Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Pecha Kucha presentations


PK were designed to avoid boring and long presentations to force speakers to make them shorter and enthralling. The design of a Pecha Kucha motivates speakers to center their subjects in very different ways.

What is a Pecha Kucha?
This curious Japanese word means informal conversation or chitchat. It is a type of presentation created by two architects in Tokyo, tired of long and boring PowerPoint presentations.

The aim of a PK is to force speakers to prepare shorter and more attractive presentations. A PK makes the speaker to center his presentation on the topic. To accomplish this goal a PK has several features:

  • Only 20 slides are allowed and every slide lasts 20 seconds. (6 minutes and 40 seconds at most).
  • Slides advance automatically without human interaction.
  • Slides are visually appealing and not text-heavy.
  • Text and image should be complementary: each one should have its own unique value.
  • Speakers should spend more time practicing their presentations.
  • The audience should have plenty of time to ask questions at the end of the presentation.


Using the Pecha Kucha presentation format in the classroom
You might find it useful to use this presentation format to stimulate your students to prepare their own presentations. Students will feel involved in a kind of game.

We provide a short list of clues to successfully use the PechaKucha presentation format in the classroom:

  • Present your own Pecha Kucha before students to make them understand what it is.
  • Provide students some links to interesting Pecha Kuchas.
  • Emphasize the importance of practicing the presentation with other students.
  • Advise students not to abuse text slides.
  • Encourage students to find striking images to create interest in their topics.

More info

You can find online examples at the official PechaKucha web site: http://www.pecha-kucha.org/

Vicente Sangrador

Project Manager


vicen@uic.es Ext. 4400 



Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Fotor: Online Photo Editing Tool

Fotor is an online photo editing tool that lets you do almost anything you want with your photos: basic edits (crop, rotate, resize, curves, tone, colors, ...), effects (classic, lomo, vintage, b&w, cool, ...), frames (simple, film, stamp, shadow, museum, ...), hdr, text, collages, ... When finished you can save the image in jpg format. 

I like how easy it is and all the possibilities, with the advantage that you do not need to install anything on your computer.

Give it a try!

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Jordi Xavier Prat

Network & Systems Manager

jxprat@uic.es Ext. 4405

«I'm a penguin, I eat apples, I drink wine and I close windows ...»I've always been involved with technology. I remember my beginnings ... With over a decade here, @UIC, always in the Computer Science Department. Using Linux from the beginning (more than 40 floppies!!!).

Thursday, November 29, 2012

QRizing the University

Recently we've been involved in a project to help the students know the timetables of the classrooms in situ and other info on other university services. We decided to put a QR code for each item (classroom, library, secretary, service, etc.) with and url encoded. This url redirects the petition to a proxy web application that  depending on the type of the item shows a mobile adapted web site. For example, if a student scans a QR code placed in a classroom, the web shown will display the timetable of that classroom. Another example could be scanning the QR code of the university restaurant. It could display the timetable and the menu for that day. This method can be applied to many purposes and it's easy to generate QR codes and put them in whatever you want.

Monday, November 26, 2012

Joan Molina


IT Developer
Joan Molina
«I've been working for the web since 1995, when Mosaic was on stage. Since then, It's been a great experience to have undertaken the development of the complete academic and economic management information system (MIS) of our university with open source technology. I also like making play-dough figures tosoothe the spirit. »

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Carles Rius


IT Developer

Carles Rius
«My professional background has always been related to education and innovation. In the past I worked as an engineer in a public university research group but also in private multimedia R+D departments. I’m an enthusiastic of the new technologies and how they can improve my personal and professional environment. Apart from this, I like playing the violin and the guitar, collecting old and rare books and jogging or doing other fitness stuff.»

Monday, May 21, 2012

Groupware with Google

Analysis of different collaborative software. The project is conceived to help people involved in a common task achieve their goals in a collaborative way using online tools. We'll test some  Google Tools for a Groupware solution.

Friday, February 17, 2012

Google forms


Google Forms is a tool contained in google docs. It can help you easily gather information from a large number of people without having to send and receive multiple emails. 

With Google Forms you can create a form and keep track of the answers. All the answers are added to the results spreadsheet.



Thursday, January 19, 2012

Interactive data visualizations


In this project we analyze more convenient ways to transmit a message effectively through non conventional data representations. Many of them might become ubiquitous in the next few years. Mind Maps, Tree maps, Hyper Trees, and other will be examined to exploit its practical usefulness. View Demo.