August 19th, 2010

CPD and INSET — No Comments
19
Aug 10

#MSCamp Day 2

Look, I am late to the party. With such a passionate group of educators, bloggers and Tweeters there is no point re-writing what has already been written. Both Graeme Eyre and Nicki Maddams provide comprehensive lists of the tools, #MSCamp has a fair Twitterstream, even now and one of two of colleagues have blogged. In true Magpie fashion, I have taken all their posts and summarised them with Tagxedo.

http://www.tagxedo.com/

What did I personally make of the event? As a result of the #MSCamp I certainly have a growing appreciation for the breadth Microsoft software and their support towards education. You only have to review Graham Eyre’s list to recap! However, what impressed me most was the often simple and innovative  way my colleagues at the event re-purposed this tools to suit their or their students needs. Web Queries for science, developer tools for in presentation data collection just two examples demonstrated at the close of the event.

I was not 100% sure what to expect from the event. Although  I found the task of creating these ‘quite sexy things called innovids’ a little solitary at times, I was inspired by scribbled notes on the ‘dry wipe walls,’ my colleagues commitment to their practice and their general vibrancy and mutual respect. Certainly, these innovids  have the potential to impact upon the use of Microsoft products by all our staff back at the ranch.

As a result of the #MSCamp I certainly have a growing appreciation for the breadth Microsoft software and the support towards education. You only have to review Graham Eyre’s list to recap!However, what impressed me most was the often simple and innovative  by my colleagues at the event re-purposed this tools to suit their or their students needs. Web Queries for science, developer tools for in presentation data collection just two examples demonstrated at the close of the event.

I was not 100% sure what to expect from the event. Although  I found the task of creating these ‘quite sexy things called innovids’ a little solitary at times, I was inspired by scribbled notes on the ‘dry wipe walls,’ my colleagues commitment to their practice and their general vibrancy and mutual respect. Certainly, these innovids  have the potential to impact upon the use of Microsoft products by all our staff back at the ranch.When I finish the my INNOVID I will post that resource here as well.

Popularity: 2% [?]

e-Tools — No Comments
19
Aug 10

Changing Faces of Hamlet? Romeo?

Listening to This Week in Google or TWIG I was reminded about Google’s photo editing software update 3.8. In addition to the ability to batch upload multiple albums, edit those albums online and metadata options, we get a new feature,  ’Face Movies.’  The ability to create a face movie centre or framed on one particular face. Simply select a bunch of photos of a particular person, choose the time to freeze on each frame, a transition effect, and the video size. All the help you need came be found here. The output, a video focused on a single person’s face.

Nice feature but where is the educational application? Well, this could be to be a niffy way to show character development within a play, book or film, Hamlets devolution or ?? (add character name here) maturing for example. End of school videos, no more morphing of students from Year 7 to 11? Any more ideas welcomed.

Here is the big G’s given example.

Popularity: 3% [?]

e-Tools / IT Network — No Comments
19
Aug 10

Office Talk

Microsoft Labs posted an interesting article / update on OfficeTalk testing today (testing for quite some time if you take into account the first official posts were in March 2010). ‘Microsoft’s Twitter for businesses‘ application. The most notable statistic highlighting that

83%of OfficeTalk’s regular users found interesting information they wouldn’t have found otherwise and that 72%agreed that OfficeTalk helped them find out what others are working on and reach out to ask questions.

Effective communication within an any organisation is essential. From my conversations with @stuartridouttoday, its clear that email is not the answer, indeed it may be part of the problem. Misuse of distribution groups and general email overload seem to be prevalent in both our schools. Is Office Talk a possible remedy? Sadly, the update didn’t suggest where the development roadmap and product deployment was heading, so I left a blog comment.

Where / how do you expect it to be deployed commercially? As an addition to Microsoft Office? As a separate product? As a add-in for Outlook? Sharepoint?

Later adding Outlook Social Connector. I will update with any feedback. Anyone have experience of trialling OfficeTalk or using Micro-communications tools within school? Statusnet? Messenging (IM)? We trialled Sparklast year but didn’t proceed with a roll it out to the whole school community and we have more than enough new IT for September but OfficeTalk is definitely a product to review in January.

Popularity: 5% [?]