Open Toolkit

Posted on January 27, 2012 by David Baker

Last week we held another successful Skills Toolkit event here in the IT Learning Programme. This is where we give research students the opportunity to try out a collection of tools that they might find useful in their research and studies.

The tools were a mix of open source and commercial. It set me thinking as to what a personal toolbox of open source applications might contain. Here’s my list:

7-zip: for file compression

Audacity: for sound recording and editing

Blender: 3D animation

Chromium: the browser behind Google Chrome

Filezilla: for FTP uploading and downloading

Freemind: for mind-mapping

GIMP: the GNU Image Manipulation Program for image editing

Inkscape: for illustrations

LibreOffice: the office productivity suite that contains Writer (documents), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Draw (diagrams), Base (databases), Math (equations)

Scribus: for desk top publishing, such as posters and leaflets

Texmaker: a LaTeX editor

Thunderbird: for email

All of these are available cross-platform.

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BETT 2012

Posted on January 15, 2012 by David Baker

I didn’t think BETT was as manic as in previous years, but I don’t usually go on the first day, so maybe it’s always like that. And Mr Gove was there to open it, so I’m sure he had a calming influence.

The economic situation is clearly having an impact: hardly any freebies this year. More interestingly, many exhibitors (even those with a heavy UK presence) had European staff on the stalls – looks like downsizing is happening and staff have to be brought in from all over for big events. There were significantly more Chinese exhibitors, mainly offering their own interactive digital whiteboard (IDW) solutions, and also more French, German and East European companies.

So, some things that caught my attention:

Classroom Virtualisation

We are due to replace our classroom PCs this summer. We will be looking at the possibilities offered by virtualising the classrooms. Hardware and energy costs are less and the salesman said (Yes, I know….) that the system would be much more flexible than our current PC/image based solution.
I spoke with www.ncomputing.com

SharePoint as LMS/VLE

A number of companies were offering add-ons to SharePoint to either create a VLE, or to integrate with an existing VLE. I was impressed with what CORE had done with the integration of SharePoint and Moodle for a University (I forget where). Everyone (students, admin, academics) had a consistent SharePoint-like interface to the standard SharePoint/Outlook tools and to the Moodle environment. They have also developed tools that make creating project based SharePoint sites easy(er).
www.coreecs.co.uk

Open Source Whiteboard Software

A French government sponsored initiative, Sankore, was promoting its environment for the distribution of OER, primarily to schools in West African states. One of the offshoots of the project is an open source interactive whiteboard application that is cross platform and cross manufacturer. This could solve a lot of headaches in the sharing of IDW resources.
open-sankore.org

Studio in a Box

A company called PlanetPC were showing off their studio in a box; everything you need to set up a studio for recording videos and podcasts, including camera, tripod, mikes, chromakey lighting and backdrops, and a MacBook pro with FCP X, all in an easily transportable box.
www.planetdv.net

Pocket Projectors

These have been around for a while, but the next generation are coming along with brighter (ie useful) lamps. Vivitek are releasing one that is ~500 lumens (cf 2000 lumens for a basic classroom projector) for about £500. Truly does fit in your pocket.
www.myqumi.com/

Interactive LCD Screens

Interactive whiteboards + projectors have almost had their day; costs of large (60 inch+) touch sensitive screens are dropping. A number of companies are now offering touch sensitive video walls.
For example www.ctouch.co.uk

Smart Note Book

We use Smart interactive whiteboards. Their proprietary Smart Notebook software is very good, but has to be installed. There is now a (free) web-based version that lets anyone create resources for Smart Boards.
express.smarttech.com

Payment Solutions

Enabling students to pay for ITLP courses online currently involves using the University’s heavyweight on-line shop. There are many companies offering payment software. This used to involve lots of infrastructure, but now there are solutions aimed at smaller independent units (such as nurseries and clubs) that we ought to take a look at.
I spoke to squidcard.com (who provide the Oyster card system for tfl)

Voting Systems

All classroom voting systems are now offering mixed mode voting, where handsets can be used alongside mobile apps, VLEs and web pages. An interesting chat with the European manager of Turning Point software revealed that Eric Mazur from Harvard, an evangelist of using peer instruction in a University context, will be at ALT-C this year.

