Serendipity webinar overview – Are those huge expensive conferences outdated?

Introduction

This recorded session buzzed from start to finish. We had a very lively group of participants with an initial dead heat for topic with the final choice being to discuss the continuing relevance or otherwise of the very large (often sponsored by businesses but nevertheless very expensive for participants) conferences .

The Session

I feel that the topic was in part inspired by the upcoming Reform Symposium 48 hour onlince conference at the end of this week, and the juxtaposition of this with some of the very large expensive face-to-face conferences that have happened recently. The discussion flowed along using our usual blend of audio, textchat and whiteboard and began with some consideration of what we might consider to be large paid conferences and also some clarification of what we  understood by “unconference”.

ConfInComfortResize

We spent some time considering the pros and cons of the large, sponsored, but often still very costly for participants, conferences. Discussion then moved on to explore why these were so expensive for participants particularly when they are often ponsored by businesses and how they might be made less expensive.

Conclusion

As is usually the case when we have a session the buzzes along with lots of audio input you will get much more from the recording than frem reading this overview.

Next Webinar

ToolsStrategiesSmallOur next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session a “Tools and Strategies” “YouTube in the Classroom” when Bill Genereux, associate professor of Digital Media and Computer Technology in the Engineering Technology Department of Kansas State University, joins us .  YouTube is powerful because it is popular, but it is widely prohibited on school networks. Bill will discuss his recent efforts to learn how students and educators are portrayed on the social media video website YouTube using digital ethnographic research methods pioneered by Michael Wesch.

Join us on Thursday July 29th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (7pm USA EST, Midnight BST) or Friday July 30th at 1am CEST,7am West Aus, 9am NSW, depending on your timezone – in the usual Elluminate room

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Webinar Overview – Using Layers in GIMP

Introduction

Our recent Edublogs webinar recording here was a “Techie How To” in which Phil Hart (@philhart) introduced, and gave us an opportunity to explore,  some of the tools that he uses for editing layers in the GIMP image editing application to produce a variety of effects.

The Session

As is often the case with “Techie How To” sessions (because they are aimed at particular interests) this was a small group. There are advantages with small groups for this type of session as they provide much greater opportunities for interaction and participation.

After a brief introduction Phil set the scene for the tools he was going to look at and started Application Sharing to show the example image with associated layers to be used in the session.

AppShareGIMP

Because the group was small Phil was able to provide plenty of opportunities for “playing” with the tools. He did this by giving control of his mouse to participants so that they could try out the effects for themselves on different layers in his image. There are (as I have said before) some limitations to this – the inevitable lag in response when the mouse is being controlled remotely being the main one. My personal feeling (based largely on the high level of positive comments from participants in previous sessions) is that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed the session because although I have used GIMP a little I have never really got to grips with layers in any image editor. Something that I took away from the session was a better awareness of how useful the facility to use layers could be for me. I know I will still use a simpler editor for the majority of my editing but I will certainly head for GIMP when I want to do something more complex.

Next Webinar

SerendipitybsmallOur next Webinar is an Edublogs Serendipity – unconference session so bring along your hot topics and burning issues (what makes you spit with anger or thump a tub with passion) and throw them into the melting pot for the poll to choose our topic in the first ten minutes.

Join us on Thursday July 22 nd at 23:00 GMT/UTC (7pm USA EST, Midnight BST) or Friday July 23rd at 1am CEST,7am West Aus, 9am NSW, depending on your timezone – in the usual Edublogs/Elluminate Community Partnership room

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Serendipity webinar overview – Connections made!

Introduction

As with a session a few weeks ago I was laid low by a migraine and find myself writing an overview for a session I didn’t attend – as I said at the time recordings are a wonderful thing! My overview is written from listening to the recording but really this is one you need to hear for yourself.

The Session

The two suggested topics of: 21st Century Skills in the elementary classroom; and getting started with blogging in an education context seemed to merge quite easily into one.  This was a very relaxed conversation in a small group discussing ideas and where each person is currently with their students. It developed into planning the basis of a future classroom collaboration between participants.

Conclusion

This was a fantastic example of Serendipity in action! A group of people looking for similar outcomes and actually starting to develop their classroom collaboration in the session.

Next Week

TechieSmallOur next Webinar is an Edublogs “Fine Focus” session a “Techie How To” – “Layering with GIMP!” an interactive session in which we invite you to explore using layers with the GIMP. This is for those who want a rather more sophisticated (but still free) image editor than Photofiltre (our topic a couple of weeks ago) .

Join us on Thursday July 15th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (7pm USA EST, Midnight BST) or Friday July 16th at 1am CEST,7am West Aus, 9am NSW, depending on your timezone – in the usual Elluminate room

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Webinar Overview – Imagine Your Image

Our most recent recorded webinar was a “Techie How To” in which we looked at some of the tools in a simple free image editor – PhotoFiltre. I use PhotoFiltre a lot because I rarely need the more sophisticated features such as layers. This was one of those sessions where I did the presentation as well as facilitating. I always find it more difficult to write an overview for these as I feel too close to the content to be as objective as I should be. I always welcome comments on any of these webinar overviews but particularly so when I have presented the content and thus am not sure about my own objectivity!

The Session

I very much enjoyed doing this session – as I was able to show one of my favourite “e-toys” (PhotoFiltre) through the medium of another (Elluminate). We began by finding out where we were all coming from on image file formats and editing, followed by some quick thoughts on why we and our students might want to edit images.

ImageEditReasons

Size changing and cropping (used most by my students, my colleagues and myself) were both suggested several times. We then moved on to consider briefly the features of a basic image editing application that we would consider most important for ourselves and for our students. Easy to learn and free topped the polls.

Next we took a quick look at the accessibility and functions of some of the most frequently used tools (all on drop-down menus). Size is one of the most significant items that we all often need to change to suit different contexts so we looked briefly at some common sizes we might use and also at the impact of when we make the change on file sizes and consequent download times. Other tools briefly reviewed included cropping, adjusting colour balance, brightness/contrast and filter effects.

Then it was time to play! I shared PhotoFiltre from my desktop and invited participants to try out some of the tools on some pre-loaded images by taking control of my desktop. Using application share in this way has some limitations – for example there is an inevitable lag in response when the mouse is being controlled remotely. However I feel that it has great benefits from the interactivity point of view and is more effective than simply using the sharing to demonstrate. I would love some feedback on this! We finished the session as usual with questions and feedback.

Conclusion

My personal liking for PhotoFiltre is because it is easy to use and free to download and is thus a good option for my students who are literacy/numeracy students working online. They often have both limited access to computers and limited IT skills. I have also suggested it to many of my colleagues as they rarely need sophisticated editing capacity such as layers and they also find it very useful for basic cropping and size changing especially of images they intend to upload into the Learning Management System. If you do need features such as layers then you could take a look at GIMP also free.

Next Webinar

SerendipitybsmallOur next Webinar is an Edublogs Serendipity – unconference session so bring along your hot topics and burning issues (what makes you spit with anger or thump a tub with passion) and throw them into the melting pot for the poll to choose our topic in the first ten minutes.

Join us on Thursday July 8th at 23:00 GMT/UTC (7pm USA EST, Midnight BST) or Friday July 9th at 1am CEST,7am West Aus, 9am NSW, depending on your timezone – in the usual Elluminate room

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