Archive for the ‘open source’ Category:


Setup a new WordPress installation as a subdomain with Buddypress

In the months ahead, I’m expecting to setup several different websites that will be used for educational networking / social networking using WordPress and the Buddypress plugin. I’ve been using WordPress since 2005, but need to get up to speed on Buddypress. Because I’m not

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Hyperlinked sliding image banner in WordPress

I need to update the WordPress theme Karen Montgomery and I are using on our Powerful Ingredients 4 Blended Learning site, to make it easier / clearer for visitors to get information about our “Digital Magic Tricks Workshop” for educators and register directly for the June 21-22 workshop we’re planning to offer in Oklahoma City

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Let’s build openly licensed, digital curriculum together – but where?

This week I’ll be brainstorming with other Oklahoma educators working on a Race To The Top (RTTT) federal grant application. When it comes to technology integration and STEM, one of the best ideas I can suggest is providing opportunities for teachers to build digital curriculum together. If these online curriculum materials are published on the

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Do District IT Staff Spout FUD at Macs, Linux, or BYOT Proposals?

School district IT staff can be very closed-minded when it comes to alternative computing platforms. To be fair, however, as HUMAN BEINGS we can all be closed-minded when someone suggests changing fundamental aspects of our daily lives or worldview. photo credit: Amy Mud Pie I frequently visit with teachers who say things like the following:

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Openness is the only means of doing education

Open education, open educational resources, and open source software should be household names. I just finished watching David Wiley‘s TEDxNYED talk on YouTube via my iPad, and I am inspired as a result. I loved his image of the 2 year old having a tantrum, and comparing that to our tendency as educators and citizens

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Alternatives to Ning if free Ning sites are all shut down?

In yesterday’s TechCrunch article, “Ning’s Bubble Bursts: No More Free Networks, Cuts 40% Of Staff” Jason Kincaid shared an email from Jason Rosenthal, Ning’s new CEO. Rosenthal purportedly wrote: So, we are going to change our strategy to devote 100% of our resources to building the winning product [commercialized, paid Ning accounts] to capture this

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Podcast345: Open Educational Resources (OER) – Iowa 1:1 Institute

As more schools embrace 1:1 learning on a variety of platforms, the importance of digital curriculum will grow. Open Educational Resources (OER) are licensed under terms which permit other educators to both use and (in some cases) remix content to fit the standards, context, and needs of their classrooms. This podcast is a recording of

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Iowa 1:1 Institute Presentation Resources

These are the presentation resources for the two sessions our Storychasers board members / representatives will be sharing on April 7, 2010, in Des Moines, Iowa, at the CASTLE Iowa 1:1 Institute. Note both sessions are shared as Google Presentations with embedded hyperlinks. OER: Open Educational Resources Storychasing Literacy Technorati Tags: education, i11i, iowa, laptop,

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Install alternate operating systems and software on a netbook via a USB flash drive

This is a guest blog post by Sherman Nicodemus. This is my fourth post in a series this week on “Moving at the Speed of Creativity.” If you have questions about this post I’ll be glad to answer them via comments here. If you purchase a netbook computer, don’t simply use the pre-installed operating system

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Unplugging from the Commercial Software Grid: A Strategic Path by Kent Brooks #heartlandconf10

These are my notes from Unplugging from Kent Brooks‘ presentation “Unplugging from the Commercial Software Grid: A Strategic Path” at the 2010 Heartland eLearning Conference hosted by the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond. MY THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS ARE IN ALL CAPS. The Heartland eLearning conference is on Twitter, has a conference blog, and a

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Writing Essays and Creating New Games: Things We Should Do on Netbooks

Walter Bender, former president of software and content for the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Foundation and founder of Sugar Labs, granted an interview in December 2009 to Wade Roush. Wade’s article is titled, “Sugar Gets Sweeter: Former OLPC Exec Walter Bender on Netbooks, E-books, Blueberry, and Cloudberry.” Bender gave the opening keynote address in

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Podcast338: Bring Curriculum Alive with SCRATCH by Susan Andrews and Students

This podcast is a recording of Susan Andrews’ presentation, “Bring Curriculum Alive with SCRATCH” at the 2010 METC Conference. The official program description was: Are your students ready to meet 21st Century skills using a fun, simple and free computer programming language to create curriculum related projects? SCRATCH was designed to allow students to use

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OKC WordPress Group 25 Jan 2010

These are my notes from our Oklahoma City WordPress User’s Group tonight. The new OC network intrusion detection system prevented everyone at the meeting except one person from accessing the Internet as a guest-user. Ugh! Very painful. We survived not having Internet access, however, thanks to prepared slides and pre-loaded browser tabs by presenters. MY

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Accessing Citrix from Ubuntu

I’m in Allen, Texas, today, and helped my brother in law install Ubuntu on a very old Windows system he has, to extend its useful life. We needed to see if it is possible to login to the Citrix system used by the Allen school district, however, and it turns out this IS possible. We

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WordPress 2.9 adds image editing and video embedding via oEmbed

I learned this evening the latest version of WordPress (2.9) has added several exciting features, including built-in image editing (including cropping and image rotation) as well as video embedding from many popular video sharing websites using the oEmbed standard. I’m also enthused WordPress will now automatically check for plugin-in compatibility when upgrading plug-ins. Plug-in conflicts

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Podcast334: One to One Learning with Open Source Netbooks is Practical, Affordable and Powerful – Learn Why

One to one learning with wireless, digital devices in the hands of every learner in the classroom is the future. With netbooks running over 100 free educational applications on Ubuntu Linux, that dream can be a reality in your classroom and school district today, not tomorrow. As I explain in the introduction to this podcast

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Saving Money on Your One-to-One Program by Alex Inman

These are my notes from Alex Inman’s presentation, “Saving Money on Your One-to-One Program,” at the One to One Institute‘s conference on November 9, 2009 conference in Chicago, Illinois. MY THOUGHTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. I am recording this session and hope to share it as a podcast later. Alex in 6th year of 1:1

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Learning about Netbooks in 1 to 1 Learning Projects from Maine Educators

Sharon Betts, Nick Azzaretti, Scott Bourgoin, Colleen Akerman, Cheryl Oakes, and David Trask published an excellent article in the September 2009 issue of ACTEM’s “Electronic Educator” newsletter titled, “Netbooks: Another Solution for Maine Students.” I recommend you read the full article, but here is an excerpt that may give you some clues about why I

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Podcast332: WordPress Saves Lives – Learn How #actem09

This podcast is a recording of the ACTEM 2009 conference breakout session, “WordPress Saves Lives – Learn How,” by Wesley Fryer on October 16, 2009. ACTEM is the Association of Computer Technology Educators in Maine, and their 2009 conference was held in Augusta. The official conference description for this session was: WordPress is a free,

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How I create and publish podcasts

Jason Kern recently asked me to share information about how I create and publish podcasts here on “Moving at the Speed of Creativity,” and rather than send that info to just him I thought I’d create a post to share these links and procedures. Since I’ve developed these procedures over time it’s entirely possible there

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