Edublogs Tutorials

As probably the final part of my recent research into streaming video, I came across Stickam after a callout from Dean Shareski to trial it.  Along with a couple of others, we conferenced and explored the functionality of Stickam.

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

I was impressed with the simplicity of the interface and the range of functions it could perform.

As usual, it’s free and is to be used with 14+ – I plan to use it to work with a group of leading teachers to continue the conversations begun at a conference.

So, I suggest you get together with a group or do a shoutout on Twitter and have a look at what it offers.
 

Just as a a follow up from UStream.TV I posted earlier, I had a question

“How do I stream live from my mobile to my blog”

In fact, you might wonder why you would need to.

There are lots of reasons

You might wish to do a range of interviews at a conference and allow colleagues back at school to hear them live, or listen later.

You might be at a field trip and have lots of interesting things to relay to other members of the class – perhaps someone who is being schooled at home due to illness, or cannot participate for some other reason.

You might want to be broadcasting on-the-fly to keep the content alive and raw and for lots of folks to access this live

Perhaps you might have some ideas that you could add as comments

Just sign up for Qik – it’s free

you will then get a text message

click on the link and install the software

Start streaming – it’s really simple

Also records your video to the Qik site

Allows iTunes subscription

To achieve this you need

1. a mobile phone with unlimited data package
2. a mobile phone that is supported by Qik
3. a mobile phone which takes video

Thanks to Amit Agarwal for his tutorial

Why would you want to convert a PPT file to video anyway?

Well, you may want the PPT to go out with music to make it more appealing or you may want it to be iPod compatible.  Both of these are possible

Basically, your powerpoint needs some action

• slide transitions with timings or
• voice narration

if you don’t have any action, then it will remain as a PPT file.

• Get an authorSTREAM account (free)
• upload the PPT file
• wait till it is converted – may take an hour or so
• Download the video file or
• embed it into your blog or add it to iTunes (not managed to do this bit yet!)

You can also do all this from within PowerPoint using authorPOINT lite (free)

• this adds another item to your PowerPoint menu bar
• click on the authorPOINT icon
• This will then allow you to directly upload to
• WizIQ or
• AuthorStream

UStream TV has been around for a while and is still the best for getting your audio or video out there. It will allow a constant broadcast from a webcam or better quality DV cam, if you have one.

Broadcasts can be recorded if you want and then UStream and it seems that people using UStream then upload them to Blip TV.  I presume this is because UStream don’t host the end recording – can anyone enlighten me as I haven’t managed to research this bit fully yet.

Why would you want this in your classroom – how about a hamstercam, a bird table cam, broad bean cam etc

For a bit more detail check out November learning blog

Live Broadcasting by Ustream

Well done to the magnificent Vodpod team who have managed to persuade Firefox, a great free alternative to Windows Explorer, to add their wonderful tool as an add-on. This effectively integrates the Vodpod video collection tool right into your browser. Well done that team – I love Vodpod.

If you want to see more on video, click the ‘Video’ link in my categories on the right sidebar.

Firefox Add-ons

I’ve been having a little discussion with Leslie on my forum and it seems that using Blip.tv might be another good host for your videos.

I have uploaded one to test this out – Bip.tv automatically converts them all to flash and then they can be embedded using their player, straight into your post, just brilliant – with unlimited upload space. It just gets better and better

You can also add this to iTunes so folks can easily subscribe to your channel by clicking on the iTunes Dashboard Pane videos will need to be in the QuickTime format to work with iTunes, so the site says

So once again, a complete set of ticks in the box for Blip.tv

BTW, I have changed the player size to 450 x 355 and this seems to work great – do this by just editing the numbers after you have pasted in the code

Just as a reminder, Vodpod is a great way to organise your videos from different sources. It also means your videos are with you at all times – great if you’re not in your own classroom etc.

get your vodpod" width="501" height="428" wmode="transparent" /]

Here’s a nice video from TeacherTube by Rachel Boyd on children and blogging in schools.

Just to note: this method does not seem to be working at the moment

To post a video, copy the video’s code from the edublogs box on the right hand side of the video frame in TeacherTube, then paste it in the HTML selection on your edublog post page (the tab at the top of the post)

You can see it here

You may have noticed that you have a link to Wikispaces and have wondered what it’s all about.

Well I came across some videos that may unlock some of the secrets for you

They are actually produced for PB Wiki but the core of the information is the same

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Many thanks to Michigan State University for these video tutorials – they are great and mean I don’t have to do them – you can always find them in the page tabs at the top of this post under Edublogs V-Tutorials

Video 1: Creating an blog account

Video 2: Looking at the dashboard

Video 3: How to write a post and a page

Video 4: How to moderate comments

Video 5: Changing the theme

This is pretty easy and should not stretch you too much

1. Find your Youtube video
2. copy the URL – the stuff in the address bar at the top
3. go to your edublogs post
4. click on the little yellow circular icon on the right hand side with a letter “A” in it
5. paste in the url of the video (the one you copied before – eg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC4HhI0bK4c )
6. Just double check that it looks like this and not http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=MeE2E7nqe0w
7. this has an extra bit “uk” which doesn’t seem to work, so simple delete it  so it looks likehttp://youtube.com/v/MeE2E7nqe0w
8. then click publish
9. the player should now show the video in your post
10. for collections of videos in one post eg if students use more than one camera
11. or they take more than one video clip
12. you can repeat this and have videos one below the other
13. make sure you place the cursor under the previous address entry
14. and you’d like them to be a bit less out there, use VodPod
15. Setting up a vodpod – for video then
16. Adding video from vodpod

Here are collection of video tutorials to help you with the basics of maths.

There are always times when even the best explanation didn’t help you, especially if there are other people around. Well now, you can listen to your own lessons in your own time. I hope you enjoy them

Create your Video Collection at VodPod

Vodpod is a great way to show videos directly in your blog. No downloading needed for the viewer

1. go to www.vodpod.com and register – it’s free
2. give your vodpod site a name – like a username
3. you probably have one already – remember, it will show on your home page
4. when the site opens up, click on start a new pod
5. give the pod a name – you can change this later
6. it automatically adds this to the url – just leave it as it is
7. you can upload your own videos to this pod, or add other pods as needed
8. Now the clever bit
9. click on widgets
10. go to the bit with bookmarklets
11. simply drag the button onto your browser toolbar
12. then when you see an online video like youtube
13. simply click this button
14. choose the pod
15. this will then automatically add the video to your pod – and update the pod on your blog
16. to get the pod on your blog

go to Adding video from vodpod for instructions

1. -Start or edit your post
2. all the following assume you have a video uploaded to vodpod
3. I’ll add a post for this
   
4. On the post editor, click the button that looks like an “f” in a circle, towards the right side of the toolbar
5. -Where it says “Enter URL here”, enter just the ’src’ part of our widget code.
   
6. delete the first bit of the code that says <embed src=”
7. when it asks put in width 501 height 428
8. this will produce a bit of code which starts [kml_flashembed movie="http://
9. save the post

" width="501" height="428" /]