Experimenting with Slide.com

While browsing Web 2.0 site to use in my classroom I came across Slide.com. What is it, you ask? Well, it a program that helps you to make your own custom slideshows online and publish them to any website. I have always tended to use PowerPoint in my classroom, but after discovering Web 2.0 sites, this is now the way I prefer to go; especially since the sites save and publish work for the students!

As previously stated, for video slideshows I have been prone to use PowerPoint or Animoto.com. But Slide.com has one feature that Animoto does not; the room for text (more than just a few words) to appear! One feature that has always bothered me with Animoto is that there is such little room allowed for text. In the video posted in a previous blog (using Animoto) I really was forced to cut back my text entry. Being an English teacher, I find this extremely frustrating when students cannot put in an entire quote (or sentence for that matter). In my Contemporary Literature class we do a photo essay using one of these projects, and it is very important that quotes can be entered and cited correctly in their entirety.

So, if you’re wondering how to create a pretty neat slideshow with your travel photos, family photos, or anything really, Slide.com will allow you to do it very quickly and easily. I signed up for a new account and had my slideshow completed in less than 5 minutes. Granted, I only uploaded 7 photos, but it was enough to get the idea. The interface is fairly intuitive, along with the navigation. All the buttons are bright and shiny so it is difficult to get lost. The site also allows you to customize the look and theme of your slideshows, from having tiny bubbling hearts drift by, to lightning forking up the sides of the photos.

Even more remarkable are the re-sizing options, and the ability to embed the player in almost all social networking websites, like MySpace, Facebook, and more. You can also upload the photos directly from your photo albums on these other websites, or upload them from your computer, or even directly reference a photo anywhere online through the URL.

The only blatant problem I saw was the interface lacked a few vital buttons when viewed in Firefox. (I am sure Slide.com will fix that shortly, as Firefox is the fastest growing browser in the world). Also, something else that was a bit annoying was the speed of the presentations. Though you can set the speeds, the slow is not very slow at all. What seemed to make more if a difference regarding speed, was the designs chosen by my students. This time around I have only a few that they can choose from. Lastly, I couldn’t find any privacy settings to set my photos as private only — though the option may just be hiding.

With a super easy set-up, clean interface and multiple transition and theme options, I believe Slide.com seems to be among the most popular tools for self-expression on the web today! Check out what I created for my yearbook class for next school year!

Conquering Blabberize and Jing

Well, another conquest for Mrs. Demeter; my students will be so proud! I chose to explore Blabberize as my Web 2.0 website. I have only heard of this program before thorough one of my high school students who is in the procedure of creating a project for my class. After researching the site, I feel that this is a fun way to add a little jazz to a presentation. It is sure to get the attention of the audience! My student is researching American Romanticism; however, my area or research was figuring out how to use both Blabberize and Jing!

After playing around on Blabberize just one time I was able to figured out the procedure. It is definitely not one of those websites which takes up three hours of your time watching tutorials. I would happily advise this site to any of my students because I know it would not detract them from the topic they were presenting on.

Jing, on the other hand took a little more time to figure out. I really feel that the directions on the website are written very poorly. With just a few more words it could be a much smoother process. I had to spend at least 20 plus minutes watching tutorials on YouTube, which thank goodness were very helpful. Then I had to spend another hour or so getting the recording just right.

Now that I know the process, and see that cute little sun on the top of my computer, I feel that I will be using Jing more often. How cool would it be to record a 5 minute intro to a class and show it to all 6 of my classes while I am taking attendance? This would have them being productive right when they walk in the door… and be something unique to catch their attention.

Some Web 2.0 apps that my school library and English Department are trying to promote (*my favorites are starred):

*glogster.com:   Poster yourself - Make your interactive poster easily and share it with friends. Mix Images, Text, Music and Video. It is fantastic!  This site does have educator accounts and the capability to create log-ins for your students.  These log ins allow you to monitor all student work. *Blabberize:  This site allows you to upload any picture, record narration, and then make that picture talk.  Pretty funny! VoiceThread:  A VoiceThread is a collaborative, multimedia slide show that holds images, documents, and videos and allows people to navigate pages and leave comments in 5 ways - using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam).  *Prezi:   Prezi is a zooming story telling and presentation tool that helps you create outstanding visuals for your thoughts.  *Animoto:  Animoto turns your photos and video clips into professional video slideshows in minutes. Fast, free and shockingly simple - we make awesome easy.  *Xtranormal:  With Xtranormal, you choose from among various premade characters and scenes, decide how many actors you want, then simply type in the dialog you want them to say.  Masher:  You can "mix, mash, and share" video clips, audio files, and photos into polished movies. Students own content as well as media from the BBC Motion Gallery and Rip Curl free for the mashing, and can then be shared on social media sites or via email.  Storybird: This site provides beautiful illustrations, you provide the story.  Build your own storybook that includes professional-quality illustrations.  Wordle:  Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes.  Bibme: An online bibliography maker.  It will generate bibliographies in APA, MLA, and other styles.  Chart Tool:  Create online graphs and charts. Choose from different chart types, like: line and bar charts, pie charts, scatter graphs, XY graph and pie charts.

