Class 8

This post is intended to address our next project component, a Webquest, which, depending upon the comfort level of the group, should occur sometime after we've dealt with our Powerpoint presentations at the beginning of class 8.

Please do not export your presentations, but leave them in their pristine state. I need a little more time to think about the most advantageous way for us to run them. Here's the question: Can you guys run them off the server from within your folders at school? If you can do that, we should be able to run them in the lab from the teacher's workstation. In addition, please bring a copy (complete, in a folder named YourLastName, with no other extraneous files-only those necessary) on your flash drive.

This is all leading to a culmination of your work that I want to publish for you in one place on the Web. All of your work should unite with your movies in the same location, so that you could either access it yourself during a lesson presentation, or you could direct your students to do so.

The Webquest should complement and complete your integrated learning unit. With that in mind, I'd like to direct you to a number of sites that contain, either tutorials, or examples of Webquests, including Zunals. You'll have most of Class 8 to work on these. Just take a a look at what follows and begin thinking about what you'd like to do and set yourself up with an Zunal account. Use your complete email address for your username.

Definition of WebQuests from The Zunal site:

Professor Bernie Dodge of San Diego State University defines a WebQuest as an inquiry-oriented activity that uses resources on the World Wide Web. WebQuests pull together the most effective instructional practices into one integrated student activity. These Web-based projects use World Wide Web sites to help students develop problem-solving and decision-making skills. WebQuests are interesting and motivating to teachers and students. An effective WebQuest develops critical thinking skills and often includes a cooperative learning component. Students learn as they search for information using the Web, following a prescribed format that focuses on problem solving and authentic assessment. A well-written WebQuest requires students to go beyond simple fact finding. It asks them to analyze a variety of resources and use their creativity and critical-thinking skills to solve a problem. WebQuests help students analyze, synthesize, and evaluate information.

WebQuests.org 

Matrix of Sample Zunal WebQuests   http://www.zunal.com/index-matrix.php

Zunal Webquest Guidelines   http://www.zunal.com/help-about-whatiswebquest.php

Zunal Webquest Tutorial and Workshop   http://zunal.com/site.php?s=1

Tech Insights and Zunal Webquests   http://www.wiu.edu/coehs/techinsights/blog/?p=983

Class 7

Welcome back and I hope you all had an enjoyable and restful vacation.

Good show...our online class went well. I hope you all concur and if you have any thoughts regarding how it might have been made more effective, please share them with me.

Our syllabus calls for us, during class 7, to work on our Powerpoint projects, complete them, and view them in class as a group. I know that some of you have either begun them, or substantially completed them.

 I'm going to poll the group as you come into class to get a feel as to the portion of the class that fits the above. If you haven't begun yours, that is as it should be and everyone will have time in class to work on their projects.

At the onset of class, I'd like to go through 6 or 8 short tutorials, much as we did with Windows Movie Maker. They'll deal with formatting, text, saving in different formats, and spell checking, etc.

I lied to you. There are roughly 25 tuts that I'd like you to see, but time will not allow for that many. So I think I'll let you see the list of topics in order, then run them allowing you to zone in on those that you would consider germane to you.

So, once we finish going through the tutorials or currently, I'd like you to spend the rest of the class working on your Powerpoint creations; either starting them, finishing them up, or polishing them. Please remind me to discuss what your method of delivery would be and how we might publish them as we did your movies.

Once you begin to work on your projects, I'll come around to offer help to anyone who might need it. Please remind me to view yours if it's finished, when I come.

If we can pull it all together, we'll plan on running them during the beginning of class 8. The second half of class 8 with be devoted to creating Webquests.

Just a little aside: as I was viewing the Powerpoint tutorials I grew nostalgic for an old friend no longer around and long forgotten by many. It's name was HyperCard (notice the signature mid word capitalization that can still be found on so many logos today). I see so many features within Powerpoint that were first introduced to us in HyperCard.

Sample Home cards and stack using HyperCard

(notice the hyperlinked buttons)

A little background from Wikipedia: HyperCard is an application program created by Bill Atkinson for Apple Computer, Inc. that was among the first successful hypermedia systems before the World Wide Web. It combines database capabilities with a graphical, flexible, user-modifiable interface. HyperCard also features HyperTalk, written by Dan Winkler, a programming language for manipulating data and the user interface. Some HyperCard users employed it as a programming system for Rapid Application Development of applications and databases.

It had just about everything-sound, graphics, and it could run laserdiscs with it. You could make interactive lessons. Non linear lessons that in essence, tailored themselves to the viewer. You could even pprogram with it using its unique languages, HyperTalk and HyperScript. It was an exciting program and the kids loved it. The Boston Computer Society (RIP) had bunches of floppies loaded with educational stacks designed by teachers on all sorts of subjects. All long gone.

At disappeared because it was a little hokey, it didn't support color (black and white only), and it was not marketed very well and left to wither on the vine by Apple much as the Newton was. Who remembers HyperCard or the Newton; both were cutting edge. Both were superseded by IBM products when, back in the nineties, Apple lost some of it's polish because of failure to counter it's image as not as serious as other business oriented platforms. The real kiss of death, came shortly after HyperCard's inception when it was given as freeware. Many thought that because it was free and PC based software was so expensive, it couldn't be worth much. Oh well.   

Class 6

Thank you all,

I heard from almost everyone by now and it looks like you all have the capabilities to view each others movies at locations other than the lab at Monty Tech. This assignment was essentially a dry run for our 6th class which will run on April 17th.

My thought is that rather than trying to get you all together simultaneously in my virtual office at TappedIn, it's going to be more effective that you view the class through this blog. In that way, wherever you choose to be during vacation, you can accomplish everything you need to at your convenience. More importantly, this venue will allow each of you to concentrate on the work of your colleagues, in a quiet and thoughtful manner without the clutter that usually occurs in a chat window.