See Eric Mazur’s Confessions of a Converted Lecturer video on You Tube (it’s quite long, but very thought provoking if you teach).

Yousrc

In tune with recent discussions in schools about the teaching of ICT and especially programming skills, I came across a new (free) programming teaching environment. It’s aimed at schools, but also at teachers who want to learn to program.
www.yousrc.com

Sensory Pod

We need one of these. A self-contained ‘pod’ with comfy chairs, soothing lights and music, and multi-projectors, to create a de-stressing environment. Plenty of space for one in our Help Centre.
www.sensorypod.co.uk

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Sell your research

Posted on December 14, 2011 by David Baker

Well, maybe sell isn’t the right word. Publicise perhaps.

So, how are you on the research Publicity Ps of Paper->Presentation->Poster->Podcast?

Paper

Well, it’s your research – can’t do that for you. However creating an academic document such as a thesis or dissertation will stretch your word-processing skills. We run courses on those…

Presentation

There is more to a presentation than a series of bullet points; you need to use the features of your chosen presentation tool to the full – include images, animations, sound, video. We run courses on that… We also invite keynote addresses from industry and academia to show us best practice…

Poster

A poster is not a cut down version of a paper. It often has a different audience, but just as importantly it is a medium in its own right, with its own rules and conventions (and restrictions). I think we run a course on that…

Podcasts

Public engagement (and engagement with your sponsors!) is incomplete without a multimedia element. The skills needed are not as difficult as you might think. Ummm, we run courses on that… We also work with experts from the media world so that the skills you gain are backed up by real experience. And it’s not just podcasts – we can also show you how to create Pilms and Pocumentaries :-)

Browse the IT Learning Catalogue and see what Ps we can help with.

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Taking the First Steps in Computing

Posted on November 25, 2011 by David Baker

With email, web sites, blogs, facebook, Twitter and all the other tools that are so ubiquitous in a student-oriented establishment, it is too easy to forget that there are some for whom even turning on a computer is a still an apprehensive moment.

Newcomers to IT, especially those out of formal learning for some time, need time and individual support. With our limited resources here in the ITLP, we often don’t have the time that is needed.  So, looking around and about the University we have found that a local training company TABS deliver IT training for beginners in IT under the Learndirect scheme. For those with no level two qualifications the training is free; the learners commit to attending the TABS training centre one afternoon a week, and to also spend some extra time of their own. Not only do they gain the confidence they need to use a computer, but they also gain a qualification that recognises their new IT competence.

If you are a University member with colleagues who might benefit from this type of support, please get in touch with us.

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Teaching with Free Software

Posted on November 8, 2011 by David Baker

Richard Stallman, pioneer of the CopyLeft and GNU General Public Licences for free software was in Oxford last Friday, and gave his usual thought provoking discourse on freedom in software.

It isn’t for me to precis his ideas here; you can read his own words. However it did make me think about our responsibilities in the IT Learning Programme here at Oxford. We teach on both Windows and Mac platforms and only occasionally on Linux (or GNU/Linux as RMS would prefer), and most of the applications we teach are proprietary. We are trying to introduce teaching on free software such as GIMP and Scribus, but our resources are limited. More importantly we have two main audiences: staff and academics/students.

Oxford being as it is, Departments and Colleges are free to use what software they choose. The fact is that staff predominantly use MS Office and although post- and undergraduates are more ‘open’ in their choices there is still a demand we can’t completely satisfy for courses on proprietary software. So, much as we might take to our hearts free software, we too are subject to ‘market forces’.

