BPN 1693: My first Skype lecture

Excitement yesterday. I was going to present my first lecture by Skype. Having used Skype for a long time, technically there should not be real surprises, but presenting a lecture is a different game, I guessed. And yes it was.

The idea to present by Skype was not at all surprising. Having been involved in European long distance learning projects like EMIM (European Masters of Interactive Multimedia), a remote presentation sounds logical. But EMIM and it successor EVA (European Virtual Academy) register lectures and make them available to the instructors and students. But presenting a live presentation was new to me.

So in the framework of the Iwooti2014 workshop at the University of Applied Sciences in Mittweida (Germany), I was asked to kick off a series of lectures. I had the freedom of selecting a subject of my liking, so I chose Archaeology of e-reading.  Why? I think that all students of digital media should follow a module on archaeology of digital media, as there are lessons to be learned from history.
 

E-Reading is such a subject. Of course e-books are well known these day and are used on e-readers and tablets. But few people know that e-books were started out in the seventies as text files (in ASCII and in capitals) on mainframes and mini-computers. And in that time Alan Kay worked on his mock-up of Dynabook, a slate with a screen, keyboard and stylus. Can you imagine, in a time that mainframes and mini-computers, for which thousands of dollars were paid, he thought up a mobile, user friendly and payable device.  And this mock-up has become the leading design for e-readers and tablets. If it had been possible to technically produce the Dynabook at that time, it would have been a destructive technology for computer giants like IBM and DEC.

It was unbelievable that I could stay at home and did not have to travel to Mittweida (with a train drivers strike coming up). I could stay in the intimacy of my study and lecture from there. This has advantages, but also disadvantages.

I had prepared a lecture with Power Point with many pictures in it. And in the morning a student from Mittweida contacted me. After solving some technical problems I could start the presentation. There was only a one time-out by the network. But I stayed within the time bracket assigned.

I did learn a few things from this experience:

a.      Have a technical try-out beforehand, preferably the day before the presentation.

b.      Ask the host to introduce you to the audience and the audience to you. In this way you see the people present, but you can also attempt to exchange salutations with people you know and with audience in general. Of course, it makes it also easier to solicit remarks and answer questions from the audience.

c.      Showing artefacts, like books or e-readers, live is a problem due to the limitations of the camera. I wanted to show my 1993 vintage Sony Bookman e-reader (see photograph) and the working of it, but I saw that this did not really work on the screen in Mittweida.

d.      Major problem was the prompting of the Power point sheets. Before the workshop presenters were asked to upload the Power Point on a local server. So, I could not steer the Power Point presentation myself and was dependant on the technical assistance by the host.

All in all, the Skype lecture was an experience for me. I can only hope that the lecture was a challenge for the workshop participants.

BTW In the lecture I went into future opportunities for the E-book like interactive books. But I forgot the way back opportunity of 3D printing of an E-book!

BPN 1560 European Virtual Academy

Prof. Doru Pop, coordinator of the EVA-project
Recently the EVA-project was kicked off in Cluj, the capital of Transylvania in Romania (domain of Frankestein!). The aim of this project is to build the campus of visual culture studies as a pilot of European Virtual Academy over the next two years. EVA will have courses, library, labs and forums in the digital world, taking advantage of social media tools and Open Source software.

EVA will involve the best experts of learning - the students - to create the campus. Professors, lecturers and artists are already preparing the first nine pilot courses to start next autumn. The general language of the campus will be English, but courses will also be translated or subtitled to Romanian, Italian, German, Hungarian and Finnish.

EVA will allow the students of the media and art programmes of partner universities to do exchange studies in a truly international environment without traveling.

EVA partners are Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania (coordinator), University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy, Hochschule Mittweida - University of Applied Sciences, Mittweida, Germany, Sapientia Hungarian University of Transilvania, Cluj, Romania and Tampere University of Applied Sciences, TAMK. Later EVA will also invite other universities to join us.

The project is funded by the European Union Lifelong Learning Programme. The web site of European Virtual Campus will be launched in April.

It is great to see the EVA-project to be launched. Partners involve people who know each other through the Europrix and the European Academy of Digital Media: Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania; University of Milano-Bicocca, Milano, Italy; Hochschule Mittweida - University of Applied Sciences, Mittweida, Germany; Tampere University of Applied Sciences, TAMK. The coordinator of this EVA-project, Babes-Bolyai University has already experience with virtual courses in the European Master of Interactive Media program (EMIM), in which the European Academy of Digital Media also partakes. Congratulations to Rodica Mocan, Cesare Massarenti, Robert Wierzbircki, and Cai Melakoski. As general secretary of the European Academy of Digital Media I wish the project a lot of success.

This posting is an adapation of the posting written by Cai Melakoski of Tampere University of Applied Sciences, TAMK. See: http://tamk-artmedia.blogspot.com

BPN 1152 Moodle on iLiad

Today I am travelling back from Paris to The Netherlands by the hi-speed train Thalys. I mentioned yesterday that there was wifi inside. I tried it out and it worked.fast. In the first class the wifi is free; in the second class it is not available. But the speed is very acceptable. I cn not understand why theDutch railway company is unable to realise wifi in national and local trains.

Yesterday was an x-day: exhausting and exciting. Especially the project groups in the morning were interesting. They two groups were experimenting with Moodle on the iLiad. Moodle is used as a learning tool in the European Master of Interactieve Media (EMIM) project. Moodle is 24 hours online, but a student might not be able to get onlnie all the time, but still might want to work offline. The electronic book iLad might be one of th devices to be used in order to store the learning resources and assignements.

The two groups had divided the work. One group took care of the forms with multiple answer questions, while the other group was securing the online connection between the Moodle server and the iLiad. The first group was working virtually, simulating with pdf files.They were using the virtual keyboard of the iLiad for the forms, but did not like the virtual keyboard. They had encountered problem with Moodle and Linux. The students will be working the project for the rest of July and present there results by August 1, 2008. As they see it, the real challenge is in the upload.

The second group is studying securing the link between the server of Moodle and the iLiad. They will introduce a security client and will need to develop a file translator. They were also looking into Open VPN. They have still some work ahead. During the session, the instructor, Carina Roels, suggested to plan a trial between the two projects.

The project is in fact the result of short presentation I gave on digital paper during the Academic Network Conference in Graz last year. I gave a short talk about the iLiad and digital paper and called upon the college instructors to look into developing software, preferably open software, for the iliad. The ITIN project is interesting as it tackles Moodle and secure lines. I think that there are a lot of schools using Moole, but not having enough computers for the students. So other devices like e-readers could be used. Of course the iLiad is just as expensive as a computer, but cheaper wired e-readers will come around.

The afternoon session was more of a lecture. I had taken along my vintage e-readers. The Sony EB of 1993, the Rocket Book as well as my two years old iLiad. I passed the iLiad around and asked a student to switch it on. He had a hard time doing it. He and his other students pressed the wifi button so many time that it took more than a quarter of an hour to get it to show a book. One student immediately thought up a simple solution to indicate the position of the on/of switch. He would print the top of a thumbon the case with on/off symbol. I think I have suggested that one also two years ago after my spoiled unwrapping party. But so far I have not seen any symbol indicating the on/off sign on the iLiad case. As said before: technology products might sell; usability improved products sell better.

Blog Posting Number: 1152

Tags: e-reader, e-book, Moodle