Merlin John Online

Whatever the question, the answer is 'SharePoint'!

Along Microsoft's schools frontline, Gerald Haigh finds SharePoint as an exit from ICT managed services
I can fearlessly confess that even though I’ve been writing about Microsoft SharePoint for several years, I’m still not very good at explaining what it is – even to myself.

I’ll tell you something else. I bet I’m not the only one. I think it was Tony Sheppard (@grumbledook) who first pointed out to me that users across all sectors of business and service can have such different experiences of SharePoint that they simply won’t recognise each other’s descriptions of it. In one way, it’s the old story of The Blind Men and the Elephant, put so eloquently by John Godfrey Saxe many years before SharePoint.

'Alumni workshops' hone Apps for Good skillsets

Biggest names in PR and marketing pitch in to help Apps for Good entrepreneurs. Tony Parkin reports

The Tech City area around Shoreditch, just north of Liverpool Street station, is one of the coolest areas for would-be digital entrepreneurs to hang out, and in Tech City there’s nowhere cooler than Google Campus. Where better for Apps for Good to hold an Alumni Workshop to help their successful pupil teams from 2010/11 and 2011/12 further develop their entrepreneurial and marketing skills to help promote their apps?

Apps for Good is widely known for its work helping school students create Android apps, and get the winning apps (see "East End girls flood Android 'Apps for Good' course" and "Apps for Good opens up for more schools to join"). What is perhaps less well known is the ongoing marketing and entrepreneurial support dimension of this inspirational work once the apps have been created.

Good day at Black Rock – educator's Burning Man bid

A quest to present at a prestigious US cultural event is seeking 'crowd-sourced' funding at Kickstarter
NASA never had Deborah Davies' problem – just one month to raise the money for a spaceship.

Her overheads aren't as high though. This artist/educator, who operates where art meets technology, needs just £11,000 to get her spaceship sculpture concept, The Luma Module, built in time for the Burning Man 2013 festival in Nevada's Black Rock desert.

Truss gives BCS £2m to bridge teacher "Computing' gap

BCS gets £2 million from DfE to create 16,000 'computing' teachers
The Government is giving the BCS (The Chartered Institute for IT) £2 million to help train teachers in English schools to fill the workforce skills gap opened up by a provisional Computing curriculum heavily skewed to computer science.

Announced by education minister Elizabeth Truss MP, the cash is £1m a year for two years to recruit 400 "master teachers" in computer science to help build the Network of Excellence run by the BCS Academy of Computing with support from its member organisation Computing at School.

Teacher numbers fall but DfE confident on 'Computing'

With a £1 million 'computing' training scheme in the wings, it looks like too little too late
The Department for Education (DfE) is confident that the teaching workforce in English schools can cope with the extra demands to teach computer science in the controversial new Computing curriculum. And it is pinning its hopes on the British Computer Society (BCS) and Computing at School (CaS) to fill any shortfalls in requirements for CPD (continuing professional development). An announcement of £1 million from the DfE for a CaS CPD scheme is expected.

Nine questions on workforce capability for the new curriculum were submitted to the Teaching Agency via the DfE press office on March 25. The replies came more than two weeks later, on April 12 (see below). 

Gifthorse you can't look in the mouth - Point2educate

There's 'free' and 'value', and Point2educate has them both –  a must-visit for schools
"Free software" comes high on a list of teachers' internet search terms, and a visit to any TeachMeet reveals the innovative things they use it for. But finding a good range of free and open-source programs can be time consuming, so it’s good to find them in one place.

Point2Educate’s Point2School service hosts the Naace ICT Toolkit (19 open-source titles) and Microsoft’s own Learning Suite of free software and resources. Add in time-limited rental versions of top commercial and education software and huge savings are now possible for schools and parents.

Programmed to please – the Kodu Kup

It's engaging, fun, great learning and it's free. Tony Parkin gets into the Kodu Kup

Probably the last thing the scientists steering the Mars Rover up one of the mountains of Mars expected to encounter was an awkward alien, asking difficult questions. But when the mountain in question is Mount Kerching, and the Rover is part of a Kodu game being programmed by London primary pupils, that’s what you may get.

During the visit to Microsoft’s Victoria offices by seven of the eight schools involved in the original ‘8 in 8’ project (see "Pieces of 8 – learning with 'Kodu' tops Microsoft prizes") most of the day was given over to helping the pupils get started on their entries for the Kodu Kup. This Microsoft competition, open to all 7 to 14-year-old students in UK schools, aims to demonstrate just how easy it is for beginners to get started with computer programming.

It's showtime as screens step out into 'Cool Street'

Chris Drage, amazed by the advances in display technology, reflects on some breakthroughs at BETT 2013
Four groups sit around an interactive table, each creating a new business. Once live, these 'companies' are part of a dynamic, real-time simulation – and other groups, brokers for example, can each play their roles whether they are using interactive whiteboards, PCs or tablets.

The demonstration of the Cool Street business simulation app on the Promethean stand at the BETT 2013 show (see video below) was a cutting-edge example of the rich, interactive classroom activities now possible with the integration of display technology for learning environments, and, of course, the advent of Windows 8.

Books are dead! Long live books! Join the revolution

Author, publisher and former teacher Sue Rankin signposts the revolutionary route to paperless schools
Many historians regard the development of the printing press as the single most influential factor on world events of the past 800 years. Despite huge advances in printing since then, the basic product (a book) and the method of selling (bookshop) have not changed. Until now.

Consumers across all sectors are swiftly turning to electronic books. In education, early adopters like Essa Academy are already moving to a paperless institution, with students accessing all resources digitally. How long before a significant number of schools join in?

The Innovators - 28 Ophelia Vanderpuye

Award-winning teacher Ophelia Vanderpuye opens horizons with learning and technology

Television sitcom and National Theatre thespian Peter Egan was working with the most flexible actors imaginable. The Year 4 and 5 pupils at Oakington Manor Primary School, Wembley, were using his drama workshop to develop their film on bullying. They were thinking and talking about bullying, empathising and role-playing, and sparking the magic and dynamism of the theatre.

But that was just a starter. Peter then went into the radio studio in Ophelia Vanderpuye's cutting edge classroom to be interviewed by three Year 5 girls for a part-scripted, three-way 'conversation' for the Celebrity Corner on the school's radio station. It was as interesting as anything you'll hear on Radio 4.

Audio editing that's like playing with building blocks

Sal McKeown's first clicks with 'Audio Notetaker 3' reveal 'a great product, soon to be even better'
The claim is bold: Sonocent's software solves the four problems of audio:

• Finding the important parts of a recording;
• Annotating your audio for future reference or to share thoughts;
• Concentrating on listening;
• Organising your audio files.