A learning management site is a kind of CMS (Content Management System) created for educational purposes: teaching and learning online.
If we take a look to this site, you will find some basic information in some languages. It is a little guide of different situations: go shopping, how to introduce yourself, etc. Here you can find the most common expresions or vocabulary you might need for instance if you are going to do a trip to an specific country. You can find also some basic grammar or activities in order to practice.
In my opinon, this site could be improved to be used as a Learning Management Site by adding some resources in order to have feedback. It would be useful some forums where you can askquestions to teachers or partners, or where you can find som people who is interested in practicing the language.
This site would also need more grammar and lessons according to the different level of the students and a syllabus, because the learning process needs to follow the correct steps. So it should have a starting point and the necessary tools to control the progress of the students.
Sunday, 23 February 2014
CMS examples
I have been checking several sites from schools which have been created with different CMS, such as Drupal, WordPress, Joomla, PHP-Nuke, SPIP, Zikula (mostly in Catalonia), Mestre a casa (offered by Conselleria of Valencia) or Moodle.
All of them seems to me quite interesting, and I am sure all provide to creators lots of possiblilties to make alluring websites.That's the main thing in my opinion. In first instance,web pages should catch the atention of visitors with amazing photos, colors, drawings, etc. It is also important to show at first sight a general idea of the information that the site can offer you and it should be very aesy and intuitive to find the information you are looking for.
By that reasons I would like you take a look the websites of Navarro Santa Fe and Doctor Balmis.Here you can find sites using wordPress and Joomla respectively, but the CMS you use is not as important as the contents and the appearance. For instance, in Doctor Balmis' site the last news are from five days ago, and this is an important issue if you want to keep the interest of visitors..
All of them seems to me quite interesting, and I am sure all provide to creators lots of possiblilties to make alluring websites.That's the main thing in my opinion. In first instance,web pages should catch the atention of visitors with amazing photos, colors, drawings, etc. It is also important to show at first sight a general idea of the information that the site can offer you and it should be very aesy and intuitive to find the information you are looking for.
By that reasons I would like you take a look the websites of Navarro Santa Fe and Doctor Balmis.Here you can find sites using wordPress and Joomla respectively, but the CMS you use is not as important as the contents and the appearance. For instance, in Doctor Balmis' site the last news are from five days ago, and this is an important issue if you want to keep the interest of visitors..
CMS
A Content Management System (CMS) is a simple way to create web pages. If you would like to create one you will need a database and templates.
There are a lot of positive aspects: it is quite easy to install and to update information and activities, and it could be a good tool for education.
However, it seems to be easy, but of course you would need some knowledge about HTML, CSS, etc, and it is necessary to have enough time to update it in order to avoid security problem or to avoid being obsolote.
By these reasons I think that is a useful tool to use in education if you are a part of a good team or department. This team would be necessary to share all the work needed and should be interested in web pages to make the subjects more alluring to pupils. It could be use, for instance, to share photos,activities and works done by pupils every year. Thus new pupils could get ideas from previous works and they could try to improve them.
One of CMS you can use to create web pages is JOOMLA. It provides you lots of extensions you can use in your web page. I would like to share this extension with you, it is a solution to create your own flexible petitions and collect the signatures as easy as possible.
There are a lot of positive aspects: it is quite easy to install and to update information and activities, and it could be a good tool for education.
However, it seems to be easy, but of course you would need some knowledge about HTML, CSS, etc, and it is necessary to have enough time to update it in order to avoid security problem or to avoid being obsolote.
By these reasons I think that is a useful tool to use in education if you are a part of a good team or department. This team would be necessary to share all the work needed and should be interested in web pages to make the subjects more alluring to pupils. It could be use, for instance, to share photos,activities and works done by pupils every year. Thus new pupils could get ideas from previous works and they could try to improve them.
One of CMS you can use to create web pages is JOOMLA. It provides you lots of extensions you can use in your web page. I would like to share this extension with you, it is a solution to create your own flexible petitions and collect the signatures as easy as possible.
Tuesday, 18 February 2014
Newsletters
I would like to recommend the newsletter from the website ScienceDaily. This website allows you to receive newsletters about Science, Health, Technology, Society, etc. And if you are interested in several fields you can recieve the top news or the most popular stories.
Some comments about applications
I would like to comment my favourite apps and lesson plans I have shared with you:
App for tablet: Macrocosm 3D: This is an app teachers can use when they are teaching contents related to the Universe and the Solar System.With this app students can see amazing cosmos views, 3D models of galaxies, planets and stars, and they can learn more about the size of some celestial bodies such as the hypergiant star VY Canis Majoris, or the huge distances among some different parts of the Milky Way.
