#12brightapps – Day 8 – Periscope

#12brightapps Day Eight – Periscope

Welcome to Day Eight of 12brightapps – our app is Periscope…

What is it?

Periscope is owned by Twitter and allows you to stream real-time video using the built-in camera and microphone in your tablet or smartphone. Essentially it allows you to create your own impromptu micro-broadcast!

What can it do?

Periscope has a very simple premise, but it is incredibly versatile. We have used it to live-broadcast conferences presentations, to share live demonstrations and also to show a student cardboard bridge building competition (the suspense of watching the bridges bear the load of food tins was edge-of-seat viewing!). The app could be used for campus tours, lecture sessions, interviews etc. One point to consider is that the broadcasts are public, so anyone in the world can watch, from their mobile phone or a computer. This means that you need to ask people if they agree to be recorded as it is a public platform. The upside of this is that your broadcast might be good recruitment tool as it shows a slice of university life!

Periscope Demonstration

Download it now.

Open the App Store or Android Marketplace (Google Play) and search for ‘Periscope’ and download.
Once installed, you will be asked to Log In with Twitter.
If you do not have a Twitter account yet, you may want to review the very helpful materials at #10DoT Ten Days of Twitter. Specifically this post from Anglia Ruskin’s #ARU10DoT provides a very helpful introduction to Twitter and setting up a profile: https://aru10dot.wordpress.com/2014/03/17/first-day-of-aru10dot-setting-up-your-profile/

10 Minute Task:

If you would like to see a live broadcast we are going to start rolling in about 10 minutes (10 past 10am-ish)! The link will be posted to Twitter, but you don’t need to have a twitter account to watch:
https://twitter.com/hashtag/12brightapps

Try your first ever broadcast in Periscope. Broadcast an object or book in your office and tell the world about it.

Press on the camera icon to access
your broadcast tools.

You can give your broadcast a title in
the the “What are you seeing now?” area. Then press “Start Broadcast” when you are ready.

Just above the start broadcast button you can edit your broadcast settings. Tap the setting once to turn it on or off:

Arrow: turn on/off your location
Lock: make your broadcast private (this is only shared with followers, but you may not have any followers yet)
Speech bubble: only allow in-video chat from your followers. This turns off potential chat from the public, but that can also close down interesting discussion too as your students will not be your followers in all likelihood.
Twitter logo: you can turn “Post” to Twitter on or off, so that you do or do not publicise your recording.

Here is one that I made earlier (I saved it and then uploaded it to our mediastream server in order to embed it here):

If you don’t have a Twitter account, or you’re not sure about using Periscope yet…
Here is an interesting broadcast from Jisc yesterday, this recording will persist on Periscope for 24hours from broadcast: https://www.periscope.tv/w/1MnxnqMYZBLJO
So watch some of it, before it disappears at about 13:30 today!

And Finally…

What do you call an android with too many Christmas text messages?

Innun-data’ed

Linked from Star Trek Memory Alpha Wiki – Apparently the data plan wasn’t all it was cracked up to be…

(Again, I take full responsibility for this joke)

PART 2:

Discussion Board and/or Twitter

Do you think that Periscope is an app that you might use? What kind of event or happening might you record?

PART 3:

Further Task(s)

Change the settings in the app so that you automatically save copies of your videos. The screenshots below demonstrate the steps.

Press on the people icon and scroll down the page to find your settings	Turn on “Autosave Broadcasts”

Try watching some other people’s Periscope videos. You can watch people you follow on twitter by pressing on the TV icon. Pressing on the globe button will allow you to explore video from around the world. If you don’t like the channel move on to watch something else.

Useful resources

There are some truly smashing blog posts about using Periscope in learning and teaching:

Here is one from our colleague, Sally Burr (@burrblog) at the University of Sussex: http://blogs.sussex.ac.uk/tel/2015/08/18/periscope-live-broadcasting-for-teaching-and-learning/

Sue Beckingham’s fantastic, Social Media for Learning Blog (@suebecks) – post about Periscope, with helpful explanations about how it all works: http://socialmediaforlearning.com/2015/08/18/using-periscope-a-live-streamimg-app-in-higher-education/

#12brightapps Day four – Timer+

#12brightapps Day four – Timer+

Welcome to Day Four of 12brightapps – our app is Timer+…

What is it?

Timer+ is a very simple app that allows you to set-up multiple timers for counting down to zero; it features some fantastically comical sounds.

What can it do?

It does exactly what it says on the box and sometimes that is what you need. This app is very helpful for keeping classroom activities on track, timing sections of a lecture so that they don’t run over and for scheduling in breaks during research periods. The variety of alarm sounds can provide a moment of levity during a classroom session, particularly when debating very serious subjects. Home-life uses include: timing cooking; setting a time for yoga stretches; meditation; steeping tea. The alarm sounds aren’t all silly, “Piano” for example, is very calming and can play once or on a loop when the timer finishes.

Download it now.

Open the App Store, search for ‘Timer+’ and download.
Timer+ is not available for Android, but here is a similar free (and ad-free app) Stopwatch & Timer (made by Jupiterapps based in the UK). Please note: that a number of the android timer apps do not have sound privacy policies, take care when choosing apps to install.
Once installed, launch Timer+ and tap the “+” on the top-left to create your first timer!

