The purpose…

I am doing the Creative Computing course using Scratch over at MIT.

The Creative Computing Online Workshop is a six-week online workshop for educators who want to learn more about using Scratch and supporting computational thinking in the classroom and other learning environments.

I like the format because it is not a course – it is structured but there is a lot of leeway in how you approach the activities and it is emergent in how it is being built as with most innovation in this area of online learning.

I will be volunteering to teach Scratch (and other things I hope) at a local school. I’m a STEM ambassador and I’ll be doing some of this in that capacity and some for Code Club I hope. It’ll be good to get back to teaching for some of the time.

Here is one of the challenges I chose:  to use 10 blocks to make a Scratch program.

I have set myself the personal challenge of creating an educational resource, with each exercise, that can be used in a classroom.

If you can’t see the Flash movie on your device here is a direct link – not sure if that will be a help though!

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/10683927/

HTML5 PLEASE

That’s the one problem with Scratch – the output to Flash – and I’m with Audrey Watters in that we need a Scratch for HTML5 please and also a HTML5 export option. The reason Scratch won’t work on Apple Tablets and mobile phones is manifold – Apple’s restriction on programming languages (oh the irony) and  buried in the Wiki here because Squeak VM (behind every cat there’s a mouse ) doesn’t support those formats so it needs to be rewritten from the ground up I presume? There is talk of a possible HTML5 output at some point perhaps/ maybe… So all of you with iPads will just have to wait a bit longer. (UPDATE: It has just been pointed out to me that there is one HTML5 solution called Snap! – formerly BYOB (Build your own blocks) > http://snap.berkeley.edu/snapsource/snap.html - thanks Miles!)

ELECTRONIC DESIGN NOTEBOOKS

Each week teachers can make an electronic design notebook – so I documented the whole process in Google Docs:

I’m enjoying the course but I’m also thinking around the deeper implications of the pedagogical activities.

THE WIDER DEBATE – IT’S ALL ABOUT PEDAGOGY STUPID

Of course the wider debate is about pedagogy – it inevitably has to be.

There is an excellent discussion going on with secondary (high school) teachers in the UK (you need to join Computing at School to see the link) here taking in Scratch around this article by Shuchi Grover. With the new Scratch 2.0 it is entirely possible to remix and make a computer program without really knowing what you are doing even in terms of code.

The pedagogy of “design thinking” and a deeper understanding of when computing has to be to the fore is important – very important in this respect. Otherwise we’ll have a group of children who are competent at the mechanics of Scratch and some coding but not thinking beyond that skillset. I well remember people churning out “Concrete Poems” in another curriculum era without so much as a nod to the Calligrammes of Guillaume Apollinaire or even the rich cultural heritage of Rebus, wordplay going right back to the Egyptians. People just “did” concrete poems as part of the curriculum.

As an educator this deeper consideration is really important to how and what I will do with any group of children and as I will soon be back in the classroom I take this all really rather seriously. People “doing stuff” because they have to fulfil a curriculum requirement is going to end badly. That is why Doug Belshaw’s involvement with Web Literacies http://literaci.es/ is also important as is the emerging Maker Movement and the Makethingsdostuff initiative by NESTA in the UK. All these initiatives are  leading to a new way of bringing communities of learning together.

This year’s Computing at School Conference will be one tribe that continue to address these issues I am sure. I, for one, will be interested to see how the Creative Computing course pans out in terms of discussion of pedagogy. I will also be using things like the http://csunplugged.org/ cf my broadcast of last year http://www.l4l.co.uk/?p=3032 and similar STEM Materials from their e-library to encourage algorithmic thinking.

It is really, really important that teachers in the UK coming to Scratch understand this debate and the need for a deeper exploration of computing rather than just following a lesson plan. I’m sure all sorts of commercial “training” packages will emerge in the next few months and my advice would be to resist the urge for quick fixes and take some time to explore – especially at KS2 (7 -11)  - your KS3 (11 -14) colleagues will thank you for it in the long run.

The UK Digital Leaders site also has some excellent crowd-courced resources in this area:

http://www.digitalleadernetwork.co.uk/computing/ and trailblazers like Phil Bagge and the incomparable Miles Berry in the UK are using Hangouts to have longer refection on the issues involved:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8ZF-9y9VjY

I am also slowly building up a Computing resource on Licorize:

http://licorize.com/projects/3yebeams/Computing but as with everything else I do there aren’t enough hours in the day so these are just pointers for places to go. Now I’m actively involved in teaching and learning (albeit outside the formal classroom) I’ll be documenting this more and more.

