Free File Converter for Mac and Other Things You Might Want to Know about YouTube

Recently I tried to organize and curate my YouTube channel to better effect. My first problem was that as an inveterate Mac user, most of the videos on my desktop were in .MOV format, and even though this was purportedly a YouTube-supported format, I could not seem to upload some of my videos.

Some of the most popular video formats supported by YouTube (directly from their Help site:

• WebM files--Vp8 video codec and Vorbis Audio codecs
• .MPEG4, 3GPP and MOV files--Typically supporting h264, mpeg4 video codecs, and AAC audio codec
• .AVI--Many cameras output this format--typically the video codec is MJPEG and audio is PCM
• .MPEGPS--Typically supporting MPEG2 video codec and MP2 audio
• .WMV
• .FLV--Adobe-FLV1 video codec, MP3 audio

The only error message on the YouTube upload page was something to the effect that "There is a problem with your file."  After much trial and error, here are some things I learned about video file formats and YouTube.

 Believing the .MOV file format might be the problem, I tried about half a dozen free video converter software apps on my long video. None of them would convert a video of any length for free, despite plastering the word "free" all over their download sites. 100 MB is about the limit without paying extra, including online converters. I finally came across QTAmateur.app at the Mac Update site. Despite the dopey name, this little software is very powerful and converts to many different video formats quite easily, including those usable by PCs and mobile devices. And it is an absolutely free download. Use ("Export" to make the conversion.)

This was a fortunate find, as I want my videos to eventually be playable on mobile devices as well as on desktops.

I still had a problem, in that YouTube kept saying something was wrong with one particular file, even though it was quite small when converted to mpeg4. It turns out that YouTube goes by time, not file size, and allows only 15-minutes maximum play time. However, when you verify your account using a mobile phone number, Google will send you a text code that gives you up to 2-hour lengths. YouTube is very non-informative about this fact, and it probably relates to an improvement resulting from Google taking over YT. Maybe the help pages and links will be improved in the coming months.

I found the information about how to get the extra size files (the link didn't just jump out at me) by searching videos in YouTube (of course). I found several, the best and simplest of which, I think, is How to Increase Your Upload Limit on YouTube.

With an officially "verified" account and armed with the increased upload limit, I got my video up. See The Effects of Technology on SLA, a talk I gave at TESOL New York, 2008, in either .avi format (a little clearer, below) or .mpeg4 at my YouTube channel. Just FYI, this was originally a Powerpoint slideshow saved as a Powerpoint movie.  I may yet get around to putting the .mov version up, but you can play it with most video players on most platforms anyway.

EFL CLASSROOM MONTHLY NEWSLETTER

This monthly blog/newsletter from EFL Classroom gives you ideas, resources, and a place to set up your own online classroom. Links to video talks, new online resources, ongoing discussions and blogs, student-created content, ideas for current seasonal holidays, and their own Diigo Group, et al.

EFL Classroom has developed well over the past year or so, and is well worth following.

Web 3.0

Webhead Moira Hunter tipped me off (see her blog) to this interesting video about Web 3.0, the semantic Web, as seen on Kate Ray's Vimeo site:

Web 3.0 from Kate Ray on Vimeo.

It gets increasingly interesting as you watch: should the semantic Web have pre-defined ontologies? Of course, Vance Stevens and most Webheads would answer a resounding "no!" If contemporary Web is increasingly about social networking, it is left to developers to help us find and explore new ways of interconnecting.

TinyChat

TinyChat looks to be a very useful little Twitter-related tool for meeting up with students or colleagues on the fly, especially if you have a Webcam built into your computer. It's free and anyone can enter by typing in a nickname--or you can make the chat private.


My own room is at http://tinychat.com/twitter/ElizabethHS

Thanks to fellow Webhead, Rita Zeinstejer for the tip.

280 Slides

I was directed to 280 slides by Nik Peachey's Ten Teacher Development Tasks for Web2.0 Tools (yes, I am still slogging on with them...) The presentation tool is really fun to use, and here is my exercise task completed. It's for intermediate students, who watch the two videos and make notes using an online dictionary, thesaurus, and/or translator, then write up a description of "My Favorite House."



You can also send the embedded video to Slideshare, or email it to friends.

My writing activity is very similar to Nik's, but I gave it different twist by using pairs at the computer, some online vocabulary resources, and a writing process with note-taking and discussion built-in.

