I was prompted by a recent blog post on the excellent Rapid E-Learning Blog http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/m-learning-101-ill-take-my-rapid-e-learning-to-go/ and a question on the xerteforteachers list http://jiscmail.ac.uk/xerteforteachers about Google’s Swiffy http://swiffy.googlelabs.com/ to add my own post about Flash and in particular Xerte on the iPad. This always comes up as a question/concern during Xerte training and sometimes cited as a reason not to use Xerte. This perhaps reflects the popularity of iOS devices but I think also highlights a lack of understanding of the benefits and limitations of mobile interaction.

The question about Swiffy was whether it “will allow Xerte LOs to be converted to run on iOS devices?” Unfortunately that’s very unlikely given that Xerte isn’t a self-contained swf and effectively loads content dynamically at runtime. However there are other solutions for viewing and interacting with Xerte LO’s on the iPad and even the iPhone although see comments about the latter below.

App: Puffin Web Browser
iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/uk/app/puffin-web-browser/id406239138?mt=8
Cost: 59p

This seems to work quite well and is relatively inexpensive but I have noticed that some interactions don’t work correctly e.g. categories where the items don’t seem to snap to their targets. However this does provide a viable solution and for individuals or groups using iPads could prove very effective.

App: iSwifter
http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/iswifter/id388857173?mt=8
Cost: labelled as free and can be used and tested for free for 7 days but thereafter is a monthly subscription app

This works in a similar way to the Puffin Browser and seems to do a better job with some of the interactions e.g. the categories page type works. However although labelled as free this is actually a monthly subscription app and therfore may not be a viable or cost effective option, especially for group use.

App: LogMeIn
iTunes link: http://itunes.apple.com/Uk/app/logmein-ignition/id299616801?mt=8
Cost: £17.99

This wouldn’t be a viable app just to enable access to Xerte content but it does provide that option as well as access to all your Windows applications and perhaps network applications etc. There are obviously other ‘remote connection’ apps and as mentioned in the Rapid E-Learning post many organisations use Citrix to provide this type of connectivity. Also as mentioned the LogMeIn app doesn’t play audio on the iPad when viewing the LO’s but if you were using this or a similar app to control the presentation machine connected to an interactive whiteboard obviously the audio would play through that systems. So this could be a very effective solutions for that type of scenario.

So similar to the actual Flash player on Android devices the Puffin Web Browser technically allows Xerte content to be consumed on an iPhone. I say technically because practically and therfore also in terms of pedagogy,  I’m not sure this is really an effective solution or strategy for such a small screen device. That said I did previously work on a custom Xerte template optimised for use via Flash Player on Android devices but that means you have to create content specifically for mobile devices which obviously has disadvantages. Whether the higher resolution of the iPhone 4 makes use via the Puffin Browser more realistic I’m not sure as I haven’t tested on iPhone 4 but it’s not really just a case of the clarity of screen display anyway. There are clearly considerations about the time learners might realistically spend on interactions aimed at larger screen devices or at least the consumption rather than creation of content on such devices. Of course what Xerte does facilitate is lots of ways that content captured or created on mobile devices can be dynamically loaded into Xerte LO’s. e.g. YouTube, Flickr, RSS etc

So I think there are now viable solutions for viewing and interacting with Xerte LO’s on an iPad, technically there are solutions for iPhone too but I think a more realistic proposition for small screen devices like iPhone might come through a future development which provides rendering of Xerte content via HTML and Javascript – who know that might come as a result of the developer days in September – fingers crossed!

Video demo to follow…

I was just tidying up some files on my external hard disk and found an article which was meant to be in a MoLeNET newsletter at the beginning of 2010. These were just short snippets about some gadgets I’d purchased around that time for use when recording audio or video and to improve on sound or picture quality in one way or another. So anyway I thought I’d quickly post the snippets here and add thoughts about an additional microphone that I’ve purchased since…

The first is a cheap Microphone for improving the audio when recording video via the iPhone 3GS.

The problem with recording video with the iPhone is that the mic isn’t really facing the subject being filmed. There are lots of the rigid mini jack mics available but they suffer the same problem and this little flexible mic fixes that. I purchased from http://tinyurl.com/3gsmic (the page includes a video demo made by a reviewer). The mic can be swivelled to face the subject and improves the sound significantly. This improves the clarity for everyone but obviously helps with accessibility too.

My second gadget purchase at the beginning of the year was also a mic for my iPhone but for a very different purpose and also works with the iPod Touch and other iPod’s to provide CD Quality Stereo audio recording. It’s the Blue Mikey and there’s lots of info and sample recordings online at http://www.bluemic.com/mikey/original/  

I bought mine from play.com but I should also mention that there is a new model now available with additional features such as line input and USB pass-through. Many MoLeNET projects have purchased high end audio recorders such as the Edirol devices http://tinyurl.com/fieldrec for recording podcasts etc but I think this mic, together with an iTouch/iPhone and either the free Blue Fire app or the paid for Fire Field Recorder app, could provide a very viable and effective alternative and of course there’s all the other applications and benefits the iTouch provides compared with a dedicated field recorder.

My third gadget, unlike the previous two, may not appear to have obvious teaching and learning benefits. However I think it’s a classic example of subverting the original purpose of something to benefit classroom use. We often wish to film student activity in the classroom and to effectively capture all the different learner interaction that takes place. Using a static tripod doesn’t really fit this purpose and hand-holding a small digital camcorder can make your viewers feel sea sick! To the rescue is this inexpensive ‘steady cam’ unit from a company in Nottingham. http://tinyurl.com/minimotioncam It’s called the Hague Mini-Motion Cam (the link contains a YouTube demo) and is designed for the digital camcorders we all typically use, although there’s a bigger version for larger camcorders too. I can see real benefits when filming vocational activities or sports etc but I have to confess though it would look quite funny to see someone using one of these with a Flip Camera mounted on the top!

Finally I more recently purchased a Samson Go mic for about £30 and have been really impressed with both the build quality and more importantly the sound quality for such an inexpensive mic. It’s great for recording narration for screencasts, interviews, learner feedback, group discussion etc and works via USB on both Windows Laptops and Apple Macbooks etc. However it should be noted that it doesn’t work via a normal 3.5mm mic input so only works via USB and therefore won’t work with various audio recorders etc.

A while back I started to develop some of my own page types for use with Xerte and Xerte Online Toolkits. I finally found a small bit of time to test and refine them so here’s some examples.

This first example automatically generates QR code and short URL from a link typed or pasted into the editor when authoring. The link could obviously be a link to the learning object itself e.g. displayed on the last page to share details of how to access the LO after a f2f session.

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This second example displays the results of a twitter search feed complete with user avatars. Twitter is obviously growing in popularity and awareness of teaching and learning uses so being able to include one or more twitter feeds within an LO is a useful facility.

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This third example is a tweak of the existing stimulating question page whereby the user is prompted to type a response to a question or task before clicking the button to compare their own response with a pre-prepared example or list of ideas and suggestions.

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Finally this fourth example will only be of interest to those using the xlearn text wall system. It takes the RSS feed from that system and provides an optimised display of the messages for use in a f2f environment.

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You can download an export of these templates here and either use that via the Xerte Windows application or add to your own Toolkits installation. The latter will require admin access to the toolkits installation.

I hope to create a guide at some point on how to create new templates and incorporate them into the default Nottingham provided template. Meanwhile I hope the zip is useful but as always you’ll need to use at your own risk etc.

For users of the molenet xerte online toolkits installation the new page types are already available.