I’ve been reading this article from the Guardian about the anti-competitiveness of Microsoft in the browser market.

Now, I can sort of understand that Google and MS want us to use their browsers as they are set up to point us towards other services that are charged for or include advertising.

But what about Firefox or Opera? Do they get a cut of advertising revenue or something?

How do any of these organisations justify the spend they put into developing their broswers?

Please help me…

Adobe Premiere CS3

Clip Notes has been available with Abobe Premiere since CS3. I saw it demo’d when CS3 was launched 2 years ago but haven’t got around to trying it out till now. There are plenty of possibilities for using it in education.

In short, Premiere allows you to render a movie to Quicktime or Windows Media and embed it in a pdf. When you share the pdf it allows you to play the video and add annotations at specific points in the movie. Many users can add comments so you can build up a converstation about a particular video clip.

Have a look at this example I’ve put together using a video I produced for one of our schools last year.

Click to open Clip Notes

 You can download Adobe Reader here.

The comments sometimes zip past quickly but use the goto buttons and pause to catch them.

The main purpose of the tool is so that video producers can get a client’s approval on a cut of a video prior to final production but it would work equally well in an education setting. What about:

• Media – students can get detailed feedback from a teacher on their assembly, rough and final cuts before they hand the work in. Also good for digital video projects in ICT.
• PE – students can film a phase of play (in rugby for example) and then analyse patterns, outcomes and choices players could have made.
• History – download a clip from an archive site and then ask students to comment on aspects of the film.
• Science – film a reaction or process maybe using time-lapse or super slo-mo and get students to comment on what is happening.
• And so on…

It does require someone in school to have access to Premiere CS3 or 4; not cheap so it isn’t a universally accessible option (look for en educational supplieras there is a discount). Also, it’s not easy to use this online so it requires cumbersome saving and exporting on the school network.

Nevertheless, as Adobe Reader is free and already has a wide user-base it makes it a useful tool for education.

NOTE TO SELF: Include instructions on how to make it, fool!

• In Premiere, make sure the correct sequence is highlighted in the timeline
• Click on File – Export – Clip Notes
• Use the following screen to change the compression settings (QT or WMV, screen size, frame rate etc) click OK.
• Choose a location for the file
• Click Save

A further point is to make sure that you’re not running another pdf reader. Only Adobe Reader has the video codecs embedded in it (as far as I know). See my reply to Catherine’s comment below.

igot-U Tracker

It’s not often I write about bits of kit but I’ve been having a bit of fun with this wee gem for a few days now. The i-gotU tracker has been around for a little while and has previously featured on MerlinJohn but we got our grubby mitts on one last week.

Briefly, it’s a GPS tracker that is about the size of a memory stick that logs your position at roughly 6 second intervals while it’s running.  Get it back to a laptop, plug in the USB cable and with a few clicks it has mapped your route on a Google Maps background.

The really clever bit happens when you take a camera with you. As long as the clock in the camera is set correctly you can upload the pics to the @trip software at the same time as the GPS data and it will add the pics to your route. Text can be added later.

You can make your trips available online or save them in formats that can be viewed on Google Earth. Have a look at the @Trip site for more examples to download.

Shire Brook Valley

Have a look at this example I did last week. There’s a really good nature reserve near us that we have used for projects before (good for industrial heritage, geography, science) and I strapped my boots on, took our trusty EOS450D and pretended I knew what I was doing. Felt like a proper geographer for the first time since uni!

You can easily see applications for this. For starters…

• Field Trips – either you make one before you go to familiarise students with a location/topic or get them to make one after they’ve been.
• Science – Mapping specimens in an ecosystem (e.g. change in plant species on coasts)
• Local history projects
• Maths  – looking at speed, time and distance relationships. (Graphs are available in the @trip software although I don’t think you can export data).
• PE - tracking a cross-country runner or cyclist, comapring the difficulty of routes (it will also show elevation).
• Art - create a photography walk for an art project.

I had one or two little glitches running the software and lost data from one test trip completely but apart from that it’s a dream to use. I like the idea of any kit where the interface is 2 flashing lights and a dirty great button. After our previous nightmares with GPS it was a relief.

The ability to export to a Google Eart KMZ also means that you can combine it with GE’s audio tour function opening up a whole new avenue that I haven’t explored yet.

Have you used the igot-U? Share your experiences, good or bad…

This is significant. I sucked at Physics.