So my advice to anyone wanting to implement the new Computing curriculum at KS1/2 is take some time out to play and reflect. It will pay massive dividends in the long run.

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Dear Lucinda,

It is with a heavy heart that I announce my withdrawal with involvement with Naace. I feel the organisation no longer has anything to offer truly independent consultants like myself.

Throughout my career I have always played a marginal role in the use of ICT in education but have always stuck to my principles of independence and exploring innovative use of technologies to pull the teaching community together. My main area of focus over the years has been the development of Teaching Communities.

I now find Naace too skewed towards the demands of their corporate partners at the expense of the indie members.

The one scheme I felt I could make a contribution to in the last year garnered no response – I specifically asked to be informed about involvement in the proposed Action Research Network. This was something I felt I could have made a very concerted and constructive contribution to – and what happens – I get no response or further mention of the scheme.

I’m sorry but that was the one thing I was prepared to put time and effort into and it has vanished without trace?

So, therefore, I now resign from NAACE and the Fellowship. Naace has abandoned me and not me Naace I’m afraid.

Leon Cych

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If you can’t see the video on your device here’s a direct link:

http://youtu.be/p3ESTnWEcSY

For those of you who would rather hear the interview – here is the audio:

https://soundcloud.com/l4lnews/interview-with-stephen-lockyer

For those of you who would rather read it here’s the Scribd embed and link below:

Interview With Stephen Lockyer and Ross McGill After the #SLTeachMeet at the Russell Hotel – 14ht May 2013

http://www.scribd.com/doc/143606339/Interview-With-Stephen-Lockyer-and-Ross-McGill-After-the-SLTeachMeet-at-the-Russell-Hotel-14ht-May-2013

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I found out about OpenPlan through Twitter and a specific tweet by Laura Kirsop: someone else I need to interview soon.

We move through the concepts of iterative design, UX design; Learning Design; RCTs; Wenger’s Communities of Practice; the ResearchEd conference coming up in September 2013; ASE TeachMeets; Educational Startups and a much more.

In my latest series of interviews I will now usually include a transcript for those wanting to read the interview rather than listen. I hope people find these discussions interesting and stimulating in the current educational climate.

If you cannot see the widget just click on the link below to connect to the soundfile: https://soundcloud.com/l4lnews/peps1-output-final-draft

Leon Cych Podcast Interview With Peps Mccrea About OpenPlan May 2013

If you cannot see the embedded document just click on the link below to download:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/143067651/Leon-Cych-Podcast-Interview-With-Peps-Mccrea-About-OpenPlan-May-2013

Peps explain a bit more about the concept in the video below that is also on his website: http://openplan.cc/.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=h9JmYZYgIwQ

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1st Hour
 

If you can’t see the video on your device click here:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/v2k5UAr8fhM
 
2nd Hour
 

If you can’t see the video on your device click here:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/XCocT8J-lKY

If you are pressed for time then listen to the broadcasts instead on SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/l4lnews/sets/slteachmeet

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CC BY-NC 2.0 licence – source http://www.flickr.com/photos/eknathgomphotherium/

This blog entry is to complement the video A short film about sound I made on April 2nd 2013 for #TeachMeet #Ukedchat #TeachTweet Session 147.

Because of the limit of 5 minutes, the film could only lightly skirt the theory and process of doing voiceovers. This blog entry augments the film with further detailed references and resources around the topic so people curious about the process can take it a little further if they have the time, inclination and money.

Bear in mind audio kit is getting cheaper and cheaper as more and more independent film and podcast makers are taking up the challenge of going online with their own media. I have had to update prices twice when making the film they have dropped so much in the interim.

I am by no means an expert but have picked up some of these tips over the years; I hope you find them useful for making your own media. There are links to online resources at the end of the blog. I have aggregated, collated and archived links to films and webpages dealing with topics around film and sound in a lot of detail. The information is there if you wish to take it further.

Although this is advice specifically for making voiceovers for TeachTweet videos, some of the sound techniques and equipment can be used to capture better quality film sound generally.

