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Opera at the Cinema

I went to the Opera yesterday. I saw Verdi's "Un Ballo in Maschera" which was the opening night of the new season of Spain's Madrid Opera in the Theatro Real. And all at my local cinema in Croydon! In all sorts of ways this is a very exciting development. Musically the evening was really exciting: It is one of Verdi's great operas, all the singers were excellent, the orchestra was brilliant and the production (from London's Royal Opera House) was a real spectacle. Technically it was very impressive: this was a LIVE performance. Not a DVD being projected: there were over 80 cinemas across Europe all taking this live performance from Madrid as a High Definition/Surround Sound (Dolby 5.1. for those who are interested!) video stream. I also think that there is great potential for schools to take part in this: while ticket prices were higher than usual for a film they were a fraction of the typical opera ticket and you saw the singers in close up (there were seven cameras used so you were given different angles not just a "front-on" view). So, all you music teachers out there take a look at these two websites to find out where and when the rest of the season will be playing and go to an opera coming to a cinema near you soon. Here is a list of [ROH season's performances][2] and the whole season, a list of participating cinemas and lots of details about the technology are given on the [Arts Alliance Media][1] website. [1]:http://www.artsalliancemedia.com/opera [2]:http://www.roh.org.uk/cinemas

Welcome back - the LHC has started...

Welcome back to the new school year. The LHC started yesterday and despite some of the scare stories we are all still here! This is a really fantastic story to start the year with. If you want to read more about the LHC - what it stands for, what it is trying to do and why it is so important then take a look at the New Scientist's [Special Report][2]. There is a video and the [first image produced][1] by the collider as well as links to some absolutely stunning [Virtual reality photographs][3] - there are three images [1][4],[2][5], and [3][6]. As usual the BBC also has some very good coverage as well. There is a [news special][7] which includes a report on [computing at CERN][8]. Did you know that the inventor of the World Wide Web ([Tim Berners-Lee][9]) worked at CERN and that it was developed originally to help scientists share their work? And, of course, there was the [Torchwood play][10]. [1]:http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14699-working-lhc-produces-first-images.html?DCMP=ILC-hmts&nsref=news4_head_dn14699 [2]:http://www.newscientist.com/channel/fundamentals/large-hadron-collider [3]:http://www.newscientist.com/blog/space/2008/08/virtual-reality-photos-bring-lhc-to.html "VR photos of LHC" [4]:http://www.petermccready.com/portfolio/07041607.html [5]:http://www.petermccready.com/portfolio/07041608.html [6]:http://www.petermccready.com/portfolio/07041609.html [7]:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7543089.stm "About the LHC" [8]:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7508242.stm "Computing at CERN" [9]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Berners-Lee "Tim Berners-Lee" [10]:http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/bigbang/torchwood.shtml#podcast

Elgg get best open source social networking platform...

Great news for Elgg the platform on which LL4Schools is based - they have been recognised as best open source social networking platform. Here's what they say on the [Elgg][2] site

We're pleased to announce that Elgg has been featured as the best open source social networking platform in InfoWorld's 2008 Best Of Open Source Awards. Elgg joins WordPress, which won for best blogging platform, Firefox, which won for best web browser, and MySQL, which was featured as the best database system.

From the article:

While Elgg lets corporations, governments, and schools quickly establish blogs, the system's collaborative features encourage building communities of users with shared interests. Other Elgg fine points include podcast support, file repositories, user profiles, an RSS aggregator, and branding features. Significantly, the software integrates with other IT systems and provides OpenID authentication.

[More...][1] [1]:http://news.elgg.org/pg/blog/bwerdmuller/read/43/its-official-elgg-is-the-best-social-networking-platform [2]:http://elgg.org

Comment on "Tate Modern - Street Art Exhibition"

HOW DO U GET PICS IN

Embedding Quicktime file

The file is stored on a different website - i.e. it is not in my file area but hosted elsewhere.

You can just link to it with an anchor Video Blog



Or you can embed the movie into a blog post of page - but you have to enter the appropriate HTML code:













Or some Javascript:



First day of the E2BN Conference in Wyboston.
Russell introduced the Conference and got us off to a storming start with some though provoking videos, cool technology and provocative rhetoric! All the [links are online][1] so if you missed anything just go to his site. The best hardware (cost?) must be the complete internet radio station - and the insight into just how "live" much live radio is...

Thought provoking - can it be that only the UK and France filter the internet in Europe? The Ofcom report - good report but boring video!

Simon Finch followed Russell (not and easy job!) and talked about embedding VLEs. Now may not sound particularly interesting but Simon did and good job of showing where we are rather than the blue skies of Russell's - this is where we want to be.

The depressing thing about Simon's talk was that he admits to spending far too much time showing teachers the fundamental skills like "right-clicking"! A real indictment of in service training.... 

[1]:http://www.andertontiger.com/e2bn/ "Russell's links"


Embedding Quicktime file
The file is stored on a different website - i.e. it is not in my file area but hosted elsewhere.

You can just link to it with an anchor Video Blog


Or you can embed the movie into a blog post of page - but you have to enter the appropriate HTML code:













Or some Javascript:







Add QTime Movie
You can use this code to add a quick time movie to a blog or wiki page.

Note - this movie is not held in the LL4Schools site but could be hosted anywhere.









Baby - the first computer - is 60.
The first computer ever - Manchester University's "Baby" is sixty year old - the forerunner of the computer you are now sitting at! As part of the 60th Anniversary celebrations the BBC has released what they believe to be to [oldest computer music][1] recorded in 1951 on a visit by the BBC to the University. 

A scratchy recording of Baa Baa Black Sheep and a truncated version of In the Mood are thought to be the oldest known recordings of computer generated music.

These songs were played on a Ferranti Mark 1 computer which was commercial version of Baby.

There is a link to the music in the article and a video from a 1948 BBC TV report on the "birth" of Baby. Remember that while you are listening to your iPod, listening to internet radio, or using QueBase that it all started with a computer in Manchester where the answer was displayed on a small, green screen!

[1]:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7458479.stm "BBC - Oldest Computer Music"


Add QTime Movie
You can use this code to add a quick time movie to a blog or wiki page.

Note - this movie is not held in the LL4Schools site but could be hosted anywhere.