BP4_Google Services

I have been laser focused on Google lately.  Brand names are a big part of modern living.  Pepsi or Coke… water.  Burger King or McDonald's… Taco-Bell.  Google has created a brand that folks believe in.

Students & parents that feel technology related anxiety might be comforted by the brand.  Students & parents are familiar with Google; they have been using the search engine for years.  Just the aesthetic of the Google logo might improve attitudes and we all know attitude is everything.

My advertisement is intended to show students & parents how many services & products they have access to using their Google accounts.  The add is intended to be humorous, attempting to relieve any techno-anxiety.

When integrated through iGoogle the various products & services blend together into one very powerful tool.  Students are sure to appreciate the opportunity to express themselves with the variety of themes, settings, & services available.

Google's stature in the technology universe is another benefit.  Google will reflect trends.  Indeed, Google will set trends.  This allows students to utilize mainstream functions & relatively ubiquitous control settings. After all, we don't want our students merely learning how to use applications.  We want our students to learn how to learn applications on their own.

So much that we cover in school is mere hoop jumping.  Students learn information because they have a test, not because of any intrinsic motivations.  Students are creating a tool that they can keep for the rest of their lives when they start a Google account.  Ideally the services meet student needs other than just those of an academic nature.  Google can integrate into student lives.

PE3_iMovie

I finished the tutorial & its twelve minutes long.  I considered splitting the movie into two parts, one for gmail & one for blogger, but thought better of it.  The reason being that the goal is to get my students blogging.  The google account is a means to that end.

I am not happy with the resolution.  Going forward I will create videos in the highest resolution & convert them to fit whatever platform they are shared on.  I am happy with the audio quality I achieved.  The movie didn't seem to necessitate normalization of my narration or the music.  I feel lazy using apple's jingle instead of creating music, but I don't feel that impacts quality.

Please let me know how effective this video is at delivering instructions for starting a blog.  Could I send this video home as homework?  What could I add to make this more clear?

My experience editing video so far has taught me one thing for certain.  Videos always takes longer to create than you think they will.  Details are what make videos high quality.  Hopefully over time I will start to develop tricks to speed my workflow.  Purchasing a copy of final cut pro is also important.  I don't know how much the learning I do for iMovie will transfer to editing with the more advanced software.  Much of what chews up time when editing is watching footage.  I need to get good at forwarded right to the part of a clip that needs to be edited, rather than watching the same footage over & over needlessly.

PE2_iMovie

So I'm editing my introduction to iGoogle course & have completed an arduous task.  As I demonstrate how to create an account there have been a few elements that have needed to be blurred out.  On one screen I needed to blur an email address on another my cell phone number.  This process is not as easy as one would think.  Neither Screenflow or iMovie has this capacity.  When I purchased Screenflow 3 today I thought this feature was advertised, but I can't find the function.  There is, however, a way to make this happen in iMovie.

<SHIFT> <COMMAND> <4>  allows you to take a screen capture of the shot you need to blur part of.  Open that image in Photoshop, copy & paste it into a new image & inverse select the portion of the screen you wish to blur.  After making the inverse selection press delete.  Blur the remaining image until it is unintelligible.  Save this image as a PNG, then drag it onto the shot in iMovie.  Make sure you remove the Ken Burns effect.  If you want this to look professional, it takes some time.  Also you cant place an opaque image in front of a passcode field as you type; that would be the ideal functionality for my purposes.

This little maneuver is a great example of individualized learning.  I earned the iMovie certificate last month and how to blur a small portion of the screen was not covered.  After searching around for help I found this tutorial  which really broke it down.  Now I need to find a video on how to hack the X-BOX motion detector device.  Please let me know if you find one.  

PE1_iMovie

My adventure in video production started with obstacles using screen flow.  I , like every good fanboy, recently installed OSX lion on my macbook pro.  I love it & the new spaces interface allows for great visuals when filming your desktop.  The only problem is that ScreenFlow was not working.  My cursor was captured but everything else was black.

$29.99 I'm upgraded to ScreenFlow 3 & all is well.  I am creating a video that will model creation of a blogger account.  I have elected to record sound later when editing in iMovie.  I considered using the automatic clicking sound, but prefer to use the radar effect to represent my clicks.  If you are going to use these features remember that it is important to know exactly what you need to click because they highlight every click.  Stray clicks can confuse your audience.

Even creating simple screen flow films requires meticulous preparation.  I had to create a number of accounts before I had a clear workflow to film.  Creating this tutorial has also made me more aware of the logistics for using Google applications in a K12 environment.  I can't imagine the time & planning that goes into big budget motion picture production.

After almost ten tries & three gmail accounts I managed to get the footage I want.  There is about fifteen minutes of raw footage.  I am guessing the final walkthrough video will use seven minutes or less, but that is only based on my prior videos.  This tutorial is more complex. Now I will export this raw footage to my desktop, then import it into iMovie.

BP2_Lists

Web 2.0 brings what seems an endless amount of new tools that educators can use to help students.  At staff development meetings all over the United States, indeed all over the world, teachers are being pointed to applications to use in the classroom.  There are so many new apps with educational potential they can all blend together like the cacophonous roar of a stadium crowd, powerful but without focus.  I, like many digital educators, keep a long list of Web 2.0 applications with great potential.  Pondering over the list I fear that so many possibilities may cause teachers to, as some cowboys say, put their socks on over their boots.  First things first. For students to benefit from Web 2.0 curriculum they must first remember to do their work.

To this ends I recommend use of a Google gadget titled simply Lists.  I know, I know, what a simple application, but how simple is it to get students to remember their homework.  Students desperately need agendas that can't be lost or forgotten in their lockers.  Lists  simply saves to do lists that can be pulled up on any computer with internet.  Lists can be made for different categories, so perhaps teachers may prefer individual lists for each class.  Items can be prioritized as low, medium, or high priority.  Once an item is completed it can be checked off.  The item remains listed but crossed out, allowing for that cathartic feeling many get from scratching items off paper lists. Teachers can share a list so students don't even need to enter items themselves.  Lists only requires that students & parents remember the same password that is used for any other google applications they use, such a gmail. When added to an iGoogle page or coupled with Google Calendar, Lists gains even more power.  At the heart of this suggestion however, Lists is a simple tool that will help students get their work done.

BP3 Google Screen Shots

BP1_Welcome to my Blog

As a language arts teacher blogging is certainly an activity that could & should be a part of my curriculum.  One thing that is really useful in teaching students to write is a sense of audience.  Blogging gives students a sense that their work will be read by more than just their teacher.  This leads to more intrinsic motivation, which is a theme I have noticed in quality educational media.  Additionally, blogging allows students to practice writing for the new media; they must address visual even auditory elements as they blog.  Journals create a sea of clutter: looseleaf paper, binders, journals etcetera.  Using blogs rather than paper eliminates this problem & makes it easier to keep student work organized.  Additionally, parents always have the opportunity to check out their child's work.  This blog will be an opportunity to practice blogging myself before asking my students to do so.