Something to note on some protection worth mentioning to educators when we bring them on board to the iBooks platform.
"Books submitted to the iBookstore using a Paid Books Account can be protected by Apple's proprietary FairPlay DRM (digital rights management) system, which helps prevent unauthorized duplication of your book. (Movies and audio included in HTML5 widgets are not DRM-protected.)"
Well,
that was quick. Right after yesterday's surprising announcement,
Sony flew its yet-to-be-released NEX-VG10 camcorder into London just in time for
today's showcase event. Naturally, we had to get our hands on this shiny baby,
and boy we were impressed. In case you missed the news, this snazzy device is
the world's first consumer HandyCam with interchangeable lens, meaning you can
share E-mount lenses with your young NEX DSLRs, or take advantage of
the abundant A-mount lenses with the help of an adapter (which will cost you
extra, mind you). Likewise, there are also hot and cold shoe mounts on the mic
shaft to cater your current camera accessories. Read on for our thoughts on the
rest of the camcorder -- we've put together a little sample clip for you at the
end as well.
There
isn't much to complain about with this $2,000 (and, sadly, possibly £2,000 for
the Brits) piece of kit in terms of appearance and ergonomics. We like being
able to hold it by either the seemingly solid body (using the strap) or the mic
shaft, and both ways provided comfortable grip without much fatigue due to the
light weight (even with the bundled lens). We were also able to quickly master
the jog-dial control next to the 3-inch screen, but for this price, we expected
a touchscreen interface as well to make life easier. As for the bundled F3.5-6.3
18-200mm lens, we found that zooming required a bit more effort than we liked,
so thankfully there's auto focus mode -- just like any ordinary camcorder -- to
save us from further wrist work with the focus ring. We must also point out that
unlike the Olympus PEN,
this Sony camcorder didn't pick up any mechanical noise from its lens auto
focussing; otherwise, this kit totally wouldn't deserve such price tag.
Of
course, what we really care about is the picture and sound quality. All is
revealed in our sample reel below (remember to enable HD playback mode), but in
brief: stunningly accurate colors, sharp 1080/60i picture, and impressive audio
sensitivity (notice how the mic was able to pick up conversations from afar; you
can also enable just the front mics to minimise background noise). You may
notice some shakiness while we were adjusting the lens -- we'll blame it on our
lack of practice from the little hands-on time we had. Regardless, the NEX-VG10
certainly lived up to our expectation, and we look forward to hear what the
filming hobbyists think of this prosumer-level camcorder when it comes out in
September.
Update: commenter
aim120 dropped us a link to Sony's own sample clip. Enjoy!
Another glimpse of LMS provided by local vendor partner with Moodle plus SCORM 2004 3rd edition compliant, a requirement by MOE. Singtel is also the partner.
The major difference, then, is the database. SafeAssign's library will include a scan of the Internet and weekly updates of the ProQuest ABI/Inform database of 2.6 million articles, as well as student and faculty submissions made Blackboard's network of users.
Barrie said Turnitin has a far larger advantage of scale: the Turnitin database includes 40 million student papers from 9,000 academic institutions in 90 countries.
SafeAssign asks students for permission to store their papers each time they submit one via Blackboard, which may mean that the catalog grows more slowly than Turnitin's average of 100,000 new papers each day.
Turnitin vs SafeAssign for Blackboard. Both are building blocks for blackboard System. SafeAssign is free but a bit unstable, Turnitin is a paid service and subscribed by most institute of higher learning, as well as book publishers.
In mobile browsers, you need to be especially careful about
using timers because of the battery consumption. If you need to use many
high-frequency timers at the same time, try to manage them using
only one timer that will launch different behaviors from the same
process.
The first question we need to ask ourselves is, what happens
when our web page goes to the background because the user switches
focus to another application (in multitasking operating systems) or
opens or browses to another tab or window? Another problem is what
happens when the phone goes to sleep (because of the user’s inactivity
while the script is executing). The behavior of timers can be a little
tricky in these situations.Yet another problem is that timers execute on the same thread as
the main script. If our script is taking too much processor time (a
normal situation with large scripts on low- and mid-end devices), our
timers will be delayed until some spare execution time is
found.If we use a low frequency for the timer (for example, 10
milliseconds), the timer will generally have problems meeting the
timetable.Remember that the JavaScript execution time depends a lot on the
device hardware and the browser’s engine. Even if they’re running the
same operating system, like Android, execution times can differ: for
example, an HTC G1 will be much slower than a Nexus One with a 1-Ghz
processor.
As shown in Figure 4, the real times
are very different on different devices. On low- and mid-end devices,
if they work at all, the result is far from our 200 ms intention—some
low-end devices don’t even accept timers with a frequency of less than
1 second.
