Using Video with Students Who Are Deaf

You may have heard about the events at Galludet University in Washington - basically there is a big controversy about preserving deaf culture and specifically sign language.

Current technologies, including the web have opened up infinite new possibilities for communication. One thing that's happening - that was never possible with phones and email - is that the deaf are publishing signing movies to the web.

There are some really great vlogs on youtube - just search for "Deaf" or "ASL" (American Sign Language). Or, you can take a look at some of the amazing short films made by Eagles Media at the California School for the Deaf.

Flashback

Interesting Tutorial here. You can use the built in camera on newer Macs or plug in an iSight or any other Mac friendly camera (including many digital still cams). I haven't had a chance to try it yet myself, but it seems like the kind of thing students would go nuts over. Heck, they already spend hours distorting themselves in PhotoBooth. Now they can add 1970's video motion effects! And according to Videothing, you can even save your trippy art as a quicktime and import it into FCP.

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories - Make a Video Feedback Screen Saver in Quartz Composer

Cool Tool: Keyboard Covers

Even though students are not allowed to eat/drink in class, dust is always a problem in the lab. Thanks to Bob Donlon's DV Blog, I found this nifty solution.
KB Covers Home Page
They have covers for FCP, Adobe and ProTools. They also have a 'blank' cover in the Education section for touch typing practice. All for $25-30.

More about music...

Another possible source for free music. Courtesy of our friends at lifehacker.
Be sure to read the comments - even more sources there.
Geek to Live: Find free music on the web

Apple - Education - Documentary Filmmaking

Apple - Education - Documentary Filmmaking
Some interesting resources here. I'm particularly interested in the DVD produced by the Natural History Day organization. Curious to see if it would be of any use to my students. (Right now, we just show projects completed by past students and the occassional 'professional' film.)

MacLife: Eugene Talks Audacity

Back when MacLife was MacAddict, I checked in with the site pretty much every day. But for about the first month after the transition/renaming/rebranding, I just couldn't get into it. Maybe it was because I missed Max (to your left), maybe the calm colors disturbed me, but it was probably because they moved the Editors' Blog off the front page.

That oversight has been fixed and now each editor has a link to their semi-daily updates on the front page. We also get to see photos of each of them, which is kind of nice. In this post, Eugene gives a brief 1st person account of using Audacity. Looks like a nice alternative to Garage Band.

Improving Student Searches

I often assign students research projects as they prepare materials for a video. Sometimes they google their subject matter. Sometimes they're searching for images to drop into a edit.

Dewey Decimal was my research BFF in 11th grade. This week I found a new one, Dharmesh Shah over at Small Business Hub. He gives us 12 Quick Tips To Search Google Like An Expert. It's got too many college words for my students. But I plan on a cut-paste-adapt to pass out next week. Dharmesh says,

"The following tips are based on my own experience and things that I actually find useful. The list is by no means comprehensive. But, I assure you that by learning and using the 12 tips below, you’ll rank up there with the best of the Google experts out there. I’ve kept the descriptions intentionally terse as you’re likely to grasp most of these simply by looking at the example anyways."

Thanks Dharmesh.

About Music...

I've been hunting for free/lo cost music for my students to use in their videos. It's tough going, but here's some sources I've found so far. What do you use?
Creative Commons
Internet Archive
Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
Folktunes.org
Open Music Archive
Ourmedia.org
Jamendo
Podsafe Music Network

How Copyright Affects iTeachers

The Digital Learning Challenge: Obstacles to Educational Uses of Content in the Digital Age A Foundational White Paper: "In particular, we wanted to explore whether innovative educational uses of digital technology were hampered by the restrictions of copyright. We found that provisions of copyright law concerning the educational use of copyrighted material, as well as the business and institutional structures shaped by that law, are among the most important obstacles to realizing the potential of digital technology in education."

Internet Start-Up to Take a Hybrid Media Approach - New York Times

I often wonder what jobs we are preparing our students for. After all, there are millions of kids learning video production all over the country. They can't all be the next Steven Speilberg! When I worked in "Hollywood" there weren't even enough entry level jobs for all the film school grads.

YouTube, Current, Turn Here and the like work for some, but will they really create enough jobs for the digital storytellers? Especially when so much content is presented without advertising/revenue? Today's NYT mentions a new model - micronetworks. It could just be dry industrials and educational video ported to the web. But I'm hoping that generation digital can make something much more interesting of it.

Internet Start-Up to Take a Hybrid Media Approach - New York Times: "Next New Networks, a New York-based Internet start-up run and backed by former executives of MTV and Nickelodeon, will announce plans today to begin a series of video-oriented Web sites — what the company calls micro-networks — on niche topics like do-it-yourself fashion, comic books, car racing and cartoons."

National EdTech Standards Being Revised

"The National Educational Technology Standards for Students were released in June 1998, with accompanying Performance Profiles of technology literate students and Essential Conditions for implementation. Over time, the standards have received acceptance and widespread use across the United States and in many other countries."

The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) is working to refresh the standards. Sponsors of this initiative include Adobe, Apple, Intel, Microsoft, and more.

Head on over and fill out a survey or lead a forum. Deadline is March 30, 2007