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Garr Reynolds returns

Posted on November 4, 2011 by David Baker

Last year we were lucky to have Garr Reynolds, author of Presentation Zen, to come along and talk to members of the University. The event was very popular and well received.

Well, Garr is visiting the UK again, and has offered to come and talk to us again. The event ‘sold out’ within a day of being announced – the lecture theatre holds 220, and we have 97 on the waiting list!

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Campus MovieFest – You missed it!

Posted on October 27, 2011 by David Baker

Over 50 groups signed up to make a film through the Campus MovieFest initiative. After what must have been a very busy weekend of filming, they returned their equipment – and their films – on Tuesday. From what I saw there are some contenders for the award ceremony that will take place in London in December – watch this space!

As you can see in the image, it must have been great fun! (Thanks to Ian Miller for the image).

One of the teams in Campus MovieFest at Oxford University

A team reviews their entry to Campus MovieFest

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Campus MovieFest – Make a film for FREE!

Posted on October 14, 2011 by David Baker

Campus MovieFest is the world’s largest student film festival, and it is coming to the University of Oxford on October 19th.

If you are a student – and you don’t mind a sleepless week (what’s new :-) ) – and you are an aspiring film maker, or even film star, why not make a short five minute film. For FREE!

You can sign up now at http://www.campusmoviefest.co.uk to receive everything you need to make a 5- minute film in a week. For FREE!

Win great prizes, exposure, and see your film on the big screen.

Oh, and it’s For FREE!

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Being Post-digital

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Pamela Stanworth

So I’m driving home, and the voice on the radio is droning on as usual, when something makes me wake up and pay attention. “We are living,” he says with all the confidence of the BBC, “in a post-digital age”.
Post-digital? Post digital? Has all the digital and IT activity gone out-of-date already?
That is a truly alarming thought to any of us working in IT-related fields, and to anyone who has finally mastered their digital camera for that special project or family occasion.
The point is rather that digital technologies are now so thoroughly embedded in our life and work that we have stopped noticing that they are digital. We are no longer impressed with an activity or tool simply because it’s digital. We don’t still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.
This is an interesting threshold in our attitudes to technology. A sixth-former doesn’t consider that she is using cut and paste to re-order a word-processed document, she is sorting out her ideas for her essay on crime and punishment. A musician does not focus on the way he is sequencing captured audio files, he thinks about creating a new combined sound that is more interesting and complex than the world has heard before.
We are seeing the out-working of this trend, in our courses in the IT Learning Programme. Few people are interested in mastering software for its own sake, in the way that I once took a course in Fortran programming “in case it comes in useful”. University people are very demanding of our courses, “Yes, but how can that help me,” they say, and “So how does that enable me to do my job more effectively?”
Many of our ITLP courses are indeed targeted at a particular need or area of activity. People are queuing up to learn how to create a thesis with an automatic table of contents, or how to include a recording of their talk on their website as a podcast so that others around the world can listen and participate in the online debate.
So I won’t throw away that digital camera just yet, but we do need to maintain our focus on teaching useful and usable digital skills.

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make: together

Posted on June 26, 2011 by David Baker

The work of Laura Novo de Azevedo should be an encouragement to anyone who thinks that using technology in teaching is too difficult for them. Laura is a self-confessed ‘non-geek’ who has no computing background but who has successfully integrated web sites, blogs, wikis, videos, use of iTouch and more into her teaching. She gave us an insight into how she ‘just Googles’ to find out how to use these tools and her site at www.urbandesignexperience.com shows the results.

More importantly, she has encouraged this ‘can do’ attitude in her students. Rather than burdening them with lots of documentation on ‘how to use an iTouch’ or ‘how to edit a video’ or ‘how to whatever’, she sets her students tasks, encourages them to work together, and lets them loose… Her experience is that this approach engages students much more than traditional lectures. Just take a look at one of her student’s videos to see what this approach can achieve!

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