52-second Video Authoring Idea: Ghost Trees

Concise, precise and engaging. This is the challenge of making a very, very short video. I have embedded an exemplar called "Ghost Trees" from the Prince's Rainforest Project.

Embedding a YouTube Video into PowerPoint 2007

This video is great! I actually tried out the steps and they're perfect. This makes any PPT presentation look really professional. Check it out.

Monsoon History: A Multiliteracies Project

Just before the mid-term school holidays began last year, ELTC invited a group of students to attend a one-week multiliteracies project. The students who attended the course were 16 years old and came from an inner-city school in Kuala Lumpur. They had no prior knowledge in developing a multimedia project, so basically, we began from scratch, which was challenging but fun. Scroll down. Their projects have been embedded below.

The project involves the students composing a video response to Shirley Lim's "Monsoon History". You will find that their projects share some common pictures and a particular video. This is because I gave them a small starter pack of resources to work with. This starter pack had about 5 images and one video, as a form of insurance, just in case things didn’t work out! The other resources, including music and audio, were sourced from the Internet by the students themselves. The entire project, from start to finish, took about 16 hours. Developing a multimedia project takes time! Although the kids struggled initially, they eventually got the hang of it and were totally engrossed in creating their products. Not bad at all for total novices, with very limited prior knowledge.

In the poem, Shirley Lim recollects her past experiences in Melaka, where she was born. She takes us back forty years to show how her family lives, surrounded by two different worlds: the natural world outside and the inside world of the home. She shares her experiences on the atmosphere and situation, where life is unique amongst creatures and natural phenomena. In this poem, she observes her surroundings and expresses how she perceives her Peranakan family within the setting of her home by the Straits of Melaka.

 

Here is the text of the poem, which forms part of the Form 4 literature component. Embedded below are 4 videos composed by the students in response to the poem.

 

Monsoon History

by Shirley Lim

 

The air is wet, soaks

Into mattresses, and curls

In apparitions of smoke.

Like fat white slugs furled

Among the timber,

Or sliver fish tunneling

The damp linen covers

Of schoolbooks, or walking

Quietly like centipedes,

The air walking everywhere

On its hundred feet

Is filled with the glare

Of tropical water

 

Again we are taken over

By clouds and rolling darkness.

Small snails appear

Clashing their timid horns

Among the morning glory

Vines.

 

         Drinking milo,

Nyonya and baba sit at home.

This was forty years ago.

Sarong-wrapped they counted

Silver paper for the dead,

Portraits of grandfathers

Hung always in the parlour.

Reading Tennyson, at six

p.m. in pajamas,

Listening to down-pouring

rain;  the air ticks

With gnats, black spiders fly,

Moths sweep out of our rooms

Where termites built

Their hills of eggs and queens zoom

In heat. We wash our feet

For bed, watch mother uncoil

Her snake hair, unbuckle

The silver mesh around her waist,

Waiting for father pacing

The sands as fishers pull

From the Straits after monsoon.

 

The air is still, silent

Like sleepers rocked in the pantun,

Sheltered by Malacca

This was forty years ago,

When nyonya married baba.

 

 Below is an interpretation by Nur Hanifiza.

 

 

This is Asilah's interpretation of Monsoon History:

 

And here is a response to the poem by Ain:

 

Here is Zulaikha's video response:

Reader Response to Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare: 3 Interpretations

Reader response is a school of literary theory which stresses the importance of the reader's role in interpreting texts. According to this theory, the reader "creates his or her own meaning through a "transaction" with the text based on personal associations. Because all readers bring their own emotions, concerns, life experiences, and knowledge to their reading, each interpretation is subjective and unique." (Pat Mora and James Welch)

I'd like to share with you three different responses to a reading of Shakespeare's Sonnet 18.

But first, here is the poem:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

So long lives this and this gives life to thee.

In the interpretation below, David Gilmour sings Michael Kamen's marvellous composition, which is a response framed as a song. The keyboard parts in this recording were played by Michael Kamen.



In the next interpretation, tatze1986 responds in the form of a multimedia presentation, which has been warmly praised by countless YouTubers for its elegant simplicity.



