Saving the planet, one picture at a time

December 10, 2015 at 5:17 pm | Posted in software, Uncategorized, waffle | 1 Comment
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JPEGmini

I like to think that I take quite a good photo, and on rainy lunchtimes I will often while away some time on the Digital Photography Review website to gain inspiration and keep up to date. Today I read an article about an improved method of compressing standard JPEG images that can lead to reductions in file size from 20-40% for typical web-page images up to 50-80% for full resolution camera images. And the technology, JPEGmini by BEAMR, is available now as a stand-alone program, a plug-in, a server or a web service, and claims to be able to make these reductions with no perceptible loss in visual quality. There is a free trial version for both Windows and Mac PCs, or you can use the free web service.

For me, the appeal would be to significantly reduce the space taken by my iPhoto library (currently around 15,000 photos) without reducing image quality. And of course backing up those images to cloud storage or uploading them to the Photobox print service I use would be significantly quicker. The $20 stand-alone app will do batch conversion, so it won’t take me much effort either.

This quote by the developer, Dror Gill (whose father Aaron Gill was one of the chief scientists who worked on the original JPEG standard in the 1980s) caught my eye:

“There are a lot of terabytes wasted by files that are larger than they need to be. There is no point using bytes and bits that are not visible to humans. The industry is doing it all the time. Maybe we should calculate how many exabytes are being wasted every day – the inefficiency of normal JPEG compression pollutes the environment.”

And the point here is that the storage and transmission of images has a real cost; disk storage and network transmission consume energy – a lot of energy when you consider the billions of images taken, uploaded, stored and viewed on the internet every day. Social media users upload and share around 2 billion images per day. In 2013 it was estimated that the internet used 10% of the world’s energy supply, more than aviation! So a simple technology that minimises the storage required for images and the bandwith needed to transmit them could really make a significant impact on global energy use. But not as much as more efficient video and audio compression methods…

E-Learning with Camtasia Studio

November 26, 2014 at 4:36 pm | Posted in lecture recording, software | Leave a comment

E-Learning with Camtasia Studio book coverI’ve been a fan of Camtasia for some years now, and this screen recording/video editing software has been the subject of several posts on this blog, so I wasn’t too surprised when I was approached by Packt Publishing to review their ebook E-Learning with Camtasia Studio. Weighing in at 188 pages, it turned out to be a really useful introduction to the thinking, processes and planning required for almost any multimedia learning/training resource, as well as covering Camtasia-specific features. The author, David B. Demyan has obviously has a great deal of practical experience in using Camtasia to produce interactive learning and communicates this clearly in his writing.

As mentioned, a significant portion of the book is devoted to non-technical but essential issues, from establishing the learning outcomes and the learner profiles to planning, scripting and storyboarding. It goes on to cover the essentials of creating and editing using Camtasia – introducing each of the key features (such as pan-and-zoom) without un-necessary detail of every option. This is a good thing as there are plenty of other online resources including the TechSmith website that provide that level of detail. What is really useful and new, however, are the chapters on the addition of interactive features (hotspots, quizzes) and the integration with learning management systems using SCORM. Even if you already know Camtasia, you will probably find that these sections alone justify the modest cost. The e-book comes with a ZIP file of sample files that you can download so that you can follow through the exercises and example production – and this includes all the planning documents as well as the media files. Recommended.

Packt Publishing offer two further books on Camtasia by different authors – one on Advanced Editing and Publishing and another on Building an E-Learning Course with Camtasia Studio – and the latter seems to broadly cover the same material.

I’ve also been a long-time subscriber to Daniel Park’s helpful emails about Camtasia from dappertext.com, although I never got around to buying his well reviewed (but more expensive) Camtasia Guide. Prompted by writing this review, and looking through the sample chapters Daniel provides, I think that the book reviewed above is not as comprehensive, but provides better coverage of the topics it does include – and the example project management files are  the icing on the cake.

Polls by Blackboard

October 13, 2014 at 11:48 am | Posted in software, student response systems | Leave a comment
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This free beta service from Blackboard Labs enables educators to create simple multiple choice questions that students can vote on in-class using any device with web access. They control the poll using a web interface and see the results of the votes in real-time.

