So here we are in the 21st Century and still stuck with 18th century schoolrooms and 19th century desks.
I've been exploring different seating arrangements for groups, and still like the easy mobility of wheeled chairs, central gathering places, and ways to quickly create breakouts of small groups that can still see the teacher/board and report back without too much furniture noise.
This younger children's class (described by Amy Spies at TeachingChannel shows a nice option using the furniture at hand:
The groups of four are open-ended at the side facing the teacher/board, and the space between the desks holds a 3-drawer cabinet with supplies like paper, pencils and crayons:
SteelCase offers a much higher tech option, adopted at the U of Oregon's Yamada Language Lab, that is sleek and classy. Three boards/projection screens allow students sitting in any direction to see what is happening. The teacher is no longer fronting the class--at least in theory--though the computer/projector now seems to be the center:
With the flipped classroom, the projection multiplication may be a bit of overkill, but at least there is a strong move to put students' heads together.
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.
This video from the TED (Technology, Education, and Design)conference in February (Long Beach, CA) has some astonishing new ways to look at user wetware-computer connections.
It's amazing to see Tom Cruise's Minority Report interface now displayed with many different ramifications. The new interfaces use computations that are "space-soluable and network-soluable," allowing a user to drag/send their visual information from one "monitor" to another,both co-located and in space, with a hand gesture. In five years' time will this be the computer we get??
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Today I had a chance to explore Nik's blogs in more depth. These are very rich because he indicates ways to use the technology with students and/or for teacher training. Following through with each of his blog entries is like a full course in IT for teachers.
Although I have found it inconvenient for users (and me) to have interactive widgets on this blog, one of these might be useful for a wiki page as it could be more self-contained.
Suggestions from the Webhead elist include (from Robert Squires):
Yackpack - the Walkie Talkie Widget formerly available directly on PBWiki, and which has Voicegroups.
Meebo - you create your own chatroom and paste the code into the sidebar of your wiki or blog.
Gabbly - the PBWiki default, was mentioned several times as having horrible advertisements that you can't get rid of. However, any person who visits the wiki can chat with other visitors who are there at the same time while with Gtalk or Meebo, the visitors can only chat with the owner of that widget (ie.e, the creator of the wiki) but not with each other (per Negiz in a responding email).
Robert also offered an interesting blog site with a list of ten more chat widgets: ReadWriteWeb.
I followed this breadcrumb trail and found an interesting site, built by Kiernan, that strings together YouTube videos so that you get continuous play, one after another, on a particular subject (in this case rock groups). Anyone can add a video without a password, though this feature might present problems in a school setting. Nice code, though a little removed from the original subject, chat widgets: http://www.chann3lz.com/.
This blog entry by Webhead Ronaldo Lima, Jr., has a nice comparative review of three slideshow tools--Voicethread, Splashcast and Qlipboard--with short examples of each. Comments by fellow Webheads are also very useful.
Asterpix allows the user to upload video and create hotspots that follow an object or person on the video. The user can mouse-over the hotspots and click for more information: text, weblinks, etc. (Hence the "interactive" part.) The tools seem very easy to use, and the instructional videos are screencasts, as illustrated here.
This tool might work very well with an EFL/ESL practice where the students are led to research further information (a mini-Webquest), or are asked to create their own video and links for the hotspots. This is another tool with a unique twist that can add text and hypertext to the audio-video experience.
Thanks to Andreas Büsing for the tip on this item.
