Tag: Joyce Valenza

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School’s out Friday

George Couras sent our a tweet this week to this Google Chrome video. It’s the embodiment of what the Web allows; the crowdsourcing of material inspired by someone who has the ability to inspire and motivate people to create content. In this case it’s Lady Gaga, someone who understands that you don’t need record companies to spend millions of dollars promoting your material now. If you’re smart, you engage your audience, you talk to them through channels of social media such as Twitter and Facebook, and you make them feel like they matter to you. Your fans feel like they have a personal connection to you, and they promote your product and make you a superstar in the process. Lady Gaga gets this. So does Justin Beiber, and Will.i.am from the Black Eyed Peas. If you’re an aspiring musician, you better start understanding how social media works, because if you’re going to make it big, you need to find and talk to your audience, and get them to do the promotion that record companies did in the past.

How clever of Google to link with Lady Gaga to promote their products. They are a company working very hard right now to crowdsource users to promote Google+, their new social network going up against the monolith that is Facebook. I wrote a post earlier this week talking of how I don’t think I can manage another social network. It took all of two days for me to succumb to the lure of Google+.

Pathetic, isn’t it.

I still don’t think there is room in my life for another social network, but I have to say there are some things about Google+ that I do like. The circles feature, where you group people into categories, is something I like. You can post content in your stream to specific circles and I like the perceived element of control that appears to come with that. I tried out Google Hangouts with a group including Joyce Valenza, Judy O’Connell, Cathy Jo Nelson, Linda Nitsche, Rob Darrow and Chris Betcher the other morning(see screenshot below). It worked really seamlessly. We could all see and hear one another – there was very little lag and you could conduct a conversation just like you were hanging out with this group in any social setting. No-one had to pick up the microphone like you do in Elluminate; it was a much more natural experience. There are so many possibilities here for education. If you can create circles for specific groups of students, you eliminate the problems that come with sharing content across all of your social groupings. Can you imagine end of year revision before VCE exams taking place in a Google hangout? I can. At the moment, there is no ability to upload a presentation or share a screen, and it’s limited to 10 people. If they work on it though, this presents a real challenge to a company like Blackboard that recently acquired Elluminate.


Thank goodness Google released Google+ while we are on school holidays here in Australia. It’s given me a bit of room to play. Next Wednesday, I leave for Port Douglas with my family on a much needed holiday. While I have no doubt I will check into my networks, I intend to do the right thing by my husband and kids and focus on them. There may not even be a School’s out Friday posting next week!

(And just for a bit of sheer indulgence, take a look at Maroon 5 and Christina Aguilera singing ‘Moves like Jagger’, my favourite song right now.)

Have a great weekend. I’ll try not to play too much with Google+!

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ISTE 2010 reflection

ISTE 2010. So, what were my impressions. In a word, big. Really big. Probably overwhelmingly big. The scale of a conference this size (17,000 or so attendees!) really is hard to comprehend from the outside, and difficult to comprehend from the inside too. There are acres of people and it’s a struggle to get into sessions. I was shut out from quite a few I wanted to attend as were countless others. You weren’t allowed to sit on the floor to get into full sessions, although this was relaxed in a couple of rooms where the numbers occupying floor space were too many to usher out.

You need to be organised, and I have to confess, I wasn’t. I’d been occupied with reports and end of term happenings, and then spent the time before I left getting the MICDS and ISTE presentation organised. I didn’t give myself time to study the conference program, and I should have. Note to self: do this before attempting a conference of these diminsions should you ever attend another one.

Edubloggercon: A great day, and a nice way to start a conference like this. Steve Hargadon chairs the day, but sessions are determined by participants. There was a session about the changes/monetisation of Ning networks. A representative from Pearson publishing was present to discuss the free networks that are only available to North American educators. I don’t think he was expecting to see an international presence there. Both myself and Julie Lindsay (who teaches in an international school in Beijing), expressed our concerns about the lack of support for teachers outside of North America. To his credit, the representative has sent on our concerns to Pearson and has said he will remain in email contact. Let’s wait and see. Interestingly, Adam Frey from Wikispaces sat in on the discussion. I use Wikispaces all the time, and appreciate the support they give to educators with their product. He spoke to me at the end of the session and said he’d talk with Ning about the concerns we were raising. I hope he does so.

