2012 The year of the iPad

King's starts its iPad trial in 2012 with one year 9 group. If the teachers and I can make their school life better because of them, then the school will add the iPad to the year 9 stationary list for 2013. I just got my iPad 2 and it's already changing my life. The plan is that by the end of Term 1 I'll not have a laptop and will have found a way to do everything on the iPad. I might be asking my students to do some of the research when I can't find a solution to something. Here's a blogger post from that same iPad. Wish me luck.

Steve Jobs discussed in TIME magazine

For Jobs, belief in an integrated approach was a matter of righteousness. "We do these things not because we are control freaks," he explained. "We do them because we want to make great products, because we care about the user, and because we like to take responsibility for the entire experience rather than turn out the crap that other people make." He also believed he was doing people a service. "They're busy doing whatever they do best, and they want us to do what we do best. Their lives are crowded; they have other things to do than think about how to integrate their computers and devices."

In a world filled with junky devices, clunky software, inscrutable error messages, and annoying interfaces, Jobs's insistence on an integrated approach led to astonishing products marked by delightful user experiences. Using an Apple product could be as sublime as walking in one of the Zen gardens of Kyoto that Jobs loved, and neither experience was created by worshipping at the altar of openness or by letting a thousand flowers bloom. Sometimes it's nice to be in the hands of a control freak.

All the stuff is written here:
http://stikhin.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/time-magazine-10072011-steve-jobs-commemorative-issue/

Lessons-29/09/11-Day 3

1st comment = 1 lolly
Tweet favourited by Wells = 2 lollies

P1 A2 Computing

Project plus any questions.

P2 Y10 ICT Mod

Relational Databases: Build TradeMe in 20 minutes ($750 million?)

P4 CIE IGCSE ICT

Access Recap for all who need it ! Your next exam is PAPER 2 - EMAIL, WORD & ACCESS

P5 CIE AS Computing

Recursion vs Loops

Lessons-27/09/11-Day 1

1st 2 comments = 1st 2 lollies
Tweet favourited by Wells = 2 lollies

P1 CIE IGCSE ICT

Exam Formulae and issues

P2 & P3 CIE AS Computing

P2 = Lecture Theatre P3 = Silent reading with questions to me.

P5 NCEA Level 1 ICT

Planning Assessment solution

P6 CIE A2 Computing

Project

New look ready for 2012 and it's about time we had more girls!

Not enough IT girls in NZ! In the UK, girls are doing some of the best work in the IT industry and NZ has a lot of catching-up to do.


Here's a dedicated site : http://www.womenintechnology.co.uk/girls-in-it-campaign

and here's there report: Women's_Careers_in_the_Technology_Industry_2011_Report.pdf

Lessons-07/09/11-Day 5

P2 NCEA L1 COMPUTING
Add this code to the SAVE button.
recordnumber = recordnumber + 1
student(recordnumber).name = txtName.text
student(recordnumber).House = cboHouse.text
student(recordnumber).Grad = cboGrad.text
txtName.clear
Add this code to the SHOW button:
Dim num as integer
For num = 1 to recordnumber
lstShow.items.add(student(num).name & " " & student(num).House & " " & student(recordnumber).Grad)
Next
P4 CIE A2 COMPUTING
Continue project work

P6 CIE IGCSE ICT
Start practice on any IGCSE Paper 3 and prepare questions for Friday’s lesson should you have any trouble with questions

Lessons-31/08/11-Day 1

Lollies for the 1st 2 comments.

P1 CIE IGCSE ICT

Syllabus 7.2 a) How and why do businesses use the tools listed.

b) What do companies worry about when presenting their image? (logo / colour etc.)

This is also prep to finish.

P2 & P3 CIE AS Computing

Programming lesson : Nested iteration and Nested selection
Prep: Email code with correct use of both Nested contracts.

P5 NCEA Level 1 ICT

Finishing off assessment example. Dealing with the answers given on screen.

P6 CIE A2 Computing

3.7 Theory

Google+ is better than Facebook for 10 reasons

1. "Circles"

Overwhelmingly, Google+ users say they prefer Google+'s model for organizing your contacts. While Twitter allows you to "follow" others, and Facebook is all about mutual "friendship," Google+ instead introduces the concept of "Circles."

Circles are groups of friends with different labels such as "co-workers" or "family." Users can choose to share each update with a different group, and also view their incoming streams by group, rather than all at once. "I'm finding the circles help with keeping my life and work separate," explains Google+ fan Richard Walden.

2. Privacy

Google+ users say they find the service's privacy settings easier to use. This might be surprising given that Google+ profiles themselves cannot be private. However, thanks to Circles, it's easy to control which users can see each of your updates. "I want fine grained control of how my posts are shared," says Jen Delisle.

3. Longer, more thoughtful posts

Twitter might be king when it comes to brevity, but Ward Andersonsays he reads more insightful postings on Google+. This thoughtfulness is enabled by Google+'s higher character limit -- users can post multiple paragraphs of text, versus one or two sentences on Twitter.

4. No ads

Google+ users, including Dave Francis Rotaquio, say they love that Google+ is currently ad-free. With Facebook having run ads for years, and Twitter now ramping up its use of advertising, Google+ is now one of the few successful social networks that lacks commercial interruption.

However, the free lunch is unlikely to last forever: Google runs the largest ad network on the Web and may eventually have to face the economic realities of operating a large social site.

5. Group video chat

Want to video chat with up to 10 friends? With Google+, switching from a text chat to a group video conversation takes a click -- and it's one feature that Google's rivals lack. Facebook now supports video calls thanks to a deal with Skype, but group chatting isn't possible there.

What's more, Google just integrated this "Hangouts" feature into YouTube, letting you and your friends chat about videos while you watch.

6. Farmville-free

Google+ recently added games to its lineup -- a feature that's often cited as an annoyance on rival social networks. (Do you have a Facebook friend who can't help but post Farmville updates all day?)

Google+ makes its games less irritating, says Inniya Kim, by relegating all gaming updates to a dedicated tab -- this keeps your stream free from noisy distractions. So if Farmville were ever to come to Google+, few would consider it a pest.

7. Better photos

Some Google+ users say the network is becoming a leader in photo-sharing: Full-screen photo galleries and a highly active community consisting of some the Web's most popular photographers must surely have helped here.

8. Friendly staff

Who said social networks don't need great customer service? The creators of Google+ are active on the service themselves and use it to respond to questions and criticisms. Rob Michael feels this has made Google+ feel more collaborative.

9. Less clutter

Perhaps it's simply the lack of advertising, but many Google+ users say they like Google's clean, white aesthetic. On Google+, there's nothing to distract you from the content.

10. Integrated with Google products

Fans of Google's other services, such as Gmail and Google Calendar, say they like the way Google+ works across many of Google's existing products.

"They had everything else, for the most part, already working so all they needed was to add the social networking aspect to things," says Josiah Stone.

Perhaps the greatest selling point of Google+ is the most obvious, however: It's new. The opportunity to start afresh with an up-to-date list of friends, no spam, no ads and an uncluttered interface is a novel experience for those of us who have spent years maintaining profiles on other websites.

Whether that "new car feel" lasts -- especially for neophiles like me -- remains to be seen.

Copied from:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/social.media/08/23/google.plus.better.cashmore/index.html