The film below deals with the use of some of the microphones and kit I mentioned in the last TeachTweet discussion online. Someone suggested I make a presentation about microphones available and how to record better sound. The film and this blog deals with some of the ideas underpinning ways in which to record better sound on presentations. I hope you find it useful.

THE BASICS OF SOUND AND MICROPHONES

Basically microphones are instruments that capture acoustic energy and turn it into another form of energy (electrical). Some are better at doing this than others!

Image Source – Wikicommons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

They turn sound from an acoustic into an electrical signal. Mics are one kind of transducer – a transducer is a device that converts a signal in one form of energy into another form of energy. Sometimes the conversion isn’t very good and the ‘signal’ needs a boost.

Mics increase the power of the acoustic energy, converting it into electrical energy. Then using electronic circuitry the computer converts this electrical energy back into physical energy via sound processors and then through speakers and headphones. These come out in the form of sound waves.

COMPUTER MICS AREN’T THAT GOOD

Some”built-in” mics in computers are not very good at doing this so you’ll have to boost the signal in some way without boosting the “noise” along with it. There are several inexpensive ways you can do this…

BOOSTING SOUND ON THE CHEAP

Get close to the microphone

PROXIMITY – GET CLOSE!

The strength of the signal may be boosted using proximity. Bring the mic close to you – if you can’t then you, go to it.

Recording a voiceover is not as difficult as trying to record someone walking around the room, where they often wander in and out of microphone range, so make it easy on yourself; get as close as you can to the microphone without making the signal distort or “clip“.

COMMON MISTAKES

This is the most common mistake that people make when recording a voiceover. They sit too far away from the computer’s inbuilt mics and the sound is tinny and echoes around the room or there isn’t a strong enough signal and too much background noise intrudes on the soundtrack giving that marvellous WWII retro London Calling feel to it.

So even if you increase the gain you get a louder hiss or hum. This may be acceptable for what I call “process” audio (i.e. audio or video that just captures what people are saying and not designed to sound like a hollywood film or TV) but this won’t do you (or your audience) any favours if you are trying to record a clear signal for a voiceover.

Your ideal is to capture clear and ‘easy to hear’ audio. Good signal and not so much noise. People’s hearing changes with age – I am blessed with extremely good hearing for my age – my frequency range is quite wide. Bear in mind new Loudness guidelines are being introduced for professional broadcasters.

WRITE A SCRIPT FIRST

Unless you are very talented and good at off the cuff, ad-hoc speaking then write yourself a script before recording – then put it into something like the free “cue prompter” online; then read it close to the mic! It makes all the difference.

Once you have done this then you can always adapt it later and use it as a basis for timings for images, animation or video you might want to edit together. I really like the iAwriter App – because, besides being synched to all my devices and computers, it tells me how long how many written words are in terms of time.

iA writer has a "Reading Time" option.

You can hear, and see the difference of proximity  in the film below. The only equipment I used was the free software program Audacity and a laptop. However I changed a couple of things to make the sound better each time. Look at the waveforms  as well…

Of course the drawbacks to this are that the laptop may well overheat – you’ll be short of air and the recording you’ll get will be more towards the “bass” side of things so not so balanced – it may be richer but maybe not to your taste.

Once you start to get picky about the sort of sound you record then it is time to examine using different types of external microphone.

GOOD VOICEOVER/ PODCASTING MICS FOR EVEN BETTER SOUND

AudiaTechnica ATR2100

The microphone I mentioned in the last TeachTweet ukedchat discussion was the Audio Technica ATR2100.

It is a cardiod microphone – i.e. one whose cardioid polar pattern reduces pickup of unwanted sounds from the sides and rear. Basically it cuts out unwanted sound from the sides if pointed at your mouth or if you speak across the top of it from the side. This makes it ideal for podcasting.

This has been recommended by so many podcasters and audio experts in recent months. It can act as a USB or an XLR microphone. (XLR is better quality.)

The quality is phenomenal for the price but the sad fact is that it is only available in the United States or on ebay. So you will be liable for import charges and VAT which, if buying for the school, you can claim back.

Connectors on AudioTechnica ATR2100

If you have a USB lead you can plug it straight into a desktop or laptop computer. If you want to plug the USB mic into a iPad you’ll need Apple’s Camera Connection kit.

