Cool Stuff with ILT

We now have a YouTube style interface for our video library – that’s the videos which YOU upload centrally for use in your teaching and learning. The idea is that you can easily embed these videos in your Blackboard course – or blogs. The library can also contain audio files (mp3 or wav).

The video library interface (MCC-tube)

The upload procedure takes your video and converts it to ‘streaming’ format (so that it plays right away, like iPlayer or YouTube). It is then a simple step to embed it in the VLE. The video collection will grow quickly if lots of staff upload material.

embedded video in Blackboard

If you want to see how this works and be given access to the MCC-Tube interface contact Staff Dev (713) and request a place in a forthcoming session. I can do occasional lunchtimes or 1630 slots if that’s best for you.
Alan

The LSIS Excellence Gateway has a report on Chesterfield College art tutor, Mik Godley becoming the first artist worldwide to produce an exhibition of works solely produced on touchscreen devices such as the iPod Touch and iPhone.

“I became fascinated with a ‘digital way of seeing’ this place from my family’s past after I found pictures of it online. I consider pixels to be brush strokes and they often form an abstract image which is almost like taking the digital back to the analogue.”

“The iPod is the ideal way to keep at the forefront of these new developments and we are keen to see just how much touchscreen technologies can be applied to teaching and production in art and design. For example, we’ve already established a whiteboard-style drawing app that can project live as the work is created via WiFi and can be used for subject demonstrations and presentations to students.” Mik Godley, Art Tutor, Chesterfield College

For more information see the Excellence Gateway entry or Mik’s Facebook page.

The Excellence Gateway is an online service for everyone who works in the post-16 learning and skills sector in England. With quality improvement at its core, the Excellence Gateway offers you an unrivalled breadth of resources, support and advice, and opportunities to participate and share good practice.

if you want to create an animated movie with your text as the script have a look at www.xtranormal.com

It’s easy to do – the figures and sets are a little basic unless you want to pay for it (and we don’t want to do that!) but have a go and see what you think. Here’s one I did as an example – it tells you how to reset a password in Blackboard.

Reading the Text Aloud

How to get Adobe Acrobat to read pdf files aloud – thanks to TechDis*

Anyone who struggles with written text or who prefers an audio learning style may be surprised to learn of this easy tool.  The “reader’s” voice is American, but you soon get used to him.

Adobe® Acrobat Reader has the ability to read documents aloud.

• From the menu select View > Read Out Loud (see Figure 1).
• Select between ‘Read this Page Only’ and ‘Read to End of Document’.

• Upon selecting an option the programme will read out the text.
• Using the same menu you can ‘Pause’ or ‘Stop’ the programme reading.
• To alter the speed of speech, pitch or voice navigate to Edit>Preferences>Reading>Read out loud options.

N.B. These functions are only available if viewing the PDF file through the free Adobe® Acrobat Reader. They are NOT available if the PDF is viewed through a web browser. In order to save a document to view through Adobe® Acrobat Reader, right click on the link and select ‘Save Target As’. This will open a dialogue box enabling a user to select a location to save the document. Once the document is saved it can be opened directly from the computer which will load it into Adobe® Acrobat Reader.

If you need help converting your documents to pdf files, just ask Lindsay Wallace or Alan Carr.

*TechDis is a mine of useful information on all things to do with educational technology and inclusion:

“Our mission is to support the education sector in achieving greater accessibility and inclusion by stimulating innovation and providing expert advice and guidance on disability and technology.”

www.techdis.ac.uk

Have you used or noticed Google Suggest? When you type something into the search box Google will offer suggestions / guesses to help you. 

Here’s what you get if you start to type in this question – “Why ca”

I wanted to see what “Why can’t I own a Canadian” was all about – if you are as curious as me just click the Google screenshot and you’ll find out!

Google Suggest in action

Are you tweeting? Here’s a little cheat sheet that comes from the ‘Dummies’ stable (click the pic for the link)

One of Powerpoint’s failings is that you can’t get it to add a folder of pictures automatically (like you can with PhotoStory). Well, actually you CAN if you use a cleverly developed macro that asks you where your pics are and creates a new slide for each one as well as resizing each image automatically. What used to take hours now takes minutes! This is SO good that you might be tempted to keep it to yourself! Read on ….

BEFORE YOU START

right click this link and ‘Save Target As ..’ to download the blank Powerpoint  http://blog.midchesh.ac.uk/coolstuff/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/getpix-blank.ppt

check your macro security settings

this procedure uses a macro. The macro won’t run if your security settings are too high. Here’s what to do. Open Powerpoint.  From the menubar select Tools > Macro > Security. Set the Security Level to Medium. This setting asks you if it’s OK to run a macro whenever one is encountered. (On the first occasion that you change this setting you will need to close Powerpoint then reopen it for the changed setting to take effect.)

OPEN THE ’GetPix’ POWERPOINT

When you open the GetPix Powerpoint a Security Warning will pop up which tells you that your Powerpoint contains a macro, click Enable Macros.

From the menubar choose Tools > Macro > Macros

Ensure that GetPix is selected and click Run

You are now prompted to enter a pathname of the folder which contains your images. You need to end the pathname with a forward slash – e.g. C:\Myphotos\London/ (note: if using a Mac end with a : )

the macro will run and report the number of files in the specified folder and the number of slides added (if the file count is greater than the slides added it will be because the folder contains some ‘non-image’ files). Click OK to complete the procedure.

If you need to add files from another folder just run the macro again. The first slide can be deleted – you can now make ANY changes that you like to your Powerpoint (change the slide order – insert text boxes – resize images – delete unwanted slides - insert slides etc).

NB – don’t overwrite the GetPix Powerpoint with your new presentation. Use ‘Save as’ and save the new show with a different name. GetPix will then be available to be used again.

(The opening slide of GetPix Powerpoint contains a summary of these instructions and gives credit to the writers of this macro. They are also credited below. If you follow the link and download the macro code and instructions please be aware that there were 3 errors that needed correcting before the macro would compile for me. Contact acarr@midchesh.ac.uk if you want details.)