Pogo Printers

 

I think the most memorable feedback I've had from a workshop was the one where someone claimed to have fallen in love during the session.

He enjoyed using the Pogo printer we were using so much he went straight out and bought one for himself.

It still attracts interest and today, a friend who was looking to buy one for herself found it at a bargain price, so I thought I'd share.

Have a look here

Could be just what you need for your holidays!

At the Show

Jane and I spent yesterday at the BETT show at Olympia, seeking further inspiration and ideas to ensure that adult learners in Gloucestershire continue to find their learning enhanced by tutors using technology to best advantage. Though much of the show was aimed squarely at schools and teachers working in purpose built environments (lots of interactive whiteboards and large, built-in equipment) we spotted a couple of small gadgets which we loved and which you might love too.

We thought this dinky voice recorder to be a great little tool for recording RARPA evidence across the whole curriculum as well as the more obvious language and literacy applications. Not only does it record, but that's a little speaker on the front so you can listen back as well. OK, not perhaps strong enough to play to a whole class but certainly loud enough for a group or for a single learner to listen to without disturbing everyone else. It connects to a computer and would download sound clips too.

The other really nifty gadget which we think you'll all want (because Jane and I want one now!) is this little projector. Personally, I think the "Pocket Cinema" is a bit misleading, for we're not really talking multiplex dimensions here - but for a group of eight or ten, working in a community setting it would be just great. It fixes to a small tripod or one of our gorilla pods and would show onto a darkened wall (this self-appointed "handsome assistant" is holding a black box screen to demonstrate it to best advantage, something that a resourceful tutor could rig up with no problem, I'm sure!)

As we left the show, Jane and I shared one or two thoughts, mainly how well Gloucestershire AdEd is doing in the e-learning stakes. You know, our tutors are really ahead of the game in making imaginative and inspirational use of technology in their teaching and the fact that so many share their experience and knowledge here is remarkable.

Coming up soon: Jane and I used the Flip camera to record a presentation by a Mimeo developer having introduced ourselves as Mimeo-phobics. First I have do do a bit of learning myself however....getting video from Flip to Blog. Watch this space.

Getting photographs on to a computer

I've been asked for some support on getting photographs from a camera onto a computer and thought that it might be a useful thing to share here. It's easy to assume that everyone knows what to do already, but with lots of new tutors joining the dream teams and getting their hands on one of our great digital cameras this term, I make no apologies for going back to basics!





I'm going to use one of the AdEd Sony cameras and my own PC at home. Your set up may be slightly different but many features will be the same.



I'm going to recommend you use free photo storage and basic editing software called Picasa. Because it's a Google product (like Blogger) it enables you to upload photographs easily to this or any other blog and short videos to You Tube as well. There are other software suites which do the same thing - you might have loaded one which came with your computer - but I'm making no apologies for using my favourite!






Download Picasa free from the internet... http://picasa.google.com/ If you're using an AdEd laptop, you might well find that it's already there. The latest version is V.3 and it's worth making sure that this is the one you use - it has all kinds of nifty tools inbuilt.

Decide how you want to get your photos into your computer....you can either use a wire like this (which came with the camera)

Ignore the yellow and black round plugs for now and just plug the USB into the computer and the other, rectangular plug into the slot on the bottom of the camera.

If you're not sure about USB plugs, have a look here where there are photographs of a USB plug and where it fits into a laptop.

You might prefer to download your photographs straight from the memory card which can be found next to the battery in your camera. All the AdEd cameras should have a memory card fitted - please don't lose it!




On occasion you might decide to take the card out and put the card into your computer somewhere to upload your photographs, though you might need some kind of adapter for it to fit. Even though I have a Sony computer which has a memory card slot which fits my camera card perfectly, I find it quicker to use the wire method. I keep the cable permanently attached in a USB port and just plug my camera in. As soon as I connect it, a window comes up on the screen asking what I want to do - I make the choice to open Picasa and import the pictures.





If I take out the memory stick and slot it in my computer, the same screen comes up and offers the same choices.

I import the photographs into Picasa and save them in a folder where I can find them again! Picasa stores them in date order anyway and it's easy to move them around once they're in, so I don't worry too much if I make a mistake at this stage.



Picasa also offers a choice whether you want to delete the photos from your camera/memory card at this stage or leave them where they are. When I'm at home, I wipe the card/memory every time, but when we're on holiday I leave them there until we get home. Then, when I get to my home PC I can upload the lot in one go onto my home computer and wipe the card.

And that's it. The photographs are now safely stored on my computer and I can use them how I wish. I can use the basic editing in Picasa to crop them, adjust lighting and colour and to make some simple changes - change them to black and white, for example. If I want to share the photographs or move them to another computer, I can copy and save them to a USB memory stick.

Don't know how to do that? Still stuck? Your AdEd friends are here to help you. Please don't hesitate to contact one of us and we'll do our best to get you up and running!

Getting the cameras out

Had a great workshop with Leigh Preston this afternoon, where we learned how to take better photographs with our cameras. Leigh was the best kind of tutor - anticipated all our questions and readily shared his experience and one or two particularly valuable tips. One trick in particular was priceless and delighted us all but I'm not going to share it - you need to take a class with Leigh yourself!

