(examples available in the Presentations section)

Why use Cooliris as a presentation method?

• It looks extremely cool and engages your audience
• It generates HTML pages for your images so you can quickly and easily put your presentation slides online
• It’s free (if you use something like OpenOffice.org to create your images)
• It can be controlled using a Nintendo Wiimote (I use Darwiin Remote with my Macbook Pro)

The purpose of this post is to show how to create a basic presentation with Cooliris, and then how to enable the more advanced features.

Cooliris: the basics

The basic steps are: export your slides as images, import them into PicLens Publisher, and then upload generated folder to web server (optional, as you can run it locally from your hard disk)

1. Export your slides as images

Keynote (click to enlarge):

Powerpoint (click to enlarge):

OpenOffice.org (click to enlarge):

As far as I’m aware, although the options would suggest otherwise, there’s no obvious way to export all you slides to images in OpenOffice.org. Instead, we can generate them by creating an HTML version of the presentation which will also create images. As a bonus, this can be uploaded alongside the Cooliris version of the slides for those without the plugin.

2. Use PicLens Publisher

Cooliris used to be known as ‘PicLens’ – hence the name of PicLens Publisher, a Mac/Windows program that does everything you need to convert your images ready for an interactive Cooliris-powered presentation!

Simply follow the instructions given to you in the program:

Once you’ve finished, go to the folder that you exported your files to and open gallery.html in Firefox (with the Cooliris add-on). You should see an interactive presentation like the ones I produced!

3. Upload your files to a web server (optional)

If you want your presentation to be online, do the following:

1. Rename the folder containing your PicLens Publisher-created files to something without spaces (e.g. preso)
2. Rename gallery.html within the preso folder to index.html
3. Connect to your web server and navigate to where you want the preso folder uploaded to
4. Upload the preso folder generated by PicLens Publisher to your web server

That’s it! You’ve created your first Cooliris-powered, interactive presentation. Details on how link to websites from your slides, name them, customize the icon at the top, and use a Wiimote to present will feature in a follow up post.

* Cooliris is also available for Internet Explorer and Safari, but I’m not entirely sure why you’d want to use those…

1. Wordpress (which powers this blog) is database-driven. That means it’s not archived over at archive.org. That means if I died tomorrow, my work would be pretty much lost forever. This is the main reason.
2. I get bored of the same blog theme after a while. While the one I’ve got at the moment (Digital Statement) allows me contain lots of ’stuff’, I’m thinking crisp and clean – like the Flickr blog, for example. There’s also some nice onces over at plaintxt.org.

So… suggestions for blogging engines that produce static HTML pages? (or do you know of Wordpress plugins that allow the same?)

Oh, and before you say archive.org renders Wordpress blogs just fine, have a look at the mess it made of the previous iteration of this one! (pic)

Image cc-by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Update: Upon further investigation after this helpful tweet by @ctdesign, it would appear it could be something as simple as the link to the CSS file in my header. Cool.

Earlier this week I was following with interest the tweets of Jenny Luca, an Australian educator, as she sat in the audience during one of Stephen Downes‘ presentations. Before the whole thing even started, she overheard Downes:

In her next tweet she simply wondered how that squared with connectivism, a learning theory of which Downes is an advocate. I thought up several responses, but didn’t have time to get into a debate and so kep them to myself. Jenny’s reflections on the event, if you’re interested, are here. That particular event isn’t the focus of this post.

Today, during an Easter Sunday afternoon in which I’d run out of things to fill my leisure time, I turned to my feed reader and came across this from Hugh McLeod:

It’s actually a remixed (and, to be honest, improved) version of an original by Patrick Brennan.

These two coming so closely together made me reflect upon my online interactions. Now, before I go any further I need to point out very explicitly and clearly that I greatly value the interactions and conversations I have with individuals. I’m certainly not aiming to devalue that in what I’m about to say.

The power in a network comes from the amplification of individual contributions and connections to make it more than the sum of its parts.

I think this is may be where Downes was coming from in terms of ‘following topics not people’ on Twitter and where McLeod (via Brennan) means r.e. ignore everybody.

• Yes, you need to learn the heuristics of the network.
• Yes, you need to capture the zeitgeist.
• Yes, you have be able to argue for your point of view.