Came to this by a roundabout route. Basically, OE Cake is a physics simulator for demonstrating the properties of different materials. Draw on the different materials and watch the fun unfold.

It looks great on a whiteboard.

It requires a download and my desktop machine struggles to play it although my dual-core laptop seems to handle it OK. The more memory and processor the better as lots of different elements make it run slowly.

Click here. (Scroll down and click on the Rapidshare link)

Image – icomei on Flickr

Image - Adi Setiawan on Flickr

Had an interesting day out on Monday at Nottingham Uni. Nick Mount and Gary Priestnall in the school of geography were hosting a workshop on the uses of immersive technologies in education. It was all a bit out of my remit as we don’t do higher ed in CLC’s but a fascinating day nonetheless.

It was all done under the auspices of the DELVE project (if you want a good example of creative acronym wrangling (CAW) check out how they got to DELVE!) which links Nottingham Uni and the OU.

In a nutshell it was a showcase of some examples of how they have been using immersive technologies (3D sims, Google Earth, Second Life) in teaching their courses. By immersive technologies (and there was considerable debate about the meaning of the term) they mean apps and hardware that allows a learner to become drawn into a virtual or augmented environment which supposedly leads to a deeper form of engagement with the task. There were also presentations from Claire Jarvis at Leicester about her work modelling GPS in a virtual environment.

The majority of the stuff being demo’s was beyond most schools’ capabilities but it was interesting to see what’s going on in other parts of the eductaional world.

Here are some of the mail things I took away from the event…

Google Earth - there was a fascinating demo of an activity to create a 3d wind farm in the Lake District in GE and then assess it’s visual impact from certain key point sround the National Park. Really made me want to investigate GE as a creative tool along with Sketchup rather than just a viewing tool.

Maptube - Brilliant. An excellent resoure for making map mashups. OK, maybe it’s only geographers like me that get excited about that sort of thing but it makes for a really groovy activity for KS4. I’ve just had a go at comparing the distribution of knife crime stats in 2006/7 with post office distribution and mashing up a map of it. Why? BECAUSE I COULD!! (Not strictly immersive technology but I’m not complaining).

Second Life - Nick was showing how they used SL as a discussion tool for a wind farm project. They had created an island in SL and mapped a mini version of the Lake District on it and users were encouraged to place turbines in certainlocations then the students’ avatars could meet and discuss different options. I’m still not convinced that SL is something we could usefully get involved with here. I have too many worries about using it in schools mainly from the e-safety point of view and I’m not sure that the pedagogic benefits are worth pursuing before schools have grasped more basic web2.0 tools.

Does anyone have any experience of using Second Life in schools? Am I missing the point?

3D Screen Technology – This was the first time I’d seen 3d used outside of BETT. They used it as a way of visualizing a wind farm (notice a theme?) in the Lake District. It was veryimpressive (and hugely expensive) but I was left with the same feeling that I had after BETT, namely that the education benefits of immersion are not proven to the extent that schools would want to invest tens of thousands in the necessary resources.

On the whole, this idea of immersion and it’s relation to engagement was fascinating and I never went just because I was trying to pick up new ideas for the classroom. Mind expanding stuff.

A wee shout out to Claire Chambers who was particularly helpful and to Claire Jarvis for possibly having the solution to all our GPS problems!

Image - Eddie Lawrance on Flickr

No  matter where you go on the internet, whatever you discover it is a safe bet that Stephen Fry has got there before you!

So it is with AudioBoo. Basically, it’s Twitter for audio.

I’ll start with the bad news, unless you have an iPhone you can’t upload stuff to it. It’s an iPhone app which allows you to record audio (max 5mins) using the in-built mic, tag it and publish it almost instantly along with a photo and your GPS location.

Without an iPhone you can still sign up and follow other people’s Boo’s but that limits the educational possibilities quite substantially. Much better if you can publish or have a “boo-versation” (I made that up, can you tell?).

As far as what to use it for, it extends podcasting by making collaboration, reflection and commenting a lot more immediate. The ability to geotag is really appealing, especially for fieldwork (for some reason, seeing where Stephen Fry had been when he recorded his Boos was eerie in the extreme).

What other iPhone apps have you come across that have great educational potential?

