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Are you confused by terms that educators use? The Lexicon of Learning might be just what you need.

 

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Technology Integration

 

Part 4: Multimedia in Projects (Page 2 of 3)

Tools for Creating and Viewing Media

Multimedia with CD's, Microphone, Video Camera, and Film GIF

Technology Integration is a four part series on essential questions, technology integration resources, web page design, and multimedia in projects.  Sections contain relevant opening essays and resources.

Multimedia and Projects Essay (Page 1) addresses:
  • About Multimedia
  • The Four Multimedia Project Phases
  • Multimedia and Accessibility
  • Tips for Projects in the Classroom  

Arrow: You are hereMultimedia Resources (Page 2): The current page has subsections:

Multimedia Resources (Page 3) has subsections:

  • Copyright and fair use
  • Plagiarism

 

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Software Tools, Plug-Ins and Viewers

Tools Metaphor

The following resources include commercial, free, and open source solutions. 

If you are looking for video-editing software, David Nagel (2007a) notes that this software comes in professional, semi-professional, and consumer varieties.  Free or cheap solutions might introduce students to editing concepts and get the job done for K-12 school projects, but  "the way those editors work is not the way professional systems work" (online p. 1).  So, you also need to consider the learning outcome of using the software and that some software, whether it is for audio or video editing, might not provide the skills that students would need for college level or professional work.

 

What is open source software?  What should you be concerned about?

Question mark

Open source software is "computer software whose source code is available under a copyright license that permits users to study, change, and improve the software, and to freely distribute it to potential users" (K12opensource.org, para. 1).

More and more, schools are turning to open source software as a way to cut down expenses associated with commercial software.  Many of the programs provide documentation and tutorials for their use.  However, support, security, integration with pre-existing systems, and track records of successful implementations in schools are issues of concern (Nagel, 2007b). 

Fortunately, there are organizations looking at successful implementations of open source and keeping track of open source standards, hardware, and the better open source software.  For more information, see the following resources:

 

Development and Authoring Tools

FreeNedwolf maintains a database of freeware for Windows, which can serve as a general resource.  You'll find free web development tools, software for creating portable media, software for online web applications (bookmarking managers, file storage/transfer, productivity, collaboration, internet/network tools like web-based email, online fax, online chat), and more--a real find for everyone, including educators.

Simply Google is a one page list of all of Google's products and services, including its many desirable Web 2.0 productivity and collaboration tools, which can be used in education.

