Small Office Home Office (SOHO)?

Something that has delayed my plans for new revision materials, including multimedia "stuff" (see last post), is the lack of space I have at both home and work. York House was a bit of a dump but at least it was a more spacious dump than Chaucer - which is nice but lacks both identified office space and just spare (quiet) corners (or complete rooms) in which to sometimes work, especially spontaneous creative work.

Home is relatively small and my wife correctly reminds me that our conservatory is not an office and so now and again I clear out (or take *back* to my office) assorted materials. It would be so nice to have more room to keep all my bits and bobs or to leave out things like Camcorders all plugged in and ready to go... (either at home or work). Instead I spend lots of time and energy constantly sorting, hiding or otherwise putting away and getting out things without actually getting much done. Or as much as I'd like or otherwise could...

Blogger, NOW and YouTube

I've been off work lately because my mother recently passed away so I'm very grateful for a combination of Blogger, NOW (Nottingham Online Workspace) and YouTube. More to the point my third year Economics students are/will be for as I play catch up with my planned revision materials/sessions for their impending exam.

A mix of text, images, audio and video can be fairly quickly generated (I hope/plan) to give them a full range of revision materials that should suit any number of learning styles.

Comic Book Art

Really posting this to remind me to go back to look at use of Comic Life for producing educational materials.

Wide Screen Option

Ahh yes YouTube has gone wide screen by deafult(16:9 I think) and it means that new video postings onto some of the older template designs look a little odd/broken. Maybe I'll get around to working out the workaround...

Module Option Talk Video

Cheap and cheerful video capture of the option talk that I gave yesterday to the second year Economics students. They were sitting through a series of presentations to help them choose their optional modules for next year. I was a bit under the weather and forgot a couple of tricks/props I was intending to use but it seemed to go okay anyway...

I've also posted this on the actual module blog but am copying it here too as an example of the kind of thing you can do with little in the way of equipment. It isn't snazzy but it does the job... which you can see here:

Video Feedback er Video...

Short rough and ready screen capture that does the job of telling colleagues how I recently tried using video to give students faster and more effective feedback when used in conjunction with traditional feedback for some third year coursework. All rather low tech but seems to have been effective - formal feedback in due course. I trialled this on my third year Economics module, The Internet, Computers & Society (ITEC30011).

Please note the first video that I play hasn't been picked up by the screen capture software but the audio has - and the subsequent video clips are okay - both video and audio.

August 2009 Addendum: I've since had the formal feedback from this module and it has been very positive. Over 90% of the students on the module viewed the videos and 100% of those who viewed their personal feedback videos found them useful. Over 90% of students also viewed the generic feedback video and 90% of those reported finding it useful. Something else that emerged (via both formal and informal feedback) was that having a video seemed to encourage students to read through the written feedback on their actual physical submission (since they told me so). Furthermore every assignment was collected by students, whereas many assignments (with their feedback) are often left uncollected.

I've since been asked to talk to the NOW VLE team (NOW being the Virtual Learning Environment used by Nottingham Trent University) about my use of the VLE for hosting the videos so expect some further outputs in due course. It is certainly my intention to repeat this next year and to expand its use where practical. It does involve some more work on my part but seems to offer big benefits to the students. So I'm thinking about the best ways to incorporate the use of video feedback, so as to keep it manageable, and thus encourage colleagues to consider its use. I'll be posting some video "How To's" and tips in the near future.

iPhone, Netbooks And More...

Really wish I'd gotten around to buying a netbook of some description when I had to haul my rather old and very heavy laptop up to yesterday's event. Had a MacBook too and loads of other gear. The MacBook was fine but I was very envious of those travellers I saw with netbooks, very small and very light, and ideal for travelling.

Once I'd got to Glasgow and was traveling into the city centre I could have really done with an iPhone or similar device so that I have access to maps and a GPS signal.

But I'm sure that was just passing shiny gadget envy while lugging lots of heavy stuff. All these things are desirable but generally too expensive for what they are... which is why I spend lots of time eying up these devices but don't actually (or rarely) actually buy any of them. When's a decent Android based phone going to appear so I can eye that up before deciding it's just too expensive or not quite right.

Flying High Again!

Well quite high.

Flew to Glasgow (and back) yesterday for an event organised by the SWAP Subject Centre and the Institute for Research and Innovation in the Social Services IRISS.

Travelling there and back by train wasn't viable (I checked) so had to fly. Flight itself was perfectly pleasant (each way) but those early check-in times and airline security procedures are a pain in the arse. As is the traveling to get to and from the airports outside of the cities. But the event itself was most worthwhile.

Breaking the duck

About one hour of hour left to go.

Finally breaking the duck on this blog. Even been off my third year module blog for a month. That's it really. Tomorrow is September and the rush towards the new academic year is beginning...

Phil

York House Update

Well another bunch of colleagues has just left York House. One colleague was telling me that they had been based in the building for 34 years. Many different offices over that time but 34 years in one building. A long time...

Having said that I came here as a student in 1985 and although I haven't been here the whole time since then I have been here most of the time. Where does the time go?

If you want to see more photos of York House then a search for York House NTU on Flickr brings up a number of collections featuring York House.