Call for Moodle Developers at the IBO

The IBO is looking to expand its online professional development workshops and is now actively looking for developers experienced in the use of Moodle to work with subject matter experts to build these new offerings link or here

We look forward to getting applications for this exciting opportunity.

The tab debate

Not quite a done deal yet as you can see, and certainly nor ready to relaese to the world quite yet - tweeks and styling using the magival Drupal are still required - however at present the tabs are on ...... the left as you can see below :-)

Periodic Table of Videos

Thanks to IB Chemistry online mentor Maria Muniz Valcarcel for bringing to my attention this gem of a site where Nottingham University have put together an excellent resource of short Youtube video clips on each chemical element. They have also thought about the possibility of YouTube video being blocked in many schools - to aid this they have set up a mirror site here which will hopefully allow your school to use this as a resource for your students.
I think that the winner as far as student use is concerned is the interface itself allowing them to visualise where they are in the table and then have the rich full media experience.
Here is the introduction to the series :

You can also subscribe to their Youtube feed here http://www.youtube.com/periodicvideos

NECC 2008

Unfortunately a colleague of mine here at the IB is unable to attend NECC 2008 as he had originally planned, this meant that the place was offered to me!! My decision was easy, the chance to go to possibly the biggest and best edublogger, web2.0 educators conference in the world, or attend my Hockey Club annual dinner in Abergavenny............ no contest! I am really looking forward to meeting up with everyone in San Antonio on the weekend of the 29th June to 2nd July. I know that this year there is a large contingent of Oz/NZ teachers ( unfortunately AK - we are doomed to only meet in cyberspace I think!) including Jo McLeay and Sue Tapp ( the drinks are on sujokat!). I will miss the Edubloggercon on the 28th as I won't arrive until around 11pm on 28th, but from then on I am really looking forward to some great PD and listening to some inspiring speakers.
2008) at the end of the month along with some tech bits and pieces I will be packing my Mini Dylan Dragon ( to be renamed Ddraig Goch - Red Dragon for NECCfor the trip to Texas.... really very excited now ;-)

Interesting New Tool Yuuguu

Yuuguu

"Yuuguu lets you interact with your colleagues and friends as though

they were sat right next to you... no matter where in the world they are"

I have to say thanks to Lee Davis @IBO for the link to Yuuguu ( Japanese for fusion).

"Yuuguu, derived from the Japanese word for fusion, enables users to see, share, and take control of each other’s computer screens and applications. Users can ask anyone to securely share their computer screen in real time, whether they’re on a PC or Mac platform — and without having to download or install any software. Colleagues just need a browser and Internet connection to participate.

Free, easy-to-install, and easy-to-use, Yuuguu can be used by team members working on a project or friends sharing applications. Colleagues and friends can message and chat while they share screens for enhanced collaboration. The platform includes high quality, low cost voice conferencing services for one-to-one and one-to-many voice calls. And Yuuguu’s integrated presence status brings a sense of community to web sharing, as users can see when friends are online and click to invite them."

It will be interesting to see how Yuuguu matches up with the likes of Skype, Elluminate and WiZiq as it appears to fuse both with conference calls and desktop sharing. It is also cross-platform (Mac and PC available), it is also a part British product, based in Manchester.

"Comment from Philip Hemsted Co-Founder of Yuuguu - Hi there - many thanks for the review, I'm Philip one of the Yuuguu founders. We'll be releasing the web share version soon so viewers won't have to download a client to share screens and chat. If you want to have a go let me know and we can have a collaboration session."
This just shows the power of blogging, and yes Philip, I would love to give YUUGUU a go, a collaboration sounds great.... contact needs to be made.

I would like to try it out, so if anyone else in the Edublogosphere wants to have a get together download the program and let's give it a 'test drive'. To do this once, downloaded we will need to invite friends into a network using e-mail.... so let me know.

YUUGUU goes web based so no download or install - Yuuguu WebShare

Sadly now I am 'Mac-less' - I have finally had to take the MacBook back into school for my colleague who is taking over IT when I leave the school in just over 3 weeks. Having been able to directly compare both Mac and PC ( as a lifelong PC based user up to 2006).
I personally would not even try to carry out video/ film making projects on anything other than a Mac - IMovie is so easy to use, and transfering to iDVD very simple, making film projects easy peasy! ( I know having used Win Moviemaker on PC - it doesn't come close to its Mac cousin). I was somewhat underwhelmed with GarageBand for podcasting ( apart from video podcasting which is more practical on Mac) still prefering Audacity on a PC. The Mac operating system while fast and very smooth in operation I still found it quite alien compared with the MS environment, the basic fiddle of having navigation buttons on the opposite side of the screen!

I will certainly miss the Mac as I settle back into using my basic Dell Inspiron... but who knows what the future holds.....?