Etale – Life in the Digital World

interdisciplinary musings on life and education in the digital world

Archive for category sites and sources

Video Sharing Sites

Jul 11

Posted by etale in reviews, sites and sources | Comments off

It doesn’t take much work to find dozens of places to post your digital stories on the web for free. Once they are up, you can embed them in your site, link to them, etc. So, here are four of my favorites:

Youtube – You probably didn’t need to read this entry to learn about Youtube as it is probably the most popular video sharing service on the web.

LiveVideo – This Youtube competitor just started in the last year but almost instantly took off. You can Google Youtube versus livevideo if you want some of drama that took place :-) .

TeacherTube – This video sharing service focuses upon videos with an instructional purpose.

VideoPile – This is a Christian video sharing service that seeks to keep the content “clean.”

If you want reviews on more of the video sharing services, check out these:

America’s Army

Jul 10

Posted by etale in blog, educational technology, sites and sources | Comments off

As an early teen I was part of the first generation of gaming, cutting my teeth on text-based games like Zork and deep in the craze of Mario Brothers and Pacman. However, once I entered high school I ceased to play video games or use a computer of any sort, apart from a few days learning about some programming language called BASIC. It wasn’t until the end of my college career that I was introduced to email and the Internet and I never really got into the new world of gaming. While my first computers (Sinclair 1000 and Commodore 64) were experienced in the early 80s, I didn’t spend much time with a computer again until 1994.

So, coming back to the world of gaming in the last year has been fascinating. I did it to learn about the powerful principles of engagement in video games, inspired by authors like Gee and Prensky who plead with educators to consider what educators can learn from video games.

I also returned to the world of gaming in order to explore gaming as narrative. Behind every good game today is a story. There is a setting and a plot, and you are playing a character in that story, uncertain of how everything will unfold. The power of these stories seem to be so great that even the military has turned to them. Toward that end, if you haven’t tried it out, you must download (takes some time) the free America’s Army, the offical Army game. That’s right, the military freely distributes this professional grade game where you become acquainted with military life, learning about the weapons, basic training components, and engaging in battles.

Now here is an intriguing twist. In America’s Army, you are always an American solider. It is a multi-user game and your army battles other armies, but from the perspective of the player, you are always and American and the enemy is always the enemy. What a fascinating dynamic of this digital narrative.

Atomic Learning and Video Stortelling Intro

Jan 4

Posted by etale in blog, reviews, sites and sources, software | Comments off

Atomic Learning is a popular online collection of software tutorials. Their target market includes schools, districts, and educators, but anyone can get an individual annaul subscription for $80.00. For this you get access to over 100 tutorials on software like Microsoft Excel, Photoshop, Flash, IPhoto, Moodle, Premiere Elements, and most other popular applications. In fact, all but a couple of the applications that I have referenced in the blog thus far have Atomic Learning tutorials. In addition to the straight software lessons, they also have tutorials on things like podcasting and blogging (both of which are free and include a series of informative video tutorials). I have been very impressed with the quality and simplicity of the tutorials that I have used in the past. But even if you aren’t interested in paying for the service, their site includes some great free resources, sometimes demos of the full tutorial.

My reason for including a post on Atomic Learning is to note a great preview of a tutorial entitled “Learning to Speak Video Like a Pro.” From the preview you can learn about basic camera shots, tips for shooting good video, and over a dozen video examples of good practice. This might come in handy for the budding digital storyteller.

Great Digital Stortelling Resource for Educators

Jan 2

Posted by etale in blog, digital storytelling, sites and sources | Comments off

Today I am reminded of the commercial about high speed Internet access. The main character in the commercial starts with a slow modem connection, but then gets high speed. He sits down at his PC, types for a few seconds, then leans back in his chair, proud and amazed, and exclaims, “I’m finished!” Sometimes I am overwhelmed by the number of resources available on the web and, at my less pleasant moments, I find myself overwhelmed by the discrepancy between what I want to know and what I actually know. I am humbled, sometimes troubled, but more than often excited when I discover something new, especially when it is something that I should have already known.

