Cassiopeia – HD Science Videos
Another example of how useful Twitter can be for keeping abreast of new websites. Theo Kuechel sent me a link to a new video website called The Cassiopeia Project.
The Cassiopeia Project is an attempt to produce and distribute high-definition science videos on a range of science topics. They seem more suited for KS4 or A Level teaching. It’s a privately funded project and the videos are available completely free of charge for any educational use. At current count there are over 200 videos available.
As well as being free, the videos can be downloaded, hosted on your own network or VLE and can even be edited to match your own needs. Get students to record their own narrations, add your own subtitles etc. Videos are in Quicktime format.
The videos are available on the Cassiopeia website, and also via iTunes U, so you can download direct from iTunes. If you access them via iTunes U you can also get higher resolution versions, and also access to video transcripts.
It’s an impressive resource, and even better for being free and open for remixing and editing.
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The Big Picture
One of the nice things about using an interactive whiteboard is that it gives you the chance to use high-quality images. The fact that you can project digital images is much better than having to use overhead projectors and acetates, and much easier to use than a slide projector.
You can make an impressive start to a lesson by having a dramatic or inspiring image up on the screen as the students come into the room. The image may be something that can spark debate or discussion. They may illustrate a particular point, or be used as a stimulus for some creative writing or project work.
Recently, a fellow twitterer digitalmaverick posted a link to a fantastic set of photos from The Boston Globe of London at night, as seen from above. There are some truly breathtaking photos of a city I know very well at street level. Seeing it from a few hundred feet brings a whole new perspective on things. And as Digitalmaverick says, also makes you think about how much energy is being wasted on lights that could be switched off.
This section of the Boston Globe is called The Big Picture, and you can search its archive for more excellent images on a range of topics. There are fantastic ice sculptures, images of the Sun and The Earth from Above to name just a few. These pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope just blow me away, as do these Cassini photos.
I’m sure there are many lessons you teach that could be enhanced by some of these amazing images. Go there now and take a look! The site even has an RSS feed so you can add them to your RSS reader and keep track of the updates. The site seems add a new page of images every few days, so it’s worth going back again and again.
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Senteo 2 video tutorials
If you use the Smart Senteo voting kits then you may already know about the brand new version of the Senteo 2 software. If not, you can download it for free here.
When I installed it I had a few issues. I think this was because I tried to install it over the top of the old Senteo and Smart Notbook install. I found I had to completely uninstall Smart 10 and Senteo v1, and then install Senteo v2 and it all worked fine. That may not be the case when you install it, but be aware.
To accompany the new version of Senteo 2, Smart have updated their training guides with some new printable guides and also 2 minute video tutorials. Follow the links below;
If you haven’t been to the Training section of the Smart website before it’s well worth a visit.
Don’t forget you can also ask for help and support on Smartboards and Senteo kits in the Smart Exchange forum; http://exchange.smarttech.com/forums/
Happy voting!
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Wristband Competiton Winners
OK All. I’ve picked the winners for the Smart USB Wristbands. Thanks to all the entrants.
Congrats to;
@Craff2008, @Tasteach and @TeacherNZ on Twitter
and Mrs McGrew, Helen and Medical Interpreter in my comments.
Well done guys!
I’ve messaged those on Twitter and left comments on the blogs of the commenters to send me an email at danny@think-bank.com with your name and address so I can get the USB drives in the post. I’m posting from the UK so they may take a while to get to you.
I’ll throw in a bonus prize into the envelope too!
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BETT 09 Roundup
Here’s a quick round up for some of the things that caught my eye at this years BETT exhibition.
For interactive whiteboards, the big two; Smart and Promethean were there, as well as some new kids on the block.
The big news for Promethean whiteboard users is the launch of the new ActivSoftware Inspire edition. This is going to replace ActivPrimary and ActivStudio with a single product which will hopefully be less confusing. The software settings will let you view your work area as either Primary or Studio mode, and let you switch between the two easily if you so wish.
Activsoftware inspire will provide one platform across Windows, Mac and Linux operating systems. Apparently the software is a complete rebuild from earlier versions of ActivStudio/ActivPrimary and as such they’ve taken into account the full range of other devices that will connect and communicate with the boards such as voting/response systems and future promethean developments. Multi touch is now incoporated into the software, and a firmware update will allow your promethean board to use two pens at the same time. You can even get a version to run on other whiteboards – very interesting if you’ve bought a cheap board and do not like the software that comes with it.
The preview version of Activsoftware Inspire Edition is available from Promethean Planet until 1st March 2009, after which the trial expires and you will be able to upgrade.
Multi touch systems were on display with the main two being the Smart Table and Microsoft Surface. Both were available for visitors to play with for themselves and see what they can do.
The Smart Table probably had the most useful resources on show for education purposes, whilst the Surface was still very much a “hey wow, look what this can do” blue sky demo at present. Both are very expensive, but the price should fall as they get mass produced. I’m still not totally convinced how useful they will be, especially as you could get 4 or 5 Smartboards for the price of a smart table, but as an emerging technology its pretty interesting.
