Laura Blankenship October 30th, 2007
First, there’s this video on the Information R/evolution:
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I’m in the middle of reading Everything is Miscellaneous, which I highly recommend to anyone who regularly creates, stores, uses, or interacts with information of any kind–which is almost all of us. This video in combination with the book are really hitting home. There are challenges, of course, with information being less neatly organized. But the biggest challenge is to the idea of information organization itself. We are the organizers, not some group of gatekeepers.
Then, there’s this video about Today’s Student.
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Some very interesting information here. One thing that I thought about was the way that small liberal arts colleges really are positioned well to take advantage of information technology tools. Larger colleges and universities seem to be focused on using technology for more efficient information delivery, not for finding ways to engage students and create collaborative learning opportunities.
Laura Blankenship October 16th, 2007
These are my notes for our Video Workshop held on October 17, 2007.
Some questions we need to think about to start off with.
- Why use video or multimedia in your course?
- How do you use it? How do you want to use it?
- What about student-created media?
Answering these questions for each instance can help you decide on such practical issues as file format and size and distribution method.
File formats.
- .avi - uncompressed format; somewhat outdated; larger file size.
- .dv - also an uncompressed format, generally associated with digital video recording and mini-dv tapes
- .mov - Quicktime format, an Apple native format, can be wrapped around several different codecs
- .mp4 - similar to Quicktime format, but is a broad standard
- .mp2- Format for DVDs
- .wmv -Windows Media format, compressed format, created by Microsoft
- .swf, .flv - Flash and Flash video, compressed formats, .flv is used by YouTube
The basic process
- Source video–from DVD, VHS, miniDV, or file is imported into video editing software
- Using iMovie, FinalCut or other video editing software, video can be manipulated–cut, audio added, special effects, etc.
- Completed video is exported into a format for distribution–burned to DVD or exported into one of the above formats
- Video is distributed on hard format such as CD/DVD or posted for download or streaming on the web
Links to documentation for video editing:
Other kinds of video to work with:
- Machinima
- An Explanation and example:
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- Screen Recording–can be done with Camtasia or other available software
- How to embed YouTube videos
Laura Blankenship October 6th, 2007
bFree is an application that allows you to browse your Blackboard archives offline so you can see what’s in there before you upload it into Bb. I just discovered this app a couple of months ago and now they have a new version out. It’s free and it’s pretty easy to use. Check it out.
Laura Blankenship September 26th, 2007
For those of you unable to attend last week’s presentation on social software, here are a few resources from the talk:
Laura Blankenship September 26th, 2007
Following up on Catherine’s post about Google presentations, here’s a video that explains the basic concept and why using something like Google docs is way better than emailing documents around.
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Laura Blankenship September 14th, 2007
I’m very excited to be bringing to campus some wonderfully innovative teachers and researchers to talk about social software, Steven Greenlaw, Jean-Claude Bradley, and Jim Groom. I’ve been reading Steven Greenlaw’s blog, Pedablogy, for a number of years now. He writes about his thoughts on teaching, often right in the midst of a sticky situation (see 9/11’s entry, for example). I also met Jean-Claude Bradley via his blog and he has come to Bryn Mawr before to talk about his use of tablets. He’s been pushing the Web 2.0 envelope for quite a while now, using blogs and wikis to track research and interact with students as well as working with Second Life. Jim Groom also keeps an amazing blog. I first ran into him via a talk he gave on open source software in Academia and found what he had to say fascinating. He will likely be joining us virtually, but I think his energy will come through over the Internet.
If you’re a part of the Bryn Mawr community or going to be in the area, please feel free to come hear these three people discuss their use of Web 2.0 tools. It’s in Dalton Hall, room 20 from 2:30-4:00 on September 19th. There will, of course, be refreshments and probably a reminder or two.
Laura Blankenship September 13th, 2007
Today Mark and I talked to Leslie Madsen-Brooks from the University of California-Davis and Jerome Delacroix, a member of the editorial board for Citizendium, a wiki encyclopedia project that seeks to remedy some of the problems with Wikipedia. Their approach is to have contributors use their real names and to have an actual editorial process. They seek to get academics involved as much as possible but are open to amateur contributions as well. This conversation arose out of a blog post by Madsen-Brooks where she questioned the “gatekeeperesque” stance Citizendium has taken and its effect on marginalized groups such as women and minorities. We discuss Citizendium’s editorial process and goals as well as the issues raised by Madsen-Brooks. It’s an interesting conversation. Take a listen.
Other links:
Laura Blankenship September 10th, 2007
The schedule is up. It will probably go through a few minor changes this week as students’ schedules continue to shuffle. If you want to make sure you receive assistance, it’s best to make an appointment. Please email nml@brynmawr.edu to do so. As always, students, faculty and staff are more than welcome to use the lab on their own whenever Guild is open.
Laura Blankenship September 1st, 2007
The new school year is days away and we are trying our best to get things up and running here. The New Media Lab got all new equipment over the summer: new computers (all Mac Pros), new dvd/mini-dv recorder players, and new software. We’re still getting things put together, so things are in a bit of disarray. However, we do have working stations with working equipment–scanners, dvd players, etc.–attached to them. We just don’t have them all set up and running, so please be patient and we’ll soon have them all working. We’re also working on the schedule for student staffing, which we hope to have worked out early next week. Watch this space for more info. In the meantime, feel free to drop in and visit and use the equipment.