• Installing Deki Community Edition on Windows
  “Install the commercial version, then look for a file called license.xml, remove it, and restart the application inside IIS. Now you’ll be running the OSS version, which means that the enterprise extensions and tools won’t work and that you’re no longer eligible for support, but Deki will run just fine thinking it’s an OSS install.”

  Almost want to buy it just for that tip.
  Tags: notes deki install

• Demo of Mindtouch, “best open source wiki”
  Some ideas for a demo … looking at trying to get Mindtouch spreading through school, but encountering a little resistance
  Tags: opensource wiki video screencast tools

• For every $ spent on KM Accenture measures an average return of over $25
  
  Tags: enterprise intranet ROI

• Brainormous.com
  Some maths games
  Tags: worksheets maths games
• The Math Worksheet Site.com
  Might be useful for quick drills
  Tags: tools teaching pdf school maths worksheets generator

• Tabbloid
  Neat little tool.
  Tags: tools rss publishing pdf conversion
• Debategraph home
  Our goal is to make the best arguments on all sides of any public debate freely available to all and continuously open to challenge and improvement by all.
  Tags: tools visualization debate
• eduwonkette: Cool People You Should Know: Annette Lareau
  “Lareau finds no evidence to suggest that working class parents value education less; rather, working and middle class parents may value education equally yet understand the range of possible actions that can flow forth from that value quite differently.”
  Tags: education sociology People parenting

• UN Cyberschoolbus – Convention on the Rights of the Child
  a simplified version of the CRC
  Tags: formtime citizenship rights UN
• Obama’s Legoland Inauguration (VIDEO)
  
  Tags: fun video lego president inauguration Obama

• Citizenship Foundation
  “The Citizenship Foundation is an independent education and participation charity that exists to encourage and enable individuals to play an effective role in democratic society”

  [The belief is that better citizenship education means effective citizenship means stronger communities]
  Tags: education charity nonprofit formtime citizenship pshe

• Helium Stick
  deceptively simple exercise for learning how to work together and communicate.
  Tags: games groups team teambuilding
• Studying Electronics
  Some nice clear explanations for Y6
  Tags: science reference lessons Y6

• Mobile Learning | Teachers TV
  Staff benefit from the mobility and fun factor of the technology, as the children complete an educational treasure trail. In a training session, the year 5 teachers discuss ways of using the EDAs in preparation for adopting the technology in their own classrooms.
  Tags: teaching learning IT videos mobile
• “Rugged, Low Cost Laptops for Kids”
  This is beginning to look like an option – apparently in stores from February.
  Tags: schools technology Intel laptops
• ‘Carbon cost’ of Google revealed
  “US physicist Alex Wissner-Gross claims that a typical Google search on a desktop computer produces about 7g CO2.

  However, these figures were disputed by Google, who say a typical search produced only 0.2g of carbon dioxide. “
  Tags: google research technology Green environment

• Loving animals to extinction
  “It turned out I’d missed his previous paper in which his collaborators had posed as waiters at a (presumably quite plush) party, offering people canapes of caviar said to be either from rare or common species.

  Guess which one people said tasted better?

  Now we have the beginnings of a route to extinction. If people think they prefer the taste of the rare species (the “two varieties” in the experiment were actually the same, so it’s clearly our psychology that’s making the difference), then that caviar will command a higher price than the other, and fishermen will seek the sturgeon that makes it.”
  Tags: conservation rarity exceptions choice extinction

This is rather lovely…

History of the Internet from PICOL on Vimeo.

• Econoclass: The distributive justice game
  Rawls-based game for the class – could be good way to get the children thinking about rights, laws etc though needs some simplifying
  Tags: games school JohnRawls citizenship rights justice lessons

• How the city hurts your brain
  “scientists have begun to examine how the city affects the brain, and the results are chastening. Just being in an urban environment, they have found, impairs our basic mental processes. ” [thanks Foe for the link]
  Tags: cities brains
• Spacehack
  a directory of ways to participate in space exploration. interact + connect with the space community.
  Tags: education science space opensource directory

I liked this idea [thanks JP]

“Child-like brains are great for learning, but not so good for effective decision-making or productive action. There is some evidence that adolescents even now have increasing difficulty making decisions and acting independently, and pathologies of adolescent action like impulsivity and anxiety are at all-time historical highs. Fundamental grown-up human skills we once mastered through apprenticeship, like cooking and caregiving itself, just can’t be acquired through schooling. (Think of all those neurotic new parents who have never taken care of a child and try to make up for it with parenting books). When we are all babies for ever, who will be the parents? When we’re all children who will be the grown-ups?”