Hugh will be attending 4 days of iPhone Application training from 1st June – 4th June. Here’s the Course Outline. Send me any questions you want asked and I’ll try and get the trainer to answer and then post them up. The training is one to one so will be quite hard going and as it’s a lot of new concepts so will be quite intense.

In preparation for the training I used a variety of resources. Firstly there are lots of getting started videos on Apple’s site (but you will require an Apple ID login). I also found a couple of Universities providing free online training via iTunesU:

Stanford Uni: CS 193P iPhone Application Development

• Free Stanford course on developing iPhone software
• Stanford on iTunes U

I’ve watched over 20 hours of videos so far. They are quite large so I downloaded them using Apple’s iTunes software and then transfered to my iPhone. I’ve only got the 16GB version and its now full!. I tried using iTunes to make iPhone friendly videos but it only made them even bigger.

I purchased an Apple Composite AV cable to connect my iPhone 3GS to my TV so I could watch on a big screen   (If you purchase from another supplier please make sure you get the right lead, not all work with the latest iPhone).

Reference Books

Here are some for the reference books I’ve been reading:

• iPhone User Interface Design Projects
• iPhone Cool Projects
• iPhone Games Projects

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Day 1

• Trainer is the same guy who I taught me an Advanced Adobe Premiere course few years ago – what’s the chances of that!
• I’m even in the same room as before but this time am using a iMac 20in instead of a PC – you can’t develop iPhone apps on a PC and it must be an Intel based Mac.
  
• The Xcode download is just under 3gb, so make sure you have a fast connection. Subsequent updates are also just as big. Xcode v4 is due out quite soon, will no doubt coincide with release of iPhone 4G
  
• Started with a demo of an iPad. Very impressive bit of kit, iPhone apps will work with it, can zoom them up so fit full screen (x2 zoom) but the text suffers a bit. (Apple need to work on this)
• iPad apps are also alot more expensive. They tend to have ‘HD’ versions of the same app on the iPhone. Trainer has already spent £120 on apps alone.
  
• Covering a load of theory to start with. Cocoa Touch, Object Orientated programming concepts and Model View Controllers.
• Used straight C code to start with using the Terminal window to display results (printf(“…”))
• Here’s a list of my notes:
  • ‘Monaco’ font is preferred Xcode editor font / alt’3′ is the hash symbol ‘#’
  • Expose & Spaces – useful for quick access to open programs and windows (list view is akin to Windows Explorer)
  • Events not exist in Cocoa instead its notifications and delegation
  • Use ‘Dashcode’ to develop iPhone web apps (copy files to your server, goto site in Safari and make home icon) – Not sure if they work in other browsers
  • Xcode 4 won’t work with first generation iPhones (Apple usual product lifespan is 3-3.5 years)
  • Naming conventions – use CamalCase (no numbers, no spaces)
  • ‘SCM’ stands for Source Content Management
  • Command tilda – moves between windows in application
  • ESC – autocomplete (there are lots more, all to help write code quickly and avoid mistakes)
  • Suitcase icon means Apple’s code
  • Google ‘format specifier‘ for list of %i / %d
  • ‘+’ class  /  ‘-’ instance

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Day 2

• Started with C programming in Xcode software
• Useful code: #pragma mark – / #pragma mark … – keeps the code tidy and means one of the inbuilt Xcode code list pulldowns is easier to read
• Built first iPhone app using just code
• Got a USB stick full of over 700MB of resources (including a couple of books in pdf format) Let me know if you want copies
• A couple of books to recommend for newbie C programmers:
  • A Guide to Language Fundamentals Objective C Pocket Reference O’Reilly Andrew M Duncan (ISBN 0-596-00423)
  • C Programming in easy steps (Third Edition) Mike McGrath (ISBN 978-1-84078)
• Built 2nd iPhone app, using coding rather than prebuilt templates
• Warning to wannabe iPhone developers, it’s a lot of a lot of coding (we started using C, now on Objective-C), it’s taking time to sink in and get used to the Mac and all its shortcuts. I’m slowly getting used to the flat keyboard and mighty mouse.