Lots of discussion at Edubloggercon about the iPad and it’s usefulness as a device for schools to consider. There were people there talking of it becoming their 1:1 computing device and a lot of push back saying that it doesn’t have the ability to be a creation tool. It seems that people are relying on the developer community to create apps that are going to make the iPad more adaptable to the needs of students. Many people spoke of the benefits of the battery life. I can attest to this. I took an iPad with me to the conference and was amazed that I could use the device all day without having to look for a power outlet to recharge. I was anticipating that I’d use it rather than my laptop. It’s great as a web surfing device and handling email, but I was hoping to be able to edit Google Docs along the way and take notes that I could access from my Mac later. I was really surprised to see that I could access my Google Docs, but I couldn’t edit them. Talking with conference participants throughout the coming days, it seems that an app called Office HD for $7.99 is something that can allow you to edit your documents. People were pretty happy with how it works, but reviews on the App site suggest there are some problems with it crashing.

The best session for me at Edubloggercon was run by Monika Hardy and her students from Loveland, Colorado. They are doing great things at their school with an innovationlab project they are running from August onwards. Students will have time in their school day to explore the things they are passionate about and will be using whatever tools they need to get their message out there and contacts made. The students were inspiring to listen to. They are in good hands with Monika; she is a passionate educator who wants to do the best for her students. She is enacting in her school what many people talk of doing. Keep tabs on Monika’s progress. I would love to see my school make some connections with this program and do a similar thing.

Dean Groom ran a session about how you go about creating an iPhone/iPad app. It was very well attended and Dean presented in a no nonsense way how you access free code out there (and something called The Kitchen sink!) to assist in creating a app for the iTunes store. He made it sound achievable. It got me thinking that something like this would be a great inquiry week project for the students at my school. I’m going to need to find time to immerse myself in the process first to see if I can get somewhere with it so that I can support the students with their learning. Hmmnn…wondering when I’ll be able to manage that!

The Conference itself: There’s a bit of ‘Razzle Dazzle’ at a conference like this. Keynote presenters are introduced with a band playing music that doesn’t always coincide with the message being transferred. In Australia, we just clap. I found myself in a couple of sessions where speakers were evangelical in their ‘call to action’. I found it a little ‘full on’; maybe it’s a cultural thing. I haven’t been to conferences here in Australia that are like this. Early in the peace, David Warlick was asking how this conference differs from Australia. I said I felt like I was at Disneyland; I felt like I was being entertained. (I feel a need to explain this; I’ve noted David has indicated ‘ISTE as Disneyland for teachers’ as a possible post and I presume he is referring to my comment). Please don’t take this the wrong way; the presenters were relaying important messages that educators should be listening to, it’s just that it was full on, and maybe that’s just their style of presenting. And that comment was based on a microcosm of the conference; at that stage I’d only attended the Keynote and a couple of sessions. Let me preface that as well by saying the the keynote speaker was not providing ‘entertainment’, but the opening music on his entry was!

It’s probably a reflection of the sessions I chose to attend (and being a Teacher-Librarian you won’t be surprised) but there was a strong message coming through that we need to focus strongly on digital literacy skills and understandings. Howard Rheingold had the best term that I’d love to be using at school, but I can imagine some would feel it inappropriate. He calls it ‘The Art of Crap Detection 101″. Thankfully, you can view this presentation online.  (and you can visit here, to see other presentations ISTE has released for public viewing) I missed it as I was involved in my poster session while it was being delivered. Howard seems to have partnered up with Microsoft, who have created a very useful guide for teachers called ‘Critical Thinking in the Classroom‘ that you can download as a PDF. You can also access lesson plans and handouts from the site. They have worked closely with American Teacher-Librarians  and students in the process of creating this, and it looks useful. Some of their examples are US centric, and I brought this up in the session. They acknowledged that they do need need to put on a Global hat when they are creating resources like this so that they can be useful everywhere, in all school systems. The session made me think more about using Bing with my students; it looks like they are doing some interesting things in their labs.

It was great having the opportunity to catch up with Joyce Valenza again at this conference. Joyce is visiting Melbourne in July and is presenting for SLAV. I would encourage you to send your staff along, and not just your Teacher-Librarians. Joyce is a dynamic presenter who has a raft of advice to offer about how you integrate new ideas into teaching and learning.I was able to help with the backchannel at the ‘Learning Tools Smackdown‘ that was hosted by SIGMS (Special interest group Media Specialists). The wiki supporting this session is a fabulous resource, as is the Twitter hastag #SIGMS where you will find the resources referenced collated as live links. It was really wonderful seeing Teacher-Librarians and Ed Tech integrators sharing what works for them in their schools. All of the presenters had put so much effort into the wikipages they have created. I can see this being a very useful resource to take back to my staff.

