All posts by James Clay

news

90% of internet connections are broadband

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The BBC is reporting that nine out of ten internet connections are broadband connections.

Almost nine out of 10 UK net users are connecting via broadband services, official figures reveal.

Information gathered by National Statistics (ONS) for September show that 88.4% of Britons are choosing to use broadband rather than dial-up.

This means that delivering e-learning content does not need to rely on the assumption that learners are on dial-up.

broadband

With broadband often cheaper than dial-up now, if learners wish to access e-learning from home rather than in college (or in their local library) then more than likely they will be choosing broadband.

Photo source

kindle, news

Amazon launches digital book reader

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Big news yesterday was the launch of Amazon’s digital book reader.

BBC reports that:

Online retailer Amazon has unveiled an own-brand wireless electronic book reader called Kindle.

The paperback-sized device is on sale immediately in the US for $399 (£195). It can store up to 200 books in its onboard memory.

Kindle does not need a PC to be loaded with books, blogs or papers – instead content arrives via wireless.

Amazon said 90,000 books, including bestsellers priced at $9.99, were available for Kindle at launch.

I wonder if you could load such a device with institutional learning content?

news, youtube

YouTube tackles bullying online

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BBC reports how YouTube is trying to stop online or cyber bullying.

The first online anti-bullying channel has been launched to encourage young people to denounce the intimidation.

YouTube has set up a site where youngsters can post their own videos and messages.

It follows growing concern about the increase in persecution by e-mail, mobile phone and on social networking sites, known as cyberbullying.

social networking

Tune into networking

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The TES have published (as part of a wide ICT supplement) an interesting article on how West Suffolk College with support from RSC Eastern are using social networking tools to support and enhance learning.

Are websites such as MySpace, Bebo and YouTube entertaining time wasters or can they be teaching tools? At West Suffolk College, students are encouraged to use online social networking sites.

Really interesting article.

mobile

How much SMS?

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Well it would seem that we Britons like our SMS text messages. At the last count we were sending one billion of them weekly!

Britons are now sending more than one billion text messages per week according to the latest figures from the Mobile Data Association (MDA).

From the BBC.

Personally I am not a great fan of SMS in the main as I don’t like small phone keyboards, liked it when I could use it through my Mac OS X address book, but have generally either used the phone or e-mail.

keynote, video, youtube

Digital Video Tools

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At a recent HE Academy event I presented at I offered to provide a series of links relating to digital video and podcasting. Here are the digital video tools.

Windows Movie Maker

This is part of Windows XP (and Windows Vista) which allows simple video editing.

With Windows Movie Maker, you can use your computer to create and edit home movies with a few simple drag-and-drop moves. Then you can share your movies through the web, e-mail, your computer, or CD.

iMovie

Part of the iLife suite which comes pre-installed on every Mac. It is a quick and easy video editing application.

I have not used the latest version (part of iLife ’08) however it should be noted that this new version has a very different workflow compared to previous versions.

iMovie ’08 makes viewing and working with video as intuitive as enjoying your photos. A built-in library automatically organises your video, so all the clips you’ve captured and movies you’ve created are just a click away. With its revolutionary interface, iMovie makes it quick and easy to browse your library and create new movies. And iMovie is built for sharing. In just a few steps, you can add movies to your website, publish them on YouTube, and create versions for iPod and Apple TV.

I also mentioned Keynote which is the Mac presentation software, presentations can be saved as movies or can even be sent direct to YouTube.

VisualHub

An excellent tool for converting video into various different formats, very useful if converting video for mobile devices and Windows PCs, note this is Mac software.

VisualHub bridges the gap between numerous complicated video formatting standards, and people that just want to get the job done.

Roxio Toast

Primarily a DVD burning application, it also have video conversion functionality.

Media-convert

Online video conversion tool that doesn’t require you to install anything. I have also been recommended zamzar.com, however due to the plethora of pop-ups and the fact you have to give an e-mail address means that I for one would not use it.

YouTube

The infamous video website that allows users to upload and share their video.

TeacherTube

Like YouTube but for teachers.

learning technologies

Skype on your 3 Mobile Phone

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The mobile phone company “3” has launched a new handset that allows you to make free Skype calls to other Skype users.

The BBC is reporting that:

Mobile phone provider 3 has launched a new handset that will allow users to make free calls over the internet via telephony service Skype. Users will also be able to use Skype’s instant messaging service, 3 said.

However unlike Skype users who can make cheap calls globally, 3 customers won’t be able to do this.

But while people using Skype on their computers are able to make cheap global calls to any phone number, this will not be possible via the new 3 handset.

It’s quite a dramatic move for a mobile phone provider, who generally try and block Skype or VOIP as it is a direct competitor to their core business.

Wonder how others will respond.

news

Happy Birthday BBC News Website

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The BBC News website is ten years old.

Happy Birthday.

BBC News

I have been using the site for that long now, so it’s nice to see that not only is it still around and still very popular, more importantly, all the stories I was reading and using for learning back in the late 1990s are still available as well. For example this story about Sainsburys from 1999 is still online and the links still work!

Too often on the web sites will rebrand or rename and all their old links die or change or become redundant. At least with the BBC News it is possible to link stories from nearly ten years ago.

conference, m-learning, mobile

Handheld Learning 2007

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Unfortunately I couldn’t make Handheld Learning this year, it clashed with everything that week.

So it’s nice to know I can catch up online.

Well, the conference was incredibly busy and very exciting. Lots of new product announcements, major addresses by senior government ministers and policy makers and a who’s who of practitioners that are doing amazing and leading edge stuff with mobile and ubiquitous technologies. A couple of major themes emerged; the speed of change, need to involve more students and learners in the conference and I’m sure quite a few, yet to surface, while we sift through the materials.

You’ll now find a lot of media from the conference now online with much more to follow:

Handheld Learning TV is at:
http://handheldlearning.blip.tv

Podcasts are at:
http://tinyurl.com/39fzx4

Presentation slides at:
http://www.slideshare.net/HandheldLearning/slideshows

Pictures at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/handheldlearning/sets/

Tony Vincent provides a review at:
http://www.handheldlearning.co.uk/content/view/41/2/

And Bob Harrison at:
http://www.handheldlearning.co.uk/content/view/40/2/

A large list of other people’s reviews can be found at:
http://tinyurl.com/32u5xy

And to quote Graham, “isn’t the internet wonderful”.