How using content development is bringing the Virtual Campus to life. Shows examples of some of the tools used to optimise graphics, sounds and video and content authoring tools in offender learning

1. www.demmltd.co.uk
Bringing Virtual Campus
to life with Content
Development

2. About Me
• Danny O’Connor
• DEMM Ltd – Contracting for NIACE & working
with the SFA and OLASS Providers (Manchester
College, A4E, Milton Keynes College, Weston
College)
• OLASS Project Manager Kensington & Chelsea
College
• CPD Manager East Surrey College
• E-Learning Manager (Merton & South Thames
College)
• IT Lecturer (Merton College)
www.demmltd.co.uk

3. Why I am here..
• I am here to demonstrate how the Virtual
Campus is being brought to life through
content development
– Through sounds
– Through Images
– Through Interactivity
• The tools we need to use to accomplish
this
• The training taking place
www.demmltd.co.uk

4. Background
• Virtual Campus in UK Prisons
– Empty we needed content…
• Content Submitted by OLASS Lecturers
– Static
– No previous exposure to e-learning
• Little or no access
• Lack of knowledge
• Lack of Skills
• Content submitted by Lecturers outside of OLASS
– No understanding of security issues
– Virtual Campus constraints
• External Sources
– Costs…
• Had to find a way of creating interactive resources
ourselves
www.demmltd.co.uk

5. Solution
• Rapid CATs (Content Authoring Tools)
• To be used by lecturers working within
OLASS to produce materials that can be
placed onto the Virtual Campus
• To be used by inmates to generate
interactive materials for teaching staff
www.demmltd.co.uk

6. Examples of what
it can do…
Asset Skills Housing – Learning
module created from LMI Bitesize
static learning materials
converted using Courselab
International Women’s Day –
Created from tutors handout
submitted through SCDB
process from Kensington &
Chelsea College
www.demmltd.co.uk

7. Examples of what
it can do…
Recycling Words at work –
Part of an ESF/SFA Project
where lecturers from HMP
Bullwood Hall wrote the
materials and it was developed
using Courselab.
Personal Hygiene – From the
same project as above. But the
lecturer wrote the materials,
was taught how to use
Courselab and developed the
materials herself
www.demmltd.co.uk

8. Examples of what
it can do…
Visiting the Woman’s Health
Clinic – The materials were
supplied by the lecturer at HMP
Holloway and were converted
using Courselab
VAK Assessment Tool –
Original idea taken from the
Business Balls website but rewritten and turned into an
interactive Visual, Audio,
Kinesthetic Assessment tool by
DEMM Ltd and donated to
Virtual Campus
www.demmltd.co.uk

9. Impressive huh?
• However, a CAT assumes you understand
and know how to do lots of other things
such as…
– Work with and understand images
– Work with and understand sound
– Work with and understand video/movies
• Because a CAT just pulls all these things
together, then adds interactivity…
www.demmltd.co.uk

10. Images and VC
• Images must be of the type that can be
displayed over the internet i.e. .gif, .jpg,
.png
• No single file on VC can be over 10mb
• Bandwidth is at a premium this relates to
images
• Images may need to be optimised…
What???
www.demmltd.co.uk

11. Spot the difference?
Image B
200 pixels
299 pixels
200 pixels
299 pixels
Image A
97 kb
22 kb
www.demmltd.co.uk

12. Confused?
• In the Christmas Tree example Image A
and Image B are exactly the same viewing
size. But have a different file size!
200 pixels
299 pixels
Image A = 97kb
Image B = 22kb
Image A is over four times the file size!
www.demmltd.co.uk

13. What is it?
• Graphic optimisation is the process of
producing smaller graphics files
Q. What do we mean by smaller graphics
files?
A. We really mean the file size… e.g. 10kb
not 60x60 pixels - although sometimes we
do! 
www.demmltd.co.uk

14. Resolution
• Images are made up of pixels (or dots).
The more pixels you have per/cm, inch
combined with the number of colours
available, the larger the image will be but
also the clearer it will be.
Bad
Better
Best
www.demmltd.co.uk

15. Why is it important?
• VC Bandwidth - Can be as little as 1mb and that
is shared – at home you may have 8-14mb!
• 10 christmas trees = approx 7 secs to view
• The challenge becomes maintaining a
high quality graphic while keeping a lean
file size; the balance of these two
elements is key to optimising your web
images.
www.demmltd.co.uk

16. RIOT
• Luckily there is a free tool available to
help….
• Unfortunately the name is not a good one
for using in Prisons 
• RIOT stands for Radical Image
Optimisation Tool
• Example of how it works….
www.demmltd.co.uk

17. Sounds
• Being able to create and manipulate sound is
important for several reasons and is not only
Virtual Campus Specific.
– In VC there are restrictions on the size of files that
can be uploaded (10MB) this sounds a lot but is not
really.
– For example if you have created an interactive
resource in Courselab with graphics and interactions
adding a large sound file could easily push the file
size above 10mb and would not get uploaded into VC
www.demmltd.co.uk

18. It’s useful & fun..
• You can embed sound into other packages e.g.
powerpoint
• Any file that needs to be served over the web needs to
be as small as possible because of download speeds
• You will have the ability to improve accessibility e.g. to
the visually impaired by adding a sound file/description
to text or images
• You will gain skills that could help you with other
technology – creating podcasts/audio blogs for example
• With ever expanding use of e-learning you can create
lectures to students to listen to even on their phones and
mobile devices
www.demmltd.co.uk

19. Audacity
• There is a free
tool for creating,
editing and
optimising
sounds called
audacity
• Example of how
it works…
• Create sound
www.demmltd.co.uk

20. Video Optimisation
• Video optimisation is one of the most
difficult things to do as it can be quite
technical and involves numerous players,
plugins, codecs and containers
• However there is a tool that can simplify
the process and it quite simple to use
however you do need to have a deeper
understanding to get the full benefits.
www.demmltd.co.uk

21. FVD Converter
• There are two main things that we
can tweak to minimise video file sizes
• The Audio settings
• The Video settings
• By tweaking either one or both of
these can dramatically increase or
decrease file size but also the quality
in terms of what you hear and what
you see
• FVD Converter is a free tool with a simple user interface that
will enable you to do this
• Example….
www.demmltd.co.uk

22. Putting it all together
• Back to the CAT
• Courselab 2.4 is a free tool that will enable
you to put all these elements together
sound, images and video and then add
interaction to the mix to create interactive
content.
• Example…
www.demmltd.co.uk

23. Other Tools
• There are other professional (Paid for)
Content Authoring Tools available in-fact
as of November 2011 there were over 120
different tools available.
– Courselab 2.7
– Captivate
– Articulate
www.demmltd.co.uk

24. Articulate Examples
• Here are some examples of work created with
Articulate
Two of them can already be
found on VC
www.demmltd.co.uk

25. More information
Danny O’Connor
DEMM Ltd
www.demmltd.co.uk
Free Courselab Training Videos to get you started
www.youtube.com/DEMMLtd
danny.oconnor@demmltd.co.uk
07779577779
www.demmltd.co.uk