For me, this Thing pointed out the dangers of getting involved with something new too early. I found out about Joost when it first came out, about 2 1/2 years ago, and thought it was a great idea. I eagerly went to the web site, only to discover that there really were very few shows available, and not any that interested me. I left the site disillusioned and promptly forgot about Joost until this Thing. Now, of course, there's lots of content available. As someone who doesn't have cable I like being able to watch The Colbert Report online. And as someone without a Tivo or other recording device, it's nice to be able to see shows I miss or can't stay up for (like Letterman).
Another site I've used is tv.com, which doesn't have many full episodes compared to Joost, but does have behind the scenes interviews and features. I've also used iTunes to get TV show podcasts.
My favorite on-demand viewing experience has to be Netflix. Ever since they added Mac support for their watch instantly videos I've been using it a lot. I only have the one at a time plan, so it's great if I want to watch a movie in between DVDs. For TV shows, it's nice being able to watch one episode at a time without tying up my queue. I haven't had any problems with streaming quality or buffering, and by hooking my laptop up to the TV I can watch on a large screen.
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Showing posts with label video. Show all posts
Friday, June 19, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Thing #39 -- Digital Storytelling
I knew this one would take a long time, I could edit and tweak my scrapbook forever! But I finally had to stop if I'm going to get the rest of the Things done in time.
I chose to try out Scrapblog for this Thing. It was quite easy to use, even without viewing the video tour or any of the help provided. I had no problem choosing a theme or building pages. There are a lot of options--almost too many. I'd keep browsing around for different backgrounds or objects to add to my book. I chose a similar theme to what I used for Thing #37, my garden.
Since I live at quite a distance from the rest of my family, I keep trying different ways to keep in touch with them by sharing photos. The tools I've learned about here are things I am sure I will use again.
The information about using scrapbooking for education reminded me that when my brother was working on his teaching license he learned about using scrapbooks as a tool. I can definitely see its place in education. In some classes at my college students are required to keep a journal, and e-portfolios are becoming common. Creating an electronic, multimedia scrapbook is an intriguing variation on both these approaches.
I chose to try out Scrapblog for this Thing. It was quite easy to use, even without viewing the video tour or any of the help provided. I had no problem choosing a theme or building pages. There are a lot of options--almost too many. I'd keep browsing around for different backgrounds or objects to add to my book. I chose a similar theme to what I used for Thing #37, my garden.
Since I live at quite a distance from the rest of my family, I keep trying different ways to keep in touch with them by sharing photos. The tools I've learned about here are things I am sure I will use again.
The information about using scrapbooking for education reminded me that when my brother was working on his teaching license he learned about using scrapbooks as a tool. I can definitely see its place in education. In some classes at my college students are required to keep a journal, and e-portfolios are becoming common. Creating an electronic, multimedia scrapbook is an intriguing variation on both these approaches.
Thing #38 -- Screencasting
The things in this Thing are pretty old hat to me at this point. I've been using SnagIt for years to put screen shots in the database guides I create for students or email answers to student requests for help. And I also use Grab when on my Mac. In fact, it's how I captured my Wordle word cloud to put in the previous Thing.
I've used various tools for screencasting. The first one I created was about 2 years ago, using Wink. I didn't find the learning curve very steep, and it has a surprising amount of functionality for a free program. While it didn't take long to record my capture, it was extremely time consuming to edit my tutorial to get it the way I wanted it--adjusting the timing and adding branching. I have since given up on Wink in favor of Adobe's Captivate, which makes it a lot easier to edit my captures.
Primarily I use these tools for creating full-blown database tutorials. However, over the winter I discovered Jing, and have been using it heavily since. Since there are no post-capture editing options, it doesn't have the functionality of Wink or Captivate (or Camtasia, for that matter), but it fills a need for creating "quick and dirty" videos. Students often ask me for help via email. In the past I would answer their questions with a combination of screen shots and blow-by-blow text descriptions of what to look for and where to click. With Jing, I just create a short video of what they should do, upload it to Screencast.com, and email a link to the video. The students have found this approach very helpful, and it takes much less time to make the video than to explain the same concepts in the text of an email.
