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I'm at it again. Having upgraded my phone I couldn't resist adding a gadget that will allow me to recreate some movie style effects - or to simply track something or someone with ease. 

Uses:

Double fisheye stills

Double fisheye video

Double fisheye live streaming

See the Ricoh Theta SC User Guide 

With a protruding fisheye lens on both sides of the camera use the pouch to keep the camera in, and to lay it on when charging or uploading images to avoid scratching the lens. 

Charging

Only charge through computer USB, not a wall socket.

A red light indicates that it is overheating. Unplug immediately. 

Green light on for charge. Light goes out once charged. 

A full charge takes 4 hours. 

The camera can be operated on its own, though it works best when synched to a smartphone or tablet. 

Synching

Synch with smartphone or tablet through wifi

The wifi reference for the camera indicates the password.

For example for camera: THETAJAY30121126.OSC

The password : 30121126 (the numbers only).

This also appears as YJ30121126 in tiny print on the camera itself.

More HERE > Connecting to a SmartPhone

Settings

Choose a network

Turn camera on

Wifi icon lit

Device finds wifi

Password 

Wifi connect is meant to be 10m but is more like 5m and will be affected by walls.

Mounting

Hand held

Desk tripod

Tripod with short feet (and weights)

While some of the image immediately below the camera is hidden when the two 360 images are stitched together it helps to use a tripod with a small footprint.

I recommend the Koolehoad Monopod with has tripod legs.

If used outside and it is windy a couple of sandbags on the legs will keep it in place - or use a normal tripod and accept that the legs will show in the bottom of the image. 

Camera Settings

The ‘Automatic’ setting rarely gives the best results. Shutter speed will adjust exposure for overly bright, or overly dim images. The White Balance also needs to be set - this ensures that ‘white is white’ whether under bright sunlight, or various kinds of artificial light. 

Via device (smartphone or tablet)

Pull on the camera - you will see the image it is getting.

Along the bottom are the settings. 

More HERE > on Theta SC Shooting Conditions

• Automatic

• ISO: (low light or too bright)

• Shutter Speed: (low light or fast action)

• White Balance: Sunlight vs artificial and all the variations through shadow, neon, lamps. A piece of white card and adjust in the camera.

Video

You can only shoot in auto mode when shooting video. Settings such as the ISO sensitivity, shutter speed, white balance and exposure cannot be configured.

Self-Timer

Unless you want to appear in the shot set the self-timer to 10 Seconds

When you hit ‘shoot’ you get a visual countdown on your phone/tablet and ni the last 4 second a ‘Bleeped’ countdown before the shot is taken. 

Shutter Sound

Countdown ‘ping’ and shutter noise to help you get out of the shot.

Images

A double fish-eye lens is best in enclosed spaces and with the subject fairly close.

In the open sky can dominate.

If you want to feature people keep them close to the camera. 

Keep a record of the pictures being taken

Best practice to draw a simple lay-out of the room and plot where each 360 image is taken.

Even a small room might benefit from the following shots:

By the entrance door.

Centre of the room.

Each corner

Close to major features.

It makes sense to have the camera at eye level - so 1m 70+ in the room, or at head height on a chair or by a desk.

Any number of further interesting shots with the camera placed on, in or close to things can be added.

For close-ups it is better to use a standard camera and add this image as a ‘hotspot’ link.

Transferring Images

Downloading images

The Ricoh Theta App can be used to view images in 360

These will transfer to the device

Also on the camera

An image is around 3.5-3.8MB. 

Click through the Camera Icon Ricoh Theta to Fixed Storage to DCIM to 100RICOH 

Then drag and drop into an appropriate folder.

Can ‘Delete all images’ if loading into an image App (but college computers generally do not permit saving to the desktop - images have to be saved to the network). 

These images may look like peculiar, double fisheye or panoramic images until on a platform that supports viewing as a 360 image. 

Images are backed up on your phone/tablet and can be uploaded from there if images on the Ricoh are lost or deleted. 

USB to computer as for charging

Identify device

Select where images will be saved.