Table 11. Timers support compatibility tableBrowser/platformTimers
availableTimers in
backgroundSafariYesStopped. From iOS 4.0:
continue working while in other browser's
window.Android
browserYesStopped.Symbian/S60YesStopped. From 2.2:
continue working while in other browser's
window.Nokia Series
40No webOSYesContinue
working.BlackBerryNo NetFrontYesNo
multitasking.Internet
ExplorerYesStopped.Motorola Internet
BrowserNo Opera
MobileYesContinue
working.Opera
MiniNo Note:The Gmail for Mobile team discovered some issues with timer
behavior on mobile Safari and Android devices, and made the results
public in the team blog at http://www.mobilexweb.com/go/timers. The conclusions
are: for low-frequency timers (1 second or more), there are no
performance issues, and you can add as many as you want; for
high-frequency timers (for example, 100 ms), though, every new timer
created makes the UI more sluggish. The preferred solution is to use
only one high-frequency timer.
FRAMED* Interface is a screen that is seamlessly integrated with your iphone app, functioning as an intelligent and powerful control system.
NIE should have something like this around the corridors, collabrative classroom and COTF rather then the normal LCD TV to take advantage of interacting with mobile devices.
A Video Lecture Capture (VLC) system was implemented to address issues relating to retention, and to reverse the trend of
high drop, failure, and withdrawal (DFW) rates. The purpose of this study was to examine student perceptions of how using
VLC impacted their academic performance. Areas of interest surrounded students’ perceived benefits, value, and helpfulness
of using the system. In addition, the study probed the concern of many about the impact using VLC would have upon class attendance.
Finally the study compared students’ perceptions about their performance as a result of using VLC with faculty perceptions
about their students’ performance as a result of using VLC. It was hypothesized that there is a significant difference between
student and faculty perceptions.
CIT used to have an e-Portfolio service that did not have a high take up rate. There are several reasons for this that I can think of:
It was provided under the build it and they will come model. I believe not enough was done to convince students and teaching staff about the benefits of building e-Portfolios.
Consequently, no one was willing to integrate this into their course, as part of reflective learning.
Keeping an e-Portfolio was seen as extra work, which neither students nor staff were keen on.
Perhaps the software itself was not very conducive to building e-Portfolios. One key area with users seem to be that the e-Portfolio should have a customisable design and layout (at least on its public face). Our system was not flexible in that aspect. In fact, in the latter years, the option to publish the e-Portfolio was taken away entirely.
The e-Portfolio service was a walled garden. It wasn’t easy to bring in digital artefacts, which may have resided on other public services, nor was it easy to repurpose that information into useful formats – personal reference, actual resume, showcase of work.
No one figured how students would access the e-Portfolios after they graduated as it was all based on our single sign-on system.
A reflective commentary by one CIT staff in NUS on his dept's attempts to implement an ePortfolio service - and why it didn't have a high take-up rate.
Google has cooked up an idea it calls Gmail Tap, reinventing the QWERTY
keyboard as we know it.
The new text input system, announced in a blog post on April 1 (ahem, April Fool’s Day),
uses finger taps rather than keys in mobile Gmail
A pair of MIT Media Lab alums have come up with a do-it-yourself kit for making smart environments. David Carr and John Kestner, partners in the industrial design firm Supermechanical, have developed a small, durable, inexpensive remote sensor node, and an easy-to-use web app that turns data from the sensor node into timely information. The system, dubbed Twine, lets you tie everyday objects into your digital life.
Twine is a palm-size block of rubber that contains a WiFi node, temperature sensor and accelerometer. It’s powered by two AAA batteries or a mini USB connection. And it has a port where external sensors can connect. The initial external sensors are a magnetic switch, moisture sensor and a breakout board for building your own sensor. Supermechanical is also considering an RFID reader, pressure sensor and current sensor.
The biggest obstacle to bringing the latest technology into the classroom is always cost. We always state this and generically nod our heads. However, how much exactly does it cost to, say, create an entire iPad lab?
Lucky for you, one school system already did the math. Palm Beach County schools created a document outlining the cost and recommended cases for each iPad here. It is also embedded below and definitely wroth checking out. While each school has a different set of needs, this is a good jumping-off point to start thinking about real costs.
bernard tan on 14 Aug 13Something to note on some protection worth mentioning to educators when we bring them on board to the iBooks platform. "Books submitted to the iBookstore using a Paid Books Account can be protected by Apple's proprietary FairPlay DRM (digital rights management) system, which helps prevent unauthorized duplication of your book. (Movies and audio included in HTML5 widgets are not DRM-protected.)"
Rachel Tan on 14 Aug 13Bernard thanks for sharing this. Will keep Chew Hung informed.
