I had a a couple of nice example of how well google image search can work with uploaded images and a couple of descriptive words. Here is one.
While walking today I saw clouds of butterflies, although I tried to get a good photo I failed miserably.
This was the best one:
I uploaded this to the google image search, which gave me good feedback on my photo skills:
Google thinks my butterfly is a bear, dog or fish!
The addition of a few keywords nails it:
A google wrinkle worth teaching I think.
Last year Radio #EDUtalk was at the eAssessment Scotland 2012.
I had a great time and we broadcast some great folk and recorded for the podcast: eAS12 | EDUtalk
This year the Programme looks really interesting.
Kenji Lamb has asked us to cover the conference again! I am really excited about going again and getting into some great conversations that will be a bit over my head.
Last year it worked, IMO, really well by having two knowledgable folk in most of the broadcasts (ie as well as me). I hope to repeat this method again.
You will be able to listen to the live stream on Friday 23 August.
We are also going to run a couple of eAssessment Scotland episodes on Radio #EDUtalk on the Wednesdays before and after the conference.
As usual I am amazed at being able to talk to interesting folk just by sharing the conversation.
I’ve blogged a fair bit about badges but still am conflicted about their value in the classroom. Perhaps because I’ve not used them in anger.
Doug Belshaw when talking at the SQA assessment event last month, lit a wee lightbulb, he said something like: Badges from you community to show others, that is it for me, it is the community that issues the badge that is important. I love my talktina badge badge as I value the community that issued it.
Anyway yesterday I had a quick play with the Displayer API · mozilla/openbadges Wiki · GitHub and came up with a wee page that produces a script that will display a public collection from your open badges Mozilla Backpack
More an effort to improve my baby steps JavaScript than anything else, this might be of use until something more professional comes long.
Wirelesses by Elsie esq.
Attribution License
Why would you?
On the site
By subscribing to the podcast feed
Listening to the radio stream
There are many ways to listen to Edutalk, and other podcasts and Internet radio. You may find this is a great way to get information in addition to reading and watching.
TL:DR Some improvements for listens to Radio EDUtalk including some scheduling. We have an very varied and rich set of content on edutalk contributed to by a wide range of folk.
Over the Summer I’ve got a few things I want to work on. A couple of, to me, big ones. ScotEduBlogs is one, but more of that later on. First I want make a few improvements to the Radio EDUtalk stream.
Until today the stream just plays random pieces of audio from the archive files we uploaded. The files sit on the internet-radio.com server.
I had just been creating 64 kbps versions of any files submitted to the podcast and uploading them. the 64kbps files are fine for voice and keep the cost down. Unfortunately this process, or the way I carried it out had stripped the tags from some of the MP3s which meant that the information displaced on the webpage was not great.
For the last couple of days I’ve been sorting out all of the files I’ve gather over the last couple of years in a haphazard fashion. For the Radio Edutalk live shows this was easy, I’ve exported these at 64 kbps and tagged them in a reasonable fashion, eg they are titled, in the Radio EDUtalk album etc.
Some other files I had exported at 64kbps without tags. I had to add tags to these files, a couple of hundred. To do this I used a combination of SuperCard, applescript and a couple of shell commands, exiftool and id3tool
The same tools were used along with lame to export lots of other audioboo files and add the tags back in. The only problem is with id3tool which can only handle short ID3 version 1 tags, so some longer titles are truncated. (if you really want to see this in action check a quick video. I’ve deleted a chunk of this post which gave details, in the unlikely event anyone else needs to do this sort of thing, get in touch.)
This is not perfect but gives a bit more information to the viewer about what is playing on the radio.
We have space for a couple of GB of mp3 and I have more files than that. The idea is to start a rotation, where I’ll swap out a subset of audio every month or so. Took overnight and a bit to get the first rotation of 370 files up.
Having files with a better set of tags on the server has allowed me to create some playlists which will play at certain times.
For example at 8pm we will have a random episode of the live show, or on alternative days at 7pm Ian Field and Leon Cych will take over for half and hour. The Eduhacking Daily is mostly some teknoteacher with some other contributions. These three folk have contributed the most to edutalk.
Going through the files had an added bonus for me, I now appreciate even more the varied and rich set of content we have.
I’d love to get some ideas for different selection that we could schedule.
The changes also mean we can provide more information on the Radio Page, just like this:
Current track: Loading…
An invitation to listen to edutalk audio is always open, as I am not responsible for the quality of the content I have no hesitation in saying it is great. I’ll be posting more about differnet ways to listen soon.
There is also an invitation to join in and contribute to the site, in several ways:
I’ve been using Fargo for a bit of blogging recently. This is a test of using markdown to format posts.
Fargo is a simple idea outliner, notepad, todo list, project organizer.
It’s an HTML 5 application, written in JavaScript, runs in any compatible browser, including Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Microsoft IE 10.
I am hoping that using Fargo to write blogs posts might improve my blog posts by helping me to think about the structure a bit more. I am impressed with how easy it is to move blocks of content around in Fargo.
I am not sure about Fargo’s business plan, here is what they say (html blockquote)
There is no charge to use Fargo.
We don’t want any limits on the growth because we think outlining is vitally important to the growth of the net as a thinking person’s platform.
We will eventually offer for-pay services to Fargo users.
I’ve put a screenshot of the editor in my dropbox to show what this looks like in Fargo.
Barassie Beach
A couple of hours walking along and back. Quite a warm day, bit of low thin cloud. Started off bright and clouded over a wee bit.
This one taken with the slowshutter app:
Surprisingly quiet, we went to Troon for an ice cream and the beach there was packed. Hardly a soul along the barassie strand towards Irvine.
brassie beach – a set on Flickr , a few more photos.
Lovely warm, for here, evening for a walk around the Loch Ardinning Nature Reserve.
The path that has been a swamp for the last few months is starting to dry out.
The Balck Linn burn still had a fair bit of water in it.
Very quite evening, a roe was grazing in the reed near the loch, the smell of young bracken everywhere across the moor.
At the end of the walk beside the loch again there were a fair few young frogs leaving the pond and crossing the path.
Walk round the glen Douglas ‘Trio’ today, Beinn Bhreah, Ben Rioch and Tullich Hill
Started cloudy with a bit of drizzle as I squelched up Beinn Bhreah. cheered up by a few groups of Red Deer and a Raven croaking overhead.
I’d forgotten my camera and an iPhone is not the best wildlife at a distance camera.
It began to clear up a bit after I got to the first top:
Walked along to Rioch had some coffee and dipped down to climb up Tullich Hill.
One of the things I like about these hills is how quiet they are, I did not see another walker today, great view of the more glamorous Arrochar Alps too.
Lunch at the top of Tullich while my phone made a wee timelaps video of the cobbler:
Although these are just about highland hills they are covered with rough grass rather than heather. Lots of Bedstraw and Tormentil along with some pink and blue jobs. Some orchids on the wetter parts of Tullich.
Grass filled with vole tunnels too, I nearly stepped on a couple of the wee beasts scooting along the tunnels.
Back down to the road I noticed some new signage pointing to the hills. Selfish twinge that this might mean the walk is a bit busier in the future. Amazing that you can get so alone a short hour from glasgow.
5 hours 20 minutes, 10 and a half km, 1012m of up.
