Walking the Walk - Creating video for students with only an iPad

Next year my school will begin it's 1:1 iPad program. We're starting slow with only the freshman class, so it will take us four years before we're totally 1:1. I've been tasked with helping get teachers ready for the flood of technology headed our way. One of the ways I've been doing this is through iTunes U courses for professional development. One of these is Flipping with an iPad.

I've been making videos to use with my students for years on my computer with Camtasia Mac using a Bluetooth Wacom tablet and Sankore for annotating on the screen. But these take me a while to make. A lot of this time is spent in the set up. I've been urging some teachers to lecture less in class and to use videos as replacements. I know lecture is not the best way to deliver content, but when starting a revolution we have to begin somewhere. So I decided to make a series of videos using only my iPad so I would have a much better idea of what was involved. I'll be adding all of my lessons learned to my iTunes U course. 

I'll call these videos Quickcasts, not because they're short, but because I want to make them quickly. The goal for a 5-10 min video will be no more than 20-30 min from set up to upload. This first one took a bit longer than that, but future ones will go much quicker. I learned a lot getting it together. Here's how I did it.

Equipment:

• iPad 2
• Notier Stylus
• Rode smartLav Microphone

Apps:

• Explain Everything $2.99
• Pinnacle Studio $12.99
• iMovie $4.99 (or free with new device)
• NodeBeat HD $2.99
• YouTube Capture Free

I used Explain Everything to capture all the video and screen writing. I used the Notier stylus for annotating and drawing. I've tried many styluses and this one works best for me. Over the years I've become more of an audio snob with my videos, so I have to have a microphone. I used the Rode smartLav. This was the first time I used it, so I still have a bit to learn about proper placement and such. My next video should sound better. On a side note, I've also played with the microphone built into my iPhone ear buds, I'm not sure how much better the Rode microphone is.

I also used Explain Everything to create the intro clip. It was too slow so I wanted to speed it up. Unfortunately iMovie on my iPad 2 could only slow down the video, not speed it up. I'm not sure if newer iPads can speed up video or not. So I took the clip into Pinnacle Studio to double the speed. I could have finished the video here, but I wanted to gain some experience with iMovie on my iPad, so I took the clip back to iMovie. All of our teachers already have iPads with iMovie.

The intro music was created in NodeBeat HD. This is a fun little app that I picked up a couple years ago while it was free. Moving audio around on an iPad can be problematic, but I was able to email the file to myself from NodeBeat and then import it to my project in iMovie. I could have used GarageBand to create the intro as well. Then I rendered the video to my camera roll and used YouTube Capture to upload. It is possible to upload directly from iMovie, but I also wanted the saved video file to drop into my iTunes U course anyway.

Next time I will position my microphone differently so the levels won't be too high. The intro clip with music is done so I'll just reuse it again. I may also spend a little more time prepping slides in Explain Everything so the video itself can be shorter. While nice at times, students don't need to watch me write every word on the screen in real time.

21st Century Learning Symposium

Last Thursday I had the pleasure of attending the 21st Century Learning Symposium hosted by Saint Clair RESA at Marysville High School. I had a great time and I got to talk with a lot of great people. The week before was grueling as I was preparing both for school and the two sessions I ran. So, I'm finally recovered enough to get to posting the links to my presentations.

Before getting to my links I wanted to mention the Be Very Afraid Extra that was going on during the conference. Stephen Heppell has been running Be Very Afraid events in England for the last ten years. The original intent of these was to show how all of the money that has been spent on educational technology has paid off. Students showcase what they do and what they've learned with technology. One of the main ideas about these events is what they've done for themselves rather than what their teachers have done for them. The Be Very Afraid Extra on Thursday was the first of these to be run outside of the UK. There are already other such events scheduled for around the world later this year.

Unfortunately I didn't get to meet all the students, but I did get to meet many of them. Among my favorites were a group of middle school students who have become evangelists for Prezi. They're seeking to teach their own teachers how to use this cool tool while highlighting the advantages it has over PowerPoint. Another group consisted of an artist, a composer and a programmer, who together are creating a game for the new Windows Phone operating system. Leveraging the strengths of each to get the job done.

