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!
Frequent use of mobile devices does not mean that students or instructors are ready for mobile learning and teaching
Wherever one looks, evidence of mobile penetration is irrefutable: cell phones, PDAs, MP3 players, portable game devices, handhelds, tablets, and laptops abound. No demographic is immune from this phenomenon. From toddlers to seniors, people are increasingly connected and are digitally communicating with each other in ways that would have been impossible only a few years ago.5
Consequently, it comes as no surprise that sooner or later people would begin to look for ways to integrate mobile computing into e-learning to make courses more accessible and portable. For example, Duke University made headlines when it provided all incoming freshmen with their own 20-gigabyte iPods. Similarly, the Virginia Tech College of Engineering became the first public institution to require all students to purchase a tablet PC beginning with incoming freshmen in fall 2006.
Why Develop for Android?Android is an open-source platform based on the Linux kernel, and is installed on thousands of devices from a wide range of manufacturers. Android exposes your application to all sorts of hardware that you’ll find in modern mobile devices — digital compasses, video cameras, GPS, orientation sensors, and more.
Android is an open-source platform based on the Linux kernel, and is installed on thousands of devices from a wide range of manufacturers.
Android’s free development tools make it possible for you to start writing software at little or no cost.
Publishing to Android Market incurs a one-off registration fee (US $25 at the time of writing) and, unlike Apple’s App Store which famously reviews each submission, makes your application available for customers to download and buy after a quick review process
Here are a few other advantages Android offers you as a developer:The Android SDK is available for Windows, Mac and Linux, so you don’t need to pay for new hardware to start writing applications.An SDK built on Java. If you’re familiar with the Java programming language, you’re already halfway there.By distributing your application on Android Market, it’s available to hundreds of thousands of users instantly. You’re not just limited to one store, because there are alternatives, too. For instance, you can release your application on your own blog. Amazon have recently been rumoured to be preparing their own Android app store also.As well as the technical SDK documentation, new resources are being published for Android developers as the platform gains popularity among both users and developers.
This article also includes a step by step walkthrough development for android app using Android SDK. With so little offering courses on Android development currently, it could prove to be a good read. ;)
Schoology is a startup that seeks to address many of the pain points of the LMS: Schoology is easy to use. It's free. It offers data portability. It encourages communication and collaboration with look and feel of contemporary social networking sites rather than the bulletin boards of circa 1996. But it isn't simply a social networking tool. Schoology provides the functionality of its big name competitors - Blackboard, Moodle.
Most LMSes isolate students in their particular courses. And once that class is over and once a student has graduated, the information contained there - notes, lessons, assignments, discussions - are lost. Schoology blends a social networking interface with learning management tools, so that teachers and students (and parents and administrators) can communicate and collaborate on academic issues.
A video that was shared during a course I attended at MIS. This advertising firm created their website as a string of Youtube videos. Click on the links on the sides or "Home" to get back to the homepage. Cool!
The recent growth of ebooks and tablet computers, like the iPad, is fuelling the drive towards digital education. For the first time, institutions are thinking of innovative ways to incorporate digital content into learning programs. The potential to reach a global audience is also significant. And online learning need not be static or impersonal: on the contrary, it offers unparalleled opportunities for interactivity and open communication among students and teachers
Another attractive feature of online learning is that it is much more accessible than traditional tuition. Since resources can be spread instantly and for free to anyone in the world, learning is immediate, affordable and rewarding. It does not attract the hidden costs of contact based learning, like transport, material and stationery costs, which makes it valuable for less-privileged students. It also allows working people to gain valuable education in the time available to them, so that they can increase their skills and improve their working lives.
Many universities are now posting video lectures, reading materials and other resources for free online. The range of materials covers everything from introductory videos and podcasts to advanced textbooks and detailed research -- a true multimedia experience.
Gates says that it's not enough just to have good content: it needs to be organised in a useful way and backed up with a solid teaching support network. It is difficult to test knowledge or prove capabilities without structured academic programs. But this is where the internet can truly shine: an online course is not hampered by physical constraints or the high costs of full-time, contact-based learning. One teacher can easily oversee and support many students from anywhere in the world, and learning can be done at the student's pace, with access to a wider range of materials, discussions and resources than would be possible in a traditional physical learning environment.
ith a robust page/view mechanism supporting transitions, UI elements, dead-simple navigation, and list management, the jQuery Mobile framework provides everything you need to get up and running quickly with a mobile-savvy website or application without a complete crash-course in a new development model.