Catalogue

Select those to colour correct (if desired)

Adobe Lightroom to adjust: 

Exposure

Contrast

Blacks

Whites

Clarity

Sharpness

At this point poor images that can’t be rescued can be deleted, or simply not added to ThingLink.

It also starts to become clear where there may be unnecessary overlap, so an image may not be required. Best to keep it offline.

This might also be the time to ‘redact’ someone who is appearing inadvertently - students would need to sign a release form for content shared online. 

Export

The 360 images can be viewed on their own on Facebook or Google Photos and as  video on YouTube. They can also be viewed through a 360 headset. An app for smartphones allows images to be broken into left and right eye.

ThingLink

We have been using the platform ThingLink which allows ‘tags’ or ‘hot spots’ to be added, as well as links made between a series of shots to create a VR Tour. This platform can also be used by students to annotate and tag images, whether 2D or 360. 

You can try the platform for free for a month, longer by negotiation. It can take a while to bring others on board.

It makes life easier to upload in the approximate order in which the VR Tour will be built and if there are a lot of images to add them in small batches. 

Numerous alternative platforms exist to create 3d Architectural spaces and models or tours. All will require a subscription at some point. 

Get Organised

List: Camera Ref or renamed.

Best down in landscape 

ThingLink URL

Once you have  loaded your images onto ThingLink create a ‘Channel’ and post all your images to this. 

The order in which they are added can facilitate the creation of a tour by keeping batches of images together, say for a room, and in the chronological order of a typical tour, or indeed the order in which the shots were taken. 

Any icons can be used provided by ThingLink though we have a set of GB MET branded arrows/links. 

Troubleshooting

Over a series of 20 shots, or use after 45 mins the link between the device (mobile or tablet) may be lost.

Turn the camera on and off - find the link and redo.

Loading images

Check the USB connection until your computer registers the device.

Shot Activation not working

Close the app and re-open until the 360 image appears and the button can be activated.

You keep appearing in the image!

The self-timer has to be reset if the App, phone or camera is turned off.

Updating Firmware

Intermittently the firmware on the camera will require an upgrade 

ThingLink are great at improving their platform. Lately this has facilitated creating tours to the point that I describe creating a tour as 'electronic PostIt notes'. You can add voice over narration to the shot directly. You can post content to Google Classroom for lessons. You can download to work or view offline. 

The first set of colour graded photographs looked far too yellow - as if I had been taking photographs in Spain. A poor computer display, which I ahave still failed to calibrate, exacerbates the problem. Being a whizz I got on and re-graded 16 photos in Adobe Lightroom, rebuild the 360 tour in Thinglink and only then started to add, experimentally, some 'hot spots'. 

Do we have lift off? 

I'm starting to see how a 360° tour of a catering teaching facility using some 16 360° images.

From diving in my lost post I am now elevating into flight mode. I'm something of a co-pilot on this one. I created the stage, as it were, while a colleague created the activities which I have started to embed within it.

Have a go > HERE Catering 23 + Etivities 

Let me know how you got on.

For now I'm running with the term coined by Jilly Salmon for 'Interactive Activities' = 'etivities'. I'm not convinced it'll catch up.

I have been playing around with Thinglink for 18 months. I must have three or four accounts by now, that I run, or that I have set up for others ... and also run.

My latest is a group account so that students I will be working with can take images, add them and collaborate on creating 360 tours.

We are going to be creating a tour of an early years nursery.

90 minutes talking to 'Uniformed Services' and we came away with 6 or more projects, most major, some minor, to undertake over the next 18 months to support their tutors and students.

The easy part was to locate 6 episods of the court drama 'Murder in the Family' which is used to discuss court procedure and roles. This is now on Planet eStream where I can nip out the adverts and add some notes, even create a playlsist of all five episodes and create an interactive quiz at the end of each.

More complex and exciting will be working with students hoping to become drone pilots for the RAF and RN respectively. This could have me at sea - literally. Qualified to use a RIB they are short of volunteers to go out with the students.

And then 360 tours to create of a crime scene.

Video footage of gun and limber junior trials.