And that brings me to probably the most valuable resource at this conference. Twitter hashtags. Whether you were there in person or attending virtually, the hashtags supporting the conference are a veritable mine of information that can act as your professional development opportunity in the coming weeks. Hashtags to search via Twitter include #iste2010 and #iste10. You should also check out the Diigo group, ISTE 2010; many educators have been adding links there that you will find useful. One of the problems with any conference is that you are just one person and you can’t go to everything. Being able to access information post-conference like is invaluable.

I had a great time meeting people from my online community. Some I’d met before, and some were people I was meeting for the first time. Meeting Jeff Agamenoni was a highlight. Jeff is such a nice guy, both online and in person. I shared a really fun night out with Jeff, his family and Dean Groom. Thanks for your hospitality Jeff and Joanie, and for driving me back to my dodgy accomodation! I shared a great conversation and was so pleased to meet Richard Byrne who writes ‘Free Technology for Teachers’. Richard’s a very nice guy who is doing great work to support the teaching community across the world. I really enjoyed catching up with my PLP friends, Sheryl Nussbaum Beach, Will Richardson and Robyn Ellis . Once again, thanks Sheryl for your hospitality.

Sue Waters and Frances McLean were rocks for me. I loved sharing time shopping, eating and laughing with them. Frances and I even managed to see Toy Story 3 together! Dean Groom, Judy O’Connell and June Wall were also fun companions to be around. Thanks for sharing time with me. I do think we all tend to gravitate to one another because we’re Australian; you look for the common thread in unfamiliar surroundings, and the accent and shared understandings are connective glue.

I ran a poster session on the last day of the conference. I wasn’t too sure about the format, but it was worthwhile. I spoke to many people who were interested in applying Ning environments to their school settings and who seemed to appreciate the fact that I’d embedded the presentation into a wiki and had added a voiceover to help them with their understanding. Hopefully people elsewhere will find it useful too.

Denver is a beautiful place, and a conference like ISTE is incredible. It’s an experience to be had, that’s for sure!

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Seth Godin on libraries – take heed

Seth Godin has written a brief, but pretty accurate in my view, summation of the future of libraries. I’ll post it in it’s entirity here, but make sure you start reading Seth. I do nearly every day.

The future of the library

What should libraries do to become relevant in the digital age?

They can’t survive as community-funded repositories for books that individuals don’t want to own (or for reference books we can’t afford to own.) More librarians are telling me (unhappily) that the number one thing they deliver to their patrons is free DVD rentals. That’s not a long-term strategy, nor is it particularly an uplifting use of our tax dollars.

Here’s my proposal: train people to take intellectual initiative.

Once again, the net turns things upside down. The information is free now. No need to pool tax money to buy reference books. What we need to spend the money on are leaders, sherpas and teachers who will push everyone from kids to seniors to get very aggressive in finding and using information and in connecting with and leading others.

It’s that final sentence that holds the key to survival of the Library profession, and it’s up to Library professionals to understand this and skill themselves up so that they are up to the challenge. If you’re a Librarian right now and you don’t know what Diigo or Delicious are, or how you use Twitter for real time search, or how to go about trying to find the experts out there who may be able to answer the questions your students are posing, then you better start rethinking what it is you are doing. Libraries are not going to be about the book collection forever; they’re not about that now in my opinion. They are about being a connective space; a space where reading, discussion and discovery take place. The professionals in those spaces need to be the information sherpa enabling new understandings of how we go about finding out what it is we need. It means letting go of knowledge and giving it up to empower others. Don’t see that as a threat, view it as an opportunity. If we don’t, the information sherpas in our school are not going to be emanating from the school library. Instead, they’ll be the educational technologists out there who will rise to the fore. Missed opportunities could mean a lost profession.

Joyce Valenza, Doug Johnson and Scott McLeod have all posted responses to Seth’s post. Make sure you visit these for their insights.

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Edublogs awards- congratulations Bright Ideas

Today the Edublogs awards were announced. I’m thrilled to let you all know that SLAV’s Bright Ideas blog received 1st runner up in the Librarian/Library category. They were trumped by the equally deserving Joyce Valenza, who really pushes our thinking in terms of the role of Teacher-Librarians and the response needed to adapt to our changing world.

It’s so wonderful to see Bright Ideas right up there. Judith Way does a fantastic job sourcing new ideas and showcasing the work of Victorian schools and the Teacher-Librarians in them. Congratulations- a high honour indeed.

Be sure to check out all of the winners on the Edublogs site when the names of the recipients are posted.

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YouTube into Powerpoint – Wikihow has advice

I have never successfully been able to get a YouTube .flv video to play in a PowerPoint presentation. We have a Library PowerPoint that runs through a large television and we have often wanted to embed videos from YouTube into this. Our workaround has been to use a converter like keepvid to shift it from .flv format to .avi format so that they will play in PowerPoint.   