  • Office Productivity:
    • Google Docs and Spreadsheets is a free web-based program that allows you to create, edit, and store documents and spreadsheets online with whomever you choose, then publish online.  For a full one-page list of everything that Google offers, see Simply Google.
    • OpenOffice.org is a free suite with programs for word processing, databases, spreadsheets, drawing, and presentations.  See the tutorials at www.learnopenoffice.org.
    • Scribus is open source desktop publishing software.  Great for layout of "newsletters, corporate stationery, posters, training manuals, technical documentation, business cards," and creating PDFs, including interactive PDF forms.  Page templates, drawing tools, and several professional publishing features are included (sec: Specifications).
    • ThinkFree Online is free software that is compatible with Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint).  The word processor, spreadsheets, and presentation applications are integrated with 1GB of storage, collaboration tools, publishing to blogs, web pages or ThinkFree Docs (their library of published files), and PDF creation. Documents can be created online, or uploaded from your desktop. Documents stored in your online workspace can also be downloaded to your hard drive.
  • Images:
    • Adobe Photoshop
    • CorelDraw and CorelDraw Essentials (drawing software
    • Corel Paintshop Pro 
    • Gimp is open source for graphics editing, and includes documentation and tutorials.  It's equivalent to Paintshop Pro and Photoshop.
    • Illustrator
    • Inkscape is open source vector graphics editing software equivalent to CorelDraw and Illustrator. It includes documentation and tutorials.
    • Kid Pix (drawing software)
    • Paint.net is free open source image and photo editing software for computers running on Windows.  It has been compared to commercial products such as  to Corel Paintshop Pro and Adobe Photoshop.
    • Tux Paint is free open source drawing software for children 3-12 (preK-grade 6).
  • Audio:
    • Audacity is free cross platform open source software for recording and editing sounds.  Consider it to record MP3s for your podcasts, for example.
    • Cool Edit
    • GarageBand for Mac users--record your music, and podcasts.
    • Macromedia's Sound Edit
  • Video:
    • Adobe Premiere Pro
    • Apple's iMovie HD (for Mac)
    • Apple's Final Cut Pro (There is also Final Cut Express HD at the semi-pro level.)
    • Avid Free DV (free for Mac and Windows.  Tutorials available.)
    • CamStudio (free open source streaming video software).  From the website: "CamStudio is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs)."
    • iVideo (free open source for Mac)
    • Microsoft Movie Maker (for Windows)
    • QuickTime5
    • Toufee is a free tool for creating flash videos online, including the how to's.  Create directly using your browser; there is nothing to download.
  • 3D and Animation:
    • Blender is a free 3D open source content creation suite: model, shade, animate, render, and so on--use it for 3D interactive game creation, too.
    • Gif Construction Set (also good for file conversion) from Alchemy Mindworks
  • General Authoring:
    • Astound
    • Digital Chisel
    • eZedia
    • HyperAuthor
    • HyperStudio
    • MediaText
    • Macromedia Authorware
    • Macromedia Director
    • Microsoft PowerPoint
    • Scratch, created at MIT Media Lab, is for ages 8 and up.  The software is described at the website as "a new programming language that makes it easy  to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art -- and share your creations on the web." Create characters that dance, sing, and interact with one another; images that whirl, spin, and animate in response to movements of the mouse; integrate images with sound effects and music clips.  Best of all is that the software is a free download.  Using Scratch, students learn math and computation ideas, the process of design,  and other 21st century skills.
    • SuperLink
  • Assessment Authoring:
    • Hot Potatoes suite enables you to "create interactive multiple-choice, short-answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering and gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web."  It is "free of charge for those working for publicly-funded non-profit-making educational institutions, who make their pages available on the web."  Others can purchase the product.
    • ProProfs.com has a free online quiz service--Quiz-School. Create and customize your quiz.  Then post it on any webpage, including at your classroom website, or link to it from any webpage.  You can create printable versions, too, add discussion on the quiz, set criteria for passing, and provide feedback on what the correct answer should have been. Assign keywords to your quiz for easy retrieval. The site also has a section for creating flashcards for free.
  • e-portfoliosE-portfolios:
    • Digication is e-portfolio software for students and teachers.  There's also a package for schools and districts.
    • LiveText
    • Grady Profile software for grades K-20.  This one also shows examples at elementary, middle, high school, teacher portfolios, and their use in special education.
    • Open Source Portfolio "A  portfolio owner is provided tools: to collect items that best represent their accomplishments, their learning, or their work; to reflect upon these items and their connections; to design a portfolio that showcases the best selections of this work; and to publish the portfolio to a designated audience" (Coppola, 2006, p. 5, sec: What is OSP?).
    • VoiceThread has made its premium account available to K-12 educators for free. “A VoiceThread is an online media album that can hold essentially any type of media (images, documents and videos).”  The beauty lies in the commentaries that people can add to the media using a mix of voice with a microphone or telephone, text, audio file, or video with a webcam., making this a great tool for collaboration and feedback. 
  • Hypermedia Authoring:
    • Asymetrix Multimedia Toolbook
    • HyperCard
    • IBM Linkway Live!
    • SuperCard
  • PDF documents:
    • Adobe Acrobat--see Adobe Acrobat solutions for accessiblity
    • PrimoPDF is free.  Convert your Word, Powerpoint, Excel, and other application files into pdf documents.  You can download the software or opt to upload files from your desktop to convert directly online.
    • Neevia Technology's Document Converter Express converts files to PDF or image without having to download the software.  The documents can be converted directly online for free. 
  • Organizing, outlining information, concept mapping:
    • Cmap Tools is the equivalent to Inspiration and is open source.  It includes documentation and tutorials/videos to help learn how to use the software.
    • Inspiration (grades K-5) and Kidspiration, both from the same company, help you to create graphic organizers with text and images.
  • Simulation development:
    • Macromedia Captivate and Dreamweaver
    • JavaScript

Compression Tools

Multimedia files can consume a lot of space on your hard drive.  Large files can be slow to transmit or receive over the Internet or via email.  Compressing files reduces their size by eliminating redundancy.  By compressing files, you also can save more data on your back-up disks or CDs, or other portable media.  Popular compression tools include:

Plug-Ins and Viewers

Plug-ins are needed to view multimedia on the web or in presentations.  Pearson Education Browser Tuner provides a quick check of what browser you are using on your computer and checks if you have common plug-ins installed from those listed at their site.

