Sharing your ideas with video and audio

Sharing your successful practices with others is an important part of the role of a educator. Traditionally you have probably shared your ideas, tips, tricks, and findings in-person with your grade level team, your district team, and with face-to-face audiences at regional and national conferences. However, with the current crop of digital apps and tools, it is easier than ever to share those same practices with educators everywhere!

These tools and apps fall into various categories– curation tools, text-based tools, audio recording tools, video recording tools, and visual tools. This month I will be discussing tools that take advantage of video and audio recording to allow you to easily share your findings with others.

VIDEO RECORDING TOOLS

Flipgrid 

Flipgrid is an online tool and mobile app that allows a teacher to post a topic for students, who then respond with up to a 15 or 90 second video. The videos are embeddable and sharable via a URL. The no-cost version includes:

• One Grid with unlimited topics
• Recordings of 15 or 90 seconds
• Security, privacy and moderation settings
• Simple individual student feedback

However, you can use Flipgrid as a platform for sharing your ideas, too! Create a teacher account, post a topic question, and enter the Grid as a student each time you want to share a new finding or suggestion and have others log-in as students, too. You can even create a separate Grid for each category or topic. It is so simple to do and you will soon have a collection of short videos you can share with other educators!

I have my graduate students in the Wilkes/Discovery Instructional Media Masters program at Wilkes University sharing their favorite tools. Take a look at some of the postings and feel free to add one of your own! (Grid code: 2y1eaif and PW: edtech)

  

Adobe Spark Video

Adobe Spark Video is a part of Adobe’s Spark suite of tools which includes Video, Post, and Page. Previously called Adobe Voice, Adobe Spark Video is available as both a browser-based tool and iOS app. The power of Adobe Spark Video is the toolset and assets that are included. Its ease of use is enhanced by easily combining photos, video clips, and icons into the video. the tool and app also include an image library, free soundtracks, and the ability to narrate each part of the project. There are themes to pick from as well as the option to start from scratch.Once you create your professional development video of your ideas, you can host it on the Adobe site and Tweet out the URL, or embed it on your own blog or Web page to share your ideas with others. Don’t forget to join the Adobe Education Exchange to find (and share) tips, tutorials, and sample Adobe Spark Video projects.

  

PowerPoint and Keynote

Remember that your local multimedia programs, like Microsoft’s PowerPoint and Apples Keynote, can be used to easily create a video from a slide presentation. You can add your thoughts and ideas to new slides as often as you wish, and save the presentation as a PowerPoint or Keynote file until you are ready to share all the ideas as a video.

In Keynote, simply create the slides, add audio to each slide if you wish, and then pick FILE – EXPORT TO – QUICKTIME. You are then presented with various options for playback.

In PowerPoint, simply pick FILE – EXPORT – choose MOVIE from the dropdown menu, and you will be presented with the various video options .

Once the slide deck has been saved/exported as a video file, it can then be uploaded to Vimeo, YouTube, Facebook, or any other video hosting site, embedded in an online blog or shared, via the URL, on Twitter.

AUDIO RECORDING TOOLS

Sometimes creating a video to share your thoughts can be daunting. If you would rather not face the camera, creating an audio file or podcast to share your thoughts can be just as effective! Here are some easy-to-use tools to help with that process.

Vocaroo

Vocaroo is the easiest tool for creating a simple audio file and then sending out the link to the file which is stored for a few months on the Vocaroo server, embedding the audio file in a Web page or blog, sharing it with one your social media accounts, or downloading it to your local computer to upload somewhere else. With no sign-in, no limit on the length of the recording, and a very simple interface, Vocaroo can help you quickly and easily share your ideas

Clyp

Clyp is a tool that can be used to host your audio files all in one place. It can be used with downloaded files from something like Vocaroo, or with Audacity or Garage Band and audio files you create using your technology gadgets. You sinply sign up, upload your files, and share the URL of the entire list of audio files or the unique URL for a single Clyp. Finding a reputable place to host your audio files is hard to do, and Clyp fits the bill!

iPadio and Podomatic

iPadio and Podomatic are two tools that are used to easily create podcasts. The difference between a simple audio file uploaded to the Web and a podcast, is the podcast can be aggregated in a podcast collector like iTunes.

When a podcast is created with iPadio or Podomatic, the “feed address” is also created. This feed address is added by the podcast creator to a directory of podcasts, like iTunes.

