Using Burst Mode on the iPad/iPhone to take photos in sports settings

As a former PE/Sport Science lecturer, I think the iPad is a wonderful tool.

One problem with the default camera app on the iPad or iPhone is there is a time lag between pressing the button to take a photograph and the photo actually being taken, which in the world of sport is annoying as the action you wanted is often missed.

One app that I am finding really useful which overcomes this problem is Burst Mode – https://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/burst-mode-high-speed-camera/id393131664?mt=8. What this does is take a set of photographs in rapid succession, you then go through the set of images to select the one or ones that you want to use.

The image quality is superb, even in the relative low light of sports hall settings, and you can choose various settings including:

• Delay between pictures.
• Self timer delay (if filming yourself).
• The number of pictures taken.
• Low light Boost.
• And various others options.

If you use the delay between pictures you have a range of options between 0.5 seconds and 5 minutes, it is a shame there isn’t a smaller increment (e.g. 0.1 seconds) which would be more useful for carrying out scientific movement analysis, however If you have no delay, the frequency of capture will be very quick – but will vary depending on the situation (e.g. low light will take less photos). This is not as accurate as a specialist camera or software – but with it being cheap and easy to use, means that each student can use it – rather than just one at a time.

If you do want to use the system to work out speeds of movements, you would need to know the frequency that the photos are being taking. It doesn’t give us this information automatically – but one way round this is to either have another iPad in shot which itself has a stopwatch running – or immediately before capturing your action, you capture another device (I often use my phone for this) that has the stopwatch running – then you can estimate the time gaps between frames. This is always going to be an estimate – but for a teaching perspective is adequate.

There are various other similar apps out there – with a range of prices, and there may be one better than this, but of the ones that I have tried I have found this to be the easiest to use, with the best quality of image and well worth the cost. Some people will tell me that I could just use the video tool, and then use one of the apps that takes a still image from a video sequence, but I have found with these – the image quality isn’t as crisp – which for sport is essential.

If you want to use an app like Burst Mode – it works very well with the device being hand held – but if you want to use this for more scientifc analysis then I would recommend a bracket to attach it to a tripod – as I discussed previously – https://davefoord.wordpress.com/2014/02/13/device-to-attach-an-ipad-or-tablet-to-a-standard-tripod/

If you work for a school or college, and are interested in me coming in to run a training session on how to use iPads in the teaching of PE and Sport then please get in touch.

Using headphones to take photos with iPad or iPhone

I recently learnt a little known iPad/iPhone trick – that is really useful, especially for people using an iPad in a teaching and learning situation.

If you have a newish headphone set that has a volume control on the headphones – then this can be used to take a photo or video on the iPad. Pressing the volume down button on the headphones – will have the same effect as pressing the button on the screen when in the default camera app.

There are a few uses of using this technique as follows:

• If I am creating a video of myself (e.g. introducing a topic to learners) – I can start and stop the video with my headphones, which are out of site of the camera – without having to lean forward and (visibly) touch the screen.
• If I am carrying out movement analysis in a sports setting, and I have set my iPad up on a tripod (see previous blog post on this topic) – if I touch the screen to start the recording – I risk wobbling the set-up, which reduces the quality of the video. By using the headphones there is no wobble in the system.
• Again if the iPad is on a tripod and I am operating the taking of the photos/videos – by using the headphones, I can do this without having to look at the device – which means I can keep my full attention on the class. If I am pressing the button on the screen, I have to momentarily take my attention away from the class, potentially missing something important.
• If working outdoors in the cold, it is possible to operate the camera with gloves on.
• If working in certain environments such as a workshop, kitchen, farmyard – it is possible to operate the camera even without fully clean hands. At the end of the session you can wipe the controls of the headphones clean.
• If working with disabled learners, the processing of holding the device, and looking at the screen, and pointing in the right direction, and then taking the photo can be tricky for some, often resulting in movement of the device as the on-screen button is pressed. By using the headphones (and possibly a tripod) we can reduce this effect. This won’t work for all – some will find the on-screen button easier to manage, but others will find the headphones option easy to control.

There will be many other uses that I haven’t listed here (maybe people will comment if they can think of any).

Device to attach an iPad or tablet to a standard tripod

As a former PE/Sport science lecturer, the iPad is a wonderful device, that I wish existed when I was teaching, as  it’s potential for me to video something, then play it back easily with options to slow motion, fast forward etc. is superb, and if I wanted to carry out some slightly more scientific analysis, then we now have an affordable device, that can be easily used by the teacher or students, and I am very impressed by the quality of photographs and footage from an iPad, as even when capturing at a fast frame rate as is often required in sports analysis situations, the quality is excellent, even in low lit indoor situations.

