JISC Digital Media Blog Archive
June 2010

So long, and thanks for all the toast

Posted by Gavin Brockis on Tuesday 29 June 2010 at 2:50pm
Tags: open source | screen capture | screencast |

It's just been announced that Screen Toaster - the free online screen capture tool - is to shut down, with both the service and all online content unavailable after July 31st 2010.

We've used Screen Toaster quite a lot for informal screen capture and quick screen grabs, often on managed machines with no screen capture application and no way of installing one, and it was a really useful tool with some good options not offered by its competitors - downloadable MOV and Flash screen capture files for a start. We'll certainly miss its functionality and ease of use, and while there are alternatives like Screenr, there's nothing that fits the bill quite so well at the moment. Being accessed through a browser, there was no need to install software on the host machine - sometimes a problem with managed networks - but unlike most online tools Screen Toaster allowed you to download your file after capture for processing and post-production in the DAW of your choice. Neat.

Its demise also brings to light the dangers of relying on online tools which offer no legacy support. Even if the producer of a piece of commercial software goes bust, I still have it installed on my computer, and I can still use it - at least in the interim period until I find a successor. Not so an online application - once it's gone, it's gone, and all your work in learning to use it is gone with it. It's always worth considering the risks should support become unavailable for a key element in any workflow, and software can be particularly ephemeral.

On a personal note, I was hoping to use Screen Toaster for one or two introductory exercises (fortunately quite minor ones) for our new Building Effective Screencasts workshop which is currently in development (E.T.A. September 2010) - guess I'll have to find an alternative :-/

CamStudio, while different in functionality, is critically open source, unlike Screen Toaster, so will always be here as long as we have the freely available source code. Chalk one up to the Open Source warriors! That will do for now, but an online hosted version would be very cool (attention developers!)...

For further information and advice about screen capture and screencasting tools - including some alternatives to Screen Toaster - take a look at our Screencasting Workflow guide, and look out for new workshops coming soon.

Resources for mobile learning

Posted by Zak Mensah on Tuesday 29 June 2010 at 8:01am
Tags: e-learning | mobile |

JISC infoNet Mobile learning infoKit 2011

JISC Mobile and Wireless Technologies Review, JISC infoNet

Identifying Emerging Issues in Mobile Learning in Higher and Further Education

A report to JISC by Jocelyn Wishart and David Green Graduate School of Education University of Bristol
Visit report (PDF)

James Clay mobile blog posts

All of James Clay's blog posts tagged with 'mobile'.

Designing for mobile

The Face-Off: Mobile Web (and not Apps) are the Right Choice

Prabhas Pokharel discusses both approaches to designing for mobile in his 'face-off' post.

An Alistpart article looking at the choice of building mobile specific apps vs mobile web versions

Mobile first

Radio show interview with Luke Wroblewski about designing for the mobile space

Responsive web design

An Alistapart article focusing on designing websites using 'media queries' that will help cater for mobile devices - Responsive web design

JISC Mobile learning

JISC is investigating the potential for mobile technologies and what impact these might have on learning and teaching practice.

Key mobile learning activities

This webpage contains links to relevant JISC programmes, projects and documents JISC mobile learning

Presentations

Mike Ellis - Mobile: the next frontier

News articles

The Guardian

All posts tagged mobile phone on the Guardian website

Finally I store all my mobile related bookmarks within the delicious service. Enjoy.

OK Go - Samson’s mini USB microphone

Posted by Gavin Brockis on Friday 25 June 2010 at 2:34pm
Tags: microphones | sound recordings |

Over the past few weeks I have been steadily growing to love my new little microphone - the Samson Go Mic. Working on a range of platforms and devices, I need a self-contained USB microphone  for podcast and screencast recording which is portable and self-contained, will give consistent quality whichever computer I plug it into, is easy to install (ideally Plug&Play) and which has a good feature set. The Go Mic ticks all of these boxes, and at around £30 is good value for what it offers - most USB condenser microphones cost considerably more. So, what can it do?

The Go Mic is a very small device, little bigger than a box of matches. In this small package, however, it incorporates a flexible set of features. While clearly being built to a budget, it feels and looks solid and well built; the built-in clip is ingenious, and all controls and sockets are sensibly positioned. The 10mm dual diaphragm condenser capsule allows switching between directional recording, with a cardioid pattern facing away from the silver front face, or omnidirectional pickup, which picks up sources evenly all around the microphone. For louder sources you can attenuate the directional pattern by 10 decibels. These three options should be sufficient for most situations. Recording quality is excellent, with a wide frequency range and very little colouration, and it gives a crisp vocal sound.

