Digital Storytelling
Here’s a quick profile on two tools that should interest K-12 and post-secondary educators who are interested in the idea of digital storytelling. One of them (Panraven) is brand new. The other–the simply amazing Comic Life–has been a mainstay on Macs for some years but has recently been released in beta version for Windows. Both are simple to use and powerful as media creation tools.
Panraven is an online storybook creator. Originally developed for travel agents to create books for their clients, Panraven is now open to the public. In use, it resembles Apple’s excellent book feature of iPhoto. You upload digital photos (there are free plugins for iPhoto and Picasa, so you can batch upload directly from Macs or Windows), choose a page layout option, drag your uploaded photos to the pages, create captions and titles, and share your creation. You can make your book private, open to the public, or open only to selected invitees. And, as with iPhoto, you can have your online book printed, hardbound, and delivered to you. The basic service is free, and there are subscription options if you need more storage, etc.
Here’s a link to my first attempt at using Panraven without (as usual) reading the directions first and using some photos uploaded from iPhoto that I had on my laptop. I should have varied the layouts more–an easy task with Panraven. Think about it–online storybooks, travelogs, primers, step-by-step lessons, sense of place projects. The possibilities are endless.
The Comic Life
Comic Life, from Plasq, has come installed on most Macs for some time now. Using pre-installed page layouts, lettering, and dialog and caption boxes, it’s easy (and addictive) to create “comic books” from your digital photos by simply dragging them and dropping them from iPhoto and annotating them. The ease with which this can be accomplished is astonishing. MacWorld has a nice review that will give you a sense of what I’m talking about.
The good news for Windows users is that Comic Life is now available (in beta) from Plasq. You can download a trial version for free. Other licenses cost $25 and up, and there are household licenses available for families with multiple computers.
While you may think that creating comics is a rather limited undertaking, you should be aware that Comic Life is essentially a page layout program with a huge range of customizable features. You can create your own layouts, vary the page size, and save and print in a wide variety of formats. It’s great for storyboarding, large format posters, advertising, childrens’ books, and anything else you can think of to publish. After a recent trip to Europe, I created a series of travel posters from some of our digital photos. An example from Italy is shown here. The originals were printed to a PDF file in tabloid (11″ x 17″) format, taken to my local copy center, and printed on card stock for about two dollars each. I have dozens…
Powered by ScribeFire.
Copyright and Plagiarism on the Web
Anyone writing a blog (or posting any materials on the web) should be aware of how copyright law applies to them. This is particularly important in an age when mashups and remixes of existing materials are not only commonplace but are accepted forms of expression.
Students (and their teachers) need to be keenly aware of the copyright laws as they apply to the work that their students produce. The following sources are particularly helpful in that regard and should be required reading for all educators.
10 Big Myths About Copyright Explained
An excellent resource for students, as the myths are explained in the form of responses to comments that students might make–e.g., “If I don’t charge for it, it’s not a violation,” or “If I make up my own stories, but base them on another work, my new work belongs to me.”
Copyright Explained: I May Copy It, Right?
A very thorough treatment of copyright laws and rights. Topics include what is prohibited, what is NOT prohibited, what to do about plagiarism, and others. The article concludes with an excellent set of links to related articles and resources.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Free Online Videos
There is a lot of research that shows that having readily available, content-based video increases student performance in just about all academic subjects. Having said that, it’s not always a good idea to turn students loose on YouTube in search of a video about biology or some other topic.
There are some subscription services that provide content-based video for schools. Best known among these are United Streaming Media, Cosmeo, and SchoolVideos. These services provide well-produced media mapped to student standards. Many school districts subscribe to such services, so you may already have access to some of their materials. Some sites offer samples of their videos for free viewing.
On the free side, check out:
SciTalks: Smart People on Cool Topics
SciTalk offers lectures from well-known scientists, futurists, and technologists on a wide range of science and technology topics. Best suited for high school and post secondary students.
The Futures Channel
The Futures Channel divides their movie offerings into two main categories–“Real World Movies” (animals, art & music, environment, science & tech, etc.) and “Teaching and Learning” (algebra in the real world, hands-on match, problem solving, etc.). Most are short (2 – 5 minutes) and targeted toward a very specific topic. Most come with classroom activities.
ScienceHack Science Videos Search Engine
ScienceHack provides a search engine that focuses on on-line science videos. You can also search by topic or browse a list of the latest videos that have been linked.
Google Video
Performing a Google search for educational videos (on google.video.com, type “genre:educational” in the search box) returns a huge variety of educational videos. Expanding your search (e.g., genre:educational astronomy) will narrow your topic down considerably. Make sure Safe Search in enabled in your browser for elementary students.
