The "I never knew how to do that" column #23

Here's some cool stuff that, maybe, you never knew about. Trust me, worth a look.

These are all videos with sound and stuff btw...

RSS Feeds and how they work and why they're useful for you, perhaps

Wikis and what they do (and maybe why you should be interested)

Social Bookmarking. Trust me on this - very cool idea, although I have no idea if you'll be able to use it at school.

Hannah's Guide to Excel Keyboard Shortcut Heaven

Hannah says...

• Showing Formulas: Ctrl+Star Wars (the star wars button being the odd one without a name underneath Escape in the top left of the keyboard). Think: control the force... :-)
• Showing Macro Code: Alt+F11. You might then need to navigate to the different sheets and modules in the left window pane.
• Spell Checking: F7

Hannah says Cowabunga

We don't need no school (we got a learning platform)

Fantastic! The government is at least considering extending the summer holidays to reduce the spread of swine flu. Or maybe temporarily closing schools in the autumn (quick, everyone cough and complain of a sore throat!).

So, what do we do about the education stuff then?

Easy - use the interwebz.

Teachers can just set work via e-mail or on the web or on a learning platform and it can be done and sent back, checked and whathaveyou. Hey, we coul duse podcasts, quizzes and all sorts of stuff. Look, at what Becta (a government sort of agency) is thinking:

Becta's advice would include that schools make sure they have email addresses for parents and that teachers have access to the schools' websites from outside school, so they can set work.

Now, I know what you're thinking - there are some teachers (no, I won't name them, we all know who we're thinking about) who might find this rather complex. Well, yes, but think of the fun they'd have trying it out! Think how much they'd, err, learn...

Cackle.

And, you never know, this thing about using technology to help people learn might catch on. We might be bluetoothing video from mobile phones and listening to podcasts on iPods before we know it...

"You may take your laptop into the exam"? Imagine...

You can in Norway.

Well, in parts of Norway they're trying the idea out anyway. Every 16-19 year old gets given a special laptop which allows them to work effectively (well, that's the idea anyway) in school and at home - and now to experiment with using them in exams.

The secondary students are given a laptop by the government when they turn 16 to help them with schoolwork.

During exams the specially-tailored software springs into life to block and record any attempt at cheating.

From: BBC Website - Norway tests laptop scheme

The idea is that the laptops come preloaded with software that's needed by the individual - so other than standard word processing and spreadsheet packages, art or design students would get specialist software. Then the machines can be used in exams.

The principal is that because students are used to using specific machines and software, they won't have the difficulties that tend to be experienced when special software packages are used just for exams (i.e. working out how to do something in the "new" software).

The difficulty of "cheating" through communication and Internet access seems to have been dealt with by the system, although papers can be downloaded at the start of the exam:

When an exam starts, students go to a website to download the papers for their particular test. However, said the official in charge of the scheme, in some schools answers were completed on computer from paper-based questions.

"That's also why we have to monitor the laptops during the exams, because they are not supposed to have internet access and not supposed to communicate with other students," the official added.

From: BBC Website - Norway tests laptop scheme

I can foresee other problems as well mind you - what happens if a machine locks up or crashes? What about one of those oh so handy "Software has to close now. Do you want to send an error report?" messages?

And can you imagine how many extension leads you'd need to sort out the battery running out issues?!