Podcast Replace Classrooms?

RSS Headphones - Podcasting
In the beginning, the iPod let you listen to every CD you owned, even when you were stuck on the Red Line. Then Steve Jobs said, “Let there be video,” and lo and behold, you could watch “Lost” die a slow, overwritten death on a two-inch screen. But while people seem content to load their little devices with as many songs and TV shows as possible, podcasts (think of them as radio programs that you download) tend to be neglected.
Listen and Learn With Podcasts – washingtonpost.com

The Answer = Not anytime soon
Why? it all falls down to the mentality of the person learning and the fact that listening to a podcast is a passive occupation, were as good learning will always be active.

Increasing technology use within schools, colleges and university’s can do nothing but help the way we learn and consume that learning materials. Being able to access course materials 24/7 is a great resource to have but you don’t remember the stuff you do aswell as you would from a classroom.

I think there will inevitably be some invention that takes podcasting and vidcasting out of the passive domain into the interactive and maybe then we can consider replacing the classroom. Until then I think classrooms are safe.

How the JT Blob was made.

How the JT Blob was made - Screen 5As you can see from the new design, the blob is taking more of a centre stage. So how did I come up with the idea? and how did I make it.

Designing in general can seem complicated and daunting but with just a few photoshop techniques in your toolbox. You can create a logo for you in a couple of hours or less.

You start with a blank sheetHow the JT Blob was made - Screen 1
Like all good things its best to start with no computer, a soft pencil, rubber and blank sheet of paper will do. Start by just randomly sketching something and then start working that into a logo (say you initials for example) You can spend as long as you like making this drawing look something like how you want it, but it doesn’t have to be very neat.

Say Cheese
Next step take a photo of your design (or scan it) I tried drawing my logo free hand straight on the my fantastic Wacom Intuos3 tablet, but it never looked right. This way works best for those of us who aren’t 100% confident with the graphics tablet. How the JT Blob was made - Screen 2

Follow the Yellow Brick Road
How the JT Blob was made - Screen 3Now for the slightly more complicated bit, open up your photo in photoshop and start using the pen tool, to trace over your logo. You can find a fantastic tutorial on the pen tool over on PixelPerfect
How the JT Blob was made - Screen 4You can then continue and play with the path till its perfect (this is why you pencil drawing didn’t need to be perfect)Then fill the path with a gradient by creating a gradient layer and using the path to mask it. Repeat this process until all elements of your logo.

Add a bit of text and you have yourself a logo. Its not that difficult, really. The harder part is making your website match your logo.

New Look, New Ideas

Jack Tams BlobI have been a bit low on the postings lately, hopefully I am about to change this. New theme new ideas (thats the idea) I now intend to keep content fresh and also make it easy to get to the content on the site. As you may know/see this new theme is based on hemingway and is a big contrast to the old website. The idea is to get all the content on the site is places were its easy to get to and easy to share and bookmark. Only time will tell if the theory will work out OK. I plan to post every other day or maybe more depending on what I feel Like.

RIAA = Fools

RIAA NO!RIAA misreads Jobs open letter on DRM, thinks hes offering to license FairPlay – Engadget

Yet again the RIAA is on the train to nowhere, seen as Steve Jobs said in his “Thoughts on Music” Apple would not be licensing fairplay, its either no DRM or Apple owns there system, the RIAA says “Apple your thinking like us, lets start licensing FairPlay DRM” (they didn’t say it like that, but you get the idea)

Gotta love em, they just can’t help making a fool of themselves whilst spending millions suing people.