When you record, you simply hold the camera in your hand (it is about the size of a cell phone), push the record button and start talking.  The screen on the back is quite bright and easy to view.  When you are finished recording, you press the record button again to stop.  You can certainly take multiple clips and plan to edit them to combine or trim later.

When attempting to create the movie, I began by making the mistake of just trying to use the video straight off the camera without installing the software.  This did not work because the proper driver/codec was not installed.  I think this is going to be a problem, because my students work in a computer lab and are not able to install software.

At least if you intend to use Windows Movie Maker, the proper codec (3ivx_d4_451_win.exe), is available on the Flip camera itself.  I found this blog post helpful with respect to using the Flip and Windows Movie Maker.  I elected to go ahead and install the video editing software that comes with the camera.  There is a free upgrade available from Flip.  Once you install the driver, whether you do that with the Flip editing software or simply by installing the driver itself, you are ready to edit your video files.

Here is my movie.

All in all, I found the camera easy to use and the audio volume was certainly acceptable when you are within a couple of feet of the camera.  If you were trying to record a group of students from several feet away, you might need to boost the volume in your video editing program.  I will have to experiment with that later.

There is definitely a limit to zooming in.  Once you get within a few inches of an object, the focus is poor.  From a foot away, it was acceptable.

The verdict?  I think this camera (now approximately $125 USD) would be a good choice for a classroom teacher.  It is small and simple to use.  It does not require any accessories.  It runs on AA batteries, which are easily obtained.  I would be comfortable handing this camera to a student or group of students and having them come back with a set of video clips.  Once you have installed the proper codecs (or the video editing software provided with the camera), students would be able to add titles and edit their video easily.

The device should be undocked properly each time it is used.  The teacher might want to take care of downloading the files and placing them into the student work folder.

Here is my room (you will need the Lively plugin)

It was a little slow on my home internet connection, but I had fun choosing my room shell, furnishings, and avatar clothing. I made my avatar without hair to reflect my current state of baldness! I learned how to use the catalog and selected a number of different outfits, hairstyles, tables, chairs, and lights so that I could add things later.

I was interested to find that the catalog category with the most items seemed to be “goth”. I was more interested in “campus coffee house”. I did not find much in the way of paintings or posters that I wanted to use, and some things I chose in the catalog didn’t seem to be available once I got back to the room. But maybe I did something wrong!

I turned off the ambient sound, hoping it would remedy the “flicker” in the overlay panel, but no luck. It might be a bandwidth issue, so I will try it the next time I am on campus and have a much better internet connection.

There were quite a few items that corresponded to a classroom. Desks, tables, whiteboards, and filing cabinets. I was surprised that there were no books or laptops in the catalog! I decided that I didn’t want to build a ‘classroom” space that looked like a traditional classroom. So I went with the coffee house, an overstuffed chair, and a floor lamp. Right now, there is only enough furniture for me. I guess I need to allow people to add their own furniture!

I have, for a couple of semesters now, required all my students to get gmail accounts, primarily so that we can explore many of the google tools that are of particular use for teachers. We like to use the google spreadsheet, documents, and presentations. Maybe we will take a good look at Lively as well!

As part of the exploration and documentation process, each student posted a discussion topic in a social bookmarking forum on our Moodle course. They gave a run down of the major features and linked to the site. Then, as they gave their presentation, we all logged in and started a reply. We took notes, added questions, mentioned the things we liked, or the things we disliked as the presentation proceeded. It was rather like organized back-channeling.

The idea is that each student will be able to use our shared document from google docs, the original post, and the notes provided by every other member of the class to create a blog post reviewing this particular bookmarking service and its potential for professional or K-12 classroom use.

These reviews will be published in our community on eduspaces.net with a tag of “social bookmarking”.

At the end of the class, we voted on the social bookmarking service that we thought would best suit our needs and diigo.com won. Everyone signed up and by Monday we should have all “friended” each other and started sharing bookmarks!

I have been struggling somewhat in figuring out the most sensible order for introducing web 2.0 tools in a 3 week course. Should I start with the goal (personal learning environments) and then explore the different venues for creating a PLE? Or start with the tools and end up with a good application for using them as a professional growth tool?

In three weeks, we don’t have a lot of time to grow in our use of tools such as blogging or social bookmarking, so it seemed more reasonable to start with the tools and applications of those tools, albeit in a rather separated manner, and then end up with a glimpse of what the future might hold (the PLE).

At this moment, I have planned to begin with Social Bookmarking (how to effectively collect information and find it again later!) and then segue into blogs and wikis. We do have a few non-web-2.0 things to cover as well. I want to show the students some whiteboard/web conferencing software; eXe and basic e-learning design principles; take some time to look at e-portfolios; and get an introduction to using an LMS (moodle, in our case).

If we can, we are going to read a manuscript from a colleague and provide some feedback on topics we cover in the class. I think the students will find it interesting to correspond with the author!

I am pleased to be teaching the Advanced Technology in Schools course again.  This one doesn’t come around very often, and it is one of my favorite courses to teach.  That is probably because I learn as much as anyone!

We are working in an intense, 3 week format.  About half the work will be done on-line and half in a computer lab on campus.  We focus on web 2.0 technologies and consider how those things can be used to engage students in communication, collaboration, and reflection.

