One hot term to have emerged so far in 2010 in the learning technologies field is ‘augmented reality’ but the first problem in gaining an understanding of this new concept is to try to get a handle on what the term actually means. As usual, those good folks from Common Craft have got there ahead of the rest and their latest video, a masterpiece of compression at 02:16, explains the concept with economy and humour.
Click here to augment your reality
A good example of a ‘mashup’ (bringing together two or more software ideas to create a third which is greater than the sum of its parts.) Geo Coded Art uses Google and Bing maps to allow the user to view the exact spot depicted in a painting. So search for, say, Constable and the site offers you four landscapes painted by him. Click on the ‘map’ tag that appears with the thumbnail of each painting and you can pinpoint the exact location on a contemporary Google map of the area. An interesting idea but hampered a little at the moment by the small number of paintings covered.
The library of very useful reference works on Digital Storytelling grows apace with this comprehensive 120 page guide which covers the rationale behind this growing field, how the techniques can be used and then goes on to deliver basic ‘how2s’ of some of the basic technologies used to tell stories electronically.
There are detailed overviews of Audacity, Google Maps and PhotoStory (to name but three) and, best of all, the whole publication can be downloaded to a desktop near you at no cost. Download Digital Storytelling Tools for Educators and live happily ever after! (The guide was written by Silvia Tolisano who runs her own Langwitches Blog itself well worth a look.)
The Higher Education blog for Scotland North and East recently hit it’s 100th post. Since its first post in May last year a wide variety of topics have been covered from the analysis of research publications, interviews with noted academics and tips on how to enhance teaching and learning using a range of tools and techniques.
For it’s 100th post MASHe highlighted how a simple ‘mashup’ of twitter and Yahoo Pipes could be used as a free electronic voting system. This post has kindly been highlighted in Seb Schmoller’s Forthnightly Mailing and Jane Hart’s Social Media in Learning blog, which has resulted in a small flurry of ‘retweets’ as others pick up on the idea.
What do you get when you cross the worlds most popular indexing search engine, Google, with Wolfram Alpha, the worlds first computational search engine? The answer of course is Goofram, which integrates the functionality of both Google and Wolfram search engines into one.
The Goofram search engine: a combination of index and computational information
Goofram combines simultaneous indexing and computational results on the same page. For example, if you ask the question, ‘How far is the earth from the sun’ Google will provide answers from Wikipedia and other sources. Wolfram on the other hand provides the exact distance (93.73 million miles in case you didn’t know) as well as other interesting results such as solar radiation pressure and light travel times – for the scientists among us!
Ewan McIntosh, Digital Commissioner for 4iP, talks with Rebecca O’Brien from JISC via Skype about mobile gaming, how thinking from the learner’s perspective is key, and how universities have a vital role in mixing logical thinking with inspiring creativity. (Dur 20:15) Ewan will be delivering one of the keynote speeches at JISC’s annual conference in Edinburgh on 24 March 2009.
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Google has launched the UK version of its Street View service which has coverage of 25 cities from Aberdeen to Southampton. The new facility is the end result of a monumental effort which has involved Google’s customised camera cars creating video images of 22,369 miles through the highways and byways of the UK. At the moment it looks as if only Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and Dundee are covered by the service in detail but go to Google maps and you can now take a virtual walk through Scotland’s four major cities. Click here for a fuller BBC Technology report.
Spot the location?
As learners increasingly adopt free third-party email providers over their institutional email, FE and HE institutions are faced with the question of whether to follow the crowd by outsourcing their email and data services.
From time to time a cluster of online tools emerge which seem to suit particular disciplines. Last year it was art and anatomy and geography but this year it’s definitely the turn of history. Following the Museum Box, featured in our last issue, comes Histografica which is an online repository holding historical images of locations across the globe. The archive is the result of users uploading their own images to the common pool. Many of the images are copyright free and all are tagged with information on copyright status and linked to a Google map highlighting the location as in this example of Edinburgh University from 1827.
It could only happen in America…couldn’t it? Starting in the big apple, Diaroogle is building a peer-rated and Google Map referenced search engine to locate and evaluate public toilets. This is an intriguing example of a mash-up of content, context, peer rating and mapping. If you find yourself in New York City and really need to go, just reach for your laptop or your mobile phone and hope there’s a wireless network in range.
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