Research TV
Research TV produces research news stories for universities and other research organizations. They also make their productions available to watch online. Topics include Health, Science and Nature, Technology, Society, Business, Creative and Cultural, and others.
TeacherTube
TeacherTube offers a huge variety of educational videos on every imaginable topic. Many of these are school-produced, and you are encouraged to add your own educational videos to the offerings.
Video Encyclopedia of the 20th Century
The Video Encyclopedia of the 20th Century from Humboldt State University contains 2338 digitized film and video clips covering the social, cultural, and political history of
the 20th Century from 1893 to 1989, searchable by keyword or date.
Free Science Videos and Lectures
An excellent resource for high school and post secondary teachers (or as professional development for any science teacher). This site includes both science videos and science lectures and offers an excellent search engine for both types of videos.
Professional Development
Annenberg Media’s Learner.Org
Annenberg Media provides a wide variety of professional development courses and resources, including some scheduled live webcasts.
The Oklahoma Technical Assistance Center has a nice collection of professional development videos for K-12 teachers in a variety of areas including History, Science, Math, and English.
Google’s Infinite Thinking Machine is a blog with links to regularly-produced “shows” (short videos) that deal with issues related to teaching in the 21st century. Subscribe to this one…
Powered by ScribeFire.
Thought Bubble: Tools and Ideas
Today’s post highlight’s a diverse set of articles on Web 2.0 technologies and their application to teaching and learning.
Digital Life vs Life Digital: Our Inevitable Digital Future
This article by Alex Iskold makes some very interesting points about “digital life” (as expressed by virtual worlds such as Second Life) and “life digital,” the idea that digital technologies such as Google Maps are overlaying our “real” lives with additional information and visualizations. This quote intrigued me:
“Information is being unleashed and re-shuffled. We are beginning to look at information from literally a 1000 foot view. And everything is becoming increasingly more connected. This is both very exciting and a bit unnerving. We are accelerating into our digital future from all directions – pushing digital towards life and pushing life towards digital.”
Pedagogical affordances of syndication, aggregation, and mash-up of content on the Web
Barbara Dieu and Vance Stevens provide a thorough review of Web 2.0 technologies (social networks, image sharing, blogs, mapping, podcasting, video, and other related technologies and processes) with the idea of applying these technologies to teaching and learning. The first sentence should catch the interest of any educator:
“As Internet and online learning become more and more incorporated into our courses, syllabi, and teaching materials, it becomes increasingly important that the impact the Web is having on changing perceptions of literacy carries over to the way we practice teaching and learning.”
The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning
An extensive, excellent collection of studies, book reviews, and lectures on “m-learning” (mobile learning). Past issues of the IRRODL are available from the menu, and the entire site is searchable.
WikiVersity
Even regular WikiPedia users may be unaware of WikiVersity. Here is WikiVersity’s own statement of purpose and goals:
“Wikiversity is a community for the creation and use of free learning materials and activities. Wikiversity is a multidimensional social organization dedicated to learning, teaching, research and service. Its primary goals are to:
- Create and host free content, multimedia learning materials, resources, and curricula for all age groups in all languages
- Develop collaborative learning projects and communities around these materials”
WikiVeristy is actively seeking educators to create materials for the site, and there is already a lot of useful content available for use.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Screencasting
No, this is not a new Web 2.0 technology. In fact, it predates webcasting and podcasting by several years–an eternity in computer time. Screencasting is a term used to describe the act of capturing a still image or a video image from your computer screen. Screencasting is particularly useful for educators in that it provides a way to illustrate documents, PowerPoint slide shows, web pages, or videos with snapshots and videos of how a process is supposed to look on a computer screen. For example, you could illustrate a “how to log on to the file server” or “how to use style sheets in Word” slide show with screen shots of the various steps in the process. With a bit more effort, you could create a video of the entire process. I have found this technique particularly useful in my web-based classes, in which I can provide voice-annotated videos of various tasks for my students.
Both Macs and PCs have had rudimentary screen capture capabilities since their inceptions. Right out of the box, both platforms can capture still images of happenings on the computer screen.
Here’s how it looks on a Mac:
To capture the entire screen:
- Hold down the COMMAND and SHIFT keys a press the 3 key. An image of the entire screen will be saved on your desktop as a file called “Picture 1.”
To capture a portion of the screen:
- Hold down the COMMAND and SHIFT keys a press the 4 key. A crosshair cursor will appear that will let you select a region of the screen. As soon as you release the mouse, an image of the selected region will appear on your desktop.
