[senit] Easy multimedia programming

Thanks for this David,

Not sure how useful this will be for special needs pupils, certainly not 
much in my pmld school - However, Scratch is a very tidy piece of software 
indeed and I'd advise having a look at it.

The website's server appears to have crashed under the weight of traffic 
after the BBC item, but they have links to other download sites.

It would be nice to see it being able to export to more advanced programs 
(Flash ??)  in XML or whatever.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Sean O'Sullivan" <sean.frankwise at easynet.co.uk>
To: <senit at lists.becta.org.uk>
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2007 7:20 PM
Subject: Re: [senit] Easy multimedia programming - 'Scratch'

> Thanks for this David,
>
> it looks like it has promise, but it's still heavily text based,  despite 
> its drag and drop sense of use and the graphical look of the  blocks of 
> text. So for many users who have learning difficulties it  may still be 
> somewhat off the mark. It would be really nice to see a  mutimedia 
> programme that went much much further in terms of visual  operation - my 
> old favourite HyperStudio had some token areas that  helped in this, but 
> MediaBlender, which has partly stepped into the  gap, seems to have 
> dropped rather than improved this.
>
> I know there are people on the list who highly recommend PowerPoint  for 
> multimedia work, but what I'm getting at is how actually creating  the 
> document itself is done using visual tools, not that what has  been made 
> is visually interactive.
> Apple's Keynote isn't too bad for visually showing you photos and  movies 
> that you might want to add to a slide, and listing audio that  you can 
> listen to before deciding whether to add it, and things like  transitions 
> give you visual previews, but there's still a lot of text  to work with. 
> At the moment I feel it's an adequate option, but  things like non-linear 
> links require text ability to create the  navigation, and it hasn't been 
> designed to give detailed control of  audio such as for individual 
> elements on a slide.
>
> Is anyone aware of anything of this sort?
>
> Sean O'Sullivan
> sean.frankwise at easynet.co.uk
> Deputy Headteacher
> Frank Wise School, Banbury
> http://www.frankwise.oxon.sch.uk
>
> http://www.parkroadict.co.uk
>
>
> On 15 May 2007, at 09:49, David Lane wrote:
>
>>
>>
>>
>>   I thought that the following might be of interest to some readers  of 
>> this group - this item on the BBC website describes a free bit  of 
>> software that is intended to provide an easy way to create  programmed 
>> animations etc - the video is well worth watching.
>>
>> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6647011.stm
>>
>> cheers
>>
>> Dave
>> -- 
>> Xavier Educational Software Ltd
>> Special software for special needs
>> http://xavier.bangor.ac.uk 