Digital Video for the classroom (SMART Board integration)

If you are making Digital Video for the classroom, here are a few pointers to make life easier for teachers:

• 1-4 minutes is great for Key Stage 3 (ages 11-14)
• 5-20 minutes is great for Key Stages 4 and 5 (ages 14-19), where a more in depth exploration of a topic may be useful (although short clips are also still useful)
• attention in the classroom can be lost in the blink of an eye, so it’s great if video can be integrated into interactive whiteboard software – the most commonly used is the SMART Board software, Notebook
• Notebook currently only supports Flash Video (.flv and .swf) and so Digital Video should be downloadable in either of these two formats

If you are a teacher looking to integrate Digital Video into your SMART Board resources:

• SMART Board have written instructions for inserting Flash Video into Notebook versions 9.5 and above
• Kent NGFL have written guidance for converting existing video files in other formats into Flash Video

Good luck and have fun inspiring the next generation.

Give the kids the skills they need…

I was interviewed by Brit Hammer a couple of weeks ago and have been meaning to link to it.

A message from Antarctica

In March 2008, Robert Swan and the Inspire Antarctic team will be broadcasting live from the newly launched E-Base in Bellingshausen on King George Island. Robert will be living solely off renewable energy for 2 weeks and sharing his daily experiences with the world through a cutting-edge, interactive website (to be launched mid-February 2008).

Through daily video broadcasts, photography and live chats, Robert and the 2041 team aim to bring the message of preserving Antarctica, promoting sustainable lifestyles and combating climate change to a wider audience.

Follow the adventure online, beginning March 1, 2008, and be sure to check out the BRAND NEW WEBSITE, going live mid-February 2008!!

Join the Facebook group to keep in touch with developments.

Can technology save the world?

The Guardian wrote a great article about some of the ideas coming out of the recent Pop!Tech conference in Maine last month – mapping emotions and wonderfully beautiful and shocking digital images detail the effluent of rampant consumerism.

Chris Jordan’s images combine massive digital photographs (up to 26 x 43 feet) with statistics about the amount of waste produced in the United States. To be faced by an image of 170,000 life-size batteries would certainly bring the point home. Above is one of Chris’ images of Mobile Phones in Atlanta, visit his website to see more of his work.

I was very interested to read about Christian Nold’s work on mapping emotions using Google Earth and a devices to measure adrenaline levels. As Christian points out, with more and more of the world’s population living in cities, it is important to look at more imaginative ways that demonstrate how humans react to the urban environment.

To read the full text of the article, visit The Guardian.

You need chaos in your soul…

“You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.” A great quote from Nietzsche in Jay Griffiths’ ‘Wild‘ that is part of a growing wilderness flavour at Digital Explorer. Bringing the joy of wilderness to a greater number of young people is as important now as it has ever been.

Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop was recently interviewed as part of the Wilderness Foundation’s Campfire questions, and Digital Explorer looks forward to future collaboration with the organisation.

The Wilderness Foundation was set up to protect wilderness areas wherever they are by:

• Educating people about the benefits of wilderness
• Providing opportunities for direct experience of wild places
• Campaigning for their preservation when threatened with development.

There is also a great article in this month’s Geographical Magazine (November 2007) examining the increasing ‘nature deficit’ in young people. Search out a copy if you can.

Chocolate power to Timbuktu

Best of luck to Andy Pag as he sets off on his truly inspirational journey to Mali in a truck powered by bio-diesel from waste confectionery. Andy is not only delivering an inspirational message to all of us, but is also a leader in remote communications so expect some great digital media on the site.

From the expedition website:

The BioTruck team are attempting the first ever Carbon-Negative driving expedition across the Sahara Desert to Timbuktu in Mali, West Africa.

To do this they will use a mix of carbon cutting techniques, including biofuels and offsetting, and the outcome is being analysed with independent assistance from CarbonAided, using industry standard methodologies to verify the Carbon-Negative claim.

