Thursday, April 30, 2009

Audience Response Research

We have a few Universities here in Perth trialling and using TurningPoint in their courses and doing research on its effectiveness in both large and small group environments. There have been a few books published both here and over in the United States on the same topic.

Here are two that are available on (in preview) Google books

Teaching with Classroom Response Systems By Derek Bruff

Audience response systems in higher education By David A. Banks, Idea Group Publishing


So if you are interested in how others are using Audience Response technology, I recommend that you have a look at these.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Online Forms

Back in the day when I worked for a different company, I designed their website (amongst other things). I had to hand code a form to get customers information when they wanted someone to get in contact with them. Needless to say I haven't had much use or inclination to create more web forms recently...

If you already have a Moodle set up then you don't really need this, but for those who don't this is a great way to quickly set up surveys or question forms for their students without the auto marking. Forms are submited to and email address.

http://www.jotform.com/

Thanks to Nik's Quick shout for this one

Monday, April 6, 2009

Augmented Reality

Sometimes you feel like your are so far behind the 8 ball....

I've just come across Augmented Reality and I am just blown away.... if you haven't seen it before have a look at the video on this blog. Check out Boffswana.com and then start googling AR.

The education potential for this type of technology is Huge!! Imaging being able to look at any object in the world in a mixed reality. Here are a couple of application I have seen and thought about.

What is in the box? - Lego have put glyphs on their boxes - you can, using a kiosk, see what the finished model will look like life size, just by holding up the box to the camera.

Advertising - No longer will print be only 2D - Mini in Germany put an ad on the back of a magazine - when you went to their website you could hold the magazine up to your webcam and see a mini in full 3D.

Animals on your desk - You will be able to bring any animal into the classroom - put it in an environment and see how it reacts to both real and digital artifacts.

Animate anything - If you want to show a working model of a nuclear reactor, you can. Same with engines, systems both natural and man made.

Imagine in 3D - An architect rolls out the plans for your new house - point your webcam at the plans and all of a sudden you can see the house in 3D - Turn it around look at it from every angle.

Interactive books - This would be the ultimate pop up book, and interactive 3D image right there on the page.

I'm sure there are many more applications. Certainly the wow factor plus that much of the software is free and the hardware is off the shelf means teachers can play with this and find their own uses.

Software to try out...
These two allow you to import your own models onto a glyph of your choosing
Build AR
ARive

These two are pre made with animated models.
http://www.lesanimauxdufutur.com/
http://ge.ecomagination.com/smartgrid/#/augmented_reality


Papervision - Augmented Reality (extended) from Boffswana on Vimeo.

Friday, April 3, 2009

virtual storyboarding 2

So after finding the website last week I was looking at something completely unrelated...
And found this.

Moviestorm
More power, more features, more fun and it's a downloadable. This allows your student to make animations and dramas with virtual actors and includes the important camera angles and scenes.
image
I can't wait to try this out.

On another note I will be at the primary science conference at the Vines over the weekend. I will presenting with Dr Jennifer Lane from ECU. Which will be interesting because she is still making up her presentation with only 10 hours to go.... ah well it's a workshop.

I've made up a CD of some cool open source applications for a range of uses so I will be giving away copies of that as well.