  • Authorware Web Player
  • Live Math
  • QuickTime Player
  • RealPlayer
  • VLC Media Playeris a cross-platform media player and streaming server for a variety of audio and video formats, such as MP3 and OGG.  Available for Windows, Linux, and Macintosh.  Great player for formats used in podcasts.  For more on the file format "ogg" see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogg
  • Windows Media Player
  • Macromedia Shockwave 
  • Macromedia Flash
  • Microsoft Power Point Viewer -- The PowerPoint 2007 Viewer lets you view full-featured presentations created in PowerPoint 97 and later versions.
  • Microsoft Office Converters and Viewers (Access, Word, Excel, Outlook, and so on, including for Macintosh users--Search for specific Converters and Viewers in Downloads). Converters allow you to open files created by people using different versions of your Office programs. Viewers provide a means for people who don't have Office programs to see your work. You can provide them with the appropriate viewer along with your Office files.
  • Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader  
  • Adobe SVG Viewer --Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is a new graphics file format and Web development language based on XML (Extensible Markup Language). The viewer, which is available for both Windows and Mac platforms, will enable your browser to display SVG files.
  • Cortona VRML Client works as a plug-in that will enable you to view and interact with 3-D virtual reality models on the Web.
  • Sun Microsystems Java -- Many math manipulatives are written in Java and this plug-in will allow you to interact with the manipulatives.
  • IrfanView --IrfanView is freeware for educational use in schools and universities. This graphic viewer is for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003. Its many features include graphics editing (e.g., capturing, cut/crop, color depth, effects, lossless JPG rotation), slideshow support (save slideshow as EXE/SCR or burn it to CD), batch conversion with image processing, email option, multimedia player, print option, scan support, and so on.  A real find for your classroom!

Online File Storage

If you do not wish to take up valuable storage space on your hard drive, consider saving some of your digital creations online.  Teachers might find this of value, for example, to store files that can be accessed from any computer.  Services include:

Create and store a website gallery of images at:

Conferencing Tools

  • Elluminate's vRoom: http://www.elluminate.com provides VoIP and is a free, Web conferencing tool for up to three people.  It enables users to integrate real-time interaction into daily activities, including small group meetings and training, one-on-one tutoring, interviewing and virtual office hours. It includes two-way audio, interactive whiteboard, direct messaging, application sharing, file transfer, live web cam, and more.

  • VidSpeak: http://www.vidspeak.com/ This might be the free solution to your personal multiple video conferencing needs. "VidSpeak is a new and exciting video conferencing application, specifically designed for your broadband internet connection. With VidSpeak you can see, and talk to several people at the same time, anywhere over the internet. All you need to use this application is a webcam, microphone and speakers. A headset is recommended."

 

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Creating Media 

Man creating media at his computer workstation GIF

The Technical Side to Multimedia

HowStuffWorks provides answers to questions of interest regarding multimedia and its production:

If you involve students in creating multimedia elements, you need to consider levels of difficulty and time for development.  As one person, you most likely will not have time to learn every piece of software you would like to use.  You might consider assigning groups of students to learn a specific feature of the software to demonstrate to the class, and  having those knowledgeable students help others in the class to develop media.  Arranged in order (least to greatest), these difficulty levels include:

  • text files
  • active hyperlinks to sections within the same document or to additional Web resources
  • image files
  • audio files
  • video files
  • animation files
  • virtual reality markup language files (VRML).  (VRML is a language for enhancing HTML to make virtual worlds on Web pages, such as you might see if taking a tour of a house or museum on the Web.)
  • CGI-data handling programmed files (For more on CGI and Web programming, see Ovid's CGI Course at http://users.easystreet.com/ovid/cgi_course/index.html)

 

Apple Computer Secondary Multimedia Resources: http://ali.apple.com/als/2ndmult/resources.html includes a multimedia overview, explanations of multimedia elements, the project development cycle, integrating multimedia into the classroom, a multimedia glossary, checklists and templates for developing, planning, designing, presenting, creating storyboards--all intended to help teachers use and expand student projects.  There are links to hardware and software for multimedia development.

