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A superb adventure game set in China. Learn about this fascinating country while solving puzzles. There are three levels to complete. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Mandarin+%26+Chinese+culture

A beautifully made Twitter-like social network for schools that supports photos, videos, files and embed html. The site also has a blog feature, calendar and many other fab features. You can set your class to private or public. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

An amazing set of resources to explore the world's oceans in a 3D virtual environment. Swim with killer whales or drift along and watch sea turtles cruise by. You can even complete missions, including exploring the deepest place in the oceans. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science

A superb image editor where users simply drag and drop a photo into the site and slide the setting buttons until you get the result you want. Saving and sharing require signing into a free account. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Photos+%26+Images

Get instant feedback from an audience or class using this superb site. Set a question and a choice of answers. Then others can follow a short link and choose an answer using their mobile or computer browser. The site can also generate a large QR code at the press of a button for easy linking. Results are shown instantly on your screen and embed on a website. Try voting at http://vot.rs/49104 and see the results at http://mentimeter.com/public/7048bfdda5cc. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

emystifying the Economics of Virtualization and Cloud Computing Posted by Michael Vizard Mar 15, 2011 11:51:15 AM Make the Financial Case for Virtualization and Cloud Computing With the advent of virtualization and cloud computing, figuring out the actual cost of enterprise computing has never been more important or complicated. Now that every application to one degree or another is eventually going to wind up sharing IT infrastructure with some other set of applications, ascribing costs to each application gets significantly more difficult. In the past, when every application pretty much had its own servers, the costs were clear, except for mainframe and minicomputer environments that were designed from the ground up to run a symmetric multiprocessing environment that supported multiple applications. But now that virtualization and cloud computing are pushing the concept of shared IT infrastructure across the entire spectrum of IT, application owners want to know what their true costs for running these environments actually will be. In addition, the chief financial officer - along with the rest of the board of directors - is demanding a more line-by-line accounting of the allocation of IT resources. Conceptually, most IT leaders should welcome this increased level of scrutiny. It gives them a chance to show how efficient they can be, which represents a significant change of pace after decades of meetings with senior managers that only really wanted to know what the availability of IT services was without much regard to the actual budget. The challenge facing many IT organizations today, says Chris Pick, chief marketing officer for Apptio, a provider of IT financial management tools that are available as a service, is they just don't have the tools needed to delve into all the financial elements of the overall IT equation. For example, a new survey of 100 CIOs in the U.S. that was conducted by the market research firm Worldwide Executive Council on behal

Martin Ingram Virtually Everything More posts | Read bio December 28, 2010 - 3:09 P.M. The economics of desktop virtualization 4 Comments TAGS:desktop virtualization, enterprise, finance, government, healthcare, hosted desktop virtualization, PC IT TOPICS:Cloud Computing, Cybercrime & Hacking, Desktop Apps, Emerging Technology, Healthcare IT, Laptops & Netbooks, Virtualization, Windows With Thanksgiving and Christmas behind us and the New Year upon us, it is time to take stock and see what changed for desktop virtualization in 2010.  One thing is very clear: We have moved from desktop virtualization being 'about to take off' to 'has taken off' -- the evidence for this is pretty clear in the number of licenses sold. With volumes sold in the low millions, desktop virtualization is way beyond the tryout and pilot stage. However, desktop virtualization is not yet for every user. There are a number of areas where it's still not a good fit. For example, a user who does not always have access to the Internet from his or her laptop may not be able to use a hosted virtual desktop. This is a problem that will be addressed by client hypervisors in coming years. These provide the management benefits of desktop virtualization to the intermittently connected user. For now, they are very new but will become critical for mobile workers and may also have a major role to play in bringing down the costs of desktop virtualization for non-mobile users as well. Of perhaps more concern is the question of the economic basis for hosted virtual desktops. This has recently become more visible thanks to Microsoft's paper 'VDI TCO Analysis for Office Worker Environments,'  which compares the total cost of ownership of traditional PCs and their virtual desktop alternatives. Their conclusion is that hosted virtual desktops are more expensive to deliver than a traditional, well-managed PC. There are a number of interesting points and conclusions to draw from this document. Firstly, Micros

This site has a great set of downloadable PDF books and resources to help emergent readers with phonics. Free sign up is required. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/English

A collection of maths games and activities to play online and download. The games can be set to a maths subject and age group. Play both single and multi-player games. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

This is a useful drawing site with a good set of tools to allow your students to be creative. You can upload images on to the canvas http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Art%2C+Craft+%26+Design

A good interactive presentation and set of activities for learning about minerals. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science

A UK site which encourages exploration and outdoor activities by setting missions ranging from finding or photographing things from nature to going pond dipping to write reports about a location. Earn points for each mission completed. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/PSHE%2C+RE%2C+Citizenship%2C+Geography+%26+Environmental

A great random workout generator. Choose the type of exercise and set the timer between 5-60 minutes. This could be used as a 5 minute challenge in a sports lesson. The site works well on mobile devices, but there are apps for Apple and Android devices to download. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Sports+%26+Fitness

The Egyptian section of the National Museum Scotland has a wonderful set of interactive resources and games that bring this ancient culture to life... so beware of the mummies! http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/History

This is an easy to use animation tool. Choose your objects from the bank on the site or upload your own. Then drag your items into place and select a point on the timeline and move the object again to set how the animation moves. You can include photos, shapes and text. Your creations can be published and shared or embedded online. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Video%2C+animation%2C+film+%26+Webcams

This is a superb site and download where you can make 3D animated cartoons by selecting your props, characters and locations and then use blocks to programme how things move and interact in a similar way to MIT's Scratch. You can upload your creations to the website to share. There are a set of challenges to try and you can even remix animations designed by other users. Discovered via @mberry http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Video%2C+animation%2C+film+%26+Webcams

A beautifully designed set of 20+ maths whiteboard resources aimed at primary aged students. There are resources about addition, multiplying fractions, number lines and more. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Maths

Pearson has created an 'Efficacy Framework', which is a set of tools for assessing if the conditions are in place for an education program to deliver its promised learning outcomes, which it plans to share publicly.

Making time lapse videos is a wonderfully educational experience and changing how we view the world gives us valuable insight. This Apple and Android app can make stunning time lapse videos with just a few clicks. Set how long between taking each image and leave the app to it. You can even use it for create stop frame animations. You can upload your video directly to YouTube and link to the usual social media sites. There is a 'paid for' version for extra features. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Video%2C+animation%2C+film+%26+Webcams