All posts by James Clay

The importance of dull technology

June 1, 2011 James Clay 5 Comments

Over the years I have gained a reputation at my college (and out and about) of talking about shiny stuff. I even called a mobile learning project Shiny as a result.

Though one thing that came out of a recent conversation with some extremely clever and bright people at a JISC symposium was the importance of dull technology. Dull as in not shiny rather than, dull as in boring.

For those of us involved in extreme e-learning or technology enhanced learning, we sometimes focus on the innovative, the exciting, the new, the shiny stuff. Well it’s where we want to be isn’t it, cutting edge and all that? We want to be using iPads, Android Tablets, the latest and best Web 2.0 tools and services. We get so excited at times that we even do projects and research on them, before writing it up, putting the stuff on a shelf and moving to the next new shiny thing.

I don’t think that there is too much wrong with that, some people do need to be at the cutting edge, they do need to be the blue skies thinkers, the people who innovate and create new ways of learning, inspired by changes in technologies and thinking.

As a result it can be very easy to forget the dull, the stuff we were using last year, two years ago or five years ago. We can even be dismissive of these dull technologies, pointing out how old they are, how useless they are “now” and that they are dead!

The main reason why dull technologies are important is that the majority of practitioners within an institution will not be at the cutting edge, will not be using all technologies innovatively. This means when planning training and staff development it is vital that dull technologies are included and allowed for. Just because we are bored with something doesn’t mean that someone else in your organisation will find it exciting and just the thing to solve the particular problem they are facing.

Photo source.

100 ways, vle

100 ways to use a VLE – #32 Calendar of Events

May 27, 2011 James Clay Leave a comment

On many courses there are often many events taking place, from exams, deadlines, guest speakers, field trips. So how do you let learners when all these events are? How do you provide them with updates when things change? How will they access the list or calendar of events?

There are various ways of providing a calendar of events to learners, from paper to an Outlook calendar. Many VLEs such as Moodle do have a calendar function and this can be used to provide learners with a calendar.

The reason for using the VLE is that if this is the place where learners are going to get course information, download resources, converse in forums, etc… then it’s the ideal location to keep learners updated with what’s happening and when. It can be easily updated when those inevitable changes happen.

it’s useful if the calendar on the VLE can be exported, for example Moodle can export its calendar as an ics file. This ics file can then be imported into other calendars such as on a mobile phone, or a calendar app on their computer. This way learners can take the event calendar with them or access it with their other calendars.

news

Ten ways to use QR Codes

May 26, 2011 James Clay 6 Comments

Sorry, this is not a blog post on ten ways to use QR Codes, but it is a blog post about what you actually can do with QR Codes. Once you know what you can do with QR Codes then you can build learning activities round those functions.

So what can you do with QR Codes?

QR Codes can be used to:

Display text to the user.
Add contact details to the user’s device, a vCard.
Open an Uniform Resource Identifier URI (most usually a web address of some kind).
Compose an e-mail address with the correct address.
Compose an SMS text message with the correct SMS number.

So there are five ways to use a QR Code. From those five ways, you can take an individual function and expand on how it can be used for teaching and learning, so for example taking the “open an URI” function, there are many ways that can be used to support learning.

Knowing what the five functions are, you can then be sure that QR Codes are the correct solution to solve a particular problem.

For example, you can use a QR Code to display text to a user. It has to be asked why would you display a QR Code to a user for text, when the text might as well be displayed, or given on paper! One reason you might for example is if you want the user to then take text move to a different location and then act on instructions in the text. With some large QR codes allowing up to 1852 characters you could provide users with some instructions or rules or something that they need to keep close. With text to speech, a user could read a QR Code and then the phone could read the text to the user. So there are reasons for using the text function of QR Codes, especially as the user won’t need any connectivity to read the text. However if displaying the text would be just as effective, why then use a QR Code?

Adding contact details is useful, for example providing details of the Library support phone number and e-mail address. QR Codes provide a quick and easy to add those details to a user’s address book on their device.

Opening an URI (for example a web address) is an often used function of QR Codes, we use it ourselves in the Gloucestershire College libraries. The best way though to think of QR Codes is as an URL shortener, like TinyURL, bitly or is.gd taking a long URL and providing learners with a shortened version. One mistake that people make is forgetting that when using QR Codes, the web page will 99.9% of the time be then displayed on a mobile device, probably using 3G. So there is little point in pushing out web content that won’t work on mobile devices or is huge etc…. Remembering that QR Codes are merely a way of shortening URIs for mobile devices means that users will get a better experience. Don’t just use a QR Code because you can, use it because it makes a difference, makes it easier for learners and makes it faster to access “the something else” that the learners need.

