Circumventing Animoto

I'm not all that thrilled about the re-designing of Animoto.  Dropping the "shared" videos tab makes a teacher's life  harder--I liked being able to just scroll through that to watch/grade my student's videos.  Worse, I've now lost access to all the past videos that I used for demonstrations, since they've locked down the site so you can no longer search through other users' public videos.  What's up with that, Animoto???

My internet connection here in Borneo is not the best; it can take forever to log on, and once you're on, it repeatedly kicks you off.  Not good for a 50 minute presentation highly dependent on online videos and tools.  I've been frantically trying to "internet proof" the workshop the last few nights:  I downloaded the Prezi, took screenshots of the apps (Animoto and Myna) in case they're not working, and downloaded the Animoto videos.  That's where I hit the troublespot:  Two of my examples were from my last school, and since they're not in my account, I can't download them (though, fortunately, I had links, so could still access them!)

I tried using Video Download Helper (a Firefox add-on) to download the booktrailer, but that doesn't work on Animoto anymore.  After trying a couple other tools, I finally found Real Player SP for Mac.  It's a quick download, then

• Open the program, go to File>Open Location, add the URL and wait for RP to load the page.
•  In the meantime, go to Window>Open RealPlayer Downloader.
• Back in the RealPlayer window, click play for the video, which will open it in Downloader, with a download button. Click that, and you're good to go!

Make Parent Evenings Interactive

Our 5th grade teacher came to me yesterday asking about using the library space for her PYP presentations to parents.  Of course that was fine with me, but in the nature of these things, talk continued and I learned she was interested in  running a Power Point slide show of student photos.

Never one to let that one slip by, I suggested some other options and eventually we decided on something I think will be pretty cool.

We are going to do a quick video interview with each student talking about their project and what they learned in the process of doing it. We will load each video clip into VoiceThread and project that in a loop. (Or try to loop it--I need to research that!  If not, I'll be there to keep restarting it.)

On a separate, nearby computer set up with a headset, we'll load up the VoiceThread in a generic account (since most parents won't have VoiceThread accounts), and allow parents to comment on their child's (or another child's) presentation/video.

Great encouragement and feed back for the students, fun for the parents (I hope!), and, of course, completely embeddable on the school website to promote your program.

BioDiversity

An excellent film from the Vancouver Film School.  Of 80,000 edible plants, humans only use about 30 to make up most of the calories in our diet, and only 14 animal species.  Kind of scary to think what would happen to us should something wipe out any of those.   Good fodder (no pun intended!) for class discussions.


Biodiversity - Vancouver Film School from Vancouver Film School on Vimeo.

Not Just a Flash in the Pan

Greetings from Mongolia!  I've been here about three days now and, wonder of wonders, they hooked up my internet the first day.  Still haven't managed to go wireless yet, but at least I can connect!  I'm about to set out to walk down to the school (just a short walk down the road from my flat), to take a look at the library.

In the meantime, here's an interesting animation by Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto. It depicts the number of nuclear explosions/tests from 1945-1998.  It starts out pretty slowly, but certainly starts picking up at about the two minute point.  Oddly fascinating to watch the increase in both numbers and maps across the top and bottom, designating who was setting off the explosions.

According to the New Yorker, where I found the video, the animation shows only tests,  not possession, which, of courses, leaves Israel, among others, out of the picture.

Aside from the obvious topics for conversation with students--the plethora of tests during the 50's and 60's, the spread of proliferation, I also caught myself thinking about where the tests were occurring. France, for example, tested over 200 bombs....but certainly not in France.  While the US ran many tests in our country, it also tested many on Pacific Islands.  This would be a good discussion point with students: exploitation of poorer nations by wealthy/powerful nations.

Free Aviary Education Beta

AVIARY, the online video, image and audio editing program that allows students to work collaboratively, now has an education version, and they're accepting applications for accounts.

The Physics Behind Figure Skating

Talk about teachable moments! NBC and the Science Foundation collaborated on this series of 10 videos exploring the science behind, for example, snow-boarding and figure skating, just to name a few, as a tie-in with the upcoming Winter Olympics.

Click the "watch video" link in the lower right-hand corner.

How To Make a Baby--and you thought you knew...

More creative and "easy" things to do with stop motion video (or still images, in the first case). It takes the first one a while to load.



You'll find his explanation of how he created the video here.

Convert Files, Download videos--free!

Zamzar.com is a free online tool that will convert files (images, documents, video) from one format to another and email you the result. You can even send them the URL to a video, and they'll email you the downloaded video.

It will be interesting too see what copyright issues crop up with that one.

Two New Toys

I've spent considerable time over the past few months trying to find a good screen-casting tool. SnapzX is fine, but not very versatile. It only captures what you actually do, then you have to import it into iMovie to edit, add titles, etc.

