Comment Re:illogical - lots of sunlight (Score 1) 200
One could be much more purely efficient with a solar sail or the like, no conversion, but they don't accelerate very quickly and have some problems tacking.
One could be much more purely efficient with a solar sail or the like, no conversion, but they don't accelerate very quickly and have some problems tacking.
It's important to remember that Blackboard bought 2 of 52 Moodle Partners. Others, like the company I work for, are completely independent of this deal. The Partner program gives good insulation to customers - if they don't like the Partner they are contracting with, they can switch to another one, or bring their Moodle site in house.
Some of the other LMS companies have an open source option, however none have a Partner program, so you have to choose between DIY or the commercial company that also owns the code. With Moodle, Martin Dougiamas, Moodle's founder, focuses on core development and his team is funded by contributions from the Partners. This means there are many choices for Moodle customers and the purchase of one or several of the many hosting/support companies in the Moodle Partner program won't change that.
Second language teaching is pretty big, some estimates run to 1 billion learning English alone, and the UK alone estimates that generates 1.3 billion pounds/year in revenue.
Moodle, is by most estimates the most widely used online learning software with 49,000 registered sites in 211 countries and is also an example of a successful open source project ecosystem with commercial support partners in many countries.
When an institution installs Mahara, each user gets their own site where they can post files, have a blog, post photos, etc. and then invite people to view different parts of their site based on access roles, e.g. guest can see some things, teachers can see other things, employers can see yet other things, etc.
Students use it to build resumes, weblogs, create their own learner communities, etc. When it's integrated with an LMS like Moodle, assignments can be pushed from Moodle to Mahara - say a particularly good paper, photo, video, etc. and you can also send views from Mahara to Moodle for grading - say a blog assignment, etc.
Mahara, means 'think' or 'thought' in Te Reo Mori- overall its very cool software and a very cool project- nice to see it getting recognition!
Full Disclosure - my company provides commercial support for Mahara and contributes financial and code support as one of the network of Mahara partners- we have more information about it here.
What is really interesting about Bing on the Blackberry anyway if I accidently select it it (after a long time) loads a screen asking me if I agree to the EULA. I click the "I do not agree" button.
It loads anyway.
It's like a shoe that fits so tightly that I can't get it off my foot (maybe that was what Jerry was talking to Bill about?).
All seems condemned in the long run to approximate a state akin to Gaussian noise. -- James Martin