I've used various tools for screencasting. The first one I created was about 2 years ago, using Wink. I didn't find the learning curve very steep, and it has a surprising amount of functionality for a free program. While it didn't take long to record my capture, it was extremely time consuming to edit my tutorial to get it the way I wanted it--adjusting the timing and adding branching. I have since given up on Wink in favor of Adobe's Captivate, which makes it a lot easier to edit my captures.
Primarily I use these tools for creating full-blown database tutorials. However, over the winter I discovered Jing, and have been using it heavily since. Since there are no post-capture editing options, it doesn't have the functionality of Wink or Captivate (or Camtasia, for that matter), but it fills a need for creating "quick and dirty" videos. Students often ask me for help via email. In the past I would answer their questions with a combination of screen shots and blow-by-blow text descriptions of what to look for and where to click. With Jing, I just create a short video of what they should do, upload it to Screencast.com, and email a link to the video. The students have found this approach very helpful, and it takes much less time to make the video than to explain the same concepts in the text of an email.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Thing #37 -- Photo Tales
For organizing personal photos I use iPhoto and combine it with the Gallery feature of my MobileMe account to share them on the web. I've found iPhoto extremely easy to use, and it's pretty economical for getting prints of pictures. The application comes with tools to design cards and upload the images and your design to Apple for printing. We used this for our Christmas cards this past year. One other project my husband is working on is a family memory book of old family photos. He is using iPhoto to layout the pictures on each page and add captions of who is in each photo. Once he's finished we'll be able to get a hardcover book of the pictures to give to family members.
Obviously, I have found a lot of use for these kinds of tools in my personal life, but (as with many of these Things) I'm not sure what place they have in my library. My college has a Flickr account used to share photos of student events and other happenings on campus, but the library doesn't. Photos that we share are posted to our Facebook page. One potential use of the tools in this thing would be to post links to some of the stock photo sites or captioning sites for students who may need to use images in presentations. But then again, how likely would students be to think of the library web site as a resource to fill that need?
I've played around some with iMovie, but for this Thing I tried One True Media's montage site. It is pretty intuitive to use, and offers a lot of choices for editing, even if you don't have a premium (ie. paid) account. My only quibble is the image quality of the online sharable version isn't very good, and the watermark takes up a lot of real estate. I used it for this project, but don't know if I will go back to it agian. Given the time of year, I created a story about my garden.
Obviously, I have found a lot of use for these kinds of tools in my personal life, but (as with many of these Things) I'm not sure what place they have in my library. My college has a Flickr account used to share photos of student events and other happenings on campus, but the library doesn't. Photos that we share are posted to our Facebook page. One potential use of the tools in this thing would be to post links to some of the stock photo sites or captioning sites for students who may need to use images in presentations. But then again, how likely would students be to think of the library web site as a resource to fill that need?
I've played around some with iMovie, but for this Thing I tried One True Media's montage site. It is pretty intuitive to use, and offers a lot of choices for editing, even if you don't have a premium (ie. paid) account. My only quibble is the image quality of the online sharable version isn't very good, and the watermark takes up a lot of real estate. I used it for this project, but don't know if I will go back to it agian. Given the time of year, I created a story about my garden.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Thing #18 -- YouTube
As I discovered with Thing 4 and Thing 11 (also Thing 12 to a lesser extent) it's hard for me to find useful things on sites like YouTube without a clear need. If I'm simply browsing aimlessly it seems primarily like a big jumble of content. That's probably why most of my experience with YouTube has been from following links in email and other places that take me directly to individual videos.
My library currently has one video on YouTube. We haven't discussed adding more, but I'm sure we will at some point.
As a Mac user, I thought it appropriate to include a video of the classic Apple commercial that aired during the 1984 Super Bowl.
My library currently has one video on YouTube. We haven't discussed adding more, but I'm sure we will at some point.
As a Mac user, I thought it appropriate to include a video of the classic Apple commercial that aired during the 1984 Super Bowl.
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