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We use issuu. Which can be embedded into the webpage. Very easy. I'm not a fan of this type of presentation, but lots of people seem to like it.

http://mrmitchell.heathfieldcps.net/2011/01/12/the-bett-show-2011-london/ This guys blog has an embedded aggregator of all the different BETT hashtags, I stumbled across it while looking at BETT tweets. I'm going to keep an eye on it today to give me ideas what to see tomorrow.

In a hour and a bit it will happen again, if you use the 12 hour clock and not the 24 hour. So we can celebrate then for all those who missed it!

Sorry to be a smart alec, but won't it happen again in 2110?

I've also PM'd with our twitter feed. I have embedded our feed directly into the school website, so it is brilliant for quick snippets of news. Tweet! Put Twitter on your site with this simple, unobtrusive jQuery widget this is the script i used, allowed my to style it to not be too obviously twittery! Like elsiegee said it was excellent when it snowed. I would recommend having a few people with responsibility for adding tweets, it has been a bit of a burden coming up with things myself every day.

Home Access - Home Access This is the main site for the Home Access Scheme. I've applied for the info for schools, but not received it yet. I think it is a case of refering parents to the phoneline for a chat to see if they may be eligible and if they are a pack is sent direct to the parents address. So i guess as far as school are concerned it is a case of giving out the info. Like I said, i'm in pretty much the same place as you just trying to work it out, so please correct me if i'm mistaken.

Not really got any advice, but just wanted to say take care of yourself over the next few days. I believe relate are very good Relate - the relationship people

Edmodo is very cool. Thanks GrumbleDook, I didn't know this one existed and it might well fit the bill. I'll keep you all updated on our final decision and how we get on with it. Thanks to you all for the help, this is such a great forum!

I have to admit I've not used pure sharepoint much. I was assuming that it would be similar, would it give me better functionality that Kaleidos as it is based on the same thing? Surely the fuctionality would be very similar. I'll not discount Sharepoint, but any other suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks for the responses so far. I'm not too keen on going for sharepoint as i think that would be to similar to the current Kaleidos Learning Platform, which is based on Sharepoint. I'll have a look into moodle. Any more ideas?

I have been given the task of coming up with a way to develop an online community for my school (large secondary). We want to create something which will allow pupil and staff to discuss learning topics for use in and out of lessons, also to organise trips and events and generally be an online location for school discussions. The elements we would like to include are a forum and blogs and it would be nice to share the odd document, but this will not be the main use. We are currently using the Kaleidos Learning Platform, which we quite like for sharing lesson resources and using the VLE. But we aren't keep on the "Web 2.0" elements. It's all a bit clunky and we are looking for a straightforward user experience. We do need to ensure it is only used by the school community so would need to create and distribute usernames ourelves rather than allow the user to generate them. It could be a really cool thing to get off the ground, but how would you go about it? My initial though would be to use a vBulletin, but it's something I know very little about. Would it even be feasible to do it this way? What other options do I have? Are there any companies that could provide me with a ready made solution? I'm sure the infinite wisdom of the edugeekers will be able to point me in the right direction

You need to save as a PNG8 which use 256 colours, I expect the program you are using will default to PNG24 or PNG32. I've only got Fireworks CS4 to try it on but I can select the type of PNG under the optimise menu. Hope that helps.

I picked one up on Friday. It's a great bit of kit even if you don't hack it, much better quality than I thought it would be. I don't have anything O2, so the messaging doesn't work for me, but I do that on my phone anyway, I don't think I need to see messages in my kitchen. The new app shop allows you to use google calendar so that is much better than the O2 calendar anyway. Personally I wouldn't bother with a PAYG or contract from O2 to go with it as it's not going to make any difference how I use it. I've decided not to hack mine as it seems fairly tricky and probably a bit beyond my abilities. I have read you can add the open frame apps, it's the same Open Peak hardware rebranded for O2. You have to telnet in to it and you can add the apps, including facebook and flickr apps. I might have a go at doing that as it seems less likely i'll brick it! The apps are just .swf so it could even be possible to write some stuff for it. More info about this on joggler.info Great toy for £50, I'm loving the internet radio and YouTube is quite cool on it. For anyone planning on installing Ubuntu, I would avoid connecting it to the internet before hand, as it will update the firmware as soon as it is connected.

Sounds like it's not recalculating the formula to me. Go to tools > options > calculation and check automatic is selected. We find that sometimes it is set to manual by default.

Yeah, I agree the place to do this kind of thing is within the Interest Spaces on Kaleidos. The nice thing with them is that you can give full control to any user you like and they can manage the space themselves. The discussions and surveys are really good ways to get staff and students interacting and using the Learning Platform. I have to admin i've not had much luck with the Blogs and Wikis yet, but I need to think of a good reason to use them. PM me if you would like to know how we are using it over here.