I followed a link tonight from Dai Barnes onTwitter that took me to an article from the School Library Journal written by Joyce Valenza.  It was called, ‘When YouTube is blocked (eight ways around)’ and is worth reading if you work in schools facing problems accessing YouTube. One of the links had me intrigued re the PowerPoint solution and I ended up at ‘wikiHow  – The How-to Manual that you can edit’.  The article in question was called, ‘How to Embed YouTube Flash Videos in Your PowerPoint Presentations‘  and step by step instructions were provided. I haven’t tested them as yet, but come my return to work I’m sure I’ll be putting them to good use! According to instructions at the bottom of the page you can embed the article in its entirity into your blog. Their creative commons licence makes them very generous. Hence, the following; 

 

How to Embed YouTube Flash Videos in Your PowerPoint Presentations

from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit

YouTube is considered to be one of the world’s most popular online community. YouTube is known for its fast video download rate, making it the number one choice for presenters when it comes to the video aspect of their presentations.

Steps

Play YouTube Flash Video Online in PowerPoint with Internet Access

  1. In PowerPoint 2003 and earlier versions, go to View -> Toolbars -> select “Control Toolbox”. In PowerPoint 2007, go to PowerPoint Options -> Popular -> tick “Show Developer tab in the Ribbon”.
  2. In the Control Toolbox, click the last icon “More Controls” which is displayed as hammer plus wrench. In the set of controls available on your computer, select “Shockwave Flash Object”. Then use your mouse to draw and resize an area in the slide as you like to place your YouTube video.
  3. Go to the YouTube video page you’d like to add, and check the URL in the address bar of your Web browser. You’ll get an address like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hChq5drjQl4 Change the phrase watch?v= to v/, and now the address become http://www.youtube.com/v/hChq5drjQl4
  4. Right click the area you drew which is displayed as a big cross, select Properties and go to Properties tab. Copy and paste the YouTube video address in the field as value of attribute Movie; set the value of attribute Playing and Loop to False. Close the Properties tab when everything is done.

Get YouTube Flash Video Offline and Add To Presentations
When you don’t like the live YouTube video way, which requires live and reliable Internet connection, you may download YouTube video to your hard drive, and insert the video into presentation offline. It’s also very easy to make in a few minutes.

  1. Go to the YouTube video page you’d like to add, and check the URL in the address bar of your Web browser. You’ll get an address like http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hChq5drjQl4. Then try some online services like KeepVid or other offline tools to retrieve and download the original Flash video file from the address. Rename the downloaded YouTube Flash video file from “get_video” to “xxx.flv” as you like in FLV format.
  2. Now you need to decide in which format of YouTube Flash video you’d like to add in PowerPoint presentation. If directly inserting the Flash video in FLV format, you have to ensure the FLV file could be properly played back at first. It’s recommended to install VideoLAN VLC media player to play YouTube Flash video files in FLV format.
  1. Find the hidden Control Toolbox out in PowerPoint and go to “More Controls” as the way in the first steps of online YouTube section above. Select “VideoLAN VLC ActiveX Plugin v1/v2” in the set of controls available, then draw and resize the displayed area with mouse in the slide as you like. Right click the area you drew and go to Properties tab, and complete the value of attribute “MRL” with the path of the YouTube Flash video file, like D:\Temp\2008\temp.flv, then close the tab. Now the YouTube Flash video in your hard drive is ready to play in the presentation.

— Insert YouTube Video As Common Video

Besides, you may also try to convert your YouTube Flash video in FLV format to other common video format like AVI, MOV, etc with some online services such as vixy.net or other offline video conversion tools. Then you can directly insert these converted video in your hard drive via “Insert Movie from File” in PowerPoint.

— Insert YouTube Video As SWF Flash Movie

Generally speaking, to avoid video codec problem with different computers, and ensure the properly video playback in PowerPoint, Flash video in FLV format and other video formats is not recommended to be inserted in PowerPoint. Based on the popularity of Adobe Flash player, which is widely installed on most computers in the world, Flash movie in SWF is highly compatible cross-platform and properly played back. You may try some video to Flash conversion tools, such as WebVideo Author, to convert FLV or other video formats to SWF format.
The Flash movie file in SWF format could be inserted into PowerPoint presentation as “Shockwave Flash Object” in Contorl Toolbox like the way in the first steps of online YouTube section above. And you can embed the SWF Flash file in your presentation through setting the attribute “EmbedMovie” to True in Properties tab.
By the way, some presentation authoring tools, such as PPT2Flash Professional (http://www.sameshow.com/powerpoint-to-flash-pro.html), Articulate Presenter, offer the shortcut to insert SWF Flash files quickly, and finally output the PowerPoint presentation with YouTube Flash video as Flash movie in SWF format. Flash-based presentation is kind of great solution to avoid compatibility issues from video codec, PowerPoint versions and operating systems, and easy to make Web compliance.
Maybe the total guide for YouTube video in PowerPoint is a little of complicated for everyone. Google’s PowerPoint killer in Google Docs is highly expected to add the feature to add YouTube video in online presentation instantly, if Google really wants to be the killer. After all, YouTube is a great video treasure for everyone, we can make better use of it with our works and life.

