Technology Learning » Cutting Edge Technology

Learning in the Limelight at a Georgia Summer Camp

admin — Thu, 27 May 2010 11:37:27 +0000

You won’t hear 12 year old movie directors mentioned at the Academy Awards – yet. But given some time, these talented students just might make it big.

Hundreds of 7-17 year olds applied their talents in a weeklong film production course at iD Tech Camps at a Georgia summer camp on the Emory University campus the past few summers. By the end of the week, each student team created inspiring movies with special effects using cutting-edge technology, including lighting kits and green screens from Photoflex®, Canon® camcorders, Apple Final Cut Pro® editing software, and Adobe After Effects® special effects software.

“With the skills they learn in one week, these up-and-coming student directors could be ready for an internship in the movie industry,” said Kevin Painchaud, owner of an award-winning Hollywood-based movie production company and 7th year lead digital video instructor for iD Tech Camps . “The equipment and software they use is exactly what my production company uses. What wonderful exposure to receive at such a young age. One of the things that makes many of their movies so powerful is their use of lighting and special effects to evoke mood,” says Painchaud. “With the use of the Photoflex professional lighting equipment, the students’ work was elevated to the next level.”

Students used the Photoflex FlexDrop™ green screen to superimpose backgrounds, including purely digital fabrications made from Adobe After Effects. With the Photoflex LiteDisc™ reflectors, students could also easily control the sunlight when filming outside.

“We learned a lot about cinematography and special effects,” one student said. “In one scene my crew and I used the green screen to add a ghostly figure that enters a room through a closed door to pursue the main character.”

While many Emory students were “on location” at the Emory campus in Georgia, another iD Tech student, Brittany, and her group filmed the short movie “Subject #14” while attending the same program at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York. A chilling tale of descent into madness, “Subject #14” won the program’s nationwide competition for Best Drama.

“We created amazing lighting effects!” Brittany said. “It was really cool. We could make the actors look brighter or darker depending on what we wanted.”

These up-and-coming movie directors quickly discovered that this technique reduced shadows and created a diffused lighting effect. To open up the room and make it brighter, Brittany’s crew adjusted a Photoflex Digital Lighting Kit so that its SilverDome™ softbox and Starlite™ light pointed toward the ceiling.

By the end the weeklong course, the digital media students gain confidence and leadership skills. Many of them say they look forward to pursuing careers in the movie industry. Getting started in Hollywood may be a challenge, but with the experience these iD Tech Camp students have gained, their journey has already begun.

By: Karen Safran

Distance Learning and Its Trends

admin — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:14:18 +0000

Distance learning companies must face the challenges of selling their wares into the K-12 market and overcoming the lack of teacher training to use their new products, but there is still a lot for them to be excited about-the increased emphasis on school accountability and the forthcoming increase in student enrollment.

Industry experts discussed these trends during a panel at Fulcrum’s Third Annual Education Technology Finance & Investment Institute in Arlington, VA this month. Demographics show that by the time the echo baby boom reaches school age, a large number of teachers will be coming up on retirement.

U.S. Department of Education figures indicate that K-12 enrollments will continue to increase by less than 1% per year through 2006, when the trend will reverse itself and enrollments will begin to decline. At the highest point of the curve, the nation will have a projected 54,457,000 students enrolled in grades K-12, an overall increase of 3.3% from 1998.

“These factors will be a huge driving force in requiring schools to look for new solutions,” said Sally Narodick, CEO of online advanced placement content provider Apex Learning. Narodick and others said they believed technology would become an increasingly important part of helping schools cope with teacher shortages.

The education industry is also counting on the movement toward increased school accountability to drive sales of electronic offerings.

There is Still a Lot to Overcome

The technology and content developers have admitted they might not have all the right programs that prove technology is needed in schools. “The industry is in a painful and early emerging stage, but is in fact learning a lot,” Narodick said.

Part of the pain in this emerging stage comes from selling cutting-edge technology to a less than tech-savvy customer. Companies have little choice but to provide some form of teacher training. NetSchools provides on-site teacher training for one year to every school that purchases its hardware and networking solution that provides a laptop computer to every student and faculty member in a school, said Thomas Greaves, vice chairman of NetSchools.

Lightspan also provides support to its customers through its staff of 100, which does not come without costs. “It’s an expensive proposition for companies and schools,” said Winnie Wechsler, executive vice president and general manager, Internet and broadband services for Lightspan. At Lightspan, the training budget is spread across the Internet and CD-based segments of the company.

Merely getting the product to an audience is also a difficulty distance learning companies are overcoming by partnering with established businesses. “Partnering is the only way to get to market in the timeframe it needs to be reached,” Roches said.

