Category Archives: Mobile and multi-location

Articulate – an alternative to Adobe Creative Suite?

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I met with Rob Wright from HB&s/Nursing on 29th March and he told me of the success he had been having with creating rich media teaching resources by building on PPT with products from Articulate, see http://www.articulate.com/

Rob said that he can integrate quizzes and output the lot as Flash files (swf) and import these into Equella collection (under development) for sharing and re-use. He said he is starting with some Science Education modules, with the aim of moving from lecture based resources to self-paced online learning materials. He also notes that the product has a strong user support community from both industry training and education sectors with regular blog postings around educational process and practical ‘how to…’ posts.

A screen shot from the Articulate website showing their products

I will contact Rob again and see if he can post some screen shots of the Flash modules that he has been able to output with this software. I am also talking to staff at ITS about the similarities and differences between this suite of products and that being offered by Adobe for media creation.

Brainstorming eLearning tech innovations with John

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I ducked over to the Innovation Campus for lunch with John Glynn, head of the Business School. We talked blogs and collaboration spaces for communities of students, mobile applications and competitive advantage, case and role-based learning and e-simulations, alumni blogs and videos, and busted a few subtly racist myths of international student habits.

I feel the spirit of innovation growing on campus, and it’s a great place to be.

Elluminate VCF screenshots

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This is a screen shot taken from a Camtasia movie of Elluminate VCS fron their website: http://www.elluminate.com/Products/Elluminate_VCS/?id=74/

The shot on the left shows 4 people  having a live session from home on what the website calls “low-end broadband.” Specifically, the video says that each participant is sending 162-200 kilobits of data per second (kb/s) and that they are receiving a total of 700 kb/s in order to see all 4 participants on their screen. This is not a high bandwitch requirement.

The right-hand screen-shot shows 2 people in a virtual class sessions collaborating on an xls file.

ElluminateVCS

Ning Social networks in teaching

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Currently there are 3 undergrad classes that I’m aware of that use Ning as an entire learning environment, after a trial use by one class last session.

Ning lets anybody create their own social network and you can have sub-networks or special interest groups inside each network, which usually has a theme. I explored one called “Classroom 2.0”

After navigating thorugh to this network from an “education” themed newtwork i clicked on a network called “Classroom 2.0” and then i clicked on a “visit” link to go there. Once inside (ie on the Classroom 2.0 homepage) it looked remarkably like a WordPress blog. I wondered if it was based on WordPress with some additional code to create a visual clustering and linking between the different sites.

Can anybody comment on what exactly the students like about this particular site/network? How do they use it to stay in touch? Is it particularly easy to link through to find friends’ contributions?

The Classroom 2.0 social network (Ning) homepage      Another part of the homepage, with the special interest group links.

It certainly was easy to set up a new network, see images below you just name and pick a url, theme and colour scheme, and drag and drop the items/features to set the layout.

Setting up a Ning network

And here is what it looked like after i’d set it up. Empty. But ready to roll.

45 seconds later, a new Ning network site.

The Ultimate iPhone Dock?

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At the moment I don’t have a dock for my iPhone, while it is not essential that I have one, I still want one! I have come across some really geeky ones, sleek ones and multifunctional ones.

I just found this one and had to share it.

This one was made entirely from cutlery which is pretty cool, I found it here.

Last year we tried this one in the office, which was not only a holder but a more functional dock charger, speaker and light. Never again.

The product was faulty, we end up sending it back. When they tested similar models and other units they also found them to be faulty. The speakers buzzed at all volumes of sound and there was some red goo inside the light bulb bracket. Suggestion – try it out before you leave the shop!

So for all the iPhone users which docks do you use? Or what ones have you seen that work well?

Best iPhone apps to learn Japanese – a beginner’s perspective

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Japanese on the iPhone

Are you keen to learn Japanese on your iPhone? As a beginner you might look at basic phrases as well as Hiragana and Katakana. More advanced learners might want to further their Kanji and JLPT (Japnaese Language Proficiency Test) skills. Below are a couple of hints for what to look for and avoid when purchasing Japanese learning apps.

Basic Phrase Apps = thumbs down 🙁

Your first stop is probably to want pick up a few phrases and get a feel for the spoken word. Hearing pronunciation of words and phrases is a good general introduction and will help prepare you for a native context. Real-life situations like TV shows and overseas students are perfect for tuning your ear to Japanese and a much richer source compared with the limited selection of iPhone Japanese phrase learning apps. Most combine a poorly recorded audible short phrase with an english letter pronunciation, called ‘Romaji’. While it may seem easy at first, Romaji is a pretty clumsy system to represent the language and ultimately useless in communication with native speakers, i.e. “What time is it?” is read “Ima nanji desuka”, opposed to the native character set of Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana, which brings us to the next set of apps…

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Example App: “J Phrases”

Hiragana and Katagana Apps = Thumbs UP! 🙂

Hiragana and Katagana apps are where the iPhone really shines. Beginners of Japanese are usually quite daunted (or excited!) by the huge variety of new characters to learn. Hiragana and Katakana are two sets ‘alphabets’, and the first step is to memorize the shape and pronunciation of each ‘letter’. Quick and punchy quiz games like ‘Study Japanese’ (below) are both enjoyable and effective. Conversely, I’d recommend staying away from conventional simple ‘flash card’ games that limit interactivity and quickly lose appeal.

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Example Kana game “Study Japanese”

A Good Dictionary App

The “Japanese” dictionary app (below) is a touch pricey at over $10AU, but well worth the investment for a one-stop resource for all levels of Japanese learners.

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“Japanese” Dictionary App

Conclusion (just the beginning, really)

The most important first step in learning Japanese is to HAVE FUN! Seek apps and games that will keep your interest and teach you at your level, not over it. Come back when you’ve mastered Kana to find out about Kanji and JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test) apps. See you then!