And surveillance work for conference centres and hotels.

CPR

Health, Fitness and Wellbeing to Armed Services entry standard ... 

Quite a mix. Quite exciting.

Ten years ago I started a student blog at the behest of the OU as part of the Masters in Open & Distance Education (MAODE). This was my second go at this having started nine years previously with the MAODL (Distance Learning). 

I came from corporate training. Coming from teaching might have been more appropriate, and teaching in Higher Education in particular. I thought the outcome would be back into industry, whereas it has instead been a route into Education. It might have lead to research. I did prepare a PhD thesis and took this to Southampton.

Events closer to home have me reflecting on the power of story, no matter how or where it is expressed. We are highly tuned in to pay attention to a well told drama.

Our drama lately has been a broken arm (not me) and the unexpected knock on effects and lessons learnt in relation to the medical systems and approach in France and the UK, to being freelance or working fulltime, and a wake up call to what it takes to care for someone. 

The story of this break and its consequences is shared with friends and over a few days it finds its own shape. You learn how to retain attention as one event and its consequences and all the subsequent decissions that are taken, and their consequences too. Let alone the other brickbats that get thrown your way to complicate it all further.

And the conclusion is?

Count your blessings

Smile and get on with it

Remember your friends and family as they remember you

Be prepared for this and worse happening

And in relation to learning?

Holding a students attention

Providing engagement which has a purposeful direction

Letting people draw their own conclusions

Listen to feedback and add this to the lessons being learnt

The vitality that comes from a story with emotional appeal, crisis, pain and laughter, consequences and outcomes. 

So frustrating if you create something for mobile devices only to find that in fact this functionality works best on a larger screen.

This MOOC on Coursera from Melbourne University looks interesting.

An aide-memoire for me. An link to an interesting resource for you! Ever mindful of my need and desire to take and pass a series of Google Educator Certification Exams (levels 1 & 2 and trainer) and needing to be on the pulse of what Google Education is doing (conquering every classroom on the planet), makes this of interest:

Google's Applied Digital Skills

And thus another learning journey begins. The books are a start with 'Becoming Fluent' in audible form so that I can plug it in and listen through. As much as anything I want to try something new (new to me at least). I like reading along, but can I do that? I find on YouTube running the subtitles while watching helps me catch words and phrases that I might otherwise miss.

I also searched online courses and have thus far tried Coursera and FutureLearn. I risk becoming that statistic of students who sign up but never start. Whether a course gains traction or not is down to the ability of the course creators to engage and feed my current enthusiasm at the right level and in the right way - this learning business is just that, a business, and a competitive one.

I ought to check Open Learn of course and a myriad of other online course providers.

I get serious when I return to the likes of the Open University and pay proper money to do a tutor led designed and credited course. 

We came on holiday on Friday and faced a first in the French Alps: rain and the need for umbrellas. Rain low down meant snow up top so this cloud had a silver lining. However I fell ill with a cold bad enough to keep me in bed, then one of the party broke their wrist and having only just ventured out myself and gently traversing a piste to stop for lunch my wife fell badly and broke her arm - actually she was convinced it was ‘just’ a dislocated shoulder so we skied down to a ‘station’ - not ours, to visit the Cabinet Medical. All was not good - a complicated fracture at the top of the arm requiring surgery. So off to hospital. Ski gear, no other shoes, no change of clothes. A taxi journey some 40km back and forth to where we are staying. And I had planned to take the afternoon off rather than aggravate my cold. Ill and worried I have slept little.

However, I did sign up to study a new FutureLearn Course in British History 1815 to 1945 and also convinced myself that I have the makings of a Cognitive Scientist.

With skis back to the hire shop and me back and forth to a hospital each day until we fly home on Sunday (or not!) I may be able to get some studying done. I can get through a text book a day when I am motivated, travelling or otherwise not distracted. 

I made this today:

http://bit.ly/WFAGoogleMap

This is is part of my Google Educator Level II training. Today I am working on a Google Tour > an interactive itinerary that pops up with images and text. I can also use video and 360° images which I will have a go with too in due course.