I will post all the finished movies to the same relative location as the sample movies that you viewed last week as soon as I can.

*Assignment:

• Please complete this assignment prior to April 21st. That way I'll be able to view everything on the blog and prepare my own comments as well as get ready for class 7. Thank you.

• Please view each of your other class members during the week of April 17th by clicking on the link with their names below. Presently you'll see placeholders for each one of you by last name. The links will be blind until you all give me your movies, I get to post them to MEC's Webspace, and activate them. When you come in later this week, you'll know when the links become active by their color and underlining.

• Remark on each one using the comments component of our blog. I will create a series of blank comments (placeholders) for each of you so that the other can have their say keeping all under each of your names.
• That way each commenter can easily keep track of their viewing/commenting progress and each contributor will be able to see all the comments written about their movie.
• My philosophy regarding criticism, is to ALWAYS keep it as positive as possible. Each of you will move to improve what you've done as you glean ideas from what others have done. That's the purpose of this viewing/commenting exercise and why it was included in the syllabus.
• Please remember that we all come to these classes with different strengths and skills and that none of you (save possibly one) was familiar with Windows Live Movie Maker prior to this course.

My plan is to be in my virtual office holding office hours during our regular class time, 4:00 pm to 7:45 pm on April 18th, in case any of you have trouble with the assignment or wish to discuss any other class related issues. It is not necessary or otherwise a requirement that you visit me there during that time. I offer it as a matter of convenience to you. You can also call me during that time just in case either of us has trouble accessing TappedIn. I will email you my cell number as well as the land line (better for reception) I will be closest to during that time.

Here are the movies. Placeholders for the comments for each one of them are at the very bottom with corresponding titles. By Friday, April 20th, there should be 16 comments for each one of them:

Bartok

Cataldo

Curry

DeArellano

Davis

Despres

Heglin

Hurd

Kelly

Logue

McNally

Robichaud

Salvanelli

Tignor

Vargo

Cleveland


Eric

Class 5

Good afternoon all,

We need to reiterate a couple of items before we move on to saving our movies in a format other than a wlmp (Windows Live Media Project). At the end of Tuesday's class, a couple of class members had trouble saving their wlmp files to the server. I didn't see what they were doing or how they did it, so I cannot say with certainty what happened. Luckily (I hope) they saved all their component files to their flash drives. Remember that we discussed keeping everything together in one folder in case we had to reconstruct our projects.

Another class member separated their wlmp project file from its related assets and found their clips and pics showed up as ghost icons in their storyboard when they launched it in Movie Maker.

Usually, employing an abundance of caution, I save computer files in their primal state so that later reconstruction, if necessary, is not that complicated. Unfortunately, it carries over into Life for me sometimes, leading to excessive clutter. Computer files take up negligible amounts of space, while tangible items do not.

Your original project was saved as a wlmp along with it's related files in a folder. Please do not consider turning it into an actual movie file until I get a chance to speak with you about the possibilities.

The best course for us is to come to class next week with everything related to your movie project loaded on a flash drive. That will allow us to save it as a movie in multiple formats at any time in the future. Different formats will allow you to utilize different methods of delivery constraints due to resolution quality and file size. We'll use a lower res movie file for the Web posting we'll use for our online class while you may wish to use a high res movie file to play on a DVD.

Next week, we'll spend a couple of minutes viewing short tutorials explaining movie file options and how to save them. Windows Live Movie Maker uses the term, to save, for both the initial save when you create a wlmp as well as when you essentially export it to another format.

Also very important:

1. save to your flash drive only (we want to avoid the nasty network gremlins)
2. save you original project (wlmp) file early and often
3. keep all your related files in the same relative location as your project file
4. do not relocate any files or rename any of them
5. please call me over to your computer if:

• you have any trouble saving
• you are uncertain about where your saved files will go
• you are uncertain about where your saved files have gone
• you have files related to you movie scattered about

I hope you enjoy this quickly done movie below. I used a video that I took of you all in class while I was droning on and on, mainly with Jon, to cover my tracks. The stills were created from simple pngs and jpegs that I took of the Web after doing a search for images related to Monty Tech. The introductory audio track was recorded using the Open Source and cost free program called Audacity. It was exported as an mp3 and imported into this movie. The subsequent music that you'll hear in later was downloaded, again cost free, as part of a Creative Commons site.

I did the movie for a couple of reasons:

The first is that while thinking about how we could conduct our vacation class, I wanted to chose the most effective virtual space for our classroom. Should it be in my office at TappedIn (a synchronous session requiring all to appear there at the same time) or would it be better to conduct it through our blog (asynchrous-meaning anyone could view the subject matter anytime, anywhere independent of the others in the class).

I think that a good use of that time would be to use the allotment provided for in the syllabus to view our movie creations. Since the week when I asked you all who would not be around during that makeup class when everyone said they would, a few people have told me they wouldn't. So, I guess that makes me lean toward the asynchrous. That way you can view all the movies at your leisure wherever you may be that week.

The second reason is that if you all can view this movie where I posted it to the Web linked through our blog, then I could post all of yours to be viewed by each of you sometime during our vacation week. I just need to be sure that you all can do it.

I also posted a movie shot by Donnalee on her cellphone. She prepared a wonderful short with a student in Automotive. The purpose of it was to educate the viewer about the meaning of numbers on the sidewalls of all the tires we all purchase.

*Assignment:

Please view both movies and comment on your ease of access in doing so by using the comment component of our blog. Simply let me know if you can view mine, but be sure to let Donnalee know what a great idea she had.

MontyTechSampleMovie
DonnaLee
More to follow...