A marketing and selling partnership can include listing products in another company’s catalog, posting click throughs between Web sites and installing programs on hardware prior to shipping.

By: Mathew Simond

Elearning Solutions Versus Conventional Corporate Training Methods

admin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 07:00:02 +0000

The Internet has infiltrated all angles of our society from culture and entertainment, business, to social interaction. Even the way we learn and acquire information has been so dependent on technology and the worldwide web that people can now earn degrees even without going to conventional classes in the traditional school setup. Through elearning or electronic learning, people can take corporate trainings, university courses, and earn certifications without having to go to formal sessions in schools or corporate training centers. Students and trainees can have access to virtually everything and anything they need and want to learn through the cutting edge technology of elearning solutions.

Prominent universities and even the biggest companies in the US are now integrating this mode of training and teaching into their system. Despite this strong movement towards technology-based learning, many are still questioning the capabilities and efficiency of online education and training in really fulfilling its promise of effective learning. Some claim that although innovative and at par with the changes of the times, an online-based learning cannot replace the level of learning and interaction that a conventional face-to-face training can offer. But what factors set electronic learning apart from traditional corporate training methods?

Scheduling Convenience
Traditional training methods entail trainees and trainers to stick to a specific timetable, which requires so much planning on the part of the HR. The schedule should be established in such a way that it would not interfere with regular work routine of employees or operations of the company. On the other hand, companies’ schedules and plans change to give way for projects, sorting out contingencies, and the fluctuating product demands in relation to the economic downturn. This is often the reason of many companies for pushing employee development programs down their priority list. With elearning on the other hand, scheduling training sessions is never a problem. It provides both trainers and trainees accessibility and scheduling convenience. Since courses and sessions are conducted online, employees can take them wherever they are and whenever it is most convenient for them. They can do it individually or as a group depending on their availability. Online training also addresses the challenge of providing efficient training on an ongoing basis.

Self-Paced Nature of Learning and Instruction
Trainees have different learning curve: some learn faster while some need more time to absorb and process chunks of information from the sessions. In a conventional training set up, there is a tendency for participants to feel abash about if they are slower in catching information from the rest of the class. So instead of optimizing learning opportunities, some would either lose motivation to participate or will only participate in classes not because they want to but because they are mandated by the company. Such affective filters prevent employees from getting the most out of the training that the company is giving them. With technology based trainings, however, isolating trainees with slower learning curve can be avoided because of its self-paced nature. Trainees learn in their own pace and the system adapts to their learning speed and readiness. Employees can move on to the next part of the training depending on his learning curve.

By: Joel Owens

Learning About What Is Blue Ray Technology

admin — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:40:55 +0000

It seems like every couple of years there are new advances made and our technology springs forward. Sometimes it can be difficult to keep up with all of the incredibly fast paced advances made. Currently, blue ray technology has been brought into the mainstream and learning what is blue ray technology can keep consumers up to date with the latest inventions in home entertainment.

Discovering What Is Blue Ray Technology

For many, home movies were originally played on the classic vcr tape. Then, the technology moved onto DVD players, and the look of the movies was sharper and of a much better quality. Now the next evolution has started with blue ray technology.

Finding out about what is blue ray technology includes learning about the differences between blue ray technology and the current mass marketed DVD systems. Blue ray technology has been developing for years, since the mid 1990’s when HDTV’s were becoming more common for consumers to buy. A technology was needed that could record and play back the high definition recordings. Blue ray technology was created to fill that void.

So what is blue ray technology and how is it different from the standard DVD? Blue ray technology can store far more information that the traditional DVD, almost 5 times more storage is available on a blue ray disc. The blue ray discs use a blue ray laser to read the information where other DVD’s use a red laser.

With a blue laser the wave length is shorter allowing for more storage to be used. This did cause some problems originally, as the discs were much easier to scratch. The case that held the disc had to be made more durable and was somewhat bulky. Advances in polymer coatings have advanced allowing for a better protective coating to be placed on the disc, alleviating the need for the bigger containers.

There are many companies that have a stake in the development of the next cutting edge technology and these companies are looking into both blue ray technology and a HD DVD. Some of the big companies are fighting over which technology should be used and this has caused a split in which companies support which format. Even companies that produce movies are split over which type of technology to use, which means depending on what movie a consumer wishes to purchase; they may need two different types of players.

Both he blue ray and the hddvd players are continuing to improve. In the end, consumers may discover that they enjoy both types of players and they both may be successful with consumers. Learning about what is blue ray technology can help a consumer get a good idea of basic information in regards to this new technology.

By: Thomas Martinez