my first video

Here is the video I made using Windows Movie Maker. I'd heard lots of bad things about WMM - like how it is not as good as iMovie. But I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Don't get me wrong - it wasn't easy and took many hours of trial and error - but overall I would say that it's a tool I would use again.

I had to open an account at Blog TV in order to have somewhere to upload my video - click here to view the video.

The video is about our visit to Capilano Suspension Bridge - just after we arrived in Vancouver. The audio is a little faint - so you might find you have to bump up the sound level to hear my dulcet tones ...

Instructional Video

This weekend, I'm thinking about educational video.

Video, like all instructional media, should be appropriate to the context in terms of both the audience and the content. There are certain contexts which require video content to be simple and other times when creativity is appropriate. Enriching video content is unlikely to make it more 'educational' - but retaining learners' interest and motivation may lead to more engagement with the content and therefore might increase learning.

I appreciate the videos made by Lee LeFever at Commoncraft - Wikis in Plain English, for example. This is an example of a video that is both plain and simple but is also very creative and entertaining. Having said that, I used this example in a workshop in Botswana and people found it a little too fast. But that's the beauty of video - you can replay for yourself as many times as you want.

Creative Commons Licences

Today, I am attending an internal workshop at COL where we are trying to learn more about the intricacies of producing materials under Creative Commons licences. Copyright is a difficult issue - especially for COL where we contract a lot of different writers to develop course materials.

An interesting feature of the workshop is that we are also using Twitter to make comments and ask questions on the presentation. Twitter is increasingly used in international conferences to provide a way for audiences to comment or seek clarification during a presentation.

Interesting process.

Podcast 3

At last! we have internet in our new house and I can get on with this course. Here is podcast episode 3 from the series, Voice from Vancouver. it's called 'A tale of 2 cities' and it's all about the differences in living in a rural town in Botswana compared to downtown Vancouver.

Listen to this episode

I'm finally starting to understand how Podbean works and even though it's taken me a long time, I appreciate the assignment to do 3 podcasts - helps to embed the learning.

I won't post any more Voice from Vancouver podcasts on this blog ... but if you want to hear more you can go to voice-from-vancouver.blogspot.com

Podcast 2

I'm sorry if this is confusing (you should try this from my side) but here is podcast number 2!

I've been trying to keep up with current modules as well as catch up with previous ones - so I'm still recording and uploading podcasts as we have to do 3. Actually, it's starting to get a little easier now and I even remember how to do it without the instructions - yay!. We use Podbean to host our podcasts - it's a great free service and anyone can use it.

In this episode, I explain what the Commonwealth of Learning is and a little about my new job there as Education Specialist, Skills Development. Let me know what you think of the podcast - or if you want to ask any questions about COL - you can send an email or even post to this blog.

Listen to this episode

Google not talking

We tried to have a group chat using Google Talk so that we could complete a group task for an assignment. It was hard enough to get three of us online at the same time (!) but then we discovered that we did not have the 'group' facility in GT. So with a quick bit of thinking, we decided to sign the others up for a Skype address and then we could have a 3-way conversation in Skype.

Then we discovered we needed to share a document - you can share files on skype but not one that you can all see synchronously. So we opened a file in Google Docs and discovered you can all edit a document and see each others' contribution. That was how we managed to complete the assignment.

A bit of a long way round - but it worked!

Google Talk

This week we have to use GoogleTalk ... which is a lot like Skype which I have been using for some time to communicate with friends and family.

GoogleTalk allows you to have synchronous communication - both text and/or audio plus you can share files. My son used to use Skype often to send me his university assignments for comment, or photos of his travels.

I'm hoping to catch up with classmates using GoogleTalk this week. My contact details:

a.mead.richardson@gmail.com