Then, when users use their iTunes account to “subscribe” to the podcast, each time a new podcast is recorded by the creator, the user automatically receives the downloaded new podcast in their iTunes account.

There are some special recording features in both iPadio and Podomatic.

iPadio allows the podcast creator to use their phone to call in and record the podcast. The podcast and iTunes/RSS feed, can be shared to many social media tools, and embedded into a Web page or blog.

Podomatic allows creators to upload the audio files from their computer, phone, or tablet and add it to their podcast page. Users can visit the podcast page and subscribe, using the iTunes or RSS link, to the podcast series and receive any new ones right in their podcast aggregation program.

Feedback

What video and audio recording tools do you use for sharing your ideas with others? I have included only a few of my favorites and encourage you to add your special apps and tools to Twitter! #kathyschrock

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Moving a video into Keynote (finally!)

Okay, I was determined to use the iPad to present yesterday, so I had created the presentation on the desktop in Keynote and moved it to the iPad through the file sharing in iTunes. I just dragged it to the area next to the Keynote app and it moved over to the iPad the next time I synced. You can see this below. (Fig. 1)

Fig. 1 Moving a Keynote file from the computer to the iPad via iTunes

 The presentation worked perfectly when I tested it via the VGA connection. All embedded movies worked, and things looked great! However, before I presented, I found another great video to use in the presentation. I only had the iPad, and did not know how to get the video into the PHOTOS app on the iPad, which is the only place Keynote on the iPad would pull it from. I tried iWork, DropBox, iDisk, and emailing the file to myself. I could play it on the iPad, but not insert it into the presentation.


It seems as if the only way you can get a video into the PHOTOS app is by using the computer you regularly sync with. I first tried loading the video into iTunes, and syncing, but that put the video in the VIDEOS app on the iPad which Keynote cannot import from.

So, here is my solution.

Fig. 2 Folder on computer containing images and videos

Go into the Pictures folder on your computer.

1. Create a folder (mine is called "_pics for iphone") (Fig. 2)
2. Put the photos AND videos you want to use with Keynote on the iPad into this folder
3. Go into iTunes, pick your iPad, and choose the PHOTOS tab.
4. Chose to "sync photos from pictures" (instead of iPhoto). (Fig. 3)
5. Pick "selected folders"
6. Check "include videos"
7. Check the folder you created which contains your assets.

Fig. 3 Setup in iTunes  for syncing a particular folder of images and videos to the iPad

The items now all wind up in the PHOTOS app, as you can see from the screenshot below. (Fig. 4)

Fig. 4  Photos and the video in the iPad Photos app

Once you open Keynote on the iPad, add a new slide, and chose the MEDIA tab, you can easily chose the video  from the PHOTOS app to embed into the presentation. (Fig. 5)

Fig. 5  Selecting the video file from the Photos app in Keynote on the iPad

And, finally, the video is embedded in the Keynote presentation on the iPad.  (Fig. 6)

Fig. 6  Media embedded in the Keynote presentation on the iPad

You will need to know this process if you are planning to add media to a presentation you create on the iPad or add media to one that you have moved from the desktop to the iPad. I hope this blog post helped you out! (And, by the way, giving the presentation from the iPad yesterday was a breeze!)

Addendum (5/8/11)

• When creating a Jing screencast sometimes, even after embedding it on Keynote for the Mac and moving the file to the iPad, the video is not accepted. I have found that the best format for videos to put in Keynote presentations on the Mac to make sure they work on the iPad, are mp4s with the codecs of H.264 and AAC.
• I also found out that embedded audio files in a Keynote for the Mac presentation don't move over to the iPad. I had to make little movies of static images and put the sound files as the audio line in the mp4 in order to play the sounds in Keynote on the iPad.

Addendum (5/13/11)

• Mike Wakefield sent a comment...."Kathy - I had no problems with a video (h.264) I e-mailed myself on the iPad2; when I touched the reply/fwd arrow in the (iPad) e-mail app, I just hit the "save video" option and it popped it right into my Photos file on the iPad. From there, I was able to bring it into Keynote with no issue." I tried it and it worked like a charm...thanks, Mike!
• @WebGalPat on Twitter tried a "regular" mp4, and it worked just fine, too! Thanks, Pat!