then leave the director and his team alone.
   • Swedish government promises superfast broadband to all
     The Swedish government is following in the footsteps of the Finns (well almost), as their IT-ministry is now promising that 90 percent of all Swedish homes will have access to a 100 mbit/s broadband connection before 2020.
   • The Price of Money: Say no, no, no – till your tongue bleeds
     A liquidation preference if you are not aware is the means by which the order of payback is determined at the point of a liquidity event (ie when folks might get their money like going public, or selling the business etc). Now naively you might think that if a VC bought 30% of the company then, when the company sells, they should get 30% of the money. Well, maybe. Let’s use an example. If the VC invested 300,000 for 30% then the value of the company just prior to his investment was £700,000 (”the pre-money value”) and it was worth £1,000,000 (”the post-money”) just after the investment. Thus £300,000 neatly equals 30%. But let’s say that for unknown reasons the company is sold for £500,000. Then the VC get 30% of 500,000 or £150,000. The founder who hasn’t put in any money walks away £350,000 richer and the VC walks away £150,000 poorer. Not good.
   • Seth Godin: Boxed Set
     Lovely example of fun copy, and making the quite rare seem even more so: *Plus $10 Shipping and Handling. Domestic shipping by UPS ground. International shipping by US post. Please allow 6 weeks for delivery if you're quite far away. One per customer, we'll take this page down when all the boxes are sold out. Your mileage may vary, books are in English, careful of sharp edges, not for children under three years old, do not expose to open flame or read while driving. Void where prohibited (including some stuck corporations). Thanks for all the fish and please support your local bookstore this holiday season.
   • Twitter / Kirstin Butler: Ooh, Central Station, a ne ...
     Ooh, Central Station, a new European art, design, and film community http://www.thisiscentralsta...
   • Crime mapping for English and Welsh police forces - CrimeMapper
     Welcome to CrimeMapper. This website provides you with information on crime and antisocial behaviour in your neighbourhood, wherever you live in England or Wales. It also enables you to access and compare the latest information on a range of crime types with other neighbourhoods. You will also be able to access the details of your local neighbourhood policing team, policing priorities and information on the policing pledge.
   
6. October Wrap-Up
   → WordPress.com News | 4 Nov 2009 | 4:37pm GMT
   October was another busy and productive month. We released Publicize for Yahoo! Updates and Twitter, and upgraded the Theme Viewer for WordPress.com. Coming out of the Automattic team meetup in Québec City, we launched new image templates and mobile themes, and open sourced our After the Deadline proofreader. We also shipped WordPress 2 for iPhone [...]
7. An EdCompCast for EduTalk
   → EdCompBlog | 4 Nov 2009 | 4:12pm GMT
   I happened to notice a Twitter message on Monday announcing the arrival of EDUtalk. After the success of SLFtalk, John Johnston and David Noble decided to set up a more general site to provide a location for educators to post audio material to the web. They were aware that not everyone has the skills or the time to create a regular podcast, so they aimed to make it as easy as possible to get audio material on the web.
   
   
   
   

   The Googly eyePod
   Originally uploaded by DavidDMuir
   EDUtalk is simply a website which gives as many ways as is sensibly possible to post audio. You can email directly to the site with an audio file as an attachment, or you can use one of a number of existing phone/audio blogging tools and EDUtalk will pick up your post and, after a moderation stage, post it on EDUtalk too.
   
   As stated above, if you can create an mp3 on your computer, you will be able to email it to EDUtalk. Other ways to post to EDUtalk currently supported are:
   
   • Gabcast
   • AudioBoo
   • iPhone Voice Memos
   • Skype and Pamela
   • MP3 player with built-in microphone
   • iPadio for EDUtalk
   During the launch FlashMeeting, David and John were asked why would someone, who could already post audio material on their own site, want to post to EDUtalk? Two possible reasons were given. The first reason was that it would increase the audience for the audio, which is probably true. However, I found the second reason more compelling: it gives a location where audio related to an event can be aggregated. Certainly, one of the reasons SLFtalk was such a success was that you could go to one location and access audio material from a range of contributors - much easier than chasing round umpteen blogs.
   
