Animoto

Posted on May 13, 2009 by slav

Say goodbye to boring old slideshows with Animoto. Animoto takes your images, adds music and turns them all into a slick professional style video.

Animoto home

You can upload images from your computer, or select those already stored on Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, SmugMug and Facebook. You can add text and then you can select music from Animoto’s collection or upload your own from your computer. Images can be reordered at any time and text can be edited. Selected pictures can be ‘spotlighted’. When uploading music from your own source, you are reminded to check that you have the right to do so. If you decide to use a song from Animoto’s collection, the songs are arranged by genres and you can listen to a sample before you decide to select it or not. Before you know it, your images are presented in an engaging way, set to a rocking track.

Educational case studies

Animoto has a special ‘Education’ section, where educators can sign up and give students an access code. This enables students to upload videos to Animoto, purely for the class (or whoever is given the code) to see.

As per most Web 2.0 tools, Animoto basic is free, but there are upgrade options for people who want to make longer videos, burn videos to DVD and so on. For most of us, the basic package will suffice as it enables the user to get an embed or copy code for embedding into blogs and wikis or copying to a multitude of sites. The best thing about Animoto is that is is very easy to use. The site is extremely well designed and intuitive, making it a pleasure to use.

Have a look at this video, which was literally produced in ten minutes. Finalised videos can be uploaded to YouTube, as well as embedded in blogs and other websites.

AudioBoo

Posted on April 30, 2009 by slav

AudioBoo is an audio blogging site that uses mobile phones as a recording device. At present only iPhones and iPod touch can access AudioBoo as an app. Recorded Boos can be accessed via the AudioBoo website or links from sites like Twitter .

AudioBoo homepage

Although in the initial stages on development, and as such the website is a bit messy, interested people can subscribe to Boos through RSS. Boos can also be embedded into blogs and wikis via an embed code similar to YouTube embed codes.

Here is a Boo by Stephen Fry:

AudioBoo could have as many different learning applications as podcasts, but with the ease of uploading quickly and easily via mobile phone. It seems that the Boos on the website are all fairly short at present and so seem to be a Twitter style ‘microaudioblog’ or is that ‘audiomicroblog’?

And isn’t is so nice to hear a lovely voice like Stephen Fry’s?

AudioBoo people are currently in the development stage of users being able to record via any mobile or landline phone. Here’s hoping for the ability to record directly from a computer!

Totlol

Posted on December 16, 2008 by slav

Just in time for the holidays, but with educational applications too, comes the fabulous Web 2.0 resource Totlol.

Labelled YouTube for toddlers, Totlol uses videos from YouTube that have been selected by parents/educators as appropriate for children aged 6 months to grade school (primary school). Videos are then placed in a queue to be moderated by other Totlol members before they are uploaded and available for public viewing.

Parents or teachers that are still concerned about the possibility of inappropriate content can set filters, parent locks and timers (so that children do not watch videos for too long).

As with sites like Hakia, Totlol’s viability really depends on the community helping to build it by recommending videos to be added to the site. Totlol is a brilliant idea as there are so many useful and educational videos on YouTube, but YouTube users are meant to be aged 13 and up. Parents/educators worried abour questionable videos available on YouTube can now breathe a sigh of relief!

Thanks to Gerald Brown via IASL listserv for the heads up on this great resource.

Google Lit Trips

Posted on November 20, 2008 by slav

Google Lit Trips is a fun Web 2.0 tool where students can make a map of journeys taken by characters in a novel.

Google Lit Trips

Using Google Earth to create the maps, students can then upload their own map to share with others. There are a range of ‘lit trips’ already available to view, however, Google Earth must be downloaded onto your computer to view them successfully. The site has a range of tips on how to ‘build better lit trips’ and how to integrate them into the curriculum.

Google Lit Trips could be a great tool for English classes and bookclubs, with lit trips currently available from lower primary to upper secondary and beyond. Two YouTube videos show exactly how to use Google Lit Trips:

Google Lit Trips YouTube video part 1

Google Lit Trips YouTube video part 2

Feature wiki – Whitefriars College, Donvale

Posted on November 15, 2008 by slav

Whitefriars College teacher librarian Karen Kearney has developed a wicked wiki for VCE classes! Karen outlines the development of the resource; ‘The Theatre Studies boys at our school have been studying Wicked – The Untold Story of the Witches of Oz as part of their curriculum. It’s one of the plays on our VCE list.’

Wicked front page

Karen explains how the wiki came about. ‘Earlier this year I attended the SLAV Conference featuring Will Richardson. Closely following this, all of Whitefriars College Library Staff, along with another staff member, completed the SLAV Web 2.0 “23 Things” course. These PD activities gave me many ideas of different and exciting ways in which information could be presented. Having already started blogging, I decided to try my hand at a Wiki.

‘Wikis have been used in the past at Whitefriars College. We have been a laptop computer school for many years now, and have a great intranet. Wikis for classroom use have been developed as part of the intranet, but I wanted something on the internet which many people could share.’

Karen continues, ‘Setting up a wiki really couldn’t have been simpler. Wikispaces was suggested as a good location for an educational Wiki. Following my first effort I found myself with a nice Wiki, complete with advertisements all down the side! After discussion with a colleague, I discovered that Wikispaces offer a place where teachers can create a Wiki without fees, and without advertising, for educational purposes.’

