Flip Video Revisited

 

Chris Pirillo recently discussed the Flip Ultra in this youtube video.

 Push came to shove last week when we discovered our media center’s digital videocamera was unusable.  I pulled out the Flip Video camera to film the English III Jazz Age Literature classes’ presentations.

The camera captured the presentations well, as I expected it would.  However, I was reluctant to use the camera’s software after having little success with it last winter.  I had downloaded an upgrade to the software on my personal laptop, but hadn’t asked to do so on my desktop at school.  I brought the camera home, uploaded the video clips onto my laptop, and saved them with no problem. 

The software fix solved the problems I had with the program freezing up and it performed beautifully.  I am impressed with the email and greeting card capabilities the software offers and used them to share a clip of my three-month-old grandson laughing.

I am now a convert of the Flip Video and will get the software fix downloaded onto my school desktop so that students and teachers can make use of this little gem.

“Watch. Read. Succeed.”

This is the slogan for myrocketbook.com, a promising site for students (and teachers) of literature.  The site presents Video Study Guides for many classic works of literature including The Crucible, Hamlet, Pride and Prejudice, and Macbeth.

Here is the description from the site’s home page:

     Rocketbooks are video study guides that provide summaries and detailed analyses of literary works. Our WikiNotes section offers a new user experience allowing fresh viewpoints and expressions from today’s students, educators, and literature enthusiasts to bring these classic works to life.

Advertisements are interspersed among the various segments for each piece of literature,  but the material myrocketbook.com offers is worth the wait.  Each work of literature is broken down into segments (chapters, acts and scenes).  The site provides a summary, analysis, and quiz for each of the segments.

Using these guides is NO substitute for reading the literature, but the use of this supplement can increase comprehension of each work. Video which incorporates a narrator and illustrations can clarify portions of a text that students found difficult.

The website is offering free MP3 downloads of many of the study guides for a limited time. Downloads for the PDF versions of each study guide are also offered.

Check out the guides to The Great Gatsby, Beowulf, and Othello.  This site is bookmark-worthy.

Image from Flickr:

http://flickr.com/photos/23733699@N04/2422648886/sizes/s/

MySpace: Learning the Ropes

 

 

 

 

 

 Elgin Community College offers social networking class

Many public schools block social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook to protect their students.  I know that this is going to sound far-fetched, but to me this is the equivalent of purchasing a gun and locking it up in cabinet so that your children can’t be harmed by it.

What happens to those children if the cabinet is left unlocked or they decide they just have to see the gun and break into the cabinet?  If they have not been taught how to handle a gun, then the consequences can be dangerous.

Same situation with MySpace and other social networking sites.  As educators, we are supposed to prepare children for life beyond (and just outside of) school.  Many have access to the Internet at home, a friend’s house, or public library.  What they post can be detrimental to their future employability, but we can’t effectively communicate this to students when it is “off limits.”

It is sad that students have to graduate from high school before they are offered classes that teach them how to safeguard themselves and their future when using social networking sites. 

How to change this?  First, we have to do the research needed to support our belief that teaching in the safety of the classroom is better than having students explore when unsupervised.  (Hmm, this sounds familiar.  Sex education classes?)  Research which shows that employers often look at these sites before hiring a potential employee will help underscore the necessity of teaching students what is acceptable to post.

Then we have to familiarize educators with the social networking sites that are most frequently used by our students.  We have to provide positive examples to shake the negative stereotypes commonly held by many educators. Then we must share examples of non “R” rated sites which push the limits and jeopardize the creator’s future employability.

What else do we need to do to promote responsible use of social networking sites?  Your ideas would be greatly appreciated as I go to bat for my students.

My Top 10 Web Tools

 

The Webware 100 Top Web Apps was recenlty released.  Many of these I have never heard of, much less used (Etsy, iLike, Kayak, iwantSandy, DeviantART).  But looking over the list got me to thinking.  What tools do I use most often? Nowhere near 100, so here’s my own top ten list:

1.  iGoogle

2.  Gmail

3.  Google search

4.  Google Reader

5. Twitter (Be Twittered on my iGoogle page)

6.  WordPress

7.  del.icio.us (also trying out diigo)

8.  educational podcasts for professional development

9. Librarything (also trying out Shelfari)

10. Blackboard (I am a graduate student and the University of South Carolina uses this tool for our classes)

I want (and need) to expand my list of tools in order to find those that can help my teachers and students.  What web tools help you in your professional or personal lives?