Virtual Revolution: 3D Explorer URL

Virtual Revolution: 3D Explorer URL

Just in case you have problems finding it here is a direct link to the 3D Explorer multimedia.

You can effectively watch full episodes or jump between Chapter points and resources.

We do not have the class time to watch all four hours of the series in class but a DVD is available from library or you can watch it on-line as a good quality video stream. Over the course of the module I will highlight some key sections that I think you really should watch; but I have to say the whole thing is really very good.

VR: The Great Levelling Blog

Here is a link to the official blog post for the first episode of The Virtual Revolution: The Great Levelling.

The Virtual Revolution: The Great Levelling

The Virtual Revolution 3D Explorer Guide

Levelling The Land is Episode 1 of The Virtual Revolution.

The Virtual Revolution is a recent production form the BBC and Open University.

The four (one hour episodes) are available on DVD from the university library.

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.

JSWEC 2007 Swansea

Joint Social Work in Education conference (JSWEC) 2007.

I was there at the invitation of the Social Work and Policy Subject Centre, with whom I have an e-learning consultancy role. One of my jobs at the conference was to record video interviews with some of the keynote speakers and authors of key texts who were present at the conference. I was also working as an event photographer capturing lots of “goings on” and capturing some informal video footage for later use in some training materials.

There will be some formal video footage on the SWAP website in due course but I’ll also be putting together some short video montages using free software, and then showing people just how I did it, so that people can learn how to do it for themselves.