I was out at a meeting today and was shown a few good new ideas - one to try for those of you working on a group project would be a program called ‘writely’. It’s web based so you don’t have to download anything on to your computer except your work. It’s got some very good ideas but the really exciting one is that it will allow you to share a document and have 2 or more people working on it at the same time - just the job when you have to do a research task and need to be a part of a team - I’m going to use it with some of my classes but if you’re doing project work (or just homework with a friend) then you might want to give it a look.

The web address is www.writely.com - you’ll need to give your digitalbrain email address and set up a password then follow the instructions to share your work

Post here if you try it out

We seemed to have a problem with comments a little while back but a test today showed it was working - let me know if there are any problems

Have the digitalbrain chat problems gone away now? I haven’t had any complaints lately so is it a case of ‘no news is good news?”

So far this year 7.4 have had their own ‘different’ course - it would be nice to see how it has gone!! Use this section to give us your comments on the use of publisher to make a leaflet (can you think of a better way?). You could also tell us about the moviemaker program and how you have used that - was it hard/easy? how could you have made your work better? what would you change if you had the time again?

(To post a comment click on “comments” at the end of this post then use the box that is displayed - put your login name in for the name and put loginname@thomasadams.net for the email address).

When a new idea or technique is devised for use on the internet, the people concerned create a RFC (request for comment) to get other professionals to improve their ideas or show ways it can be used. These have been used to look at formats for e-mail, hypertext, file transfers etc. One of the latest ideas in communication has just been suggested - it’s far too advanced and ‘flying-edge’ to appear in an exam but you might find it useful as part of your background reading and general knowledge. Who knows - you might be one of the first people in your area to loft your data into cyberspace this way:

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1149.html

If you’re interested in this you can find a more detailed account of the first experiments with this new form of data transfer here:

http://www.blug.linux.no/rfc1149/

Here we are back again, the year 11 mocks are over and the year 12/13 exams are about to start for their latest module (you have started revising haven’t you?).  To help plan for revision for the real exams don’t forget you can have a FREE copy of mind manager to put on your own computer - it’s a good tool for organising those notes and ideas!

Year 7 have finished their movies and will be on digital brain soon - expect the school chat site to be busy when they get to it - make the most of the quiet now!!  If you have any problems with it then let the ICT staff know so we can sort them out.

This link was passed to me by one of the pupils in year 7. It looks like a bit of fun. http:\\www.puzzlepirates.com It downloads a small program to your computer so that you can access the system. Let us know what you think of it.

As some of you will have noticed we are having problems with getting into chat and viewing other pupils’ accounts in digitalbrain. We are trying to find out why and to sort it out and will get it working again as soon as possible

UPDATE 12 December: It looks like it is working again now - if you still have problems then please let us know.

OK the ICT staff have been charging around running the mock practical exam and a lot of people have had their rooms changed for the last week - thanks for all the patience and cooperation shown by the staff and pupils. This link just shows how complex the changes were - follow the ball! http://blueballfixed.ytmnd.com/

Take a look at www.bh-network.com it’s been set up by some year 7 pupils and although it is down quite a bit at the moment because it’s being set up and worked on, it is worth a look.

In year 8 we have been looking at ways of creating web pages - we’ve looked at html code and how it is written, and we’ve seen how a program like Word can be used to make a web page.

Now you can tell everyone how well these programs work for web page design and if you know of a better way you can suggest they try that instead. Add a comment to say what you think and see what the rest of the class have to say about the work so far. You can even comment on each other’s ideas. We’ll use your comments to help decide whether there is a better way and if we should use it.

(To post a comment click on “comments” at the end of the post then use the box that is displayed - put your login name in for the name and put loginname@thomasadams.net for the email address).