The App

Over the next few days I will be distributing the 'app' for use in a number of local secondary schools. Evaluations from both staff and students will also be appearing over the forthcoming weeks.

Below are a series of screen shots from the 'app' itself:

Guitar & Bass icons to choose the category of lesson

Choose a lesson from the drop down menu (top right)

Guitar lesson: page shows video, lesson description, chapter selection, & PDF

Guitar lesson 2: page shows video, lesson description, chapter selection, & PDF

Bass lesson: page shows video, lesson description, chapter selection, & PDF

Guitar lesson: video & PDF split screen

Bass guitar lesson video only

Guitar lesson video only

IP - Intellectual Property - A Contentious Issue

If increasingly more educational content is going to be delivered online (or remotely from a centralised source), which to me seems a logical extrapolation of the pressures of financial expediency and technological innovation, several issues will need to be discussed and solutions agreed.

One such issue is the hardware infrastructure necessary to deliver the content, which I intend to discuss at a later date.

Another and more contentious issue is who will own the (copyright) rights inherent in such delivery and of equal significance, what and how will they be paid for their rights of ownership?

My starting point for such discussion is an example of the 3rd party public usage of commercial CD's in the music industry and the manner in which rights are allocated and accrue payment.

Essentially there are two copyrights inherent in the public use (performance) of a CD. (What I am discussing here is not personal ownership but the non-domestic use of a CD, ie in connection with a business). If we take an example of such usage with which we are all familiar: the 'performance' of CD's on radio shows (Radio 1 & 2 etc). Every time a commercial, (copyrighted) CD is broadcast, two separate and distinct fees (royalties) are payable: one in respect of the physical copyright, the CD itself which is generally owned by the Record Company and the second, in respect of the Intellectual Property (IP), ie the song, which is generally owned by the songwriter (but that is not always the case).

The two fees are based on the amount of usage in time (hours, minutes & seconds) and also the size of the audience ie Radio 2 pays a higher usage fee than Radio 1 which in turn pays a higher usage fee than regional radio.

Fees (royalties) are collected by specific agencies: PRS (for songwriters) & PPL (for record companies and the musicians involved in the recording) with distribution on a number of set distribution dates throughout the year.

I think this is a good model to take as a starting point, primarily because it ensures that the content creators, the teachers and lecturers who prepare, deliver and source the educational content, maintain their ownership rights and are similarly reimbursed for the usage of their materials based on the extent of that usage. And equally, the educational institutions that supported the development of the materials will also benefit via a kind of mechanical copyright. 


Such a system could usher in a new form of funding for non HE educational establishments, who could easily benefit from the development of online materials featuring their own staff. And those staff too, who excel in delivery and the development of content, could be earning significant royalties. 

Any comments?

Working with Cameras

We are very fortunate in having three Sony Z series cameras to work with, 2x Z5's & 1x Z1. We film everything in full HD (1080i) which provides the level of quality that we aspire to but at a cost that we think is very good value for money... I will talk in more detail about the cameras soon.

There have been two problems that have been a consistent issue for us: 

The first was lighting, which we have hopefully solved with the addition to our set up of three 800 watt halogen lamps on tripods with diffusers. As long as we allow ourselves the time to set up the shot (always static so that helps!) with an appropriate lighting array, our three lights work very well.

The second problem is focus. It is all too easy to use auto focus but the inherent danger with that is that the camera will not always be focusing on the object that you want or expect it to. For example, whenever we have been filming drums or any scenario involving microphone stands, invariably the autofocus will align itself to some obscure part of the drum kit or the microphone stand rather than the performer behind it.

The answer is simple, use manual focus but then one is reliant on the viewfinder in the camera... or an external monitor and it is the latter that is by far the better solution. But then we run into a new problem... cost!

External monitors are expensive, potentially very expensive but we have recently purchased a pair of Iiyama monitors, which are HD, have a good colour response and accept an HDMI input. (The Z5's have an HDMI output)... and yes it works. Pictures below:

Subject and monitor shot

Monitor shot

Subject and monitor shot 2

Subject and monitor shot 3

Everything!

(Thank you to Alice who kindly volunteered to sit to demonstrate for us)

Logo's

Identity and specifically brand identity is such an important factor in the success of any product. 

When we first came up with, initially the concept and then the name iTutorus, as a team we were all quite confident that the two elements, concept and name, were complementary.

The original logo soon followed but now on the advice of some graphics specialists we have decided to go for something new:

This will be our new company logo, followed by themed variations to reflect the learning area:

Guitar

Bass

& Drums

Hope you like them

Spreadsheets & the Sony MRC1K

Workflow! Such an important word and for this project maintaining the workflow: scripting, recording audio, editing audio, pre production, filming, editing, creating PDF's, putting it all together is a significant undertaking and anything that can help or support the workflow will be gratefully received. 

There have been two recent additions to our working methodology which have significantly advanced our workflow... the first is the use of a spreadsheet (pictured below) which we use to log every piece of filming that we undertake:

This might seem like a very small step but with so much footage being generated a detailed spreadsheet is an absolute essential.

Our second piece of workflow good news was the arrival of the Sony MRC1K.

This is a compact flash recorder which currently holds a 32Gb flash card. For us in real terms this means 143 minutes of HD recording.

Up until now we have been using DV tapes... lots of them(!) in fact we have several boxes full of DV tapes all of which have to be labelled and most importantly, captured in real time. In other words if you have a 60 minute tape with 60 minutes of footage it will take you 60 minutes to capture the data to your computer hard drive. Currently we have 16 of such DV tapes waiting to be logged and captured... a minimum of 16 hours...

however,

with our all new MRC1K we are no longer tied to capturing in real time... using the log and transfer function in Final Cut Pro we can transfer (capture) the footage in a fraction of the time! 

An Auspicious Day!

Today it was my birthday! 

And today we delivered the first iTutorus lesson loaded iPad to Churchill School. 

Ten guitar lessons, ten bass guitar lessons and three drum lessons... the ball is rolling!

Alison Cooper (Head of Music) Churchill Community School

Alison & Marcus Dyer (Music Technician) Churchill Community School

Alison & Marcus & Sarah Clark (Head of Faculty Creative Arts) Weston College

Alison will be providing feedback and evaluation sheets describing her students' use of our teaching materials. 

The collated results of these will be appearing on these pages over the forthcoming weeks.