Communication Production Technology Wishlist

I have been asked by several persons, what to buy initially in setting up a CPT course.  Here's a quick "shopping list" of sorts to get you started with the basics. SOFTWARE:

1. Digital Video Editing – Most machines now come standard with some type of video editing software.  If you have a preference for Mac, of course there's iMovie that comes standard on every Mac, or Moviemaker for the PC user.  These applications work great for getting students familiar with the basics of production and techniques used in digital editing.  If you want something a little more advances, for a reasonable cost there's Finalcut Express fro the Mac and Adobe Preimier Elements for the PC.  Both are simplified versions of their "big brothers" Final Cut and Premier.  These are offered at a reduced cost as they have many of their filters and effects minimized but they still remain above average applications. Read the rest of this entry »

Thanks to C. Knowles for this one.

“I’ve come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom.
It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power
to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or
de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized.”
~ Dr. Haim Ginott

One of the best finds I ever made in my quest for online resources is a power packed website sponsored by NORTEL and it's growing by leaps and bounds.   Everytime I return I find more cool stuff.  As stated on their website, their goal is:

" to reach learners around the world and share with them the skills and opportunities that Technology can bring to learning and their future. By creating innovative online learning opportunities and resources for teachers, students, and learners of all ages, Nortel LearniT provides a new level of engagement that promotes enhanced levels of interest and academic success"

Read the rest of this entry »

A wonderful tool to create professional “hollywood” syle videos can be found in the ever improving web 2.0 tool  “Animoto”  which can be found at http://www.animoto.com.  It’s so easy to use, your students will love it and be amazed at the results it will produce for them.  It uses artificial intelligence to mix together what ever media you throw at it or you can make use of it’s already stocked library of music and more.  And if you’re an educator, animoto offers you a few perks including unilimited videos for you and your students.  Ive made use of this in one of my cyberschool classses where students put to gether a 30 second animoto video pertaining to an occupation in media studies.  For example, students collect images, sound clips and media for the occupation of “Producer/Director”.  They use animoto to upload and mix together their collection and presto-chango, they have a professional video demonstrating what that profession involves.

Oh!  And I forgot the best part.  It’s free.  But don’t just take my word for it.  Visit Animot’s website and view the section for educators containing case studies of teachers using animoto.  OR visit Nortel LearnIT’s video explaining Animoto.  (My next post will present Nortel’s LearnIT)

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

I’ve been doing some reading on "accessibility in course design" in the area of auditory learners.  Any good teacher tries to create lessons that cater to as many different learning styles as possible to accommodate as many learners as possible.  Teaching online can have it’s drawbacks for the auditory learner as a considerable amount of content tends to focus on text.  In a face to face classroom, it’s natural for the instructor to guide learners through content with speech, but the same does not necessarily apply to an online course.  The use of an auditory supplement can help to remedy this. 

 In many cases, most computers today come with some type of text-to-speech software build right in. My homeroom class gets a kick out of hearing our daily notices being read by a mac computer connected to some external speakers.  We take a vote to see which voice to use which can be a lot of fun.  Students pay a great deal of attention, especially when the word "Saskatchewan" is in the notice

With regards to course design, students can engage the text-to-speech option on their computers if they can find it on their computers and if they can figure out the "how" and "what" to have their computer read.  The implications of cognitive overload by placing such a strenuous set of tasks before the learner are enormous.  There are much easier and less demanding methods to employ this benefit in online courses. But let’s not throw out the baby just yet.  According to Research by Penny, 1989, "by placing text and video or audio together.  More memory capacity was available when dual modalities were used."  There remains an effective and relatively simple method of capitalizing on using audio to engage dual modalities. 

The first method is to simply create a podcast of sorts, an audio clip of you reading the content, saving the recording as a wav or mp3 file, and embedding it in the course page.  This method requires some knowledge of recording software such as Audacity (a free application) and some HTML savy to embed the clip. 

