DV for Teachers

I found another video excerpt from a Lynda.com training video, this one about equipment for podcasting. It’s useful information for any audio production, really. The clip describes what makes good headphones good and why you’d want to use them, does the same with microphones, and then a second clip on the second page of the post demonstrates how to position the mic for optimum pickup of your voice.

A small criticism of this is needed though: the host, Scott Bourne, does a good job of showing where to place the mic and of explaining why… but he doesn’t let us hear the difference these positions would make. His own voice is recorded for the video on a lavalier clipped to the front of his shirt. I’d like to see and hear a clip that demonstrates what not to do so listeners can hear the difference for themselves. I keep telling myself I need to do some podcasting….

Here’s a nicely done screencast tutorial about the time-lapse capabilities of iMovie 06 HD. You can use a DV camera or the built-in iSight camera in later iMacs and Apple laptops. You can adjust the frame rate to whatever you want: make a 24-hour day collapse into 1 hour, 1 minute, or even 24 seconds. A class could do an interesting video of their ant farm, of some plants germinating under a grow light, or even record students in the classroom to see what their patterns of movement look like.