Atomic Learning: http://movies.atomiclearning.com/k12/tutorials has a series of free online tutorial movies on how to use such products as Video Storyboard Pro (offered as FREEWARE software), Mac OS X, Kidspiration, iMovie 2 and iMovie 3.  Each movie is short, lasting from about one to three minutes.  A subscription will give you access to thousands of software tutorials.

Video Camera GifBerkley Multimedia Research Center: Creating video with Adobe Premiere: http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/frame/resources/how_to/premedit/index.html

Cornell University Library's Digital Imaging Tutorial:
http://www.library.cornell.edu/preservation/tutorial/contents.html 

The Digital Camera in Education Web Site: http://www.drscavanaugh.org/digitalcamera includes pros and cons of using the digital camera, applications (e.g, ESE, ESOL, science, math), how to's, sample lessons, and a series of videos to illustrate what you can do in 15-seconds.

Digital Studio: http://www.soniacoleman.com/index.htm contains a number of tutorials, particularly for use of multimedia with PowerPoint.  Don't miss the tutorial on the basics of sound.  There are some free templates for PowerPoint, too.

Digital Hotcakes: http://www.animationsforvideo.com/html/tutorials.htm  contains a number of free video editing tutorials for Adobe Premier, Adobe Premier Pro, Final Cut Pro, QuickTime Pro, Pinnacle Studio 9, PowerPoint, and Vegas Video.

GraphicsAcademy.com: http://www.graphicsacademy.com/index.php contains absolutely free tutorials on color, image design and capture, HTML and web design.  A glossary of graphics terms and file formats are also provided.

HyperStudio Tutorials from the University of Alberta in Canada:  http://www.quasar.ualberta.ca/edpy202/tutorial/hstudio/hstudio.htm HyperStudio is commonly used for school-based authoring.

Internet4Classrooms: http://www.internet4classrooms.com/on-line.htm contains tutorials for several applications commonly used in K-12, including authoring.  Examples include PowerPoint, Hyperstudio, Word, Excel, Dreamweaver, Claris Home Page, Inspiration and Kidspiration.

Kids Turn Central: http://www.kidsturncentral.com/topics/computers/htgraphics.htm contains a series of articles and tutorials for kids on how to make and use graphics.  The site also introduces students to copyright issues.

Kodak Tips and Project Center: http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=2/3/38&pq-locale=en_US&_requestid=8702 is the best place to learn to work with digital images.  Get tips for taking better digital photos; learn about cameras, digital basics, printing, sharing, enhancing and restoring; get ideas for projects.  The Support Center offers product-specific and Easyshare software interactive tutorials.

Learninginhand.com: http://learninginhand.com/podcasting/index.html  Tony Vincent has numerous resources for handhelds in education.  He presents details for learning to create podcasts: preproduction, recording, postproduction, and publishing.  You can also find existing podcasts, subscribe to them, or listen to podcasts.  Of relevance are his links showing how students, even at elementary school levels, are creating podcasts.

LInC Online: Graphic, Graphics, Graphics: http://ed.fnal.gov/lincon/tech_web_graph.shtml contains everything you wanted to know about using, converting, making, finding, and saving graphics.

Mac tutorials: www.mac.com/1/learningcenter/ iPhoto, iMovie, Keynote, Pages, Garage Band, and more.

Microsoft tutorials: www.microsoft.com/education/tutorials.mspx Word, Excel, FrontPage, PowerPoint, Visio, and more.

MightyCoach.com PowerPoint 2002 (XP): http://www.mightycoach.com/articles/powerpoint/index.html has 25 free online tutorials to help you learn PowerPoint XP.  Get the basics, learn how to work with slides, text, images, and showing your final presentation.