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Day 3

• Running through the slider and circle movement demo, using the instrument tools to check for leak and memory allocation
• Checking for zombies, yes that’s what they are called. Messages which are deallocated
• Apple’s code immediately gave 1 leak, no need to rectify – it’s in their code
• Can use QuickTime Player software to capture the Phone simulator (using zoom tool if don’t want entire screen)
• Apple’s online help (on their mobile site) was created using DashCode
• Tip 1: If want to use switch/case statement with function code inside use ‘:;’ otherwise it won’t pick up
• Tip 2: Make sure all Class names need uppercase first letter (so when creating new project make sure it has uppercase first letter)
• Talked alot about CoreGraphics and transforms (bit too technical and not really relevant for what we will do)
• Created app with ViewControllers & TabBarControllers all in code (2 things to remember if do it this way, 1. make sure you name the subclass and 2. select the NIB from pulldown both in Interface Builder)
• Garbage collection is only available on Macs, iPhones don’t have enough memory but trainer put some unreleased code in and it didn’t pick up in instruments neither did looping of retains.

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Day 4

• Built app that passed slider values from screen 2 to text fields on screen 3 using NSDictionary
• ‘Snapshot’ tool is meant to take a snapshot of your project so you can sort of version control will have to check this out
• Looked at table views and ways of changing formats
• Looked at map kit, should be able to modify so we can create pins of main locations for each campus
• Went through some of the example code to see how created
• Hurrah, I’ve finished the course, got another certificate to add to the collection. Long day, I was the last trainee left in the place, I think the staff would have preferred if I’d finished at 5

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Conclusion so far: Now the hard work begins, the more you learn the more you realise the less you actually know and SDK4 is coming out soon which will allow multitasking of apps and that means a lot more memory management techniques to learn.

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My favourite iPhone apps

Game: Angry Birds (£0.59)
So cheap for the amount you get, lots of levels, very well written and quite funny.

Game: Jungle Crash Land (was free but now £0.59)
Was free when I got it but still cheap, Donut Games make very good quality addictive games.

Lifestyle: eBay (FREE)
Saves turning PC on to check if items have sold. Needs more functionality but still good.

News: Sky Sports News (FREE)
Good for checking the fantasy football.

Travel: National Rail (£4.99)
Good when traveling on trains.

Music: Tune In Radio (£1.19)
Lots of stations and works of 3G connection.

Reference: TV Guide (FREE)
Lists lots of TV channels.

Streaming Media Paper/Presentation

The paper submitted and presented by Brian Lake in at EdTech 2010in Athlone, “Design and implementation of technology-enhanced classrooms and video streaming” is now available. You can also view the PowerPoint slide show below:

Pecha Kucha Presentations

Pecha Kucha presentations from EdTech 2010 are reprinted here for your pleasure.  they are short and handy presentations on a wide variety of topics

Muireann OKeeffe, Claudia Igbrude, Dublin Institute of Technology: Linking-in to learners today: using social networking tools for education

Angelica Risquez, University of Limerick, Online student for an hour -- a basic approach to staff CPD

Catherine Kane, Trinity College DublinE-moderated eTivities in a Blending Learning Approach (PK6)

Andrew Flaus, NUI Galway, Clickers in Action: Personal Response Systems for the Busy Lecturer (PK7)

Day 2: Pecha Kucha presentations

Michael O’Rouke, Athlone Institute of Technology: The development of online assessment in the Moodle virtual Learning Environment (VLE) as a replacement for traditional written assessment.

Padrig Flynn, Athlone Institute of Technology: Importance of Health and Safety and Learning Technology

Sabina Moebs, Dublin City University: Technology-enhanced learning puzzle

Morning everyone.

Hello from Edtech 2010. First things first: You can watch the keynotes live:

“HEAnet  have enabled you to watch the EdTech 2010 keynote sessions streamed live online from the comfort of one’s computer (for those unlucky few who are unable to attend the event in person). ”
When:
Thursday 20th May at 9.15-10.15am: James Clay
Thursday 20th May at 4.00-5.00am: Jane Hart
Friday 21st May at 10.30-11/30: Eliott Maise

Guildford’s Presentation: I’m here to talk about Guildford’s streaming media initiative, and share best practice with other practitioners. I’ll be Presenting a paper on Friday afternoon. Will be posting to youtube shortly thereafter.

