Episode 005 - Olympic Coverage

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I've been hearing about it for days so I decided I should check it out. I wish I had earlier. NBC is putting up loads of high quality Olympic videos on their website (www.nbcolympics.com).

• The videos are very high quality
• There are no annoying announcers
• You can get events that would never be broadcast, due to lack of interest or no strong American participants
• You can watch many events live while they happen
• You can also watch some events as they were broadcast on TV if you happen to like the annoying announcers

You will have to install Silverlight (a plugin by Microsoft for streaming web video) if you haven't previously. It is painless and installs quickly. Once this is done you're ready to go! If you're interested in the Olympics you should definitely give this a look. Hopefully they'll keep the videos up after the games are over!

TeacherTechBites Episode 003 - TipCam for Screencasting

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Many people are put off by the idea of creating screencasts. Most think it takes expensive software that is hard to use. Today I'm showing the program I use in Windows called TipCam. It's totally free, you can download it from http://www.utipu.com/

By default it recods in flv format. What's this mean? Most video sharing sites convert uploaded videos into a flash video (flv) format for streaming on the internet.

Cool functions include:

• The ability to zoom in on your video to higlight some point (although it doesn't look zoomed while recording)
• A pen tool for drawing on the screen while recording
• You can upload to YouTube directly from TipCam
• TipCam includes a flv player, so if you download any videos from YouTube (future episode) you can play them with TipCam

Now that said, there are not a lot of user configurable settings. If you like easy to use software then this is a good thing. If you're a serious power user then you might not like this program.

I've only really had one problem with TipCam so far and that was it would not record the screen in one program (Phun) I was playing with. So I had to use Snag-It instead.

Teacher Tech Bites

I have to be crazy. I've started another new online presence for myself. Why do I keep adding new projects when I have a hard time keeping up with the ones I do already? Anyway, I've decided to try to create a video podcast that will be updated regularly (hopefully twice a week).

My focus is simple tools or tips related to technology. These can be for improving our craft as teachers or for making our lives easier or more enjoyable. The videos will be short. I'm trying to keep them under 5 minutes and focused to a single tool/topic. I'm also planning on doing them in one take with little to no post editing. This means they may end up being a little rough.

I have a dedicated blog for them at TeacherTechBites.com, but I'm planning on cross posting them here as well. You will find my first episode below.

In my first Teacher Tech Bite I'm sharing a cool tool that I've been looking for for a while. I use both Mac and Windows computers. I love presenting with my Mac because it has a great zoom function. I just place my cursor and then hit a quick key and everything near my cursor is magnified and totally readable by my audience. I get asked all the time if there's a way to do this on Windows. Until recently I always said no.

Enter ZoomIt. ZoomIt allows me to quickly zoom in on any spot on my computer. It is particularly useful for urls. In addition to the zoom function it also has a pen tool. So, I can mark up anything I'm looking at as well. It does all this as a svelt 145 kb application. This has become my new favorite must have windows application.

Graphing Calculator Tutorials (TI-83 & TI-84)

Last year I started creating calculator tutorials using Jing. I like Jing, unfortunately you are stuck in a proprietary format and I haven't had any real luck in converting it to another format. So, I don't really use it anymore. Regardless, the tutorials I created last year were done more for a teacher as the audience and I decided I really want some with my students as the audiance. Consequently, I'm redoing them.

I rely on my students knowing how to use their graphing calculators in my Physics class. Consequently, I spend a bit of time at the beginning of the school year teaching them how to use them. Unfortunately, they often loose skills they once had as we go along. So, this year I've decided to handle things differently. I will spend less time in class teaching them and more time teaching them at home. I'm in the process of creating some videos to help teach the skills they need. Don't expect high production values on these. My goal will be to do them in one take and to simply upload when done (no post editing).

Why am I doing this? Two reasons really. The first is so I don't have to spend too much class time covering it. The second is that the videos will stay on the internet, so if they need to review later in the semester they can.

Below is the first video in the series. To see more calculator videos as I create them just surf over to my FLOSScience site.

Free Screen Capture Software

For a couple of months now I've had this cool screen capture software sitting on my computer, but I haven't used it. I have Snag-It, so that's what I usually use. But I'm always on the look out for free software I can recommend.

Well, my new recommendation is TipCam. TipCam has some limits, but it more than makes up for it in eas of use. By default it saves as *.flv, which is the format used by video sites like You Tube. This means it may not have to be converted after you upload it (depends on where you upload it). Which is cool, the way it looks after you're done recording is exactly how it will appear when streamed from the web.

There are built in zoom and annotation features making it easy to highlight what you're trying to show. If you're interested in doing any screen casting this free program is definately worth a look.

Sketch Cast

I've recently been introduced to Sketchcast. I'm not going to bother trying to describe it. Here's a video I created using it.



The video details a lab we did in physics where students had to determine the height of an air rocket launch. Sketchcast is very easy to use and the video above only took a few minutes to produce. The only drawback is that you can't save your videos to your computer or bring them into a video editor as parts of larger projects. In the past I've done similar video lessons using my digital camera a pencil and paper. While its fairly easy to do this way Sketchcast is easier.

Screencasting Made Easy

I just discovered Jing while listening to the Geek!Ed! podcast today. Jing can be used for taking screen shots (I haven't tried this yet) or doing video screencasts. It is really easy to use and I was up and running in a matter of minutes. They have versions for Windows and Mac. It is currently free, but they may charge for it eventually. Videos are saved as *.swf files (flash video). You can view them in a browser locally or have them hosted at screencast.com

I'll definitely be playing with this more over the next few days. our science department is trying to get the students using their graphing calculators more. The problem is that I'm the only science teacher who knows how to use my calculator. So, I'm creating a series of tutorials for the other teachers. I'm using Virtual TI, a great (free) calculator emulator and capturing in Jing.

