Tag Archives: molenet

podcast, podcasting

MoLeNET Podcasting Workshop – 8th December 2010

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I am leading a Podcasting Workshop on the 8th December 2010 between 10.00am to 4.00pm at the Gloucestershire College MoLeNET Academy at the Gloucester Campus of Gloucestershire College.

This is a hands on workshop looking at the process of:

  • Planning
  • Recording
  • Editing
  • Publication
  • Distribution
  • Marketing

of Podcasts for teaching and learning.

The workshop will look at:

  • Content of podcasts, what works and what doesn’t.
  • Recording, tools and tips, use of Skype, mp3 recorders, Audioboo, iPadio.
  • Editing podcasts using tools such as Audacity or Garageband.
  • Publishing your podcasts using blogging, FTP.
  • Distribution, looking at creating and using RSS Feeds. Will also look at iTunes, the iTunes Store and iTunes U.
  • Marketing, how you get your learners to listen to your podcast.

The day starts at 10.00am and will finish at 4.00pm, lunch will be provided.

The event will be led by James Clay and will be working with Di Dawson.

Travel

Gloucester is well served by rail networks from across the UK and the college is a 15 minute walk from the railway station.

Gloucester is on the M5 and can be accessed from Junction 12 from the South and Junction 11 from the North. Please note that there is NO PARKING available at the college, though pay and display car parks are close by.

Booking

Please book online at RSC South West.

The event is FREE to any member of the MoLeNET community, in other words your college has led or been a partner in any MoLeNET project.

Background

Gloucestershire College has a wealth of experience in the use of mobile devices to support assessment. With three successful MoLeNET projects and a MoLeNET Academy, the college is using podcasting, video and audio to support and enhance learning and assessment.

James Clay is an experienced podcaster with a well respected weekly podcast, e-Learning Stuff. James is and has been passionate about the use of learning technologies to enhance and enrich the learning experience since 1991. James has been ILT & Learning Resources Manager at Gloucestershire College since November 2006. He is responsible for the VLE, the use of learning technologies, e-learning, mobile learning, the libraries, digital and online resources and the strategic direction of the college in relation to the use of learning technologies.James has extensive experience of mobile learning and has a vision that goes beyond mobile technologies and focuses on the mobility of the learner, blurring the demarcation between formal and informal learning.

Di Dawson is an LSN MoLeNET Mentor and a gadget lover and she brings expertise to the day in the form of enthusiasm for mobile technologies and as a teacher trainer. She likes to link teaching theories to practice and explains how activities can be designed to make the learners think deeper and therefore broaden their learning. Di loves gaming technologies and she enjoys enthusing teaching staff to look ‘beyond the play’ and see the potential for learning. Di has written various books on the use of computers and handheld technology and delivers online training to education and business establishments. Technology has certainly changed since Di started as an IT tutor 20 years ago.

Photo source.

stuff

Is this the end or just the beginning?

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Camera Roll-26Today was the third MoLeNET conference, a celebration of mobile learning and the MoLeNET programme.

There were a few presentations, but lots of demonstrations, discussions and workshops.

I was quite reserved this year and let others do a lot of work.

There were lots of lessons from the conference that I and others could take home and use with our institutions. The key here was that even someone like me, who is well versed in the potential of mobile learning, can learn something from a mobile learning conference.

I hope to over the next couple of weeks bring some of the highlights and thoughts from the conference. There are some really interesting thoughts and lessons about cultural change, sustainability, technical issues as well as people and training and development.

With the changes in funding recently it is looking like that we will not see anymore MoLeNET funding for projects. This doesn’t mean that this needs to be the end of MoLeNET as a community.

It’s obvious from the work of MoLeNET projects that mobile learning is here and is here to stay. Learners are using mobile devices for learning and institutions need to be ensuring that they have the infrastructure to support this.

Camera Roll-24Where MoLeNET comes into this, is by providing a community of expertise, knowledge and guidance. As I said above, we can learn from each other and there is always something new to learn.

Today should not be the end of MoLeNET, merely the beginning…

ipad, iphone, ipod touch, mobile

The age of mobile is now

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I have been talking about using mobile devices for a long time now, well before I started working at Gloucestershire College (and all that MoLeNET stuff), well before my time at the Western Colleges Consortium (and that Mobile on a VLE presentation).

Despite protestations about screen sizes, lack of power, inferior operating systems, we are now seeing the rise of the mobile device as the next big step in computing.

