Chasing the Technological Dragon

           

Wildish Mountain Kids

             Technology is a magical dragon all flight and fire. We the users are often left running along on the ground far behind the beast trying to catch up with it.

 

As an elementary school teacher I try to incorporate multimedia into the curriculum. It gives voice to student’s work and shares it with a wide audience. To that end we have been successful. Cayoosh Kidz, our website, has just passed the 100 000 mark with visits and viewings. Not bad for a bunch of wildish mountain kids. Sometime next week we will have a party to celebrate that success, and set our new goals, but back to the dragon.

 

Video is the heart of new media. Its growth on the web has been exponential! When Cayoosh Kidz started a couple of years ago there were only a handful of places where a video could be posted. Six months after we started there were hundreds, now there are thousands.

 

This growth of the video phenomenon is not without problems. For every good video clip there are hundreds of bad ones. These are bad for many reasons: sexism, drugs, violence, or just ill-conceived worthless content. Some days Youtube  feels like the Wild West, not a place you would like to bring children. TeacherTube is a much safer bet.

 

As a teacher, creating worthwhile content is a huge challenge. However, there are resources we can learn from to improve the work that we produce. I was delighted with the instructional videos found at B&H this week.  B&H is the international candy store of multimedia. You might call it the dragon’s layer. You won’t be wasting time looking at the online resource Teaching Online Journalism either.

 

 We are in a time of incredible transformation of video technology. Everything is changing and will continue to change for several years. Video cameras are recording in formats that the editing software can’t yet decode.  And editing software is making power demands on computers that they weren’t designed for. This creates headaches and frustration at every level, and the solutions are usually expensive.  It takes several thousand, if not tens of thousands of dollars to be able to shoot and edit in true HD (high definition) video. This is an amount far beyond what the average school budget can afford. HD video editing can be done, but you are really running to catch that dragon. The practical solution is to shoot and edit in the more compact SD (standard definition) video format.

 

And what about Cayoosh Kidz’ next goal? We have been tossing around one million hits by the end of next year. It’s got a nice ring to it. Over the next few posts I will discuss how we intend to reach that goal. Hey, did you see which way that dragon went?

 

Video Production – Part Two

Here is the last in my media-series rants. I hope they are useful; I will store them on my webpage www.multimediastories.net.

 

Video Size

 

In the world of internet video, small is beautiful. As you produce videos you find yourself constantly looking for ways to reduce their size. You should try to keep your video less than four minutes in length. The main reason for this is to improve the speed which the video can be delivered across the internet. Your video will also need to be exported and saved in a file form that is compatible with the standards of the video hosting service you are using. If you want to make a DVD you will save in a different format. Here is a link to a site with some good tips about keeping your video size under control.

http://desktopvideo.about.com

Safety and Legal

The wellbeing of students is our primary concern. Cayoosh Kidz never allows any identifying personal information to be associated with children’s pictures. First names and photographs don’t appear together and last names are never used. Students create a web nickname to protect their identity. Students do not have direct access to the sites where information is stored. They present all of their work to a teacher who then posts the files. This prevents any possibility of direct contact between the students and someone who has seen their work on the internet. The Canadian government provides an excellent resource to ensure safety while using the Internet.

http://www.safecanada.ca/link_e.asp?category=3&topic=94

Copyright

When you publish to the web you are subject to a number of legal issues that might not be of concern with an in-class project. Any material that has been created by someone else is copyrighted. Artists and musicians have the right to seek compensation for the use of their work. The last thing that you want to receive is a letter from their attorney seeking a financial settlement. Follow the links to the following websites for sobering views on copyright violation.

http://www.aivf.org/  

http://www.teachertube.com/copyrighttips.php

Video Cameras

The easiest and cheapest way to get video onto the web is by using a digital camera such as the Canon Powershot S5 IS http://www.dcresource.com/reviews/canon/powershot_s5-review/. Digital cameras are simple to use and have all the features that you need as a beginning videographer. Most importantly the file sizes are small and easy to transfer directly to the internet or a video editing program. As an added benefit they can record two hours of digital sound and provide high quality photographs for a variety of uses.

Linkshttp://www.camcorderinfo.com/
http://www.thedvshow.com/
http://www.videomaker.com/youtube/

 

Video Sound Quality

Sound represents 60% of your video production. Without good sound your video is severely limited. You should always try to get the audio right the first time and not waste time in post production patches. B&H Photo offers some good tips for improving sound quality http://www.bhphotovideo.com/. But to smooth over those inevitable mistakes, there is a free audio editing program called ‘Audacity’ http://audacity.sourceforge.net/   which you can download. It allows you to make significant improvements to your sound track.

Lighting

Video is painting with light. The quality and amount of light that you have available is critical to producing good work. There is a ton of information on the internet about using light effectively to make great videos Tech Learning is a good place to start http://www.techlearning.com/.

Here are some movie-making links that we have used and can recommend.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSGFW4uDxeA&feature=related

http://www.fluffbucket.com/othettutorials/video/index.htm
http://www.internetvideomag.com/index.htm
http://library.creativecow.net/
http://www.mediacollege.com/

http://www.ulead.com/learning/videoinfo.htm

http://www.sci.fi/~animato/ (animation)

http://www.ischool.utexas.edu/technology/tutorials/graphics/imovie/1create.html

http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.aspx?p=412366&rl=1 (iMovie)

 

File Formats

Dealing with file formats is part of the process in creating multimedia content. However all the abbreviations can quickly jumble together into an incomprehensible digital alphabet soup. So, here is a brief summary of the important concepts that you will eventually be forced to confront on your journey of technological creativity.

CompatibilityNot all files open in all applications or operating platforms (PC or Macintosh). Make sure you save your files in a form that can easily be opened if you plan to share files with others.CompressionOne reason there are so many file formats is to deal with the issue of compression. It takes about 660 megabytes of data to fill a CD with music (roughly five billion bits). Storing, processing or downloading this much data, whether audio, photographic or video, is problematic.

 

 

 

One solution is to use a codec (short for compressor / decompressor). This process allows a large file to be compressed for ease of transmission and then opened and decompressed.
If the codec causes loss of quality to the file when it is decompressed the format is called lossy. If the file is reconstituted in its original form it’s called lossless. This seems obvious, but the principal becomes very important when selecting the best format to save your file.

There are many different file formats and they tend to be specific to a type of media, for example, you would use MP3 format for music, JPEG for photographs, and MPEG2 to store movies.Streaming VideoCompressed files may still take too long to transfer even with a fast internet connection. There are a number of ways to stream media or chop it up in sequenced chunks that can begin to play before the whole file is transferred. There is usually a short pause while the first few chunks are transferred, but once a pool of video information is ready, or buffered, the video begins. Adobe Flash Player, Apple Quicktime Player, and Windows Media Player are often used to stream media.http://www.zamzar.com/ is a good place to go if you get stuck and need to transform a file into one that you are able to work with.

Not only do you need to decide which codec you are going to use, but also how much compression you require. The smaller the file the faster it transfers, but the poorer the quality. Bitrate is the file resolution measured in kilobytes per second (kbps).

For example, a WAV audio file might be 30 Mb, but the same file as an MP3 at 64 kbps would be 1.5 Mb in size. This is great for file transfer speed, but not for the quality of sound.

 

 

File formats appear and disappear from favor with a disconcerting rapidity. Zamzar