Thunder

Unfortunately two of my favourite pieces of software, Mission Maker and Gamemaker, don’t run on a Mac so I spoke to my friends at Apple and they suggested using Parallels.  Early this week I downloaded it and on my second attempt managed to get it working, what a weird sight that was seeing Windows XP running within Mac OS X.  Using my 15 day trial I installed Gamemaker and it appeared to be working well until I tried to run the game and I hit an error, it appears that Parallels runs everything as native to Intel/Windows EXCEPT the graphic sub-system, which is emulated.

So now that Parallels has failed :(  and I was really looking forward to it working so I didn’t have to use reboot to run Windows, it looks like I am going to give Bootcamp a go.  I will give it a go this week and let you now what happens (fingers crossed).

Apple have now got me thinking that maybe I should part with some of my hard earned cash and purchase a new iPod.  Since they were realised I have convinced myself that i didn’t need one, I have an iRiver that I use to listen to and record on, so why would I need what I thought of was an expensive mp3 player.

But, now that you can play games on your iPod they have more of an appeal to me.  Time to go away and think - maybe an early Christmas present ;)  It might also help me to keep up to date with the podcasts I keep downloading and then don’t have time to watch/listen to.

Apple have produced a DVD about podcasting in education, you can apply for it from here. I have just filled in the form myself so I can’t comment on the usefulness of it, but it’s free so I thought I would let you know about it and you can decide for yourself.

If anyone has already got a copy of it and would like to comment on its worth feel free to do so.

Explore new frontiers in learning.
Educators are discovering the teaching power of podcasts - audio and visual content delivered directly to a Mac, PC, or iPod/mp3 player. Teachers can create content that engages students in the learning process. Administrators are using podcasting to connect with parents, teachers, and the community. MP3 extends learning beyond the classroom, allowing students to access the content anywhere.

Free video series: “Podcasting in Education.”
Discover our three-part series and learn the basics of podcasting, how to use podcasting to help meet national standards, and how real administrators are using podcasting.

I have spent the last couple of days leading cpd on the use of blogs and podcasting. My audience consisted of West Midlands ICT Consultants and members of the ICT team in Shropshire. All delegates set up an ethinkblog, links to these can be found on my sidebar in the ‘Consultants Blogs’ link category.

The morning of the session was used to introduce the wordpress blog and its functionality to the delegates, I will get around to putting some notes together to explain exactly what we did over the Summer break.

After lunch (see photos) which was at the local Abbey, we returned to a hot ICT room to continue the training.

To start the afternoon off we looked at Flickr and Del.icio.us, both technologies were well received and delegates set up accounts for future use. My flickr page can be accessed here and my del.icio.us page here, with my network here(that contains links to the other consultants del.icio.us accounts).

The rest of the afternoon was set aside to producing enhanced podcasts using Garageband on the ibooks, I am still looking for an equivalent piece of software for producing enhanced podcasts on the pc. I have found Podcaster by Kudlian Software - that appears to work on the pc but there doesn’t appear to be a pc download!

The podcasts can be heard on the various delegates blogs, here is an example. After publishing their podcasts we looked at subscribing to the podcasts with iTunes, and also investigated finding podcasts on iTunes. To complete the circle I demonstrated the use of Bloglines and Newsgator as examples of RSS aggregators.

Everyone agreed that there is great potential for these technologies in the classroom, both for teacher and student use. Hopefully we will try and produce a sample teaching unit or two that are based around these technologies. If anyone is interested in assisting with their production then leave a comment below and I will get in touch. I would also be keen to hear what the delegates thought about their days experience and what they plan to do next.

Where I live we regularly use electricity during storms so we clamber for the candles, having a young son this isn’t the safest thing to be doing.  Tonight I was interested to find a free download for my ibook to convert the screen into a reading lamp…

Lamp Light is a very simple app based on a simple idea - utilizing the power of your laptop (powerbook, ibook) display to emit bright reading light. Created during an electrical storm and blackout, the app was used to shed some light on a book that could hardly be read in the dim light of a normal laptop display. It’s simple - a screen displays pure white light, and you can choose your settings from battery saving low, medium to high. It’s also useful when traveling on long plane flights - use Lamp Light instead of the overhead light so as not to disturb all the passengers around you trying to sleep - and other low light conditions.

I am about to download it and give it a try, I will let you know how effective it is the next time I have a power cut.