The first computers were BIG and clunky and you didn’t just use them, you booked time slots to use them.

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers!”
Attributed to Thomas Watson of IBM, but in fact no evidence to say he ever said it.

Computers then became the mainstay of business, something to do business on.

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.”
Ken Olson, president/founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

With the rise of the personal computer and importantly the explosion of the internet in the late 1990s, not only did we see computers in the home, we also saw a lot more personal computers in education.

Laptops at this time were expensive, but small portable ones were available, I really liked the Toshiba Libretto that I bought at that time.

In 2000 I was working at @Bristol in the centre of the Bristol Harbourside, one project we worked on was using the HP Jornada  and using JetSend technology to “squirt” URLs to the device that would then access the webpage over (what was then) a spiffy wireless network.

It was at this point that I could really see some real benefits of using mobile devices for learning, and using devices that weren’t laptops.

Over that decade we did see the emergence of the laptop over the desktop, more and more people would buy a laptop rather than a desktop for their main computer.

During that time I did a lot more work on using mobile devices for learning, focusing on multimedia content on devices such as PDAs, Media Players and mobile phones.

I remember in about 2001 driving up the M5 and getting stuck in one of those traffic jams in the early evening. My wife was watching the Matrix on my iPAQ PDA. I had converted a ripped DVD (uh oh I know) that I had converted into a MPEG1 video file, placed on an IBM Compact Flash Microdrive and played it back on the iPAQ using PocketTV. As she watched the film people in the cars looked into ours in awe and curiosity about what was that glowing light in our car. Of course today everyone can do this, but at the time it was both clever and geeky!

“I’m not convinced people want to watch movies on a tiny little screen.”
Steve Jobs of Apple in 2003.

The seminal presentation of mine, Mobile Learning on a VLE, at the JISC 2006 Online Conference really got a lot of people thinking about using mobile devices and put my name out there as a leader in mobile learning.

There were many others at that time who were also following the same journey as myself, people like Mick Mullane, Lilian Soon, David Sugden and others. We were all very passionate about using mobile devices for learning.

Despite our passion, we still heard the resistance from practitioners (and sometimes from learners, but usually practitioners) that the screens were too small, they weren’t powerful enough, battery life was too short.

We, with others, were very much involved in the MoLeNET programme and that has had a huge impact in FE in kick starting the use of mobile devices for learning.

Mobile devices in the last few years have also dramatically changed too. Mobile phones have moved on from phones that just made calls and SMS, to mobile computers. Apple have also changed the landscape, first with the iPhone, then the iPod touch and now the iPad.

“There are no plans to make a tablet, it turns out people want keyboards…. We look at the tablet, and we think it is going to fail.”
Steve Jobs of Apple in 2003.

Innovation now is in the mobile sector of the market, these are the devices that our learners are buying and using.

The age of mobile is now.

gloucestershire college

Mobile Boot Camp Reflection

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On Tuesday we ran a Mobile Learning Boot Camp as part of our Open Day for the Technology Exemplar Network. Combining our skills and experience in mobile learning, we as part of our commitment to sharing through our TEN, running an informal boot camp was our way of doing this.

The plan for the day was quite simple, a semi-formal introduction, a short one hour session on possibilities, whilst the rest of the day was about letting delegates getting on sharing, networking and importantly building mobile learning content and activities.

I covered a fair few technologies and ideas during the event and feedback from delegates was very positive.

We looked at the PSP with GO!Cam camera, Sanyo MP4 video camera, Kodak Zi8 video/still camera, iPod, iPad, iPhone, Audioboo, Posterous, iPadio, iTunes, iMovie, Garageband, Turbo.264HD, Screenr, podcasting, Edirol R-09HR and many other bits and pieces.

I think though if I was going to run it again, I would ask people to show and share at the end of the event.

gloucestershire college

Mobile Learning Boot Camp

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Gloucestershire College Open Day Tuesday 6th July 2010

Mobile Learning Boot Camp

With the wealth of learning technologies mobile technologies and web 2.0 tools and services available to Further Education, this open day, will provide an opportunity to see how Gloucestershire College are using learning technologies to enhance and enrich learning.

The open day will also give you an opportunity to plan, develop and build learning resources for mobile learning in Further Education. This is a change to the original advertised programme.

