Mobile Learning at the RVC

1. The design of a mobile learning application for
veterinary students
1st March 2011
LIDC
Nick Short
RVC 2012

2. The Challenge
• Bringing an old veterinary museum alive….
• The purpose was to transform museum specimens
into video-podcasts to depict structures and tissues
in a particular area of the body.
• We coined the terms ‘potcast’ and ‘potcasting’ to
describe these re-incarnated anatomy pots.
Nick Short 2010

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4. 1. Run the video camera while the lecturer is talking and pointing to
structures within the pot using a laser pointer.
2. Capture the first frame from the video – the 'clean' frame (ie no laser
pointer) – and open in Photoshop (Adobe Inc).
3. Watch the video and create a new layer on top of the clean frame in
Adobe Photoshop for each area highlighted. Use the red paint tool at
50% opacity to draw the shape of the structures being discussed.
4. Import the video into Premiere (Adobe Inc) and edit the audio as
necessary.
5. Import the .psd file from Photoshop with all the layers (each layer
becomes a track in Adobe Premiere).
6. Stretch the first frame of the pot to cover the full length of the audio
(then turn that layer off).
7. Watch the video and position each overlay track in the correct time
position.
8. Turn off the video layer and turn on the still image of the pot.
9. Convert the .wmv file into a m4v for use on an iPod (320 x 240,
384kb/sec, lowest quality audio) using Cleaner XL (Autodesk) and
media coder or similar tool and upload onto a streaming server.
Nick Short 2010

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9. Access to Content
‘Yeah that’s the good thing is that you can watch it as
many times as you like, we have like Integrated
Structure and Function and things and they are really
helpful at the time but I find that afterwards I come
away and forget the whole thing. If you can just go back
and play it again, you can look at it whenever really and
write things down.’
Nick Short 2010

10. Working in New Ways
‘I always tend to look at things at home anyway
because I’d be much more relaxed in my own
environment and I feel you’re not under any pressure to
look at it in a particular time you just look at it at your
leisure.’
‘I sometime take notes of stuff that I didn’t know
before, and then they talk about. Normally I pause it,
write a bit down, play again, pause, write a bit down.’
Nick Short 2010

11. Staff Contact
‘Well up until now, like in the dissections we haven’t
had much tuition, like we’ve been given a list of things
to do and then we just have to get on with it ourselves,
whereas now we actually have someone talking us
through.’
‘Yeah it’s nice the ones that do podcasts, you feel they
sort of care a bit more because they’re helping us with
the podcasts. You feel like they actually want you to
learn.’ Nick Short 2010

12. Future application
• Cloud based hosting – Micro SD Card
• Multiple devices from PC - Phone
• Social commenting and tagging
• Integration with other content
• Online Anatomy Museum
Nick Short 2010

13. Thank You!
Nick Short BVSc MSc MRCVS
nshort@rvc.ac.uk
www.rvc.ac.uk/emedia
www.rvc.ac.uk/review
Nick Short 2010