EDAD660 (2008)

By popular request, here’s a link to my friend John’s Photoshop Tutorials:  http://www.johnkuiphoff.com/courses/photoshop/

This goes along with the video we watched after break this morning.  The link below takes you to the official press release from Apple regarding their new (free) iTunes service called “iTunes University” or “iTunes U”.

http://www.apple.com/education/itunesu_mobilelearning/landing.html

This is for you Heidi, though I’m sure Jamie can use this info also (along with those of you who are thinking of converting to the dark side!).  You can use this procedure on a Mac to convert a video into an AVI format so that it can be used in Power Point.

1. Save the video to your hard drive
2. Open iMovie
3. Click on File -> Import Movie
4. The movie will appear as a series of thumbnail images at the bottom of the screen.  You can highlight portions of the video to select them – once you have a selection go ahead and drag the video up into the empty boxes at the top of the screen.  If you want to convert the entire video just highlight everything and drag the images into the boxes.
5. Click on Share -> Export using QuickTime
6. Select ‘AVI’ as the file type to export and click Save

Once you have your video in an AVI format you can easily import your video into Power Point by using the Insert -> Movie -> From File feature.

Just some random links that we bounced around in class over the last few days:

1. VLC Media Player – an open-source video player that runs on both PC and Macs.  A good alternative to Windows Media Player or Quick Time.
2. Easy directions on how to process screenshots on a Mac:  http://www.intermedia.net/support/kb/default.asp?id=923
3. Hand-drawn Flash Clock:  http://yugop.com/ver3/stuff/03/fla.html

Good news! You can access your Google Documents offline – without an Internet connection. Check it out:

You can get started by installing the Google Gears plugin for Firefox at: http://gears.google.com/ . Gears requires Firefox and won’t run under Internet Explorer.

Here are some web-based and open source packages that may be helpful when working with images and video.

1. Photoshop Express – http://www.photoshop.com/express
   1. Upload up to 2gb worth of images to your web gallery
   2. Touch up photos and perform basic image manipulation online
   3. Share photos through popular sharing sites or use some Embed code to import images to your blog
2. Cam Studio – http://camstudio.org/
   1. Open Source screen / audio capture package
3. Animoto – http://www.animoto.com
   1. Create videos using your web browser
   2. Upload photos from your computer or have animoto pull them from a picture sharing service (Flickr, Picasa, etc)
   3. Produce any number of short (< 30 second) videos for free.  Longer videos cost $3 per video or $30 per year for unlimited videos.
   4. Takes a long time to render
4. Onetruemedia – http://www.onetruemedia.com
   1. Create videos using your web browser
   2. Upload photos from your computer
   3. Add special effects and transitions
   4. Free accounts can upload 100mb per month
   5. Download videos to your hard drive or use some Embed code to post the video onto your blog

… and here are some other sites we talked about today:

1. Flashkit (http://www.flashkit.com) is a website that has downloadable sound effects and sound loops that you can use in your Scratch or Video projects.  Click on ‘Sound FX’ and ‘Sound Loops’ to explore these sections of the site.
2. Altavista (http://www.altavista.com) is a search engine that lets you search audio files (MP3, WAV, etc) – use the ‘MP3/Audio’ search tab to get started.
3. We watched the ‘Dove – Evolution’ commercial (http://youtube.com/watch?v=hibyAJOSW8U) which illustrates an amazing example of how Photoshop can be used to touch up an image.

Here’s some basic information about Scratch that we covered in class today.  Hope this is helpful!

1. You can download Scratch from http://scratch.mit.edu
2. You can also sign up for a Scratch account at http://scratch.mit.edu – you will need this in order to post your Scratch project to your blog
3. The basic unit in Scratch is called a ‘Sprite’ – all Scratch projects start with a cat Sprite
4. You can give instructions to a Sprite by clicking on it and then on it’s corresponding ‘Scripts’ tab.  You can then use the menus on the left (“Motion”, “Looks”, “Control”, etc) to drag out puzzle pieces into the Scripts area.
5. Double clicking on puzzle pieces in a Sprite’s script area will cause the Sprite to perform the action specified
6. You can snap together puzzle pieces to form more complex actions
7. In class we started by using the ‘move 10 steps’ puzzle piece to move the Sprite to the right.  We used ‘move -10 steps’ to move it to the left.
8. You can snap a ‘When ____ key is pressed’ puzzle piece (from the Control menu) onto another block to tell the Sprite to perform an action when a specific key is pressed.  We used this in conjunction with “Turn in direction ___” and “Move ___ steps” from the Motion menu to allow our Sprite to move around using the arrow keys on the keyboard.
9. You can give a Sprite multiple “costumes” by clicking on it’s Costume tab.  This allows you to animate your sprite (for example, the cat Sprite has two costumes – using the “next costume” block under the “Looks” tab allows you to switch to the next one)
10. You can use the Stage button at the bottom of the screen to change the background of your project
11. You can use the “Play Sound” puzzle piece to play a sound from your computer.  If you have a microphone you can also record your own sound as well.
12. You can post your project to the web if you have a Scratch account.  Your project will show up on your Scratch homepage, along with some Embed code.  Copy and paste this code to include your Scratch project on your blog.

The assignment for Scratch is under the Assignments tab above.  If you have any questions please let me know – we have Thursday set aside as a lab day so don’t worry if you’re unable to get everything done outside of class.

From the New Media Consortium’s listserve – timely info that may be of interest to those of you interested in Second Life:

The weekly Metanomics series in Second Life this week focuses on K-12
Education. You can participate in the live events on NMC Campus at
Outreach (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Outreach/87/125/34) or watch the
live stream (and participate in the group chat as well) on the
Metanomics web site.

Join Metanomics at Noon on Monday, July 28 PST– check local time http://tinyurl.com/57rwel
– to learn about how K-12 teachers are using the Virtual
Chalkboard. Hear superstar educator Kathy Schrock of “Kathy
Schrock’s Guide for Educators”, Teen Grid pioneer Peggy Sheehy, and
Linden’s Boston Operations Director (and academic evangelist)
Pathfinder Linden. But first, we put the grid-spanning group ISTE “On
the Spot” to talk about the Second Life activities of the
International Society for Technology in Education.

For more details on this wek’s show, bios of the guests, and
reference links, see http://www.metanomics.net/archive072808

You’ll be able to communicate directly with other audience members
across the metanomics locations using their ChatBridge technology. Or
as an option you can view the feed directly (and also be in the same
chat) via the Metanomics web site at http://www.metanomics.net/WatchNow

Hi everyone,

Here are a few links related to educational gaming (or random things that we talked about in class) that may be of interest:

1. Crayon Physics – http://www.kloonigames.com/crayon/
2. Spore – http://www.spore.com/ftl
3. Drawball – http://www.drawball.com/
4. The Sheep Market – http://www.thesheepmarket.com/
5. Scratch homepage – http://scratch.mit.edu
6. Digital Storytelling – http://www.shambles.net/pages/staff/dstorytell/
7. Using Scratch in the classroom – http://g4classes.com/learningforward/?p=15
8. Scratch Resources – http://www.smsn.vic.edu.au/ictguy/index.php/scratch-resources/
9. Scratch Programming Handbook – http://www.redware.com/scratch/

http://www.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php