CLIPP Board

JISC launches guides to new technology

JISC have released a series of guides on using emerging technologies for research, administration or teaching covering social media, RSS, collaborative writing, podcasting and microblogging.

Each guide consists of a short animated video explaining the key concepts, supported by a more in-depth printable overview of the topic, covering the potential uses, risks and how to get started. The guides and the resources used to create them can be downloaded, modified and shared under a creative commons licence.

Find out more and download the guides at web2practice.

Campus Technology 2009 Selected Presentations

Campus Technology magazine run a yearly conference, that took place at the Boston Conference Centre July 27th-30th this year. As the name suggests it is concerned with teaching technologies and how they can help lecturers teach students. There are a number of key note speeches, work shops and presentations by people talking about their experience and benefits of using technology in teaching.

This year Sonic Foundry sponsored the capture of the presentations and have made them available on-line. Check out the catalogue of selected presentations.

Below I have highlighted a number of presentations that I think are most relevant to developments at Aston.

Another Year

Well, it is that time of year again when we all come back from holiday refreshed and full of New Year best intentions.

The mother of all best intentions might best be fired by reading the timely BBC Magazine’s The Problem with PowerPoint – including a 9 slide presentation, presentation expert Max Atkinson’s Blog, and reader experiences and strong reactions.

CLIPP project Effective Communication using PowerPoint is being presented on September 17th by John Fletcher & David Anderson. It is inspired by a book ‘Beyond Bullet Points‘ by Cliff Atkinson. Please do make a resolution to join us then.

Did I mention we(AV-support) are now called ‘Media & Learning Technologies’?

CLIPP Projects Day #2

I’m slightly ashamed to say that this is a repost from Aspects. I thought it said what I would have said but far more eloquently so rather than fight it here it is:

All staff are invited to the second round of University Good Practice CLIPP presentations taking place on 3^rd and 17^th September in MB118 from 9.30am – 1pm. The presentations will comprise of a series of short presentations sharing experiences and outcomes from the first round of CLIPP teaching and learning projects and a round table discussion. They will cover a range of topics such as: creating a positive learning environment for NON EU students; effective communication using PowerPoint to Vodcasting animated video tutorials for final year students. You are welcome to stay for the whole event or an individual session. Timetable and information.

As you can see from the picture above the first CLIPP Projects Day was well supported. It was an interesting day of hearing about what people have got up to so I suggest if you missed it this is a chance to get involved. I will of course post a reminder closer to the day but in the interest of catching as many people as possible, I thought I would get an early announcement up.

Getting Started With Second Life

I consider myself a nerd someone who is interested in the geekier side of things, but Second Life can leave me perplexed. So it is great timing that JISC have just published a guide to getting starded with Second Life.

The guide has been written by representatives from several projects from within JISC’s recent Users and Innovation programme, which gave project teams the opportunity to work in emergent technology spaces that at the time were the domain of very few in higher education. These included multi user virtual environments such as Second Life.

You can order a copy or download the guide on the JISC site.

AV-Support gone!

AV-Support has changed name, some Media & Learning Technologies staff have moved! The main MLT office(SW409) and other MLT staff are still in South Wing.

We are now in MB509, underneath Costa coffee, and around the corner on the east side from our old office (MB572, since 2000!) which is currently being demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass or very long flat room like MB708.

All our phone numbers stay the same, the general number is still x4221.

Email is still to av-support@aston…

Tim, John & Dean

WordPress for iPhone

Mobile blogging from my iPod – I’m in Cafe Libro!

Capture that moment of inspiration while it is still fresh, even if only a draft copy to reflect on later.

WordPress for iPhone – free from Apple’s iTunes App store

FAQ

Exchange sync everywhere?

My previous post “What is RSS?” explained how I manage web information across multiple computers of different types, at work, home and anywhere else.

I also do the same with my Aston email, contacts and calendars(Aston & Google).

I use Microsoft(MS) Outlook on my work PC. Outlook is part of MS Office(I have the latest Office 2007, but previously used 2003 version). I prefer to use Google Calendar for multiple work and private calendars, and I can access it from any web enabled device, but functionality and usability are not always as convenient as dedicated applications.

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