Research Methods - Tulip subsite

I've been working with Allegra Cattani and a research student called Halina Kalaga in producing a Research Methods site. The aim is to have a central resource for students to get advice upon research and to be able to discuss and give feedback about the resource to Halina or Allegra.

Snapshot:



The resource can be found:
http://mysite.plymouth.ac.uk/personal/acattani/RMY2/
http://mysite.plymouth.ac.uk/personal/acattani/RMY3/

Dictaphones

I've eventually received a number of Digital Dictaphones, meaning I now posses 5. To keep track of where all these devices are, I decided to create a subsite to my 'my site'.

http://mysite.plymouth.ac.uk/personal/shodge/Dictaphones

The idea is that people can view the availability of their devices and then email the administrator of the devices for their campus to request use of it.

Virtual Learning

Simulated learning is something very key to Health and Social work since you can't put a fresher into a real life mental health situation or in the delivery ward of a hospital and just hope they find their feet. However what we can do is create a simulated environment for them to learn in. This can be done with the aid of dummies or role play etc. Or more specifically for me at least Virtually.

Two links which I've come across on the BBC's website have gotten me rather excited:

Virtual Paramedic training with the aid of second life:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7686595.stm

And a Virtual Pregnancy within a flash based - document style platform:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7206222.stm

The both of these are hopefully something I'll be able to do however its the Virtual Pregnancy which has got me rather excited since this is something which can be integrated with both Flash and tulip (SharePoint) two major tools available for me to use.

To finish this post I feel I should share this amazing animation I made last night:

Mentorship update - Online

After a week of tying up loose ends I've finally got around to putting the Mentorship update online. Not much else to say about it really can only be viewed if you have a UOP Login. I tried to embed it into this page however Blogspot doesn't seem to like this so this direct link seems to work a tad better.

As its my first major project any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Graduation & Diamonds

Graduation:
Last week I graduated, it was on the hoe... it was sunny bonus... I made my parents proud... the end. (actually I really enjoyed it thanks for asking)

HTC Touch Diamond:



For over a month now I've had the pleasure of owning one of these, having previously attempted to get on with a Windows Mobile phone I was slightly reluctant to start using another one. However after the odd Youtube video here and there, some online reviews and the sales people in Phones 4 U I decided to once again attempt to get on with this type of phone. So I bet your reading this and thinking great thanks for this great insight into your personal life! Well the reason I write this is because of eventually finishing the Mentorship Project (see previous post) I've now had a chance to have a play with this device. With the Aid of XDA developers I've managed to unlock the potential of this phone and more importantly of how to use this device from an E-Learning perspective.

Phone review:
The actual phone is very thin and because of this it fits in your pocket well without you actually noticing its there at all! The phone supports a huge screen (for mobile phone standards) which displays at a whopping 640x480 resolution (higher than the Iphone) that's just two stops down from the resolution on the Ibook I'm writing this post on the phone has built in G-Sensors like what you would find in a Wii remote, it a has GPS and a light sensor (to control screen brightness) other than these specs everything else on the phone is like all other smartphones, 3G, Wifi, bluetooth, touchscreen etc. I'm really getting on well with this phone it works as well as I'd imagine a microsoft based product to work and looks good while its doing this. Two area's it falls down slightly is that to cram all its features into such a small package the phone can only really last 24hours without being plugged into the wall which is fine during the week with leaving it plugged into the USB on my comupter whilst sat at my desk however on the weekends i'm quite often left with a dead phone. However this can be rectified by purchasing a larger (in size and capacity) battery. The second small issue I have with this phone is lack of keyboard however I'm slowley getting used to texting and emailing using its onscreen keyboard.

Anyway this handy YouTube video should be a little bit more usefull at showing you the phone and its features....

Hacking & ELearning
This phone out the box could be used as a quality E-Learning resource (much like all smart phoens), with its high res screen and ability to view full html websites, open all office documents, PDF's and flash lite applications. However one of the things which has made me jump out my seat and go I should write a post about this on my Blog is this:

By using the G-Sensors within the phone you can figure out what the angle of the phone is and from this create a fake 3D object which by tilting the phone you can navigate around it. Imagine a programme which uses this feature but to navigate around a human organ or likewise.

I'm just waiting for the friendly guys on the XDA forum to patch the tilt/g-sensors into flash lite so i can start developing using the sensors, otherwise I'm going to have to get on learning C# or whatever language you use when programming for windows mobile.

Well this has been quite a long post all to say that my phone has G-Sensors which could be used for elearning, well watch this space I might have an application to share in the not so distant future which uses these sensors.......... YEAH RIGHT. But seriously if you think you might have a project which could use this idea then please get in touch I'd love to at least attempt such a project.

Mentorship CD

For the past couple of months all my time has been spent working on an interactive CD for updating mentors associated with NHS South West this project was initiated by the Strategic Health Authority which basically mean its a priority job hence why I've been living under a stone the last couple of month working on this project!

Anyway last week it got sent off to the document production center to have 500 cd's pressed so phew its over! For now at least, rumors have it that the new update will be web based so a lot more accessible and easier to produce etc bla bla bla.Anyway here are some screen shots of my first lproject in use:






My thinking behind the design was to keep it simple and stylish.... sure that's the thinking behind all designs... anyway I think I managed to keep it relatively straight forward enough with the two buttons with drop down menu's to navigate through sections and sub sections and the page control. The people I designed it for for some reason wanted the orange/yellow/gold colour as an underlying theme which I didn't like but with it as the background pattern I feel it works quite well. You will notice that all of my projects will have this odd design as the background image it'll be like my signature move or something along those lines Bubba Scrub has his... Bubba Scrub I have my odd background... awesome.

Anyway its been requested that I put this project on the portal so shall be doing that within the next few days once done I shall update this blog telling you about it

New blog

Yes another blog, much the same as all the other blogs I've ever created, however people might possibly read this one!

My thoughts behind this blog are to show what work I've been doing and to discuss anything I think might be useful to E-Learning, my job or my just blub... (new word).