Organised by the Curriculum Management and eLearning Department (CMeLD) within the Directorate for Quality and Standards in Education (DQSE), and the Directorate for Educational Services (DES), the exhibition will showcase the latest technologies and approaches towards the use of ICT in education through the theme of Maltese history.

Workshops include private companies that offer educational products and services that harness ICT. These include interactive whiteboards, programmable floor robots, educational software for game consoles, and the use of freeware.

With the emphasis on hands-on experience, students use the workshops to become more acquainted with graphics, multimedia, animation, music, physical education using Wii, Lego NXT, Bee-Bots, WE-DO robots, interactive whiteboards, Microsoft tools, Apple GarageBand audio editing and iPhoto photo editing, and Web 2.0 tools, among others.

A highlight of the exhibition will be the new e-learning platform provided by Fronter which is being rolled-out in State Primary and Secondary Schools.

The exhibition will host several workshops were students, teachers and parents are invited to join in and learn how technology can make support education and make it fun for children. These include a stop animation workshop where students will create their own puppets and animate them, podcasting, videoconferencing, graphics and other multimedia production.

The Directorate for Quality and Standards in Education together with Microsoft will launch the Innovative Teachers Forum, an annual competition for best use of ICT across the curriculum with the winners representing Malta abroad.

EMBED 2012 will also incorporate a prize-giving ceremony that will recognise the best use of ICT across the curriculum.  These awards encourage, promote and share good practice in ICT in our schools and show how e-learning is not just the use of the computer.

The eTwinning National Support Service will also organise workshops and hold its annual prize-giving ceremony for the best eTwinning Projects.

Two challenges in computer programming have also been launched. The scope of the NXT Challenge is to elicit participants to hone their programming skills through NXT Mindstorm programmable robots.  This is sponsored by IMS.

Scratch IT to see IT!  is based on the freely downloadable graphical environment known as Scratch designed by MIT specifically for introducing children to programming in a fun and easy way.  The awards of the competition will be supported by the Faculty of Education at the University of Malta and the eSkills Alliance Malta, which is driven by MITA and partners.

The eLearning centre within CMeLD aims to be the hub of innovation and creativity and at the forefront to explore and exploit these tools. It is also committed to implementing the ambitious national eLearning strategy and to ensure that eLearning grows and develops for the benefit of all learners.

This activity is being organised with the support of various local suppliers.

“EMBED 2012: Best Use of ICT” will be open for schoolchildren from 8.30 am to 1 pm on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Monday 25/26/27/30 April; and for the general public on Saturday between 9am and 4pm and on Sunday 29 between 9am and 12pm and 3pm and 6pm at the Mediterranean Conference Centre, Valletta.

https://www.facebook.com/embedmalta

The basic idea behind this game is that you simply have to draw one item from a list of 3 options (different at every round) and the other player (can be a random player from all over the world or from your social network list) has to guess what you are drawing.

Of course, most players are pretty bad (including myself) with drawing on a touch screen so the end result might be pretty… lets say interesting… there are others however that can draw great stuff. Check out the gallery below from one of my twitter friends Matthew (www.twitter.com/matthewzammit) . Great collection!

[Show as slideshow]

The Nokia Lumia 800 features head-turning design, vivid colors and the best social and Internet performance, with one-touch social network access, easy grouping of contacts, integrated communication threads and Internet Explorer 9. It features a 3.7 inch AMOLED ClearBlack curved display blending seamlessly into the reduced body design, and a 1.4 GHz processor with hardware acceleration and a graphics processor. The Nokia Lumia 800 contains an instant-share 8MP camera experience based on leading Carl Zeiss optics, HD video playback, 16GB of internal user memory and 25GB of free SkyDrive storage for storing images and music.

The purposely built, no-nonsense Nokia Lumia 710 can be personalized with exchangeable back covers and thousands of apps to bring the Lumia experience to more people around the world. The Nokia Lumia 710 is designed for instant social & image sharing, and the best browsing experience with IE9. With the same 1.4 GHz processor, hardware acceleration and graphics processor as the Nokia Lumia 800, the Nokia Lumia 710 delivers high performance at a more affordable price tag. It also incorporates a 5MP Camera, HD video playback, 8GB of internal user memory and free SkyDrive storage for storing images and music.

Both smartphones include signature Nokia experiences optimized for Windows Phone, including Nokia Drive, which delivers a full-fledged personal navigation device (PND) with free, turn-by-turn navigation and dedicated in-car-user-interface; and Nokia Music introducing MixRadio, a free, global, mobile music-streaming application that delivers hundreds of channels of locally-relevant music. In an update delivered later this year, Nokia Lumia users will also gain the ability to create personalized channels from a global catalogue of millions of tracks. Also integrated in Nokia Music is Gigfinder, providing the ability to search for live local music for a complete end-to-end music experience, as well as the ability to share discoveries on social networks and buy concert tickets also coming in the Nokia Music software update delivered later this year.

The Lumia 710 is currently available in both black and white finishes whilst the Lumia 800 is currently available in black, and soon also in white. Prices for the Nokia Lumia range start from €369 incl.vat and 2 years warranty.

Meanwhile, a number of important updates have just been announced namely significant gains to the phone’s battery life, enhanced audio capabilities and an improved music-listening experience. The update also makes sure that the soft keys illuminate no matter what your brightness levels settings are. Nokia Lumia updates are available via Zune or Windows Phone 7 Connector.

It’s estimated that the floating farm would provide 54 megawatts of power to the island. If Malta signs the deal, the structure would be the world’s largest floating wind farm to date. This for me is probably the first serious proposal by the Maltese Govt in order to reach the minimum quota.

Via : Discovery

Space Monkey, wants to combine the benefits of local storage and the cloud. Customers get a 1 terabyte hard drive, which means you can always access your files without dealing with your Internet connection. At the same time, the drive is connected to a peer-to-peer network, and copies of your files are also distributed in chunks to other devices. (They’re encrypted for security purposes.) The network allows you to access your files remotely, and also provides a backup in case your local storage fails — the company says more than half the network would have to go down before files are lost.

The company plans to start shipping devices this summer. It will charge a subscription fee of $10 a month (no extra charge to rent the hard drive). It’s also accepting pre-orders from 1,000 customers who want to pay for two years upfront — those early adopters get to keep the hard drive outright. This however seems to be a US only offering at the moment but we will update all readers if this service is rolled out to the world.

The Windows 8 consumer preview has now been out for about a week or so, and considering this is beta software it seems to be working surprisingly well. There are a few usability kinks that have to be ironed out but overall it seems like a nice stable system.

We have recently came across this article by Ed Bott on Cnet and he goes through some neat Windows 8 shortcuts and surprises to help you out in your daily tasks

Click here to read the more

After a lot of playing around, I accidentally stumbled on the Shut Down feature. Here are the steps.

First, you take the mouse to the lower-right corner and wait for the on-screen menu tab to appear before clicking on Settings.

Next click on the Power button.

Then you finally get to click on Shut Down or Reset.

Compared to the Classic interface you can accomplish the same thing with two clicks, this takes a bit longer and some time to get used to…