Friday 28 October 2011

New tool - Microsoft WebMatrix - Create and publish web sites for free

Create, customize and publish websites with WebMatrix

WebMatrix is a free web development tool from Microsoft that includes everything you need for website development. Start from open source web applications, built-in web templates or just start writing code yourself. It’s all-inclusive, simple and best of all free. Developing websites has never been easier.

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Thursday 20 October 2011

Pearson and Google Jump Into Learning Management With a New, Free System

One of the world’s biggest education publishers has joined with one of the most dominant and iconic software companies on the planet to bring colleges a new—and free—learning-management system with the hopes of upending services that affect just about every instructor, student, and college in the country.

Today Pearson, the publishing and learning technology group, has teamed up with the software giant Google to launch OpenClass, a free LMS that combines standard course-management tools with advanced social networking and community-building, and an open architecture that allows instructors to import whatever material they want, from e-books to YouTube videos. The program will launch through Google Apps for Education, a very popular e-mail, calendar, and document-sharing service that has more than 1,000 higher-education customers, and it will be hosted by Pearson with the intent of freeing institutions from the burden of providing resources to run it. It enters a market that has been dominated by costly institution-anchored services like Blackboard, and open-source but labor-intensive systems like Moodle.

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Thursday 13 October 2011

Scottish Review: Are you feeling stressed at work? If so, here are the reasons

Many organisations now undergo major restructuring every few years. Sometimes this process is necessary in order to respond to market changes, developments in technology or staff turnover. But quite often restructuring is simply a device by managers to give themselves a high profile and create the illusion that they are doing something important. From their perspective, it has the added benefit of creating an atmosphere of insecurity and keeping the troops on their toes. In my experience, it is very rare for a proper cost/benefit analysis of restructuring to take place after the event. Instead, managers use their narrative privilege – for example, in compiling annual reports – to put a positive spin on the results of their efforts. Ask the guys on the front-line of the operation and you are likely to get a different assessment.

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Tuesday 11 October 2011

Three quarters of bosses say graduates are not fit for work | Mail Online

Three out of four bosses say school leavers and graduates lack the basic skills needed to join the workforce.

A poll of some of Britain’s biggest businesses, such as HSBC, Santander, KPMG and Procter & Gamble, found widespread despair with the quality of potential recruits.

Many young people turn up for interviews ‘without the vital employability skills that employers are looking for’, such as punctuality and a general ‘can-do’ attitude.

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Friday 7 October 2011

Gamers Opt Out - Protect your personal data

Many game companies are now inserting class-action lawsuit prevention clauses in their EULAs. The only way to get out of these is to physically mail a letter to them. We think it’s absurd you can’t do it online.

Well, now you can.

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous

Monday 3 October 2011

Wage bill for university managers soars by a third - Herald Scotland | News

THE salary bill for senior management teams running Scottish universities has soared by a third in five years, new figures show.

 

A submission to a review of the governance of Scottish higher education reveals total senior management salaries rose from £12 million in 2005 to £16m last year.

Posted via email from Tony Gurney's Pre-posterous