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 3

Pelecon 2012 Day 3, a set on Flickr.

These are all Day 3, quite a few...

Hope you find some you like :)

Really good to be surrounded by a great bunch of people, already looking forwards to next years! Hope to see you there too! :D

Pelecon 2012 Day 2

Pelecon 2012 Day 2, a set on Flickr.

I went a bit mad taking photos this year, sorry all...  I wanted to include the vendors as well as the presenters.  The later images in this set also have some snapshots from the conference dinner :)  yum.

Don't forget to join the PELeCON Flickr group so you can share your own!