Week 6: Set Phasers To Stun: Beyond Text

Ahhh...phasers...

Wouldn't you love to have a device that would stun people into unconsciousness without killing them? I know I would probably use it every day. If I got behind a long line of customers at the Walmart checkout, I could zap my way to the front. If someone with big hair sat in front of me at the movies, zap! Imagine the surprise...

How often have we surprised our students, co-workers, faculty, etc.? Not with a phaser, but with something unexpected, something that grabbed their attention and woke them up?
This past summer, Ricky Cox and I gave Blitz presentations that centered around the power of images. Basically it was about moving beyond text and incorporating more visual elements in our presentations and teaching. As Mark Wagner mentions in his blog (2008): Why do you think newspapers added photographs as soon as possible, and later, in color? Why do you think people like watching the news, rather than just reading simple text? Images can create a greater emotional impact. For example, look at Hurricane Katrina. How inadequately did text articles convey the devastation about what had happened. Weren't the pictures and footage more compelling? The same applies to audio - think about the power of music!

"We are crippling our students if we only teach them to read and write. They need the power to express themselves with sound and visuals... and to critique the expressions of others. We should be encouraging students to present their findings through audio and visual mediums as well as the written word. The final product of a research project should be more than just a 'paper' (Wagner, 2008)."


IMAGES


Trek 1: Watch this brief video about Online Photo Sharing and Flickr:

Trek 2: Take the Flickr Tour and the Magical Feature Tour

Trek 3: Create a Flickr Account and have some fun:

• Click the Sign Up Now link at the end of the Magical Feature Tour
• Flickr is part of Yahoo, so if you have a Yahoo account, go ahead and sign in with that username and password. If you don't have a Yahoo account, create one here. (Write this info. down in your Word doc. table!)
• Once you have created an account, personalize your profile
  --- Create your buddy icon (add a pic of yourself)
  --- Choose your custom Flickr URL (again, write this down in your Word doc. table)
  --- Personalize your Profile (add some basic info. about yourself)
• Next, upload some pics
• Add picture descriptions and tags
  
• If you want, find your friends on Flickr
• To see my Flickr photos, go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/liliamurray/
• Explore some interesting photos from the last 7 days
  

Trek 4: Read/listen to these articles about Flickr use in higher education:

• 5 Ways to Use Flickr as a Higher-Ed Marketing Tool
• Flickr, Your Electronic Photo Database
  
• Flickr Assignments
  
  
  

SOUND:

Trek 1: Next, watch this video about podcasting

Trek 2: Listen to some podcasts; subscribe to them with your RSS feed:

• Culture and Life
• Grammar
• Ira Kradkow's Legal Podcasts
• Manhattan Marymount College’s Art Mobs Project, in which students record their own guides to art galleries throughout Manhattan.
• Podcasts for Professors
• Purdue University’s BoilerCasts bring entire courses to students as podcasts or streaming audio.
• University of Chicago’s Poem Present series
  

Trek 3: To create your own podcast, I’d recommend a free tool such as Audacity. This program can help you record, edit, and process digital audio.V

For more detailed instructions on how to create a podcast read How to Create Your Own Podcast-A Step-by-Step Tutorial.

At this point, I can picture many of you protesting, “I already know my job, must I learn how to be an audio/ video producer as well?! Can’t I just have the CTLT folks do it for me?” Well, yes, you can, but you should first learn the potential uses and value of this medium in order to communicate more effectively when you call for CTLT help.

“There was also time when professors did not do their own typing or line editing. Now, however, moderate skill in typing and word-processing is simply assumed. Those of us who compose at the keyboard probably prefer to do our own typing. The same process will inevitably overtake rich media authoring as well” (Udell, 2005).

Trek 4: Read How to podcast campus lectures: advice on getting your institution's 'coursecasting' program off to a good start. Some possible higher education applications include (Meng, 2005):

• "Recordings of lectures for those students unable to attend the lecture in person.
• Audio recordings of textbook text, made available for students by the chapter, would allow students to "read" or review texts while walking or driving to class. It could also be a significant aid to auditory learners.
• Students could record and post project audio and video interviews which could be automatically downloaded to an instructors laptop or MP3 player for review.
• The same could be done for language lessons where students forward audio of their pronunciation dialogues. They could even swap these with peers for peer review before turning in the final form to the instructor.
• Oral reports recorded and archived.
• Musical resumes. Music critique.
• Libraries of bird sounds that the budding ornithologist could receive via seasonal subscription and take with them to the field.
• Downloadable library of high resolution heart sounds for medical students."
  

