Recent News
Inquirium's "Take a Stand" exhibit premieres at Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center
April 17, 2009
Inquirium debuts an exhibit to teach children aged 9-11 the universal lessons of the Holocaust, as part of the grand opening of the Illinois Holocaust Museum and Education Center’s newly constructed museum in Skokie, Illinois. The museum opens its doors April 19, 2009.
A one-of-a-kind exhibit, Take a Stand uses invisible motion tracking to immerse young people in a rich environment in which they can safely explore the challenges, risks, and rewards of taking action to impact society. Over the past three years, Inquirium conceived, designed and produced the exhibit.
Take a Stand teaches about the value of helping others and the power of your actions to make a difference in the world. As you explore its playful, interactive virtual world, you encounter situations that cause you to reflect, make choices, and take actions in order to make your community a better place.
When you enter the exhibit, you become a frog, part of an unfolding story that takes place in a virtual pond. As you move around the exhibit space, you control, through your movements, the actions of your frog. Through your interactions with other frogs, you explore your role in the pond and your relationship to the other frogs.
The exhibit is a permanent installation within the Miller Family Youth Exhibition.
Inquirium's Matt Brown publishes book chapter on Teacher's Use of Curriculum Materials
January 16, 2009
Inquirium’s Matt Brown wrote a chapter for a just released book on teachers’ use of classroom curriculum materials. The chapter is titled “The Teacher-Tool Relationship: Theorizing the Design and Use of Curriculum Materials.” Based on Matt’s dissertation, it examines the different ways teachers use curriculum materials in the course of their everyday practice (some rely on them as-is, some adapt them to suit their needs, and some use them as jumping off points for their own improvisations), and how designers can create materials that foster creative, dynamic teaching.
The chapter frames teaching as a process of design, in which teachers use tools in various creative ways to realize their goals. Borrowing the metaphor of jazz, where musicians rely on sheet music but no two performances are alike, the chapter highlights both the common and unique processes by which teachers translate inert curriculum materials into dynamic practice. The chapter’s key contribution is the concept of pedagogical design capacity, which calls attention to the skills by which teachers work with available resources as they craft instruction to suit their local needs.
eSuite Receives 2006 Citation of Merit from AIA Chicago
April 26, 2007
A high-tech classroom that Inquirium helped to design at Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry recently earned the 2006 Citation of Merit at the 51st Annual Design Excellence Awards of the American Institute of Architects of Chicago
Inquirium teamed up with a team of architects, AV specialists, and museum educators to conceive the eSuite, an adaptable, technology-rich learning space that integrates networked computing, distributed displays, and teleconferencing capabilities.
According to the Museum’s project manager, Inquirium “was very instrumental in the success of the space.”
InqScribe 2.0 Released
April 15, 2007
Inquirium announces the immediate release of InqScribe 2.0, our cross-platform solution for transcribing, annotating, and subtitling digital media files. New features include:
- Automatic backup of unsaved documents
- Improved foot pedal support
- Support for embedded time code tracks and reel names
- Export to Spruce STL, Subrip, or Final Cut Pro XML format
- Anamorphic video display at 4:3, 16:9, or 2.35:1
- New transcript-specific settings
- More keyboard shortcut commands
- Native Intel support on Mac OS X (Universal Binary)
InqScribe 2.0 is a free update for owners of InqScribe 1.5. Available immediately for Mac OS X and Windows, InqScribe is on sale for $69 through May 15, $99 thereafter. Academic, student, and site licenses are available on request.
Designed for researchers, transcriptionists, and film and video professionals who work with extensive audio and video data, InqScribe features a flexible editing environment, QuickTime and Windows Media support, foot pedal support, customizable keyboard shortcuts for controlling media playback and inserting repetitive text, and a range of import and export options. InqScribe transcripts contain embedded timecodes that allow instant access to arbitrary times within the media file. Extensive subtitling support make it easy to generate captioned media from transcript files. Unregistered versions of InqScribe have limited functionality; users may request free, time-limited evaluation licenses to explore the full capabilities of the application.
Inquirium creates compelling problem-based environments for learners and innovative information analysis tools for teachers and researchers. As professional educators, designers, developers, and researchers, we bring a unique combination of skills to the design of any learning environment. We have a deep understanding of how people learn, as well as the experience and technical capacity to design and develop robust software solutions for a variety of learning contexts.
Auto-saves coming in InqScribe 2.0
January 22, 2007
It’s so easy to forget to save when you get sucked into a rhythm of transcribing or video analysis. Everyone has their own techniques, but I like to save files with progressively numbered names, so that I have older versions in case I need to go back to a previous incarnation, or in case the latest file gets corrupted, e.g. “ClassAlpha_v1.inqscr” and “ClassAlpha_v2. inqscr”. I do this with all of my software work: Microsoft Word, Adobe Photoshop, etc. Each day gets a new name, and I’m in the habit of hitting Command/Ctrl-S every 5 minutes.
To make life a little easier, we’ll be adding an auto-save/auto-backup feature in InqScribe 2.0, to be released shortly (You can buy now, and upgrade for free). But don’t let that stop you from saving frequently!
InqScribe used in new documentary "Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers"
November 20, 2006
InqScribe was used in the production of Brave New Film’s new documentary “Iraq for Sale: The War Profiteers,” currently creating quite a stir worldwide (Brave New Films is Robert Greenwald’s new production company. You might better know him as the director of “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price” and “Outfoxed” ) . You can find a screening here. In their production blog they describe how they work collaboratively on the film using InqScribe to review footage and make notes.
InqScribe 1.5
April 07, 2006
We’re proud to announce the release of InqScribe 1.5. Available for Mac OS X and Windows, InqScribe adds many new features to our easy to use digital media transcription and subtitling application.
New features include:
- Support for Windows Media Player.
- Support for QuickTime 7 pitch locking.
- Expanded keyboard shortcut commands.
- Text snippet support.
- USB foot pedal support (as well as other USB input devices).
- Support for film, PAL, NSTC, and NTSC drop-frame time code formats.
- Time code coloring.
- New offline media options for taking notes during live events.
- and more
InqScribe 1.5 is a free update for owners of InqScribe 1.0.2.
Announcing InqBlot: Inquirium's Weblog
January 19, 2006
We’ve started InqBlot, a group weblog edited by Inquirium staff. We’re using the space to write about interesting issues at the intersection of learning, technology, and design. Come by, take a look, and tell us what you think.