The final interpretation is my own response to the poem. This video was made several years ago as a fun project to help me practise my Photoshop skills, which I had picked up from my mother. I selected a Medieval piece of music to depict the timelesness of the theme of love. The piece was written by Hildegaard Von Bingen, an 11th century mystic and composer from Germany. I also selected the piece to demonstrate how new media allows collaboration across the ages. Hildegaard Von Bingen was born in 1098, William Shakespeare, in 1564, and Joy, in 1971. Three people, separated by almost a thousand years, collaborating on a composition produced in the 21st century!



My friend is a Barathanatyam dancer. I wonder how she would interpret this poem. Maybe if I begged hard enough, she will formulate a response in the form of a dance, which I will post here! My parents would be able to respond in the form of an illustration.

Basically, there are endless modes of response to a text. This is what makes reader response so exciting. What does this text mean to me? In framing our response in different modes, we become co-creators with the writer.

PowerPoint Tutorials: How to Insert and Hyperlink Resources

I have uploaded some tutorials into my YouTube Channel. I prefer to make video tutorials instead of print ones because I have loads of fun making them!

When I record my tutorials, I don't use a script (too much trouble), so I improvise the narration as I go along. With more complex procedures, I quickly visualize the steps before I record in order to minimize the hesitation. When I started out, I had to re-record often, but now, I can mostly get it right at the first go. I guess being desperate for time helps. I finished this lot in about two and a half hours. It was getting very dark and gloomy and lonely outside and I didn't want to be in the office all by myself. Fear is very motivating.

I have also uploaded my colleague Ellen's PowerPoint presentation on "Reflective Teaching" into my Scribd Page. It's a good presentation, with many insightful quotes.

"Haiyo! So easy oso donno ah?!!"

"Haiyo! So easy oso donno ah?!!"

 

A lecturer once hissed this to me at computer class, many years ago at college. I readily admit that I was completely ignorant. Worst of all, I was phobic, so I used to grow very cold and blank out during the torture sessions at the computer lab. In my poor psychological state, her remark wasn't at all helpful. However, on reflection, this condescending remark was her only useful contribution to my life as a teacher. I learnt never to say this to anyone, and I never have, because I became acutely aware, on that fateful day in that computer class, that "easy" is indeed a very relative concept.

 

What got me thinking was my repeated failure in accomplishing what was supposed to have been an “easy” task. I wanted to change the header graphic of this blog and replace it with my own customized version. I tried and I tried. As the minutes went by, it became evident that I was failing miserably in doing an “easy” task. Change the header. What's so hard about that?

 

The instructions said: "To use your own header image enter the complete url into the Header Image URL box below - eg http://www.yoursite.com/yourfile.jpg.”

 

I was perplexed. What is "mysite"? I don't have a site. The next question was, should I be starting some kind of site? That would be way, way, too much trouble for such a small task. In search of a simpler solution, I figured out (wrongly, it turns out) that I should key in my WordPress address for "mysite". Didn't work. In desperation, I keyed in the local destination address in the "yourfile" part of the URL. Didn't work either. This went on for a good half hour. I was getting tense and terse. I told my husband - "You try it!"

 

He said, "Apparently, it looks like your image file must be stored somewhere online." It was a good observation. It was actually the key to the solution, although we didn’t know it at that point.

 

"Let's try to get the URL of any picture, and paste it in the box and see what happens." I said, "No, it won't work!" Like I said, I was tense. It should have been easy for me, but I couldn’t do it.

 

He said, "Look, just do it! No harm trying. It might work." So we pasted the URL of a random picture and, you guessed it - it worked. It should have been obvious to me. But it wasn't, and that is the point I'm trying to make. "Easy" is a very, very relative concept. I try not to take it for granted that what is "easy" for me is also "easy" for another person.

 

My epic struggle with changing the WordPress header image reminded me, once again, that learning is often painful. It is sometimes utterly miserable. As teachers, we don't need to compound the misery for our students with cutting remarks like, "Haiyo! So easy oso donno ah?!!"

 

A perceptive teacher who is also a serious learner will be keenly aware that "easy" ain't necessarily so.

 

That said, a future post will be a tutorial on how to change the WordPress header image. The WordPress instructions are appalling. So, if you want to upload a customized header, you must first go through a merry-go-round process of uploading your images elsewhere first. I'll explain it in a forthcoming post. What a headache!

 

I hope you approve of my new header. I went on a trek to Alaska and back to get it there. That's why it's so "cool"! Harhar!