If I am doing some analysis, then I need to mount the device onto a tripod so that it doesn’t move, shake or vibrate. I spent ages trying to source an affordable attachment that would attach to a standard tripod – and surprisingly I struggled. There are many expensive alternatives that are too costly for education (in my opinion) or there are some very wobbly looking options, which I wouldn’t trust, or the options were unique to a a particular model of device which I didn’t want. Luckily a colleague of mine, Ron Mitchell – did locate what I was looking for, which is made by a company called iStabalizer and is called the Tab Mount. The only place that I could find that sells this in the UK is Amazon (which is a shame, because as a company I prefer to use companies that pay their taxes), and the direct link (at time of writing this post) is here – cost at time of writing is £22.95.

Basically the device is a spring loaded mechanism, where the top and bottom pull apart then spring close again and clamps tight around the tablet, and then has a standard tripod thread on its back which can be used to attach to the tripod. It will work with a range of tablet devices of different size , and in most cases you shouldn’t need to remove the device from any protective case that it is in, which I think makes it ideal for education.

You do lose the use of the arm of the tripod with this arrangement, but for sport analysis where the tripod isn’t going to move, this won’t matter. As well as uses in sport, this could have obvious uses for other subjects such as music, media, art or simply for a teacher than wants to film their students and doesn’t want to have to hold their device.

If any PE/Sport Science teachers are interested in a training session on how to use iPads or other tablets in a PE/Sport setting then I run bespoke training sessions through The Tablet Academy, details of the iPad based session is available at http://www.tablet-academy.com/courses/using-ipads-in-pe-and-sport/65.html. These courses can be arranged for an individual organisation, or there are the £99 courses which are great for schools that maybe have only 1 or 2 PE teachers, and the Tablet Academy isn’t just UK based, there are centres setting up around the globe.

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All images by Dave Foord – http://www.flickr.com/photos/davefoord/sets/72157640918612424/

The legacy of the paralympics on education

I missed most of the Olympics as was on holiday, but I watched as much of the Paralympics as possible, and I (like many others) have been blown away with the standard and the excitement that it has brought, but what has really pleased me is the media coverage (and positive media coverage) that it has achieved. When I taught, one my main subjects was around the area of ‘disability sport’ – and I remember during the 2000 Sydney Olympics the TV coverage was something like a very superficial 30minutes each evening, showing the main sports of athletics, swimming and wheelchair basketball and sports like boccia and goalball getting next to no coverage.

12 years later and channel 4 has broadcast over 400 hours of coverage, showing all sports, all athletes, and the programme ‘The last leg‘ I thought was superb, as it highlighted that we don’t have to be nervous discussing disabled people, it doesn’t matter if we occasionally get the terminology wrong (as long as it isn’t offensive) and disabled people don’t need to be wrapped in cotton wool, and treated like innocent kids all their lives.

So what impact will this have on our education system?

There is a huge opportunity for education to deliver the legacy that the games set out to create. Hopefully the physical education agenda will be addressed. There have regular media debates about the amount of PE on the curriculum, which I hope does increase, but we can also look at the attitude of PE. In the last 15 or so years there has been a move to widen sporting participation to all, which has unfortunately been translated into seriously reducing the competitive element of sport. I think there is a need for both, which the Paralympics to me has shown – many of the disabled athletes that were interviewed, echoed that competing (and winning) is what drives them and how that is an essential part of their life, and I hope a balance of meeting the needs of driven students can be met along with those that don’t like sport.

Outside of the PE agenda, there are also lessons to learn – watching the blind athletes playing football was amazing, and showed that a lack of vision does not render an individual incapable, similarly a lack of limbs is not a barrier to some amazing swims, jumps, throws and runs, and the archery competitor that used his feet to hold the bow, and his mouth to release the arrow shows the ability for some disabled individuals to find innovative ways to overcome perceived barriers. Hopefully when a disabled individual enters an educational establishment, their ability and potential isn’t prejudged by someone, that then holds them back from that point forth. The problem with the current model, is disabled students are assessed by an ‘expert’ within the organisation who comes up with a support plan identifying what adaptations are needed, and although this works for most, there are many people that end up with the wrong type or level of support, which rather than helping them, holds them back. Hopefully students, parents, carers and teachers will have the confidence to challenge these support plans if they think they need improving.

From a teaching perspective – there is an opportunity to better meet the needs of disabled learners. I have long preached the notion of inclusivity, which is rather than creating non-accessible practices and then using methods to overcome them – instead we look at what we are doing and create resources and practices that can be easily adapted (ideally by the student themselves). I know the CPD budgets are currently tight within organisations, but I think investing in CPD in this area would be a worthwhile investment, as learning inclusive techniques, will save the tutor time, will raise the standards of teaching for all learners, could reduce the learner support costs, and would help to produce a world beating education system.

One of the best training programmes for educators that would cover this, is the ITQ for accessible IT practice which I have been running for a few organisations over the last 18 months, and I think offers excellent value for money, as well as giving staff the opportunity to gain a recognised qualification.