Smart were showing off version 2 of the Senteo software to use with their senteo response systems. This is much improved from the last version – gone is the little flash window that sat on your page and Senteo now has its own tab on the sidebar of your Smart Notebook software. It gives much easier access to all the quiz control features. Reporting is much better, it will still export to Excel and you can even set up gradebooks and print whole reports on your class. Download v2 now from www.smarttech.com
In terms of alternative IWB platforms, Ebeam and Mimio were both at the exhibition showing off their portable whiteboard solutions. Ebeam have released a new version of their software which you can download from their website for free. Likewise the Mimio software is also available for download. If you use these and haven’t updated for a while, it’s always well worth getting the latest versions.
A new kid on the block was Clasus who are a portugese company producing a tough, hard induction whiteboards similar to the Promethean-type board which you can also write on with regular whiteboard pens if you so wish. It comes with A-migo software which looks like they’ve taken a long look at Smart Notebook and copied the features that make it very easy to use. The firm have yet to get a real foothold in the UK but they may be one to watch.
If you do have a whiteboard, and don’t like the software that comes with it then you might want to check out Word Wall. It’s a paid for piece of software, but it comes with a wide selection of game and puzzle templates that would work really well as lesson starters or plenaries. I wrote about them already after seeing them at the ASE the week before.
Other good things that caught my eye included Task Magic which lets teachers enter a block of text, or a selection of words and then produces up to 21 different interactive games/exercises based on the text that require students to interact with it in different ways. A great tool for making lesson starters and plenaries very quickly. You have to buy it, but it’s not too expensive.
If you have very young students then check out IBoard who provides interactive games for Infants (reception, yr 1, yr2) and also Q&D multimedia who also produce some lovely early years software. There will be an online version of their resources in April at http://www.busythings.co.uk/ so bookmark it and go back in the Spring.
And a final shout to 2 Simple software who have produced yet another brilliant piece of software in 2DIY. This lets you produce very simple flash games which can be exported to use on your IWB or onto the web. It’s aimed at KS1 (K-2) but other teachers may find it an easy way to produce quick resources.
For more information about all the exhibitors at BETT, then check out their website.
Finally, a big thank you to the organisers of the TeachMeet@Bett unconference that took place on the Friday evening of BETT. It was great to see so many great users of IT in on pl.ace sharing what they have been doing. Sorry I couldn’t have attended the pizza, but I had to get home.
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Tilt Shift Maker
Tilt shifting is a way of processing a photograph so that it appears to be a model instead of the real thing.
I’ve always been amazed by the fact that just adding a blur to parts of the photograph changes the whole way the brain processes the image and makes you think you are looking at a model.
Previously, if you’ve wanted to make a tilt-shift image, you had to play around with blurs and masks or filters in Photoshop. But now there’s a website that lets you produce them almost instantly.
Tilt Shift Maker lets you upload an image, or choose one from the internet. You can process images directly from Flickr if you give it the URL of the image. The image above is my attempt at a Tilt Shifted BETT.
The whole process is very quick. You can preview your image before you produce the final version, and then save it to your computer. There’s even a Flickr group of images produced by the website which you can add your finished image to if you wish.
Try it out now; http://tiltshiftmaker.com
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Bett Day 2 Photos
Here are some of my photos from my second day at BETT. I had a little bit more time to go around the show and see some of the things I’d only glanced at briefly the day before.
Tanya shows off version 2 of Smart’s Senteo software with much better reporting built in. You can download v2 right now from Smart’s website.
2DIY – a great new piece of software from 2Simple. Aimed at KS1 you can get them to create and share their own Flash games. Very easy to produce something fun!
Task Magic. Quickly produce a bank of interactive resource from one set of inputted text.
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Win a memory stick
Those lovely people on the Smart stand at BETT very kindly gave me 6 of their 2GB memory stick wristbands to give away on my blog.
The sticks are loaded up with Smart Notebook Student Edition, which runs directly from the wristband, so you don’t need to install anything. If you wish you could remove this and just use it as a regular memory stick that just fits round your wrist.
I am going to give 3 of these away on Twitter, and give 3 away via this blog. If I can fit them in the envelope I’ll throw in an “I love my Smart Board” window sticker too! If you didn’t attend BETT, or they had run out by the time you got to their stand, then this is an easy way to get your hands on my favourite freebie of the exhibition.
To enter, all I want you to do is to complete the following sentence in the most imaginative/interesting/amusing way you can;
“I love my Interactive Whiteboard because…..”
1. To enter via twitter put @dannynic and then the rest of the sentence. You’ll have to limit it to 140 characters as per Twitter rules.
2. To enter via this blog post a comment below this article with your sentence.
I’ll let you enter once via Twitter and once via this blog, but you can’t win twice 
I want to send these out to 6 different people.
If you post via the blog, please leave an email address so I can contact you if you win.
I’ll run the competition until midnight (UK) on Friday 23rd January. I’ll sort out winners soon after. The judges decision is final, and no whining if you don’t win etc etc.
I look forward to seeing your entries!
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Bomomo
I’m always a fan of online paint packages, especially when they try to be a little different than the standard painting tools. Bomomo is an interesting way of making abstract pictures. The various tools use moving pens that follow roughly where you are clicking, but which move around that point in different ways, and with changing colours.
That’s a really bad way of describing it, but have a play and you’ll get the idea: http://bomomo.com/
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About Me
Danny Nicholson : Educator, Science teacher, ICT Consultant, PGCE lecturer, Author and Web2.0 / SMART Masters/ Interactive Whiteboard Trainer. Contact me for any training requests. 
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