Click the PLAY BUTTON below to view my How-To Video:

My Take on Cloud Computing

(Above) My first reaction when thinking about what cloud computing entailed.
 However, after researching and trying to put it into my own words, this is what I have determined:



It seems to be that the word cloud has become a metaphor for the Internet. A year ago, I never would have accepted this metaphor to actually make sense. But after researching and asking around for the past week, it seems to be true!

Cloud Computing lets you access software applications, hardware, data and computer processing power over the web.  One will not need to worry about saving data themselves, or whether or not their server is going to crash. Cloud computing providers deliver applications online that are accessed from another Web service or software. It sounds like cloud computing is very similar to Web 2.0, just may be used for a little more business and industrial computing rather than the applications on Web 2.0.

Positives to cloud computing… well the MAIN and MOST USEFUL part of it, is the fact that one has the ability to use applications from multiple locations. Many of these applications are free and very helpful when people need to work together at a distance. In education, these “clouds” could provide endless experiences for students, and give them the chance to have experiences without actually traveling to the place or person the information is coming from. The idea of having learning opportunities outside of school hours is greatly increased through cloud computing.

Negatives to cloud computing include mainly include security issues. I know that in my school district we are very careful about what students can and cannot access. I can foresee problems with students wanting to use a certain application, or access work done, and our school firewall blocking them from being able to do so. I think filtering the content would be a huge undertaking, and that the thought of viruses or hacking would be more likely. Though some of the applications are free, software still needs to be purchased to protect the content for the district. It is scary for many people to think that their work (maybe a huge presentation for work) is stored “somewhere out there” and having that trust in the server or company storing your information can be hard.

Below, a great diagram on how I now look at cloud computing… (much different than my first reaction)  =)

Images found at: info.cloudprime.net, tomlambert.com

THE YEARBOOK ANGLE: DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES?

CLICK PLAY ABOVE TO FIND OUT!

Objective: Through viewing this video the student will determine whether or not he or she would like to join yearbook staff and/or pursue a career in journalism.

Thanks to all students who entered their photos to be in this project, and to Howe Street for providing the Soundtrack What Makes the World Go Round.

Well, I was pretty pumped about this week's assignments for the ole' grad class. This was the week I had been waiting for - something FINALLY in my specialty area! Since I am an English major/Journalism and Education double minor - I do the yearbook for my high school (as I have mentioned in the past). Photos are something I have been collecting for quite awhile now, and the videos I created were such a great way to show them off! What I did was ask all of my students on the yearbook staff to (at their own will) put some of what they thought to be their best photos in a folder on a drive at our school. I told them what I was going to be doing with the photos, and with their permission, added them to what I had also taken and collected from photo contests over the years. What I was stumped about was the "story" part of the video.

But then it hit me. Why not use this as a chance to promote what it is the yearbook staff does, and tell that story?!

So, to make a long story short, I created a video using Photo Story 3 and Animoto.com. When comparing and contrasting the two programs, both had their positives and negatives. See below: 

Photo Story 3:
PROS: This is a very step by step process - great for newbies like me! It led me through the process, letting me choose each photo and record audio for each slide. I also thought that when the slides/photos were compiled - the audio transitioned very well. You could barely even tell that the audio had been recorded separately.
CONS: There is definitely a lack of creativity to the slide transitions and add ons. Though the end product turned out great - other programs offer more "jazz".

Animoto:
PROS: What a fun looking website; very modern and sleek. The layout for the slides was unique, and I love how it let you see the big image of the slide to the right. Great FREE music choice! I played the video for my students and they were like, "Who sings that? I want to download that song!" Guess I just promoted Howe Street by picking that track at random. Also, what great effects and transitions! SO COOL!
CONS: Uhhhh... it really bothers me that you have to wait (and wait) for the video to process before viewing it in its entirety. There were a few times I went back to edit text and such, and then had to wait again for the video to process before I could see the final product. Very annoying. Also, what's up with the limited number of room for text. I could barely get in what I wanted to say.