  • All users access the service via http://polls.bb/vote – there is also a dedicated iOS app.
  • US users can also use SMS text messages to vote.
  • Educators have to sign in with Facebook to create polls.
  • Voting in a poll can be anonymous or require a Facebook login.
  • The website needs you to share your location so you can join nearby polls, listed by name.
  • Alternatively, you can search for polls by name.
  • Questions can have between two and five answers.
  • Questions can include an uploaded image.
  • Answers can be rearranged by drag-and-drop.
  • Questions do not have ‘correct’ answer indication.

The educator uses the service to create the poll questions in advance of the session, then logs in during the session to open the poll.They can select the questions in any order (or use the next/previous buttons) and must click a button to open each question and enable voting. They click again to close a question and disable further voting. The tutor display shows a pie-chart summary of the voting which updates in real time as votes come in or students change their vote. When voting on all questions is concluded, the educator clicks a button to close the poll.

Once a poll is closed it cannot be re-opened, but you can review the saved pie-chart results, which show the % of voters who chose each option. You can however duplicate a closed poll to create a new poll, make changes if needed and run that one as normal.

Comment

This service offers free basic polls that are easy to create, manage and vote on using any web device. The ability to have a question image is very useful. The requirement for tutors to log in using Facebook may be a barrier to some. Tutors may need to minimise the browser window or run the poll from a separate device if they want to keep the voting secret until the students have voted and the question is closed.

Zappers on the go! Using EVS in fieldwork

May 6, 2011 at 3:24 pm | Posted in software | Leave a comment
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I’ve just come across this great YouTube video produced by the University of Plymouth, showing how Turning Point zappers can be used ‘in the field’ without a computer. Instead, they communicate with a handheld ResponseCard Anywhere receiver. So the tutor asks a question, the students vote, and the tutor gets instant feedback on their understanding. The video shows Earth Sciences students on a field trip to some cliffs, so the tutor might be asking “So what do you think caused this structure (pointing)? Is it a) folding, b)sinsestralshearing or c) dextral shear?”

The good news is that LATEU has a ResponseCard Anywhere that you can borrow – please get in touch with me if you would like to try it out.

Credit where credit is due

February 9, 2011 at 5:09 pm | Posted in software | Leave a comment
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I am usually keen to share any work I produce and take the time to apply Creative Commons licences – typically BY NC SA (attribution, non-commercial, share alike). The flip side of this is that I also take the time to attribute any resources I use with their CC licence. This process just got a whole lot easier with the release of a plug-in for Firefox and Chrome browsers called OpenAttribute that automatically collects the citation info so you can just paste it where required.

This also prompted me to release this blog under a CC licence using the simple instructions on the WordPress support site.

The plain text attribution for this page looks like this:

Work found at https://telic.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/credit-where-credit-is-due/ / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/)

While the HTML version looks like this:

Work found at https://telic.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/credit-where-credit-is-due/ / CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Voice Recognition done right

February 8, 2011 at 4:14 pm | Posted in software | Leave a comment
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Like many people, I’ve tried using voice recognition software as an alternative to typing, but never really got on with it. It wasn’t the accuracy that was a problem, but the need to adapt my speech to the software’s requirements. I also like to think as I type and this involves editing as I go, changing my mind about how to phrase things. Voice-controlled editing is just awful.

However, I’ve just come across a piece of software called WordQ and SpeakQ which is designed to assist typing by blending it with voice recognition. For example if you want to add a word which you aren’t sure how to spell, just say it. If the recognition engine isn’t sure what you said it presents the likely alternatives as a list and you choose the right one. It will read back what you have typed, making it much easier for dyslexic students or those with shakey spelling or grammar to hear and then correct their errors. Finally, it will suggest  word synonyms to help you vary your vocabulary.

Take a look at the short video and see if you wish this functionality was standard on your computer. Although it is aimed at people with learning differences I think that most users would find it helpful. The only downside is the cost at $200 for the download version; the high price reflects the limited anticipated market size. I wonder how many copies they would sell if it were only $20 and was instead marketed to “anyone who sometimes has trouble spelling”? Or perhaps Microsoft could do a deal and make it standard on Windows 8 – that really would be a unique selling point and a solid reason to upgrade!

Turning Point (zappers) bugs

January 12, 2011 at 4:59 pm | Posted in software | Leave a comment
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If you originally developed your voting slides in Turning Point 4.0, you may find that they do not work correctly after you reset the slides on a PC that has TP 4.2. The problem only affects slides that include countdown timers and/or correct answer indicators, but doesn’t occur consistently. You may find that in some cases the animation order gets jumbled, so that the correct answer indicator appears before the countdown timer (whoops) or that the countdown timer never appears.