Karen says, ‘I have long had an interest in musical theatre, and was delighted to hear from our Theatre Studies boys that they were going to study Wicked – The Untold Stories of the Witches of Oz, as part of their VCE curriculum. I have seen the show on Broadway, and our Australian production, so knew it well. Furthermore, technical aspects of theatre fascinate me so I set out to find many articles on the Internet which take a back stage look at the show. I came up with many relevant articles, interviews, reviews, podcasts and YouTube videos, all of which discuss different aspects of the show. This information supports, and extends, that already provided by the Theatre Studies teacher.

Costumes, lighting, set design

‘The Teacher Librarian in me wanted to bring a reading perspective to the Wiki, and so I added a page about Gregory Maguire, the author of the book Wicked. Several of his books are listed there, as is his web site. Perhaps this might encourage some of our students to explore his other work.‘

Gregory Maguire's books

Finally, when the Wiki was near completion, Karen sent the link to the Theatre Studies class, their teacher, and other students and teachers she thought would be interested. She then sent an email to the OZTL_Net Teacher Librarians list, asking that anyone who wished to share the link should do so with their students and teachers. Karen does warn potential users that ‘YouTube video links have been included and I’m aware that not all schools will be able to view those.’

Thanks to Karen for sharing her valuable resource with us! Well done Karen.

21st Century learning

Posted on November 12, 2008 by slav

Continuing on with Professor Stephen Heppell’s talk on 21st Century learning at the State Library of Victoria on Monday 10th November, Stephen outlined the 21st Century as ‘people centric’ where ‘helping people help each other’ is leading to the mass social construction of knowledge. People adding entries and editing Wikipedia, creating content in LibraryThing, YouTube, Flickr and the like (my examples) means that we (and our students) ‘are in a world we haven’t met before’. Stephen says ‘it’s time for schools to run, not follow’.

A recent UK survey by Ipsos asked students how they were currently learning in school. The responses were something like:

Copying from books or the whiteboard (approximately 50% of respondents).
Taking notes from a long teacher talk (approximately 30% of respondents).
Copying from the Internet (approximately 20% of respondents).

When asked how they would like to learn, the responses were:

Learning in groups.
Learn by doing practical things.
Learning with friends.
Learn by using a computer.

When asked what they would like their teachers to be able to do, they responded:

Edit a Wikipedia entry.
Upload a video to YouTube and make a comment.
Subscribe to a podcast.
Manage groups in Flickr (and be able to spell Flickr).
Select a safe online payment site.
Turn mobile phone predictive text on/off.

Certainly food for thought, not only for teachers but also for school administrators. For a recording of Stephen’s session with Victoria’s Department of Education and Early Childhood Development’s Knowledge Bank, click here.

To read more about what Stephen has been involved in, his thoughts and projects, please follow these links:

Plurk

Posted on November 11, 2008 by slav

Plurk is a tool that enables members to have an online social conversation with multiple friends. You can join conversations by topic, or use the micro blogging tool to send ‘plurks’ which use a maximum of 140 characters (like Twitter). Updates from friends are shown on your page as a timeline in chronological order.

Homepage

Plurk’s aim is to introduce a balance between blogs and wikis, instant messaging and email. Users of the micro blogging tool use verbs to explain how they are feeling.

Example

There is a great wiki that lists schools and other educational institutions that are using Plurk. The wiki provides links to the projects that the schools are undertaking, and currently there are at least seven Australian schools, with three of those from Victoria. Many of the projects linked to the wiki are outstanding and definitely worth investigating. If you like the sound of Plurk and you’d like to learn more about how it works, click here.

Diigo

Posted on October 15, 2008 by slav

Diigo (pronounced Deego) is a Web 2.0 tool that lets users bookmark, highlight and add sticky notes to web pages. You can add and share (or not share if you don’t want to) annotations and get recommendations from other users. You are able to publish easily from Diigo to your blog or email and all references will automatically appear. That’s a huge bonus in this day of plagiarism. Diigo even call their tools ‘the best companion for online research’ and that’s a big call. Is it warranted?

Diigo

The Diigo blog states ‘We are happy to announce the release of Diigo Educator Accounts, a suite of features that makes it incredibly easy for teachers to get their entire class of students or their peers started on collaborative research using Diigo’s powerful web annotation and social bookmarking technology.’ You do have to apply to Diigo for an educator account upgrade and it can take up to 48 hours for them to process your application (you have to fill out how/why you want to use Diigo in your school).

Diigo has to be downloaded to your toolbar, but it is a very quick process. Diigo says, ‘Once approved for a Diigo Educator Account:

A teacher can create student accounts for an entire class with just a few clicks (and student email addresses are optional for account creation)
Students of the same class are automatically set up as a Diigo group so they can start using all the benefits that a Diigo group provides, such as group bookmarks and annotations, and group forums.
To protect the privacy of students, student accounts have special settings which only allow their teachers and classmates to contact them and access their personal profile information.
Ads presented to student account users are limited to education-related sponsors.’

Sounds like it’s worth a look and a trial with a class. Anything that helps students research and acknowledge sources is worth pursuing. Have a look at the video that explains how Diigo works: How to use Diigo. And thanks to John Pearce of Salty Solutions for this guide to Diigo.

School Library Association of Victoria

Tag Archives: Youtube

Animoto

AudioBoo

Totlol

Google Lit Trips

Feature wiki – Whitefriars College, Donvale

21st Century learning

Plurk

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