 

Publishing Student Work Online: Useful Web 2.0 Applications

An online audience is a very powerful motivating force. Now, students have really got a reason to be creative while composing, not only in print but in multimedia. Here are some platforms to help your students get all excited about publishing their work online and getting a real, live, worldwide audience. It's sufficiently motivating, even if the audience is only yourself!

I have not annotated the links in detail because a mere click will bring you to the respective home pages where you will be able to get the low down on everything.

WordPress is a blog platform. Blogs are great because they effectively integrate all the Web 2.0 applications listed below through embedding or links. This is the “unifying” function I love most about my blog, which I use to “control” my other sites!

Use Scribd to publish documents in multi formats – PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel. It includes a library. Have not checked it out yet, but I like the idea. Cool.

TeacherTube is a wholesome video publishing platform.

Pod-o-matic is a platform for creating, finding, sharing and publishing podcasts, which are basically audio files.

One final recommendation: Diigo isn't really a publishing tool. It is an online bookmarking application. I believe they call this a “filter” platform. Extremely useful when conducting research online.

Shift in Direction: Video Authoring Course

After reading Bernajean Porter's writing in the Adobe Digital Kids Club website, I became convinced that the video authoring course I had developed must incorporate an added dimension: The human voice. The storyteller's voice must be heard. The personal element is also integrated into the video when the participants actually spend a major part of the course writing their own scripts. According to Ms Porter, the personal dimension, which is the soul of the story, is what makes content compelling and authentic.

In response to Bernajean Porter's writing, I have introduced at least three new elements into the Video Authoring course:

1. Emphasis on script writing - Students spend more time developing an original 500 word script for a 3 to 5 minute video.  

2. Recording narration into Audacity first - They learn an additional multi-tracking audio software that enables them to produce more complex audio.

3. Narration - The focus is on the the human voice for animating and personalizing the content. Record narration first in Audacity, or else no Windows Movie Maker!

It was really, really tough teaching them the new audio software. The course participants were also resistant to the idea of getting the audio ready first. They were tempted to begin right away by using Windows Movie Maker. But Bernajean Porter's advice was to hang in there: Get the narration and audio settled first. I had to monitor very closely to see that the teachers did not "cheat". At the end of the process, the participants reported that they understood why the "narration first" rule had to be strictly enforced.

The quality of the work has become so much more personal and alive with the added element of the human voice reading out the original scripts. The Penang Teachers’ Videos have been uploaded into their own channel on YouTube.

The next thing I must do is to monitor the participants' use of images more carefully. My emphasis on the correct number of pixels (800 X 600 pixels or more) obviously did not register! Boy, it is truly a challenge to keep track of so many things! But by and large, I'm really pleased with my participants' creative efforts.

The shift in direction worked and I gratefully acknowledge Bernajean Porter's pivotal contribution in enriching my own thinking and practice.

Below, I have embedded a project which resulted from the sfift in direction of the course. I like this particular piece very much because it captures the the personalized, authentic feel that Bernajean Porter speaks about. 

 

Tutorial: Embedding a Video into Blog from YouTube

In my Blogger days, I made a tutorial on how to embed a video from YouTube into a blog. You can't use this tutorial for WordPress because the method is different. But just in case you're interested, here it is:

Data Migration from Blogger to Wordpress: What a Pain!!

Wordpress or Blogger? Which is better? That's what I asked my technician friend Rosdi. He said "Aha! I have a magazine that will help you to choose!" He brought the magazine (thanks Rosdi), I read through the compare and contrast review of 10 blogsites and I made my choice: Wordpress. The magazine also rated Wordpress 9 upon 10, whereas Blogger got an 8 over 10, which isn't bad at all. However, I think the higher rating for Wordpress is justified.

But as soon I decided to migrate to Wordpress, the headache began. I had about 12 entries in my old blog at  http://joythinkspace.blogspot.com/ which I wanted to transfer to my new blogsite at Wordpress. What a tedious process it was. All the embedded videos (there were quite a few) and links (many) had to be transferred, one by one. And only from 12 posts! I am glad I didn't wait till more data piled up before I got down to transferring my stuff.

So why am I taking so much trouble to migrate? There is only one reason: Wordpress allows me to categorize my posts, while Blogger does not. I find the categorizing function extremely important in helping people search efficiently for what they want from the blog. Blogger only has the tag function, which is not as helpful in the search process. Tags are less specific than categories.

Wordpress design templates are also very cool. I think I made a good choice.