This class uses two parallel moodle courses.  One with assignments and grades, where students have the student role and the instructor has editingteacher rights.  The other is a true, shared course and everyone in the class has editingteacher rights.  We keep the resources in the shared course and part of the fun is for everyone in the class to post resources and links so they will become part of the course the next time.

We will be experiencing the usual topics–blogs, wikis, social networking applications–as well as a variety of collaborative and multimedia tools to enhance learning.  I hope that each student will, at the least, contribute new artifacts to a digital portfolio and, at most, embark upon the creation of a personal learning environment woven together with a variety of tools.

We use a shared blog on eduspaces.net, mostly because there are some social networking tools there and I have been a member of that community for some time.  Hopefully, some other eduspaces members will drop in and comment on the student’s posts from time to time.

So if you are interested in technology and education and have a mind to do so,  please join the csc3315 community at eduspaces and participate with us!  We will be active for the remainder of the month of May (2008).

I follow a few people on twitter, and I like to follow them on their own blogs also. Some cross posting goes on. For example, here you can see a twitter widget in my sidebar. I frequently see tweets that announce a new post (which is interesting, because sometimes I see the tweets BEFORE I get the post in my rss aggregator).

Terry’s post today is one of those. I saw his tweet on the BBC story and then later saw, through my aggregator, that he had posted on it. I “clicked over” to read it in full and commented at length. So I thought I would re-post my comment over here and perhaps develop my thoughts more in time.

I find twitter interesting also. So far my observations are that it seems to be a lot more personal than the blogs I follow. I follow several people on their blogs AND on twitter. It seems to me that when blogs first started, many of them were about “what I did today”. My guess is that blogs that “held up”, or are still active over a long period of time are more geared toward thoughtful reflection, news, and substantive issues (at least to the author). After all, how much navel-gazing can most people stand? To have a real conversation or feel that you are reaching people, you must soon branch out beyond yourself! (Well, unless you are a movie star. I guess there is ENDLESS fodder in celebrity lives).

So will twitter follow? Right now, I see a lot of tweets that are stream of consciousness and much to do with “I am at Starbucks”, “I am stuck in traffic”. I really LIKE the tweets with links, such as “I found this cool new website”. There is a thriving development environment producing tweet managing software–seems like a new one every day! (another thing you can follow on twitter, since posting sources are embedded in the tweets). So I am interested to see what the future brings. Will microblogging influence blogging? Or will tweet managers make twitter more like WordPress?

I think I have just inspired myself and I had better go post this whole rant on my own blog! : )

I am going to use tiddlyspot.com for messing about with tiddly wiki. I am sure it will be a sight to induce sore eyes for some time to come, but I have some ideas and a server based solution seems most practical. The only problem is that I don’t seem to be able to create student logins attached to mine, but perhaps I will work around that. I can just have more than one tiddlywiki!

http://awyatt.tiddlyspot.com/ for now!

http://moodle.org/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=77059

I also see our ELGG use as being affected by this law.� The walled garden might be insufficient!� I have been informed that at least two German institutions and Dialoge are already working on a plan to improve Moodle’s privacy controls; this plan might be ready later this fall.

I� read the act to say that Directory information (which includes name) can be published UNLESS the student opts out.� I assume that means that names can be used throughout electronic systems at the course level, the institutional level, and even the public level unless the students opts out.� So “opting out” is a problem.

The second part of the problem involves “educational records”, which includes grades, comments that can be identified (hits forums and other student activities), and student submissions for assignments.�

I know of no way in either Moodle OR Elgg to opt out directory information for an individual student other than to manually give them an alias.� I could do that at my institution, but that might be problematic for a large institution.� My second question is does “opt out” only affect disclosure at the public level, or does it affect disclosure at the institutional level, or the course level? I think the best way to solve this problem is to allow students to check a box on the profile page that says “hide my profile”.� We don’t put any information in the profile anyway, except what is necessary to make the account work.

I have a lot of thinking to do about this. Fortunately, I have a supportive registrar who will think along with me, as well as make a lot of documentation available!� She has struggled with these issues for a long time.

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We decided to use bubble.us as a concept mapping tool.� It is very easy to use and allows for collaboration.� We wanted something that was hosted and free!� Since there are only two of us working on this, it didn’t seem appropriate to ask our IT department to install a server version (although I have some real interest in cmap).

You can see her blog post with the link here:

http://cs1.mcm.edu/experimental/elgg/youn10/weblog/10.html

It takes you straight to a public version of the map.� In this software, you don’t set permissions.� Evidently, if you embed the generated link to the map, you make it public.� If you don’t put the link out there, you will have to log in and have permission to view the map.� The security seems fine and simple besides!

Drag to navigate.� If you scroll, you change the zoom not the position!�

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So far, she has posted twice.� She was very receptive to the idea of using a reflective academic blog to capture the thesis process.� I haven’t shown her the extras, like categories, files, and presentation, but she may discover them on her own!�

I did show her a couple of academic blogs, and we discussed some of the citation conventions–embedding links, listing references at the end of the post.� I can certainly see elgg as an excellent support tool for honors students doing research.� I think they might enjoy the community blogs as well as the reflective academic blog.

At this time, she is not making her blog public (restricted to logged in users on our system).� In the end, however, we may change that.� It seemed wisest to start out slowly!� We will invite the director of the honors program by after we have some more substantial content.�

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