WIDATW

[kneeshooter]

Actually, not - because that's a whole different post which might take some time.

Rather a request for help. As some of you may now I have the pleasure of writing a technical news circular for schools. Part of this is "news items" and part is "more in-depth pieces". I need some help with topics for the latter. The format is "about 1000-1500 words" in the areas of "Networking & Wireless", "Hardware", "Software & Internet" and "Multimedia". Previous topics have included Augmented Reality, IPv6, Digital Cameras, 802.11 standards and PC Form Factors.

I'm inviting a complete brain-dump of ideas from all you lovely people about "things you'd want to know more about" so I can sift through and not have to have any ideas myself. Sweeties for the winners!

Comments

[boglin.livejournal.com]

Moodle. How Moodle is great and lots of colleges and universities use it and schools should too.

[kneeshooter]

Slightly tough one as there's a policy strand that supports "giving lots of money to companies to provide those services" rather than "DIY". But its a good idea...

[agentinfinity.livejournal.com]

What new software is available for interactive whiteboards, as a lot of schools are getting them now, and not necessairly making the most out of them.

[skinfitz.livejournal.com]

Well... something I can think of which is right up your street (and you are probably already aware of) that covers all of your areas would be geocoding of photographs.

The logical extrapolation of this is geocoding of CCTV cameras and when all cameras are wireless we will see some interesting developments I think, however it will obviously have nefarious uses in our Bigbrother State®.

[invisible-al.livejournal.com]

Vanilla Forum software has just gone 1.0, http://www.getvanilla.com/. It's free, very customisable, extensible and gosh darn shiney.

First video of a working prototype of the $100 Laptop is here, http://www.siliconvalleysleuth.com/2006/06/first_video_of_.html
Main website here http://laptop.org/.

[richc.livejournal.com]

How to be Secure Online - explain why you need to do things rather than just what to do.
Spotting Email Fraud - this could be fairly useful, there's a good quiz online somewhere.

Since this is for schools

Overview of Social Networking - no one apart from techies and kids knows anything about this.

[curlwomble.livejournal.com]

This seems to be a very topical erm...topic at the moment. Might be good to get some sanity injected where it might otherwise be missed.

[yapman.livejournal.com]

I'm in favour of this.

Also may want to do something on Encryption methods, which are worthwhile, which just provide pointless warm and fuzzies and which are positively dangerous by making you think you're secure.

Certification and trust chains, maybe?

[irdm.livejournal.com]

Bluetooth & issues of it.

Various Connectivity - USB x.y and Firewire and other strnge cables.

[marcushill.livejournal.com]

Web based learning resources for primary mathematics.

It would be peachy if you could have it done before I have to deliver a session on the topic to our primary trainees in November.

[harrytc.livejournal.com]

Realtime green screen technology.

[curlwomble.livejournal.com]

Wot? Like a VT100?
;-)

[harrytc.livejournal.com]

I'd delighted to say that I don't know exactly what a VT100 is...

[jfs.livejournal.com]

Early model of Cyberman - high allergy to gold dust (insufficient filters on breathing apperatus), no ranged weaponry. Didn't last long, unsurprisingly.

[irdm.livejournal.com]

Better than a VT52 and had curly cable IIRC

[richc.livejournal.com]

http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/vt100.html

[holaholaamigos.livejournal.com]

There was a guy on the lyceum mailing list yesterday talking about using it to set up an instant classroom-wide blogosphere (one per seat). So maybe that's relevant, somehow.

More info at http://lyceum.ibiblio.org/11 . I'm sure you could spin up some sort of collaborative-learning-web-2.0-blog as educational tool of the future article. At any rate, there's definitely a trend for instant multi-blog software just now.

[mimeticgel.livejournal.com]

From the top of my noggin..

Games machines as access devices (DS, PSP) - probably DS
SNS VPN - a secure desktop in your browser
Accessibility - voice, text, zoom etc.. + eye & brain powa
What next for eLearning? (labeled as dead by Gartner!)
Life skills via simulated reality (such as contrived SIMS environment)
Create your own TV channels (such as the MS view of the future)

BTW have they looked as adaptive testing, where the questions asked adapt to the level of the examinee? That way everyone sits the same exam.