   In theory, I have been meaning to produce more EdCompCasts for a while now but it's been about a year since I published the last one. I have material recorded that I meant to turn into a podcast but never got around to it. The launch of EDUtalk seemed like a good excuse to give it another go and, in the spirit of EDUtalk mobile audio blogging, do something quick and simple.
   
   As it happened, I was going to talk to some Computing Science students at Glasgow University the day after EDUtalk's launch, so I decided to record some of their questions. Today I did a minimal edit, put a top and tail on it and saved it as an mp3 file. Here it is here as an EdCompCast:
   
   EdCompCast09Eps01 - Questions from Computing Students
   
   In a few moments I'll email it to EDUtalk and I'll update this post as soon as I see it's been moderated.
   
   Since it's been a while since the last EdCompCast, I thought I'd remind you how to subscribe to the podcast. I've added a button to the sidebar (second from the bottom, below the Subscribe To section which is intended for the text posts on this blog). You should see a link to iTunes that will add EdCompCast as a subscription for you.
   
   Remember to answer the students' questions as well as letting me know what you think of EDUtalk.
   
   Update: The audio from this post is now live on EDUtalk.
   
8. Links for 2009-11-03 [del.icio.us]
   → edu.blogs.com | 4 Nov 2009 | 8:00am GMT
   
   • The Complete Guide to Google Wave: How to Use Google Wave
   
9. Proofreading support for the HTML Editor
   → WordPress.com News | 3 Nov 2009 | 7:33pm GMT
   When we announced After the Deadline, the proofreading tool used on WordPress.com, many of you asked us to add proofreading to the HTML Editor. The HTML Editor lets you edit the HTML in your posts and pages directly. It is also very lightweight. We’ve been hard at work and now you can check your spelling, style, and [...]
10. Catch up and quick up-date...
    → OllieBray.com | 3 Nov 2009 | 3:37pm GMT
    The last seven days has been a bit crazy. I’ve been all over Scotland speaking to teachers and school leaders. Events in the last seven days have included: Literacy, ICT and CfE at Drummond Community High School Edinburgh Games Based...
11. Shocker! | Cable TV News and Public Sector Leaders: They're The Same!
    → edu.blogs.com | 3 Nov 2009 | 2:52pm GMT
    I love watching Jon Stewart's continued picking apart of the bias in cable TV news, notably in Fox (the YouTube clips should suffice as explanation). Now, Seth talks about how Cable TV News' attitudes can be seen in any board...
12. The Big Cloud Re-Think?
    → John Connell: The Blog | 2 Nov 2009 | 7:46pm GMT
    Has the “…big, all-purpose operating system…” had its day? Instead, in the age of the Cloud, we should be building “…lean just enough systems software…”. That is the view of James Urquhart, Cisco’s cloud computing expert, expressed in one of a series of five blog posts entitled Cloud computing and the big rethink. As ever, James offers [...]
13. Free Movies Online
    → John Connell: The Blog | 2 Nov 2009 | 2:30pm GMT
    The Open Culture blog has posted a list of 20 sites that offer free access to a wide range of different kinds of films, from classics to feature films to documentaries, and much more. Classic Cinema Online, the Australian Screen Archive, Europa Film Treasures (which includes a link to the Scottish Screen Archive)….the list goes on. Technorati [...]
14. The Drug that David Nutt Did Not Mention
    → John Connell: The Blog | 31 Oct 2009 | 5:48pm GMT
    Professor David Nutt was, of course, only partly correct in his advice to the current Government crop of scientific naïfs – he forgot to mention one other powerful narcotic that must come somewhere close to the top of the list of the most dangerous. The missing drug is political power, too much or prolonged use of [...]
15. Fun On Friday #47: But Is It Art?
    → EdCompBlog | 31 Oct 2009 | 12:40am GMT
    Daughter Number 2 brought this one to my attention: We Feel Fine. The site's tagline is: "An exploration of human emotion, in six movements" - which is at least intriguing if not downright interesting.
    
    
    
    

    Big Heart of Art - 1000 Visual Mashups
    Originally uploaded by qthomasbower (away - ill)
    I'll quote a fairly large chunk from the site's Mission statement, however, you really have to see it, and play with it, yourself to get an idea of what it is all about:
    

    Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world's newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases "I feel" and "I am feeling". When it finds such a phrase, it records the full sentence, up to the period, and identifies the "feeling" expressed in that sentence (e.g. sad, happy, depressed, etc.)...

