Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The IWB upgraded


We have seen this coming but I didn't think it would be quite this soon...

Samsung has released a 64" touch panel that when you look at TCO and intallation costs would give most interactive whiteboards a run for the money...



From their website...

The exciting new 650TS touch screen for education is a must have for any classroom. Combining the simplicity of a whiteboard and the power of a computer, the Samsung 650TS eBoard will enhance almost any learning environment. The exciting new 650TS touch screen will increase student participation, provide better visual presentation and therefore create a better learning environment. The 650TS eBoard occupies less space than other interactive boards. It has low power consumption and can even deliver high-quality images under the brightest lighting condition. The lifespan of the 650TS LCD panel is approximately 50,000 hours (or about 30 years when used 6 hours a day).



Not exactly portable as an eBeam and projector set up. But certainly for a fixed installation this is the next step in providing display and interactive technology in the classroom.

For more information -

The cool thing is that we now sell them from our office. Can't wait to get my hands on a demo unit.



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Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Making your own iwb content

Seems I've taken a holiday from my blog...

Unfortunately I wasn't on holiday... I've been working harder than ever before at my current job as well as a few home projects which I'll show later when I get them a bit further along.

I had an author contact me recently - she was looking for a way to create here own interactive whiteboard resource to go with some picture books that she has written.

Now back in the day I used to use Authorware, Director and Flash to generate interactive multimedia, but that is now over 10 years ago and I have not kept up my skills.

So I went on the hunt for easy to use cheap/free tools to create stand alone multimedia packages that included basic computer based training stuff like quiz es, cloze, matching and drag and drop type activities.

So here is what I found

CourseLab - This is the system we are going to use. Nice interface, no coding if you don't want to and easy to use. Best of all it's free.LAMS Authoring EnvironmentImage via Wikipedia

LAMS - more server based but again easy to use and set up - Free too

Xerte - More coding than what I would like - but would be really good once you get your head around.

eXe - Easy to use but not enough "fun" stuff for our purposes (storybook), but for secondary and tertiary courses this is very quick and easy. Again free.


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Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Ebeam demonstration Video

I find this a little funny but is seems that SmartBoard is getting to be a generic term...

This comes from www.smartboardsreviews.com

It's good once again to see customer using our products and being able to get going so quickly.

I like his closing comment.



Monday, July 12, 2010

ARS/SRS in Higher Education

Queensland University of Technology has released a "Take5" video on the use of keepads in their Business studies courses. It's nice to see one of our clients working with the technology to get better outcomes for their students.

A lot of what she says can be used within a primary and seconday based environment as well.


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Tuesday, June 22, 2010

Graphing mathematics - Free CAS


There was a discussion on echalk today regarding a school's migration to Apple Macs and how their maths teachers were resisting the change so they could still use FX Draw on their PC's so that they could create graphical functions for printing and class use.

I was immediatly interested why they would still use a paid for program when there were quite a few free and open source alternatives.

So here is the list I came up with that were free and cross platform.


Going from simple to complex....

the open source Mac / PC - Maths Trax from NASA

http://prime.jsc.nasa.gov/mathtrax/index.html

the open source cross platform geogebra (my favourite)

http://www.geogebra.org

or the open source cross platform C.A.R Metal

http://db-maths.nuxit.net/CaRMetal/index_en.html

or if you really want to freak them out - the free open source cross platform Maxima and Sage

http://maxima.sourceforge.net/

http://www.sagemath.org/

Monday, June 14, 2010

Make your own games! Serious Games


A lot has been said for "Serious Gaming", where there is an educational purpose for playing the game. These have been used for a wide range of educational contexts, and even TurningPoint ARS can be used as a game platform.

I was having a scan through Sourceforge and came across this little beauty - e-adventure

Cross platform for both the development and games means that games can be written once, played by users on different platforms. Because it is written in JAVA there is also the possibility to push them to iPhones and android based devices.

There are a range of pre-made games to check out as well as comprehensive help files.

