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JISC elevator

JISC elevator is a new way to find and fund innovative ways to use technology to improve universities and colleges. Anyone employed in UK higher or further education can submit an idea. If your idea proves popular then JISC will consider it for funding. The elevator is for small, practical projects with up to £10,000 available for successful ideas.

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Bathcamp #29

Bathcamp stage

It’s all design.

Curated by Alan Colville with speakers:

Richard Caddick of cxpartners: The Value Of Imagination

Joe Leach of cxpartners: Form Design

Jon Waring of 3Sixty: Designing measureable and meaningful websites

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The Essential Elements of Digital Literacies

Doug Belshaw has just announced that he is writing an ebook over the course of this year titled “The Essential Elements of Digital Literacies“.

What are you expecting from this book?
– from the purchasing page

Digital Literacies is one of the hot topics at the moment and as there isn’t much in the way of guidance out there, capturing the essentials in a book is a good idea. I have some understanding of the topic of course but am always happy to have my views better informed. I want examples I can refer to and ideas to challenge me/us.

I like the open approach to the writing and self-publishing model, and I am particularly interested in how the book will be created technically – hopefully Doug will touch on this subject in posts to come. I hope it comes as an Epub too.

Doug is a great guy and when they say you should be in a room with folk that you can learn from, Doug is one such person I am happy to chop it up with.

The initial releases will be spread across the year and it only costs £1 at present so go and get your copy.

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Running report: Slaughterford 9

Me, nigel and Andy

Today me, Nigel and Andy ran a race called the Slaughterford 9 (miles).

We set off on the cross country route with smiles despite the surrounding temperature a chilling 1c.

The route was pretty tough with mud, a river crossing and more mud to negotiate.

That is all pretty standard for a run but the hills or valleys more likely, were epic! The t-shirt we got upon completing the race has the slogan “Did you run the hill?”….. nooo way, it was too muddy and steep and i doubt on a summer day I would have the stamina to beat the hill about 8 miles into the run (having been through a river just before, causing me to be numb from the waist down). I only saw one person run the whole hill and she was clearly in another world.

Even with a heavy mist, the route was spectacular and this helped me to get through some of the tougher sections (was it Johnny Cash who sang about the pain being the only thing that is real?!).

With 1/2 a mile to go I got painful calf cramp but limped across the line in around 1hr 40mins, only to discover that Andy completed the race in about 62mins – winner in his group.

  • Andy 1st (group) and 12th overall
  • Nigel 325 out of 371
  • Me 326 out of 371

See you in 2013 on the hills?

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Reading list 2012

Currently reading

Learning Futures by Keri Facer

Jupiter’s Travels, Ted Simon, started 23rd Oct 2012

A list of books read in 2012.

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Screencast

A screencast is a video that shows a recording of anything shown on-screen and normally makes use of a voice-over, typically explaining what is happening on screen.
A screencast can have additional supporting materials such as overlaid video (often the speaker), graphics, images and sound effects.
The creator of the screencast uses screencast software to record the on-screen activity and then uses either the same software to edit and prepare the  final video, or will import the screencast recording into third-party editing software for further work.

Because screencasts can have many different uses, they are quite popular and the basics can be learned in minutes.

Example uses include:

  • Demonstrating how-to do an activity on a computer
  • Providing student feedback
  • Introducing a software or web product for marketing purposes

Learn More

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Alistapart 342: A Pixel Identity Crisis

A Pixel Identity Crisis: Now that hardware is changing and pixel densities are growing, pixels are struggling to find relevance as the stable unit they once were. Browser zooming is one thing and has been covered on QuirksMode. But what is a pixel on high resolution devices today? Why does the 640px × 960px iPhone 4 claim to be 320px × 480px in the browser? The truth is that there are two different definitions of pixels: they can be the smallest unit a screen can support (a hardware pixel) or a pixel can be based on an optically consistent unit called a “reference pixel.”

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Notes on ebooks

I have been collecting links across the web about every aspect of ebooks and thought I may as well share it here as it grows. Feel free to comment/email with any useful resources.

Last updated 13 May 2012 and listed with my latest finds at the top