The podcasting App used in the video above is called BossJock Studio for iOS – it’s a wonderful app.

BossJock Studio

The camera I used was a Logictech Pro HD 920 Webcam

High Definition – Logitech C920 camera

The iRig Pre has also been hacked to work as a pre-amp with DSLRs – see this blog. http://www.dslrfilmnoob.com/2012/11/22/irig-pre-dslr-audio-hack/ DISCLAIMER: This invalidates the T&C’s obviously and could be dangerous but if you are an inveterate tinkerer that is a very cheap movie camera sound pre-amp. To be able to use the iRIg Pre without opening and soldering it buy one of these as outlined here http://www.dslrfilmnoob.com/2012/11/23/irig-pre-hack-testing/

XLR mic to iPhone or iPad

You can use the Audio Technica ATR2100 in XLR mode too but you’ll either need  an iRig pre  for iPad/ iPhone/ Androidor or a USB mixer for computers to get higher quality input.

Very cheap USB Mixer

WHY SMALL MIXERS ARE A GOOD BUY

The mixer has the added advantage of being able to mix in other sounds like line inputs RCA or Phono plugs from Vinyl, Tape, Video recorders, amplifiers, TVs etc. I regularly use this mixer to make better quality Skype calls. I have even used it with wireless microphones to record and relay TeachMeets in real time over the internet. The only drawback is the sound quality is limited and there are only a few inputs. If you were running a radio station you might need more for guests and other inputs. But for around £35 and dropping in price – this is one of the best buys out there!

Both the iRig pre and the cheap Behringer Xenyx302 Mixer have a pre-amp in them which helps to boost the signal from the mic. The mixer uses the computer’s power and the iRig Pre has a removable battery to power the mic.

Apple’s Camera Connection Kit allows you to connect up USB audio devices but they often have to be powered or go through a powered USB hub first.

OTHER MICROPHONES

The other two microphones I used in the film were the Rode Procaster  and the wonderful Rode NTG2 Gun microphone.

The Procaster is another, higher quality podcasting mic used by serious internet broadcasters.

The NTG2 mic is often the one you see interviewers holding on TV – it is usually covered with a Dead Cat wind muffler to stop the wind blowing across the mic and causing distortion. If you can ‘Boom‘ the mic as shown in the film it is very useful for recording more than one person.

Typical shotgun mic

Shotgun mics (super cardioid mics) have a very narrow directional recording window.

Supercardioid capsule pattern

Imagine a large cylinder over the mic extending six feet or more. Nothing outside that ‘cylinder of receptivity’ will be recorded – that’s not exactly how it works but basically it has very, very precise recording within a very narrow range. Excellent for doing interviews in busy crowds and therefore why interviewers and TV people use it. You often see “Boom operators” with very long extended Boom poles on Question Time.

Shotgun Microphone on a boom

Having them hang over your head pointing down makes it easier to capture the sound of someone talking from a much narrower range than on top of a camera. That’s why broadcasters get boom operator to do it. In the film I merely put it on a cheap mic stand and pointed it downwards. It gets an excellent signal this way.

I like and am willing to pay for the quality that comes from Rode Microphones – a shotgun NGT2 costs about £170 but you can get really cheap shotgun microphones for about £15 here:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Mini-Professional-Interview-Uni-Directional-System-EM-320E-Microphone-MicPhone-/190804377083

There is a really useful blog entry at Oliviatech.com – How to get the most out of a cheap DSLR Shotgun Microphone here:

OTHER RESOURCES

Licorize booklet about microphones

There is more information in the Licorize booklet I am constantly updating at:

 http://licorize.com/projects/3yebeams/microphones

This lists a couple of other cheaper mics and also some speciality microphones if you want to do interviews.

 http://licorize.com/projects/3yebeams/Audio

YouTube Playlists on Audio:

Audio Equipment

Sound 

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http://audioboo.fm/boos/1348250-l4lnews-23-04-2013

and on SoundCloud:

https://soundcloud.com/l4lnews/l4lnews-23-04-2013

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Create your own mind maps at MindMeister

https://www.mindmeister.com/279691556

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Access this week’s show at:

