The FlipCam from PureDigital is the tech gadget hit of the year. Many teachers are using the FlipCam for quick video snippets and are using iMovie or Movie Maker for editing. Lets visit some common smart practices, tips and tricks.
1. Hold the camera with two hands. The flip cam does not have an image stabilizer. This also applies to those consumer digital still cameras.
-Use a tripod when possible.
-Brace your camera on a table, bookcase or even door jam if no tripod is available.
2. Look at your background before you start shooting interviews or spontaneous comments..
-If the background is “too busy” or involves students, bring the subject away from them so the noise and distractions are at a minimum.
-Stay away from perpendicular flat backgrounds. Shoot at an angle for more compelling video. The ambient noise will also not reflect off an angled background.
-You may have to “prep” students if they are in the background. Ask them not to mess up or otherwise “damage” your video project or interview with silly behavior or funny staring looks.
-Never shoot against backgrounds that distract or take away from the subject
–examples: blank plain/ugly walls, anything moving behind subject including a window, bright or weird objects that pull your eye from the subject, objects in foreground(viewable) that are closer than the subject, bright windows on the sunny side of the room.
-Beware of lighting that otherwise burns out the subject or contrasts subject to a dark blob(background is lighter than foreground)… the FlipCam will generally meter on the lighter part of the picture.
-Do shoot against backgrounds that may add to the mood or compliment the subject
3. Get close. It’s ok to get up close to the subject. The FlipCam doesn’t do distant images(or sound) well. You do not want a tiny head shot for interviews.
-The audio mic on the flip cam is good, but much better if you are closer to the subject talking.
-If you are using a higher end digital camera, get an external (hot shoe) gun mic or a hand held mic for better sound and acoustics.
4. When interviewing or taking comments from a subject, hold the FlipCam near your face so the interviewee will look like they are talking to the camera. Otherwise, they’ll appear to be talking to someone “else” in the room.
5. Use the rule of thirds to place your subject in the best part of the field. Place your main subject at the intersection of four lines in your viewing field.
—– see this link: http://www.leggnet.com/2008/02/rule-of-thirds-revisited.html
6. The FlipCam zoom doesn’t work very well. (It’s not an optical zoom. Digital zooms make the image fuzzy.
7. Don’t walk or move with the FlipCam. Try not to pan with the FlipCam as the resolution does not look well when panning. Best advice: take a WIDE angle for movement, sports or moving subjects.
8. Check out the accessories for the FlipCam like the tri-pod and a usb extender for those hard to reach usb ports (like the emac).
9. Have a technician or ITRT install the .avi codecs on your computer for the camera. It uses unique codecs for the Macintosh. If you are using it at home, the software is on camera in a folder unique to your operating system. Windows computers will handle .avi clips better than macs.
and for a good retro laugh (and some GREAT basic knowledge)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTV3VR38-fk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MonsF5sjps
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cvne9Kr2M-0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8B-zqcdzls
and recording audio
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChSJKQiWZrM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv_Zm_BtgIs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s_mAUbrZjfE
Resource Links:
http://education.apple.com/education/ilife/howto/digitalmovie_tips/
http://www.apple.com/itunes/store/podcaststips.html
http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2003/06/13/dv_tips.html
www.camcorderinfo.com/content/good_video_tips.htm
How to subscribe to RSS podcasts… a video clip tutorial
http://www.rocketboom.com/extra/itunes/
FlipCam reviews:
http://www.theflip.com/
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/2007-09-11-tech-flip_N.htm
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/GadgetGuide/story?id=4010603&page=1
Support for the FlipCam
http://www.theflip.com/support_ultra.shtml
Tagged: video FlipCam interview quicktime
I was recently asked, by proxy, how students could use blogs in RCPS. Most blogging sites are blocked here because there is no moderation for what the students post while they’re at school. But this blog isn’t blocked. So maybe no one reads it.
But Edublogs has a great, and purposefully built, site for blogging with students. First and foremost, it’s moderated. A teacher can start a blog, send out invites through email, and assign students roles as authors, contributors or subscribers, roles that can’t remove their moderation to post.