This sort of event highlights the possibilities technology offers our students and how those possibilities can be leveraged into learning and the beginnings of a career. The, "Be Very Afraid," is there as a message. Students often learn all of this stuff without the input of their teachers or the standard educational system. Most of the students presenting taught themselves the bulk of what they needed to know. Learning more from online forums then their teachers. Personally I think this is awesome!

Now, lets talk about me. I led two sessions. One on the creation and use of video and the other on pseudoteaching. My talk on videos and all of my links can be found at video.flosscience.com. There you will be able to find my collected wisdom on how to create videos and how to use videos to enhance what you do in the classroom.

My second presentation was on Pseudoteaching with Technology. My main goal in this talk was to get teachers thinking more about how they teach while focusing less on what tools they're using. Conferences like this one all to often focus on the "T" in "TPCK". I wanted to shift the focus more towards "PCK". You can find my presentation below. I have the feeling that my Prezi without me talking won't make much sense, but you can at least find all the links I gave out in my session. I may try to record a quick summary screen cast of the high points this afternoon. If I do, I'll post it to my blog.

Pseudoteaching with Technology on Prezi

Cross-posted from FLOSScience.

GoAnimate4Schools is cool

I mentioned GoAnimate the other day and now I've gotten a chance to play with GoAnimate4Schools. GoAnimate4Schools offers both more and less than the free version of GoAnimate. So, what's the difference?

First and foremost I can create student accounts and give them access to stuff I create or upload. With GoAnimate4Schools, I get a lot of the features of GoAnimate Plus. I can upload my own backgrounds or Flash objects. I can even upload videos (up to 10MB) that can be incorporated into my animations. However, I have no way to get my animations out of GoAnimate4Schools.

With GoAnimate Plus you can export animations to YouTube or even buy a downloadable HD video version. In GoAnimate4Schools I seem to have neither option. Right now if I want to save my animations in another form I have to do a screen capture video.

I can create as many characters as I want. In GoAnimate the first character was free, but after that I needed points for the various pieces and parts I'd need for another new character. Points cost money, but you get a bunch of "free" points when you pay for a GoPlus subscription. While I can create lots of characters for free, I have less options for costumes/props. That said, any characters I do create should be available to my students (I haven't confirmed this yet).

So, what will I use it for? I'm not sure yet. I'll probably give students a way to show what they've learned in class in some sort of creative way. But I'll also use it myself. I plan on investigating the ideas presented by Derek Muller in his critique of the Kahn Academy videos. It seems like this may give me a way to make mistaktes in my videos in a more authentic way. So, hopefully students will get a chance to see the sort of missteps they are likely to make.

GoAnimate4Schools.com: Elevator Math by Steve Dickie

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate4Schools. It's free and fun!

Create your Own Educational Cartoons?

The other day I discovered another new animation tool on the net. GoAnimate is sort of free. You can create your own custom characters. The first one's free but others will cost a small amount, probably a buck or two.

I made a couple animations so far and it's pretty easy to do. For free you get a small number of characters you can add to your videos. You can have them talk in a number of different voices using the text-to-speech engine, or you can use your own voice. Each character has a number of "actions" they can perform as they move about to tell your story. There are a number of backgrounds to choose from, you can put your characters in a number of different settings as well.

If you want to pay $18 for 3 months or $58/year you get more options of things to do, like upload your own background images and post your animations to YouTube. GoAnimate offers an educational version as well. I applied, but apparently the response has been huge so they're a little back-logged on that front. It appears that this will give me some of the paid features for free.

Anyway, how will I use this tool? My first thought was to use it in a similar manner to how I've used BitStrips. I've used BitStrips to create little comic strips that I've used with my colleagues, but I've not used it with my students. The ones I've created are a bit of commentary on life as a teacher. But I digress. I really like the question-dialog idea presented by Derek Muller over at Veritasium. In his videos he starts by asking questions designed to elicit the common misconceptions held by most people before explaining the concept to be covered. His Ph.D. research shows this to be more effective than simply explaining the relavent ideas.