9:15 Keynote: James Clay, ILT & Learning Resources Manager at Gloucestershire College, Alt Learning Technologist of the year 2009. James has a blog at http://elearningstuff.wordpress.com/

Its a little early for notes, so please watch the video when you get a chance. The topic of the keynote is changing cultures in UK FE/HE institutions.

“Innovation Prevention Department” -- also known as the Finance department, or the AV department.  Support is provided on the assumption that everyone is the same. But is everyone the same? He looks around the room and notes that everyone happens to be different. IT services get a lot of flak for this -- Directors of IT wh0 say that “Look, we need to manage innovation.” But this is why we need a whole institution approach. Why we need to do things, what we want to do.

When Gloucester put in a wireless network, the learning technologists said, “give me a network that works like Starbucks.” He didn’t give them the solution, but did give them learning requirements -- recognising that learners have different needs. The ability to use your own devices, the ability to interact.

Assessment models can be restraining, different stakeholders can be restraining. When people talk about “the dumbing down of questions” in the Daily Mail, the interesting thing is not the question, its the answer -- what are the students saying? What are we trying to access?

Collaboration -- such a negative word. Reminds him of the French resistance during WWII -- “You’re a collaborator”

Sharing -- “Oh, I don’t like using other peoples stuff, I’d rather photocopy out of a book”

Student changing -- People want to be able to learn where they want to learn. Individually or together. One of the key reasons why we need to change is for people of all ages, ethnicity, etc.

We’ve opened the floor for questions…

10:34 Short Paper 1: Technology in action presentation. NUI Galway/Elluminate Primary care Students

Technology: Online meeting rooms

The main aim of this project was to enable students to share and collaborate more effectively.

Video is available describing the course, and the requirements. http://www.vimeo.com/10691315 Emphasis on “scaffolding” -- running small pilots to sort through learner issues and refine practice.

It was also a chance to discuss real-life situations that were never going to come up on a discussion forum. Those who turn up tend to be a “regular crew” and there are those who prefer asynchronous learning. The model of the course is blended learning.

Pauline from Elluminate is giving us an overview of the technology. They wanted to capture the essence of how classes were conducted:

• Voice over IP
• Whiteboard
• Video if desired
• based in UK
• made a point of not using all the features.

It allowed people from all over Ireland to get together without having to drive about, for the sessions to be recorded,  and to engage more interactively. This could have potential for distance-bsed learning at Guildford. I’ve worked with Elluminate in Scotland, the product is impressive in and of itself.

The teaching and learning experience was initially very didactic. As people got used to the product, they became more interactive.

Feedback from students was good -- they liked that they could talk and talk. But there were some students who preferred just text.  So what they ended up doing was having one teacher for the videro/audio, and another for the text. So you had two channels of communication.

11:00 -- Coffee

I’ve learned two things over coffee that have paid for this trip:

1. The Creston control system we are using in the technology-enhanced classroom can dim the lights and report on energy use. We can arrange this in our day of programming. The trick is to ensure you have a compatible dimmer.  So even if the lighting is not installed for another 6 months, we can be prepared for this. I’d not thought of this, and its incresibly important.
2. Simple desks work:

This is a earlier version of the desk we are planning. A simple document reader that takes up little space, an embedded monitor, and unobtrusive keyboard. Controls and inputs are embedded. Very elegant, and does not get in the way of the actual teaching.

11:15  Short Paper 2: e-portfolios with Mahara -- Gavin Henrick, Ennovation
Mahara is an e-portfolio system thats is open source -- you can adapt it, instead of the system adapting to you.

The positives of the system

1. very little downtime
2. separate space controlled by the students (unlike blackboard VLE)

Problems:

1. Technical versus conceptual/cultural

Show of hands -- who has an eportfolio? Answer: no one. Ironic as the UK is required to have an e-portfolio system in Colleges by 2010.  Why not WordPress? There is a place for blogging systems like WordPress, but the focus is on assessment in Mahara.

Not a lot to say from this demonstration  more of a technology overview. The focus is on setting up a cultural change around this tech, which is a bit of a theme for this conference.

12:00 -- Social Learning with Blogs and Wikis -- Learning Objects. Patrick Doyle (UCD)and Peter Shipley (Learning Objects)

This one is especially important to us, as we have a license for Learning Objects Inc and it is integrated into Blackboard.

