Ben Hawkridge's profile document
Description for Ben Hawkridge
Ben Hawkridge
Ben Hawkridge
Ben
Hawkridge
Project Officer
I am primarily a software developer supporting academics with their research and internal or external projects particularly in applied Educational Technology.
In more recent times I have worked with Trevor Collins on the Stadium Live project which is been actively used to deliver Labcasts and Fieldcasts to OU students, the latter been of particular interest to Trevor Collins research.
I have long focused on digital audio-visual media, covering both on demand (podcasting) content and delivery of live events using live streaming or video conference technologies. In more recent times the rapid uptake of video conference technologies has led to a lot of experimentation with hybrid solutions.
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The Open University account for Ben Hawkridge
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Ben Hawkridge's membership at KMi
Ben Hawkridge's participation in Topic Accessed Video
Topic Accessed Video
Topic Accessed Video
Judge the educational effectiveness of linear and non-linear video elements
Topic accessed video is a prototyping system intended to allow authors to judge the educational effectiveness of various mixes of linear and non-linear video elements. A structured index of topics, based on printed study units, can be used by the student to control the video.
Ben Hawkridge's participation in Virtual Spring Collaborative Microworld
Virtual Spring Collaborative Microworld
Virtual Spring Collaborative Microworld
Networked virtual science
A demonstrator project to show how a real teaching problem could be tackled with networked Virtual Science. The aim was to create an environment in which the procedural aspects of the transformation of observation to data, and data to symbolic representation, could be brought out clearly. The shared microworld allows children to collaboratively collect data, make predictions and plot graphs. For older children, the graphs developed may then become a virtual spring balance for 'unknown' masses.
Ben Hawkridge's participation in Stadium
Stadium
Stadium
1995-10-01
Webcasting large-scale live events and on-demand-replays
KMi Stadium is the generic label for a suite of webcasting activities and software tools whose goal is to stage large-scale live events and on-demand-replays, while giving remote participants anywhere on the Internet a sense of 'being there'. It can be used for anything from a management seminar to a public lecture and has been successfully used for the Open University's On the Record Web-Casts. Its use in education is shown by its deployment for IET's Open and Distance Learning courses and Open University Business School seminars.
Ben Hawkridge's participation in Virtual Tours
Virtual Tours
Virtual Tours
QTVR virtual tours
A demonstrator project to show how QTVR virtual tours of museums and other significant buildings might be linked to virtual representations of documents- that may themselves be embellished with annotation and hyper links to course materials
Ben Hawkridge's participation in Tactile Multimedia
Tactile Multimedia
Tactile Multimedia
Point, click and watch might become drag, feel and think
The 'interactivity' of multimedia turns out in many cases to be a fairly passive experience for the user. This demonstrator project was intended to show how point, click and watch might become drag, feel and think, and the ways that this can change the learning experience. A range of tactile effects have been added to a 'how it works' topic with the intention of encouraging a more analytic manipulation of the simulation models, and a deeper reflection on their working.
Ben Hawkridge's participation in FirstFlight
FirstFlight
FirstFlight
Development of virtual science environments
Debunking the myth that the Wright Brothers were lucky mechanics - the project shows how they used rigorous scientific methods to make their first flight. On the web site you can try out a simulation of the Kittyhawk flyer.
Ben Hawkridge's participation in Web Lab
Web Lab
Web Lab
Calibrate, and provide a context for networked simulation environments
Web Lab is an attempt to calibrate, and provide a context for, networked simulation environments. Shared, web based activities are used to complement and extend classroom science, allowing resources that could not be made available in the classroom or lab to be directly controlled and monitored through a basic browser interface. This means that shared planning, execution and documenting of the experiments can involve students and teachers in several schools.
