Tag Archives: printing

Things are going to be different – Weeknote #60 – 24th April 2020

Having moved down into assessment over the last few weeks, I am now looking at teaching online and student wellbeing (and engagement).

We know that the move to teaching online was very much done quickly and rapidly, with little time for planning. Platforms needed to be scaled up to widespread use and most academics moved to translate their existing practice into remote delivery. This wasn’t online teaching, this was teaching delivered remotely during a time of crisis.

The Easter break gave a bit of breathing room, but even then there wasn’t much time for planning and preparation, so even now much of the teaching will be a response to the lockdown rather than  a well thought out planned online course.

Thinking further ahead though, with the potential restrictions continuing, institutions will need to plan a responsive curriculum model that takes into account possible lockdown, restrictions, as well as some kind of normality.

I was involved in a meeting discussing the content needs of Further Education, though my role is Higher Education, I am working on some responses to Covid-19 and content for teachers is one of those areas. What content do teachers need? Do they in fact need good online content? Who will provide that content? How will do the quality assurance? Do we even need quality assurance? And where does this content live? Continue reading Things are going to be different – Weeknote #60 – 24th April 2020

Amazing how much cheaper things have become…

Just under four years ago (November 2003) someone on the ILT Champion mailing list asked about getting a “cheap” high end digital camera for printing images at A2 size.

I posted the following reply.

To be honest in order to get anything decent to scale up to A2 then you are going to need a minimum of 3000×2000 pixels (preferably higher than that) which means a 6MP digicam which will be at a minimum £1000, probably nearer £3000 to get something decent..

There is an easier way and you will get a much better quality image as well. As the need is for marketing purposes, the instantability (sp?) of a digital camera is not needed. I would use a normal SLR film camera (£300) and when it’s developed get it scanned onto CD. My local camera shop will put a whole 35mm film onto a CD scanning in at 3000×2000 pixels for just £10.00.

You don’t even need a SLR, as even those 35mm throwaway cameras can give you a better quality image than a 6MP camera. You could do what is needed for less than £20!

You could get an even larger number of megapixels by using a dedicated flatbed scanner.

Digital cameras are great and have their place, however for your needs I think that you will be better off with a film camera and get it scanned onto cd when you have it developed.

It’s incredible how much has changed in the last four years…

Sony Cybershot W35I now have a 7.2MP camera, a Sony W35, which costs just over £100!

It also has a decent Carl Zeiss lense and a lithium ion battery (so a charge will last all week).

The price of digital cameras has really come down in price. Look at all these 7MP cameras available from Amazon which show how cheap they have become.

Today you need to be less concerned about mega-pixels and be more concerned about the quality of the lense, the life of the battery, how quickly the camera starts up and how quick it is to take photographs.