Tales of Things: Share your Memories Online
I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Dr Chris Speed from the Edinburgh College of Art last week about the Tales of Things (TOTeM) project (video interview). The Tales of Thing project is a way of linking physical objects with the memories that object holds for you and sharing these online. You can then tag your physical object with a QR Code (or RFID tag) to share your memories online. I have a brief overview of the project in this video tying in with my first Tales of Things thing.
My First Tales of Things Thing
So this is the video I did for my first Tales of Things thing talking about my Fisher Price Music Box Teaching Clock which holds special memories for me. Here’s the full page with additional info on the Tales of Things website.
Will you be adding your own Tales of Things? If you’re considering it, there’s a FAQ that’s worth reading on the Tales of Things website which has some useful guidelines.
Using QR Codes on Calendars
In this quick video I talk about using QR Codes on calendars. They could be used to highlight various resources. The QR Codes could also point to a placeholder or holding page which is only activated after a certain date. That way you’re not tied to specific content when planning your calendar. You can plan on the go and share any late breaking resources or new technologies, competitions, giveaways, time critical resources like study skills etc.
This video was shot, edited and uploaded on Read more 
Quickly generate QR Codes with Bit.ly or Goo.gl
I was asked how to generate QR Codes at one of our forums recently and I mentioned QR Code generator sites like kaywa or delivr. I also mentioned a very quick way to do it if you’re encoding web addresses – use a URL shortening service like bit.ly or goo.gl.
The benefits are two-fold. You get a less complex QR Code (therefore faster to decode) and you automatically have access to the QR Code.
To do this just add .qr onto the end of any bit.ly or goo.gl shortened address, for example bit.ly/qrapps.qr Then right-click and copy the image into an application of your choice.
To get the QR Code plus some useful stats like number of times the URL has been accessed simply add a plus sign (+) on the end of your bit.ly or goo.gl address, for example bit.ly/qrapps+
Use an external mic to record lectures on your iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad…and other uses too!
I’m always looking for ways to extend the functionality of my mobile devices for teaching and learning. I’ve already blogged about using Bluetooth keyboards for note taking on mobile devices (iOS, Android). My next task was to find a way to use my own headset on my iPhone for use with Skype. This solution would be more comfortable and better quality than using the supplied Apple earbud/mic set. I also wanted to find a way to use my external mic to record lectures.
My solution was to build a breakout cable*. In this video I demo some ways to use the cable and then talk about how to make it.
Hardware demoed: Plantronics DSP400 headset and a Sony ECM Z60 microphone. A quick word about the mic. iOS** devices are pretty particular about mic characteristics. The Z60 is an electret mic which is what the iOS device expects to see so you don’t need to use the battery pack for the Z60 as the iPhone will provide enough power to drive the mic.
Software demoed: Skype, Voice memos and AudioNote. AudioNote is an audio note taking app for iOS devices which works in a similar way to a livescribe pen. It syncs your recorded audio with the notes you have taken.
Cable Schematic
Maplins Part List
3.5mm 4-pole jack QT65V
3.5mm stereo line socket FK04E 2 off
some single core screened cable
* You can buy ready made cables but that wouldn’t be nearly as much fun :-)
** iOS device = iPod Touch, iPhone or iPad.
3 Quick Tips for Effective Searching on Delicious
Delicious is a social bookmarking site that lets you bookmark your favourite web resources or URLs. You can also search Delicious for resources. If someone has bookmarked a resource it’s usually because it’s useful in some way and we can use this to our advantage when searching for useful resources. You don’t need to have an account or be logged in to search Delicious.
In this short video I look at three quick ways to find information on Delicious
1. Explore Tags
On the Delicious Home Page, there’s an Explore Tags tab (1) which we can use to search for tags.
A tag is a keyword that users assign to a bookmark to describe the resource. So I’m interested in QR Codes at the moment so I’ll type in qrcodes (2) omitting the space. In delicious, tags don’t have spaces. QR Code related bookmarks could also be assigned tags such as qrcode and qr. You’ll get a feel for the various tags when you see the search results
You can also search for multiple tags so I could filter this search further by typing in education. So it returns all the recent tags with qrcode and education.
TIP: Each Recent and Popular tag search on Delicious has a handy associated RSS feed and if you’re familiar with RSS feeds you can subscribe to this feed by copying the RSS address into something like Google Reader and automatically be kept up-to-date with, in this case bookmarks being tagged with qrcode and education.
You can also search for Popular tags.
You can only search for one tag at a time but it’s a quick way to get a list of popular resources for the subject you are searching for.
2. Full Search
Delicious also has a global search facility and it will search not only tags but bookmark title and associated notes. You can refine your search in a number of ways. For example, restricting it by date, wrapping it quotes and filtering by tag. I go into more detail in the video.
3. Sort by Popularity
Finally, you can sort your results by the amount of times a resource has been bookmarked by using the Greasemonkey Firefox extension.
Greasemonkey lets you change the look and feel of web pages and here I’m using two scripts; AutoPagerize and Sort Visible Links. AutoPagerize lets you see multiple screens of information on one page. It saves you scrolling down the page and hitting the next page button. As soon as you’re at the bottom of the page it automatically loads the next page. Once you’ve got a few screens listed on the one page you can then use the Sort Visible Links script to sort the bookmarks into the most bookmarked resources.