I you ever wanted to make a point and click adventure story or get you students to demonstrate what they have learned this might be the tool to have a look at. Take a look at the video to get an idea of what it is all about.


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Wednesday, June 9, 2010

Things you find on old computers2

Part 2 - computer 2 - 2004 - 2006

So the old computer started up with a wheeze and a rattle but got there eventually. After getting all mu domuments that I wanted I went through all my programs and found the ones I could still find on the net.

Many of the desciptions are taken off the sites - I'm in a bit of a rush and they say it better than me.


- Compendium is a software tool providing a flexible visual interface for managing the connections between information and ideas.

- CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Everyone, even companies, can use it for free.


BPM Studio Pro is a tool designed for lovers of music mixing and for digital audio professionals.

If we want to achieve new sounds like those that come from professional audio consoles, we can utilise this powerful multifaceted audio file reproducer.

-

PhotoMesa is a zoomable image browser. It allows the user to view multiple directories of images at once, and uses simple navigation commands to smoothly zoom in and out.

PhotoMesa requires only images on disk, and does not require any annotation, importing to a database, or other organization.


- KidPad is a collaborative story authoring tool for children. It provides basic drawing functionality on a zooming canvas enabled by Jazz. The narrative structure of a story is defined by creating spatial hyperlinks between objects on the canvas. Instead of using a standard WIMP (Windows, Icons, Menus, Pointer) user interface, KidPad uses local tools that can be picked up, used and dropped anywhere on the drawing surface. The local tools interface and MID, a Java library developed at the University of Maryland, allows KidPad to support shoulder-to-shoulder collaboration. If multiple USB mice are connected to the computer each mouse will control a tool in KidPad, making it possible to let several children simultaneously create a story together!

- The Tablet Mylar Slides Classroom Presentation System is intended as an electronic replacement for traditional mylar slides. There are two different types of physical mylar slides; the slide deck where each is slide is around the size of a sheet of paper, and the slide roll where you have a single, "infinitely long" side whose width is around the width of a sheet of paper. The TMS system combines these two qualities to provide a deck of "infinitely long" slides.

Font Viewer - This program is an easy to use but powerful font manager, which allows getting a quick overview of both installed and non installed fonts. It can install and uninstall fonts, and organize them in categories. Some of its features are:

bridge building games by Chronic Logic. There are currently five (!) of them: Bridge Builder (the original game from 2000), the new Bridge Building Game (very similar to Bridge Builder but enhanced, from 2006), Pontifex and Bridge Construction Set (formerly: Pontifex II)

- GeoSetter is a freeware tool for Windows (XP or higher) for showing and changing geo data and other metadata (IPTC/XMP/Exif) of image files (e.g. images taken by digital cameras).

- GenChemLab is an OpenGL-based application intended to simulate several common general chemistry exercises. It is meant to be used to help students prepare for actual lab experience. It could also be used in cases where laboratory facilites are not accessible, for instance in K-12 schools or home schooling.

- Gravit is a gravity simulator which runs under Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. It's released under the GNU General Public License which makes it free. It uses Newtonian physics using the Barnes-Hut N-body algorithm. Although the main goal of Gravit is to be as accurate as possible, it also creates beautiful looking gravity patterns. It records the history of each particle so it can animate and display a path of its travels. At any stage you can rotate your view in 3D and zoom in and out. Gravit uses OpenGL with Lua, SDL, SDL_ttf and SDL_image.

- The IHMC CmapTools program empowers users to construct, navigate, share and criticize knowledge models represented as concept maps. It allows users to, among many other features, construct their Cmaps in their personal computer, share them on servers (CmapServers) anywhere on the Internet, link their Cmaps to other Cmaps on servers, automatically create web pages of their concept maps on servers, edit their maps synchronously (at the same time) with other users on the Internet, and search the web for information relevant to a concept map.

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A free game in the truest sense of the word, TrackMania Nations Forever lets you drive at mind-blowing speeds on fun and spectacular tracks in solo and multiplayer modes.



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