Hopefully there will be a further opportunity to work with this very talented photographer - you know where you'll read about it first, don't you?

I've set up a Flickr set on the AdEd Interest group page. Click here to see the photographs as they were taken, no editing! Yes, we really are that photogenic...

Oh, and don't forget the link to the Sony camera manual can be found in the list of links on the sidebar.

Worth all the bother (?)

Sometimes, the prepping and planning for a teaching session seems more bother than it's worth, don't you think? My work today involved just the odd bit of paraphernalia - just five bags, two boxes, a sewing machine and a laptop. I'll admit, at times I felt that was five bags and two boxes too many.

I decided to use laptop, projector, docucam, speakers...needed extension lead and screen too. Samples and sewing machine, paperwork and other kit filled the boot of the car completely. Setting it up took a while - of course, you knew the room would be upstairs, didn't you? - and the wire spaghetti around my end of the table was such a trip hazard I banned everyone from that side of the room.

Was it worth it?

You bet!

The expressions on the faces of the participants in my workshop were priceless, for this is a group not noted for making best use of technology. However, they embraced the whole shebang with enthusiasm and the evaluation comments made particular reference to "that great camera for showing details" and one said how she "loved all the computer stuff".

What did I do? I was teaching craft judges who normally work in village shows and used the comments of the Strictly Come Dancing judging panel as examples. We had recorded a short clip from the programme and included it in the powerpoint presentation I used during the day, complete with (loud) music, thanks to the speakers (which are excellent). The whole thing was contained on a memory stick and I had nothing to do but click the mouse button to get it all running smoothly. Worked a treat! Later, I used the docucam when we were discussing the finer points of the "competition entries" and found it so much easier than passing the things around.

Even more interesting was the discussion which followed, about the potential of using laptops and other kit. This group are ready, willing and able to take this further and I fear will be disappointed if I don't come up with something equally surprising next time. Ideas on a postcard, please!!

In my Docucam bag

We're having problems sorting out exactly what wires go with the docucam to enable it to be used to its full potential. I thought it would be helpful if I showed you what's in my bag - in addition to the docucam itself, of course!


Firstly, I have the power cable.


Then I have an S video cable - it's black and has a round connector at each end. I use that to connect the docucam with the projector.


Then I have a USB to USB cable, light grey in colour (I think this is the one Lizzie is missing, is that right?) I use that to connect docucam to laptop.

Finally, I have a serial cable - nothing at all to do with the docucam but most probably to connect laptop to projector. I include it to demonstrate how easily things get put back into the wrong bag and prove distracting!! Of course, this shouldn't be in this bag at all.....

Might I suggest that, when you have all cables home and dry, you get some sticky labels and label each cable for yourself, then you'll see exactly what's what. Sometimes, I've even resorted to putting a letter on each plug and a corresponding sticker on each socket to make sure I can connect everything confidently, because though I'm usually ok, there are times when it all gets too much!

Docucam wins more fans

I'm home from holiday and have been teaching today - a workshop for beginners about staging exhibits and displays. One item in my lesson plan is always tricky to get over - drawing accurate plans and elevations. Though the students can understand the idea of each, when it comes to actually drawing a plan and an elevation, they find it difficult and tend to draw hybrids rather than the definitive view.

So, today I took along the docucam and all was so much easier. Site the lens directly above the small arrangement and voila, there was the plan projected, ready to trace onto the flip chart. then move to eye-level in front of the exhibit and there was the elevation. No problem!

The brief, by the way, was to arrange several items from their handbag in some standard symmetrical/assymmetrical arrangements and record them for rebuilding later in the session. All agreed that having the views from the docucam projected onto the wall of the village hall was very effective and enhanced their learning.

Getting pictures onto a disk

Sara, I think I have the answer for you, here at home. It's called Smart Photostorage

This is a CD writer which doesn't need laptop or anything - simply slot a memory stick/camera card into the side, put a blank CDR into the front and bingo, it will write the files from one to the other. I think there's a USB connection too.

We used to take it on holiday, before we became totally hooked and got a tiny laptop. Every evening we'd transfer photographs from the day onto a CDR, no problem.

Now, how am I going to get this to you so you can play with it, I wonder?

Docucam speaking to PC

It seems as though it's proving a challenge to get the docucam and the PC connected to one another. Here are some photos to show the connections - though I realise my laptop isn't the same as yours!

Nevertheless, the pale grey cable which comes with the docucam should have a USB plug on each end, identified by this three pronged symbol. It should fit easily into the USB socket on the laptop, wherever it may be - perhaps on the other side of yours?

There's the same symbol on the docucam so you can see which socket it fits - though it's the only rectangular one there.

Now, I know you are clever people and you would have worked this out for yourselves already - which is why I wonder if you have the right cable?!?

Online resources for our kit

Just mooching around the internet to find online resources for when we leave the manual behind. I'll save these links to my del.icio.us page and suggest you might like to save them to your memory stick, your own list of bookmarks - or wherever you'll be able to find them again.

The Sony camera, w55 - a review, tips and hints and a link to the online manual here

The Epson Photo Printer - lots of links and information here

Haven't been able to find any online support for the mp3 player/recorder. I think we will simply have to rely on Fi!

I'm still working on the laptop, projector, Gyration mouse and keyboard. If you come across anything in the meantime, please share.