Easily Update Static Websites

Does your school/college still use a static website?

Well, if you haven't yet converted to a new dynamic content management system such as wordpress, then you will be pleased to know that CushyCMS provides you with a really easy way to update the content on that old static site.

Your prospective editors don't even have to know any HTML or how to use 'complicated' web design software.
* Great for getting the non-techie teachers involved.
* Great news for the hard pressed resident techie expert!!

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With CushyCMS the process is very simple:
* Create your account
* Add your website ftp details.
* Add class="cushycms" to the webpage elements that will be editable.
* Add the individual webpages.
* Create one, or more, editors and allocate pages.
NB: I just added a <div class="cushycms"> at the start of the content and a </div> at the end.

Pages are edited using a familiar text editor or word processor layout. So, with a little bit of direction even the 'least-techie' teacher will be able to have a go. CushyCMS even provides a 'Revision History' so if someone, accidentally, makes a complete mess then a previous version can be accessed.

No more handwritten notes, photocopied pages or emails with copy/pasted text. It's a win win situation and great for increased productivity all round!!!

Thanks CushyCMS. What a great Christmas present :-)

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Free Video Webinars from YouTube

YouTube's Creator's Corner and Videomaker magazine are producing a series of Webinars exploring the basics of video production, which will help you take your videos to the next level.

The full recording of the firest webinar, from October, on 'Basic Shooting Techniques' is now available as shown below.

The second webinar in the series on 'Basic Editing Techniques' will be held on 17th December (11am PST). You must register here for the hour-long webinar.

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Powerful Ideas from TED Talks

TED is a small nonprofit organisation dedicated to promoting "Ideas Worth Spreading" and brings together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment and Design. Live events include the annual TED Conference in California, the TEDGlobal conference in Oxford, the TEDIndia Conference and the new TEDx community program.

On the TED website, the best talks and performances from TED and their partners are made available for everyone. Currently there are over 450 TED Talks to choose from, with more being added each week.

The talks and presentations are indeed excellent, being both entertaining and thought provoking. Many of the talks relate directly to education as highlighted by the two samples below.

In the first, Richard Baraniuk explains the vision behind the open source Connexions online education system, covered in a previous post.

In the second, Arthur Benjamin explains his bold proposal about making math education relevant in the digital age.

It would be well worth adding the TED RSS feed to your reader if you have not already done so!!

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Great Links to Open Textbooks

The Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources (CCCOER) is a combined effort to develop and use open educational resources (OER) and in particular open textbooks in community college courses. An open textbook is defined as:

a body of educational content that is openly available over the web, by mail, or in a book store with a copyright that allows copying and distribution or, with the most open copyrights, allows modification of the content and even sale.

CCCOER Open Textbooks provides a growing list of links, covering a wide range of subject areas, to "OPEN and free textbooks that may be suitable for use in community college courses". In some cases, the links also lead to useful podcasts and videos.

This is a great resource. On my first quick look, I found a comprehensive guide to using OpenOffice 3.o!

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Encouraging Teachers to Blog

  by  cambodia4kidsorg 



Several teachers from St Columbas College, Dublin have just produced this very useful podcast about blogging in education.

This podcast is a great CPD resource and would be beneficial for encouraging teachers, especially those new to blogging, to incorporate this technology into their teaching.

The value, purpose and motivation for blogging in schools, and in particular in relation to subject departments, is discussed and concrete examples are explored. Even some practical advice about setting up a new blog is provided.

Not surprisingly, two of the St Columbas College blogs, SCC English and the Frog Blog, have been shortlisted in the Best Blog Category of this year's Eircom Golden Spider Awards. Good luck lads!

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Create Dynamic Classroom Portals

SchoolRack enables you to set up classroom portals for your students and parents to use. There is a reasonable selection of included themes to choose from.

Each student/parent creates their own individual account. They can then search for and join their school as well as joining your class group (either manually or through a generated code).

Not only can you post assignments for students and parents to read and download, but you can also use the inbuilt discussion board, calendar, internal messaging and online assignment collection and assignment grading feature.

It is, also, very easy to include any embeddable content, such as videos and widgets, from other websites. All these  features, help to make SchoolRack a dynamic two-way learning platform, which can be used inside and outside of the classroom.

Your published site, including added files etc, is publicly visible and can be accessed by anyone who knows your website address - in the form of http://schoolrack.com/sitename

This also applies to the topics on the discussion board, which can be read by anyone although only your group members can contribute to the discussions. It is worth noting that 'password protected sites' are available for the paid version but not for the basic free version, being reviewed here.

SchoolRack is very easy to use and for those that have not gone down the Moodle route (or something similar), then SchoolRack has plenty to offer!

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Survey for Edubloggers

Sanjaya Mishra is undertaking a study entitled "Bloggers in Education: their beliefs, motivation, and perceived impact" and is seeking the help of fellow edubloggers.

The purpose of the study is to "understand who are the educational bloggers, and what are their beliefs and motivation to blog".

Sanjaya is asking other edubloggers to fill in an online survey, which should only take 10-15 minutes of you time. If you haven't done so, there is still time to submit your answers!

Should be interesting to see the results of the survey which Sanjaya promises to share.

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