Thinking about Kevin Allocca's TED talk

Kevin Allocca's TED talk about why videos go viral.
It is a great talk about pop culture, but it makes me think about how some of our students create so much content online and how they view collaborating, copyright, sharing, and more. And how sometimes, as adults, we panic about those things.

More thoughts spinning in my head but this one is worth watching. Though, I have to warn you, that Rebecca Black song is featured in it....

Practical Advice on Picking a Portable Camera for Schools

We are on the hunt for an alternative to the awesome Flip Videos cameras that Casio has decided to discontinue. Why, Casio? Why? This portable video camera is perfect for a school. It's durable, it used 2 double AA batteries, it's plug and play/download/work, super easy to use and has help up pretty well with the amount of  students we have using the devices.

There is a great list that someone from AISL emailed me
12 Fabulous Flip Camera Alternatives

The thing with the list is that it reviews the products but does not really take into account workflow and how these items are when used in the library, classroom and in an environment where there are 700+ users checking them in and out, plugging and unplugging them into computers, and where the librarians are maintaining them in addition to our daily tasks.

I posted a tweet, checked in with my friends' on various SNS sites, and posted to the list-servs. I did not get too many responses. However, I did receive the helpful link above and a few recommendations for Kodak's Zi8 video camera. I was also testing Sony's Bloggie Camera. However, it did not meet our requirements.


What are some of the factors we considered when testing video camcorders and/or looking at the specifications you wonder?

1. Durability - this is key. We have over 700 students ages 11 - 15 with varying approaches of how to treat things they check out from the library. You know what I'm talking about...
2. Easy of Use - kids just want to get the project completed ; can you plug and play? are there a lot of buttons to distract them? Do you need a separate SD card? 
3. Charging/Batteries - can we use batteries? does it need to charge attached to a computer? is there an adapter? do we need to set up a charging station?
4. Format - what is the video format? is it compatible with our PC school? Do we need to have our Computer Services set up the computers to deal with the format? 

I looked at a lot of specs since we cannot buy all these different devices. That's just not realistic so here is what I found:

1. Though the Kodak Zi8 is great. It's going to be discontinued like the Flip. We definitely need something that will be around for at least a little while which means more than a year or two though who can control that? we thought the Flip would be around for a while.
2. Buying up all those Flips out there is probably not a good option since out CS department does not seem keen on us using them anymore
3. The Sony Bloggie - though pretty is more for a single user who really loves all the bells and whistles it has. 
4. Mac products are just out (yeah..I know, we are freaks here and not on the Mac worship train)
5. The other Kodak options listed on 21st Century EdTech and Learning blog - specifications wise were a bit too much for our users
6. Smart phones - most of our kids have iPhones and those videos, when transferred to our computers, turns upside down and we can't "fix" them so those are out

These are the two I picked based on specs and considering our community:

1. Creative Vado - simple to use; not too many bells and whistles; removable and rechargeable battery (we can order more chargers and batteries); built-in USB - the downside is the auto-sharing option which is now unavoidable on all these camcorders
2. Samsung HMX-U20 though I am wondering if this will be around much longer.
3. More point-and-shoots

Now, also, a lot of these cameras also use SD cards which for us is not a problem but for a lot of places would be. Hopefully, something comparable to the Flip will come out again soon because for schools it is pretty much a perfect portable camcorder.

Testing Out JayCut for video editing

For the past couple of years, we have used MovieMaker for a book trailer project that we do with our 7th graders to teach them about copyright, fair use and the program. MovieMaker, though a great tool, experiences some weird issues when it is being used by multiple users on a networked system, so we were trying to look for something that was "in the cloud" that would be comparable to MovieMaker...enter jaycut, a free online video editor. (thanks to Elisabeth at Archipelago for sending this to Dave (Big Building, Lots of Books) It looks similar to MovieMaker and iMovie and it relatively easy to use. However, there were some drawbacks that I found as I made this book trailer for Wendelin Van Draanen's The Running Dream.

One of the great things about Jaycut is that it does make your project available anywhere you have a computer and wifi access. I started my project yesterday at school and started working on it a few hours ago and all my files were there. With MovieMaker, we really need to emphasize file management and a lot of times, students will have to "search for missing files" because it is made for one computer / one user. With Jaycut, I did not have to worry about that because it's on Jaycut's servers. Also, it is pretty easy to use! Publishing and downloading was a simple click and the only thing is you have to wait for your movie to be rendered and emailed to you.

However, here are some of the drawbacks that I experienced while trying to make this book trailer and trying to think like a 7th grader.

• transitions  - you need to use transitions between video files and image files. You can't use transitions between image to image. Our kids use only image files for the project so having transitions between them is one of the fun things they can do
• moving files  - you are locked into your storyboard once you have dropped them onto the timeline. You can not just drop things and move things back and forth on the timeline. For example, say you have 10 images and you want to insert an image between 3 and 4. You will have to move 4 - 10 over to make room for the next image instead of just dropping it between those 2 images
• credits - there is a text option which actually does not have that many options to choose from. There is no credits option and you cannot add a different animation to the titles/text. As you can see, at the end of my movie, there's just a single screen with the credits

I would recommend this program if you were making your own personal movies and were not concerned with having a lot of features or extras.  But if you were doing an assignment with your students and needed them to cite their resources, it would prove a little challenging. Also, if have kids working on it at school and they were finishing it the first 10 minutes before class, the waiting time for publishing might prove to be a problem.

Celebrating Earth Day

In celebration of Earth Day and to remind students to print only what they need, I was given the task of creating a short video. I took a couple of days and with some starts and stops (my work computer would freeze on me, causing me to scream in frustration). I am pretty happy with what I made. It is only about 45 seconds. Just enough to keep their attention right?

I used still images and 2 programs. I started with MS Movie Maker but then I wanted to add motion to one of the pictures and it would not let me. I then made a mini-motion movie of that one image using MS PhotoStory, which I then imported into movie maker and dropped into the timeline.

The story behind the video is that 1 - Cambria Gordon visited and 2- students tend to leave multiple copies and reams and reams of printouts. This is just our friendly reminder. I hope you like it and I hope I don't get in trouble for using about 30 seconds of Jack Johnson's song "The 3 R's." Eeek.

Here you go: