I am very happy to inform everyone that the Ajax Photo Album User Interface has been committed to OpenACS CVS.

Following the design pattern we used on Ajax File Storage UI, the Ajax Photo Album UI creates an ajax powered user interface on top of the photo album package using the principle of graceful degradation. Using the ExtJs and Shadowbox javascript libraries, AjaxPA UI v0.1d has the following features :

• The ability to navigate folders and albums using a dhtml tree panel.
• The ability to add, edit and delete folders and albums.
• Move folders and albums using drag and drop on the tree panel.
• Move photos from one album to another using drag and drop.
• Paging support for thumbnailed images.
• Uploading a zip file of photos or one photo at a time.
• Image preview using Shadowbox Media Viewer javacript library.

Interested to try it out ? Grab the code from OpenACS and install the package on your OpenACS instance.

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(photo by Sugar FOSS Manual)

I'm going to try to post more about our progress as we get Sugar on a Stick ready for prime time. I'm going to try a sweet and sour formula

Record - http://activities.sugarlabs.org/en-US/sugar/addon/4081

I played with Record on my iMac today.

The Sweet:

• Video worked on my iMac

The Sour:

• Audio doesn't work yet
• Video quality isn't great - but alsroot thinks he knows how to fix that!

Why should we care?

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(photo by CuriousLee)

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 22 /PRNewswire/ --

Sugar Labs(TM) announces the availability for testing of Sugar on a Stick Beta-1. This version of the free open-source Sugar Learning Platform, available at http://www.sugarlabs.org for loading on any 1 Gb or greater USB stick, is designed to facilitate exploration of the award-winning Sugar interface beyond its original platform, the One Laptop per Child XO-1, to such varied hardware as aging PCs and recent Macs to the latest netbooks.

Teachers and parents interested in trying Sugar with children can download the Sugar on a Stick beta-1 file from the Sugar Labs website and load it onto a USB stick by following the instructions at http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/Sugar_on_a_Stick.

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In my previous post, I wrote about some of the new improvements in this latest, soon-to-be-released version of LAMS.  In this post, we get to know more.

LAMS v2.3 will include 5 new tools:

• Video Audio Recording. LAMS Video Recorder Tool lets authors/teachers record their instructions for the learners or students. These video recordings can be embedded into their sequence.
  
  The Video Recorder, which comes as a separate activity, lets learners or students upload their own videos, too.  Students may also leave comments and rate other learners/students recordings.  

  The Video Audio Recording tool also comes with a FCKEditor plugin, which lets teachers/authors record a videos and insert these videos into any activitiy of their liking.
  
  Teachers and students may also export all recording on Export Portfolio.
  

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(photo by by ElektraCute)

In the May issue of Innovate magazine Marie Sontag proposes "A Learning Theory for 21st-Century Students." I especially like her "Link, Lurk and Lunge" alliteration for describing 21st Century learning.

 I'm going to define the stages slightly differently then she does.

Link - Learners look at links, collect them as bookmarks and find both the digital people and on-line places that have the knowledge they are studying. Indeed its interesting how people and online places blur. Is finding a good blog finding a place or a person? What about a mailing list where experts are conversing on the subject?

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On Friday, Walter Bender, Pablo Flores from Uruguay, and I went to FOSSVT - Vermont's Open Source and Education Conference.  We handed out Sugar on a Stick and it worked!

It worked on the eeePCs, it worked on the Dells big and small, it worked on the think pads, it worked on the classmate.  It worked on the HP tablet, including the touchscreen! It didn't work on one of the little HP netbooks but that was our only complete fail.  We had problems with accessing wireless on a few models.  One laptop needed the boot helper CD.

We had a room full of people doing Turtle Art!  It was wonderful.

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(photo by LAMS International)

LAMS v2.3 was initially planned to be released at the start of July.  Good news is the latest version of LAMS is aimed to be released in May with a whole bunch of massive improvements, new features, and fixes. 

Teachers and students will definitely get their share of advantages from the new features that make this latest version so much better than the earlier ones.

Let's look at some of the cool stuff in this new version:

• With its increased performance, users will not have to wait long.  LAMS v2.3 will boot 75% faster and run 375% faster compared to the previous versions.  To add to that, LAMS v2.3 will use only a quarter of RAM memory.

• With the New and Simplified Adding Lesson Wizard, teachers can create a lesson in just 3 clicks.
  
  
  

• Through the Activity Planner, teachers are guided through the design process, adding their own content to educationally sound learning activities.  Teachers are able to find the right sequence they need through the help of the Wizard.  The Activity/Pedagogical Planner gives teachers a cut-down and simplified version of authoring, presenting most of the content for all the activities that are part of the sequence in just one page through the help of the editor.
  
  LAMS Activity Planner produces runnable learning activities that students can readily use.
  
  Click here to see more of the Activity Planner in action. (source: LAMS Foundation).  You may also want to see more blogging about the Activity Planner in this post.

• Integration with the LAMS Community.  The new version allows the import of sequences directly into LAMS Author from the LAMS Community.  Teachers/authors get to share their best sequences with everyone in the LAMS Community.

• Public shared folder gives authors a chance to share their designs with each other.

• Teachers and learners are able to communicate while they are working on a LAMS lesson through the Instant Messaging.
  
  
  
  
  
• A simple yet fully functional Gradebook lets teachers see all the marks that the students get in their lessons.

• Export Activity.  Activity results can be exported to other Gradebooks such as Moodle, Sakai, .LRN and other integrations.

• Students can access support activities at any given time, for additional reference.  These support activities are part of the learning design, but not necessarily part of the sequence of activities.
  
  
  
  

• Upgrade to fastest HTML online editor.  LAMS v2.3 will use FCK Editor version 2.6.4.  The updates include increases in speed and better rendering of content as well as as in-built media player.

• Graphs and charts to monitor learner's time in activities.  In the Monitoring Environment, graphs show how quickly learners move through the sequence of activities.  These graphs make it easy for authors to troubleshoot areas where learners spend a lot of time on particular activities.  It is also easy to identify the learners who are moving at a slow pace than the rest of the class. 
  
  The graphs and charts show "live" information and will give precise information about the amount of time students are spending in a lesson.
  
  
  
  
  
  

In my next post, find out about the 5 new tools in LAMS v2.3.  

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(photo by Americas Quarterly)

Project CEIBAL is Uruguay's one laptop per child initiative.

 Here are some details:

"This makes CEIBAL different from previous efforts to bridge the digital divide in Uruguay. It combines the distribution of computers with a program to train teachers in the cognitive skills needed to use IT for maximum benefit. It is not oriented toward creating an IT-friendly environment merely inside the classroom, but also outside: students are expected to take laptops home so that the computer can then be shared among family members."

"To date, we have delivered 151,918 XO computers—low-power laptops that operate with flash memory and a Linux operating system—to students in public schools in Uruguay. By the end of 2009 one laptop will be delivered to each of the 301,143 students and 12,879 teachers in Uruguay’s 2,064 public schools. Students with mental, visual, hearing, or motor disabilities—as well as their schools—will also receive computers specifically tailored to meet their needs. CEIBAL’s total initial cost, financed entirely by the Uruguayan state, is $100 million (each computer costs $220). In addition to that, the government will spend $15 million annually for the program’s maintenance and continuity. "

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