10 Minute Task:

You are planning seasonal festivities for a day when you will entertain friends and family in your home.

Remember some tasks can take place simultaneously because Timer+ can run more than one active timer at once.

Amongst your plans are:

Task	Approx time
Cooking a Turkey, Haggis or Nutloaf (or your choice)	4hr/2hr/1.5hr
Prepare an appetiser	30mins
Eating the appetiser	30mins
Eating the main course	1hr
Heating pre-made custard for desert, but making sure that you don’t get a burnt crust	15mins
Eating the desert	30mins
Playing a game of charades, but making sure that it doesn’t go on for too long as Uncle Bertie may become too competitive	45mins

Your challenge should you choose to accept it is to set timers for the events above. What time do you need to start cooking/preparing so that you be finished before the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special at 6:15pm?

And Finally…

What’s a cross between a Jaffa Cake and a slug?

Jaffa the Hut

(I take full responsibility for this joke)

PART 2:

Discussion Board and/or Twitter

Tell us what time you will need to start cooking in order to be finished in time for the Christmas Special? We’d love to know what you choose to cook as that will, of course, affect your timings.

How do you think you might make use of Timer+ in real life?

PART 3:

Further Task(s)

Try out a few different sounds. Any favourites? I quite like telling students and workshop attendees that I don’t know what the sound will be!

Useful resources

Here is a useful link on How to Manage Time:

Some easy strategies for mindfulness and productivity (lots of opportunities to use Timer+ here): http://www.wikihow.com/Manage-Your-Time

#12brightapps Day three – RefME

#12brightapps Day three – RefME

Welcome to Day Three of 12brightapps – our app is ‘RefME…

What is it?

RefME is a referencing and citation manager, which allows you to scan book barcodes and also to bookmark websites; the app then generates citations in your chosen style.

What can it do?

RefME is available on iPhone/iPad, Android and on laptops/desktops via a web browser. In Chrome specifically, there is a fantastic web clipper tool (extension*), which allows to quickly bookmark any website. This feature is also available in Safari on iPhone/iPad.

The video below shows a practical demonstation of how you can use the mobile app in conjunction with the browser-based software – the two sync automatically via your account.

Other great features:

Import RIS files exported from library catalogues, journal citations and endnote: https://vimeo.com/143852032
Export to common formats including: copy & paste; Microsoft Word doc, Evernote, BibTEX, Menderley, Endnote, RefWorks and Zotero

*For details on installing the Chrome installer: https://goo.gl/XBz03G. For Uni of Brighton folks, you can request that Chrome be installed on your work computer by contacting our service desk.

Download it now.

Open the App Store or Android market on your phone or tablet, search for ‘RefME’ and download.
Launch RefME and sign-up for an account (Sign up with Email recommended).
Login in to your new account in the app.
Add a new project using the Add Project button on the bottom left of the app and give your new referencing project a name.
Press on your project in the list on the left to select it. On the top right you can use the “Change style” button to change it to your desired referencing style.

10 Minute Task:

This task is in two parts to demonstrate the versatility of bookmarking in RefME. The second part is only available to those on iPhone/iPad so is completely optional:

Part A: In the RefME app
Pick up a book in your immediate vicinity that has a barcode on the back of it. Position the book on a flat, well-lit surface and then press on the Add Reference button. At this point you may be asked to approve RefME’s access to your camera, please agree to this. Position your device above the book, so that you are viewing the barcode in the marquee area shown. You should hear a nice little beep to confirm and your reference will be shown: you can edit the reference, add specific pages and save it.

Part B: Bookmarking in Safari – iPhone/iPad only (sorry!)
In Safari, the web browser app on your device go to a website, any website! Press on the share button on the top-right of the browser. You should now see that RefME is listed as one of your saving options. Press on the RefMe option and press Post to save your bookmark to RefME.

Troubleshooting..but RefME isn’t showing on my Sharing list?
In the share options press on the More button and turn on RefME as a sharing option.

And Finally…

What does Santa suffer from if he gets stuck in a chimney?

Claustrophobia

(From Cathy Frankland)

PART 2:

Discussion Board and/or Twitter

We would love to know about the books that you chose to scan in the Twitter chat or on the discussion board! Why did you pick that particular book?

Do you think that you might use RefME as a web bookmarking tool as well as a book reference generator?

PART 3:

Further Task(s)

Try editing your references. RefME is a good place to start and it certainly saves time when you are creating referencing and citations, but sometimes your references will need a bit of tweaking to perfectly accord with your referencing style. Luckily it is very easy to edit your references within the app or to change the format of the reference (e.g. article, video, report, many formats are supported) so that they match the document source format and referencing style.

Useful resources

Here is a useful link on using RefME:

The RefME help and support site, including helpful user guides and videos: https://refme.zendesk.com/hc/en-gb

12 Apps of Christmas 2015

Author Archives: Fiona MacNeill

#12brightapps – Day 8 – Periscope

Periscope Demonstration

#12brightapps Day four – Timer+

#12brightapps Day three – RefME