The control problems of distant sensors systems soon become apparent with Heronsgate School's Mars Buggy environment. As does the important idea of program generalizabilty- the same program that works in the classroom maze also works on Mars (temporarily located in the KMi). Other lab environments currently being developed include the ultra low speed wind tunnel and the web leaf
Ben Hawkridge's participation in The Virtual Student Advisor
The Virtual Student Advisor
The Virtual Student Advisor
2003-03-01
On-line multimedia support for Open Learning
Providing on line advice and guidance to our students involves bringing together a wide range of synchronous and asynchronous materials. In this project we have explored a range of visions of how we might provide asynchronous support to our students via appropriately streamed media. The progress of these experiments have lead the university to fund a New Technology for Student Support service which will use this work to support OU web based students.
Ben Hawkridge's participation in XO
XO
XO
2002-07-19
The automatic presentation creator
The playback engine XO Stage and its companion editing tools XO Editor and XO ButtonEd make the creation and viewing of multimedia presentations a breeze. It uses a combination of Apple QuickTime and Macromedia Flash to provide an easy way to create professional looking presentations.
Ben Hawkridge's participation in XO Backlot
XO Backlot
XO Backlot
2003-02-26
The Stadium Backlot system facilitates the management and maintenance of both live web casts and rep
The KMi Stadium project has supported a vast range of educational webcasting experiments, both within the Open University and for external clients. The logistics of managing such events, from a web based access point of view, has led to the development of the Stadium Backlot System.
Ben Hawkridge's participation in Xtreme Webcasting
Xtreme Webcasting
Xtreme Webcasting
2002-08-09
Taking webcasting to the xtreme
A combination of technologies can allow people all over the world to witness extrordinary events.
The Matterhorn, August 2002. A mountaineer takes a leading-edge mobile phone on his ascent of the famous Swiss landmark and sends images and voice messages to the KMi lab in Milton Keynes, UK. Using Macromedia's FlashCom technologies provided "out of the box" in the latest version of Flash MX we have assembled a dynamic, multimedia website for this event. Viewers from around the globe can tune in to the event and even interact via a text chat facility.
Everest, May 2006. The same mountaineer makes a transmission via satellite phone from the summit of Everest - made available in seconds to his many friends, relatives and followers around the world - as part of his challenge to conquor the highest mountain on each of the seven continents of the world.
Spain, August 2007. Students on the OU second level course L204 used our technology for less extreme podcasting, posting images and recordings as they explored the historic town of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain. The website was built using the same technology we had developed for the 7 Summits website.
Ben Hawkridge's participation in Podcasting
Podcasting
Podcasting
2006-01-17
A short introduction to podcasting
The word 'podcasting' is a combination of the words 'broadcasting' and 'iPod'. Podcasting is a means by which audio and video programs can be distributed via the internet by allowing users to subscribe to 'feeds'. These feeds contain details and descriptions of the programs, which are logically displayed for the user, and provide an easy way to download the associated files for users to listen to at their leisure. By using a subscription model the user can regularly check for new content to download to a computer and subsequently upload on to an iPod.
Ben Hawkridge's participation in iTunes U
iTunes U
iTunes U
2010-08-01
2012-07-31
iTunes University and Podcasting from KMi
Since late 2005 North American Universities have been using Apple's iTunes as a powerful platform to reach their students and the wider world. On June 3, 2008, Apple finally invited some other countries into this exciting channel. The 3 European Universities to launch at that time were The Open University, University College London (from the UK) and Trinity, Dublin (Ireland). Each of us launched with a pretty decent selection of materials and podcasts.
KMi executed the launch, working closely with the Open University Learning and Teaching Solutions division. The team in LTS will take ahead the service and make it work effectively throughout the University work flows. KMi will take this work forward with an innovative range of new features and some exciting new support services for podcasting; and using the special features of this channel in some new ways...
Ben Hawkridge's participation in Mobile Applications
Mobile Applications
Mobile Applications
Applications to explore the use of mobile devices in a learning environment
The Knowledge Media Institute are currently developing demonstration / prototype mobile applications to explore the use of mobile devices in the learning environment.
In the first instance these applications will be developed for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch but the aim is to port them to other mobile platforms such as Microsoft Windows Mobile and Android based devices. It is also possible that Symbian devices may also be included.