This post will be highlighting our group's final project. Our task was to create a stand alone 10 minute video tutorial on a technology of our choosing. We chose to highlight Moodle's (an online management system) ability to create a lesson. I gave us an introduction, Dan highlighted how to set up your lesson, I highlighted how to insert an image, add a live-link and embed video into the lesson, and Rebecca highlighted how to add questions to the lesson and the conclusion.
The tools that were used to create the tutorial were screencast-o-matic.com (SOM) and Jing, and Windows Movie Maker (WMM). Dan and I used SOM to record and Rebecca used Jing. Both are a free sites that allow you to record videocasts. SOM has no download and allows up to 15 minute recordings. Jing does have a download and install and only allows a 5 minute recording. The reason I chose to use screencast-o-matic was because it is very user friendly and allows you many different options after you have recorded as to what to do with the recording. It allows you to upload your video to their website, download it as a mp4 file, AVI file, or flash file, and it also allows you to upload it directly to YouTube. I have used screencast-o-matic before in my classroom and it really functions well.
The way we created the final piece being miles away from each other was through communication on google docs as well as utilizing email to send attachments of our recording to one person (Dan) so that he could piece all of the sections together in Windows Movie Maker (WMM).
Throughout the entire project, not only did I learn how to further utilize Moodle's capabilities (from making the tutorial), but I also became familiar with many different video conferencing software out there including Adobe Connect, Skype, and Vyew. In all three video conferencing tools, we found some of the drawbacks to using their free version. One large drawback was that none of them allowed you to record your sessions for later playback. We were able to use SOM for recording as well.
I did find that because we were so well prepared and the work was split evenly along the time-line, that the final video was not as hard as it could have been. What kept us on task and on track was creating a storyboard and script. I did amaze me as to how fast 3:30 minutes go by!
We did learn that if we were to do this again, to make sure that all group members use the same recording tool so that all of the recordings will be in the correct format. Dan ran into an issue with Becky's recording because she used the free version of Jing which only records in swf. Flash format which is not compatible with WMM. Dan then had to feverishly work at converting her file to a format that WMM liked.
I would definitely recommend being as well prepared as possible for each step to allow your group the greatest opportunity for success.
After Dan finished splicing the three pieces together in WMM he then uploaded it to his MSU AFS space so that it would be posted to the web. You may access that WMV file here. You may access the mp4 file here.
Group Leadership Project. If the link doesn’t play nice in your browser, right click and “Save link as” to download the video. Firefox hasn’t been playing as nice as IE and Chrome lately.
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