Flickr Image - Sean Dreilinger

An interesting juxtaposition of consecutive articles from BECTA recently. The first questions the effectiveness of those “Brain Training ” games that some people including allegedly Nicole Kidman go doolally over, saying that in one study  there was no significant improvement in performance in areas like memory tests compared to control groups. Given that the sample size was tiny  it’s not going to light a fire under the debate but interesting nonetheless.

The second article on the other hand trumpets the value of gaming in enhancing certain skills. Many games require the development of strategies, problem-solving and increasingly creativity (see games like Spore) plus they are fun.

I did a wee post a while back about using commercial gaming releases as an opportunity for informal learning and this kind of bears that out but it’s most interesting that the games specifically written to enhance learning (or to tap into that particular market) possibly aren’t actually that good at what they claim to do.

Links

Video Games Contribute to Development
The Effects of Brain Training Software and Games

Image by Karen Biggs - Flickr CC

I want to introduce you to 2 web tools which I think are the absolute business…but I’m not going to tell you what they do yet, and I’ll explain why in a second. I want you to discover for yourself.

They are both created by Catalan company Pim Pam Pum and use Flickr as a gateway to all sorts of fun. Check them out…

bubblr

bookr

Maybe I’m getting lazy as I approach my middle years but I’m starting to appreciate simplicity and elegance of design over technical wizardry.

Here you have 2 web tools that you can use to create simple pieces of media with the minimum of fuss using high quality content which is freely available. No long lists of instructions or complicated processes – just point and click goodness. You’ll be up and running in 2 minutes, I promise.

Kids I know that use it really love it.

A lot of what I do for my job focuses on using software and hardware that has quite a steep learning curve (see the green screening article below) and where some teachers we support are more than happy to absorb that technology not all have the time, inclination or confidence.

In the past I might have grumbled about “luddites” and “stick-in-the-muds” and thrown 32MB memory sticks at them but, not for the first time, I think I’ve been missing the point a little.

Some bits of ICT need to have a certain degree of complexity in order to function, take learning platforms for example.

For the most part, everything else should be as simple as possible. That way teachers and students can get on with the communicating bit of ICT without worrying about the technology bit.

There’s a growing body of web tools, freely available, that would allow a teacher to say come up with some ideas or tell us what you have learnt and use whatever tools help you to do it best. Then let them get on with it.

Check our resource page on web tools for our ever expanding list of favourites…

There is value in the more complex but wandering round BETT looking at the number of products that would require their own 1 day training course to turn them on it just made me pre-emptively exhausted.

So, from now on I am going to champion, whenever I can, ICT that requires as little mental effort to master as possible. And I shall refer to it in the echoing, solitary space that is my mind as “Simpl-ICT“.

See what I did there?

We only starting to use this technology at our place about 18 months ago even though the it has been around for a bit mainly due to issues about pedagogy and our own levels of confidence. It is, however a really useful and fun thing to use in teaching and learning. Seeing people students have filmed magically transported to far away times or places creates a real “ooh” moment and can enhance teaching about storytelling methods or appreciation of place or period.

This is a piece we put together with one of our partner schools to help them introduce Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to Y10′s. The actor is the school’s head of drama and the images are all Flickr Creative Commons. The sound effects came from the Freesound Project and the music from the Audio Network Library (schools’ license).

Frankenstein Introduction from Chris Thomson on Vimeo.

Tips for getting a good “key”

I don’t claim to be any sort of expert and our first forays into it were pure excrement. The following is what I learnt from making mistakes and advice from other, wiser types.

Use green or blue as your background.
The reason these 2 colours are used is mainly because it is furthest away from natural skin tones (unless you are hungover!). This way, when you remove the green, say, from the clip you don’t make your face transparent. It is possible to key out any colour, though. Just make sure that the object you are filming isn’t the same colour as the back. I’ve been told also that green screen works best for people with dark hair and blue screen for blond but I’ve never had problems with either.

You don’t need to spend thousands on professional equipment.
The best results I have had for doing chromakey work were filmed against a wall we had recently painted a lurid green (see pic).

Green screen painted wall

So long as the surface you are filming against is smooth and uniformly coloured and lit you can get away with most things. If you are using fabric, make sure that it is kept in a way that minimizes creases. Hoover it occasionally and I never let students on it with their shoes on!