Gloucestershire College is running the open day as part of the Becta Technology Exemplar Network (TEN),

This event is free to all FE Colleges and learning providers in the learning and skills sector; you do not need to be part of the TEN to visit.

We are running the Open Day on Tuesday 6th July at our Gloucester Campus. The day will focus on the creation of mobile learning resources and how they can be used to enhance teaching and learning. The day will also give you an opportunity to tour the college to see how we use ILT and how we have embedded learning technologies across the curriculum.

The day will consist of a formal introduction followed by semi-structured unconference format in which delegates will be able to build and create resources that can be used on mobile devices such as the PSP, the iPhone and mobile phones.

Delegates will be expected to bring some content for repurposing or ideas for content.

The day starts at 10.00am and will finish at 4.00pm, lunch will be provided.

Travel

Gloucester is well served by rail networks from across the UK and the college is a 15 minute walk from the railway station.

Gloucester is on the M5 and can be accessed from Junction 12 from the South and 11 from the North. Please note that there is no parking available at the college, though pay car parks are close by.

Booking

Please book online by Friday 2nd July here.

stuff

PAT Testing…

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The future of mobile learning has to be in user owned technology.

From a sustainability perspective, no educational institutions (especially in the current economic climate) would be able to provide all learners with a mobile device or a laptop – even if they are getting cheaper!

However… sometimes the question of PAT testing student equipment arises from someone within the organisation. It is then decided that students can only bring in their laptops if they have been properly PAT tested or they can bring their devices in, but can not plug them in or in extreme examples students will be banned from bringing in their own devices.

I have read and checked the relevant legislation and I have phoned the HSE to confirm this.

There is NO legal requirement to PAT test student equipment, a formal visual inspection is sufficient under the current legislation.

See more details in this HSE leaflet.

The HSE were quite clear that they would not expect colleges to PAT test student devices.

Think about hotels for example, who NEVER PAT test guests personal laptops. Read this leaflet which has more information.

However… having said all that there may be good reasons to ensure that student equipment is PAT tested.

If you have an old building with rubbish wiring, it might make sense (from a risk assessment perspective) to PAT test.

Some insurance companies REQUIRE PAT testing, but check with your insurance company.

The answer to your H&S Officer is provide them with a proper risk assessment and the documentation from the HSE. Ask them to then explain why PAT testing is required beyond what is required under the legislation?

Or…

Ask H&S to set up PAT testing sessions for students, they want to do it, let them do it. Give them an indication of the session frequency required.

Or…

It actually doesn’t take that long or too much effort to train people to PAT test equipment, even the testing equipment isn’t that expensive. Train all relevant staff, Learning Resources, IT Technicians, other Technicians, teaching staff!!!! and get them to do the PAT testing.

Finally ignore all the “smart” people who tell you that PAT testing is an example of redundant acronym syndrome syndrome.

Disclaimer: ALL information containing in my post is for informational purposes only and should never be construed as legal advice. For proper legal advice you should consult a lawyer.

ipad, iphone

iPhone Application Programming Training

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There are many interesting and useful things on iTunes U.

If you are thinking about writing an application for the new iPad or the iPhone then these resources from Stanford University on iTunes U may just fit the bill.

These are BIG files, most of the hour long videos are nearly 500MB in size and there are over twenty of them!

There are also accompany PDFs.

If I can find the time I am hoping to go through the materials and write my first iPhone App.

stuff

Microsoft’s Android App

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The BBC News reports on Microsoft’s Android App.

Microsoft has made an application that works with Google’s Android phone.

Called Tag, the free software uses a handset’s camera to turn it into a mobile barcode reader.

You can read more about this on the Microsoft Tag Blog.

Last year in January I wrote a blog post about Microsoft Tag.

Back then I said…

Yes Microsoft have developed their own version of mobile phone barcodes, which require their reader and require you to register in order to create them.

It’s all very typical Microsoft.

I concluded back then

Overall I am not sure about this, not sure if it will catch on or whether we should stick with QR Codes.

Nah, stick with QR Codes.

Since then I think I have seen one instance of a Microsoft Tag.

However having said that I haven’t seen many QR Codes in the wild either…

Question is, do mobile phone barcodes have a future, or is augmented reality the real future of mobile phones?

It is interesting that Microsoft have made an App for Android, though they also have readers for Windows Mobile, J2ME, iPhone, Blackberry and Symbian S60 phones, so maybe it isn’t too much of a surprise.