Friday, November 2, 2012

Tech Bytes - Videos and Clips

Where to find Videos:
  • Films on Demand (access using Grand View login information): "Films Media Group is the leading source of high-quality video and multimedia for academic, vocational and life-skills content." Be sure to use title or segment URLs (similar to permalinks) if you are going to email or link from Blackboard. These are found lower on the page, beneath the video player. 
  • Khan Academy: Kahn Academy is "a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere. All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. The Khan Academy's materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge."
  • TED talks: "TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design...On TED.com, we make the best talks and performances from TED and partners available to the world, for free."
    • TED Ed: "TED-Ed's commitment to creating lessons worth sharing is an extension of TED's mission of spreading great ideas.  Within the growing TED-Ed video library, you will find carefully curated educational videos, many of which represent collaborations between talented educators and animators..."
  • Crash Course: An "educational series from the Vlogbrothers! Hank & John Green will teach you History and Biology." Information is presented in a very accessible and down-to-earth way. 
  • Ignite: "Ignite is a geek event in over 100 cities worldwide. At the events Ignite presenters share their personal and professional passions, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds for a total of just five minutes." Their slogan is "Enlighten us, but make it quick."
  • Youtube
    • Youtube Education: "YouTube EDU brings learners and educators together in a global video classroom. On YouTube EDU, you have access to a broad set of educational videos that range from academic lectures to inspirational speeches and everything in between. Come here for quick lessons from top teachers around the world, course lectures from top-tier universities, or inspiring videos to spark your imagination."
  • Fora.tv: Fora.tv has "gathered the web's largest collection of unmediated video drawn from top conferences, universities, and public forums. We present this provocative, big-idea content for you to watch, interact with, and share."
  • Big Think: Big Think aims "to help you move above and beyond random information, toward real knowledge, offering big ideas from fields outside your own that you can apply toward the questions and challenges in your own life. Every idea on Big Think comes from ... top thinkers and doers from around the globe. Our editorial team regularly sources ideas from these experts, asking them about the most important ideas in their respective fields. Our editors then sift through the submitted ideas and determine which qualify to appear on Big Think."
  • Vimeo 
  • University Lectures
  • iTunes U: Access many lectures and other class materials via the web and build your own courses using the Course Manager feature.  All that is required is an iTunes account (free to create).  You can search for resources by institution name, or sort by academic level or by topic.  
Incorporating Video Clips into Your Presentations:
  1. Go up to the main menu (Windows icon that used to be the “File” menu)
  2. Go down to the button at the bottom of the menu that says “PowerPoint Options”
  3. Click “Show Developer tab in the Ribbon”
  4. Click “OK”
  5. Then click on the “Developer” tab
  6. Click the “More Controls” icon—it looks like a hammer & wrench
  7. Scroll down to “Shockwave Flash Object” – Select and click “OK”
  8. Then click and drag like you’re drawing a text box or another object
  9. Copy the URL of the video you want to use
  10. Then go back to the Ppt and right-click on the box you made for the flash object
  11. Right-click and then click “Properties”
  12. Make sure you’re in the “Alphabetic” tab, then click in the box next to “Movie”
  13. Paste your link into the box
  14. Delete the “watch?” from the url you pasted and change any equal signs to /
  15. Change the loop from “true” to “false” (becomes a drop-down menu when you click the box next to “loop”
  16. If you don’t want it to play right away when you get to that slide (if you want it to wait for you to click it) switch the Playing command from “true” to “false”
  17. Then you X out of the properties box/menu and you’re good to go – When you make it full-screen it should show the video in place on the slide
  • Prezi: Copy the YouTube URL and paste it into the Prezi (it will briefly look like text but will soon display as a video player). 
  • Google Presentations: From the top menu select Insert, then Video, then you can search Youtube or, if you already know the video URL, select URL on the left side of the box and then paste your link into the field that appears. Then click Select and it will appear on your slide. 
Legal Issues & Video Use in the Classroom:
  • The American Library Association statement on video use in the classroom.
  • A note on pay rental/streaming services like Netflix or Hulu: Butler University puts it nicely: 
    • "We would advise against using Netflix streaming or DVDs in class. Currently Netflix does not allow for the public classroom display of their streaming videos. Please see Netflix Terms of Service for more information."