Using QR Codes to enable a user to send an e-mail or an SMS I think is a really useful way of using the technology. Do you want more information? Do you need help? Vote for this awful singer on X-Factor! Sign up for a newsletter. Of course it implies that either their device can send e-mails or they want to pay to send a text.

So sorry there aren’t ten ways of using a QR Code in this blog post, but I hope it clarifies what QR Codes actually do, the five actual ways to use a QR Code.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with using QR Codes, because they are QR Codes. We once did a QR Code treasure hunt, the reason though was not because we wanted to use something “awesome” no it was because we wanted to promote the use of QR Codes in the library that were been used to help students find e-resources and online content.

e-book

A next-generation digital book

May 24, 2011 James Clay Leave a comment

app of the week

Photosynth – iPhone App of the Week

May 24, 2011 James Clay 3 Comments

Photosynth – iPhone App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at various Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive.

This week’s App is Photosynth.

Photosynth for iOS is the panorama creation and sharing app that lets you capture more of your world. Now you can capture 360° in all directions (up, down, left, and right) to create spectacular images. Using the latest in computer vision techniques, Photosynth makes it easy and fun to create and share interactive panoramas of wherever you are.

Photosynth can share images and interactive panorama experiences to Facebook (with the included free Photosynth.net service). Integration with Bing Maps means millions of people could see your panoramas on maps and in search results for locations you’ve captured.

Free

This new app from Microsoft for iOS devices now allows you to capture photosynth pictures and display them on your iOS device. Think of stitched panoramas that allow for a full 360° view of a location.

Previously, though it was possible to view Photosynth panoramas on iOS devices, you had to go to a Windows only website to create them. That all changes with this app, you can now create Photosynth panoramas using your iPhone.

It’s very simple to use, but takes a little practice to get a really good panorama.

You move the phone around and the software either automatically takes the photographs or prompts you to do so. It then stitches them together.

You can either then share the completed panorama on Facebook, the Photosynth site or on Bing maps. This is for me one of the downsides of the app, as it isn’t possible to create a private “interactive” Photosynth panorama. Yes taking one of the college library is fine, but imagine wanting to take one of a wedding or a group of learners in the classroom. This may not be a panorama you want to share with the world. Any panorama that you do capture is saved to your Camera Roll and thus can be used by other apps or saved to your Mac when you sync. So for “static” panoramas it is possible to keep them private and that’s what I would use for those panoramas I take of people or weddings… So for taking panoramas of places and great views, yes a great app, for panoramas of groups of people, less useful. The reason is that the interactive version just “feels” better.

I should point out that the first time I used the app I consistently failed to upload any panoramas to any site. I was able to upload the following day so have put that down to server problems on the day I was using it.

I should also point out that the panoramas in this review are the first ones I created. This one was particularly bad, so do practice with the app to get better results.

I have resized the images to 900 pixels wide, but the app does save them as full size images, so the original image was over 4000 pixels wide.

Compared to other panorama apps, and the fact it is free, this is in fact pretty good and does a reasonable job with the iPhone camera in creating panoramas.

e-book

“I like real books…”

May 23, 2011 James Clay 3 Comments

“…but I like real books, you know paper ones…”

This is a typical response from practitioners when I start talking about e-books.

There are three problems with this kind of response.

Firstly, e-books are not replacing paper books. Well they may in the future, in the same way cars have replaced horses. But at this time e-books can be used along with paper books. Just because e-books are available to learners doesn’t mean they are then banned from using paper books.

“Sorry, you’ve access an e-book, you no longer have the rights to read paper books!”

Secondly, which builds on the first point, is that just because we have a collection of e-books, this doesn’t mean you are forced to use them, you can still use the paper books if you want to. You do have a choice, as do the learners.

Thirdly is assumes that paper books can be accessed just as easily and quickly as the e-book collection can be (and vice versa). When I am in the library, yes it is often easier and quicker to get the paper copy of a book than start the computer, log in, download my profile, start the browser, enter the URL (or click the link), enter my credentials into the Federated Access screen, find the book, either by searching or from a “bookshelf”. Yes finding the paper copy is probably going to be faster.

