bodmas blog

PROPS is an online publishing system designed to mimic the workflow found in a small newspaper. Journalists can write stories which can be assigned by an editor. A story can be tracked through first, second and third re-writes and finally added to an ‘issue’ of the newspaper. Issues can be final (ie published) or staged (not visible outside the back end of the system). The editor has final say on when to publish an ‘issue’. Archive management is automatic and there is a search feature.

The system runs on PHP4 and MySQL. Installation involves uploading the scripts, typing a few paths and the database name and user/password into a configuration file, and then creating the tables by uploading a file with SQL statements into the database manager. To add images to articles you will need a server with Image Magick installed with direct access to the modules within Image Magick. There is a hack to use the GD graphics library.

The last published version was Feb 2004 and the system is used to produce the Web version of a number of small US newspapers and a student newspaper at the University of Strathclyde.

Just the job if you want a class newspaper with tight control over what gets published!

Boring meetings and the main culprit seems to be PowerPoint. Edward Tufte has concerns over the Cognitive Style of PowerPoint as reported at some length by Wired Magazine (September 2002) under the headline PowerPoint is Evil.

How to not bore students with PowerPoint

• Maximum 5 to 7 slides
• Use PowerPoint for what it is good at – drawing tools and custom animations to show workflows, processes
• Use PowerPoint in editing mode to record student ideas – save – distriubute afterwards
• Use PowerPoint to introduce activities and keep the pace – like an animated lesson plan. Group activities summarised as slides so everyone knows what to do
• Use diagrams without labels and give students printouts to write on – if it is a complex diagram print the slide full size so there is plenty of room to write notes. Use questionning to get the labels written…

This is the paragraph or two that runs ‘above the fold’ with perhaps just a sentence now and again to set the scene.

MindGenius is a ‘mind mapping’ software tool for making ‘bubble notes’ or ‘mind maps’ – visual diagrams that allow you to explore the links between ideas. Many teachers in humanities subjects use ‘mind maps’ to motivate students doing essay plans and so on. I’ll be using one to help forensic science students produce a report on forensic ICT.

• The software is well supported by a good MindGenius FAQ from Liverpool University
• All FE Colleges can have a free licence for MindGenius for a limited time as a result of a JISC deal
• I like using this kind of tool (I have used Inspiration previously) on a projector to encourage collective mapping out and discussion of ideas

The BBC news story on the recent problems with the Cahoot online banking service also mentions an HCFB error where an e-mail was sent to 2,500 people in such a way that they could all see the addresses of the other recipients (CC rather than BCC).

What I find interesting was that this latter e-mail hiccup was regarded as a Data Protection Act issue and that HCFB was asked to compensate account holders.

The Science for Monks Web site is about science and Maths training for Bhuddist monks. The five teachers involved found teaching the workshops a challenge. Stamatis Vokos has described a session in some detail.

A secondary agenda is about keeping the Tibetan language current by developing a scientific vocabulary. This unusual Web page came from one of the pages listed in Seb Schmoller’s informative learning email list for this week.

The SANS Institute has a good Web site where you can download articles about a wide range of topics – look for the Reading Room link from the front page. There is even a 13 page tutorial on using an Apple Mac laptop running Mac OS X as a forensic analysis station – the Mac can take images of hard drives easily using standard Unix commands in a terminal window.

Many of the papers in the Reading Room were written by students of the Institute on courses so caveats apply. The policy and legal aspects have a US bias but the technical information works world wide.