I have one or two more posts to transfer. After that, I'm done. I will miss Blogger. It is such a pity they don't have a categorizing function, which is so essential for organizing and searching for posts. Otherwise, I would have stayed.

Vlog Idea: Review an Interesting Video

Here is an idea for a student vlog (video blog).

Selection:
Students select 2 videos from You Tube or from their own collection. These videos must be either personally significant to them, or related to their personal interests. Or the videos can be merely interesting.

Embedding:
Students embed the videos in a blog or upload their own videos from a local destination.

Writing Activity:
Students do a little write-up about each videos. They can either offer feedback on the video's content or explain why the videos are significant to them.
Skill:
Writing
Genre:
i. Review
ii. Reflection
Objective:
Understanding and applying genre conventions related to writing a review or reflection.

My own example is in another posting. Check it out!

Blog Activity Idea: My Fave Home Idea

This could be a stimulus for a writing activity where students justify their choice of something.

In this activity, they have to choose the kind of dwelling they want to live in. Click here to see an interesting sample of unusual homes My Fave Home Idea. Students can either select the home they want to live in, based on the examples, or they can combine features of the different homes and create their own dream home. They must justify their selection or creation.

Vloggin is Fun! A Vlog Idea for Students

A Vlog Idea: Comparing and Contrasting Videos

Here is an activity idea:
Compare and Contrast two performances, or recipes, or people, or books, or ideas or whatever else you can think of to compare and contrast. The important element is that it must involve embedding two videos and commenting on their similarities and differences.

In this post, I partially develop this idea by suggesting the use of videos of two people whose work I like very much - Paul Potts and Andrea Bocelli. I am not going to complete the exercise because I don't have the time! But you could try testing it out for me.

If students were to do this exercise, they might begin with a "Same/Different" grid to organize their ideas.

OK, the end.

I am going to digress a lot from this point and tell you a little bit about how I came across Paul Potts:

I stumbled upon Paul Potts’ performance when I read Time Magazine’s 2007 Top 10 reviews and went online to see what it was all about. This had been selected as the top live performance of the year. This is no mean feat considering the staggering number of live performances recorded each year all over the world.
Click on this link to see the Time Magazine review of Paul's performance. Below is the video of his performance.

 

Here is the second video to introduce you to Andrea Bocelli. Here, he's singing with Celine Dion.

Inserting a Link Into Blog or Webpage

This is how you insert a link into your blog and make the link look neat and tidy. The code works for all blogs and webpages. Just remember to switch to Html mode. Goodbye long, long URLs!!

Here is the tutorial:

Link: Pod-o-matic Podcast Portal

If you would like to upload a podcast, here is a link to a good portal Podomatic Podcast Portal

If you need to create a podcast, a good software to use would be Audacity. Click on my "Tutorials" category to learn how to edit audio with Audacity.

Editing in Audacity: Link to You Tube Tutorial

This is a very good tutorial from You Tube on how to edit and mix tracks in Audacity.
The explanations are clear and concise.

Audacity is a free audio editing software. It enables you to edit multiple tracks.
It is simple to use, but very effective, as this video will demonstrate. It has been selected as PC World's 100 Best Products of 2008. I can see why.

It is also a wonderful podcast production software. The best thing is - it's freeware. No licensing problems if you use it with your students in the lab.

Click here to download Audacity.

Try it. It really, really works! I'm thrilled!

Don't forget to download the plug-in that allows it to save files as MP3s. The folder looks like this.

I did not read the instructions carefully the first time round and couldn't save files as MP3s because I did not download the plug-in. It took a couple of days to register that there was no way I was going to be able to save as MP3 without the plug-in. So dutifully, I did! I sure learnt the hard way.

A Blog Idea: "School of Life" Review and Reflection

Here is an idea to get students writing.First, get students to select and embed a video into their posts, and then, respond to the video they have selected.

An alternative would be to ask students to embed a video selected by the teacher, and respond to the video, for example, the one here below. The rubrics could be: What were you thinking as you watched the movie? How did you feel? Do you agree with the short film's view about what life is?

Watch the short movie "School of Life"



 

 

TeacherTube: A Gem of a Substitute for YouTube

I was looking for a "cleaner" alternative to YouTube for uploading students' videos created during my video authoring course. The YouTube homepage is a disgrace when you get to it. It displays thumbnails of videos that are being watched at that moment and the most inappropriate things flash on the screen. My course participants are adults, and yet I squirm when we get to the homepage and the sleazy thumbnails appear. In school, how are we going to explain that material to a class of form four boys? Or a form two co-ed class? I dare not.

