I presented the results of our Strategic VLE review recently, the result of several months of research and effort. We concluded that Moodle offered the best means of taking the mission of the College forward, combining the great work being done by teachers with an easy to use and well supported learning resource.
Some of the topic covered in the presentation include why we recommended the move to Moodle, who else is using it, how it will improve teaching and learning and Guildford, and the proposed schedule for implementation.
For those with an interest, the report is available. As teachers, learners, and support staff, we welcome your feedback. You can also view the presentation below:
Hugh will be attending appsworld today to find out what’s new in app development. For more information on the event check out the apps world website, the blog or Twitter #appsworld.
PS I was intending to blog during the day but relied on the WordPress iPhone app. I created a post, saved it and published it – all fine, but when I came back to edit it, none of my changes were being saved.
The event was at London Olympia (Olympia 2), I attended the Developers Zone (free to attend) session on App design and creation. There was a good range of speakers from a wide range of companies.
All speakers spoke about the need to apps to be cross platform (Blackberry (big with 16-19 female teenagers), OVI (Nokia), iPhone and Android (getting bigger and bigger by the day). Interesting they said that the iPhone app store was not used a great deal for finding apps, word of mouth and advertising were most common methods. Interesting example about Angry Birds, it’s sold on iPhone/iPod for 59p but on Android its free (with ads), they can make more money this way. They have 6 million total sales on iPhone compared with 1 million sales on Android in one day – very big in Asia market. Grapple representative gave his views on developing apps saying don’t rely on top 100 model, try and get your app featured and stick to usual marketing methods.
Adobe gave a good presentation of software to help build mobile software, lots of things in common with Apple’s xcode, except it looks like all other Adobe products so should be easier to pick up. Adobe AIR enables developers to use HTML, JavaScript, Adobe Flash® Professional software, and ActionScript® to build web applications that run standalone without the constraints of a browser. Adobe AIR is a development environment for the delivery of applications across devices and platforms. Support for Android™ BlackBerry™ Tablet OS and iOS* mobile operating system, and TVs is now available. (except the iPhone is not supported).
Adobe InMarket is a distribution service that lets you bring your applications to market, reach consumers, and make money. They are working with several store partners to provide the widest distribution possible for your applications across devices. You receive 70% of the sales revenue; Adobe and its partners take care of credit card processing, hosting, and marketing. InMarket makes it easy to publish and manage your applications across stores through a centralized portal.
Appcelerator was mentioned as an open source application development platform for creating native mobile, tablet and desktop application experiences using existing web skills like Javascript, HTML, CSS, Python, Ruby, and PHP.
There weren’t too many exhibitors, some big names, mainly small independents. The quality of the stands was quite basic, lots of nice comfy bean bags to sit though! There were a couple worth noting:
Appshed
Build a multiplatform app for just £475. This could all be done via a website. I had a demonstration, it looked quite good. You wouldn’t be able to edit the code but there was quite a range of tools to choose from.
Live Code (Runrev) LiveCode empowers you to develop applications that run in any environment, using a fast and easy compile-free workflow.
mVenture Online DIY App Builder for £45 per month. They specialise in developing iphone applications but can build apps for Blackberry, Windows, Symbian or Android platforms. Examples include an iPhone meeting planner for the conservative party conference, a windows mobile application that works in conjunction with another product to detect narcotics and explosives at airports and most recently, an iPhone app for sports including golf training and snowboarding.
But I’m not sure solutions like these will last term. They look good and will get better but will probably get bought out by the likes of Adobe and Co.
On the whole, a good event, mainly based on marketing, commercial app development and not educational content but mobile development it still in infancy.
Useful terms to research further (GetJar, Adobe Inmarket)
We finally have our capture solution running. And it turns out that it should be simpler that we thought. Instead of calling up your session on the touch screen, you simply ask for a time in advance. We can schedule lecture recordings for specific times and people. All you need to do is confirm the schedule on the touchscreen built into the desk.
You can press a button to extend the recording. By default we’ll match the recording time to the schedule. But you can add 5, 15, 30, or 50 minutes if desired. You can also pause the recording.
The key task from this point is to find a model that works, then integrate it into our VLE and iTunes U. We will do these separately – I think. We will use our own method to prepare and stream the video, so there will be some experimenting while we get it right.
All in all, looks like it will be an interesting experiment. We will keep you posted.
First week of semester and it can loosely been described as busy. Here’s a quick overview of what we’ve been up to:
- We’ve got our new VLE up and running and it seems to be am improvement. For students information like printer balances and email is available on login. We also automated enrollment and instituted single signing.
- The echo 360 media recording platform is now up and running. We have to fine tune it a bit, but it starts recording lectures this week.
- We’ve almost finished moving Athens to single sign on. This is the last system to require its own password.
- We finished training sessions for go. Estimates are that we managed to train a third of the staff in the first two weeks of semester. We followed this up with print outs and a video-based help site.
- our iPhone app is ready. We only have to launch it and we will be one of the very few colleges with one. We plan to develop it as an ongoing project.
Those are the highlights for now. We’ll be doing some conference blogging next month, and we have a few ongoing projects you’ll be hearing more about. We’ll also be moving into publicity mode, demonstrating our projects and learning more about where you think future VLE development should go. Stay tuned.
We’d like to say happy one year on the job to Shefali – she’s been on the job for a full year and done an astonishing amount of work in that time. Here’s to year two!
Web Services are in London today at the Apple store. We’ve recently purchased a sizeable new batch of macs and are hoping to launch our iPhone app this week – we hope to follow with an Android app soon.
