DocuWiki : Another way of creating an online space for students, parents and teachers!

One knows, that during lessons there is never enough time for students to learn. They need time after the lesson to try to understand it with their own pace. Others might need more information to understand really well. Some students would need to look for more information, to compare the received information with other sites. 

Some projects in schools would need colloboration from other schools. All this could be done using docuwiki! School could host their own server (computer). This space would be accessible just by school students and other persons allowed by the school administration.

DokuWiki is a simple to use and highly versatile Open Source wiki software that doesn't require a database. It is loved by users for its clean and readable syntax. The ease of maintenance, backup and integration makes it an administrator's favorite. Built in access controls and authentication connectors make DokuWiki especially useful in the enterprise context and the large number of plugins contributed by its vibrant community allow for a broad range of use cases beyond a traditional wiki.

For downloads, questions, forum and other queries one has to go here. If one prefers YouTube videos, it is here. 

SoX : the Swiss Army knife of sound processing programs!

Walking in any part of the Western Civilization, one notices that music has become easily accessible and more popular. One notices people walking with headphones nearly most of the time! One can see people talking on their own (!). Our young students are crazy for music. Besides one uses various formats of audio files. Transferring an audio file to anther media outlet is simply, yet not all apps can read all kinds of music!

We have experience with students in classes when they record other sounds on their mobile/laptop etc...but then they cannot hear it on some media outlets!

Today we are suggesting SoX, what is called the swiss army knife for sound processing programs! We have to make you aware that it calls for a steep learning curve. It seems so daunting in the beginning, but that’s what communities are for – to help you sort out any teething problems! It could be installed on Windows, Mac and Linux.

Download;

What SoX can do in one page;

YouTube tutorials and other help;

Homepage;

0 A.D. Is A Free, Open-Source, Historical Real Time Strategy (RTS) Game.

“Macedonia or Macedon was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic ...”

Imagine this kind of introduction in a history lesson...would you be cut off? Would you sleep in class? Would you start fiddling around?

Well, today we’re presenting 0 A.D. is a Free, Open-Source, Historical Real Time Strategy (RTS) Game. It’s a game which students (why not parents too?!) play to learn historical facts by having some time understanding how past generations dealt with life challenges! The students would go back in time in encounter these generations and understand better their challenges in a given historical time! What an excellent way to bring history so near our life today!

Students would not be passive listeners but feel empowered to see things from a different point of view. It will surely help them to see today’s life from a different perspective and be more prepared to face challenges!

It’s an open source game which means that it could be played on mac, windows and linux OS. 

More info is here.
YouTube videos (which are very useful) are here.
One can download it from here.
Forums, channels and contact form are here.

Hollywood Casts Open Source Software in Starring Role

There are still so many people out there who believe that a free program is non-sense or not worth it at all. We are used to pay for products, services etc...so when something is offered for free we say: what’s the trick? Is there something that I have missed? Are you kidding me?

Well, we’ve been saying that in our age transparency is imperative. The fact that an open source could be thoroughly looked at and scrutinized at, makes it a five star program. On the other hand, a propriety program, normally employs a small group of people who have access to the ‘inside’ of the program. The other side of the coin is that in Open Source, anyone who is able to code can 'see' the program and can contribute to it. Can a small number of people from the propriety company compete with such an incredible number of worldwide people who are willing to improve the program?

This time we have great news for open source: the famous Hollywood has teamed up with Open Source! This is not a joke. Yes it’s true! Could Open Source be a partner with such a famous brand if it hasn’t good quality to offer?

We are expected to see lots of positive results in the future! Let’s hope that it will be the door for more sections of society to make such a bold move and embrace open source! For more information click here. 

Words, Images, and Sounds to tell interactive stories : all in Ren'py

Teachers and educators are all the time looking for ways and means to improve the delivery of their lessons. Today we are presenting a different answer. It’s Pen’Py.

Pen'Py is a visual novel engine – used by thousands of creators from around the world – that helps you use words, images, and sounds to tell interactive stories that run on computers and mobile devices. These can be both visual novels and life simulation games!

It should brighten up our language lessons! Students could be part and parcel of the story writing where they can show their talents and skills. If students were to take part, it won’t be boring, but quite interesting!

If one wants to go for documentation or to download it, one should go here;

You tube videos;

Examples of how it was used;

GoldenDict: a truly Golden Dictionary

It’s the not the first time that we receive a note from somebody which has mistakes. In today’s age, one can avoid that kind of embarrassment by checking one’s words with a good dictionary.

Today we proudly present GoldenDict: a feature-rich dictionary lookup program, supporting multiple dictionaries' formats, perfect article rendering with the complete markup, illustrations and other content retained, and allowing to type in words without any accents or correct case.

It supports multiple file formats. It has the ability to use arbitrary websites as dictionaries. It has the ability to index arbitrary directories with audio files for pronunciation look ups.

It has full Unicode case, diacritics, punctuation and white space folding. This means the ability to type in words without any accents, correct case, punctuation or spaces (e.g. typing 'Grussen' would yield 'grüßen' in German dictionaries).

It can pop up a small window with the translation of a word chosen from another application.

It is free and open software (GNU GPLv3+ license.)

One can download it from here. More written help is found here. YouTube tutorials are found here. 

Anki : Helping you to remember things!

We would like to help anybody who wants to memorise any type of content: students, parents and teachers.

Anki is a program which makes remembering things easy. Because it's a lot more efficient than traditional study methods, you can either greatly decrease your time spent studying, or greatly increase the amount you learn.

Anyone who needs to remember things in their daily life can benefit from Anki. Since it is content-agnostic and supports images, audio, videos and scientific markup (via LaTeX), the possibilities are endless.

For example:

• Learning a language
• Studying for medical and law exams
• Memorizing people's names and faces
• Brushing up on geography
• Mastering long poems
• Even practising guitar chords!

Besides, one can have several other features such as synchronization, flexibility, Media-Rich, Fully extensible and can handle decks of more than 100,000 cards!!

It is and open source and it can be used on any operating system!

If you want to download the program, please go here.

YouTube tutorials, please go here.

More tutorials are found here.

Forum where you can write about your challenges etc….go here.