Microsoft and Google have been caught out doing predatory pricing on quite a few occasions in the past. Essentially predatory pricing is where you provide a service for free then after a period of time (Usually once all of your competitors have been destroyed) you start charging for this service. Companies accomplish this “scam” by providing propriety software, propriety software is basically software that can only be provided by one company. I am constantly warning the schools of the risks of investing in propriety standards and I’m sure that nearly all of my readers are tired of me beating on this drum… In this case I think the court actually got it wrong.

Google Docs doesn’t thwart our ability to develop PrimaryPad, PrimaryBlogger or SchoolEmail further, it’s obviously that Google Docs does affect our bottom line but we develop PrimaryPad because we believe in our products and in we know that our contributions towards Etherpad and an open standard for collaborative writing on the web will ultimately be the winner of the war. Remember folks.. Good customer service and open standards always win.

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In my opinion you can’t get much lower than stealing from resources primary school kids use to learn with.   I realize that anyone reading this is  already in that school of thought.  I guess I’m completely biased though and blind to the other social subtleties at play in the surrounding area.

The school is going to need to replace some parts of that door though if not the whole thing.. It’s not all bad news at least as the kids can still continue to learn with technology

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Personalised learning needs a smooth transition between various service providers who are
offering learning content and activities. With continual password prompts being a barrier to this
style of learning, and putting off many schools. Single Sign On (SSO) should be one of the
underlying technologies that removes this barrier, yet it is failing to live up to its promise and the
hard work that many people have put into it. This endangers the whole thrust of personalisation
mediated by technology.

Schools have both a want and a need to try to personalise students’ online learning. Since 2006
the majority of schools, districts and local authorities have tried to accomplish this by accessing
web based learning resources using a Single Sign On system called Shibboleth to avoid
remembering and having to enter multiple passwords on multiple web applications. At
Government level this system is called “Federated Access Management (FAM)” but as the scope of
my report covers a specific mechanism I will not be using this term. This system isn’t achieving its
goals, in this report I will try to explain why and how we can go about making Single Sign On a
more natural experience for schools. If I was reading this report I would have given up before now,
thinking “Meh, its someone else’s problem” but really it isn’t. I hope you can take some time to
read on and to find out how we can all work together to solve the problem.

Download the report: PDF, Microsoft Word, Open Document.

See previous revisions of the report: http://john.primarypad.com/ep/pad/view/single-sign-on-writeup/latest

I’m not expert but it seems like calm.com would be a useful resource for behavioral management. It’s pretty hard to be angry or upset after idly watching it for a few minutes.

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So, if you’re reading this, the chances are you are a blogger, if you’re not a blogger, your class might be bloggers and if your class are not blogging, the very fact you are here reading this suggests that you probably should be.

I started blogging with my class less than two years ago. In that time, blogging has transformed my teaching, my attitude and my learning too. Blogging has become a very powerful tool in my teacher’s toolbox. Through hard work and some good luck, I have managed to develop a large audience for my pupils to showcase their talents to. Through the use of Twitter, I have tweeted links each day – sometimes as many as 20 per day out to the world. If people don’t like what I am tweeting about it’s simple, they can ‘unfollow’ me. Believe me, many have – and told me too!

During my time researching blogging, supporting other blogging teachers an just observing new blogs, one thing has become very clear. Building an audience takes time. It took me about 2 months to get regular stream of visitors to my first class blog: (www.y62010.heathfieldcps.net) back in December 2009. I have seen so many teacher start blogging with their class and either because they lost interest or their pupils lost interest the once exciting new platform that promised so much – delivered very little!

Here’s where a little idea I had could help you out…

Imagine 4 schools or classes of similar aged pupils from different parts of the world. All sharing one common objective – to publish their learning to a global audience. Instead of waiting 2-3 months to get your audience, why not use the community around you to support you in these first months. This is where QuadBlogging comes in. It’s free, takes 1 minute to sign up to and promises to deliver a truly global audience of like minded people to your class blog.

Here’s how it works:

Here’s what Miss B’s Class think about QuadBlogging and the impact it has had on the children:

QuadBlogging has been going from strength to strength. The September to December cycle has have over 500 classes from 18 countries. We’re talking somewhere in the region of 15,000 – 20,000 pupils from around the world. Sign up allows you to specify where you’d like some of your Quaddies to be from as a result, allowing you to fit QuadBlogging into your curriculum. The next round of QuadBlogging sees registration open right now. The cycle will run from January 2012 – April 2012:

Sign up here: www.QuadBlogging.net

Here’s what some teachers already QuadBlogging have to say about it:

“Hightlights of Quadblogging? All of it! The children in my class are absolutely absorbed and loving our purposeful learning journey around the world. Each day brings something new to our classroom. You can’t “plan” that!
We are Skyping to meet our Australian buddies today.
Thank you for introducing Quadblogging to us!”

“Quadblogging offers so many fantastic opportunities to connect with others all over the world! My students are 5-6 year olds and they are learning so much from our quaddies. There is great excitement and engagement in the classroom everyday as we explore the different blogs and ask questions and write comments to our new friends. Our blog says it all –http://prepblackburnsouth.blogspot.com/
What an amazing initiative – linking students and teachers from all over the world. Thank you!”

“WOW! Quadblogging has been awesome – an intentional response to our writing which is fantastic for the children to read. It’s authentic feedback from other students and we can’t put a price on that! The class have absolutely hung on every word written by their buddies and have avidly searched through each other blog for interesting ideas to compare and contrast to their own. We have truly gone global through this and their sense of their place in the world has really become a reality. Quadblogging rocks!”

Registration is free and easy, the impact could be huge and powerful!

www.quadblogging.net

David Mitchell
aka @DeputyMitchell
Founder of QuadBlogging

Step 1. Find the game you want on Primary Games Arena

Step 2. Click Share then Click Link, click again for embed code

Step 3. Copy the embed code (Right click Select all, Right click Copy), it will look something like “<iframe width=800 height=600 src=”http://primarygamesarena.com/redirect.php?id=250″></iframe>”

Step 4. Create a new post or edit an existing one. Click HTML in the top right corner of your editor.

Step 5. Right click on the editor and click Paste.

No doubt you will do what I did and either write your name or draw a face!

It wins in the coolness category too as it’s built using canvas/JS so it’s open source and free to play

Nice!

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