There’s a whole lot of not much which needs to be said about this. I hated chem at school - maybe this may have helped…
My class were stuggling with the importance of writing the units on the end of a measurement calculation. I remembered a famous scene from the film ‘Spinal Tap’, where in an effort to revamp the stage show, the band decided to have a 18 foot stonehenge replica made, the design was sketched on a napkin but unfortunatly there seems to be some confusion regarding the units of measurement. A language warning at about 1.51, some skills in ‘riding the fader’ are necessary to use it in the classroom.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WXGbwIkvh38
And for the topic of percentages…”this one goes to eleven” - 110%!
The ‘Dismount’ products are a lot of fun. Stair Dismount allows you to push a poor individual down a rather steep set of stairs. Truck Dismount - well - invloves a truck. Both pieces of software are a lot of fun and brought out some sadistic tendencies I never knew existed. However, taken seriously - both these programs have some great applications in the Physics / Physical Education classroom.
With any new piece of software or hardware, you have a captive audience and a narrow window to engage, and then “sell” the product. None of us likes doing more work than we have to and you can do some real damage if the support and technology doesnt cut it. “Wow” moments are great but if the internet connection is unreliable, or the battery is flat or the data projector is not playing ball - dont bother - go outside and kick the ball because you will do more dameage to a nervous tech learner than good. Some decent broadband speed wouldn’t hurt either…..
08.22Photosynth - wow
I Just started playing with Microsoft’s Photosynth - one word: wow.
I’ve been using the labs version of Photosynth for a year or so now and have been blown away by the impressive flow between scenes, the capacity to zoom in on images and the almost “being there” sensation it can induce.
What has been missing however, has been the ability to contribute your own images to make your own “synth”. That’s now changed with Microsoft opening up to the public and scores of people uploading their image collections to create three dimensional point clouds and impressive virtual worlds to explore.
The process of adding images is very straight forward - sign up for an account, click create, select a collection of images with common elements (overlapping images which might work equally well as a panorama) and click upload. The software does the rest, ultimately leaving you with a URL to a new “synth” of images you have added.
The cool thing about all this is that it really has so much potential. A few ideas Ive just had:
- Virtual tourism - obvious I know, but
- Google streetview add-on
- Mapping add-ons - what does this place look like? Why not have a look?
- Navigation of virtual spaces - I’m thinking of a new way to “store” texts - imagine a virtual library where you could navigate the space, find a “text” (or media) and zoom in to consume
- Nano tours of microscopic environments
- Real estate - house inspections on the web
- Virtual school excursion
How could the learner use it?
- Creating a good synth could be a great art project
- A fantastic way of constructing virtual environments
- Virtual tourism/excursion
- …
This morning I was lamenting the fact that I didn’t have a WiFi access point handy so I could check my email on my iPod Touch. I know, tough life.
Anyway I was thinking how useful it would be if my phone (A Nokia N95* with a data plan) could be a WiFi access point as well. This way my iPod and other devices could access the web wherever I roam.
So like anyone who has an idea I went to the web and did a quick search to see what I could find and turned up this. Apparently installing WMWifiRouter on your Windows Mobile smartphone can fulfill my dream of a portable wireless access point. Shame I don’t have a Windows Mobile smartphone…
Not to be deterred I dug a little deeper and found this. JoikuSpot Premium (there is a light version for free) is a little piece of software which does what I want. It turns my phone into an access point - now all my WiFi enabled devices can use my phone to connect to the web. What’s more it could not have been easier. The one problem I encountered was not being able to connect via VPN over my new phone access point - apparently the protocol I need to use is not supported by the current version of JoikuSpot. Oh well - I can always use the outlook web mail client - shame cause the Exchange client on the iPod Touch is great - except for the lack of sort, search and filtering of messages - but that’s a different story.
How could a learner use it?
- Access to the web is essential for the modern student - this is another way of making the web more ubiquitous.
- 3G cards for PCs are very popular for students on the move, but are limited to a single device. With this approach more than one person/device can use the connection to the web.
You may have heard of Microsoft OneNote, a great application for capturing your thoughts in one spot, particularly if you have a slate or tablet computer. You can capture your thoughts as you might have with a traditional notepad and pen with the distinct advantage of being able to include all kinds of multimedia and dynamic content. OneNote is great, but it isn’t free.
Evernote is free and while notes aren’t structured in quite the same way as OneNote it does offer a wide selection of powerful features which OneNote users would feel very comfortable with. It comes in a variety of flavours: PC, Mac, Mobile (Windows Mobile at the moment, but iPhone and Java based phones soon) and web providing access to your jottings regardless of where you roam. It is most suited to generating a catalogue of your “stuff” - pictures, web clippings, emails, scans and your typed musings are all added to notebook.
What it does well
- It indexes everything you throw at it very efficiently making it easy to find things again.
- Evernote has heaps of ways to capture content - the best is the email function - Evernote gives you an email address which you send content to. Evernote then plonks the email and attachments into a new note - this is fast and ace.
- Phone integration (iPod Touch/phone/etc.) is cool - let’s face it, everyone has their phone with them all of the time, so on demand capture is great (in theory - I haven’t tried this, but I like the idea).
What isn’t great
- 40MB for free isn’t great (better than nothing I guess!) - it is a lot of text, but doesn’t add up to a lot of image when you start getting into it.
- There isn’t much wrong with this - perhaps if I’m picky some more consideration of those who use tablet computers would be good
- Collaboration tools would be useful - “shared notes” for group projects would be cool
How could a learner use it?
- Organising notes is an obvious use - making it easy to find things when you’re working on an assignment, or trying to keep your life in order - it really is very handy little tool.
- It’s great for indexing notes - if you scan a friends notes, or take pictures of whiteboard content, Evernote can index it for you making it searchable and very useful.
07.27A beginning
Here is a beginning. The first post of a collection of ideas that a couple of us thought we’d like to put somewhere. If you happen to derive some use or amusement from them then drop us a line. Who knows, we may even write back.