However if that book has been lent out to another learner… than, accessing the book will be much quicker than asking the other learner to return the book, which could take days! Also imagine that the learner is at home or work, then travelling to the library will take time. What if the learner wants the book on Sunday afternoon at home, when the library is closed; once again the e-book will be much easier and quicker to access. This ease of access at a place and time to suit the learner is one of the key advantages of e-books.

Fourthly and finally, the initial statement is typical in that it uses the “I” word. Too many times practitioners resist using a new tool or service, or embed a technology into their teaching, because they say “I don’t like it”. Actually even worse some practitioners say that not only they don’t like it, but that there learners won’t like it… based on what evidence you have to ask? “I know my learners” they reply.

I’ll leave you with a final thought, many people did not like the fact that cars replaced horses. One of the reasons was that horses indicated position and status.

web 2.0

Churning and Waving

May 18, 2011 James Clay 2 Comments

At a recent presentation by Dave White, he used the word churning to describe the rapid pace of change we went through around 2007. That was the year most people joined Twitter, it was the year that Facebook became mainstream, YouTube was starting to hit the big time. There were all these new services and tools, some of which are still with us, some of which have disappeared, Jaiku anyone?

There was a lot of excitement at that time about new services and whenever new services were announced we all went and signed up for it. Did you sign up to Plurk and so on?

These services were so popular that in the end the only way that they could work sometimes was by restricting access to invite only.

Google Wave for me was a turning point, a really great idea, that everyone wanted to be part of…. however it didn’t quite turn out as expected.

It was invite only and as a result, individuals got access and not communities, so even though it took me a while to get an invite for Wave when I did, very few people I knew had access. You can’t really use Wave on your own, so I didn’t use it, by the time access was opened, it was too late, people like me had moved on, well more moved back to Twitter.

I felt at this point that the constant excitement of the new was over. We had moved from a time of “churning” or flux to a time of consolidation. It was now less about finding new, more about using what we had.

That’s not to say new services don’t come along, I for example am really liking Instagram. But the rush for the new is no longer the driver. For some though they are still churning, they are still looking for the new. I just don’t think it’s there.

We may in the future go through another churning phase, but until that time, it’s now the time to use the services for stuff, rather than the time of finding new services.

app of the week, iphone

ToonPAINT – iPhone App of the Week

May 17, 2011 James Clay 2 Comments

picture created with ToonPAINT

ToonPAINT – iPhone App of the Week

This week’s App is ToonPAINT – Toon-FX.

ToonPAINT allows you to easily create awesome looking cartoon-paintings with your own photos.

Even if you have never drawn or painted before, ToonPAINT sets you up for quick success by providing a “MagiSketch” that you can simply color-in. It’s as easy as “paint-by-numbers”, but using your own personal images. Unlike other photography apps, ToonPAINT is not just an image filter — it’s a smart-painting application that enables you to express your creativity and obtain compelling results without requiring you to take Art classes.

Simply import a photo, create an “automagic” sketch of the photo, color-in at your leisure, and you’re done!

£1.19

I have said a few times in the past that I sometimes think the best Apps for the iPhone are the simple ones, the ones that do one thing well.

I was reminded of ToonPAINT recently by a photograph on Instagram, it had been “converted” in ToonPAINT before been uploaded to Instagram. I was impressed with the end result I checked out ToonPAINT, only to find I already had it! If I remember rightly I had bought it in the past, thought it was okay, but not what I wanted and forgot about it. As it is now on version 2.1, they have certainly improved it and it does exactly what you think it does, convert photographs (from the camera or the library) and convert it into a comic format. The key is that it does it very well and the end results do look like hand drawn comics.

So if you are using an application like Comic Life (on the Mac, Windows or the iPad now) you can create a series of comic images from photographs using ToonPAINT and then use them in the Comic Life application. Now it should be said that Comic Life does indeed have filters that do a similar trick, but I much prefer the results from ToonPAINT then the included ones in Comic Life.

The process in ToonPAINT is very simple, take a photograph, either with the camera or from your image library, the app converts it into a comic format, you then save it!

Simple!

If needed you can go in and edit the comicfying settings, changing the levels, thickness of lines, etc… This can help especially if the default settings don’t work just right, which from my experience was rare.

You can also colourise the resulting comic using a built in palette to create coloured comics. There are two extra in-app purchase tools, ToonColor and Photo Brush both are 59p each. I think ToonColor is worth buying, didn’t find Photo Brush as useful.