DV for Teachers

PaulStamatiou.com » The Definitive Flock Beta 1 Review

I really want to read this, but don’t have time today. Maybe this weekend; one hopes.

The Blind Cool Tech Podcasts are quite interesting – podcasts for and often by the blind. From their FAQ:

What is Blind Cool Tech?

Blind Cool Tech is a podcast that brings some fun, education, and variety into your mp3 player. The show provides interviews, brings you along on sound seeing tours, and discusses life and cool technology, especially technology that blind people can use.

Their current selection of podcasts, all of which are downloadable from the site above as MP3s, include soundscapes (including a slow train, a thunderstorm, and others), the responsibilities of using a guide dog, tests of various recording equipment, coffee-making, recipes, and more. Sighted or not, a site worth checking out.

TiffanyScreens

Tiffany Screens is a presentation tool, able to capture the content of the presenter’s screen and send it to multiple other computer screens at the same time. Any computer can seamlessly become the presenting computer, no matter if connected wirelessly or through an Ethernet cable.

Via FreeMacWare. This seems pretty nice, but I’m reluctant to test it on our network; our security folk might freak. If you try it, let me know what you think.

The ED-TECH list has an excellent list of ideas for a Computer Troubleshooting Class. One of the biggest difficulties we find is that people – ourselves included – know a lot less about technology than we think we do. Use these ideas as a checklist for your workshops and for your own skills.

This Instructables project, High Speed Flash Photography, looks like a great science fair project for someone. Pay attention to the warnings about discharging the capacitor on the disposable camera’s flash unit, though… 300 volts is nothing to sneeze at.

Welcome to online FreeSoftware Mac User Group: FreeSMUG

A nicely organized – if occasionally misspelled – site listing and linking to free and open source software for Mac.

Lunacore Photoshop Training – Photoshop Tutorials

A whole bunch of thorough, screenshot-filled, step-by-step Photoshop tutorials. Great way to learn about this overwhelming application.

dvworkshops.com
Importance of the Big Picture, Story Question and Building the “Sound Bite Train”

The latest newsletter from Aron Ranen’s San Francisco-based DVworkshops: with good ideas for organizing your project during and after you shoot.

The elusive multi-device video format at bioneural.net

So here is the challenge: What combination of video codec, audio codec, and container will produce a video (with sound) that can be played back on a Mac, a Windows PC, a Palm, a Pocket PC, and an iPod?… Was that an artery I just burst?

I’m still looking too… though this article explains beautifully several encoding processes that work on most of those platforms, but not on all of them at the same time. Bookmark this one if you produce compressed video on the Mac for different platforms.

Andy Carvin: TeacherSource | learning.now . What’s the Fuss About FOSS?Part 1: An Intro to Free and Open Source Software | PBS

But what exactly is open source, and why should you care about it? This week, I’ll be exploring the issue in two blog posts, with a little assistance from edtech guru David Thornburg, who’s just published a book on the subject. Today’s post will focus on the basics of free and open source software (FOSS).

Andy’s a very sharp writer, bringing considerable expertise and sensitivity to technology and education. An important aspect of whether or not to use open source is open file formats. A proprietary format – documents you need Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat to edit or even read, videos that require Apple QuickTime or Windows Media Player to view – means you have to pay someone to look at or change what you have created. As long as the tools are widely available, that’s great. But what if, in 20 years time, you want to show your grandchildren a video made this year, or to read a letter you write today – will they have the proprietary software that will allow it? File formats and their longevity are becoming more important as the online world develops a real history. Adopting FOSS for its open file formats looks like one viable response to this.