In the demonstration today, the blogging and wiki tools are being used as web 2.0 tools.

Students in the program (clinical studies) were based in Ireland, Canada, and south America. A distance learning method was necessary.

Interesting point -- students don’t really want to bookmark -- students need to see value in the tool if they are to come back and use it. Its important to pitch the tehcnology to the students ability -- see Bloom’s taxonomy.

We’re now going to look at the product integrated into a Moodle VLE. Which is interesting. Moodle already has this functionality, so curious as to where the value in the license fee comes from.

Theme customisation and blogs as evaluation tool -- this is something not done in Moodle, unless you’re using something like Mahara.

And the rep is having a technical delay…. Which is interesting -- we have an error related to the firewall. Does this have something to do with the fact that they host it externally?

Q&A: I asked who owns the data and how easy it is to get out, since it is now hosted by them, not us. This is a shift in the new 4.2 beta version. The answer is “you do.” We own the data, and we can archive it locally for data retention purposes. Question answered.

I can’t help but notice that the product didn’t work…. presentation nightmare come true, seems like a nice fellow though.

1:00 -- Pecha Kucha presentations

What is Pecha Kucha? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pecha_Kucha

Illustrative video:

They say the novelty factor of that video wore off in a hurry…..

So on to the presentations:

Muireann OKeeffe, Claudia Igbrude, Dublin Institute of Technology: Linking-in to learners today: using social networking tools for education

Angelica Risquez, University of Limerick, Online student for an hour -- a basic approach to staff CPD

Catherine Kane, Trinity College DublinE-moderated eTivities in a Blending Learning Approach (PK6)

Andrew Flaus, NUI Galway, Clickers in Action: Personal Response Systems for the Busy Lecturer (PK7)

_______________________________________________________________

Lunch, mmmmmm…

_______________________________________________________________

3:00 -- Robert Hickey,  Institute of Technology Blanchardstown. Instructional Videocasts: Facilitating learning in a mobile world

To those staff teaching bricklaying at Guildford -- this session is for you. Also applied to construction,  and non-traditional teaching methods.

Learning by mobile -- distributed to typical phones. 80 per cent used the  videos on their phone at least once. Amazingly, the student used their own phones.  The only person who didn’t use them got a 94 per cent overall -- he knew what he was doing, but loved the material.

Students liked tradional methods, but said the phone was good to fall back on.

And someone has sat in front of my camera. Quality may degrade….

httphv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5NmwE3pTGA

This presentation is frankly brilliant. The youtube channel with all his video is here: http://www.youtube.com/user/hickeymaster. I can think of no better example of mobile technology in Further Education. Guildford, tell me you’re reading this….

4:00 pm -- Brian Coll, Institute of technology Sligo: Integrating assessment tools with Moodle/Blackboard.

An interesting talk, with a key point about multiple monitors -- very little else makes a job easier than having a monitor for reviewing, and a monitor for data entry.

Video is not entirely complete, but 15 mins of the presentation highlights:

This one will have to be edited for time…. sorry about that.

4:30pm -- Keynote Address: Jane Hart earl of Rosse Theatre

No need to video record this -- I refer you to the HEANet live online stream.

http://janeknight.typepad.com

Is twitter a teaching and learning tool?  An experiment is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WPVWDkF7U8

http://janeknight.typepad.com/socialmedia/page/2 -- Blog about the experience. Funny thing is that they talked about it, helped each other, videoed how they felt about it. I wonder what happened if there was actual content or knowledge to deliver?

This lecture is best watched in our twitter feed http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23edtech10 -- she is polling us for responses via twitter. Which excludes a good bit of the room I notice.

Good point about creating learner autonomy.  Daniel H. Park, “Drive” -- resist the urge to control learners.  Trying to help people become independent learners.

Can a formal learning environment encourage informal networking? Doesn’t seem likely. Elgg is intended to be an internal networking tool. Moodle is still useful for formal teaching and interaction, but Elgg is more informal.  To make a change you need to adopt a new mindset. I remain more sceptical about the value of creating our own social network.

