DV for Teachers

I didn’t even know Movie Maker was missing features. We still have XP on our lab PCs, so we don’t have the latest Movie Maker. I don’t configure the PCs in our labs—so glad someone else has that enviable job—but I teach workshops on Windows Movie Maker. The newer versions have lost functions I take for granted, most importantly capture from DV via Firewire. We’ve just gotten some Flip cameras for student use, but most of our cameras are still DV-tape-based, and we have DV decks on 11 workstations. My usual browse of Lifehacker brought this portable version of Windows Movie Maker to my attention yesterday:

Based on version 2.1 of Windows Movie Maker, Portable Windows Movie Maker not only lets you use the missing features on Vista and Windows 7 systems, but it includes the missing transitions and effects from Windows XP, as well as several additional features to boot. Portable and stand-alone, you can use it when you need removed features, like analog capture, without messing with your current version of Windows Movie Maker.

Via Lifehacker which was via Download Squad which was via instant fundas which was via dvrexster who gives credit to winmatrix.

A quick post on my day off to HyperTRANSCRIBE 1.5, an inexpensive at $99 QuickTime-based transcription tool. Many in our college need such tools, and they have a Windows version. Must look into this.

I’ve been screwing up.

I’ve taught basic workshops on Windows Movie Maker for years now, usually early in the semester. When they work on their assigned projects weeks later, too many students don’t correctly back up their unfinished video projects. They think the Project.MSWMM file is all they need, and don’t back up the video clips that go with that project. So, when they try to finish on another machine, either at home or on another PC in the labs, they see the big red X’s instead of their video clips. Result? FAIL. Must figure out how to make this clearer, but for now, find the steps after the jump.

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I am looking forward to working as a judge a the Georgia Student Media Festival on May 1st. They’ve posted several samples from last year’s Georgia festival. The International Student Media Festival is the goal of the Georgia competitors, and they have posted work from past winners. There are even more posted on SchoolTube
I signed up yesterday, and there’s lots of information on the site:

The purpose of the festival is to stimiulate student interest and involvement in all types of media production. This is accomplished by providing an opportunity for students to show their work to an interested audience, to have their work critiqued by a panel of expert judges, and to be stimulated by the work of other students.

The students worked really hard on the samples I’ve viewed, and I’ll watch more before the Festival. I’ll try to blog a bit from the competition, but more for sure on this the week after!

This post is “sticky,” so it will stay on top of the other news until I make the final change.

You may see some weird layouts here until I finish adapting the new design here. More after the jump. (more…)

The Free Music Archive offers really free music, and it was picked by people! Via Paul Lamere’s Music Machinery blog, which I found via Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s Particles.

The Free Music Archive is an interactive library of high-quality, legal audio downloads. The Free Music Archive is being directed by WFMU, the most renowned freeform radio station in America. Radio has always offered the public free access to new music. The Free Music Archive is a continuation of that purpose, designed for the age of the internet.

Every mp3 you discover on The Free Music Archive is pre-cleared for certain types of uses that would otherwise be prohibited by outdated copyright law. Are you a podcaster looking for pod-safe audio? A radio or video producer searching for instrumental bed music that won’t put your audience to sleep? A remix artist looking for pre-cleared samples? Or are you simply looking for some new sounds to add to your next playlist? The Free Music Archive is a resource for all that and more, and unlike other websites, all of the audio has been hand-picked by established audio curators.

I’ve listened to some samples – good stuff! Some of this will find its way into our podcasts, I’m thinking.

Rob Weir, Inside Higher Ed’s Instant Mentor columnist, offers this must-read item for anyone who lectures, whether you think you’re good at it or not: Boring Within or Simply Boring?

But even if enormous class sizes aren’t the norm at your college, lecturing is still an art you should master. It doesn’t matter how technologically adroit one is or how many non-instructor-directed whistles and bells get crammed into a course, at some point every professor lectures, even if it’s just giving instructions or recapping a completed exercise.

Emphasis mine. We’ve all seen instructors blow off the importance of this kind of address to the class. It can be tough if it’s a syllabus you’ve gone over a hundred times, it’s still new to the students you’re facing.

Frankly, it gets my dander up when I hear professors proclaim they “don’t have the gift” for giving good lecturers. Lecturing is not genetically determined like eye color or a receding hairline. The most common reason for bad lecturing isn’t phobia; it’s that professors don’t value the craft enough to hone their skills. Use such individuals as negative role models. Think of the most boring lecturer you’ve ever encountered. Do the opposite!

Once again, added emphasis is mine. These days, with budgets declining and teaching loads increasing while the pressure for research never lets up, it’s more important than ever that the basic function of the university – teaching students – not decline as well.

Multiple Blog Feeds to my Facebook page? Let’s see if this works.

How To Import Feeds Into Facebook Without Giving Up Your Content – Nihongo Notes.

Listening now to Georgia State Universitys Dr. Mark Becker give his (and GSUs) first such address. Weve been a research university since 1995, and its time to move to the next level with that. Ill link to the promised audio of the address as well as any news that comes from it.

Go Georgia State!

Taping a science teaching demonstration in Dr. Brian Williams class, a preliminary to a series of podcasts were going to produce. Shooting film-canister rockets fueled by Alka Seltzer in the park! (Clip to follow; posted from my phone.)