Ken's Korner

"In a series of real-life experiments from New Delhi to South Africa to Italy, he gave kids self-supervised access to the web and saw results that could revolutionize how we think about teaching."

http://www.ted.com/talks/sugata_mitra_the_child_driven_education.html
(2010)

Maybe the iPads should remain in the classrooms and every classroom has a set especially loaded with software/apps for that class.

Maybe the ratio should be 4:1 rather than 1:1

Education is a self-organizing system.  Interesting, is it not?

TED Talks is a fantastic resource on all sorts of topics that WILL engage.

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GeoReader - Talking Point
Historical landmarks, local trivia, hiking routes, stories, scavenger hunts and more ...imagine the possibilities! Have your talking points read to others as they pass by.

http://www.mygeoreader.com/

Search for TCEA using GeoReader

Example curricular application:  since I taught Social Studies ... bet every town in Texas has some historial landmarks either in the city/town limits or near by.  Now wouldn't be interesting to use TCEA Social Studies Collaborative and ask those that desired to do so, share their local history and interesting points via GeoReader and Moodle.  http://moodle.tcea.org/sscolab/

Web site says iphone app coming soon.

See the videos at the web site.


Read more...

GeoReader - Talking Point
Historical landmarks, local trivia, hiking routes, stories, scavenger hunts and more ...imagine the possibilities! Have your talking points read to others as they pass by.

http://www.mygeoreader.com/

Search for TCEA using GeoReader

Example curricular application:  since I taught Social Studies ... bet every town in Texas has some historial landmarks either in the city/town limits or near by.  Now wouldn't be interesting to use TCEA Social Studies Collaborative and ask those that desired to do so, share their local history and interesting points via GeoReader and Moodle.  http://moodle.tcea.org/sscolab/

Web site says iphone app coming soon.

See the videos at the web site.


Read more...

Got a Sandbox course in an upgraded 2.2 Moodle using OwnCloud repo:
http://moodle.tcea.org/kensmoodle2/course/view.php?id=14

http://owncloud.org

OwnCloud setup as a WebDAV in Moodle even though it's a standalone service on another server.  Could mean mega admin if NOT using some common authentication method - LDAP.  Think there is a plugin now for OwnCloud that will do MS Active Directory LDAP ? if using a MacOSX server (InfoDirectory) or eDirectory of Novell, then more 'investigation' required.  Same is true of mount points, me thinks.

In Moodle setup of a WebDAV repo:
Name: Whatever you want to call it
WebDAV type: http
WebDAV server: just the FQDN of the host.  Example: sos.tcea.org
WebDAV path: /path on other server relative to web root (/owncloud/
files/webdav.php
Autentication: WebDAV basic
no port
If one doesn't use server user and password, no prompt for login?
(this could possibly be fixed).

So the repo one is setting up has already been created in OwnCloud.
And in the Moodle config of it, if one already gives a login and
password to access, what can others do in the OwnCloud collection to
which you've pointed?

Have a link to a video in OwnCloud (WebDAV) as a URL resource ? the
video has to be shared in OwnCloud and the share link has to be used.
Moodle has no interface to the administration of a WebDAV space - just
like Google Docs.

So once I have it linked (popup in new window) then users can see the
URL:
http://sos.tcea.org/owncloud/apps/files_sharing/get.php?token=94d400b...

One will get some practice at duplicating a resource tinkering with
which method is 'better'! ;)

Other methods chosen to view may have some issues or un-desired
'experience' or ability for end user ? embedded, auto?

It's somewhat like GoogleDocs Repo ? think Teachers would desire to
use the one that would show the UPDATED doc/resource should there be
updates made.  Different student who is turning in an assignment,
isn't it?  Don't want the student to be able to turn a doc in and then
go back to Google or OwnCloud repo to change/update the doc, do we?
Hmmmm, some intelligent and enterprising youngsters could setup a
'business' (docs4class.org), could they not?

That's the kinda of exploration one needs to put Moodle 2 through ...
afraid one has to think Yin/Yang from the viewpoint of Teachers and
Students (while, at the same time, Moodle Server Admin - who has less
control than in 1.9.x to fix issues - fewer back-door methods available).

 

Read more...

Social Studies Teacher found a map collection and downloaded a bunch to include in Moodle course.

https://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/history_texas.html

The images, however, without being re-sized, skewed the Quiz area so much it was difficult to take a quiz where they were used.   One such image: the ethnolinguistic_natives.jpg image is 1840x1468 pixels

Solution: resize on the server.

Here's how:

Most distro's have ImageMagick installed or available for installing.
It has a command line convert utility that has a bunch of functionality (if you take the time to read the info on it).  Change into the directory where the images are located and issue the following command as root user:

convert ethnolinguistic_natives.jpg -resize 50% 50ethnolinguistic_natives.jpg

One nice thing about convert ... it keeps aspect ratio!!!!

Go to: http://sos.tcea.org/largeimages/

to see some more info and examples.

 

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