mobile applications 1

The division of computing is investigating ways of the using of mobile applications both in terms of iphone apps and also investigating how some of the web based materials the division produces can be made more to be more accessible on mobile devices such as the iphone.

Examples of the web-pages design changes are shown below:

   Before making it more readable on an iphone.

 

A minimal adaption to the website that makes the pages more readable without effecting the way it is view on a browser on a PC.

Alternatively as shown above produce an interface specific to the iphone.

Several members of the division are members of the iphone developers network.

Powerpoint, but what else?

Can you sit through another powerpoint presentation often with strange colour combinations? Some initial work has been going at the University of Northampton on alternatives to powerpoint. Students were encouraged in certain assignments to consider alternatives to powerpoint.. 

The first was Tiddlywikis (http://www.tiddlywiki.com/) these largely self contained HTML files (they do often use a separate folder to store images) are releatively small but can be used to produce a web-based presentations.

 In two cases Machinima has been used one based around the Halo game and the other using a free package called MovieStorm (ShortFuze) in this case  a powerpoint presentation was embedded within it. Other students have gone down the route of using packages such as Microsoft's MovieMaker or PhotoStory to combine video or still images into a movie form.

Does this make the presentation better though? A personal view is though it does not automatically make the presentation better, I believe most people would find it more fun to do and so put more effort into them which will tend to make the presentations better. As a marking tutor the fact that is a bigger variation is the way the presentations look, makes a comparison of more difficult but at the same time more enjoyable to mark.

What about the lecturer? Of course the lecturer needs to consider if the way we present appropriate as you would for any part of your teaching. There are presentation tools out there that are very different to powerpoint as an example Prezzi.com that personally I think are interesting and worth considering. An example can be found at: http://prezi.com/s3uk0xmhq-hs/

.

Further Reading

Turner S(2009) " PowerPoint, but what else?"10th Higher Education Academy-ICS Conference, University of Kent.

Turner S (2008) "TiddlyWikis for Student Developed Resources" 9th Higher Education Academy-ICS Annual Conference, Liverpool Hope University, 26th August - 28th August 2008. pp. 192 ISBN 978-0-9559676-0-3.

News: Feedback on junkbots

Feedback from the sessions in December are very encouraging. When students were asked to grade out of 5 the sessions overall ( scores with 1 being poor and 5 excellent) of the twenty replies received 100% were rate at 4 (65%)or 5(35%). In all the questions asked, the feedback was in the majority rated three or above.

For this group of the students the creative aspects of the activities engaged them and this was reflected in their feedback. Quotes from some of the students:
“it was fun and creative, I learnt quite a bit”
“It let use be creative with our design.”
“it opened my eyes to engineering”
This last on is especially of note as the aim of the project is to encourage engagement with Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) subjects.

The waste management activities seem to engage from the point of view of helping them to understand their own impact both positively and negatively.
“...it was cool to know what my carbon footprint is.”
“... made me think about all the waste in the world.”
“[I] now recycle”

An observation that needs to be unpacked a little more is the language the students used. Each reply was an individual reply, but in many cases ‘we’ and ‘us’ was used. This could be indicative that these students did see it as a group activity (which it was intended to be). A couple of quotes from one of the students on this point
“We liked this activity because it help us work as a team.”
“We really enjoyed ourselves over the last 4 days. We found it very useful.”