I wasn't sure how I could incorporate this sort of dialog into my own videos. Going out and interviewing random people (or students) would add an extra level of complexity that I'm not sure I want to do. OK, I would like to do it, but it adds a lot of extra stuff to deal with. Including a camera operator, some sort of hand held or wireless microphone with audio recorder, and more time editing all the extra footage to get just the bits I need.

Could an animated dialog give me the same results? I think it could. Is GoAnimate the tool I should use? This I'm less sure of. It certainly could be, I'll know more when they get back to me from GoAnimate4Schools. Below is my first attempt at a dialog with myself. I created a version of me as close to me as I could. The voice is my voice recorded with the microphone built into my laptop. This, or something like it, may serve as the introduction to a video on the force of gravity and or objects in free fall. This is why I ask a question at the end with no resolution.

GoAnimate.com: Investigating Misconceptions by falconphysics

Like it? Create your own at GoAnimate.com. It's free and fun!
Cross-posted from my science education blog FLOSScience.com

YouTube Lifting Limits - Implications for Education

Yesterday I inadvertently uploaded a video that was just over 16 minutes long to YouTube. Once I realized what I'd done I was surprised to see my video on my YouTube Channel. So I tried another and it worked to! Last year the limit was raised from 10 to 15 minutes. So, being a nerd I searched for an answer.

The help files on YouTube still list the 15 minute limit so I had to go to Google. This turned up a New York Times article. Apparently, last December YouTube began lifting the time limit from some users accounts. Now, I ask, why didn't YouTube tell me I now have no limit? I found out completely by accident. Beyond that, what does this mean?

Well, now I don't have to stress too much about cutting up ideas to keep my videos short. I'll still shoot for 10-15 minutes, but I don't have to worry if it goes to 16 minutes. Additionally, I can now upload full lectures if I choose. This could be huge for education. I try not to lecture anymore, but sometimes I really need to. Now I can record my lectures and easily make them available to my students. Or, we can record presentations at in-services and drop them on YouTube for future staff development. I've used Blip.tv previously and will probably continue to do so. However, now I can have all of my videos on both Blip and YouTube! Redundancy is a good thing.

As an aside. If your school or district currently blocks YouTube you should ask if you can have your channel unblocked. Often times YouTube is blocked due to bandwidth concerns. If only teacher channels are being used the bandwidth requirements should be much lower. And, if teacher videos are so popular that they cause a bandwidth problem then I say that is totally Awesome and that fact should be celebrated!

Anyway, here's the video that let me make this discovery.

Totally Awesome Video Abstracts!

This morning I sat down to reed Google Reader and I stumbled across a blog post by John Burk referencing a tweet by Andy Rundquist listing another blog post (I love social media). Anyway the gist of all that social cross-linking is the New Journal of Physics has just launched video abstracts for its articles! It does not look like authors are required to submit videos, but are strongly encouraged to.

So, why am I so excited by this? Well, two reasons really. The first is it gives me lots of ideas for what I can have students do to demonstrate mastery of concepts. Whether it's in my physics or electronics classes. Sure, people have been having students create video summaries/presentations of projects for years. But here are some real world scientists doing it. The ones I've watched are awesome. They can easily serve as a model for students to emulate.

The second reason for my excitement over this relates to the difficulty inherent in reading and understanding real research. I'm a physics teacher and I often have no idea what authors are saying in scholarly articles. So, how can I expect my students to really read and understand the primary literature? These videos offer a window of accessibility for non-physicists. There's a good chance that students will be able to get more out of the actual article when combined with the video. I'll definitely be trying this with my students.

