Two new modules for the Hydrographic Academy

Sneaky snapshot of interface

I've been working hard on the design and development of another user interface for the Hydrographic Academic with Plymouth University.  This design has additional interactive usability enhancements, making it easier for students to find all the learning materials and support their needs. As in previous interfaces, I have incorporated HTML5 video integration and now includes some CSS3, JQuery and Javascript menu navigation to help thing look more interesting.  I've been asked not to give away too much as the Academy likes to surprise their students. This time round the Academy has produced 2 new modules based around this design, which incorporates a plethora of digital learning materials from both dedicated Academy and invited lecturers.  Details are available on the HA website.  I hope the students enjoy the next round of learning!

Hydrographic Academy at HE STEM Workforce Development & Employability in the South West Conference

I attended a presentation for the Hydrographic Academy with HE STEM today. It was chaired by Prof Jim Griffiths (Head of the School of Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences, University of Plymouth) and presented by Dr Richard Thain (soon to be Director, The Hydrographic Academy) His slides are available from the HE STEM site in PowerPoint format.

The rest of the team 'in attendance' were placed on a panel at the front for 20mins to an audience of some 80 persons to help answer any burning questions. It included: Tony Jenks, Luke Denner, Jon Scott and myself. We had a range of questions from student tutoring, support and choice of interface. I think we all did a very good job at answering everything successfully, after all, we know it inside out. We were warmly welcomed by Ruth Waring (HE STEM) thank you Ruth, and delighted at all the positive feedback from others. The Hydrographic Academy has indeed been a lot of hard work from a great team of people and it shows!  


Alison Austin (Placements Officer) and Carolyn Deeming (Schools Liaison Officer) set up the Plymouth University stand with all the Faculty of Science and Technology information and kindly looked after the Hydrographic Academy banner, thank you to them! They chose not to be in the picture... I did try!

The event was situated at Sandy Park grounds in Exeter, this is what it looked like outside the venue!  The team even had the opportunity to briefly sit in the padded executive chairs at the top shown in the right of the picture (below) during lunch, just a shame there was no game at the time ;-)





A big thank to all the other presenters and everyone involved in making this a very enjoyable event.  I think this was a superb and fitting finally to our work with HE STEM (South West) region and we were all very pleased to share our knowledge and experiences.  


P.S....not quite finished with HE STEM...the Academy will also be presenting in the final HE STEM conference in Birmingham later this year.

Domains for the Hydrographic Academy

I have been buying and setting up domains for the Hydrographic Academy (HA) this week. It was a tricky balance between, how the HA would like to see itself externally and what we are likely to use.

I also considered whether we actually need to buy monthly hosting, use University systems or free third party solutions. The later, particularly Google based products allow for free hosting and users to add their own bespoke domain. For me this was the way to go, as I have had good experiences using blogger and linking domains using CNAME has worked without fault.

How did I do it?
This process is different for whichever URL host company you use.  The important bit to note is that when setting up the CNAME ensure that there is a full stop '.' at the end of the following: ghs.google.com.  It is likely to misbehave or not work properly if you don't.  This is actually not shown in all the guides, one of the official guides actually has this missing.  Setting the "A" is straight forward with the IP addresses provided.  It normally works straight away, but I would recommend setting this up with your URL host first then setting it up on the Google product 24 hours later, just to ensure that it points at the new domain properly, and to avoid weird re-directs.
The Hydrographic Academy website now has the domain name www.hydrographic-academy.co.uk pointing to our blog.

E-Book showcase: Meet the publishers

I was pleased to be invited by Fiona Grieg (Content and Development Manager, Plymouth University Library) to speak at the E-Book showcase, an another opportunity to present again for the Hydrographic Academy. I wanted to concentrate on the materials that are used in the interface, rather than the interface itself. Discuss the concerns of copyright and also give a bit of insight into how Learning Technologists can aid in this development. I only had 15mins to talk with the remaining left for discussion, so it was difficult to pack in all the essential background before continuing. Feedback included being impressed with the user interface, a lot of questions on why USB stick (should we have encrypted them? Although these concerns we actually related to their own in-house problems rather than a problem with our content!) I was also asked how well did the tutoring work for an interface that contained predominantly off-line e-learning content?  The Academy chose the offline approach so as not to disadvantage students working on-board ships or locations with poor internet, this of course has to be balanced with a little on-line for tutoring to be effective (for the times when students have a connection).

Thank you for the strong support from the Learning Technologist! All in all a very good debate and feedback.

I will add that I also enjoyed the line up of speakers (below), there are certainly crossovers of development in all these areas, something that Learning Technologists are willing to help develop. I often work with digital mapping and mobile devices utilising GPS, and found John Abraham's talk very interesting. I'm currently applying a little learning technologies to John's GeoTrail that will enable students and visitors to explore the wonders of geology in and around the University and Plymouth.

The Charles Seale-Hayne Library had invited a number of major academic publishers to talk to staff about e-books on Thursday 26 April between 10am and 2pm.

• 10.30am - Phil Gee 'Psychology's e-book bundle: first year texts for students'
• 11.15am - Jason Truscott 'Developing technology enhanced, distance learning materials for the Hydrographic Academy'
• 12.00pm - Publisher Reps 'Future strategies in e-book publishing'
• 12.45pm - Rachel Christofides 'Using devices in the classroom: Aspire and e-offprints pros and cons'
• 1.30pm - John Abraham 'Maps and spatial data from Digimap and other sources'  

Pelecon 2012 Day 1

Pelecon 2012 Day 1, a set on Flickr.

A sneak peak of day 1 at Pelecon (Plymouth E-Learning Conference) at Plymouth University... enjoy :)
What to share your own? Feel free to join the Pelecon group on Flickr, we would love to see yours too!

All hands on deck: Developing technology enhanced distance learning for the marine industry
I also co-presented (and chaired) the first opening batch of sessions for the conference to a rough head count of 50 people.  My presentation was to do with the work I had been doing for the Hydrographic Academy.  I decided to angle it towards how we as Learning Technologists would approach such massive distance learning development project (More details are also available in 'My Projects' section about the technology choices made). The video includes the questions at the end.  This project is managed by Dr Richard Thain (Director, The Hydrographic Academy):

The official launch video for the Hydrographic Academy

I finally got time to edit the footage I took for the official launch of the Hydrographic Academy. The Academy was very pleased to share the stand with the Marine Institute during the conference, with the launch being held at our industrial partners stand (Fugro).  This video shows some highlights at the both stands and clips around the conference, plus the speeches from both Andrew McNeill (Global Learning & Development Manager. Fugro), Barbara Bond (Pro-Chancellor, Plymouth University) and Dr Richard Thain (Project Manager, Hydrographic Academy).  All attendees were treated to a Plymouth Gin and tonic, to mark the occasion. More details can be found on the Hydrographic Academy Blog post 'Making a splash...'  Hope you enjoy the video.

Those interested in the technical elements of the filming.  I used a Canon 600D, 18-55mm lens throughout. The audio gain was set to manual and a Zoom H1 attached to provide stereo sound. All editing was performed in Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5

Oceanology International 2012

Oceanology International 2012, a set on Flickr.

These photos were taken at the Oceanology International 2012. Which includes images of the vendor stands, the venue and also the Hydrographic Academy's official Launch.

www.oceanologyinternational.com/

Details on the Hydrographic Academy here:
www.plymouth.ac.uk/hydro