Plugging it into a Windows computer (XP or 7) it is recognised immediately and available for recording within seconds. Similarly the Macintosh knows exactly what it is. This is very welcome. I can use the 3.5mm headphone jack on the side of the microphone to listen to system audio, and playback quality is very good. I can also route the microphone signal to the headphone output for real-time monitoring, and latency is very low, with no noticeable delay. The microphone draws all power necessary from the USB port. Its only real limitation is that while the Go Mic doesn't need a soundcard to plug into - like all USB microphones - it has no option for outputting a 'standard' microphone signal, so you are stuck with its own onboard digital conversion, and you won't be able to use it with portable recorders, cameras etc. but only in conjunction with a computer.

I've used the Go Mic for a couple of projects now, recording voice-overs in a variety of environments, and its sound is clear and well defined with a pleasing warmth which makes for easy listening and clarity. You can hear an example of a bit of informal voice-over recording in the final screencast of our Screencast Workflow advice document.

Video blog about the Samson GoMic.
If you cannot see the video above, please use this link to download the video file (20MB).

For more information about types of microphone, and an explanation of some of the terminology surrounding them, have a look at our Microphone Guide.

Side-by-side comparison of Kodak Zi8, Sony Z5 and Flip

Posted by Steve Hull on Friday 18 June 2010 at 8:42am
Tags: cameras | equipment | hardware | microphones | podcasts | video |

The setup used to record the video, from left to right the Kodak Zi8, the Sony Z5 and the Flip Ultra.  Note the viewscreens of the three cameras and the microphone cable leading from the Kodak camera.

As you'll see, the differences between the three are striking in terms of both picture and sound.  The Flip's results are the poorest, but that's no reflection on the quality of the device.  It's over a year older than the Zi8 (a long time in the camcorder market), it's only SD and it can't take an external mic, and given those limitations it does fine.  By the way, note how the Flip makes me look like a Klingon.  The rippling forehead isn't the fault of the Flip, but rather an artefact of the post-processing as the Flip's 480 lines of video are uncompressed, converted to 1080 lines and re-compressed in the finished product.  Problems like this can be minimised with a little experimentation in the post-production phase.

The Sony Z5 with a Sennheiser wireless mic system gives (unsurprisingly) the best results, but the most interesting setup is the one with the Kodak Zi8 and an anonymous lapel mic.  The picture quality on the Kodak is quite good: it's very, very sharp (shooting in 1080p with a Zeiss lens) and the colour rendition is acceptable, though not nearly as nice as the Sony.  Remember, however, that we've just used the standard room lighting which is far from ideal.  But notice what a big difference the external mic makes!  Even a cheap and cheerful mic like this works wonders, because it can be placed where it should be placed, next to the source of the sound instead of inside the camera.  The only thing missing from the Kodak is a headphone socket, for without that there's only one way to know how the video will sound, and that's to do a test video, download it and play it back.

Comparison of three different video setups.
If you cannot see the video above, please use this link to download the video file (11.7MB).
Or use this link to download a much larger HD version of the video (98.8MB).

If you're interested in finding out how to get the most out of your pocket camcorder, take a look at our advice documents, the Basic Guide to the Flip, the Basic Guide to Videoing Interviews and the Basic Guide to Videoing Lectures.

Digital distribution of teaching presentations

Posted by Antony Theobald on Wednesday 09 June 2010 at 10:05am
Tags: e-learning | news | powerpoint | presentations | teaching |

Photo from Library of Congress on Flickr: The Commons. No known copyright restrictions.

The advice document looks at the different ways teaching presentations can be digitally distributed to their end users: Distributing Teaching Presentations.

Using images for educational purposes

Posted by Nigel Goldsmith on Wednesday 02 June 2010 at 11:33am
Tags: finding images | news | teaching |

Using Images to Reinforce Learning looks at potential benefits and introduces some guidelines for the correct use of images.

Practical Ways to Use Digital Images in Teaching and Learning provides examples of ways in which digital images can be used in teaching and learning materials.