Timbuktu is a city that has suffered from the effect of climate change. Once a river port town, the shifting sands of the Sahara have moved the river 20km away and are now threatening the towns very existence as enormous dunes encroach on the outskirts.

The Expedition will explore and raise awareness of the value of different carbon reducing measures, and will be powered entirely on a unique biodiesel fuel made by Ecotec from waste chocolate!

Ecotec are also donating one of their small scale biodiesel production units to MFC in Mali who will use it to allow local women to re-cycle their used cooking oil into eco-friendly fuel and supplement their income at the same time.

There’s a recycling theme to the expedition too; all the equipment used has been salvaged from the scrap yard and will remain in Mali where it will continue to be used. That includes the BioTruck itself.

Also see The Guardian article published on Thursday 15 November 2007.

Young Lebanon online

As part of the preparations for the HSBC Offscreen Student Expedition 2008, Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop travelled to Lebanon to investigate how to galvanise a massive online audience for the expedition to the UK in July 2008.

The Offscreen Education Programme used the Digital Explorer model on the joint expedition in February 2007, giving it a design edge inconceivable a year ago.

The next collaboration sees 8 students and 4 teachers from Lebanon, Bahrain, the UAE and Oman come to the UK in July 2008. Whilst in Beirut Injaz Lebanon and the British Council organised a Youth focus group to look at technology and web trends amongst teenagers in Beirut and beyond (download the full report – pdf 44k).

There were a couple of interesting points. The first that Facebook has complete dominance as the social networking platform amongst young people. The second was that call rates on mobiles are prohibitively high and so there is a large text and bluetooth culture. Interestingly, the dominance of Facebook made RSS an anathema and Flickr obsolete. Some still used YouTube, but again the video functionality of Facebook was a big factor.

If you would like to discuss these matters, please join the Offscreen in Lebanon Facebook group.

Google Earth goes to Wales

The first in a series of 10 UK workshops supported by Google took place on Monday 12 November in Swansea. Jamie Buchanan-Dunlop was joined by 12 educators from South Wales to learn how to create virtual fieldwork using Google Earth.

It was great to be on the road and bringing this kind of training to educators who cannot get up to the courses in London. Duncan Hawley (Geography PGCE tutor at the Swansea Institute of Higher Education) was our host for the day, and made the excellent point of developing a deeper pedagogy for the work. Based on his feedback, we will look to develop a deeper range of links and resources on Digital Explorer’s Google Earth pages and host an online forum where educators from all over the UK will be able to discuss how they are applying the methodology in their classrooms and in the field.

For details on future roadshow courses visit the Royal Geographical Society website.

The courses are supported by Google and run in partnership with the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG). Digital Explorer has received generous sponsorship from Garmin and Olympus in providing equipment.

Inspiring young minds at work…

‘Ideas that can change the world’ launched at Microsoft on Tuesday 13 November. Pupils, teachers, entrepreneurs and the inspirational gathered to turn the amazing ideas that young people have for a better into reality.

There are already some amazing ideas emerging from their work with young people. Some ideas focus on compassion, others on technology and there are some extraordinary ideas from young people about money. If you are an entrepreneur, a scientist, a teacher a youth worker or someone with a passion about making positive change happen do get in touch to see if you can help.

If you are a teacher then please have a look at their amazing cookbook for generating world-changing ideas in the classroom (pdf download).

See the Ideas that can change the world website for more information or join their facebook group.

Explore at the Royal Geographical Society

Royal Geographical Society (with IBG) hosts the world’s premier event for those wishing to lead their own expeditions and fieldwork. Explore will take place on the weekend of 24/25 November 2007.

The Explore weekend has been the starting point for many expeditioners. Some 200 participants are joined by over 50 ‘experts’ for the weekend. Panel discussions and talks range from:project management, field research techniques, fundraising health & safety, insurance and the logistics of living and working in rainforest, polar, marine, desert and mountain environments.

Some of the iNOMAD, Offscreen and Digital Explorer crew will be there speaking about education , new media and film.

For more information email the Geography Outdoors team or go to the RGS website.

(Image from RGS-IBG)