I compared both Adobe's Captivate and TechSmith's Camtasia Studio, finally deciding on the latter as it allows me to save the file in multiple formats (AVI, MP4, etc.) while Captivate only saves as a Flash file.

ANYWAY, I just finished playing with my first movie on Camtasia. It's rough--the audio needs work, among other things (it didn't render very well, as you'll hear!), but I like the different tools--the ability to use call-outs (arrows, etc. to highlight key points), add text, titles, zooms--even quizzes. I think this will be a great too for creating all the video tutorials I want to add to the library website.

The big plan is to create a web tutorial for each of the major lessons I do during research projects. That way, if students miss a day (or forget part of the lesson!), I don't have to repeat myself 10 times; I can just point them to the tutorials.

While both Captivate and Camtasia are currently Windows only, I have it on hush-hush authority that both companies have a Mac version in the works for release either later this year or early next year. They also have educator discounts, and Camtasia is offering a deal now where you can purchase both Camtasia Studio AND SnagIt (their excellent screen-capture software) for only $169!

Anyway, here's my final result. See what you think. (BTW--the second "toy" is learning how to use the map viewing tool on the Library of Congress site!)

Video Resource Collection

How's that for a catchy title?

Happiest of New Year's to all! I've posted this video resource link before, but I've bee working on updating the collection, mostly because I'll be teaching a film studies course next semester, in addition to running the library. I'm probably nuts, but I'm looking forward to it. While the class will be partly a traditional film studies class (i.e. analyzing movies), I'm most excited about the production part--students will use what they learn in analyzing actual films as they work to create their own.

Either one of these is a semester in itself, so how combining both will work, I have no idea. It's an adventure! I'm also hoping this will start the school on a long trend towards building media study/production more thoroughly into the curriculum, as students show what they learn through producing PSA's, shorts, documentaries, etc.

With all that in mind, I've worked on upgrading the collection of video resources for the class. I found some wonderful tutorials, student media sites, etc. So take a look, and let me know of anything I haven't found yet!

Research That Rocks

Doug Johnson absolutely nailed it in his latest blog on research projects. It really is a must-read for anyone at all interested in real assessment. Here's why.

A few years ago, after 18 years of teaching English, I was growing bored with the usual persuasive essays, so decided in one of those "fools rush in" kind of moments that I'd have my 10th grade class do a video documentary on a current problem in Cairo (where I was teaching at the time.) I figured it would take, oh, 3-4 weeks, tops. I knew absolutely nothing about filming, or editing software, but when did I ever let mere ignorance stop me? Three months later, the students turned in their final documentaries, most of which were awful (though not all. Not that I can take any credit for that!)

Yet I consider that unit one of the most successful of my career. I was almost as clueless as the students were, so when problems arose with camera or sound or editing, we'd hold brainstorming sessions and I'd often turn the spotlight over to one of the students. They had to work in teams and collaborate and compromise. They researched. They interviewed. They wrote. And then, poor kids, I turned them loose on the filming/editing and said "You have six weeks." I don't know what I was thinking. Live and learn.

Well, after we sat in agony (or laughter) through all of the documentaries, and I was wondering if I'd just wasted twelve weeks of valuable class time, I had the students write an evaluation with suggestions for improving the project next time. I told them I wanted honest comments, thoughtful comments. And they complied. Those evaluations were their real assessment; I was floored by the students' insight into the process, their own strategies, and where my management helped/hindered. They moved beyond mere iteration of content to a profound understanding of what worked, what didn't work, and how they would improve the experience.

That summer I took a class on making videos, which gave my next class a far better experience; they produced good--occasionally astounding--documentaries, and certainly learned a great deal. Moreover, their videos are being used for real audieces: the Sudanese refugee video helps recruit volunteer workers, the animal abuse documentary educates local Cairo children. And yet I sometimes think the earlier class learned more because I was less in control. I also worry that, now that I'm back in the States and tied to NCLB, there will be less and less time for these sorts of authentic projects. For as Doug points out, they are not about correct answers, covering the curriculum, or multiple-choice tests. Few teachers will take the risk.

There are also few teachers willing to take the time. Last year, the documentaries took six months to complete. Obviously, we worked on other tasks; nevertheless, that's a lot of time in an already crowded curriculum. I also took quite a bit of flack from others in my department who said, "These kids can't even write essays, and you're having them do films??" To his credit, the teacher who made that remark came up to me after seeing the Sudanese refugee documentary and ruefully admitted, "OK, I get it now."

Thus, next year, I'll not only do the documentaries again, I'm giving a workshop for other staff in digital storytelling. I'm plugged in to the AFI, which makes wonderful tools available free to teachers, George Lucas's Edutopia website, and Library of Congress' link to primary source materials that can be used in student videos. And I plan to ask Doug if I can open my presentation with his posting. I can't imagine a better way to start!