OllieBray.com

Magic Moments #8 - Meeting Santa

Each week I post a photograph of something that I have seen, like or has just made me laugh.

2010 was officially the year that I started to feel old. The final proof came when my picture appeared in the ‘flashback’ / ‘blast from the past’ / ‘historical photographs’ section of the Dorset Evening Echo (17th December 2010).

I was meeting Santa at a 1982 Dorset Evening Echo Children’s Christmas Party. My Grandfather worked there for a number of years before he finally retired and I used to go along to meet Santa, watch the magician and eat a party tea (of mainly sugar!) when I was younger.

Can you spot me in the photo? and Happy Christmas!

World Lens Instant Translation [iPhone App]

World Lens is a really interesting iPhone App from Quest Visual.

“Word Lens can instantly translates printed words from one language to another using the video camera on your iPhone. No network delay, no roaming fees, and no reception problems.

Word Lens is a dictionary -- evolved. It looks up words for you, and shows them in context. You can use Word Lens on your vacations to translate restaurant menus, street signs, and other things that have clearly printed words.

Word Lens has its limits. Sometimes the translation will have mistakes, and may be hard to understand, but it usually gets the point across. If a translation fails, there is a way to manually look up words by typing them in”.

The problem is it’s not as free as it says it is. Anyone tried this and does it work? It’s a great idea – particularly because it doesn’t rely on data charges once it is downloaded.

I’ve embedded the promotion video below:

Hans Rosling - The Joy of Stats [You Tube Video]

I have always enjoyed Hans Rosling's TED talks and think his Gapminder Invention (now owned by Google) is simply an amazing way to visualize data. Rosling was included in my list of sources of inspiration as part of my Merlin John Interview earlier in the year.

Here is a short video of Hans in action as part of the Joy of Stats programme on BBC 4. It is a great clip and makes you wonder why some schools still ban YouTube?

Magic Moments #7 - Aberdeenshire Art Work

Each week I post a photograph of something that I have seen, like or has just made me laugh.

I was up in Aberdeenshire for a Glow Champions Event and there was loads of children’s artwork on display. Members of the audience were asked to leave formative feedback on the work for the young artists.

Some of the pieces will eventually find there way into the Aberdeenshire gallery in CANVAS.

This was my favorite… can you guess why?

Microsoft Campus Tours - The Xbox Building in Redmond

Microsoft Campus Tours is a new series that takes you into some of the most intriguing buildings and places on Microsoft's main campus in Redmond near Seattle, WA, USA.

The first video in the series is the Xbox building where Larry Hryb takes you through the Xbox teams work, creative and play spaces. 

The tour includes Holograms, elephants, programmers and a pretty nice café.

The series has the potential to be a useful to support enterprise and business education as well as providing a useful resource to support computer games and games design in schools within its widest context.

New Features of Google Earth 6.0 (4 of 4) – Improved Historical Imagery Layer

This is part of a short series of posts introducing the new features of Google Earth 6.0

For a long time I have maintained that Google Earth has potential in most subject areas and that the best classroom applications of the software has always been outside of the geography classroom.

Lots of the best history teachers have been using Google Earth for a while to support studies in Ancient Rome, explore Rumsey Historic Maps with classes and to turn back time with the Historic Satellite imagery time slider.

As part of the Google Earth 6.0 up-grade more historical imagery has become available and its now easier to see when historical imagery is available for an areas.

The video below explains this in a bit more detail:



If you need further convincing about the application of this powerful technology in the classroom. Then just check out what you can do with an instant comparison of London between now and the second world war.

New Features of Google Earth 6.0 (3 of 4) – 3D Trees

This is part of a short series of posts introducing the new features of Google Earth 6.0

When I read that part of the Google Earth 6.0 up-grade was the introduction of 3D trees I didn’t feel particularly overwhelmed.

However, now I have had the opportunity to get inside GE6 and explore the look and feel of the environment with the 3D trees - I feel very different about this part of the up-grade. The trees really add to the experience and for me it has taken Google one-step closer into creating its virtual word (that I remain convinced they are working on in the background).

3D trees have been enabled in a number of locations across the world including Tokyo and Athens. But for me by far the most impressive use of this feature are the 3D trees that have been enabled in the Amazon Rainforest.

The video below explain it all and then you should really go and explore for yourself as it has the potential to add an extra dimension to your equatorial rainforest unit as now you can actually walk along the rainforest floor and identify different species of tree.

Magic Moments #6 - Blow Karting

Dunbar Grammar School (I was head of Geography there once) recently had a cluster in-service day the centered on Health and Wellbeing.  One of the activities on offer to staff was blow karting - these are mini land yachts that are great on the beach.

We took them out at the weekend to make sure they working properly. They did and we had great fun!

New Features of Google Earth 6.0 (2 of 4) - Intergraded Street View

This is part of a short series of posts introducing the new features of Google Earth 6.0

I love Streetview and I love Google Earth – both have completely revolutionized the way we teach geography in our schools. Well… they should have and are in lots of places!

Streetview has been part of Google Earth for a while now but I have always felt it has been a bit of an ‘add on’ rather than completely integrated. However, with the release of Google Earth 6 – Street View is completely integrated and it is integrated really well!

The short You Tube Video below explains it all:

/>

Streetview has massive application in the classroom including:

• Comparing housing types
• Studying regional differences between EMDCs and LEDCs
• Collecting virtual fieldwork data and then comparing this to your local area

The other feature that I really like within the new integration is the ability to switch between Streetview and the 3D Buildings layer within Google Earth. I like it because if you don’t have the 3D buildings layer turned on in the Google Earth layers menu you can get a really good idea of how buildings have impacted the landscape.

Also good to see the first person camera technology finally making it out of the ‘labs’ and into version 6.0 of Google Earth – what a great way to explore cities!

New Features of Google Earth 6.0 (1 of 4) - Introduction

This is part of a short series of posts introducing the new features of Google Earth 6.0

Google Earth 6 was released on the 29th November.

It had a number of new features including:

• Full Streetview Integration (including improved navigation and the ability to switch from Ground Level view to 3D view)

• The introduction of 3D trees (sounds silly but it really makes a difference to the feel of this rapidly evolving virtual world)

• Improved historical imagery and historical imagery navigation.

The short You Tube video below explains it all – have fun playing with the new features and I'll explain some of them in more detail over the next few days.