Like I said, this problem prompted me to look out for a decent, education-centred version of YouTube. I found it in Teacher Tube. It works exactly like YouTube, but it only caters to people working in the field of education. In short, TeacherTube is the clean, educational version of YouTube.

Click to check out TeacherTube or even sign up for a free account. I've tried it out. It works. TeacherTube videos can be embedded in exactly the same way as YouTube videos.

The Internet: Taking and Giving

A few years ago, I read an article about a new type of responsibility. The author of that article asserted that if you take anything from the Internet, you have a duty to give something back. He cautioned against being an Internet parasite. I found the idea quite intriguing but did not feel duty-bound to contribute anything. As a novice user of the Net, I argued I wasn't taking much. One or two lesson plans, some articles here and there. That was all.

The situation changed drastically when I took on a new job with the technology department. As a teacher educator, the nature of the job compelled me to take massive amounts of resources from the Internet - music, images, videos, lesson ideas, professional development articles - the whole lot. Not only was I taking stuff, I was also teaching others to take as well. Judging from the number of projects my students have generated in the last five years, the amount of content we took from the Internet is staggering.

While I am pleased that they have been able to generate vast amounts of quality content by creatively transforming resources they have taken from the Internet, I am slightly dismayed that I have failed to help them gain awareness about the importance of giving back as they take.

The fault is not entirely mine, of course! We need to remember that contributing content to the Internet has not always been as easy as it is now, facilitated by Web 2.o applications. We take it for granted that anyone with access to a computer and the Internet can publish any amount of content in seconds. In the earlier days of the Internet, this was not always the case. In fact, generating content and putting it on the Internet in the early days was confined to the technorati. They had to be able to write code, which was a highly specialized skill of the elite crouched in their university labs. Prior to the advent of blogs, which is another Web 2.0 application, it was necessary to develop skills in web authoring before one could publish on the Internet. Complex technical expertise required by Web 1.0 in order to publish content impeded giving.

However, in the last 5 years or so, the avenues for contributing to the Internet have increased exponentially. Different platforms allow us to share documents and multiple types of media content as easily as we can send an email. Hit the "upload" key and we’re done. Facebook, Digg, Scribd, You Tube, Podbean all facilitate publishing and sharing. Giving has never been easier. In fact, it has become so easy that it is astonishing how rapidly the issue has shifted from "contributing" to "contributing quality content". There is as much bad content on the Internet as there is good content.

But first things first. I will create opportunities for my students to publish on the Internet. I will encourage them to continue publishing on their own, and also help their students to do so. They need to be aware that everyone has a responsibility to share even as they take from the Internet. The time for sharing has come. In the past, we could only dream of sharing. But now, web technologies have evolved to a level where we can effortlessly make it happen.

Just create something and click "upload". As responsible netizens, we give, even as we take.

Classical Blogging?

I never thought about the type of blogging I was doing. I merely used my blog to do functional, useful stuff. What I really wanted to do was to share technical tips, provide post-course support for my students and perhaps recommend some interesting software or sites. What I *did not* want to do was to narrate my life and recount what I had for dinner.

However, the other day as I was reading the NST, a writer (sorry, I forgot who) wrote about blogging in general. What was interesting was that he made a distinction between classical blogging and the more contemporary kind we see today. So what's the difference?

He noted that blogs were originally used by techie dudes to share tech tips with other techie dudes. The writer terms this as "classical blogging". Although I didn't know it, I had inadvertently slipped into this mode. The blog, like I said, was to offer post-course technical support. I wonder if I will stick to this mode. I am unsure. Even as I write, this space could be morphing into something I never imagined.

This is the marvellous thing about online mediums. Their forms are continually changing and configuring to match our needs and our imagination. We shape the medium, even as it is shaping us. It's hard to imagine that You Tube was originally designed as a platform for sharing holiday videos.

The creators of You Tube did say that they realised very quickly that people were innovating with their invention in ways that they did not envision. They learnt that they had absolutely no control over how people were using the wonder they had created, so they stopped dictating how people should use their innovation. Instead, they found it more fruitful to watch the fascinating way in which their platform was being transformed before their eyes by countless users.

Blogs have evolved rapidly likewise. So, how many blog sub-genres are there? Perhaps as many as the number of people blogging.