SOUNDCLOUD

https://soundcloud.com/l4lnews/l4lnews08-03-2013

AUDIOBOO

http://audioboo.fm/boos/1316777-l4lnews-08-03-2013

MIXCLOUD

http://www.mixcloud.com/L4Lnews/l4lnews-08-03-2013/

ARCHIVE.ORG

Different audio formats archived at:

https://archive.org/details/Learn4LifeNews08-11-2012_670

For those of you who prefer reading you can access the Licorize booklet at:

http://licorize.com/projects/3yebeams/L4Lnews08-04-2013

The transcript is now also available here:

L4Lnews08-04-2013

or here at Archive.org in several different text formats:

https://archive.org/details/134719828L4Lnews08042013

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It doesn’t take much to make the sound on a video much, much better; here’s a little (squashed!) teaser vid of a 5 minute video I’m making for TeachMeet later this month – the original sound is from the Logitech 920 camera – the second section is with the sound from a powered XLR Mic into an iPad.

The iPad is a wonderful sound production machine. All you need are the right tools. Judge for yourself here:

Now isn’t that better?

Details of all equipment to follow later in the month.

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From this week we’ll be introducing a weekly newsletter informing people of all the new developments on the Learn 4 Life blog and media site.

We’ll be using the tinyletter site to do this as it is unobtrusive and leaves a small footprint but a well-defined archival trail for people to look back over what we are trying to achieve this coming year.

It also allows for a separate and civilised discussion away from the usual blog comments format which isn’t a long enough format to discuss issues/ resources in depth.

So if you want a newsletter just click on the image below and signup

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Nominet Trust Report on Digital Making by Julian Sefton-Green – Photo attribution Rosie Slosek

DIGITAL MAKING REVIEW

Recently I was lucky enough to be asked by the Nominet Trust to Livestream/post produce films around the discussion involving Julian Sefton-Green‘s review for them – Mapping Digital Makers – a review exploring everyday creativity, learning lives and the digital.

Unlike the recent iPad Review launched by London Knowledge Lab I covered at  http://www.l4l.co.uk/?p=3454 – Nominet Trust have taken a more strategic view about their research and getting Julian Sefton-Green to produce a review and then launching it with an allied discussion to interested parties (and wider community) seems a more constructive and practical way forwards.

STRATEGIC REVIEW

What is so useful about this review is the fact that Sefton-Green looks at a much wider field than just education. He delves into the different silos and communities  around the Digital Making industry that is emerging and finds that they don’t talk to each other very much about their different roles.

Taking a strategic starting point  is this review’s strength and leads to a much greater focus about where research could be taken in the future. The evening’s discussion helped tease out many issues around this.

I’d strongly recommend people, look at the film, read the whole report and keep an eye on the #DigitalMaking hashtag generally for future developments by Nominet Trust.

FILM OF EVENING

You can see the film of the evening below. It was a fascinating discussion and brought to the fore many of the issues I have been exploring less formally in the past few months. There will be a transcript of the session available soon as well for interested parties.

PANELISTS

The Panelists discussing the Review were:

Dr Jo Twist CEO of UKIE.

Ben Southworth Deputy CEO at Tech City Investment Organisation

Miles Berry – recent ex-chair of Naace and Senior Lecturer, Subject leader ICT in Education  at Roehampton  

Dan Sutch, head of Development Research at Nominet Trust  was steering the discussion.

Annika Small, Director of Nominet Trust, gave an excellent opening speech which encapsulated the tone of the whole evening.

https://soundcloud.com/l4lnews/annika-smalls-speech-at-the

Julian Sefton-Green’s precis was excellent:

 https://soundcloud.com/l4lnews/julian-sefton-green-at-nominet

Miles Berry gave the schools’ context:

https://soundcloud.com/l4lnews/miles-berry-on-panel

Ben Southworth that of the Tech Entrepreurs

https://soundcloud.com/l4lnews/ben-southworth-on-tech

Dr Jo Twist the view of the Gaming and Creative Industries

https://soundcloud.com/l4lnews/jo-twist-on-the-panel-at

The Q&A session threw some issues into high relief

https://soundcloud.com/l4lnews/qa

I was a bit disappointed to hear statements that a lot of collaboration and co-operative working underpins Digital Making and the new Gaming and Creative industries and these qualities were encouraged by the NextGen report and this lobbying was mainly responsible for underpinning the decision by the government to subsequently disapply the ICT POS. But what did government do to the new curriculum after the first round of consultation? They certainly jumped on the Computer Science bandwagon as Peter Kemp put it in the Q&A session

http://youtu.be/yPGVnp9rd3A?t=1h3m49s

but this government have subsequently excised all mention of collaboration in their latest propsals. See Peter Twining’s analysis below on his Edfutures Bliki.

