Well, I spent a great deal of time on the weekend working on creating a DVD of video and images from a trip I took with my wife to Vegas over Spring Break this year. The software that I used was NTI CD and DVD Maker. I have it on both my laptop and my desktop because they are both Acer computers (yes, I’m cheap… we can’t all afford Macs). After several attempts I realized that in this program it’s not possible to burn both video and images onto the same DVD. It just won’t work. Believe me, I tried. In the end I chose to do one of each. The video that I used was of the show they put on down on Freemont Street. It’s really quite something if you’ve never seen it (your neck will get sore but it’s worth it). The second DVD I made was simply a selection of pictures we took while we were there organized into a playable slide show.
I’m pretty sure that the instructions meant for me to be able to create a video and a slide show on the same DVD which is why I spent so much time trying to do both on one. Maybe I misunderstood but the program I was using wouldn’t allow me to do that. All in all, it was an enjoyable experience. Once I came to the realization that my program had limitations I was able to work with it. I’m going to have to experiment some more.
During my time in this program I have become far more familiar with weblogs than I had been before. I actually find them to be an easy way for people to have a presence online. I know for someone like me who doesn’t have alot off html experience (although I’ve been learning in ETEC 590 with my ePortfolio – boy, is that a steep learning curve!) it’s a great way to be able to express myself online (and meet course requirements!). I think this would be a great way for teachers to have a web resource for their students. The amount of time required to set one up and maintain it as compared to a webpage is considerably less and requires less knowledge.
I browsed through some of the educational weblogs and found them quite interesting. I could easily spend a considerable amount of time going through them and reading all that they have to say. I like that the comments section of a blog allows for a healthy discussion of issues in the blog. The content in these blogs is quite varied; everything from teaching techniques and latest news stories about education, to selling books on education. If I were to set up a blog outside of a graduate course, I would probably use one as a resource for my classes that I teach. At this point, though, I really like how Moodle works so I think I would probably use that as a class resource in my teaching.
I have done one course in this program, ETEC 522, that was completely set up within a blog format. I actually did not enjoy the experience as much as I did using Blackboard and WebCT Vista. I found the reverse linear nature of the course framework harder to follow than the design of Vista. Blogs are great for a number of different topics but I just didn’t feel that it worked well as a course framework.
Overall, I’ve been pleased with using a blog as a reflective repository for what I have learned in this course. I like that I can quickly go in and put down my thoughts without having to worry too much about design or technical issues. For this purpose, I think a blog is great. I think we’re going to see more and more blogs out there and that should help people find a voice online who normally wouldn’t.
Well, I finally finished the video for my Moodle course. It has been quite the adventure. I have filmed, edited, and rendered numerous times and experienced several different levels of frustration that I didn’t know existed. To make a long story short, I don’t own a good video camera (unless you count my little Kodak EasyShare). What I decided to do was a Camtasia video of one of my lessons I do in my Social Studies 11 course. It’s about the Demographic Transition Model. What is that you ask? Well, I will show you. After I’m done explaining how I came to my final product. You’ll just have to wait. I need to vent.
My first attempt turned out fine but there were some problems. It was too big to upload directly into Moodle. Then I uploaded it into Youtube and embedded it into my Moodle course. All good, right? Not so fast. Part of my video was a screencast of a flash animation that I use in my class with me explaining how it works. It is from a third party source and is free for educational use. I thought, this should be okay. Then I went back and looked at the terms of use. It seemed okay at first blush. It said I could use it for educational purposes. I figured this fits in. Then it said that it couldn’t be hosted on another server and here I am, I have the thing uploaded on Youtube. Not exactly a closed shop! I completed this yesterday. I had a sleepless night worrying if perhaps I had infringed on copyright and thinking that this would be a pretty stupid way to finish my last two weeks in the whole MET program (oh, that’s right, 590 is beckoning at the same time).
So, after dropping my son off at art camp this morning (cartooning, soapstone carving, and airbrushing – interesting combination but he’s having fun), I came home, deleted the whole video from Youtube and my Moodle site and then spent several hours creating a Demographic Transition Model in Microsoft Excel. That only took a few hours! Then I had to re-film myself explaining how it worked, re-edit it, re-render it, re-upload it, and re-insert it in my Moodle course (I think I may have just set a record for the number of times the prefix re- has been used in succession)! Long story short, I feel much better about this video than I did about the other one (which is now in my recycling bin {there’s that prefix again!}).
In the end, for my first attempt at creating and uploading a video (okay, I guess it was my third or fourth but I’m counting successful, copyright free creations) I was pretty happy with the final product. I’m including it here for your perusal.
