Triumphant return to the FootHills for OU colleagues

This blog has been dormant for I don't know how long (but I looked, it's 7 years). Time to include things to support my OU Colleagues.

Coming soon, promise

• GoogleDocs- sharing documents in real-time during tutorials e.g. for drag and drop (includes Tarsia Formulator for creating matching games like jigsaws and  dominoes)
• Ways to use Breakout rooms in Adobe Connect with confidence
• Speeding up TMA marking, sort of by request at AL SD 24/4/21
• Mouse First
• Quick access shortcuts
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Customised autocorrect, including maths (LaTeX) symbols
• Macros
• Keeping comments from previous years
• Clipboard Manager - list of what you copied recently
• MH Handler - Distribute (copy a file to all TMA folders)
• Backup/restore normal.dot for when it changes outwith your control
  
  

This topic was covered in Tips for speeding up TMA marking while avoiding RSI REVISITED (adobeconnect.com) and I suspect covers similar areas

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iPadio - podcasting as easy as phoning

iPadio.com offer an excellent podcast service. They have their own apps for iOS and Android where you can easily record and upload, as easily as chatting on the phone, Or upload mp3 files from other sources. Or broadcast live audio from your phone, landline or mobile, anywhere else in the world.

Instructions at SlideShare Read more!

Computing resources

Thanks to the very nice people at Computers at School, I've got some pretty cool links. Such as

• Lightbot - game that you solve with tiny programs of instructions
• Manufactoria - move a robot, abit like a Turing machine
• Proganimate - write flowcharts that become programs and watch the programs run

Links at http://delicious.com/andydiament/computing 'cos I'm too lazy to copy them all here
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Google Body

Have a look at Google Body at http://bodybrowser.googlelabs.com/ Look inside the body. However, it does not work as default on all browsers because of browser settings. Here is the text of a batch file that works at Penwith College to launch it in Chrome. cd C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\ chrome --ignore-gpu-blacklist http://bodybrowser.googlelabs.com/ The key thing is to launch with the --ignore-gpu-blacklist to turn on something that the policy turns off Read more!

PowerPoint is dead. Long Live Prezi

Bored of those bullet points and presentations that seem little more than the having the bullet points read to you? Fed up with irritating animations? Can't be bothered or talented to be creative?

Light on Prezi

Try Prezi. This is a different approach to presentations. Basically, you lay out your comments, images, video clips on a blank surface, then you click on each part to indicate the order and play. The program zooms into each part like a plane flying over a landscape.

You can rotate and resize text so the program swoops around your presentation, in a way very diferent from PowerPoint. You can set it up to autoplay.

However, the whole document can be saved as a pdf, so you have a handout/summary. There is fun to be had arranging your text and images to show a theme/diagram/mindmap or whatever. There are loads of good examples on the site.

The whole thing is online (so use a browser; it needs Flash) - the free version means that you create/host all your work online and it's available for all to see. As educationalists, you can get free access to the intermediate version, so you can keep your work private.

Give it a whirl, literally!.

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My Clock says 2009, so lets move from Office 2003 to 2007.

It's not the end of the world, but the shift in apearance from Office 2003 to Office 2007 is pretty strong, at first glance.

However - the packages are basically the same, they just look different and you have to spend a bit of time looking for the commands that you want.

Microsoft have put loads of material on their website to help you learn, including a great interactive guide where you choose a command from an Office 2003 program, like Word, and it shows you the corresponding one in 2007.

I've put the most useful links here





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Drawing with sound

And can you gusess what this on is? Clue - Nothing Compares to U by Sinead O'Connor

It's done by a new application that allows you to control a drawing application with sounds alone - try it at http://www.zefrank.com/v_draw_beta/index3.html (microphone or web cam with mic needed).

The pic was actually created by playing the song into it. Interesting? Stupid? You try

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QR Codes

As Rolf Harris would ask, can you tell what it is yet?

Imagine a world where you want your students to look something up on the internet phon/portable devices that they all will have eventually. They point the camera at this bar code and, whoosh, straight to the web page. Apparently Nokia's popular N95 camera already has the software to read it built in. Look for Bar Code Reader on your phone.

Learn more about them at Mobile BarCodes. Educational uses are discussed at James Clay's Blog.

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Here is the news

Nothing special, but I quite liked

• 100 top elearning resources at Jane Knight's Blog
• Free software for the mac at local boy Simon Elliott's site
• James Clay experiencing how the other half live at his holiday blog

.....and anything about Mr Obama's victory of course
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Searching for images

Have a look at this tutorial to help you search for images.

Sharon Waller from the HEA/JISC Collaboration commented on the new tutorial saying "This tutorial is an excellent resource for anyone needing to know more about where and how to find images online. The fact that it concentrates on copyright cleared images will make it even more valuable for busy learning and teaching professionals, researchers and students alike. It will also serve to inspire confidence in those needing to use images from the web in their work."


This tutorial has been created by TASI - the JISC Advisory Service for digital media http://www.tasi.ac.uk/ and Intute as part of the Intute: Virtual Training Suite http://www.vts.intute.ac.uk/. The tutorial was funded and supported by the Higher Education Academy / JISC Collaboration Initiative.
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