Last week Apple proposed a suite of new “accessibility emojis” to the Unicode Consortium, which sparked a water cooler chat in our team. Continue reading
Emojis – good (👍) or bad (👎)?
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Automated tweets that “Prepare you for OBLIVION!”
One of my pet hates are automated tweets.
They dehumanise Twitter. When I interact with someone on Twitter I want to know there’s an authentic human voice at the other end of the conversation. Not a bot that is responding with pre-programmed tweets that have about as much interest for me as whether or not the UK will win the next Eurovision Song contest (spoiler alert – we won’t…). Continue reading
A closer look at Screencast-O-Matic
As free screencasting tools go, Screencast-O-Matic is my favourite. It features as number 27 in the Top 100 Tools for Learning poll of 2015 and is an easy way to create fairly short screencasts (15 minutes or less) to help reinforce key topics with learners. If you haven’t done one before a screencast is typically a video recording of all, or part, of your screen that’s accompanied by an audio or video narration. It’s ideal for demonstrating what you are doing on your computer, such as a software demo or web search, a presentation run-through or is even being used by some organisations as a means of providing formative and summative feedback to learners. Continue reading
Amplifying events through social media
How can social media be put to good effect to amplify events?
This year Jisc held its annual Digifest in Birmingham (#Digifest17) and the Subject Specialist team were working hard behind the scenes to ensure the event trended on social media and reached out to those ‘attending’ the event virtually, as well as complementing the activities for those physically present over the two days. Continue reading
Seven sites for sourcing free-to-use images
Finding quality images that are also free-to-use for that all important presentation can be a time consuming process, so here are my top seven sites for saving time on finding that perfect image. Continue reading
Looking through the (Johari) Window on Technology Use
My mother bought an iPad recently.
I know – there’s nothing ground breaking about that. According to recent estimates Apple have sold over 360 million since 2010.
Did I say my mother is also in her seventies and that she has never really experienced the internet first-hand before? Continue reading
What’s in a name?
What’s in a name? As the Bard once said.
Well, quite a lot really, and the way we name and describe ourselves online can be a soul searching exercise. What to say? What not to say? How to condense it into 160 characters and so on. Continue reading
Activities to promote e-safety
Promoting e-safety in the Further Education and Skills sector can be a bit of a tightrope walk – you’re caught between ensuring the wellbeing of your learners and allowing them the freedom of expression and experimentation in online spaces that allow them to learn and develop as individuals. Continue reading
Using iMovie to create engaging video
“I do enjoy making videos, even though they are long days and very hard work.”
Tanya Tucker, American country and music artist.
Without doubt, making quality video is a painstaking process, and I can’t deny – to do it right takes time. Having said that though, there’s something very enjoyable about crafting a short video; editing the scenes, adding the music and so on, that makes it very satisfying. I don’t know whether that’s the creative, geeky part of me talking or it’s something else, but making short videos for others to enjoy can be immensely rewarding. Continue reading
Scott's Unfinished Pictures 