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
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
A new way to storyboard
When I was teaching digital media and we got to digital video or animation I would always make the students storyboard their ideas for planning purposes - plus we only had one camera so it got them started and through natural selction the ones who worked quickly (but up to standard) got hold of the camera first.
I've always thought of storyboards as a low-tech solution... It is hard to imagine how a film will come out just by looking at the storyboards. What if you could put in the scene, characters, script, camera angles and gestures in and see what it would look like...
xtranormal lets you do just that. Currently in beta it allows you to stage manage two characters of your selection.
I've always thought of storyboards as a low-tech solution... It is hard to imagine how a film will come out just by looking at the storyboards. What if you could put in the scene, characters, script, camera angles and gestures in and see what it would look like...
xtranormal lets you do just that. Currently in beta it allows you to stage manage two characters of your selection.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Live webpage within PowerPoint
Ever wanted to showcase a website during a PowerPoint Presentation?
How did you do it? - Alt-tab? Screen shot?
Here is a nice easy FREE solution to the problem -
http://skp.mvps.org/liveweb.htm
This embeds your live website directly into the presentation without alt-tabbing back and forth.
This is great for embedding flash, FLV, Java and other interactive directly into your presentations - it doesn't have to be on the server - you could have it locally.
Use this for a huge range of stuff. Ask TurningPoint questions based on a web site.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Wordle
I'm going to have to write about "Wordle" - as my boss reckons it's the ultimate summariser. Feed it texts and it gives you a visual representation of the frequency and importance of each word in the text. You have to see a wordle to appreciate it.
This is an online tool, but it would be fantastic in a classroom - put a chapter of a book into it and see if the kids can predict the story - or get them to make up a story based on the wordle.
You could also use it to help kids with distilling the main ideas. It is also a great "art" activity - student can use public domain text from project Gutenberg to create art from poems and prose.
Very cool you will be looking for a whole bunch of text to put into the Wordle cruncher.
This is an online tool, but it would be fantastic in a classroom - put a chapter of a book into it and see if the kids can predict the story - or get them to make up a story based on the wordle.
You could also use it to help kids with distilling the main ideas. It is also a great "art" activity - student can use public domain text from project Gutenberg to create art from poems and prose.
Very cool you will be looking for a whole bunch of text to put into the Wordle cruncher.
Word Talk
One of the most popular programs used in special education ans lower primary is "Clicker". I think I have already talked about EDword as a free replacement for it with the ability to make grids and change voices and controls.
One of the features of EDword and Clicker is that they highlight an speak the works on the page- giving students immediate feedback. You can now add this feature to plain old MS Word with WordTalk.
Word talk works as an add in and you can control what gets read and when - with controls for words, sentences, paragrams and selection. It even has a record funtion that records the speach into a MP3 or ogg file - good for getting people who don't like speaking doing a podcast.
One of the features of EDword and Clicker is that they highlight an speak the works on the page- giving students immediate feedback. You can now add this feature to plain old MS Word with WordTalk.
Word talk works as an add in and you can control what gets read and when - with controls for words, sentences, paragrams and selection. It even has a record funtion that records the speach into a MP3 or ogg file - good for getting people who don't like speaking doing a podcast.
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