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Yet Another Edtech Image Project
There is a microsoft-funded project at MIT called XMAS: Cross-Media Annotation System. It appears to be focussed on video a bit more than still images. There is a public talk on XMAS on 2/24 at 1:00 in MIT Room 1-375.
Visiting a real live class
I did something we Ed tech developers and designers probably don't do enough and sat in on a class. The class was 4.602 Modern Art & Mass Culture and I plan to sit in a few times during the semester, and hopefully meet with the professor and TAs outside of class to see how they prepare for class. A survey for the students might also be useful, to see what they find useful when using images in learning. Here's what I learned from the first class.
The instructor came in with two carousels of slides, which she handed to an AV technician assigned to this class. During the lecture she operated the switched the slides with a wireless remote control with separate buttons for the two projectors.
The slide experience isn't so perfect in terms of image quality
In the past I've been told that one of our big challenges was equalling the hight quality of a slide image compared to a digital image. But these images were often crooked, dusty, faded or poorly focussed. One even had a stray label blocking nearly a third of the image. The quality of a medium resolution image (even 640x800) on a digital projector easily matches these images.
Similarly there were a few transition glitches, one of the projectors wouldn't go backwards, only forwards, and she had yell loud for the AV tech to hear her over the projector fans. There is much to improve on here.
The use of a remote was important in the performance
Making the instructors stand behind a podium while delivering the slideshow lecture would be a step backwards. How can we optimize stellar images to work with remote controls?
AV has a role - they ran the projection booth at the back of the room.
Are they still there with digital projectors? We have not included AV in our use cases. Do they need training? Are they on hand to set up digital projectors? Can they offer remotes that work wirelessly with instructor laptops or classroom PCs?
There is a slide list used as a handout
The instructor passed around a slide list for students to consult during and after the slide show. the list had the date and class title on top. The listings has the Artist, Image title, and date (e.g. Andy Warhol, Gold Marilyn, 1962). Can we generate these handouts? Can we make them better by including thumbnails or additional metadata?
There are many times when an image stays on one side while the image on the other side advances a few times
How do we enable this technique when organizing slideshows?
The instructor said that some of the images from the slideshow will be available for review on the website.
Do we need to have slideshows with more images than are seen by students? Or is this just because not all of the slides are currently available digitally?