___________________________________________________________________

Day 2: Pecha Kucha presentations

Michael O’Rouke, Athlone Institute of Technology: The development of online assessment in the Moodle virtual Learning Environment (VLE) as a replacement for traditional written assessment.

Padrig Flynn, Athlone Institute of Technology: Importance of Health and Safety and Learning Technology

Sabina Moebs, Dublin City University: Technology-enhanced learning puzzle

A new version of our website content management software is coming soon. Here’s some of the feature highlilghts:

Multimedia controls

R6 brings in our new suite of controls for slideshows, streaming media and image galleries. Just point the Folder Images control at a folder and it auto-populates a slideshow on the page. JW Player is the most popular flash player on the web – Contensis now comes with a licence to use any of the premium JW Player skins.

Aliases

For those times where you want to choose a concise and memorable URL for a web page. Instead of www.yourdomain.com/events/event-name.html you can set: www.yourdomain.com/eventName

Localisation

R6 introduces language localisation support for all of our standard web controls so you can simply change any of the text rendered using the new built-in localisation editor. The Contensis interface itself can be translated into multiple languages so organisations can support employees with differing regional or international languages.

Context Sensitive help

Within Contensis, each area has context sensitive help providing users with relevant information about their current task.

Taxonomy Editor

Every organisation categorises content differently – the Contensis Taxonomy Editor enables you to control how content is categorised according to your own specification. As this categorisation or vocabulary grows, editors using Contensis will be able to organise content using consistent naming conventions according to your organisation’s specification.

Full 64-bit support

Contensis now takes full advantage of 64-bit processing – this allows for increased access to processing power and larger memory capacity.

Email Marketing integration

R6 now fully integrates with Interspire’s feature-rich Email Marketer application. Simply add a subscription control to any web page in Contensis and choose which contact list you want the user to subscribe to. Anyone currently using our Email Marketing service can immediately benefit from these new features.

Commenting

Create two-way interaction with visitors to your site; insert our Comments Control on any page of your website. You have complete control over who is and isn’t allowed to make comments. If you allow guest users to make posts you might want to take advantage of the comment approval function.

Gravatar Support

This latest release of Contensis supports Globally Recognised Avatars (Gravatars). Gravatars supply an image (set by the user) that is automatically pulled into their profile or comment.

Akismet Integration

Providing a crowdsourced database of recognised comment spam, Akismet filters out unwanted comments posted to blogs or webpages. Askimet requires a subscription.

Improved Image Resizing Quality

R6 now provides hi-fidelity rendering of images through our rich image-editing platform.

Permission-Based Navigation

If you want to restrict access to a page or area of your site, just set the permissions, and the content will no longer appear in the navigation, search or sitemap.

Extended Browser Support

You can now use Contensis in Google’s Chrome browser and Mozilla Firefox.

Themed Web Controls

Virtually all of our Web Controls come with default themes. This means that you can insert a login control, for example, and it will just look good without the need for any styling. These controls are all demonstrated on the Contensis Web Control Gallery.

Check out the latest Blackboard webinars and demos here: http://www.blackboard.com/Company/Events-Center/Webinars-and-Demos.aspx

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Learn about Blackboard Learn Release 9.1

Blackboard Learn, Release 9.1 starts with you

Your feedback, concerns and questions power our product development.  You are at the center of the equation.  Through our various feedback programs, you have helped to shape Release 9.1 into the most powerful release of the Blackboard Learn™ platform ever.

“The tools that Release 9.1 offers integrate seamlessly with our institution’s goals: student retention, and student-centered and interconnected learning.”
Filip Seuntjens, Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium

Join Dan Peters, Blackboard Solutions Engineer in a webinar this Friday May 7 to learn why your decision to move to Blackboard Learn, Release 9.1 is the right decision for your institution.

Register now for this webinar on Blackboard Learn, Release 9.1
Friday May 7 | 2pm UK | 3pm CET

Not just software – an entirely different upgrade experience.

Over the past months and years, we’ve heard from clients about the real challenges faced when upgrading and how we should help.  So, with Blackboard Learn, Release 9.1, we built a comprehensive combination of tools and resources to ease the change management process and facilitate adoption.

And, you’ll find an upgrade experience that is more personal, supportive and guided so that the end result is an upgrade experience you can be proud of within your institution.