…but when it comes down to it, you need to be your own person, using the network for your own ends. Not in some manipulative, Machiavellian sense, but in a ‘give-and-take’ way that means that the network truly does become more than the sum of its parts.

I’m not a big fan of pigeon-holing people or stereotyping, so was a bit skeptical. Ironically, after some further research, I found that this is exactly what INTJ personality types are known for. This is from the Myers & Briggs Foundation website (my emphasis):

Have original minds and great drive for implementing their ideas and achieving their goals. Quickly see patterns in external events and develop long-range explanatory perspectives. When committed, organize a job and carry it through. Skeptical and independent, have high standards of competence and performance – for themselves and others.

What I am, and increasingly a fan of, are heuristics. These are rules-of-thumb and methods of problem solving that ‘just work’. My use of and belief in the power of heuristics fits in well with my Pragmatist outlook. If the sixteen personality types were all much-of-a-muchness and I could see myself in all of them, then I would dismiss the power of such talk. However, looking at the list, I’m certainly not anything like any of the personality types beginning with ‘E’ (for extroverted, presumably). In fact, the only other one remotely like me is INTP (the ‘P’ standing for Perception).

As Vicki Davis remarked in a follow-up tweet, the overviews tend only to talk about the positive traits of the personality types rather than including the negative elements. And then there’s the fact that Typealyzer looks at the web page towards which you direct it. As typing in dougbelshaw.com/blog would only take it to the front page of this site with summaries of blog posts, the results are likely to be distorted.

To gain some clarification and a second opinion, I searched for websites where you could take Myers-Briggs personality tests online. I took three. Here are the websites with the results underneath:

http://www.kisa.ca/personality

OK, I thought. Well this is just a test on someone’s homepage. And I may have just been answering the questions in a way that would get me to be INTJ. On with the next test…

HumanMetrics.com

OK, OK, but these aren’t exactly rigorous tests are they? So I searched for something with a bit more clout – and came across…

BBC – Science & Nature – What am I like?

So there we have it. I’m of the personality type INTJ. Apparently this is one of the rarest personality types! You can read more about INTJs at the BBC website, at PersonalityPages, or at Wikipedia. There’s some fascinating (at least, for me!) stuff in there.

If one of the most powerful things an individual can do in order to be successful and happy in life is to know thyself, then the quick Typealyzer blog test has got to be worth a try as a starting point.

What did YOU come out as?

Here’s the ones that made me chuckle:

Every Sunday I plan to upload a new playlist of music I’ve been listening to during the week. This first playlist represents the amount of time I spend listening to ‘mashups’!

6. I have a rather dry sense of humour. More like Martini Extra Dry, in fact…

7. I’m not great at geography. Unlike my wife Hannah, who has top-down maps of places in her head, I can still get lost using a combination of my Sat-Nav and GPS feature of Google Maps on my iPhone. On the other hand, at any given time I could probably tell you pretty accurately which way is North, South, East or West. Bizarre.

1. My Ed.D. thesis proposal: What does it mean to be ‘digitally literate’? (17 May 2008)
2. The Map Is Not The Territory: the changing face of the edublogosphere (28 March 2008)
   
3. Animoto rocks! Here’s proof… (5 February 2008)
   
4. 5 productivity tips/hacks I’ve come across recently. (14 July 2008)
5. 3 reasons the majority of students are NOT ‘digitally literate’ (2 February 2008)
   
6. 3 reasons I’m against the Edublog Awards (3 December 2008)
7. Why ‘high culture’ for pupils is highly wrong-headed (13 February 2008)
   
8. Recommend me 3 (20 March 2008)
   
9. 90% digital, or 12 ways my teaching ecosystem is evolving. (21 August 2008)
10. Censorship and the Personal/Professional divide (17 June 2008)
11. Is Twitter bad for you? (29 March 2008)
    
12. AUP 2.0 (3 June 2008)
13. Are you an ‘Edupunk’? I’m not. (31 May 2008)
    
14. Help me write my job spec. for next year! (3 June 2008)
15. 5 things School of Rock can teach us about real education (27 January 2008)
    