So the gap between rhetoric and realpolitik is still very great I’m afraid …

Let’s hope UKIE lends its weight to arm wrestle this out of the final document. It seems someone at the DfE isn’t a team player and doesn’t believe it will help the economy. Maybe the major players in this burgeoning emerging industry will disabuse them of this notion?

Attribution Peter Twining's Bliki http://edfutures.net/PeterT's_bliki

If you are a teacher or working within fields that promote Digital Making you must respond to the Government’s Curriculum reforms in this area – this is just one of the reasons why.

Download and respond to the consultation below. You have until the 16th April.

https://www.education.gov.uk/consultations/index.cfm?action=consultationDetails&consultationId=1881&external=no&menu=1

DOWNLOAD REPORT

Julian Sefton-Green’s report can be downloaded from here or click on the image below :

Mapping Digital Makers Report for Nominet Trust by Julian Sefton-Green

ALLIED RESOURCES

Just like the iPad Review I have made an (ongoing) mind-map précis of the document below.

Create your own mind maps at MindMeister

Last November I did a brief roundup of Maker Clubs and allied resources on L4L News. I guess this is what Julian Sefton-Green means about informal or semi-formal learning domains.

I did a roundup – choose your media below to learn a little about some of these communities.

You can see the video here:

If you can’t see that on your phone or browser click on the link below.

http://youtu.be/Qz9CrDLHCHM?t=7m35s.

or listen to the podcast:

http://audioboo.fm/boos/1058914-l4lnews-14-11-2012

or download and read the booklet links and resources:

Informal domains for learning?

http://licorize.com/projects/3yebeams/L4Lnews14-11-20121

Those links make give you ‘some’ concrete pointers to the informal communities mentioned in Julian’s report.

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L4LNews Playlist

Over the last year I have been working towards building a series of specialist media channels for L4L.

In the last decade I have recorded many, many hours of interviews on video, tape and digital recorders.

I have given up on mainstream media championing the cause of grass roots teachers’ CPD so a few years ago I decided to make my own media to reflect activity by teachers and to help build community in this area.

However, up to now, it has been fairly unstructured but the overall vision was always building towards the goal of a Radio, TV and Live Events media company just for teachers and professional development.

After Easter 2013 I will have up and running:

• A live streaming service in High Definition video for events
• A live streamed TV show once a month
• An online radio show with archived playlists of previous shows playing most nights / mornings
• A pre-recorded “magazine” TV show repeated by streaming a couple of evenings a week
• The L4L App to wrap all this content together

In the next 3 years I will be working on an ongoing documentary about TeachMeet and grass roots teacher communities. I am at the scriptwriting stage.

So here’s a brief taster of the L4LTV Show’s Intro – expect high production values and interesting programmes. We will be working on an initial series of 13 in the autumn.

Last year I trialled making a daily news show for radio and that will also be part of the media offering – but not every day but I hope to have enough material to put out a show most days from archived material.

We are seriously looking for commercial sponsors to help with some of the costs so get in touch if you want to help.

L4L Media below

Radio program – http://mixlr.com/l4lnews/playlist
Live Streaming Channel - https://new.livestream.com/L4L/
SoundCloud Channel –  https://soundcloud.com/l4lnews/
AudioBoo Channel –   http://audioboo.fm/users/11452/boos
YouTube Video Channel – http://www.youtube.com/eyebeams2
L4L App (iPhone only so far) – https://itunes.apple.com/sg/app/l4l/id349167931?mt=8

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Here is the playlist of interviews I did with various participants before and after the meetings.
One of the things I was hoping to tease out of people was the difference between #Pedagoo and TeachMeet.

The Youtube playlist is below:

If you can’t see the video on your device just click the link here:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtgPuUWnxm4aPWOyVrGj_3D9zkkWYi_p2

As the week progresses I’ll be uploading the various workshop sessions in video and audio. In the meantime you can listen to the AudioBoos below:

http://audioboo.fm/tag/PedagooLondon

Click on the image above to go to the audio interviews.

