Information Technology Student Blog

Wordle is another great free resource that can be used in the Classroom, It randomley generates word based images that can ebe used for everything from Posters to Blog Posts. You can paste a block of text or simply paste in a URL and let it grab the best words from the site itself… Why not watch this video then give it a try yourself, after all it is free…

==> Click here to watch the video <==

The ICT club will be demonstrating stuff which we will be doing in the club. The main attraction will be our twitter update. If you would like to help out pleas come and find me!

Look forwrd to see some of you there!

To help understand where to save your files, your laptops are divided into three parts as shown below…

Accessing & Saving your Documents in School…
To access your documents when you are logged into your School Profile you can click on “My Documents”. This Folder is backed up to the school network so that you don’t lose any of your work. This area may also be called your Z: Drive or Home Area by your Teachers and Technicians.

Saving your Homework…
You may want to continue working on a document from home. To do this simply save a copy of the document that you would like to work on in your “Data Drive”. The Data Drive can be accessed at any time by clicking “My Computer” in both your School and Home Profile. When you get home you can carry on working on it and save it back in this Data Drive for the next time that you are in school.

Other ways of accessing your Documents from Home…

Email: You can email small files to yourself via the email feature of the VLE, using the attach files button. The maximum email attachment size is 5mb, and you can only email people that are in the schools address book. You Cannot Email to External Email Addresses such as hotmail etc.

My Files: You can access your school documents remotely using the “My Files” link when logged into the VLE. This will give you a list of all the document in your Z: Drive. You will need to click on one document and download it before you can edit it. To upload a completed document use the “Upload” button which looks like a Yellow folder with a green arrow through it. (Note: Unfortunately at this time only Holmesdale Students can use the ”My Files” feature within the VLE, but we are working on a solution for The Malling School)

Well as you might of realized there is a “ICT Club”  launching at Holmesdale. Well you have heard right. The club will be aimed at year 7 and year 8. At the club you will do loads of fun activities and it worth coming along.

 If you are interested go along to the Library and fill in your name which is on the Library desk. I will look forward to seeing you there!

Also join us on twitter

Luke Chapman

You may see the MHFInteractive icon around the school on items that students can interacted with freely, the first example is in each of the two school’s library’s. There are large touch screens with dynamic interactions such as interactive presentations, newsletters and 360 degree views. If anyone would like to contribute to these interactions then feel free to let us know.

As part of this attempt to increase student interaction we have been secretly working on our own Interactive Table over the holidays. We are currently using relatively low cost items such as a Nintendo Wii remote, a Bluetooth Dongle, an IR LED pen and a piece of software called “Smoothboard” to give an impressive yet collaborative user experience for under £100 as shown in the Video post titled “Interactive Table“ at the bottom of this page. You will all be welcome to have a go of this current Interactive table for yourselves in september.

Once we have proved the theory our end goal would be to create a group focused Interactive Multi-touch device for under £1000 compared to Microsoft’s £8500 retail version called the “Microsoft Surface”. During the holidays we contacted “Natural-UI” a market leader in Multi-touch Software Technologies to ask for advice, we were pleasantly surprised to hear back from the companies CEO Harry van der Veen, regarding an opportunity to use their “Snowflake Suite” software for our Educational Multi-touch Project. Below is a video of the advanced version we would like to develop next, If you are interested in this project or have any ideas of how you could use this technology then let us know.

Welcome all new year 7 Students; in preparation for your arrival we have been working hard over the holidays to get your mobile computers ready for you. Here are some interesting facts…

When delivered the laptops weighed over 1 tonne altogether, which is as much as a Baby Elephant or a Mini Cooper…

Firstly 850 cardboard boxes were opened, and 840 plastic bags removed…

More than 1680 Screws were undone, or 3360 if you count screwing them back in again…

The laptops hard disks were removed then imaged; over 4,480gb of data was copied in total…

Over 560 network & power leads were plugged in…

Each laptop was switched on 3 times during the setup process which totals 840 presses of the power buttons…

The Administrator Password was typed in over 1120 times.

In total 2800 applications have been installed across all of the laptops…

The School Wireless connection was setup and tested 280 over times…

Over 840 stickers were stuck…

Over 10 Bin bags filled with excess cardboard and unwanted packaging were recycled…

Finally It took 4 people over 120 man hours to setup all of the mobile computers, which would be 20 full school days if you had to do it on your own…

I hear you shout what is Ellg? Well it is my job to tell you what it is and how you use it. Elgg, started in 2004, is an open source social engine which powers all kinds of social environments. If you are looking for a professional social intranet or want to run a site for your organisation, Ellg is a great choice.

Ellg is pretty stright forward. You should pick it up quite quickly.

I hear you shout what is Nvu? Well it is my job to tell you what it is and how you use it. Nvu is a free, open source software program that allows you to build websites and web pages using a simple WYSIWYG editor and rivals such programs as Adobe’s Dreamweaver and Microsoft’s Expression Web, only for free!  With Nvu’s built-in site manager, connecting to your website and making changes is a snap.

Here is a video on how to use it.

Here is a vidieo on how to use it (Part 2)

I hear you shout what is MindMeister? Well it is my job to tell you what it is and how you use it. MindMeister brings the concept of mind mapping to the web, using its facilities for real-time collaboration to allow truly global brainstorming sessions. Users can create, manage and share mind maps online and access them anytime, from anywhere. In brainstorming mode, fellow MindMeister from around the world (or just in different rooms) can simultaneously work on the same mind map and see each other’s changes as they happen.

Here is a video on how to use it.

I hear you shout what is audacity?  Well it is my job to tell you what it is and how to use it.  Audacity is a free, easy-to-use and multilingual audio editor and recorder for Windows. You can use Audacity to:

• Record live audio.
• Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
• Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files.
• Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together.
• Change the speed or pitch of a recording.

You can record your recordings by using you microphone which is built in to your laptop.

Here is a video about how to use audacity.