Today’s session is on mobile learning in education – I suspect using iPad, iPhone, and ipod touch devices. This suits us as we gear up as an iTunes U partner.
I’ll be updating through the day. Stay tuned.
I always get lost in London…
First up, Steve Molyneux from Sussex College. Talked about how they’ve used wikis and blogs on the mac and how it impacted the student and teacher learning experience.
Second, Podcast Producer and Wiki functionality. How they work, how to set up, and how to create workflows. The idea of the presentation is that it is all dead simple and visual – the value is in making it easy to set this service up, and lower the barrier to entry.
The great thing is that we have this technology in house at Guildford – not sure if we’ll get to use it, but it depends on how the e-learning strategy goes forward and how we implement the institutional VLE plan. Great to have such good options though, and for so cheap. It really addresses issues with literacy skills, and where we go with adjusting to the needs of teachers.
Using the iPad in Further Education.
Yorkshire Coast College: A demonstration of iPad technology in the classroom. I’m particularly interested in the ability to put PDFs on the ipad and distribute them through podcasts. In terms of document handling, its a useful resource.
I’m not so sold on the rest – the 700 quid ipad costs as much as a couple of netbooks – is there a compelling rationale for me to get the phone, rather than 2 netbooks and an ipod touch?
ITunes U – Daryl Hawes
The point of the event today – to see how this works in practice.
The idea is putting content somewhere it can get onto mobile devices. Tying into the mobile store is the main benefit. Mostly related to ease of installation, and how it fits with FE schools. The theme is to engage local communities and businesses. You can also showcase the quality of student work across the country.
How many students are using smart phones? Answer – not as many as you think. But we are preparing for the posibility and the improving environment.
And main question for today answered!
That being – how does the content get referenced in iTunes U? It gets done in podcast producer 2.0 – we can create work-flows around it. Trip is now automatically worthwhile. “In one FE college enrolments were up by 30% due to iTunes U presence”
iPhone apps
Luke Fieldhouse gives a presentation on how apps work and can be useful. Example of Standford university. We have some direct experience of this – signing up to the apps store can be hard for a HE/FE institution. Luke advises that we get in touch with him to smooth the process – its a bit Americanised at the moment. James Clay mentions ‘GameSalad‘ as a way to make iPhone apps easily with no programming experience. Luke also mentions that Apple impose no limit on the amount of similar apps on the app store and that it can be difficult to find the best apps.
Accessibility
Luke shows an example of how iPhone can be used for the blind:
We had an interesting debate about Android inventor vs iphone development. Android is making it easier to develop. James Clay pointed out that Apple has a history of making these apps easier to develop – its early days yet, and we may see more of that soon.
Special needs students funded through Molnet – Iphone has been incredibly useful for them. The idea of the design is to be useful for are afraid of technology. People want to touch and hold things – it is a natural way to interact.
The Document Repository is a searchable central document storage area for all college staff, storing: Policies, Procedures, Forms, Plan, Reports, Templates & Risk Assessments. It is a custom built application using .net.
Web Services have recently given it a makeover to improve the user experience:
All in one single screen interface
New look and feel
Sorting of search results (title, category, subcategory, doc type)
Pulldowns for categories
Row highlight
Paging bar control
No of documents found listed
GO! Nominees please note that repository usernames and passwords havenot changed. Enjoy!
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.
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.
I attended the student Parliament today on behalf of Web Services. We had an interesting conversation about where Guildford Online – our portal and learning environments – are going . Some of the highlights:
A new GO! upgraded environment will be available in May for trials, and launched for the new school year. This will be a fairly substantial redesign, within the limits of the software we’re using at the moment. The current environment is a bit of a mess, and we’ve been working to redesign it to be more useful and convenient.
Student email is also a bit of a pain. I wanted to make a point here – you should be able to use whatever email you like, but you should always count on having a good college-based email account. We can always reach you there in case there is a problem with your own provider. If you want to forward your email, no problem. But you’ll always have that resource available to you, and it’ll come with a gig of storage and be linked into the exams calendar and VLE environment. It will be genuinely useful – and it’ll be convenient. No logging in – its just there saying “you have new messages” when you log into go. And its yours for life. You’ll always have an address at Guildford or Farnham that lets you keep in touch with friends.
Passwords: You’ll have one password. No more of this multiple password stuff. Your network password gets you access to everything.
iTunes: We’re making lectures, videos, podcasts and course materials available on iTunes. If you want to have a look around while you are browsing the iTunes store, you’ll find Guildford college. You’ll find the same info in GO! It’s just a different way to make the material available to you.
Facebook: We have an “official” Facebook page for The College’s campuses. You’ll see links to them on www.guildford.ac.uk and www.farnham.ac.uk. We’ll be pushing relevant information out to these pages, so become a fan.
Speaking of facebook – what about unblocking it? My thinking right now is that the LRC and study areas are for just that – studying. You don’t want to be waiting forever for a computer while someone tends to Farmville. So we might restrict access to facebook in research/classroom environments, but if you’re using your own laptop or the wifi network Facebook is open.
We want to be more permissive, but make sure that people who need to use computer facilities for study can. Tell us what you think.
And remember – don’t just comment on this article, comment on all of them! We’re tweaking the look and feel – this blogging service will launch for student groups and staff in the fall. We’ll be offering a series of pre-made templates. I’m working on something a little more snazzy for this site .
At the recent MoodleMoot at the University of London, Ross MacKenzie (http://twitter.com/digitalmaverick) gave a presentation on the transition from a proprietary to an open VLE. His presentation provides a great deal of insight into the planning required and where you can take such a system.