If you want to elicit the help of an automated voice, you need to check out Spokentext.net a free online text to audio converter.  Spokentext is a research project of the psychology department of the Carleton University, in Ottawa, Ontario. As stated on their website: "SpokenText.net is a free text to speech converter, it allows you to record (English, French, Spanish or German) PDF, Word, plain text, PowerPoint files, RSS feeds, emails and web pages, and converts them to speech automatically."  

Quite simply, copy and paste text, or upload a document and Spokentext will spit out a downloadable mp3 file of your text.  The provided voices are excellent quality as are the mp3 files.  And the best part is these files are easliy picked up by the Flash or Quicktime plug-in in most browsers. 

A great service to save time and a great tool to have in your pedagogical tool box!

We moved into a new home this fall and to my dismay, my wife insisted I lessen the load and let go of the precious cassette tape collection I accumulated from my youth.  Even though I have an iPod packed with more than enough music to  last a coast to coast road trip without repetition, my digital immigrant side was showing. 

Last week a colleague brought "the radio" to my attention.  Thanks M.J!.  No, not that little box in my car, theradio.com.  http://www.theradio.com .  I am a big fan of iTunes and the web radio option therein, but what makes theradio.com unique, is the ability to create your own custom channels, that is if you can’t decide on one of the hundreds of pre-canned channels on the site.  And if you come across a new favorite tune, the history tab keeps track of all the tunes you’ve listened to so you can find it in the iTunes Store and call it your own. 

My students really enjoy working to the "Tube Tunes" channel, which as it states, is packed with hundreds of TV themes from the last decade and beyond.  Be careful with this channel though, you may let your age show!  My guys never heard of the Brady Bunch

One of the headaches in designing html pages for student use, is guessing how your works will perform in different browsers.  Firefox, Flock, Safari, Opera or Exporer, ?  What version? Mac or PC? 

It doesn’t matter if you are a hard core hard coder, prefer Dreamweaver or Front Page, where the rubber meets the road, you would like the page to perform as you intended regardless of what type or version of browser your students are using.  Typically, you publish the page and view it through every possible browser to check for glitches and tweak as you go until you end up with a reasonable result.  Wouldn’t it be great to scan a page and find out exactly where the issues might be and how to corect them?

Well thanks to Blackboard for providing a list of Accessibility resources to do just that.  They have created a resource page with accessibility validators, utilities and resources to streamline your instructional designing ventures.  The Blackboard accessibility page can be found at: http://www.blackboard.com/company/accessresources.htm

Thanks to Kelli Boklaschuk for passing this link on to me! 

In my lab, students are alway bouncing from Final Cut to Photoshop to Illustrator and so on.  For the most part, if you’re using CS3 or another "Suite", shortcuts are usually similar from one application to another.  Throw in a few odd balls like MS Office or Blender, and the thimble gets full pretty quick.  That’s where these cheat sheets or quick reference pages by Custom Guide ( http://www.cutomguide.com )are a welcome addition to any lab or online learning environment.  I have them printed out in poster size on my bboard and a laminated set for each computer.  It doesn’t take long and my students are flipping through tools and applications effortlessly as they learn the individual shortcuts for their favorite applications.  The best part, they’re free!  Free is good when your budget is getting stretched.

Nothing adds to your lessons or presentations like a little humor.  These sites are a great resource for topical cartoons or if you wish, make your own. 

Cartoons by Randy Glasbergen boasts a new cartoon every day ( http://www.glasbergen.com/ )  He lists hundreds of  "Cartoons for newsletters, presentations, websites, intranets, advertising, blogs, and more."  To help with your quest for the perfect cartoon, he has them all neatly arranged by category.  (Randy’s cartoons are copyright protected and require contact for usage fees and permissions.  You may contact him via his website.)

Toonlet:  If you just can’t find what you’re looking for, have a go at making your own!  Toonlet ( http://toonlet.com/ ) is a wonderful resource that allows you to create your own characters, backgrounds, all you need to add is your personal quips!