Talents in Herlev, Denmark

My son Christian performed well tonight when he participated in a music competition.

Office in schools

British Educational Communications and Technology Agency (Becta) has released a report http://publications.becta.org.uk/download.cfm?resID=35275 that recommends schools in Great Britain not to consider upgrading to Microsoft Vista and Office 2007 unless they can upgrade all computers at once and has a direct benefit of such upgrade.

The report from Becta has been referred to in the Danish media over the last few days. (http://www.version2.dk/artikel/5884 and http://www.computerworld.dk/art/43644)

A journalist from the Danish computer magazine Computerworld.dk has asked about such report in Denmark. Vice President Per Thorbøll of UNI-C http://www.uni-c.dk/generelt/english/index.html explains that they don't have money nor authority to do a similar report in Denmark, but as he says:

The conclusion is of cause from Becta, but the computers are the same and the Windows versions are the same. So I think that the situation in Denmark is quite close to the British.

This is as close as he can get to a confirmation without confirming.

UNI-C is the Danish IT Centre for Education and Research and hosts and supports IT for almost all the Danish schools and universities.

Don't let this boy near the airport

Sometimes you find funny news on the internet. Funny, but at the same time serious and dramatic. Now take this one about a 14 years old school boy from Poland ( http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_2675715.html ).
He hacked into the local tram system and played with the trains like it was his private toys. I specially like the part about the remote control. Can you imagine this biy standing in the corner of the central square with this little device - laughing.

Shame in you.

But how should the adults punish him ?

Of cause he must be punished. He have hurt several passengers and four trams were derailed. I suggest that he is ordered to work at the hospital or the local care center for elderly citizens for 10 days or so. Then he will see the consequences of his work. Furthermore he should be punished with at least four years in university. This guy clearly has perspective. I have a son aged twelve and of cause he couldn't do this. But what I think is, that a boy at this age can never be responsible for a thing like this. The responsible is the people responsible for the tram system. They should be punished hard.

Now comes the funny part. Imagine the above incident with this article ( http://blogs.zdnet.com/projectfailures/?p=562 ) about Boeing 787 at risk of in-flight hacking.

Imagine the boy with his remote control in the airport.

Have a party - and die

Join this campaign on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6720713873 called

Folk der går med kniv er idioter!

...in English it's something like "Folks who bring knives to the party are idiots!"

The background is very serious. Over the last few years there has been a lot of assaults in the nightlife in Copenhagen and other cities in Denmark. This Christmas wasn't different. A young man was killed just because he was at the wrong place at the wrong time (http://www.bt.dk/article/20080106/krimi/80106024/).

Amusements for Christmas

Christmas time is time for relax and having a good time. Amusement together with your family and friends.

Earlier in December, I found a blog post on http://jacob-sparre.dk/ about a popular toy from Denmark: Lego. Jacob Sparre has made some fine Danish manuals and he has revealed some of his own models.

Normally you buy a box of Lego and hen follow the instructions, page by page. My own kids are getting a little too old (13 and 15 years) for Lego, but when I introduced them to this concept, they actually returned to what they were about five years ago: Amused by Lego again.

I think most people has experienced the feeling of opening a box of Lego and taking the challenge of building something beautiful or very complicated.

Imagine that you have all the Lego that has ever existed and in all colors in the World. You will never 'mis' that last piece or end up with the wrong color. You have everything, right by your right finger.

OK, this computer program doesn't replace the feeling of building your own model out of those red and blue bricks from Lego, but it can give you the feeling of creating something new.

The program is called LDRAW http://www.ldraw.org and it's open source. You can build all the models that you can imagine - and for no charge at all.

About LDraw:

LDraw™ is an open standard for LEGO CAD programs that allow the user to create virtual LEGO models and scenes. You can use it to document models you have physically built, create building instructions just like LEGO, render 3D photo realistic images of your virtual models and even make animations. The possibilities are endless. Unlike real LEGO bricks where you are limited by the number of parts and colors, in LDraw nothing is impossible.

How about this model of The Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb by Matija Puzar


See more here: http://www.ldraw.org/module-LdrawMOTM-entry-modelid-261.html

OpenOffice.org on school computers

The municipal of Tønder ( http://www.toender.dk ) has installed OpenOffice.org as the only office suite on all 1.500 computers in public school.

That might be the reason for our struggles ...!

A research performed by one of the Danish IT newspapers Computerworld reveals one of the main problems:

• 56% of the answering persons has never heard of open source software.
• 38% of them answered that they have open source programs installed on their computer.

Some of the comments to the result says that there is probably people that is using open souce software without knowing that it's actually open source.

• 25% are using open source software
• 84% of those who are using it, knows that open source is free of charge
  

The research is representing 1.200 people that uses the Internet.

I think that one of the problems is, that teachers in public schools don't know about license rights and copyright law. From my point of view, all students that leaves public school should know about whats right and whats wrong and how free software can be free of charge. That's the only way to change this.

Schools warned off Microsoft deal

Have a look at this article on BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/7063716.stm

Schools warned off Microsoft deal
The UK computer agency Becta is advising schools not to sign licensing agreements with Microsoft because of alleged anti-competitive practices.

About time we see some concrete advise on this issue. Here is the original press release from Becta.

If free software isn't enough

My son Christian Lodahl showed me this (turn in the speakers, it's great music too):

Youngsters in rock

My son Christian aged 14, made this movie from some pictures taken on June 8th. 2007.



It's wonderful to see that young people having a good time.