Here is Nik's simpler version: Getting Video Tasks Online

WETOKU

Wetoku is a nifty little Internet app that sets up two talking heads--the interviewer and the interviewee. This is perfect for many classroom activities. The introductory video below (5 min. +) gives some tips on doing a good interview, so it's a nice way to get students started using the program.

WallWisher

WallWisher is not as useful pedagogically as other social networking tools I can think of.

You can add a picture (from a URL), or video, or audio file, but it doesn't have a way to put a URL into the text (without using up the tiny letter count), so that users can easily go visit the site. If you want to illustrate your sticky, you need another place/server/or knowledge of how to get an image location to stick it in. You can post to Facebook, et al., and link to pictures in Flickr.

The limited number of words/letters on a sticky means you can't say much--this is probably an advantage for young learners, but not necessarily for their education. A blog or wiki would give them the opportunity to be more expansive.


You could have a main sticky and then ask students to respond to it. But there is no way to organize the stickies besides moving them around physically. So this means the teacher/owner of the wall must do the work of organization, or let things happen at random. (See Nik Peachey's wall of teacher tools for social networking.)

So on the whole, I like the idea of a communal blog or wiki better: more opportunity to write expansively, ways to comment, RSS feed, easy ways to include URLs and lots of pictures, and esp. with a wiki, ways to organize pages.

But I can see Wallwisher as a way to make comments on an event or single Web page. You might have students visit a page or view a video (or put one into a head sticky), and then make a short comment on a Wallwisher page. If you have only 15-30 students, they could all read each other's comments (but if they then make more comments, you've quickly got a huge, disorganized mess...) If you use WallWisher the way it was intended, perhaps to wish a class member happy birthday, or to congratulate someone on getting citizenship, or to make a wish list, or to put up reminders for a project, then it's a nifty application.

Archival Video Sites

Both OurMedia and the Internet Archive are unbelievably slow and have made their interfaces much more difficult to use. OurMedia just transferred my video to a new address without telling me, and I can't find it at all on the Internet Archive. In OurMedia, a search for tags and for titles and for owner--none of them--didn't come up with the video, but it was still there. Go figure!

I also tried to edit the description in OurMedia to include the Web address of the wiki that also contains the presentation, but with no luck. I was asked to join a group before I could edit my own work--couldn't find any with "education" through the search engine, though I could see a few with that word in the title from a list. I then was told I hadn't completed the CSID (the test of human user), but that box wasn't available at the page where I was doing the editing. No win!

I hope to get the video from the 2008 TESOL presentation embedded here in the blog below. We'll see how long it lasts as a real link!

The address is now http://www.ourmedia.org/node/88432



Another video archive site, AuthorStream is also very slow. My presentation there (no audio) is at
http://www.authorstream.com/Presentation/ElizabethHS-224813-effect-tech-sla-entertainment-ppt-powerpoint/. The sound version apparently has just vanished or was never accepted as an unload because it was too large or the wrong format.

Blip.tv still has the presentation, and seemed to load about the fastest. Unfortunately, it's not a place to take the children...

These sites are very frustrating, and I'm glad I uploaded the presentation to multiple venues. With the economic downturn in 2009, there has been a lot of moving and shaking, and I think there will be more changes in store in early 2010.

Animoto

Animoto is easy to use and a lot of fun! You can upload photos and video, and the app puts them together in a kaleidoscope of shapes and forms. You can also add music from your desktop or purchase something from iTunes. Once the video is completed, you can edit it, and share via email or embedding your blog or Website, as I have done here:



The free version of this editing tool is only 30 seconds long (about 12 photos). For $3 US you can upgrade to an any length video, or for $30, you can make any length videos for a year. Ronaldo Lima's school uses the latter option, and students use Animoto extensively as a way of publishing their projects.

To use the program, students would take and select photos and video of their project, arrange and upload the shots, and select appropriate music. (There is very little writing involved, unlike other programs where there might be titling on each photo.) I believe students could, however, create a desktop recording (e.g., with Audacity) describing the photos as they flash by, and use that file instead of the "music" accompaniment. For an additional $5 per video, you can make a higher resolution or MPG4 version that can be downloaded and/or burned to a DVD.

Thanks to Ronaldo Lima of the Webheads for mentioning this app.

ScreenJelly

This little screencasting app, ScreenJelly, seems very easy to use, though it has only a 3-minute recording time limit. You can record what you are doing on your computer screen with your own voice-over. The program is very self-evident, i.e., it takes only a few minutes to figure out how to use it (and there is a helpful how-to video both here and at Stannard's TTV site). I can see its immense usefulness for a teacher (or students) to create little help videos for new technology learners. Links or embedding are possible with such social Web tools as Twitter or Flickr, et al.