In the next version of Dreamweaver, we plan to allow easy creation of a jQuery Mobile project and easy insert objects to let you build out your user interfaces quickly and with confidence. Greatly expanded jQuery code hinting will help professionals make the best use of their time and enable designers to more effectively understand the syntax and structure of jQuery. Combined with the WebKit-powered Live View introduced in Dreamweaver CS4, you’ll be armed with some of the most powerful tools available to help your clients and projects move swiftly into a multiscreen world.
jQuery goes mobile. Simple attributes applied to basic elements are all you need, and the jQuery Mobile API offers endless possibilities to those who wish to go under the hood.
Twitter allows you to engage with professionals who you may never get the opportunity to meet or interact with in the real world. Following professionals in your field can provide you (and your students) with insight into different fields of interest, both personal and professional.
nyone will be able to create and deploy mobile learning content with our easy-to-use mLearning Studio; choose templates, add text, images, audio, video and quizzes, then publish. The content is delivered in a fully HTML5 compatible mobile course player with cross-platform support for iPhone, iPad, and Android (2.2 and higher); support for Blackberry coming soon.
It is a mistake to try to implement a
full "course" as an mLearning application, or to think of
mLearning as classic asynchronous eLearning but on a smaller screen.
In order to avoid this, designers must think through their
instructional strategy (how to effectively combine the various
modalities and platforms) and their implementation strategy (it may
be better to start with performance support via mobile than to start
with delivery of instruction).
You can get a lot of help in this
effort from the Mobile
Learning: Landscape and Trends report itself. It will give
you unbiased information about the issues, the tools, and the
experience of many organizations as they implement mLearning.
In the next two weeks, Learning
Solutions Magazine will offer features on implementing mLearning.
On June 14, The Guild’s Thought Leader Seminar will feature Gary
Woodill, speaking on “The
Mobile Learning Edge: How Learning on the Move Can Be A Competitive
Advantage.”
In the industry right now – as we see
in the Social Media for Learning report
research data – there is considerable use of social media tools in instruction
delivery efforts. But there’s less evidence that people are using the tools to
support social learning. Often, people use social media tools as another means
of delivering content. For example:
Publishing the training department
newsletter on a blog
uto-scheduling tweets about class
assignments from a Twitter account that does not otherwise engage with the
learners or ask them to engage with each other
Hosting a software application development
course, in tutorial format, on a wiki
By contrast, using social media to
support and extend social learning invites learners to contribute, engage, and
participate with one another online. For instance, when:
Setting up a wiki for those in a new-hire
induction program to work together to edit a FAQs page for use by the next
group coming to the program
Having managers-in-training use a
microblogging tool for a leadership book-club discussion
Helping to support and participating in a
community of the organization’s customer service reps, to give them a place to
share war stories and strategies for dealing with challenges
So just using the online tools to
deliver content doesn’t support “social learning;” that happens when you use
the tools to invite interaction from and between the learners. It’s about
social, not media, and it’s about shared learning, not just pushing content.
New social media tools now enable social learning to happen on a much larger scale. But this doesn't mean that social learning is something we suddenly need to "do," as if it hadn't existed before or that we need to attempt to "implement." Rather, those involved in eLearning should work to ensure our designs home in on and support areas where social learning is already naturally occurring in the learner's workflow and leverage new tools where that makes sense. (Workflow questions: Where and when are workers asking for help from one another? Where do they need performance support?)
The real treasure trove was to be found in the students' innovations. Working together, and often alongside their professors, they came up with far more learning apps for their iPods than anyone—even at Apple—had dreamed possible. Most predictable were uses whereby students downloaded audio archives relevant to their courses—Nobel Prize acceptance speeches by physicists and poets, the McCarthy hearings, famous trials. Almost instantly, students figured out that they could record lectures on their iPods and listen at their leisure.
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.
The most sophisticated prototype is of course the one that is programmed on a computer. Because you can build this kind of prototype any way you want, it will be most like the final game. A programmed prototype allows you to test aspects of your game that the before-mentioned prototypes lack, like user interface, controls and timing. A programmed prototype is also easy to share with other people and is therefore great for communication and soliciting feedback. Of all prototypes discussed, the programmed prototype takes the longest to create and is the hardest to change, so I recommend you start using it only after you have the basics of your game design and rules well in place.
Hi Dr. Ashley, sorry, it looks like it's restricted access. Do we have to pay for it, or is there some educational service that we can use to access the article?
Dear all, I've downloaded the article already. If anyone of you is interested (unfortunately, it's not available in the NIE library but the NTU library internal network only), please feel free to approach me for a copy.
posted Jul 15th 2010 8:34PM 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.
Chee Ted Shing on 22 Oct 10Sony NEX-VG10 HD camcorder The system may be suitable for our needs. Its a camcorder with multiple changeable lens ( wide, zoom or tele lens)