To capture any window or menu:
- Hold down the COMMAND and SHIFT keys a press the 4 key. When the crosshair cursor appears, hit the SPACEBAR. Your cursor will turn into a camera. Move the camera around. As you do, the window, icon, or menu you are hovering over will be highlighted in blue. Click the mouse and an image of the selected element will appear on your desktop.
On Windows, there are a few extra steps involved, and there is not an option to capture a selected region or a menu. The essential difference is that Macs capture the screen image directly as a saved image file–in Windows, you have to paste the captured image into a document or image editor.
To capture the entire screen:
- Press the PRINT SCREEN (PRNT SCRN) key. An image of the entire desktop will be captured in your computer’s RAM. It then must be pasted somewhere. You can paste directly into Word or PowerPoint (or virtually any other program) or into an image editor if you need to tweak the image.
To capture the active window:
- Hold down the ALT key and press the PRINT SCREEN (PRNT SCRN) key. An image of the active window will be captured in RAM, ready to paste into a document or image editing program.
But wait–there’s more!
Not content with simple screen capture of still images, programmers have devised a number of other alternatives for both platforms. There are enhanced versions of still capture for both platforms and a wide variety of video capture programs as well. Some of these programs are free and are worth trying out.
If you’re looking for free software for Windows, look no further than Windows Media Encoder, a free download for XP and Vista from Microsoft. WME will let you capture still shots in a variety of formats, but more importantly will allow you to make voice-annotated videos of screen processes. The many input and output options and technical jargon make it confusing for beginners, but there are wizards available that help you along. The quality of the movies is very good.
The standard for Windows screen capture is Camtasia Studio, a full-featured program that allows many more output options than Windows Media Encoder and is actually easier to use than WME. At $299, it’s very pricey, but it does its job very well.
There are also other free or low cost alternatives for Windows. Take a look at CamStudio, and try a Google search for more.
On the Mac side, the reigning king of still and video capture is Snapz Pro X from Ambrosia Software. It does everything and does it well. It’s easy to learn and easy to use. Of course, it’s not free, but it’s not expensive, either–$69 as a download from Ambrosia. If you see a video screen capture done on a Mac, chances are it was done with Snapz Pro.
There are other alternatives for Macs. Check Pure-Mac’s Screen Capture site for an annotated list of still and video screen capture utilities, both free and commercial. (One note–it lists Snapz Pro X as a PowerPC progam. It has lately been updated to a Universal Binary version that runs natively on Intel-based Macs.)
Powered by ScribeFire.
The Read/Write Web
I have been thinking a lot recently about the meaning of “Web 2.0.” I think I have distilled it to this: Web 1.0–the web that we all “grew up” with–was a read-only medium. The web was a place where we went for information that was for all intents and purposes unchangeable. Web 2.0 is a read/write medium. Rather than being merely readers, users can be participants in the content of web pages by editing Wikis (I have made some edits to WikiTravel, for example), commenting on blogs, creating content for YouTube, participating in social networks, or storing your photographs in a publically accessible place like Flickr. It’s exciting to think about the collaborative possibilities for students in such a medium.
The Read/Write Web is a blog devoted to the concept of the web as a participatory medium. The authors do a fine job of keeping abreast of developments in the Web 2.0 space, particularly in the education field. They have a nice RSS feed and subscribing is highly recommended.
Two recent posts are particularly significant for educators. In Web 2.0 Backpack: Web Apps for Students, Josh Catone cataogs a wealth of web-based applications for…ummm…students. Especially interesting are the links to mind-mapping software–on-line, collaborative applications that allow participants to brainstorm in real time. Think Inspiration as a web application and you’ll get the idea. The same article lists a huge variety of on-line notetaking tools, bookmarking utilities, study guides, calendars, and other useful productivity tools.
Another article to watch is Keeping Tabs on Web 2.0. This article tracks a variety of topics related to Web 2.0 development and implementation.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Hyperwords: Best Web Tool Around
Once in a while, an application comes along that makes you wonder why things didn’t always work that way. iMovie was one of those; so was Mosaic. So were MacDraw and MacPaint, for those of you old enough to remember them. And how about VisiCalc?
The latest application to knock my socks off is Hyperwords, a Firefox extension that adds an incredible array of useful tools to a single menu available by simply selecting a word or group of words on a web page. Suddenly, every word on the page is searchable, every numeric value can be converted, every paragraph can be translated to another language, and maps and weather and even shopping are instantly available. Yes, you can do all those things in other ways, but Hyperwords puts it all a simple click away. It’s going to be one of the greatest research tools that we could place in the hands of students.
It’s too much to explain, Watch the video, install it, and start web browsing in a whole new context.
Powered by ScribeFire.