Also, it isn’t blocked by RCPS web filters.
So go ahead, sign up, get a feel for being an administrator, and get your kids blogging.
For any student working on a PowerPoint presentation at home, on a PC, or if a student needs to make a presentation and doesn’t have PowerPoint, ZOHO Show (http://show.zoho.com/Home.do) is a pretty good answer.
It allows you to import existing PowerPoint presentations and make them from scratch with very easy to use text tools that resemble most word processing programs as well as included shapes and tools to upload images. You can also have speaker notes along with your slides. A feature missing from other presentation sites that I’ve seen is the ability to set automatic slide “next” timing which you can set for the entire slideshow or just individual slides.
What students can utilize the most are the abilities to share presentations and send them to people, either publicly or privately. You can also track user editing histories.
SHS already has to Nintendo Wiis with Wii Sports that they use in the gym on rainy, cold days.
The Nintendo DS recently got a Spanish learning game, Spanish for Everyone. Did you know the DS has at least 16 educational titles?
Even a French game. And a life coaching game.
Would teachers feel comfortable with a $130 piece of hardware freely moving around their classroom? I wonder if school libraries would consider renting out educational (or not!) games since most kids have the systems already.
Adobe just snatched up Virtual Ubiquity.com’s Buzzword online application for word processing.
Claiming to be the first “real” online word processor, the Flash-based Buzzword hosts the same online collaboration tools found in Google’s Doc, but with with a richer graphical interface and some extra collaboration tools like notes from other editors.
I tried using it today, but every time I tried to create a new document, my Firefox browser crashed. Safari worked fine, but it took as long as a computer to boot up to actually create a new document (at least on SHS’s internet connection).
Once in, all the tools are in their usual places (spell check, save, insert, etc.). The stand out features include commenting, live spell checking, and document history. There is also built in document zooming, headers and footers, image and table placement, and seven fonts to choose from.
It’s quite a beautiful word processor. The black background really makes focusing easy on the eyes (especially on my black MacBook).
Some issues I noticed was that there are no “track changes” associated with commenting. Something that is hugely useful in collaborative document processing. While you can save versions, I’m going to call Histories, you are limited to timeline based edits and not user based, like Word has. Also, there’s no way to share a document online as a public webpage (something Docs does do).
All in all, it’s a nice browser based, collaborative word processor. It doesn’t offer anything more than Google Docs does (some more, some less), but as Adobe get its mittens on it, who knows what changes they will make as time goes on.
Local blogger and Harrisonburg City Schools teacher, Jeremy Aldrich (or Gxeremio on the web) has introduced the idea of the Educational Technology Blog Carnival, a bi-weekly, traveling blog that is host to submitted blog posts from other bloggers about whatever subject that blogger chooses for that edition.
Jeremy’s blog has been about technology in education. This week’s carnival is packed full of good articles ranging from the Mac software Comic Life to web cams.
Feel free to check it out and even submit your own article on how you use technology in class and to what ends. Then email Jeremy and thank him for the hard work!
I’ve written about Google Docs before, but I can’t get over how extremely useful it could be in the school settings.
Not only can kids forget about working on PCs or Macs at home versus what they use at school, but it also is great for group projects. Why have kids print papers when they can just email a link to the teacher (or write it down).
Here is a great video from Google on some of its uses.
Whenever you draw a line in a custom Google Map, it automatically figures the distance for you.
For instance, a lap around Blazer Dr. at Spotswood is roughly 3943 ft.
Smart Technologies hosts its own pages of training materials. They include manual reference guides and hands-on exercises. And the best part is that you don’t need a Smartboard to practice with their software. Since the Smartboard is essentially a huge mouse and keyboard, you can do trial runs right on your computer.
They also offer online classes that, though they are free, do involve toll-free phone calls for a more complete online/human training experience.
Visit http://smarttech.com/trainingcenter/ for more information.
Google Earth added a new feature that might be of some interest to science teachers. There is now the added feature of seeing the sky so you can search constellations and stars and planets.
The sky is actually composed of millions of pictures taken by astrologists and scientists from all over.
So if you have access to Google Earth, you might want to give this a try too.