Very,very simple sports movement analysis

Yesterday I was presenting at an event organised for people that will be running the level Diploma in Sport and Active Leisure, and I had been asked to provide some ideas as to how to teach some of the units – including the science based ones. I used to teach biomechanics so for me the science based ones are very easy, but for many they are not.

Having presented a few ideas to the group, I then decided to try and ‘wow’ them with a live demonstration. I wanted to show the group how easy it is to do basic movement analysis, which is normally achieved by using very expensive technology (which is very good) but takes a bit of time to learn, and is often so expensive that you have 1 or 2 computers in the class with it on, making it hard for the learners to practice.

From a teaching and learning perspective, I want something that all the learners can do, very quickly without having to learn lots of skills up front, and this was the basis of this demonstration. I gave my compact camera to one of the group, and asked them to film me carrying out a movement. This they did, I then plugged the camera into my laptop and copied the video file accross.

I then showed in the space of about 5 minutes how I could take still images from that video file by using quicktime which allows me to move the film forwards or backwards 1 frame at a time by using my cursor keys, and then using copy and paste to take these images into a PowerPoint presentation. I then drew an arrow on the position of my arm on each image, before copying each arrow onto a single slide. The end result being a line diagram showing how my arm had moved during the motion.

A screencast showing the technique is here

Normally when I do demonstrations at events, it is the complicated uses of technologies that has the wow factor, but in this case it was the utter simplicity of it that had the wow factor. 1 attendee in particular loved this idea as he had struggled to use the more complicated systems for movement analysis, and the idea of just copying and pasting – was well within his comfort zone.

This technique was something that I used about 10 years ago in my teaching because I didn’t have access to the more sophisticated software, so it is interesting for me to revisit this now, but shows how it is possible to use the technologies that we have to create results.

“I am just a PE teacher!”

When I run training sessions, I will always start by introducing myself and giving brief information on my background – which is basically a sport science lecturer that started using technology in his teaching. I do this because quite often when working with teaching staff if people are nervous or anti technology then an easy excuse for them is that technology cannot be integrated into their subject area or that only certain types of lecturer could have the skills to use technology.

So it is quite common to hear me say “I am just a PE teacher” as I try to emphasise the fact that this can work in any subject area, and playing on the fact that within the educational hierarchy PE Teachers are often portrayed as at the lower end of the academic scale (obviously untrue – we should be at the top). It also gives me a good excuse to duck a techy conversation (which I will take at any opportunity).

However a colleague of mine pointed out to me that I should stop saying that as I am no longer a teacher and haven’t been for the last 5 years.

This made me think – should I stop referring to myself as a teacher? And after a bit of deep thinking I have concluded that I can for 2 reasons:

Firstly this is what I am qualified as, and is the basis of my consultancy and training activities, without my teaching background I couldn’t do my job.

Secondly (and possibly more importantly) I am prepared (and would quite like) to return to teaching. I hear many people like me that have left teaching say they would never go back, but that is not the case with me, if I ever got to the stage where I felt I couldn’t go back to teaching, then I don’t think I could do my job, as I wouldn’t have the passion, energy and credibility that I am so reliant on.

So to conclude:- i am just a PE teacher!

Using voting pads – for peer review

Voting pads

Originally uploaded by Dave Foord

Voting pads have been around in education for a few years now, and although they are falling out of favour with many at the moment (and similar to other issues – it isn’t the technology that is at fault but the way that it is used – or abused in many cases, which isn’t the fault of the teaching staff, but the lack of staff development time and opportunity for them), I thought that I would share one way that I used such technologies to good effect.

I used to teach sport science, and one unit was a leadership one, where we would be in a sports hall, and as part of the course I would get the learners to lead parts of sessions. After each ‘micro-lead’ we would then reflect and feedback on it. For many years I would ask the other learners what they thought – and being very polite and not wanting to offend, they would always say everything was very good – even though some sessions were clearly awful. I would then step in with my feedback, which often wasn’t as complementary, the effect of this was the learners didn’t take my constructive criticism on board as well as I would have liked.

In my final year of teaching, I changed this and introduced the voting pads. All I needed was my laptop and the bag of pads (I didn’t need or use a projector!) at the end of the micro-lead, we would return to the seating area, everyone would pick up a pad (it didn’t matter which one) – and I would ask them to rate parts of the session that they had just partaken in. People would do this, and as it was anonymous they were very honest, this had a much better effect on the learner who had lead, than me just ploughing in with critiscisms – instead I was able to pick up on the feedback from their peers, and pick out the reasons why, and what to do next time to better effect.

This I think is still a very good use of voting technologies – and it isn’t just for the sports environment, anything where learners have to present, this can be used. Now if we want to take this a step further there are various ways of making use of learners mobiles phones to get similar feedback, but for places that ban phones and have bags of voting pads in cupboards then this is a very good technique. This posting was triggered by reading a blog article on this topic at http://mobile-learning.blog-city.com/the_use_of_an_audience_response_systems_to_provide_peer_feed.htm