Tool for computers: Robolab: This is an interesting program teachers can use when explaining some robotic components and what they are used for. Pipils can build a vehicle with LEGO and they can control and program the movements of this vehicle.
Lesson plan for printing: The Earth in the Universe: This is a lesson plan I have found in the Junta de Andalucía website. It is already prepared to Spaniards who are learning Sciences in English with CLIL methodololgy. Pupil can find several activities, and in the spoken activities it is also provided some useful language that pupils can use in order to ask for clarification or for expressing one's opinion.
Lesson plan for whiteboard: Severe weather lesson, Hurricane,tornado:This lesson includes information about Hurricanes,Tornados, etc. Teacher can use this tool while teaching the Earth's atmosphere and what factors affect climate. You can find there video links that bring the severe weather right into your classsroom, so I think pupils will find it quite interresting.
On-line publications: National Geographic kids: Here kids have an amusing website where students can learn through videos, photos and news some more things when studying living things, vertebrates and invertebrates.
App for tablet: Macrocosm 3D: This is an app teachers can use when they are teaching contents related to the Universe and the Solar System.With this app students can see amazing cosmos views, 3D models of galaxies, planets and stars, and they can learn more about the size of some celestial bodies such as the hypergiant star VY Canis Majoris, or the huge distances among some different parts of the Milky Way.
Tool for computers: Robolab: This is an interesting program teachers can use when explaining some robotic components and what they are used for. Pipils can build a vehicle with LEGO and they can control and program the movements of this vehicle.
Lesson plan for printing: The Earth in the Universe: This is a lesson plan I have found in the Junta de Andalucía website. It is already prepared to Spaniards who are learning Sciences in English with CLIL methodololgy. Pupil can find several activities, and in the spoken activities it is also provided some useful language that pupils can use in order to ask for clarification or for expressing one's opinion.
Lesson plan for whiteboard: Severe weather lesson, Hurricane,tornado:This lesson includes information about Hurricanes,Tornados, etc. Teacher can use this tool while teaching the Earth's atmosphere and what factors affect climate. You can find there video links that bring the severe weather right into your classsroom, so I think pupils will find it quite interresting.
On-line publications: National Geographic kids: Here kids have an amusing website where students can learn through videos, photos and news some more things when studying living things, vertebrates and invertebrates.
Apps and tools for class
Hello everybody. Today I would like to share with you a link that addresses to LINO. You will find some apps and lessons I have found in the Internet for tablets, computers, lessons plans for printing, lessons plans for whiteboard and on-line publications.
After hours looking for them, I must say that these are only some examples and you should try first all the apps, tools or applications you will use in the classroom. Only if you use them you will really know whether they are useful or not.
Wednesday, 5 February 2014
CLOUD COMPUTING: ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES
Today we
are going to take a look to the cloud computing.
First of
all I’m going to try a definition of the term cloud: the cloud consists in
servers that are available to everybody in internet, so you only need to be
connected to internet to access to the files that you can storage in them.
Software is also available in these servers and you don’t need to have it
installed in your devices.
These are
some of the advantages and utilities of the cloud:
- You can access from anywhere if there is available an internet connection. You can access with several devices: laptop, tablet or smartphone.
- Not only your files but also all the software you might need is available in the cloud. This means that you don’t have to install this software in your devices and you won’t need to worry about the upgrades of the software as your cloud provider will make it for you
- A same program is shared by several users so you don’t need to pay for a single license. As all these programs are executed in the cloud and you can also storage the files in it, you don’t need a powerful computer, so you can save in hardware and software.
- Maintaining servers is carried out by your cloud company so you should have less computer problems.
- If you need more capacity for your files your company will provide it to you immediately
Some of the
disadvantages are:
- There is only storage availability up to a quantity, it depends on your company cloud, and you need to pay an amount every month if you want more storage
- The lack of privacy and security: At first sight the servers of the cloud seem to be safer that a personal computer, but on the other hand the benefits that a hacker can get from a server with information about many people, is much greater than from your computer. For some companies it is very difficult to trust their research or economic data to the cloud if there is no absolute certainty in the privacy of it.
- If Internet is not available is impossible to access to your data
- Servers can be in any country of the world, so if there is any problem it isn’t clear what law should be applied
- Your company cloud could go bankrupt and your data might be lost.
- The information about the customers is in the servers and it might have problems about the owner of these data, for instance if the costumer would want to change the cloud company.
- If everyone use this technology we will be in the hands of these companies, and in the future they could charge to us what they want. Only competition between companies might ensure a fair price, but all these companies are in several countries, so who is going to judge them?
There is a lot of information you should read
before choosing your cloud company. Here you have some links to know more about
it. Pay attention, these are only opinions. Only after reading these or other opinions you will be ready to choose one of them.
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