    The result is a database of several million human feelings, increasing by 15,000 - 20,000 new feelings per day. Using a series of playful interfaces, the feelings can be searched and sorted across a number of demographic slices, offering responses to specific questions...

    If you haven't done so already, go to the We Feel Fine site, open it, and explore!
    

    Fascinating and mesmerising... but is it art? I think probably yes. What do you think?
    

    
16. Learning for Life in the 21st Century
    → John Connell: The Blog | 30 Oct 2009 | 9:22pm GMT
    ….to the little girl in Santo Domingo, whose eyes will forever remind me that “a mind is a terrible thing to waste.” May you, and the millions like you, find the dignity, happiness, and serenity you deserve, through the transformational power of education. This powerful and personal memory ends Charles Fadel’s dedication of the book he has [...]
17. Glow gets on its bike in the Highlands
    → John Connell: The Blog | 30 Oct 2009 | 3:43pm GMT
    Brilliant, brave and funny introduction to a Glow video created for schools in the Mallaig area of Highland Council – thanks to Jim Henderson for the link! Technorati Tags: highland council, mallaig, glow, jim henderson
18. BEd, Handheld Learning and Frozen Laptops
    → EdCompBlog | 29 Oct 2009 | 7:27am GMT
    Today I intended to talk to the BEd 4 group about handheld learning. I was talking mostly about mobile phones but touched on Nintendo DS, iPhones and a few other bits and pieces as well. Unfortunately, the session started badly and went downhill from there! The ultimate fail happened when my laptop froze completely because the hard disc was full.
    
    I said I'd try to note down a few of the things I talked about (or meant to talk about) and pass them on.
    
    For information about Nintendo DS and handheld gaming, I of course referred them to Derek Robertson, the Consolarium as well as his Brain Training research and Nintendogs activities. I also talked about a couple of mobile phone based games that I like: Myst and Guitar Hero. For more information on Myst in education, have a look at the stuff Tim Rylands did and for the Guitar Hero, see the Guitar Hero @ MSG page.
    
    I also talked about mobile blogging - or moblogging. I referred to some commercial tools but tried to emphasise how much could be done free (or next to no cost) with a moblog - see for example the PGDE(P) moblog as well as do it yourself solutions with Twitter and TwitPic.
    
    I also spent a bit of time talking about how mobiles could be used as Interactive Voting Systems and demonstrated Poll Everywhere (with the students voting via Twitter) but should also have mentioned SMSPoll, Powerpoint Twitter Tools and TwEVS.
    
    
    
    
    
    I also did a quick demonstration of QR Codes and described how you could use a QR Code generator to make codes for classroom posters, homework sheets and letters to parents. With the right software on your phone (I use i-nigma) you can use its camera to take a picture of the code to connect to an associated website. For example, the above code will take you to my Delicious page.
    
    Towards the end of the session, I sent the students out on a "field trip". They were to find a janitor and send his or her name back by texting a message to Twitter from their mobile phones. I didn't spend long enough explaining the exercise so it didn't quite go to plan but we got a few messages before the end of the class.
    
    Finally, some reading. For more details on mobile gaming, see TeachMeet08@SLF: Mobile Games and for advice on how to build a good personal learning network on Twitter, see Nine great reasons why teachers should use Twitter and Seven Ways to Find Teachers on Twitter.
    
    So have I missed anything? What do you think the key aspects of handheld learning are?
    
19. Microsoft Peer Coaching
    → OllieBray.com | 28 Oct 2009 | 7:00am GMT
    Last week I took part in the Microsoft UK Peer Coaching course led by Stuart Ball and Walter Patterson. It was good to take part in some CPD over a couple of days and have the opportunity to meet some...
20. Digital Games in Schools: a handbook for teachers
    → OllieBray.com | 26 Oct 2009 | 7:00am GMT
    European Schoolnet has recently undertaking a major study sponsored by the Interactive Software Federation of Europe on the use of games in schools in Europe. The study included the use of computer games and any online games that run on...
21. Sand drawing used to give WWII History Lesson
    → OllieBray.com | 25 Oct 2009 | 5:00pm GMT
    Kseniya Simonova is a Ukrainian artist who just won Ukraine's version of "Britain's Got Talent" in August 2009. She uses a giant light box, dramatic music, imagination and "sand painting" skills to interpret Germany's invasion and occupation of Ukraine during...
22. School Computers – A Scarce Resource
    → Questions and Reflections | 25 Oct 2009 | 4:05pm GMT
    Once again, this time on twitter, there has been a flutter around the subject of school computers.  In most Scottish schools the overwhelming majority of computers are concentrated in three departments and while as a computing teacher I used to enjoy having 20 computers in my room, with the increase in ICT in schools, there [...]
23. Make Life Flow
    → Gordon's Ramblings | 25 Oct 2009 | 3:19pm GMT
    Today is our harvest thanksgiving at church. This year we are focussing on a Tear Fund project to improve clean water and sanitation for some of the poorest people in the world.
    
