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Becta is pleased to announce that ‘Emerging technologies for learning- volume 3’ has just been published. This follow-up edition complements the first two ‘Emerging technologies for learning’ publications from 2006 and 2007.

The ‘Emerging technologies for learning’ series aims to help readers consider how emerging technologies may impact on education and learners in the medium term. The publications are not intended to be a comprehensive review of educational technologies, but offer some highlights across the broad spectrum of developments and trends. It should open readers up to some of the possibilities that are developing and the potential for technology to transform our ways of working, learning and interacting over the next three to five years.

Copies can be downloaded from www.becta.org.uk/research/reports/emergingtechnologies

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Two new publications have been added to the Becta publications site:

Safeguarding children online: a guide - http://publications.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=31049
Safeguarding children online: a checklist - http://publications.becta.org.uk/display.cfm?resID=31051

Futurelabs have just released a report on social software and learning, another good read from Futurelabs.

The internet is a wonderful place, but are you confident enough to help children steer clear of its dangers? The people children turn to for advice have been telling us they don’t know enough about this important subject. Which is why we’ve (BT) provided a report, an information pack and a podcast. They’ve all been designed to give teachers, parents and children the know-how to avoid trouble online.

On the BT online security page you can find links to:

• Report on internet safety (pdf)
• What teachers and parents should know (pdf)
• The Internet Green X Code (pdf)
• Websafety podcast for teachers (mp3)

Futurelab (formally NESTA Futurelabs) has just published a report entitled ‘The potential of open source approaches for education‘.

For a while we have promoted the use of FLOSS, including such titles as GIMP, Firefox, Open Office to name three.

I still don’t think that many schools are willing to make the break from paying for software, they seem to believe that if it is free then it can’t be any good, or it isn’t Microsoft!

Leave a comment if your school is using any FLOSS and if they have given copies of it to their staff and students for home.

I have just read this article on Education World, and I have to say it made me chuckle.

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Like Project Gutenburg, this weblog provides the out-of-copyright books for free but this time as audio files, read by volunteers and recorded on on mp3/ogg vorbis that can be downloaded for free. Quality is regulated by volunteers.

Any book that is in the public domain can be recorded and posted here. Already some of the classics have been done - Northanger Abbey and Pride and Prejudice to name but two - and poetry such as Shakespeare’s Sonnets are already up there.

I’m sure this project will continue to grow - the catalogue is added to continuously. Take a look at what’s available - consider becoming a reader!

A report from BECTa containing a number of case studies of the use of Tablet PCs in schools. A number of conclusions were reached, mostly what we knew all along - including that a tablet and a wireless connection to a projector can be a more cost-effective solution than a IWB, projector, laptop combination; tablets encourage collaboration and independent learning; a wireless network is essential to harness the potential of the tablet PC.

Get the report - it’s a very interesting read.

Originally posted by Dale

This is one of my favourite reads in the blogosphere. Konrad Glogowski is a Language Arts teacher and PhD candidate in Ontario. His list of categories aligns closely with many of the things I regard as important in blogging specifically, and education/literacy generally. Lately he’s talking about connectivism, a name that has been coined for what I used to think of the holisticity of learning. “Everything is just a part of everything anyway” 60s singer Donovan told us, and principles of connectivism point the same way. More on this at another time, but take a look at the “blog of proximal development” - you might find it as thought-provoking as I do.

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