Graphic for Marine Institute Newsletter

Thought I would share a collage I created in Adobe Photoshop CS5 to be used in a Marine Institute newsletter for the Hydrographic Academy. The article was written by Tony Jenks our resident retired Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander to share the accomplishments of the Hydrographic Academy team.

I used a series of photos at the bottom which I took during some student surveying on Plymouth Hoe with Dr Victor Abbott. For those interested, the green sea like wake is actually from Plymouth Sound, this is exactly as it came from the camera - I have not enhanced the colour...

CampusM for Plymouth University arrives on Android

CampusM has now been released at Plymouth University. It's a mobile application for both Android and iPhone. This was very much a collaborative development project with input from numerous staff across the University. Searching 'Plymouth Uni' within the Android Market is all that is needed! The application is ~1.7Mb installed, so not likely to cause too much of a dent in on board memory.

More details on this application can be found on the Technology Enhanced Learning blog post (by Dr Neil Witt).

How to get a Twitter widget (feed) into Sharepoint 2010

I had a recent request from an academic wishing to get a Twitter feed into SharePoint 2010. Easy? Well not as easy as you would think. Discovering that the script functionality is turned of in Telerik RadEditor for MOSS SharePoint web part. Why? Telerik actually strips Javascript but there is a work around. Sadly, this did not work for me, I suspect even with AllowScripts="true" function, it would still need additional adjustments at administrator level, but I did not have the necessary access.

However I did try this and it worked! - Use the 'Content Editor' web part:

• Go to the Twitter resource to create a widget (you need a Twitter account).
• Copy the JavaScript code provided by Twitter into notepad and save as a .txt document (as shown in the shared documents area in my screenshot) Please note the numbering on the multi-screenshot patchwork above:

1. Right click and copy the URL of this uploaded text file (probably best to ensure this file is ‘read only’ for students! Or hidden).
2. Select ‘edit page’ for SharePoint (top left - activated for editing in this example)
3. Select any ‘Add a Web part’ area (probably right is best? its personal preference)
4. Find and add the web part ‘Content Editor’.
5. Select 'edit web part' then paste the URL link for the txt file from the documents area to the ‘Content Link’ area of the web part (shown top right).
6. Apply and ok.
7. It now appears in SharePoint as an active Twitter widget/feed.

Know issues are: running script in IE (in general), the user will be asked if it’s safe to run active content – this does not usually happen in other browsers. Annoying but I think most users are used to this now.

Worth a look: There are several flavours to the Twitter widget feeds, including the ability to use a keyword search, opening up other opportunities.

Thank you to Mark Pannell and Elena Menendez-Alonso for some excellent suggestions to help make this happen.

Hydrographic Surveying on Plymouth Sound - 7th October 2011

Hydrographic Surveying - 7th October 2011, a set on Flickr.

I took a few more pictures on another Hydrographic Surveying trip. This time on Plymouth University's own survey vessel the Falcon Spirit, courtesy of Dr Victor Abbott and students (thank you again all). The Learning Technologist team also came along to observe the learning experience. It was a short 2 hour round trip of Plymouth Sound, where students were taught how to use a Van Veen grab, a Shipek and a corer. I think the pictures speak for themselves...

Where did we go?

View Hydrographic Surveying - 7th Oct 2011 Plymouth Sound in a larger map

Students learn Hydrographic Surveying - 4th October 2011

Hydrographic Surveying - 4th October 2011, a set on Flickr.

I went down to Plymouth Hoe today with Dr Victor Abbott to take some photographs of his students (Plymouth University) learning land survey techniques. These photos will be used in both the Hydrographic Academy and Dr Abbott's teaching. It was quite clear that all involved were enjoying the experience. Thank you to Dr Abbott and students for allowing me to capture the day.

Where did we go?

This is a rough route, the Garmin GPS was inside a backpack throughout the day!

View Students on Plymouth Hoe in a larger map