Multimedia Seeds: http://eduscapes.com/seeds/ is designed for anyone who wants to learn more about audio, video, and visual resources.  The project contains four main sections: Collections, Collection Management, Collection Production, and Collection Use.

PowerPoint in the Classroom: http://www.actden.com/pp/index.htm 

SBC Knowledge Network Scanning Tips with links to tutorials: http://www.kn.pacbell.com/wired/beyond/scan.html 

Stock.XCHNG: http://sxc.hu/browse.phtml is a great resource for free photos on just about any topic.  If you use any images here PLEASE remember to contact the artist using the e-mail address found on the artists page.

Storyboarding from UsabilityNet: http://www.usabilitynet.org/tools/storyboarding.htm

Tucows: http://www.tucows.com/   Locate shareware for image, audio, video production and editing, and other top multimedia categories. 

Tutorialfind.com: Multimedia tutorials: http://www.tutorialfind.com/tutorials/multimedia/  Examples include Flash, Director, creating video with Adobe Premiere, AfterEffects, how to's on animation, editing with Final Cut Pro.

TechLearning: http://techlearning.com posted How to Embed Video in Classroom Presentations (March 1, 2004).  Author David Pendery includes the steps with visuals to embed video clips directly into PowerPoint and AppleWorks presentations.

Ulead Learning: http://www.ulead.com/learning/learning.htm contains a number of product tutorials, and general information about imaging, video, and web graphics, including:

Video 101: http://www.video101course.com/300home.html  by Prof. M. Trinklein of Idaho State University is a complete video production course.  Complete content is online regarding editing, video recording, camera operation, shot composition, the lens, sound, lighting, camera mounts, the TV camera, and TV graphics.  This site was honored by the Broadcast Education Association.

WebAttack.com: http://www.webattack.com/freeware/freeware.html
contains an extensive collection of freeware and shareware for multimedia development and authoring, such as Graphics Converter Pro (image converter) or LViewPro 2002, and ImageForge Pro (graphics editor).

Web Site Estates: http://www.websiteestates.com/ppoint.html Free Power Point templates for students and educators.

The Web Project 2000: http://www.webproject.org/ Updated rough guide to multimedia, a pdf file, includes the production process and tools.  It is located under the section called "Applied."

WhatIs.Com: Multimedia and Graphics: http://whatis.techtarget.com/ This site actually contains an A-Z dictionary of technology terms with explanations of concepts relating to computing fundamentals, hardware, software, PCs, networking, telecommunications.  There are over 350 terms for multimedia and graphics.

 

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Media Collections

Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com

Creative Commons contains databases of audio, video, image, text, and educational materials that have terms of use already designated, which eliminates seeking permission to use copyrighted material.

InterWrite Picture Gallery for Math will shorten preparation time in developing math projects with their free images of math symbols, geometry shapes, tools (e.g., protractor, number line), shapes used in manipulatives, dice, and money.  These are good for teaching lessons related to those concepts, too.

Stock.XCHNG  Free stock images at this site in Hungary from developers all over the world.

The Freesound Project contains sounds (not songs and compositions): audio snippets, samples, recordings, bleeps, field recordings, and so on.  Some sounds can be used for scientific research.

 

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References:

Nagel, D. (2007a, May 9). Know your NLE's. T.H.E. Journal.  Available: http://www.thejournal.com/articles/20624

Nagel, D. (2007b, Jan. 18). Open-source schools: Got data? T.H.E. Journal Smart Classroom Newsletter.  Available: http://www.thejournal.com/the/newsletters/smartclassroom/archives/?aid=20022 

 

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Binoculars GifSee other Technology Integration pages: 

Part 4: Multimedia in Projects: Page  1  |  2  |  3  | 

Part 1: Essential Questions  |  Part 2: Technology Integration Resources  |   Part 3: Web Page Design

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Contact Dr. Patricia Deubel: deubelp@neo.rr.com

 

http://www.ct4me.net/multimedia_in_projects_2.htm 

Last revised 02/28/08

To cite this page, use the following format:

Deubel, P. (fill in year from last revised). Technology integration: Multimedia in projects [Online]. Retrieved [fill in date] from Computing Technology for Math Excellence at http://www.ct4me.net/multimedia_in_projects.htm