Find out how to set the white balance on the camera.
You may have noticed when using digital movie cameras that if you change from filming in natural light to indoors light the hue changes slightly. This is the automatic white balance kicking in. Briefly, white light comes in different “temperatures” depending on the lighht source. Ever noticed that old-style light bulbs seem to give a warner glow than their energy saving brethren? There you go. The camera guesses the type of light it’s filming in and tries to compensate to keep all the colours looking natural, only sometimes it doesn’t quite work. Setting the WB manually tells the camera what white actually looks like so it can adjust the colours properly. How to do it? Once you have set up the screen and the camera and sorted your lighting get someone to hold a clean piece of white paper on the spot they will stand when being filmed. Zoom the camera right in so all you see is the white page. Now set the manual WB. You may notice a distinct change in the colours when you zoom out.

It’s important to do this so that green or blue are truly that colour on the clip. Otherwise you may have problems with the keying later.

Lighting – You can get away with rudimentary lighting so long as you obey a few rules:

• The backdrop needs to be evenly lit. If one bit is brighter that another then it won’t key out evenly and you’ll be left with fuzzy bits on the screen in the wrong place (called “Artefacts” apparently)
• Get as much natural light as you can. I once set up a screen facing a huge glass wall in a gym and that seemed to get good results (despite lousy audio)
• If you can get a light to shine on the actors from behind. This helps to outline then well against the backdrop and makes the shot look more professional.That’s all we did for the embedded example.
• Make sure the actors stand at least 2 feet from the screen to avoid shadows on the backdrop. Shadows make keying really tricky as your screen in no longer evenly lit. Also, remove any reflecting jewellry, glasses, props. If they reflect the bacground colour they’ll go transparent.

Clothing.
Obviously, avoid wearing the same colour as the background unless you want to look like a floating head. I’ve also found that wearing black or white is a problem for some software as it goes a little transparent.

Movement
The easiest way to act against green screen is to not move at all. If you watch the clip above we use the positioning of the camera to create a bit of dynamism in the footage. Walking on and off the shot always look rubbish as it’s all done in profile and nobody’s face looks good in profile apart from Liv Tyler. When your students are storyboarding they need to think cinematically, not theatrically. In other words, think how it will look on the screen, not how it looks then and there in the room.

Film in a quite place with as little echo as you can manage.
Audio is one of the bits which a lot of people forget about but can make real a difference to the outcome. Imagine footage which looks like someone is walking in a forest but sounds like they’re in a toilet. You can always add reverb an’ that later.

Use decent software.
It’s worth spending a bit of cash on software if you are going to do it seriously. I’ve already stated a preference for Adobe Premiere Elements as you get the same level of control as you do for their pro editing software (just about). We’ve used Ulead’s Videostudio 10 before which gives you results really quickly but not reliably. iMovie and Moviemaker can manage it but require extra downloads (imovie and moviemaker) and the results aren’t that great.

To make the editing job easier try to crop the clip so that all your are left with is a small area round the actor.
This means you only have to worry about keying out the area immediately round the actor. Watch though that they don’t move out of the cropped area or they will look like they are disappearing into thin air.

Setting the key
Some editors have an eye dropper tool which let you click on the image of the clip to tell it what colour to remove. For best results, follow the tip above about cropping then click on an area near the actor. Make sure you play around with the “similarity” settings. Basically, the lower the similarity the narrower the variation of pixels that go transparent. Conversely, if you set it way high all pixels will become see through and noby wants that, do they?

And finally – don’t worry about it!
You’re not George Lucas so nobody will care if it’s all slightly squiffy and looks like dodgy 70′s Dr Who. The experience of the process is often enough for kids to get excited about. I spend quite a long time getting things just right but that’s because I’m anal, it doesn’t make me a better person to talk to in the pub.

Basically, you can no longer download the 2006 version of iMovie from Apple. New Apple users have to use their 09 version of the software.

In itself the 09 version is fine but speaking as someone who teaches digital video, it isn’t a great teaching tool.

It’s a radically different way of thinking about video to the traditional timeline-based editors (as iMovie 06 was) so it makes teaching visual literacy through editing less straightforward and much less transferrable to other types of software or operating systems.

Now, if you want to run a left-to-right non-linear editor on a Mac you have to purchase one like Final Cut Express. Not cheap. It’s a shame that Apple have gone down a route that diverges from the needs of education when schools, colleges and universities is where a lot of people get their first exposure to the Apple brand.

I’m not sure if iMovie HD 06 is available elsewhere. If you know post a comment and I can share it round.