Below is the first in the series of tutorials. You can get all of the here, or you can subscribe to the RSS feed to get them all and any I create in the future.

Online Video

I've recently discovered a cool site that has lots of great science video content called SciTalks.com

"We comb the internet and upload a couple hundred links per week. We get them from all over the web from universities and august institutions like TED talks and the Royal Society. We also have our share from YouTube and Google videos. We know that there are thousands more! Please contribute links if you have them. You can also upload your own videos."

SciTalks.com is organized in a few different ways. You can browse by subject or by source type. Source types include: Academic, Broadcast, or Corporate. They also include a search function in case you're looking for something specific. The videos come from all over the internet and are in a variety of different formats. What are the different formats?

• flv - Flash video. This is how YouTube, GoogleVideo, and many other video sites display video. These will play in your browser window, but if you download them you'll need a flv player. I recommend VLC for this. It is a free cross platform media player.
  
• qt or mov - QuickTime. This is Apple's video format. So you'll need to have QuickTime installed in-order to view these videos.
• rm or ram - Real Media. You'll need Real Player for this. I usually recommend against Real Player as it has a tendency to be too large and tries really hard to make itself your default video/audio player. Instead I recommend Real Alternative. Real Alternative is a much smaller program that is a whole lot less invasive.
• wmv - Windows Media. If you're on a Windows machine you can view these with no problems. On a Macintosh you'll need Flip4Mac which will allow you to play these in QuickTime Player.
  

There is a lot of really good stuff on this site, and there is some mind numbingly boring stuff. With a little patient searching I'm sure you can find some good content you can use with your students.

Now, I know some people reading this are thinking you've never had any luck showing streaming video in class. The internet crashes and you're sunk or worse still, the internet is slow and your 10 minute video takes 30 minutes to show because it keeps freezing. Well, there are a couple ways to get around this with some videos. With others you just have to cross your fingers and hope it works the way it should.

With some videos, once they load all the way you can show them without your computer even being connected to the network. Just don't close the window you're in. Even better, some videos can be downloaded to your computer, then you can show them any time you want. Often it is possible to download videos even though the site you're visiting doesn't give you the option. The video I've included with this posts shows you how to use a Bookmarklet to do just that. Once you have the video on your hard drive you can show it to your class or even burn it to a DVD. If you have a DVD burner in your computer you'll likely already have software for doing this. Drop your video in and see if it works. If it doesn't work you'll need to covert it into a different format first. I use a free program called SUPER (download mirror) to do this. If you watch my video, I'll walk you through how to do this (or you can go to videohelp.com). Once it's converted, you can burn it to your DVD and then you're all set (while you're at it, burn a couple of extra copies to give to your colleagues).

Fun with Scratch

Unless you've been under a rock you've probably already heard of Scratch it's been all over the internet lately and made a huge appearance at the NECC. Scratch is a simple, intuitive programming language for kids. You lock together blocks of code like you put together legos.

Anyway, it really is a lot of fun. When I described it to my 9 year old son he was not interested at all. When I showed it to him, however, it was a different story. He can't wait to share it with his friends and cousins.

I could describe it to you, but it a demonstration is much cooler.

Click To Play

If you're interested you can download a much higer quality version from the archive.org

More MACUL-Video Tutorials

Dale Rogers presented how he uses video tutorials to help teach complex software. He focused on two programs HyperCam and Camtasia Studio.

Both programs allow you to very easily capture everything you do on the computer while doing a voice over narration. Camtasia has a lot more bells and whistles but it has a much higher price tag ($299). HyperCam can be downloaded and used for free, but you get a “Unregistered HyperCam” in the upper left corner of your finished video. If you want to buy it it is only $39.95.

Both programs looked pretty easy to use. Dale also talked about how having dual monitors set up is incredibly helpful when using video tutorials. Students can work on one monitor while running the tutorial on the other. And to be honest how many of us have extra CRTs gathering dust? All you need is a second cheap video card and you’re ready to go.

My Notes:

I've played around a bit with this myself. I've used Camtasia, which I was lucky enough to be given a free copy of (a colleague won it at the NECC) and iShowU, which is a Mac only program. I've also played with another free program called Wink. The learning curve is a little steep, but if you're interested in putting together a lot ov computer tutorials on the cheap it is definitely woth a look.

More Video Instruction

Screen captures are nothing new, but I've been playing with a program called iShowU. It is a MacOSX only program and is not free. That said, it works great and it only costs $20. I've used Windows Media Encoder and Camtasia on WinXP for capturing movies of my screen previously. iShouwU is superior to both. The other popular Mac option is called SnapZ. I haven't used SnapZ because of its$70 price tag and so I can't compare it to iShowU.

iShowU offers many compression options (more than I'll ever likely need). You can easily set the capture window to the whole screen or a smaller portion of the screen. It encodes the video while you're working, so when you're done the video is ready instantly.

Below is a video I created showing how to add velocity vectors to a video in LoggerPro. I did the voice over in iMovie so I could redo the pieces I screwed up. But you can also record using the microphone, system sound, or a combination while capturing the video.



The youtube video doesn't do iShowU justice. The quality of the video I captured was perfect. The low quality of my youtube video is due to my not really knowing what I'm doing in iMovie.

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