16. Creating an Interactive Whiteboard using a Nintendo WiiMote (14 May 2008)
17. Things I’ve been reading online recently (12 April 2008)
18. THIS is how technology can enhance learning (22 February 2008)
19. Hi, my name’s Doug Belshaw… (9 January 2008)
    
20. Interesting Ways to use Netbooks in the Classroom (29 November 2008)
21. Reflections on BETT 2008 (13 January 2008)
    
22. My response to the GTC’s proposed ‘code of conduct’ for teachers in England. (21 December 2008)
23. Ken Robinson on creativity v2 (17 February 2008)
24. Page Peel Script (26 January 2008)
    
25. Politics: the biggest problem in education (1 October 2008)

As you can see, it would appear that if one’s aim was to write posts to get the widest audience and largest amount of influence, one should:

• Write ‘list’ posts – e.g. ‘3 ways to…’ or ‘5 things that…’
• Be ‘anti-’ something
• Provide something unique (e.g. Page Peel Script, Wiimote Whiteboard guide)
• Ask for collaboration/help

But that’s not my aim. I write about the things that interest or concern me, and that shall continue in 2009. I’m thinking of changing the layout of dougbelshaw.com a bit for the sake of my ‘online presence’, but I’ll still be blogging about the same things and ‘keeping it real’…

Have a great Christmas and an enjoyable New Year. And yes, that’s my photo so I don’t need to attribute it…

Woe is me. It’s my 28th birthday today and, for the third year running I’m ill. Last year I still went out for a meal, could taste nothing, and had a thoroughly miserable time. This year I’m staying in bed.

To add to my woes, I’ve been re-reading what certain characters from history managed to achieve in their 28th year of existence. Here’s a flavour:

• Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person in space.
• Jimi Hendrix died after a short but influential career.
• Ernest Hemingway published his first novel, The Sun Also Rises.

What have I done? Nothing quite so illustrious:

• Spoke at BETT 2008 with Dan Sutch of Futurelab about barriers and resistances to change and at the TeachMeet.
• Presented at the Schools History Project Conference alongside Nick Dennis.
• Became E-Learning Staff Tutor at my school.
• Completed two CD-ROMs of interactive whiteboard resources (History) for Folens publishers (Invasion, Plague & Murder and Renaissance, Revolution & Reformation)
• Passed my Ed.D. thesis proposal and gained a new supervisor.
• Joined a gym and got myself (slightly) fitter.
• Sold our house just before the full effects of the eceonomic slowdown hit home and moved into a rented property on a farm in semi-rural isolation.

Not quite in the same league! I am, however, considering writing a book. It won’t be ‘available in all good bookshops’. In fact, it won’t be available in bad ones either! Like Doug Johnson and others have done, I’m considering using Lulu.com to make my proposed book freely downloadable and available to purchase in paper format for a reasonable fee.

Technology wise, I upgraded in the last few weeks from a Macbook to a Macbook Pro, went through several netbooks (Asus Eee 701 -> modded OSX-powered Advent 4211 -> Asus Eee 1000), bought an iPhone, returned it, and then finally changed my Nokia N95 for an iPhone 3G 16GB, and bought a wonderful digital SLR camera in the shape of the Canon EOS 1000D.

What are my plans for my 29th year on earth? Hmmm… I’ll limit myself to three:

1. Apply for and obtain a job that means my wife, Hannah, doesn’t have to work.
2. Write half my Ed.D. thesis around the concept of digital literacies.
3. Start a new project – either through Folens or independently that brings together some of the ideas Nick Dennis and I have been discussing.

What are YOUR plans for 2009?

I’m obviously meant to have a break. My Ed.D. supervisor’s ill so couldn’t meet up with me today, Nick Dennis isn’t able to come up to collaborate on some work we’re doing for a publisher and, finally, it would seem that my house is no longer in a 3G area.

I’m writing this using the Wordpress iPhone application. Whilst it’s fine for short text entry, it’s not really able to create my usual sort of blog posts. It would seem that this is a blessing in disguise. I’ll *have* to slow down this half-term!

Orange have promised to have us up-and-running by the end of next week. In the meantime, check out the battlefields blog (see link above) and the work I’ve been doing in my first half-term as E-Learning Staff Tutor at my school (http://elearnr.edublogs.org)