Stuff about using computers to help people teach and learn better.

pfaffman's blog

Meeting first online

This eSchool news article talks about Freshmen getting to know each other online before going to school. I think that I remember people exchanging letters with roommates before going to school at some point in the past.

This first piqued my interest because it seems backward of the meet-face-to-face-first to make online learning work belief. Then, it occurred to me that this is more like a match.com intro to people that you're about to meet. One can only hope that they're interested in the same people face to face as they are online.

Microsoft offers ESR a job

This story details how Microsoft tried to recuit Eric Raymond, one of the most public advocates for Open Source Software. I found it on David's blog.

More on Linux in Indiana

Couros linked to this eSchool News article on the 1600 new desktop Linux computers in Indiana. There was an earlier piece about this as well.

This quote is consistent with my "no training" idea.
Taylor said the state's open-source alternatives have become so similar to the proprietary models on which they are based--and with which teachers and students have become so comfortable--that teachers and students pick them up intuitively.

Moodle Course Data Manager Extension

This thread describes a module that allows one to adjust the due-dates of all (or a subset of) Moodle assignments at once. This means that when you import a course and need to update every assignment's due-date you can do it from one page instead of havin g to go to every single assignment to fix them all.

Opera for free!

Couros notes that Opera, a pretty cool web browser is having a 10th anniversary party. One cool thing is that they're giving away registrations for free. This is Free as in Beer, not free as in speech, but if you're going to have to compare web browsers sometime soon, this could be a good thing to know about.

CDW-G National Teacher Survey

eSchool News has linked to a National Teacher Survey published by CDW-G. It's a little interesting that it's funded by a computer products vendor. It says that more teachers are interested in and comfortable with technology and that 31% of teachers have received no technology training in the past year. I'm still on my Technology Training is a Waste kick, so I'm wondering how many non-teachers have had technology training in the past year. My wager is that more of them haven't had training since they have computers that work. (I think that teachers need training, but that technology should be a means rather than an end.)

Five reasons NOT to use Linux

Five reasons NOT to use Linux is a silly one-sided piece about how great Linux is. I think that the framing of the piece is interesting, but it's so clearly one-sided that it's easy to dismiss.

Free Software and Open Source Symposium

The Free Software and Open Source Symposium is to be held October 24 in Toronto. From their site:

The Symposium is a one-day event aimed at bringing together educators and other interested parties to discuss common free software and open source issues, learn new technologies and to promote the use of free and open source software in our classrooms, labs and educational infrastructure. At Seneca College, we think free and open source software are real alternatives.

The deadline for proposals is August 31.

Create a UTK-compliant Moodle Theme

That's it. That's my idea. See Moodle Themes Howto for hints.