Wow! The past few days I have been traveling, and it seems like everything is so difficult. I have had airport delays in the airport and in the air. I have been lost driving up the East Coast and road construction projects have been time consuming. So, after dealing with all of this for the past few days, I got to my hotel this evening wiped, and I actually thought that this was going to one of those times when I just couldn't get the assignment done. However, Animoto is everything that my travel this week wasn't...Easy!!

I wasn't exactly sure what I was going to do for my video project this week, and it was nagging at me as I was going through all of these fun travel adventures. I don't have a video camera, but my photo camera will take short videos. So, I played with that for a while, but besides videos of the dog smashing his nose into the lens. there wasn't much inspiration. Then, I remembered these great pictures and testimonials that I had saved from another project. Now, I just needed to figure out how to get them into a video. I had worked with some different software in the past trying to put together videos, but I'd never been very successful. That is why I am so impressed with Animoto; it was so easy. Because I was using a free subscription, I was only able to put together a short 30 second video. However, I am seriously thinking that an upgraded subscription would be well worth my money. Having said that, the video that you see is just a fragment of what I had originally put together. In order for all of my pictures and testimonials to be seen, I will have to put into into a longer, full-length video.

After finishing up my video, and I say that with a little bit of reservation, because all I did was upload some pictures and type in some testimonials. Animoto did the rest. So, after finishing my video, I was thinking about different activities that can be done with this type of media:

Videos can be viewed by students, and they can can critique them based on their learning objectives. For example, a student can view an organizer making a house call. Afterwards, he/she can share ideas via a discussion board about what was done well and what could be done differently.

Also, videos can be used to teach a step by step process that can be duplicated by the student. If the video is made available on a place like YouTube, the tutorial could be made to be downloaded and accessed from anywhere at anytime.

The videos could be used for learning as well as assessment.

Finally, the videos can be created by the students. One thing that I thought about was using them in an online class in order to get to know the other students - Icebreaker activities for example - these quick and easy videos can be used to present oneself to the entire class.

I think that the reason I got so excited thinking about all of the different ways that this could be used, because it was so user friendly for a TechStudent. I think that I'll be using Animoto for lots of projects at work and at home.

The World of Podcasting

One of the things that I had been looking forward to with this class was creating a podcast. There were a couple of reasons for this. One. I subscribe to a few different podcasts, and I really like listening to them. Two, whenever I talk to people at work about different training programs, in the back of my mind, I'm always thinking that we could incorporate some type of podcast to supplement the training.

First, before I begin telling about my experience, I really have to thank those of you that posted earlier in the week. Your details helped me when I was struggling with mine. So, like many of you, I started out with audacity. Sounds like there are lots of other programs out there that do the same thing, but I loved how easy it was to use. As soon as I downloaded it, I watched a YouTube video on how to record and mix in music. So far so good. Then, that was pretty much the end of the easy part. I tried downloading LAME so I could convert my recording to an MP3. I struggled with this until I was about to give up; then, somehow, I got it to work. After that, my fellow classmates came to my rescue. I tried using OurMedia.org, as mentioned in the text, for storing my MP3 file. I just couldn't ever register to get an account. I finally gave up and used the 4Shared.com site. After finally making that happen, I used podcastmachine to post my first ever, real live podcast. Check it out here on my blog. It's labeled under Spanish for Organizers. It's definitely rough, but it was fun recording it. One of the podcasts that I listen to, How Stuff Works, has two people talking to each other, and I really like that. So, it was fun to have a colleague help me out with mine.

This podcast is an example of what I think could be done for any class that is being taught either online or face to face. The recording can be used to supplement the lesson that has been taught or will be taught. In this case, if there was a "Spanish for Organizers" class, the instructor could record vocabulary and dialogues that the students could use to practice anywhere and anytime. (I was listening to my podcasts while weeding the garden last weekend. That's the first time that chore didn't seem so long and tedious. It was great.) Anyway, back to the idea. The students could listen to the Spanish over and over again and practice with it as often as they wanted or needed to. I think that this use of a podcast would be so convenient for organizers that are always on the road. Now, the next step could be to add some video that would take the lesson to another level.

Hope you enjoy the podcast. Hasta luego.

A Wiki And Then Some

My adventure this week with web conferencing was an attempt at using the technology to work on a "project" with a team. I chose Central Desktop, because it seemed to provide a good way for team members to work together on the document/project planning piece in addition to providing a way to web conference.

Our "project" was "A Rockin' Fourth of July Celebration". The premise was for our team to look at the best places to celebrate, the best food to eat, and the best kind of entertainment to have a Rockin' 4th of July. With that as our goal, I got ready for the conference by setting up our group wiki on Central Desktop. We had a page that stated our goals, an RSS Feed that had a few 4th of July recipes (figured that was better than my - Throw The Burger And Dogs On The Grill - recipe). We also had a place for our documents and PowerPoints for easy collaboration. Not to mention, the tasks that needed to be accomplished. Kim rocked at the PowerPoint, and Keith was supposed to pick up the food - which I'm sure he did, but I didn't get to taste any of it. That goes on my list of negatives for distance learning - "Difficult to share food". Anyway, what this is getting at is that Central Desktop seemed to be like the wiki we've been using and then some. The great thing about setting up the web conference was that I had a chance to become even more familiar with wikis. I'm not sure that Central Desktop is the best web conferencing software, but I loved being able to web conference using our team wiki, and I think that something easy like GoTo Meeting could be used to work with a wiki that has been established independently.

With the free trial package, I was able to give four people access to the "team wiki", and those four people joined in on the conference. Thanks, to all of you for taking part. That certainly was a learning experience for me. Note to self - Make sure everyone is dialed in before moving forward with the conference. Sorry about that, team. In the end, I felt like it was a great experience, I learned more about the power of a wiki as a collaboration tool, and I can see how that, combined with a form of web conferencing, could be very useful. Going into this assignment, I was really focused on how this could be used to work with other trainers that are out in the field. Then, the more I worked with it, I think that the "wiki and then some", the 'some' being the web conferencing, could be very useful for distance learning students as they do collaborative projects. Each student could work on their own piece, and they could do all of the meeting and collaborating through the wiki. I think that it would be a great way for students to work on a semester long project that incorporates the learning throughout the semester. Another fun project would be for them to use it as a group portfolio that could be highlighted at the end of the course. I think that I had these ideas before, but it seems more feasible now that I've become more familiar with a wiki and then some.

P.S. Hope everyone had a great holiday weekend. I'm still curious about what might have happened had we put out our "4th of July Survey". Just wondering if Beer Pong would have made the cut on the entertainment list. After all, if we can blog like college students, maybe we can still...