One final thought. What if educational conferences had the expectation that presenters create short 3-5 min video abstract for their talks. How great would that be? I never know which sessions I want to catch. Often just 5 minutes in I realize I'm in the wrong room. It's not that the presenter is bad, it's just the 50 word abstract in the program was too short to really tell me what I needed to know. I think I'll propose the idea for the MACUL conference and create my abstract this afternoon (how come I can't just relax on a snow day?).



Cross-posted to FLOSScience.com

Teacher TechBites ep 014 - Camtasia Mac: Rolling Credits

Last year TechSmith finally released a Mac version of their Camtasia software. I'm here to say it rocks. I far prefer it to iMovie for making videos on my MacBook. Anyway, I'll be creating a series of videos to help new users figure out how to use it. It really is feature rich, but it does seem to be missing some of the bells and whistles you might have gotten used to in iMovie.

One of these "missing" features is rolling credits. In this video I show you how to create your own using the built in tools.





Crossposted from: TeacherTechBites

Kahn Academy

I just saw this yesterday. This guy (http://www.khanacademy.org/) started making videos to help his younger cousin learn algebra. Apparently he didn't know when/where to stop. Now he has over 1200 videos and receives something like 40,000 views a day. This has become his full time job! The implications of this whole story are pretty cool. They're both practical and mind-blowing.

On the practical side we have this huge library of videos we can use with our students. I haven't looked at all of them, but the ones I have looked at are pretty straight forward presentations that get right to the point of a lesson/standard. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he starts with the standard and then builds a lesson to teach it. Most of the videos are 10-20 minutes in length and offer something a traditional lecture does not. The ability to pause and/or rewind without having to raise your hand and admit that you're "stupid".

On the mind-blowing side we have a couple of things. First is, Sal Kahn's method is totally reproducible. This means you can, if you're interested, create your own videos. Kahn uses a tablet device to write with his computer. You can get one on Amazon starting under $70. I'm not sure what program he uses for writing on the screen, but I've been playing with one called Uniboard, which offers a free version and allows you to record.

Or, if you have a camera that can record video you can also just set it up pointed at your hands and use a pencil and paper to compose your lessons. In any case you too can easily make videos and upload them to YouTube (or some other school friendly site) for your students, and it doesn't really take that much time.

The other mind-blowing aspect is that this guy was able to create these videos and in the process create his own career. Not only will he have donations and ad revenue to support him. I'm sure he'll be doing the lecture/keynote circuit. Yet another example to support Malcom Gladwell's assertions in Outliers (great book by the way). Kahn was in the right place at the right time, has ability (BS in Math from MIT), and was willing to work hard. He leveraged the internet and built a career literally from his own effort and intellect.

Podcasting on iTunesU

I applied and was invited to submit podcasts to the MI-Learning section of iTunesU. My main focus will be demos I use with my physics students. This way if they miss class when I do a demo they don't have to miss it completely.

Additionally I want to make sure my videos can be used by other educators who might not have all the right equipment to do demos or who might not know how to do them. I will be doing some videos intended to teach other teachers how to do various demos in class. Such as the Lasarium shown below.

You can find all of my Democasts at iTunesU, at Blip.tv, or the Archive.org.



Cross posted from FLOSScience

LiveScribe Pulse

OK, I recently got a new toy so I figure I should blog about it. I got one of the LiveScribe Pulse pen. It totally rocks. We'll see how useful it proves to be over the next few weeks or so.

Basically, the LiveScribe is a magic pen that records your notes as you write them. What makes it really cool is the built in audio recorder. So, you record the audio portion of a lecture and then the pen syncs your written notes with the recorded audio. Later you can place your pen at a point in your notes and you hear the audio from that part of the lecture. Totally cool. But it gets better.

You can dump the files to your computer for viewing/archiving but you can also upload them to the internet for your students to view. The embedable files work just like the notebook. You see ghosted writing you can watch the notes being written as a flash movie from the beginning or click around to jump to specific points in the lecture. The pen comes with either 1GB of memory for $129, or 2GB of memory for $169.

So far I've been having a student in each class use my pen to take notes (a different one each leacture). These notes are then uploaded to the net. I may also use it to quickly work some example problems to help students with homework or to prepare for tests. Below is an example of it in action.

