All posts by James Clay

conference

Packing my bag, actually my bags

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This week I am off to the Plymouth e-Learning Conference and I am packing my bag (or bags). It’s a couple of days and I will be away a couple of nights.

These are a few things that will be useful or make life easier.

6 way gang – instead of fighting people for the power sockets, you can immediately make five friends! Also useful when you are back in your hotel room and need to charge the laptop, the phone, the iPod, use the hairdryer, etc…

Coffee – I can’t stand instant coffee and that’s what you generally find in hotel rooms. So I take some of those Coffee Bags you can buy or Rombout Coffee filters. Of course if you drink that tea stuff then you can bring your own bags of what you like and are use to. I always pop out and buy fresh milk too!

If you believe everything you see on the BBC then you might also want to take your own cup, actually I have a mug, because I like a large cup of coffee and not a piddly little cup of tea!

Snacks – room service can be very expensive, so a few snacks or fruit now and again to meet those hunger pangs. Having said that, I know that Sainsburys is next to my hotel, so I can always pop in there for extra supplies, saves having to carry them down, but with other conferences this isn’t always possible.

Chargers – don’t forget your chargers, easy to forget and a nightmare when your phone or laptop runs out of juice. Or you can’t use it for the conference. I find that conference activity can be power heavy on my mobile devices.

Velcro fixings – For your poster and bring enough because someone you know will have forgotten to bring theirs.

Camera – to take the odd photo or two, I use mine to take photographs of really good posters so I can review them later at my leisure. Amazing how much detail a 7.2MP image can capture of a poster. I also use it to capture slides in presentations (ie URLS and e-mail addresses), I even use it to photograph flyers so I can carry less.

MiFi or 3G Dongle – I am sure that the WiFi at the conference venue will be fine, however what about at the hotel, the dinner, the train… I will be bringing my new MiFi which allows me to connect to the internet over 3G, wirelessly through a wifi connection. The MiFi acts as a wireless access point for up to five clients – will probably make four new friends as a result of bringing it to the conference.

Business Cards – always useful to swap, play cards with, pass ones you have received to others who you don’t want to contact you…

USB Cables – you never know when you are going to need one.
Spare batteries – for your MP3 recorder, etc… Due to the differing sizes of USB, normal, micro and mini, I now carry three of them!

Spare SD card – in case you lose yours.

Spare USB Stick – for moving files around, taking copies of presentations, etc…

Paracetamol – some of those presentations do give you headaches…

What are you going to pack?

podcast, psp

e-Learning Stuff Podcast #041: We’re playing a game

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Last week saw the Game Based Learning Conference, we didn’t go, but that didn’t stop us from talking about using games for learning and using gaming devices to enhance and enrich the learning process.

With Kev Hickey, Ron Mitchell and James Clay.

This is the forty-first e-Learning Stuff Podcast, We’re playing a game

Download the podcast in mp3 format: We’re playing a game

Subscribe to the podcast in iTunes

Shownotes

  • The Game Based Learning Conference is one of the largest events of its kind dealing with all aspects of games in learning. Building on the success of Handheld Learning and provided more depth by creating stimulating, challenging and provocative dialogue spaces at the intersection between the education, gaming, social media and consumer electronics sectors. There, policy makers, thought leaders, innovators and key practitioners met and exchanged ideas, knowledge and experiences as part of a unique ongoing conversation.
  • Using computer games to support learning – The Mobile Learning Network (MoLeNET) has released a new report exploring the ways in which computer games, digital games and digital learning games can be used to enhance and support teaching and learning.
  • The PlayStation Portable PSP is a portable gaming system that uses the GO! Camto take photographs and video. The PSP GO! doesn’t have a camera and can’t use the GO! Cam.
  • If you need cases for your PSPs, then Gloucestershire College have been pleased with the cases from Connected.
  • If you do have a PSP then you might want to consider an AV cable to connect it to a TV  or a projector to show images and video.
  • If you don’t like the PSP then you may want to look at the DSi or the new DSi XL (the one with the bigger screen).
  • Pictochat on the DSi is certainly a useful communication tool, in some ways the there are advantages it is a closed system.
  • We’ve talked about screencasting before and some time ago I wrote a post about screencasting tools for Mac OS X. At this time I use Screenr a fair bit.
  • The Nintendo Wii is one console that seems to have found a place in many classrooms.
  • A website created by Learning and Teaching Scotland to explore the latest games technology. Find out more about the background to learning with digital games and watch the case studies to see computer games successfully used within the classroom.
  • Neverwinter Nights was used to improve key skills.
  • at-Bristol in Bristol has a virtual volleyball game.
  • The future of gaming includes Sony’s Eyepet for the PS3, Microsoft’s Project Natal for Xbox and rumours of a Nintendo Wii with 3D.
  • Scrabble – 80% off this Easter, only £1.79
  • Prince of Persia
ipad

The iPad is here… uh no it isn’t…

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Lots of press coverage across the tubes and old media about the launch of the iPad.

Of course the launch is US only and it’s looking like the earliest we will get the iPad in the UK is the 24th April, but so far no confirmation whatsoever from any official source.

What I am hoping that when the iPad is launched in the UK, the 3G version is released at the same time as the WiFi version, so I don’t have to make that difficult choice that many in America are making right now, that of buy now or wait until the 3G version is available.

Part of me is sad that I didn’t go out to the states and buy an iPad, and part of me knows how sad that would be!

The more I see and hear about the iPad, the more I wonder if it will be the game changing device that the iPhone has been, or whether it will be another Newton or iPod HiFi (remember that). The key I believe will be how the device sells not initially to the geek audience, but down the line to non-geeks in places like John Lewis and Apple Stores on the High Street or in local shopping centres.