I haven’t had a lot of experience with synchronous chat platforms. In previous courses I have used things like Elluminate rooms and the Wimba platform. Of the two, I much preferred Elluminate. I found the interface to be easier to use and the whiteboard feature was nice too. In one Elluminate session I was in, one of the participants shared her desktop with us so we could all look at the same page at the same time while discussing it. I did set up a synchronous chat tool within my Moodle course shell and found it quite easy to set up. I played around with it a bit and found that it worked fine. I’m not sure how much I would use this in my current teaching context but it’s nice to know that the option is there and that I can make use of it if I feel so inclined.
This week’s discussion within a wiki environment was a little different than our usual discussions that we hold within the Vista course shell. The wiki space felt like we were flying without a net because the whole process seemed a little more self (or group) directed. One of the group members immediately created a new space within the wiki that seemed a little more user friendly for the group and the discussion took off from there. I found that the wiki discussion almost felt like we were talking outside of the class. I realize that we were still under the umbrella of the course but it felt a little less formal.
I think the advantages to this type of discussion environment is first of all, the easily editable (not edible) nature of the platform. It’s less structured and more fluid in it’s use. Another advantage I see is that there is a greater sense of student ownership of the discussion because you are creating the discussion. In a way it reminded me of collaboratively editing a document in Google docs or sharing ideas on a whiteboard in an Elluminate room.
I can see some challenges to this format as opposed to the threaded discussion forums that we usually use in Vista. It is a little easier to follow the discussion in a threaded format, particularly when the discussion takes off in different directions. You can follow each of these tangents individually through the discussion thread rather than scrolling through a linear discussion that may jump around with the topic. I also found it a little difficult navigating to the wiki space every time because I’d have to go into the module instructions ( I guess I could have bookmarked it but that would have made far too much sense). Overall, though I enjoyed the experience.
Okay, I’ve spent way too much time trying to get my website up on Bravenet and I’m having zero success. I haven’t found the site to be at all helpful. Either I’m completely missing something or the site isn’t very intuitive. I’m going to investigate some other options before I give up.
Okay, I just learned something. If I click the link to my ePortfolio when I am not logged into my courses then all that appears is the text and nothing else. I’m going to have to try uploading it to one of the free hosting sites and see if that works. I’ll get back to you with the results.
Well, I thought I could kill 2 birds with 1 stone here by reflecting on my experience setting up my draft ePortfolio for ETEC 590. I spent the weekend drawing it up in Dreamweaver and found the experience to be sometimes frustrating. This is mainly because I have no knowledge of html. In the end after several hours of work I managed to upload my draft ePortfolio and found it functioned quite well.
In terms of labour intensive I found it very labour intensive. I finally had a friend drop by and in the space of an hour he saved me several hours of work by going into the code and making the necessary changes to make my webpage work. I’m pretty sure I understand what he did but I don’t know that I could replicate it without him there to help me. I found myself questioning my use of Dreamweaver as I wondered if it was beyond my scope but in the end I was satisfied with the draft ePortfolio. Here is a link to my ePortfolio draft:
I’ve removed the link to my eportfolio in ETEC 590 becasue every time I re-upload it to Vista the address changes.
Hopefully it works because it is within the Vista course shell. I can see that I still have a lot to learn about webpage creation but I guess it’s one of those things that you won’t learn unless you try it again and again.
Well, I’ve completed the communication tools assignment. I chose a discussion forum and a chat space within the Moodle course shell for my Social Studies 11 living standards project. I chose to stay within the Moodle framework becasue I’m not that terribly knowledgeable in communication tools. I’ve never used Skype, don’t use MSN or any other similar animal, and I don’t use chat rooms. I’m honestly way too busy in life to take the time to use these tools. That being said, I definitely can see their appeal. I actually found myself looking forward to getting the opportunity to try these out with an actaul class of Social Studies students.
Now that I’ve spent a bit of time working within Moodle I’m getting eager to try it out next year. Our district is introducing Moodle in September so I hope to be using much of what I’ve learned here next school year. I’ve chosen to focus on a human geographyunitb in this course for two reasons. First, it’s one of the more interesting units, and secondly, it’s what I always start the course with so I’m hoping to migrate over some of what I develop during this course over to a district Moodle shell for use in September.
Well, I’ve just completed my first attempt with the Audacity software for audio capture. Overall, I found that the process went very smoothly with no glitches. The installation of the software was very easy and there was a link on the website to the LAME MP3 software that also installed very easily. Once I had made my recording I saved it as an MP3 on my destop and then played it back in Windows Media Player. Everything worked flawlessly. If I was surprised by anything it was how well it worked. I really didn’t find it that labour intensive or challenging. The instructions in the e-learning toolkit were very clear so it was easy.