Friday, January 18, 2008

Learning for Living and Work

Many parallels between the MoLeNET projects and the LLW projects. Here are some thoughts on kit for the LLW projects:

Top of my list has been:

psp with camera attachment: The camera is about £30 and you can download free editing software on to psp for it. Learners can view video clips and record video clips of themselves, or rotate the camera (180 degrees) to record what they see. (Bear in mind a bit of file conversion to get videos on to psp but no different from converting to put on any other media player eg ipod). Thanks to Di Dawson for inspiration!

bulletcam: To attach to moving objects for point of view, or to someone's head, again for point of view. Learner can show that they can perform a skill, or refresh their memory of how to perform a task. Great for tight spaces where not possible to film or situations where you need both hands free (eg under a car, in a tractor etc). Also available from Amazon and Woolworths. You can google bulletcam to see the original (which will be higher quality but more expensive) or Digital Blue do a version that is lower quality and cheaper....

Nintendo Wii: Brain training on the Wii is very relevant for numeracy skills, there are also word games. Plus if you get on the internet with the Wii, there are various educational games you can play. Found a nice basic drawing application you control with the wii remote. Would work nicely on a smartboard as well. Lots of other wiigames on wiiplayable.com. Dave Sugden can probably provide the link for making your own Wii interactive whiteboad?

Mimios and ebeam: Taking advice from the Techdis site on how these can support learners in the classroom. They are also far more transportable than fixed interactive whiteboards.

Netsupport: Where colleges are planning to supply learners with tablets or pcs, or even pdas, this software will allow projection of the teacher's pc on to learners' devices, and control can be passed to the learner, so works like interactive whiteboard without getting off your chair (especially if you can't).

Red Halo: This application can run on umpcs, pdas, psps and soon Asus eeepcs. Allows tutor to push files to learner devices and collect them as well. Allows teacher and learner to connect files together as an activity (web page link, image, notes, audio, video, inspiration file etc). Provides a copy of Inspiration on pda or tablet, which is fantastic! Has 5Gb of server storage space per learner so video files and audio files storage not a problem. Can sign up for free account (1 Gb storage).

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