    A quote from the Tear Fund "Make Life Flow" website:
    

    Tearfund's partners in the Ugandan village of Kigaze are working hard to bring extraordinary changes to the lives of people like 13-year-old Stidia. Every day, Stidia walks down a steep and dangerous mountain path to collect water from a spring. Often intimidated and beaten by older boys, her daily trek is overshadowed by fear and takes so long that she's often late for school. Without proper water and sanitation, all areas of life start to suffer.

    If you are interested in the project then watch this video :
    
    
    
    Or have a look at this video by Tim Vine:
    
    
    
    You can make a donation by clicking here.
    
24. Installing Windows 7
    → Gordon's Ramblings | 25 Oct 2009 | 3:04pm GMT
    This was an interesting exercise by way of comparison with my recent installation of Ubuntu on my laptop. We ordered Windows 7 to replace XP on the desktop I am sitting using to write the blog. It is the main family computer so has tons of videos, photos and music as well as a wide range of software installed on it. We went for the downloadable version as it was a bit cheaper. It didn't take long to download but took a fair wee while to expand ready to do the installation itself. The biggest chunk of time, however, was on the running of Easy Transfer to copy the files and settings from the machine so that we didn't lose the email account settings, and all of that sort of stuff. If I had thought about it a bit more thoroughly I would not have allowsed Easy Transfer to copy all the files. I do have backups after all.You will see from this screenshot that Easy Transfer reckoned on over eight hours to create the backup file of about 130G. It took longer than that! We went out for the day and came back and it was still chuntering away. It did eventually finish and the actual installation of Windows 7 was pretty quick and straight forward. The thing that puzzled me was that it didn't actually clear out all the things that Easy Transfer had backed up so there wasn't enough room on the disk to allow Easy Transfer to restore everything. I had to manually remove stuff before running Easy Transfer. I am not sure what I did wrong but it did eventually get there.
    
    Once it had done it's stuff we were back up and running pretty quickly with all my email accounts and the like back exactly the way they had been before I started. The machine is running faster and the new features of Windows 7 seem quite nice so far. I haven't had any compatibility problems and everything seems to be hunky dory.
    
    The comparison with installing Ubuntu is quite striking. Although I made a mistake with the partition size when installing Ubuntu it was all pretty smooth and done in less than an hour and a half. The scale of file transfer was clearly much greater with the Windows 7 installation but it took about 15 hours! I think Ubuntu wins on that count (my son will be pleased!).
    
    My first impressions of Windows 7 are pretty positive now that it is up and running. It does what it says on the tin and there have been absolutely no issues with it since installation. The main message for me was, make sure you have plenty of time!
    
25. More classroom comic creators
    → OllieBray.com | 25 Oct 2009 | 7:00am GMT
    I’ve had lots of good feedback on my original post about Crating Comics in the classroom with tools like Comic Brush, Pixton and PowerPoint. As a result I have been sent a couple more links to some great on-line comic...
26. (via smaaack)
    → Nova Stevenson | 24 Oct 2009 | 8:16am GMT
    
    
    

    (via smaaack)

27. The Wee Catering Company logo.  Let the branding commence!
    → Nova Stevenson | 24 Oct 2009 | 1:19am GMT
    
    
    

    The Wee Catering Company logo.  Let the branding commence!