Thanks to Russell Stannard--found on his most useful site.

One True Media

One True Media is a sort-of free video creation site, but all the good features, e.g., text over, are only for premium users (currently at $39.99).

Here is a sample from my grand-daughter's recent ballet recital at San Jose Center for the Performing Arts.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

You can share, upload to a blog, iPod, or YouTube, create a DVD (at $24.99), and download (also a premium feature) but not store for viewing on site. The DVD is supposed to be high quality.

If you have trouble seeing the video player, click here:
Avery in Alice 6/13

YouTube podEnglish Videos

These podEnglish language learning videos are unique in that they are based on social situations, e.g., vocabulary for discussing fear, as well as particular content topics.

Check out the tab on the right of the YouTube video, >More From: podEnglish, to see several dozen different topics. The videos are obviously intended to be used as ipod lectures.

Thanks to Evelyn Izquierdo from Learning with Computers for this tip!

TeacherTube

TeacherTube has expanded from video how-tos--both for using tech tools and for content-based stuff--to include docs, photos, audio, etc. And all for the use of teachers with their classes.

It will take some poking around, but the site has some good stuff: from teachers to teachers.

Movie Segments to Assess Grammar Goals

...is really something of a misnomer, since it is more a blog where students can practice various grammar and syntax items using questions and exercises set by the teacher, Claudio Azevedo (Casa Thomas Jefferson, Brasilia), with the prompt being video clips (professional), rather than a textbook.

The video at Movie Segments is a really nice motivator, and the questions and exercises have a good deal of subtlety, deploying a cognitive approach that engages the student and goes beyond sheer grammar. It is also a nice expression of how a blog can be used instructionally. Frequent updates are promised.

--Thanks to Ronaldo Lima, Jr., on the Webheads' list for the referral

Looking at objects in Second Life

Nice little instructional video on how to use the viewing options in SL, from sttaylor.

Second Life Tutorial: How to Look at Things


This YouTube page also has a list of other video tutorials for beginners.

Jonathan Zittrain, the Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It (video)

Zittrain's video came at a most timely moment, as my friend in France, Mike Marzio of the Real English School had just had his wonderful videos ripped off by a Brazilian "entrepreneur," who was cutting CDs of the recordings. Painful!

After many messages from outraged Webheads, the offending works were removed. You can see the comparison of the works and the outcome at Mike's site.

The tie-in to Zittrain is a little thin. He describes how spam is ruining the Internet and how that problem may affect future development of and user choices on the Web. He suggests that a top-down solutions can be oppressive to creativity and the "generative Internet," while community cooperation and resources may be able to stop the looming danger and keep the "creative Internet" safe. However, I see the connection to Mike's case in that user-generated content has to have protections without being oppressively legalistic. In this case, the community responded to protect its member from being ripped off--and it worked!

BTW, the Real English videos are now accessible for free, and Mike continues to add new content frequently at Real English.

Overstream

Overstream is an interesting way to put subtitles over a video online, e.g., from YouTube. (And I am curious about why it is a dot net...)

Of course, you have to be able to understand what they are saying/singing to begin with. But I like the idea as a way to further develop video materials for use with students learning/studying a language: They could do the subtitling.

Daily English Activities

Nik Peachey's new blog, Daily English Activities, for students and teachers (with teacher lesson plans and support) is developing beautifully. I especially like the way he finds interesting sites, like Yolango (which has video trailers with scripts and subtitles), and creates ready-to-use lesson plans making use of them; or points students to ways to enhance or make regular use of the resource.


Hope he keeps on with this development. It's also an interesting use for a blog.

SLExperiments - Negiz (Daffodil Fargis)

Negiz has been experimenting with Second Life and has set up a wiki, SLExperiments, to carry on the dialogue. The wiki begins with a rather nice instructional video about how to use a wiki to create a lesson plan, so it's a two-fer.

I hope to be able to follow some of the live lessons and report back further on how SL is being used.

VUE - Visual Understanding Environment

I have explored VUE, a project of Tufts University, while looking at a variety of mind-mapping or concept-mapping sites and software. VUE is free and has an excellent, visually attractive video explaining its features. It seems to combine the best of mind maps, presentation software, and the flexibility to link across several different concept tracks. It is well worth exploring for advanced student projects, for example, involving research and media, and is a free download and cross-platform (but not for Mac X.3). It looks to be an excellent presentation platform because, unlike PowerPoint, it can combine linear and non-linear approaches to presenting.