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This is bugging me.

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I've taken over 1,000 360 images using a Richoh Theta SC and out of the blue it has started to do this right when I have an elearning project to create using it. 

These 360 cameras are OK. Not too expensive. Image quality not wonderful in low light. Not great definition when you try to zoom either, but I have had some fabulous results. 

I had been hoping to be working on a introduction/induction to the Learning Resource Centre for students with special education needs. This requires a series of these photographs linked together with further hotspots featuring close ups with annotations and video clips.

I'm working my way through all the possibilities (short of the camera having been damaged).

Update Firmware

Checking the settings for taking images and for uploading them.

Any thoughts? 

Permalink 1 comment (latest comment by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 6 Sep 2019, 12:21)
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Testing Ricoh Theta SC for SEND Project

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Revisiting my skills at using the 360 camera to create a VR tour through the Learning Resource Centre and several things occur:

1) I had forgotten how tricksy it can be to set up.

2) Once connected between the 360 camera and my iPad I then had to remember how to use the manual settings for White Balance and Exposure, and using the self-timer so that you are not caught in the picture

3) The results were either soft, or, had this ring effect.

I hope it is a further quality setting that I need to engaged - i.e. High Resolution images. I did lend it out for three weeks. 

The trials and tribulations of the learning technologist continue.

 

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Elearning for Students with Special Education Needs and Disabilities (SEND)

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Projects for the next four months with Open Access release in the New Year. 

Using a Cash Machine (ATM)

Learning points: 

1.       How many numbers are in an individual pin

2.       How to protect yourself from others seeing your pin number

3.       The colour of the button you press once you have entered the pin number

4.       In the home screen what does each tab mean i.e. cash withdrawal, printed balance, onscreen balance etc

5.       Who should know your pin number and why is it important that no one knows your pin number (outcomes)

Approach: Linear video with synched slides and bold caption on Planet eStream. 

Crossing the Road/Puffin/Pelican crossing

Learning points: 

1.       Where and how to stand when crossing the road (well back from the edge of the kerb, looking and listening for dangers etc)

2.       Look at the dangers of crossing the road (not paying attention, walking across the road when traffic is coming, not using crossing points)

3.       Colours of the Pelican Crossing lights – Green mean go or stop

4. When crossing still be looking and listening out for traffic

Approach: Linear video with synched slides and bold caption on Planet eStream. 

The Learning Resource Centre, Broadwater 

Learning points: 

1.       Who to go for help and what help they can offer (buy pens, change password and computer advice)

2.       Where the quick read books are within the LRC

3.       360 tour of the LRC, especially chill out room (is it a chill out room?)

4.       How to start the computer

5.       How to use the printers

6. Swiping in and out of LRC

Approach: ThingLink 360 tour with interactive hot spots, tour links and voice over narration. 

Independent Travel Training

Approach: Scenario-based elearning. Video with voice over, text and interactive prompts.



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Planet eStream, SimpleMinds and ThingLink

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Planet eStream, SimpleMinds, ThingLink.

Tasked the day before to take a class for 90 minutes on creating a newsflash I agreed because at my fingertips I had tools I could use to pull together content quickly. Using Planet eStream I picked through newcasts on 6 March relating to UK Knife Crime and ended up with stories from BBC News, Good Morning Britain, Five News, RT and Al Jazeera. Once embedded I trimmed out each story and put them in a playlist.

On a whiteboard I created 'Newsflash' Bingo for things to spot, from a presenter with a clipboard to cutaways of anonymous people walking through the street.

The SimpleMinds MindMap was shared and photographed.

ThingLink was used to indicate where news stories are going. Euronews for example has a 360 item. How do you tell a non-linear story where the viewer decides where they will take it? Or is this what we do anyway clicking between a newsclip, social media, and a subscription news channel?

I miss TV. The immediacy of it. 

Tasked to take 90 minutes I found the lead teacher had lost his voice so I took substantially more of this 3 1/2 hour morning session. Hijinks with technology getting onto the network via a wireless TV keyboard and remote. 

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The Life of the Learning Technologist

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 23 Nov 2018, 05:28

 Roy Castle playing the trumpet

Some decades ago on Blue Peter the inveterate multi-talented Roy Castle set a Guinness Book of Records by playing the same tune on 43 different instruments in four minutes.

Sometimes I feel that being a Learning Technologist is like this. We an not IT support, nor are we Teachers or Tutors, but we can 'play' a multitude of platforms with aplomb - and fix an IT, psychological or learning problem to boot.

Introduced to a fledgling PebblePad while completing my MA ODE with the OU 2010-2013 I have now had it sprung on me, in all places, as a Swim England Swimming Coach. It is this e-portfolio, evidence gathering, assessment supporting platform that will be used to assess whether I merit certification as a coach.

Interestingly, it was mentioned to me the other day, that a tutor was using PebblePad at our college for a similar purpose: I shall have to investigate further. So far I have found it more common for tutors to use a blog, typically WordPress though some using Blogger.