Related wikiHows

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Embed YouTube Flash Videos in Your PowerPoint Presentations. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

(The grammar in the final paragraph suggests English is not the native language of the contributor. What is wonderful is that people are willing to share their knowledge across language barriers.)

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Transformativeness – new word for me but it makes sense

For a long time now I’ve struggled with how to interpret the fair use provision when it comes to Copyright law. It’s a vexed issue for we educators, and particularly those of us who work in school libraries. I’ve been having my students create Digital Stories for awhile now and have tried to impress on them the best way of accessing music and images from the web is via sites that put their content out there under Creative Commons licencing. They find this difficult however, particularly when it comes to music. Very often they know just the right song that fits the message they are trying to convey. Here in Australia, there is a clause related to use of music and sound recordings in student work;

“There is no general provision that allows people to copy for personal or private use. However, the Copyright Act does contain provisions which students may sometimes be able to rely on, including when they want to use music and sound recordings in films and videos they make as part of a course of study. In particular, a student may be able to deal with copyright material for research or study, provided the use is fair. An example of fair dealing for research or study may be using music in a film which is to be submitted for a school or university project, but which you do not intend to show outside the classroom or distribute further.” (Australian Copyright Council p.3)

Tonight I was following the discussion on Twitter when Kristin Hokanson alerted me to her post about copyright confusion. This in turn led to Joyce Valenza’s post  for the School Library Journal entitled, ‘Fair use and transformativeness: It may shake your world’. After reading it, I can say my world has been shaken. Joyce attended a meeting at which Renee Hobbs and Peter Jazsi outlined an interpretation of fair use that she had not considered. Her understanding at the end of the session was this;

“I learned on Friday night that the critical test for fairness in terms of educational use of media is transformative use. When a user of copyrighted materials adds value to, or repurposes materials for a use different from that for which it was originally intended, it will likely be considered transformative use; it will also likely be considered fair use. Fair use embraces the modifying of existing media content, placing it in new context.” 

The word transformative is key here. The suggestion is (I think!) that if a student uses an image or piece of music and adds value to it by maker it richer as a result of its association with what they have produced then the use is fair. I can relate this to the digital stories my students have produced .Often they will use a commercial piece of music but its connection with the images and intention of the students’ work is transformative to that music selection – it means something else other than what its lyrics may have been originally intended for. I may have this completely wrong and please correct me if I have, but that is my understanding of what transformative means.

Joyce summed up her article by condensing her understanding to these points;

  • The Multimedia Fair Use Guidelines describe minimum rules for fair use, but were never intended as specific rules or designed to exhaust the universe of educational practice.  They were meant as a dynamic, rather than static doctrine, supposed to expand with time, technology, changes in practice.  Arbitrary rules regarding proportion or time periods of use (for instance, 30-second or 45-day rules) have no legal status. 
  • The fact that permission has been sought but not granted is irrelevant.  Permission is not necessary to satisfy fair use.
  • Fair use is fair use without regard to program or platform. What is fair, because it is transformative, is fair regardless of place of use. If a student has repurposed and added value to copyrighted material, she should be able to use it beyond the classroom (on YouTube, for instance) as well as within it. 
  • Not every student use of media is fair, but many uses are. One use not likely to be fair, is the use of a music soundtrack merely as an aesthetic addition to a student video project. Students need to somehow recreate to add value.  Is the music used simply a nice aesthetic addition or does the new use give the piece different meaning? Are students adding value, engaging the music, reflecting, somehow commenting on.the music?
  • Not everything that is rationalized as educationally beneficial is necessarily fair use.  For instance, photocopying a text book because it is not affordable is still not fair use.

    • Joyce is speaking from an American perspective but I think there is much to be learned from her article. We are living in transformative times and our students are active creators now that there are accessible tools making creation relatively easy – if only copyright law could follow suit and provide us with clear (read easy to understand) guidelines that will benefit the learning taking place in our classrooms today.

    (sorry about formatting problems in this post – it’s late here, I’m tired and haven’t got the energy to sort them out!!)