Emma Duke-Williams

I'm afraid I'm coming rather late to the party - several weeks of marking etc., have meant that I've only skimmed the odd post! 

What I haven't seen, though it's entirely possible it was in posts I skimmed way too fast - is a distinction between the different types of experience you look for in a book

To me; I look in novels for escapism; to draw my own pictures of what the characters look like ... essentially, I guess, I want the book to control me. So, for that, my Kindle is fab. It won't play me scary music if it thinks the plot merits it; it doesn't encourage me to annotate (I can if I'm really desperate); the battery life is awesome - I can read it in the sun (though not under the covers without a torch!) etc. 

On the other hand, non-fiction; I like additional media to help me understand, etc; I want to control it. So, from that point of view; iPads/phones/laptops / even my OLPC is great; I can have the interaction with it that I want, I can read it under the covers (not sure I'd want to for a non-fiction book mind!) - even if not as well in the sun (unless it's the OLPC with its backlit or e-ink screen) - though the battery life isn't as good. 

I did see on thread discussing what to call 'ebooks' (the software) - and presumably the hardware - does eReader apply to them all, (or is that predominantly what I see as my first option)  - and, should there be a different name for the two different types. 

Hope that makes sense; now off to read the posts from the new seminar, so as not to get too far behind!

Who am I

I'm Emma, I'm a lecturer in Computing at Portsmouth University (South Coast of England). I'm particularly interested in computers to support learning; currently looking at 'web2.0' (or whatever you want to call them!) to support students in full time education - and also second life. 

How do I use video

Haven't used it that much recently; in the past, when we've had distance learners, we've used online video conferencing (Flashmeeting ) - for online chat sessions (mixed reactions; most prefer it to text based, but a few had connectivity issues, so couldn't use it through various firewalls etc; or they had very low bandwidth connections).
But, we've looked at it with oncampus students creating their own material, so they're doing the content creation.

Option choices: We have had some success getting short (2-3 minute) interviews with staff about the options they teach, to complement the written information about units (they also have the option to actually go and find the lecturer & talk, but not all do!). Students appear to value this (well, they tell us they do; we don't keep any stats on how many actually use it) 

Thinking about non-locally created video; we are also lucky in that our University is one of a group of UK universities who've got a TV archiving facility; so we can easily (& legally) get snippets (or whole programmes) from a variety of channels (most of the UK terrestrial ones) & share with students, so that's useful for both classroom & VLE use. (They're restricted to our students only)

Issues etc. 

Mostly time!  

The other thing that strikes me, is that it's often possible to fast forward video material (thinking about those who are using class recordings for backup for those who were there, rather than other uses) - so students might well be able to fast forward to a remembered section - in a way you can't if it's just audio (assuming the fastforward includes some form of visuals; whether it's periodic screenshots or just sped up) 

The main drawback, though, that I see to the use of iTunes is that users have to have the iTunes software, so if they don't want to install it for whatever reason, it can be difficult to use otherwise. I know there are alternatives, but I'm thinking more about the less technically able students, rather than those who know about the alternatives. (and can you use them on Android devices, I've never tried)

Hi Hilda
Though I've somewhat covered this in another post, I'll also say it here ... and try to concentrate more on my personal learning, than what I encourage students to do.
Over the past few years, I have found Twitter more and more useful; initially i didn't see the point of it; I set up my account when I first heard about it, in March 2007, it wasn't really until about November 2008 that I really saw the point of it - when I was at a conference (about Second Life) and it was being used as a back channel. Now I'm using it a lot - the vast majority of my contacts are work related & I use it to both ask questions and to keep abreast of new ideas, recent research etc. (And very occasionally to discuss coffee!)

I've used Google Docs (and Zoho, which I think is technically superior) with colleagues over the years to collaborate on conference proposals etc., though it's a bit of a fiddle, because they often have quite strict formatting requirements - so often it's good to get the ideas, even if then we just download it as plain text & reformat.

I've used SecondLife with students - though don't really like it myself, but I know that a lot of students find it useful; however, that's 'teaching' rather than learning, as I'd far rather not use it myself!

I also think that some tools that are branded 'social' can be very useful as personal tools - not connecting with anyone, but using their features. For example, I've got two blogs - one that I share the URL of, and one that I keep primarily for myself; I've similarly put a server/wiki on a USB stick so that I can keep structured notes - and have access to it from multiple computers. (A bit like OneNote)

Emma