My advice to newbie video makers like myself would be to play around with both. After sharing the two videos with my classes, the majority ruled that Animoto was the better of the two (maybe b/c it was that they hear my voice all day- like in the Photo Story video). We will see what the rest of the school thinks when I use the videos to promote joining the yearbook staff during enrollment later this week! Perfect timing!

 FZS YEARBOOK STAFF - CLICK PLAY FOR DIRECTIONS REGARDING DISTRIBUTION DAY.

 Music by Jason Shaw at audionautix.com.

A Much Needed Refresher...

How many times can this happen? I keep finding myself shocked at what I do not know about the very subject I am teaching my students. I guess this is what my colleagues mean when they say, “We [teachers] don’t know everything like the students think we do.” However, I guess it is better to be studying and learning new things, rather than acting like a “know it all” and teaching my high school students the wrong thing. 

One would think that a double major in English and Journalism from MTSU would ensure that I know about the differences between copyright, fair use, and creative commons licenses. But, I feel that I may not have completely grasped this concept back when I was in my undergraduate work. Since I have been asked, in my graduate program, to take a look at these concepts, I finally feel that I can explain the similarities and differences in my own words.

I assume that I am not the only instructor out there who had second guessed when we can or cannot use copyrighted materials. When lesson planning or making copies to hand out to my students, I have often wondered if what I was doing was completely legal regarding copyright laws. I also have had many questions about understanding how to leverage Creative Commons licensing (another topic I have always overlooked). Below is what I have determined:

Using Copyrighted Materials - “Fair Use” 

To better understand the topic of Copyright and Fair Use, and the special provisions that have been made for educational uses, I went through many websites, and even pulled out some of my old Journalism textbooks to refresh my memory. Something I found extremely beneficial was a website by the Columbia University Copyright Advisory Office. On that website I found a wonderful checklist that people can use if they are question whether or not something is considered fair use.

Another website that was great in explaining the details of copyright fair use was the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for Media Literacy Education web page and video. Taking a look at this site, I found it very helpful as an educator using media literacy concepts and techniques.

When thinking about how I could teach my students this (in a way they would remember), I came across the favorite of my sources; a video which uses Disney movie clips to define copyright and fair use!

Creative Commons 

Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that develops, supports, and stewards legal and technical infrastructure that maximizes digital creativity, sharing, and innovation. The slogan on their website says it all really: Share, Remix, Reuse — Legally. After reading on the Creative Commons website it seems that their licenses give you the ability to dictate how others may exercise your copyright rights; they can copy parts of your work, make derivative works, distribute it, and so on. When I first heard of Creative Commons I was skeptical, but when I realized how ideas can evolve over time, from one mind to the next, it began to make sense. I now see it as a great idea; something that really helps to expand on copyright and inspire others to use resources in ways the creators are content with. 

When looking thorough the types of Creative Commons licenses, it seemed that they each had their own definition and icons to indicate that they apply to a given work. The six types of Creative Commons licenses are: 

Attribution: This is the least restrictive license. You can distribute, remix, change, and build upon the work, even commercially, as long as you credit the original creation.

Attribution Share Alike: You can change and build upon the work, even for commercial reasons, as long as you credit the creator and license your new creation under the identical terms.

Attribution No Derivatives: Allows for redistribution, commercial and non-commercial, as long as it is passed along unchanged and in whole, with credit to the creator.

Attribution Non-Commercial:  Lets others remix, change, and build upon the work only non-commercially, and new works must acknowledge the original, but they don’t have to license those derivative works on the same terms.

Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike:  Others can remix, tweak, and build upon a work non-commercially, as long as they credit the creator and license their new creations under the identical terms. All new work based will carry the same license (derivatives will also be non-commercial in nature).

Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives: The most restrictive license. Often called the “free advertising” license because it allows others to download works and share them with others as long as they mention the source and link back to it, but they can’t change the work in any way, or use them commercially.

Creative Commons also provides tools that work in the “all rights granted” space of the public domain.  It seems that people or users of Creative Commons can mark their work as public domain, which means that is free for use by anyone for any purpose without restriction under copyright law. Public domain is said to be the “purest form of open/free, since no one owns or controls the material in any way.” 

Last but not least, another great resource, which will help my students understand the concept of Creative Commons, was a video discussing why and how people can share their creativity. I REALLY think between the Disney video (on copyright/“fair use”, above) and this, my students will be able to see the difference between the two, and understand when and when not to use a piece of work. 

In conclusion, this refresher was a much needed assignment. I plan to use my findings to create new lesson plans for my yearbook staff and literature classes. I really believe they know that it is NOT okay to use others work as their own (sometimes laziness gets in their way), but I feel they will find it very interesting, and helpful for their future, to realize that there are ways to share or use ones creativity through Creative Commons licenses.