Honors Physics 09.01.2009 08:44:05 AM
brought to you by Livescribe

Physics Videos for Your Class

By now you've probably seen the Periodic Table of Videos produced by folks at the Univeristy of Nottingham. If youhaven't you really should check it out. But you may not have seen their Sixty Symbols videos.

In thier newest series they take sixty physics symbols/concepts and have created videos explaining what they are and what's cool about them. Below is the highlight reel. Check it out.

Cross posted from FLOSScience.com

Free Software for Video Analysis

Here's a quick video I slapped together for my students introducing Tracker. Tracker is a free program for doing video analysis from Open Source Physics. It's pretty powerful and runs in Java so it works on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.

It seems like it's more difficult than LoggerPro. With the increased difficulty comes some great potential. I'll be investigating this potential in future posts.



Cross posted from FLOSScience

TeacherTechBites Episode 010 - Free DVD Burning

Click to Play

Need a sub plan? Don't have a projector? No reliable internet connection at school? Why not burn your videos to a DVD?

DVD Flick is a free program for burning DVDs. It is very easy to use, but like any other DVD creation solution the encoding does take time.

I also recommend trying a test DVD to make sure your burned DVD will play in your classroom prior to counting on it for your day's lesson.

TeacherTechBites Episode 009 - Download Web Video

Click to Play

teachertechbites.com

I try to never rely on watching streaming internet videos in class. Too many times I've tried and the internet has been slow or down. So now I download the videos to my computer if I can.

Stuff to Know

• Not all streaming videos can be downloaded
• You may need to a special player to play the video you download

Two Ways to do it

• DownloadHelper - Firefox extension. WARNING: The DownloadHelper folks try to help out their users and have compiled a list of popular sites for downloading video. You should know that many (not all) of the sites on this list are porn sites. I really like DownloadHelper. It works very well and I've had no problems with it.
• Video Bookmarklet - Should be usable in any browser. Just go to the page and follow the instructions. You will end up with a bookmark that you can click when you're on a page with video.

I've got the video, now what?

• File Format - There are many different file formats that videos can be saved as. Most of these can be opened with Windows Media Player which will already be on your computer (unless you have a Mac of course). However, the most common format for web video is not playable in Media player so you'll need another program. I recommend VLC. VLC will play the flash video format that most web videos are save in.
• Burn to a DVD - If you want a pretty bomb proof lesson you'll burn the web video to a DVD. That way it will be usable in virtually any classroom and you can even give it to a Sub. You will of course need software to do this and a DVD burner. There are some free programs out there for creating DVD's. I've used DVD Flick and it seems to work pretty well. Some people might be concerned that web video won't look very good on a DVD. Well, you're right, but it looks at least as good as those aging VHS tapes many of us rely on year to year.

Videos in Science Class at the MDSTA

Yesterday was the annual meeting of the Metropolitan Detroit Science Teachers Association. I always enjoy this meeting. It's a good size for a local meeting and the talks are good even though the conference is relatively small.

I presented on the use of teacher created videos for instruction. Everyone assumes video is really hard and really expensive. If you want to make TV or theater quality video it is. But if all you're trying to do is get a little extra teaching done and you have access to a computer, then its free and easy. If you don't care so much about the production value it is also not as time consuming as people think either.

You can find my digital "Handout" on the Flosscience Site. This page will be growing as I go along. The professional development series I've volunteered to run at school this spring will focus on podcasting (I draw no distinction between audio and video podcasts). Additionally, I submitted to present basically the same material at MACUL this spring. I suppose if they don't accept my presentation I'll do it as a Guerrilla Session.

(cross-posted from www.flosscience.com)

I hate Lecture

Last week I started my physics class with Relativity in Week One (pdf). A short unit by E.R. Huggins. I really like this unit, but it is totally contrary to how I usually teach as I had to lecture the whole week. This year I have four sections of Physics, in the past I've only had three. That extra section makes a big difference. My experience from last week reinforces my plans to not lecture in class this year.