Having said that if the geeks don’t like it, this can rub off on the general public, look at how there was a negative reaction to the Blackberry Storm following Stephen Fry’s adverse reaction. Now according to Time, Stephen Fry quite likes the iPad (though that’s a bit of an understatement) and I respect his opinion and if he likes it, I am sure that many others will like it too.

I have discussed the iPad before, talked about it on a podcast and mentioned Tony Vincent’s thoughts on the device. In my article I did mention the following:

There are also rumours that Microsoft may be working on a version of Office for the iPad.

However according to an article on Macrumors today, Microsoft are saying…

We never say never, but we have no current plans” to develop a version of Office for the Apple iPad, Elop said.

I do understand why Microsoft may not want to make Office for the iPad, what with Courier on the horizon, however from a users’ perspective and especially users who interact with others who use Office on Windows (or Mac) to be able to move native Office files around would be very handy and useful. Yes iWork can convert and I do this a lot, but sometimes it can make sense to avoid conversion and stick to a native format.

So no I don’t have an iPad, but I do expect to get one when they eventually arrive in the UK.

100 ways, vle

100 ways to use a VLE – #47 A gallery of images

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You can very easily add images to a course on the VLE, but what about a whole series of images? Also why would you do this?

Imagine that you are a catering lecturer and you have taken a series of images of a cooking technique, it could have been boning a chicken, filleting a fish, cutting carrots… It would be nice to be able to add the images to the VLE and importantly allow learners to access those images easily and simply. It’s not just catering, plumbing, electrical, construction, motor vehicle engineering, biology…

Another reason is that the learners have been on a field trip and a series of photographs was taken and you want to share those images not just with those learners who went, but those that didn’t or couldn’t.

Think about an assignment based on a particular city or town, a gallery  of images can be used to show off attractions or places in that place.

On Moodle I have been using Lightbox Gallery.

As well as creating a very attractive gallery of images you can configure the Moodle module to allow learners to comment on the images.

One of the features I do like about this, is that though it is useful to resize the images (from a disk space perspective) if the practitioner does not have the skills (or probably more likely doesn’t have the software) to resize the images. If the images are uploaded as is to Lightbox Gallery then Lightbox Gallery will resize them for the end user depending on their screen resolution.

Another attraction of Lightbox Gallery is that it can also be used to show off a PowerPoint presentation without the learner needing to download and open the presentation – also useful if that learner does not have PowerPoint or is accessing the VLE from a mobile device.

Showing a gallery of images is a nice visual way of enhancing a learning activity.

Picture source.

ipad

Don’t fancy the iPad, how about the WePad?

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So you don’t fancy an iPad?

What about a WePad? And despite the date this is not an April Fool.

TechCrunch reports on the WePad

The Neofonie WePad has similar form and function to the iPad, but facts are that the German Android device has a bigger multitouch screen and a faster CPU than the iPad. Also it runs Flash, has USB ports, an inbuilt card reader and expandable memory. Additionally it allows complete multitasking and has a webcam.

Sounds interesting.

However the key will be not all the added tech stuff, but does the user experience match the iPad?

youtube

How much bandwidth?

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In March, this blog served 23GB of video, which I think is a fair amount of video, well 66 hours to be exact!

So how does that compare with something like YouTube.

Well by my calculations YouTube delivers that quantity of video every second.

In 2006, YouTube was delivering 100 million videos a day and using about 200TB of bandwidth.

In 2010, they are now delivering 1000 million videos a day and probably using more than 2000TB of bandwidth.

2,000 TB us 2,000,000 GB and there are 86,400 seconds in a day.

My maths may be wrong though.

gloucestershire college

Next Generation Learning Awards 2010: Special Innovation Award: Gloucestershire College

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Next Generation Learning Awards 2010: Special Innovation Award: Gloucestershire College

The judges praised the enthusiasm and commitment of all members of the college team, starting with the vision and commitment of the principal and senior leadership team. They found a high level of technological innovation that is in effect led by learners and their needs.

The judges also liked the way the use of technology has brought about a rapid cultural change in the willingness of tutors to share good practice and resources both internally in the college and nationally. This is done traditionally via presentations given by staff members at events and conferences, but the college has also pioneered the use of online communities and social networking sites to share good practice.

It also enjoys more formal working partnerships. For example, it is working with the Royal Forest of Dean and Stroud Colleges to implement mobile learning there, and has a successful collaborative working arrangement with local schools to deliver diplomas.

The college recognises that a strong infrastructure needs to be in place to support technological innovation.

Trained advanced practitioners are used to disseminate good practice in using ICT across the college and more widely. These practitioners are well resourced and given the right equipment to develop, for example, mobile learning and assessment. One example the judges noted was the use of specialist software to mark and annotate students’ multimedia portfolios that were then presented to external validators.

The judges felt that for the future, all-round embedding of the vision and strategy for ICT and ILT will see the college move from strength to strength in the coming year.

From Becta.

ipad

iPad Nuggets

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Tony Vincent has written an excellent blog post on Apple’s forthcoming new iPad.

In anticipation of the April 3rd iPad launch in the U.S., Apple has posted Guided Tours. These videos take you through some of the features in iPad apps like Safari, Mail, iBooks, and Keynote. You’ll immediately notice that Apple is using these videos for marketing. You’ll hear phrases like: easy, magical, it doesn’t get any simpler, immersive, intimate, fun, effortless, so smart, and beautiful.

What Tony has done that is really nice is that he’s watched the tours and made some useful and interesting observations.

Show a Keynote presentation on a projector or TV using the VGA adpater (not included in the box with iPad–it costs extra). It was unclear from the video if Presenter Notes appear on iPad’s screen while the slides appear on the projector’s screen.

Read his blog post for more nuggets.