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Kafilat Agboola and Ross McGill last minute planning

Last night I had the pleasure of broadcasting the audio for TeachMeet London at Walthamstow Academy. I have to thank  Kafilat Agboola and Dave Clark for access to the wonderful sound system that made it all possible.

I also managed to interview several people before, during and after the event including Kafilat you can see the playlist of video interviews below:

If you can’t see the videos on your device click here:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtgPuUWnxm4aNwLrGvCC5C4gKTGJsQuYj

You can also hear the interviews, plus a couple of others with people new to TeachMeet during the break at this link:

http://audioboo.fm/tag/TMLWA

Today I will be re-editing the radio broadcast into a more digestible format for re-broadcast later in the day.

Keep your eyes on the #TMLondon hashtag and Storify.com for an aggregation of Tweets and presentations. I’ll also update this post here later today with the relevant embeds and links to all the presenters.

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Here are the specs.

1)Mixlr

First off I have a professional subscription to Mixlr - this is about £4.99 a month (Feb 2013 at the time of writing).

This allows me to hook up mics and stream out audio from a wireless network or ethernet connection.

It’s available for iPhone/ iPad and Mac. You set up your connection,; you stream out and the broadcast is automatically archived.

2) An Audio Teechnica ATR2 – 100 USB AND XLR mike – not available in the UK.

The ATR2 is probably the best cheap podcasting microphone there is – order it from Amazon, New York and pay the duty – you won’t regret it!

http://www.amazon.com/Audio-Technica-ATR2100-USB-Cardioid-Dynamic-Microphone/dp/B004QJOZS4

3) iRIG – pre

In order to get a higher quality XLR connection into an iPad or iPhone the buy an iRig – pre (@£24.00)

http://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/irigpre/

 4) XLR Lead

Lastly you’ll need an XLR lead.

I’ll be using this setup to take a live feed from a mixing desk at #TeachMeet London

So that is how you do it – good luck – a must for any media department in a large secondary school.

I’m sure you can work out variations, like a mixing desk, MiFi connection and mike stands, on this theme. Good luck.

Don’t forget to get permissions and signoffs beforehand…

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If you can’t see that on your device click here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVJ19b60zVY

The App is free – download it from here:

https://itunes.apple.com/sg/app/l4l/id349167931?mt=8

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Attribution European Parliament on Twitter

Last month I went along to the iPads in the Classroom event at the London Knowledge Lab. It was a dissemination of the summation of “research” about the use of iPads in the Classroom.

Despite the various studies I am still unconvinced about wholesale use of iPads in classrooms. For me the big issue is the “lockin” that happens when using these devices. One thing that did seem to emerge out of the mist in this session, however, was the ease with which data can be garnered whilst using them.

Partway through the morning I came across Stefan Kreitmeyer’s use of iPads in synchronous, face to face, networked devices. I spent some time talking with him about the strategies he employs.

For me, this is the most interesting and considered use of the tools. I am drawn to uses of technology that allow users to connect and teach and learn in ways not before possible.

Have a listen to the interview below and look at his website at mutiberry.net

If you cannot see the Audio link just click here:

http://audioboo.fm/boos/1219928-interview-with-stefan-kreitmayer-at-london-knowledge-lab-25-01-2013.mp3

The transcript of the Interview is also now available on Scribd for free – see window below:

Transcript of Interview With Stefan Kreitmayer at London Knowledge Lab 25-01-2013 by

It is well worth going to the free events at London Knowledge Lab . I also interviewed Richard Noss about the Lab and what it does:

Here are my notes on MindMeister about the report-

Create your own mind maps at MindMeister

If you can’t see the report on your device – try here:

http://www.mindmeister.com/251137795/ipads-in-schools-notes

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The two presenters tonight were:

EduTronic – Christopher Waugh

and

Kevin Bartle

#Wonderacademy The Twitter academy online

Storified by Leon Cych· Wed, Feb 06 2013 14:12:01

@Wonderacademy I did, I always wanted to be a teacher. My dream job #wonderacademysuperstylynne

If you can’t see the Storify slideshow of the tweets on your device – look at the link here:

http://storify.com/eyebeams/wonderacademy-the-twitter-academy-online

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