28. Vote on the WordPress Logo Entries
    → WordPress.com News | 24 Oct 2009 | 12:36am GMT
    Last week you had fun with the WordPress logo. We received nearly 100 entries and many of you have been patiently waiting for news. You don’t have to wait any longer. Here are our favorites split into 5 categories. Cast your votes to pick the final winners. Voting will close on Friday, October 30, 2009 [...]
29. Most inspiring thing I’ve seen/heard in the last year or...
    → Nova Stevenson | 23 Oct 2009 | 11:43pm GMT
    
    
    

    Most inspiring thing I’ve seen/heard in the last year or so.  Saw him a few weeks ago thanks to Gerard.  Bless ya son xx

30. First post
    → Nova Stevenson | 23 Oct 2009 | 11:00pm GMT
    Just something to say
31. Fun On Friday #46: Tessellation - Creativity and Mathematics
    → EdCompBlog | 23 Oct 2009 | 5:21pm GMT
    Tessellation with squares - easy. Tessellating triangles - a doodle. Tessellating hexagons - even bees can do that. But tessellating rhinoceroses - now that's tricky!
    
    
    
    

    Escher Symmetry
    Originally uploaded by Pieter
    
    However, if you head over to the Tessellation website, you will find instructions on how to create tricky tessellations. The sample image they use is... a rhinoceros. Brilliant.
    
    So, if you've ever wanted to produce something approaching Escher like complexity, grab some tracing paper and get busy.
    
    I'm looking forward to seeing what you produce.
    
32. Let's Tap: Good, good, good, good vibrations
    → Hot Milky Drink | 23 Oct 2009 | 4:36pm GMT
    Sometimes your best ideas for classroom practice can be found in the most unlikeliest of places. Well just the other day I think I stumbled upon another excellent opportunity for learning via a COTS game. I had heard about a...
33. November 2009 Desktop Wallpaper
    → Gordon's Ramblings | 22 Oct 2009 | 7:00pm GMT
    
    
    November 2009 Desktop Wallpaper
    Originally uploaded by Gordon McKinlay
    I am continuing the series of desktop wallpaper pictures for the computer from a photo I took last Novermber in Greenbank Garden on the southside of Glasgow. November tends to be a pretty cold and dull time of the year. Last year, you may remember, we had a pretty cold patch with a lot of fog and freezing fog. This photo really captures how I think it felt at that point last year.
    
    Please feel free to use the photo yourself as your own desktop wallpaper. If you like it then please let me know.
    
    
34. VideoPress supports Ogg
    → WordPress.com News | 21 Oct 2009 | 10:44pm GMT
    As strong believers in open source technology, we were excited when Firefox started supporting the new HTML video tag this past summer. It has the potential to transform the future of online video. While we are still working on adding full support for video tag, we are happy to announce that we have encoded all of [...]
35. So What is Google Wave?
    → Gordon's Ramblings | 18 Oct 2009 | 5:58am GMT
    I can't decide whether Google Wave actually has got something or not. I got my account yesterday morning and have played with it a wee bit since then. The video I highlighted in my recent post is helpful as it starts to unpack what it is about but it really doesn't get to the heart of what this is all about. This blog post by Jason Kolb on the other hand is pretty technical but really helps to unpack the technology and begin to understand how it might be something different. Give it a read before doing anything else!
    
    The big thing for me is whether it shifts the paradigm from traditional email towards something which is far more collaborative. Unless large organisations are able to change the culture of email which is now fairly well embedded towards this form of collaborative tool then it is likely to crash and burn the way so many other ideas have done. In the organisation I work for, for example, there is still no real acknowledgement of web 2.0 never mind the shift that Google Wave might be implying. I am really interested in how we use IT as a business tool to make our work better and our lives easier. To that end I am not that interested in the bells and whistles but very much concerned about what it might mean for our working lives.
    
    You could also have a look at this video:
    
    
    
    I guess it will be a while before we know that as we are all still paddling in the shallows. Time and a lot of experience will tell.
    
36. Google Street View
    → Gordon's Ramblings | 17 Oct 2009 | 8:36am GMT
    I was trying to geotag a picture that I took in London over the weekend and couldn't remember exactly where I took the picture. To help I loaded Google Street View to see if I could retrace my steps. As I did so I discovered many streets aren't covered as the van can't get down a fair number of the narrower streets and lanes. It's only in the US but if you are over the pond then you can nominate where it goes. Click here to do so.
    
    I was a little surprised, therefore, when I cam across this little video. The big question is, is this for real? Will it fill in the gaps?