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Holiday

I haven't had one for a while so I'm quite excited.

Here's my poolside iMix

my iphone driven blog

I've been using Tumblr on my iPhone and like the simple dashboard. I like simplicity and most blogging tools are pretty obvious to use but at times fiddly and annoying. Tumblr is pared down but easy to use esp on the iPhone. My digitalroadtrip blog will be the blog that supports my Apple RTC activities.

Uploaded with plasq's Skitch!

Leigh Academy ADEs train school and staff

BubbleShare: Share photos - Play some Online Games.


ADE's rock out at Leigh Academy!

This floats my blog/boat

Thanks to my bro Jonny in the US of A for pointing this out to me - love it.....

BBC 21CC @Salford

I've been doing some work at the relatively new BBC 21cc in Salford. The BBC brand is very exciting for pupils and teachers alike - so hopefully we'll be able to make some cool stuff. There's some high end cameras and mics as you'd expect. We are using iMovie and Final Cut for most of the editing.




One interesting piece of software we are going to use tomorrow is Boinx TV. This isn't cheap by any means, but enables a live TV programme with multiple camera's and text even RSS news feeds to be created and recorded and or streamed. Hopefully we'll get some examples made this week.

eTwinning Project Thessalonika 2009

So here is a quick show reel of the students mini animations. Considering the language barrier and the 2.5 hrs to explain the process, figure out a story, make the models, animate and edit in iMovie I think the kids did a marvelous job!

eTwinning Project

OK so here I am in Greece Day 1.

All my newplast clay has been lost by the courier so I've been taxi -ing around Thessalonika looking for modelling clay. Anyway I'm sorted now! I've two workshops to deliver and very few of the students speak "yorkshire" so should be interesting!

Here's my classroom.

Spotify saves my "Credit Crunched" Half term

Well I was sitting at home "Credit crunched" for half term.

There are 2 or three albums I'd been contemplating from iTunes , Empire of the Sun being one. However I'd started to play with Spotify the Swedish music player - This has blown me away - why do I need to buy any Albums - OK I need to be on-line to use it and the iPhone version isn't yet there but the OSX version is fantastically simple (I do simple!).

iMovie 09 support for Flip Mino HD

Maybe I've become a bit fixated with the Flip Mino HD - but it is a joy to use with the new iLife 09. In 08 it was a file and import job which meant that larger clips had to be imported in their entirety. Now as it is natively supported, parts of clips can be selected from the camera, so we are not filling the hard drive with unnecessary gubbins.

I've always been a fervent "do it properly" merchant when it comes to video using a tripod etc, but there are times now esp with Learning Platforms where informal video (like that shot on a mobile phone or Flip) has its place. The other things about the Flip over all of its competitors is its simplicity. No batteries, SD cards to lose, simple charging in the USB (albeit upside down!).

The fact it only does one thing and in the most simplistic way means that young learners have to focus on content creation and not be sidetracked by the functionality. Swiss army knives are loved by technicians but they don't help get the job done in the classroom.

In iMovie 09 - the Flip files import 4x faster than real time which is better than a lot other school priced hard disk based cameras. This is probably due to it being Mp4 - but speed is important in the classroom. The return of the effects is great - the most useful newcomer being "picture in picture" - this should be helpful for creating tutorials and learning materials.

iMovie 09's Image stabilization is slow (on a 2GHz Macbook Pro and 2.4Ghz Macbook) and a bit hit and miss. The precision editor is very good for teaching continuity editing as students can see both clips coming together - this is a real boon, but the time line (or lack of) is still frustrating.

Some informal footage shot on the Flip can be seen below - watch in high quality -






There is quite wide use in the US of Flip in the Classroom - see Educause 7 things you should Know

iPhone app resolves classroom management/behaviour issues

Struggling with classroom control? Lost the attention/interest of your class.

This free app helps solve the problem of getting the attention of the whole class.

Simply "activate" and enjoy the "stunning" effect. See immediate improvement in student attention and feel truly empowered. It is advised that all staff wear ear buds for personal protection.

So there you have it - instant authority, control and respect, combined in the classroom management tool of the year - well done High Gloss Software. An obvious BETT 2010 innovation contender.

Digital imaging with iPhoto and iMovie

BubbleShare: Share photos - Easy Photo Sharing


Here are some images that (hopefully) show why we should digitally capture the great things that students create in schools. These amazing models were created by yr 9 History students.

The images were uploaded using the free iPhoto Bubbleshare application.



This clip was created in iMovie and iPhoto.

Busy Busy Busy

Time is flying by and I haven't added anything to my blog for a while.

Projects that I'm involved in at the moment include some BSF for Apple in Stockton on Tees

I'm also supporting teachers working on digital Creativity projects in South Yorkshire schools.

Also just spent a fab day with the Havering LA ICT team working with Ayloff and Dunningford primary Schools.

I've also been using the Flip Camera quite a bit - and Apple's iLife 09 provides native support for this - so I'm looking forward to that - here's some family footage from Youtube shot on the flip Mino HD



The compression on Youtube is very brutal - the same clip looks much better on my mobileme websiste test space