The only solution seems to be to reset the slide and then check (and correct) the animation order in PowerPoint. I’ve produced a short video that shows you how to do this

Other Office 2010 issues

Here’s a nasty bug – Turning Point are aware of this and working on a fix. If you have hyperlinks in your PowerPoint slides and use them to access websites or jump to other slides during your presentation, PowerPoint will always crash on the next voting slide. So, don’t use hyperlinks and voting in the same slideshow – I’ll keep up the pressure on their tech support.

The next bug only affects people who use those cheesy PowerPoint template styles that have animation built-in: they may cause polling to close after a moment, before anyone gets a chance to vote. Use a non-animated template, such these University-branded ones especially for teaching.

In general, don’t add any animated objects or text to voting slides as they will probably mess them up. It’s fine to have all the animation you want on other slides in that presentation. You should also avoid having fancy slide transitions on voting slides.

If you originally developed your voting slides in TP 4.0, you may find that they do not work correctly after you reset the slides on a PC that has TP 4.2. The problem only affects slides that include countdown timers and/or correct answer indicators, but doesn’t occur consistently. You may find that in some cases the animation order gets jumbled, so that the correct answer indicator appears before the countdown timer (whoops) or that the countdown timer never appears.

The only solution seems to be to reset the slide and then check (and correct) the animation order in PowerPoint. I’ve produced a short video that shows you how to do this:
http://www.edshare.soton.ac.uk/6529/1/zapper_issue_fix.html

Other Office 2010 issues

Here’s a nasty bug – Turning Point are aware of this and working on a fix. If you have hyperlinks in your PowerPoint slides and use them to access websites or jump to other slides during your presentation, PowerPoint will always crash on the next voting slide. So, don’t use hyperlinks and voting in the same slideshow – I’ll keep up the pressure on their tech support.

The next bug only affects people who use those cheesy PowerPoint template styles that have animation built-in: they may cause polling to close after a moment, before anyone gets a chance to vote. Use a non-animated template, such these University-branded ones especially for teaching:
http://www.soton.ac.uk/lateu/resources_and_links/PowerPoint/index.html

In general, don’t add any animated objects or text to voting slides as they will probably mess them up. It’s fine to have all the animation you want on other slides in that presentation. You should also avoid having fancy slide transitions on voting slides.

How to include equations in Turning Point (zapper) questions

October 2, 2009 at 3:25 pm | Posted in software | Leave a comment
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I’ve produced some advice about how to include maths expressions in questions and/or answer choices, which is clearly a neccessity in maths, science and engineering quizzes. I plan to produce a short video sometime soon as well. While I was researching this, I also came across a TeX plug-in for Powerpoint that elegantly enables you to include high-quality equations in PowerPoint presentations – its called TEX4PPT, is a free download and was (hurrah) produced by a student at this University – sadly it doesn’t work with PowerPoint 2007.

Huddle – online project management service

October 1, 2009 at 9:05 am | Posted in software | 1 Comment
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Yesterday I had a one-hour online meeting with a representative from Huddle, an online Web 2.0 service that aims to help teams of people manage projects. Each project has a workspace where team members can share files, contribute to a discussion forum, manage tasks and edit a wiki. Team members can be assigned to sub-teams and permissions assigned so that individual sub-teams can only see or edit specific parts of the workspace. This would enable a project’s clients to see only selected resources while the development team can see and edit everything except the financial details, which are only available to the project directors.The shared files have decent version control, locking to prevent simultaneous edits and easy access to previous versions.

From the University’s perspective, the key advantage would be that the system is hosted ‘in the cloud’ and that it is easy to include team members from other institutions, organisations and companies across the globe. Our current institutional systems are firmly tied to UoS logins, so document sharing on collaborative projects is usually by insecure email, with all the usual version problems that that brings.

The pricing seems very reasonable, and I can imagine that many reserach projects would find it an excellent way to share and collaborate. Dr Kenji Takeda from Engineering Sciences uses the free (limited) version with some of his students – a great idea as I suspect many of those students will encounter similar project management systems when they enter industry.

Adobe Presenter and Camtasia Studio: compare and contrast

July 24, 2009 at 2:36 pm | Posted in lecture recording, software | Leave a comment
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I have been a fan of Camtasia Studio for some years, so it was interesting to try the latest version of Adobe Presenter and see how they compared.

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