VIDEO SHARING

Video sharing is where users can upload, view, and share video clips to an Internet website. There are several video sharing sites including Veoh, Sclipo, Sumo, Sevenload, Dailymotion, and Blip; however, YouTube is probably the most popular and, like most Web 2.0 technologies, it is free. Anyone can watch the videos, but you must be a registered member in order to upload videos and leave comments.

Videos can be up to 1 GB in size and 10 minutes long. For longer videos, you can divide your video into smaller segments, i.e.: Part I, Part II, etc. It can take from a couple minutes to an hour for your video to upload to YouTube. YouTube accepts video files from most digital cameras and camcorders, and cell phones in the .AVI, .MOV, .WMV, and .MPG file formats.

Trek 1: Register! Go to the "Signup" page, choose a username and password, and enter your information. (Again, save this information in the Word doc. you created earlier!!!) Then click the "Sign Up" button. You'll soon receive a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the "Confirm your email address" link within that email. You're done!

Trek 2: Watch How to Upload a Video to YouTube:

Trek 3: Explore:

• TeacherTube, a free video sharing website that is very similar to YouTube, but has an emphasis on educational resources.
• SciVee a "YouTube for scientists." Scientists can upload highly technical papers and post video presentations to make their research more visible and shareable.
  ,
  

Trek 4: Read Higher Education Converges with YouTube

Trek 5: Find some videos that may be useful in your class or workplace. (Or, if you have a video of your own that you'd like to share, try uploading it to YouTube or TeacherTube.) Include the URLs in a Comment for this week's post.

Here are some videos created by various departments at MSU and posted to YouTube:

Works Cited

Deitz, C. (2008). How to create your own podcast-a step-by-step tutorial. Retrieved December 10, 2008 from http://radio.about.com/od/podcastin1/a/aa030805a.htm

Kelley, C, and Pfeiffer, M. (2007, November 30). Higher education converges with YouTube. Retrieved January 12, 2009 from http://www.regent.edu/admin/ctl/newsletter/2007/11-30-07.htm

Mayer, B. (2007, April 10). 5 ways to use Flickr as a higher-ed marketing tool. Retrieved January 7, 2009 from http://brendanmayer.com/2007/04/10/5-ways-to-use-flickr-as-a-higher-ed-marketing-tool/

Meng, P. (2005, April 16). Podcasting and vodcasting in higher education: how disruptive will they be? Retrieved January 8, 2009 from http://www.masternewmedia.org/news/2005/04/16/podcasting_and_vodcasting_in_higher.htm

Middleton, A., Turner, N. (2007, December 18). Flickr assignments. Retrieved January 7, 2009 from http://ltapodcast.blogspot.com/2007/12/56-flickr-assignments.html

Read, B. (2007, January 26). How to podcast campus lectures: advice on getting your institution's 'coursecasting' program off to a good start. Retrieved January 7, 2009 from http://chronicle.com/free/v53/i21/21a03201.htm

Udell, J. (2005, March 18). Hypermedia: why now? Retrieved December 10, 2008 from
http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/network/2005/03/18/primetime.html.

Wagner, M. (2008) Visual and information literacy: which is more factual...text, audio, or video? Retrieved December 3, 2008 from http://markwagner.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!EC59F55225E7160!300.entry

Ward, B. (2008, April 24). Flickr, your electronic photo database? Retrieved January 7, 2009 from http://squaredpeg.com/index.php/2008/04/24/flickr-your-electronic-photo-database/

Young, J. (2008, January 8). Thanks to YouTube, professors are finding new audiences. Retireved January 7, 2009 from http://chronicle.com/free/2008/01/1159n.htm

The journey continues March 9th with "You Will Be Assimilated: Social Networks."