Tag Archives: Camera

Nifty, Inexpensive Solution for File Transfer and Storage Capacity Expansion for Phones and Tablets

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It doesn’t take long to fill up a 16 GB mobile phone or tablet with photos, video and other media-rich materials.  This really can be a problem if you are using your phone or tablet to shoot photos and/ or video for projects.  Another issue is how to easily get those photos and videos off your phone for backup purposes or how to get photos from a camera to an iPad for better viewing.

Kingston Technology makes a nifty and inexpensive device that fits in a pocket which can solve these issues and more called the MobileLite Wireless (MLW).  It allows you to stream audio content, photos and videos to a mobile device.  The MLW does not have built-in storage but rather serves as a wireless card reader allowing transfer of files between an SD card, USB thumb drive, portable hard drive or even a computer via USB and your iOS or Android device.mobilelite-iphone

So how does it work?  The battery powered MLW is the hub of a wireless network and connects to your mobile device via a free companion app.  Once connected, you can either transfer files or stream media to up to three wireless devices simultaneously.

Here are some examples of use cases for the device.  (1) You or your students have shot video or still photos on a cell phone and need to get them off the phone.   You can wirelessly transfer the data to either an SD card or USB drive to free up storage space or for editing.   (2) You have taken a group of photos that you want to view on a larger screen.  You can stream them to your iPad or other tablet while in the field to look at them.  (3) Less academically, you are traveling and want to watch movies on the trip without using up all the storage on your phone or tablet.  Just save them on a USB drive, portable hard drive or SD card to stream to your tablet or phone, and in fact, different members of your family can all be watching different movies simultaneously!  The manufacturer advertises a 5 hour battery life so you might almost be able to cover a coast to coast flight.

This is a great little device.  Kingston does make a similar product with on-board storage, but I like the idea of being able to take the appropriate media size I need for a given application with me.  If this is something that you could use,  I’d grab one now.  I bought mine from Amazon for $41.99, but it is currently listed at $36.

 

No GoPro? Use a Smartphone!

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Have you ever wished you could take your class on a virtual mini-field trip, or do your students go into the field to collect data (which would be neat to film), but you don’t want to carry a bunch of gear so you can get video?Montage_d'une_Gopro_HD_sur_un_masque_de_chasse_sous-marine  The GoPro is a great little wearable video action cam intended to take about any abuse from being bashed on rocks to submerged in the ocean.  However, even though the GoPro is pretty inexpensive, you still probably do not want to buy them by the bundle for student outings.  So what’s the solution?

The majority of students in our classes have smartphones flickr-2830319467-hd, and you probably have one with you wherever you go.  The bonus is that most smartphones have quite good cameras and video capability.  If you want some great tips for how to use a smartphone as a GoPro-substitute safely and effectively, you might check out this article in VideoMaker magazine.  This is really going to be useful for my Honors General Science class students in their documentary projects.