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.

Cyber shot photos!

Been using the camera to take shots of last terms students work to test out focusing capabilities so that the learners can easily take successful pictures of their work from which to print some colourful pictures!
Have found that switching the macro on (the tulip symbol on the cursor disc) is good for detail shots...might be useful to you Kirstie if taking close up pictures of food made by learners!
Looking forward to letting the learners use the camera in class on the 29th April! (Star College - ACL Textiles)

Open Learn

Did you know that the Open University have made some of their materials freely available on line at Open Learn? There are a huge range of units in lots of topics. Was browsing tonight and see they have a Unit on Textiles in Ghana. See http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/

Technical help please!

Using software on the laptop I've put together a 7 minute video of short clips of my ALDD learners working. This short video plays well on the laptop screen. I tried to project it onto my living room wall in preparation for showing to the group at the beginning of next term. The projector was only showing the desktop and media player window, and not the video, which was showing on the laptop.
Using the Nero sofware on the laptop I then burnt the video as a video CD, however, the computer could not read the files when I tried to play it back.
Can anyone help me solve this? I would really like to use the many short video clips that I've made of my learners in action.
Thanks, Lizzie

stitched and felted blackberries and leaves

making a photographic resource

I am having a go at creating a resource on 'how to make berries and leaves'. I have taken some blackberry photos as my inspiration and used felt making, french knots, hand dying, machine stitching, wrapping and using disolvable fabric to create the berries and leaves. I intend to use power point (can't do this yet) to present the photos and instructions. Suggestions on other ways to do it would be great. I have already made a 'how to do' book using the photos and samples. Still more work to do and I will add some more photos, but I thought if I get some of the 'pics' on flickr it would inspire me to get on with the next stage and maybe get some suggestions on presentation.

Digital Camera

Have been having a 'play' with the digital camera which has been fun with three willing subjects and that has all been pretty straightforward but i have not yet really had a good look at the printer. This because i know that the ink/paper will be expensive to replace but as i want to try it out first i was wondering if anybody out there knows how many prints the cartridge does, and whether the ink will dry out if i open it to try it and then not use it for some time. Does anybody have any experience of this?