Creating Dynamic Process Flow Charts

I've just been reading about Product Planner on the DemoGirl blog. This looks like a useful tool for creating instructions or flow diagrams of processes based on images and text. Here's an example to play with.

You can sign up for free, and once you have created your 'flow' diagrams you you then get an embed code so that you can add them to websites or blogs. Here's the video from Demo Girl which shows how to create these.


These flows look very handy for making instructional image sequences that don't take up too much space for blogs. This is a problem I constantly have with my Daily English Activities blog. I want to give image support to my instructions, but don't want to make pages excessively long. So this could be the answer.

Anyway, I hope you find this useful.

Related links:

• Developing screencast tutorials
• Exploiting Image Sequences
• Filming in Second Life 1
• Text to Speech Movies for EFL ESL

Best

Nik Peachey

Lip Sync for Second Life

I've just been trying out the beta Lip synching feature of Second Life in preparation for a chat show I'll be doing this coming Sunday on Edunation III. I'm hoping to be able to create a video recording of the show and decided to see how well I could record video and use the lip synching feature to make it all look more realistic.

Well here are the results.


I'm actually quite impressed. I think it does add an element of realism that has been missing and greatly increases the potential of Second Life for creating Machinima or any other video or animation projects. If you want to have a go with the lip synching, this video shows you how to switch it on.



To create the movie I actually used two computers each with a seperate avatar on. I then used one avatar as the 'actor' and the other avatar to record the sound and video (recording was done on a MAC running I-ShowU) I then edited it with I-Movie and uploaded directly to YouTube from there.

On Sunday 26th October at GMT = 18.00 I'll be interviewing Gavin Dudeny co author of How to Teach English with Technology from The Consultants-E about his teacher training activities in Second Life.

If you would like to come along and watch the show and join in the discussion, then go along to Edunation III and click the sign-up terminals or email Gavin at: dudeney@theconsultants-e.com. The event is free, but we are limited to 100 places.

Hope to see you there.

Related links:

• Teaching Speaking in Second Life
• Photo Assignments for EFL ESL Students in Second Life
• Materials design for Virtual Worlds
• Teaching English in Second Life
• Second Life Teacher Training Videos
• Looking at There.com
• Machinima with Moviestorm

Best

Nik Peachey

More Second Life Tutorials

Following on from my posting last month on building in Second Life, here are 4 more video tutorials showing the basics of Inventory management and how to create folders and notecards within the inventory.

The first tutorial looks at how to open the inventory and create a new folder within it.



The second tutorial looks at how to create new notecards for sharing text and activties. This for me is one of the prime sources of deliveing materials to students as the text on Notecards is much clearer easier to read and manipulate than text on textures, so I find this a key function to enable effective teaching within Second Life.



The third tutorial looks at how to find things within the inventory by using the search. This can help to overcome what can be quite a frustrating problem.



The forth and final tutorial in this set looks at how to clear up the inventory and delete some of the multiple instances. Keewping your inventory under control can help make it easier to find things and also speed up your avatar when you log in to Second Life, as there will be less inventory items to download.




If you are new to or haven't tried Second Life yet, then I hope you find these videos useful and they encourage you to try it out. The videos were originally commissioned by The Consultants-E and are part of an introductory course for teachers they deliver on Edunation Island II and are used with their kind consent. You can access all the tutorials on my YouTube channel here:

• http://www.youtube.com/NikPeachey

My other postings on Second Life and virtual worlds

• Materials design for Virtual Worlds
• Teaching English in Second Life
• Second Life Teacher Training Videos
• Looking at There.com
• Machinima with Moviestorm
• 3B Village 3D browser

By all means leave a comment, but all comments aare moderated so it might take a while to show.

Best

Nik Peachey

Building in Second Life

Over the last few weeks I've been creating quite a long series of video tutorials for teachers wishing to use Second Life. These have been created on Edunation Island for the The Consultants-E and are to be used as part of one of their short courses that they run in Second Life.

I'm also in the process of adding these to my YouTube channel which you can find at: http://www.youtube.com/nikpeachey

This week I've started by adding a series of four tutorials on the basics of building and also one on setting up voice for SL. I'll be adding a few more each week.

You can see the first one on setting up voice here.



You can see the playlist of Second Life tutorials here

I've also added all of my WetPaint Wiki tutorials, so hopefully this will make them more accessible and also provide an embed code for anyone who wants to use them elsewhere.

The WetPaint wiki playlist is here.

Hope you find these useful

Best

Nik Peachey