My own ensemble of tools that I use, and some that I have mastered include:

Google Classroom

OpenAthens

Turnitin

Planet E-Stream

ThingLink

WordPress

I have also mastered the use of a 360 Ricoh Theta SC camera - at least for taking stills.

Adobe Lightroom

 

 

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VR Tours - 360 Tours around various workshops, a theatre and Music Facility

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Plumbing & Electrical

 

Motor Vehicle Workshop

 

Carpentry

 

Machine Tools

 

Hair Salon & Beauty Treatments

 

Aeronautics

 

Motor Vehicle Maintenance

 

Motor Sport

  

Carpentry

 

Catering 

 

Northbrook Theatre

 

Learning Resource Centres

 

Music Facilities

 

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A new VR Tour of the Music Faculty at GB MET

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Sunday, 9 Sep 2018, 06:22
It is such a privilege to call this work - creating a comprehensive VR tour of the stunning music facilities at GB MET. Rich media in the form of sound clips, video, text and close-up photos will be added to turn a marketing piece into’ induction and training.
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Educational Activities using Virtual Reality

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Saturday, 28 Jul 2018, 12:58

These interactive images look appealing as a learning tool. They pull together a series of short, quirky videos and animations that provide the low down on a collection of human organs. To what end? To some degree a Dorling Kindersley annotated book did this in the past. Stick it on an interactive screen and click on each in front of a class to fill 45 minutes. What is really required as a learning experience is to have students learn the skills to create these themselves, then research and add the links (or to shoot their own pieces). All of the above came from YouTube.

Here's the link: https://www.thinglink.com/scene/880832510185963521

We use ThingLink.

The difference is that I am using 360 images that can be viewed through a VR headset, or desktop or touchscreen.

Here is my ThingLink VR Tour of Northbrook Theatre: https://www.thinglink.com/mediacard/1073243716732321794

I am working with the College team here to create an immersive experience for induction. Do we add multiple hotspots of information, like this Human Body above, and follow this up with a detailed quiz, or do we clone the tour and get students to add the information themselves? Should we give them the skills to use the 360 camera and get them to annotate it? OFSTED would like us to be developing their Digital Skills and using English.

The VR Tours I have so far initiated include:

  1. An Aeronautics Workshop
  2. Two Motor Vehicle Workshops
  3. A Hair Salon & Treatment Centre student facility
  4. A Learning Resource Centre & Library
  5. A Carpentry Workshop
  6. An End of Year Fine Arts & 3D show
  7. A Creative Industries Theatre Props & Set Dressing Show
  8. A Theatre

To get the education right I need to go back through some of the MAODE modules I did, for example, H818 'The Networked Practitioner'

With my MA in British History of the First World War complete (the dissertation went off on 9 July) I am seriously contemplating the next piece of learning which includes adding to two 30 credit 'spare' modules I did having completed the MAODE in 2013 that I could potentially build into an MEd. 

That or hunker down and specialise on Augmented Reality & Virtual Reality in learning.

 

 

 

Permalink 2 comments (latest comment by Jonathan Vernon, Saturday, 28 Jul 2018, 12:58)
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"Build it and he will come".

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 27 Jun 2018, 05:24

360 Tour of a catering college kitchen

I've long held the view that with so many distractions and alternatives, that without compulsion, however much magic you through at a learning experience, the students will not come. I am a month into a three month 'build' of some 12 VR tours of workshops and facilities at a large, recently merged college. Using a 360 VR camera, as well as stills and video, a series of learning environments are being built in ThingLink.

The 'stage set' as I describe it, the add-ons include induction, health & safety, training and testing. In its simplest form it is a slide show made of 360 images in which the viewer can explore all around the environment. In its more sophisticated form there are sets of well-researched and carefully written learning experiences and activities. The simplest pattern, no different to reading some text and then being asked some questions on it, is to follow up ten minutes of exploring such a world with a quiz.

Marketing have an interest in using these images to show of facilities. In turn I need some marketing in put to promote these kinds of learning experiences. I'd prefer to sell these to students rather than to simply compel them to 'do them' under close supervision of their tutor. 

Are you making use of 360? 

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Taking offs with 360 Virtual Tours

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From a test tour of a carpentry workshop I am now well underway to complete similar tours on:

 

Car Mechanics Workshop and Motor Sport

Aeronautical Engineering

Catering

The End of Year Creative Industries Shows

Construction

Hair Salon & Beauty

While also producing what I call ‘Making an Entrance’ : VR tours into buildings to support autistic children who become anxious when going to new places.

These VR tours are shot on a Ricoh Theta SC. Hotspots, after various trials with available kit are being shot on my own Sony Alpha 7. This gives me mid, close up and extreme close up shots and video.

Along with these tours I am developing a quiz for viewers to undertake to identify certain parts and tools.

 

 

 

 

 

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