I have been reviewing digital storytelling sources on the web for quite some time, and only today did I come across the wonderfully practical and helpful Digital Kids Club on the Adobe site. This site includes explanations for how to use digital storytelling in the classroom, arguements for how it can support various content area standards, tutorials on facilitating digital storytelling with a class (granted, the instructions include use of Adobe product), tips on what makes a great digital story, advice on digital image editing, and much more. It is definitely worth thirty minutes of your time! Partially due to my oversight of this resource for so long, and equally due to my appreciation for the content, I have also added a link to this site beneath “My Favorite Sites.”

Digital Storytelling and Live Recording Software

Jan 1

Posted by etale in blog, digital storytelling, reviews, sites and sources, software | Comments off

If you like the idea of setting up a camera and mic, and telling your story (scripted or not), Vlogit by Serious Magic (now owned by Adobe) is worth a look. This software makes it easy to quickly put together a video with animated captions, background sounds and music…much like you see on the evening news. You can have yourself telling the story, with an animiated caption sliding from the side at the bottom of the screen. When you get to a certain part of the story, you can have a boxed image appear in the corner of the screen and dissolve at just the right time.

A favorite feature is the chroma key tool. With the purchase of a $20 green tarp, you can videotape yourself with a transparent background, then add a still or animated backgrounds. If you are talking about a trip to Haiti, have the background be a slide show of pictures from the trip. You can tell your story from a virtual beach, the moon, in the oval office, from the Serengeti, or inside the human body.

  • Download a trial version or view some of the examples at their site.

Additional Comments

  • I use this software on a newer Dell laptop with 1GB memory and things start to slow down quite a bit when I am trying to edit video in VlogIt. There have even been a few times that everything locked up. Then again, this might have to do wtih settings and memory resident programs on my laptop.
  • There is a learning curve. It took me 3-5 hours to get used to the basic features, and another 20 to feel comfortable using the chroma key feature and some of the other settings. To tell the truth, I am still trying to perfect use of the chroma key tool. It isn’t as simple as Photo Story, but it does so much more. Then again, it has less of a learning curve than Adobe Premiere.
  • If you are simply putting together a digital story with audio narration and still pictures, don’t bother with this product. You’d be using a jackhammer to open a jar.
  • Like much technology, the great features do have an intial distracting effect. If you choose to go with this product, don’t allow the great effects to overshadow your story (Look for an upcoming book review on this subject).
  • The built-in teleprompter is terific! Type up your script, cut and paste it in the prompter, and start recording.

Great Supplement to the Last Post

Dec 31

Posted by etale in blog, digital storytelling, sites and sources | Comments off

After writing the last post, it occurred to me that there is a great supporting article, avaialable through the ISTE site: Digital Storytelling by Glen Bull and Sarah Kajder. Bull and Kajder describe how digital storytelling supports the ISTE standards, and continue the article by describing Joe Lambert’s (of the Center for Digital Storytelling) Seven Elements of Effective Digital Stories from the Digital Storytelling Cookbook.

Learn from an Influence of George Lucas

Dec 28

Posted by etale in blog, books, digital storytelling, great ideas, sites and sources | Comments off

Soon after the debut of Star Wars, George Lucas credited Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces (Mythos Books) as an influence upon his work. What was it in this book that could influence a storyteller like Lucas? One thing to consider as digital storytellers is the structure of what Campbell calls a monomyth.

  • Interested? Check out more about the sturcture at Wikipedia.
  • Really interested? Get a copy of The Hero With A Thousand Faces at your local library. You may also be interested in the The Hero’s Journey, a documentary (and book) of the life and work of Campbell.
  • Really realy interested? Check out Christopher Vogler’s book, The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers.
  • Not convinced of the implications for the digital world? Consider the fact that 2007 is the release year for what is already an award winning multi-user online role playing game by Simutronics Corporation called “Hero’s Journey.“