So, this year I will be lecturing on video and students will be able to watch on their own time. This will leave more time in school for working problems. Basically, those tasks that may have been homework in the past will now be class work. So, when a student gets stuck they can ask me for help rather than just copying off a classmate. In addition, this may allow me to sneak in a few more labs.

The videos can be streamed from the web from either Blip.tv or the archive.org. They can also be downloaded via iTunes and played on home computers or portable media players. If needed, I will burn a small number of DVDs of my videos for students who might not have a computer at home.

So far I've been using TipCam to do screen captures and as needed I also use a small Wacom tablet I bought on ebay to write on the screen. I'll be listing all the videos on my FLOSScience site as I create them. Feel free to use them with your own classes or just use them as a source of inspiration.

In an effort to keep my life easy, my goal is to do my videos in one take. Basically, this means they will likely be a little rough at times. Below is the first part of my lecture from chapter 2 of our text book (modeling one dimensional uniform motion).

Episode 007 - Video Conversion with Super

Click to Play

I often get the question of, "I downloaded this video from YouTube, how do I play it on my iPod?" Or, "I created this video, but it's huge. How can I make it smaller?"

The program I use for both of these is Super. Super is a great tool for converting videos. It will convert just about any form of video into any other format. One of the cool bits is the list of presets. Just select the one for your device (like iPod, PSP, Sony Ericsson) and all of the settings will be just right.

Or, if you know more than me, you can tweak your video codec choice and internal encoders (I have no idea what this means).

Anyway, You can get it from the official download site, but I don't recommend this. You have to search and search for the link (it's on the third page you have to click through). Or you can Google it and download it from somewhere else.

It works great in Windows XP, I haven't tried it in Vista yet.

Episode 006 - Tabbed Browsing

Click to Play

What is tabbed browsing? All modern web browsers allow for something called tabbed browsing. This allows you to open links as "tabs" within the same window. It is more efficient than opening links in new windows, plus you can bookmark groups of tabs and open them all at the same time.

Anyway, I'm having trouble describing it, it is much easier to understand when you see it

Cool Science Videos on the Net

There is lots of great content out there just waiting to be found. Here's a list of some cool science videos you might find useful.

Secret Life of Machines - Was a series created in the late 80's to the early 90's. The main premise was to show how modern devices came to be. In order to get there they show everything form how life was prior to the invention and every incarnation of a machine. There is a lot of really good science in these. The only unfortunate bit is that they are a bit dated. So, whenever I show one I talk about advances that have taken place since the video was produced. The videos can be streamed from the net or downloaded in iPod format.

Why is it so? A "best of" from experiments from the series. Great videos!!!

The ground-breaking TV series with the enigmatic Professor Julius Sumner Miller - ran on the ABC from 1963 to 1986. Professor Miller's infectious enthusiasm for physics delighted, educated and entertained generations of Australians, most of whom have at some point asked each other 'Why is it so?' in the characteristic Julius Sumner Miller voice.

scitalks.com Great science videos collected from around the net. These come from academic speakers and broadcast TV. Search for topics/speakers of interest or browse by subject or audience type.

The Annenberg/CPB site has a lot of great streaming videos that could be used across the curriculum in just about every subject. The site requires you to register, but registration is free. The list of hosted videos includes some relatively famous educational series (including Mechanical Universe and The World of Chemistry)

The American Field Guide has many great environmental videos that can be used in any life science curriculum. There are also some geology, earth science, and archeology videos available.

The Vega Science Trust hosts videos of lectures, round-table discussions, and workshops that present the cutting edge of science. Some would be appropriate for students while others just provide great education for teachers. The site also has some educational resources to go along with some of the videos.

101Science.com has lots of great links for science videos. Some of the above links came from there. This site hosts a lot of other really good stuff as well, but I haven't had a chance to surf through it all yet.

Cross-posted from FLOSScience

Episode 005 - Olympic Coverage

Click to Play

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!