Short description. “Karaokes” is a format for mobile devices like iPhone and Blackberries that mixes text, audio and video. On screen a text scrolls down while a specher reads the content. The sentence that is beeing locuted is highlighted. The actual video is generated automatically from regular textbooks using techlologies as XML, TTS and Open Laszlo.

Target audience. karaoke is perfect for those who commute using public transportation and wanted to review the lectures that have readed the day before. Under these circumstances it could be better than a book, difficult to read standing or on a bus; and in front of a simple audio file generated with a TTS tool it shows a visual interface on wich to see pictures and tables and even re-engage in case of lost.

The project “edit@: a system for the interoperability of multiplatform contents” has been recently approved by the by The Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Commerce of Spain.

The edit@ proposal can be summarised by the following objective: to create a gateway based on standards and open source code that allows interoperability with the content management systems available on the market, and which through a user friendly and accessible user interface amplifies its functions and possibilities; in this way, edit@ will enable the editing, modification, validation and publication of content through a single workflow, producing outputs in multiple and innovative formats, such as outputs for mobile ‘phones and PDA, audio format, DAISY format for mobile ‘phone, outputs for digital interactive television and a format adapted for digital ink devices. Furthermore, the content will be available in multiple languages, thanks to the incorporation of a translation system, and in all of the output formats there will be an annotations system so that the reader or end user can contribute, whilst respecting the original content.

Furthermore, through the use of the SCORM standard, edit@ will make it possible to monitor the use of those contents, thus guaranteeing continuous evaluation and improvement. Finally, user centred design and accessibility will be fundamental pillars of edit@, in order to guarantee user satisfaction in all its services and functions.

edit@ will therefore be a system geared to facilitate the evolution of document and content formats. It aims to gain greater penetration in providing products and services to companies, by bringing different contents closer to specific user profiles. Companies using the system will be able to obtain their content in formats that are currently not within their grasp, as a result of the high cost of their skilled production. edit@ can also be used for companies’ private content, although its principal application will be with public content, bringing creative commons or open courseware to the end user.

edit@ will automate the method for passing online content directly to the optimum format for each user. If there are currently solutions on the market for transforming documents into web or PDF format, edit@ will provide multiformat solutions of the innovative nature already mentioned above. Finally, the system will consider the solution for creating content markers and spaces for collaborative annotation.

The traditional universities are entering the online world and are doing all at once. So suddenly the problem with that is that university managers have no tools to carry out certain demands.
Fortunately from time to time an open source development appears to facilitate the task. The Free Software is superbly suited to the needs of universities and is partly the reason for the success of products such as Moodle and Sakai.

The latest fashion is to record and upload lessons. The service is highly valued by students. As a result they can review the lesson once at home.

Record and distribute lessons is a process that requires large amounts of resources, both human and technical. Until now we did not know any development that would facilitate the task. Educational Technology Services of UC Berkeley has been working in this subject for a long time and just now has decided to open its Opencast project to other institutions. For this purpose the former July 10th ETS Berkeley held a meeting in Oxford with its European partners. We were very kindly invited to attend.

Opencast is a product developed over Apple’s Podcast Producer. It involves software and hardware and it allows to record lessons and the deliver them through different channels like YouTube and u-iTunes.
ETH Zurich has developed a similar product named Replay. At Oxford (pictures) we talk about how to organize the project and what to do in order to share developments, many of them already working. We all agree that we should have a common APIs.

The traditional universities would do well to follow the project if they want to record lessons and they need a product to automatize the task. Our interest is in using video, for example recordings of our
teachers, as teaching material. That is why our cooperation is based on transforming the recordings in full multimedia content as well as those contained in packaging formats IMS - Common Cartridge.

IMS Learning Impact took place in austin between May 12th and 15th. We presented MyWay project, more specially our iPhone solution that mixes text and audio, to the anual awards and .

Vece Rector of Technology Llorenç Valverde, Eva De Lera an myself had a wonderful time chatting with people all over the world about e-learning, standards and the future of teaching and learning. The feeling that we perceived is that we are really at the beginning of a new era.

In the picture: Eva, Chris (from Peirce College and a good friend) and myself receiveing our correspondant prizes.

The final prototype of the “karaoke” project. It’s an mpg4 movie so you can upload it to your iTouch / iPhone. Video to desktop (mpg4, 80Mb, Right click to dowload).

Thanks to Albert (Omaonk, programming) & Irene (design). They have done an outstanding job!

We have uploaded a very first version of a content for mobile devices.

As you can see it’s a flash movie that reproduces an speech, shows a text and higlight what is beeing said. With this format we are trying to overcome the loose of attention that occurs when you listen a long speech generated by a TTS. If you get lost you can get track of the content just by taking a look at the screen.

The sytem transforms the original XML content to SMIL and then to swf files using Open Laszlo. A last transformation to a video is required to reproduce it on mobiles devices as iPhone - as far as we know iPhone doesn’t play flash -.

In addition we are still working in the audio format. Check a previous sampler to listen it.

We’ve just started a pilot with seven students that are going to use an iRex Iliad eBook during a semester. Irex Iliad is an eInk device capable to reproduce text, pdf an html files. The screen is slightly bigger than in other eBooks but the point with Iliade is that it allow to take notes over the pdf files with an special magnetic pencil. We’ve edit a (very) short video with the basic instructions to use it. Here you have.

As we work toward automatizing multiple output formats, we were impressed by one of the newest gadget presented at the last Mobile Congress in Barcelona. The rollable phone and display has been created by PolymerVision, a spin-off of Philips, and it’s still going through a pilot phase.

See the Product Brochure for more information.