It is always good to come across a new magazine or book that you really enjoy and know that a lot of your friends will also like. I recently came across a magazine called Make while I was in the USA. It is published quarterly and costs near $15 but it is well worth it. The magazine features loads of really cool inventions and projects that you can carry out at home. Some of them are US specific and do require a certain level of skill (that I don’t have ) but they are still really interesting to read. The current issue involves making soap from bacon fat, building a bike stand, making a forge to create nails, building a LD brick light and tweeting your electric usage.

If you like the Jonny Lee wii video then you’ll like the Make website, it has loads of really great articles and videos. One example is making a 24 hour time lapse video.

Enjoy

Real Projects are delighted to announce that Russell Prue is going to be the keynote speaker for Game Based Learning Event on May13th.

Russell Prue said “I am delighted to have been asked to come and support the Real Projects Games Based Learning event on 13th May. There has never been a better time to take a closer look at this kind of technology and with plenty of evidence and case studies that confirm the learning benefits of games based learning this has to be at the top of your agenda. I will be showing a new concept in PE and Dance Exercise education with a Virtual PE Teacher system, pulling a “Bollywood” or “Salsa” instructor out of thin-air is something that technology can do in the C21st. There are plenty of competitive dancing competitions that really get you moving and with the ability for over 30 users to compete simultaneously on wireless dance mats this is a winner. More information from www.virtualpeteacher.co.uk

I am also planning to demonstrate the Kinaesthetic Interactive Teaching System (KIT), a 30 multi- users playstation style gaming system that develops cognitive and higher level thinking skills through the use of competitive game play. The camel race is my favourite and I am sure that you will get a chance to experience this amazing gaming system. More information from http://www.kinesthetic.co.uk I am also including a “how to use a Nintendo Wii Fit” to improve your concentration skills guide – this event simply cannot be missed.”

Russell Prue is an Award Winning ICT Evangelist and has presented to HM The Queen, members of the Royal Family, Heads of State and Ministers from the UK. He is well reported and enjoys a high profile as the best known ICT Evangelist in the UK. There is time in Russell’s session for some hands-on experience of these new uses of technologies and colleagues are urged to engage, dance, and explore. More information from www.andertontiger.com.

The Games Based Learning event is invitation only. For more information about the event please call Real Projects on 01603 762772

We are finalising the details for the Game Based Learning event. The event will be ticket only as we have had a lot of interest. A number of people have already booked and to register your interest please book by emailing info@realprojects.co.uk or using the contact form http://www.realprojects.co.uk/contact.php

We are expecting that the event will be heavily subscribed so please reserve your place.

The event will be taking place at the Financial Services Academy in Norwich.

Last week the Bett show took place at London Olympia, before setting out I’d been thinking about whether the show could get any bigger. Well, after a first walk around Olympia which seemed to take hours, I found that it had grown! The side hall (Olympia 2 I think) was used to house many more exhibitors. The sheer size of Bett must make it difficult for anyone to get round in one day.

Some of my favourite things were:

Microsoft Surface and the SMART multi-touch table

Ed and I were able to get a demo of the SMART table and tried many of the applications that were available. SMART told us that they were currently working on new development for the table and that the initial cost was over £4000 but they said that this would come down once it went into full production. There was a very neat addition activity where you are asked to sum 2 numbers and the users provide the answers by making contact points with the screen.

Surface uses similar technology with Microsoft also demonstrating its authentification process which can be used by placing a card on the table.

Garageband Live Demo

Apple had a great stand featuring live demos on all days of the show. James and I both watched a great session with Joe Morreti of makemoremusic. Joe did a session showing the new features of Garageband 09 including how to use the app as an applifier. With a guitar and a sax his session provided a great insight into online digital music education.

I also spent time talking to Sony about how the PSP is being used in Education and also by the Navy to deliver e-learning. Becta had a lot of information regarding next generation learning, including information for suppliers and developers which was great for us. Many of the hardware suppliers were showing off new notebook machines with one stand having their laptop section virtually ignored when I was there.

The standard of visual and interface design was very impressive with some of the primary content showing some fantastic graphic and character design.

As we work through all of the material that we collected we’ll share some more of our thoughts about the show….In 2 days we are heading to Open Innovation in Norwich and then next week it is off to Learning Technologies.

Hello to all of our friends that we managed to meet and bump into at Bett!

When I first has the idea to set up an e-learning forum in Norfolk I wanted to make sure that we listened to the people who came and improved the event. I’ve been able to move the event from an idea that I had last year to something that is well supported and valued by those who attend.

Reading this…you might be thinking….how does he know it is well valued!

At our last event I invited the customer feedback company, during the event they ran 2 live trials using their mobile phone feedback system. They asked a simple question about whether people found the event worthwhile and would they recommend the event. It was pleasing to see so many people post comments and then to read the positive ones! I still want to make improvements to the event and continue to improve the sessions.

The feedback system allowed us to view real-time feedback and we were able to collate the most feedback that we have ever had!

Last week we had a great few days where Ryan joined us in the office. Ryan has just completed his computer games degree and came in to work on a new project. We were interested to see whether we could apply any of the techniques from games design to elearning design.

The result? Excellent, we were all really pleased at how things went. Some of the ideas were superb, ways of presenting information that we had not thought of before. Ryan also found the experience worthwhile as we could share our experience of building learning models. The end result was a great set of ideas that we have presented to our client. We are hoping to build on this experience and develop closer links with the Norwich School of Art and Design Games Degree.

Microsoft has recently launched Sphere. It’s an interactive spherical display that appears to work like a touchscreen. Find out more here:
http://research.microsoft.com/~benko/projects/sphere/

We’ve shared this with quite a few people that we know and the reaction has been pretty positive. It will be interesting to see what the final price might be and how it can be used in a commerical or education project.