Demo Slams

At the Week 1 Cross Share on Friday the Year 2 group demonstrated a “Demo Slam” to the group.

Throughout the program, we have been exposed to a number to new tools that I would like to share with faculty when I return to my school. I am considering doing a 2-minute screen-cast to “demo-slam” new tools. These would be easy to post in a faculty forum, share at a meeting, or email to colleagues looking for assistance. I think that the 2-minute time frame is an excellent way to provide the key information to allow other people to decide if the tool would be valuable for there use. Although they are only 2 minutes, I think that creating these will actually be more challenging than it first appears because you need to provide ideas for how they can be remixed or repurposed in a meaningful way.

 

Day 7: QuickFire – Popcorn Maker

Today’s ‘QuickFire’ challenge involved utilizing Mozilla Popcorn Maker to “remix” various digital media to create an interactive video to relay the essense of an “Edtech” buzz word.

Remix is a phenomenon that has been around for many years where you take some aspect of someones work, and modify it to suit your own purpose.  There are lots of debates over copyright and patent issues especially in the music industry (Lessig, 2008).
My buzz word was “personalized learning”. I was able to find a YouTube video that I was able to use as the base of my video and then add text, graphics, and words too. There was a section of the video that I also skipped because it was not important. To view my “popcorn” check out the link: https://marcielewis.makes.org/popcorn/17j6

As Mozilla Popcorn Maker is a web-based application there are some cautionary elements to utilizing it. Make sure to create an account to do you work in so that you can save frequently as you work. A number of people had issues with saving and crashing and losing their work. Also, I had difficultly getting the timing to be perfect as it seemed to keep adjusting just slightly – which was frustrating. As it is a “beta” application, meaning they are still doing work on it – it is important to go in with the correct mindset. If you are having students working on it, make sure to give them lots of time, provide them with instructions regarding saving their work, and be flexible if they lose their product.

References:

Video:
Office of Ed Tech. (2012, February). Personalized Learning. Retrieved July 2, 2013 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC4_ZnxeY3g

Scuba Diver Image:
http://www.clker.com/cliparts/L/5/Q/V/Y/B/cartoon-scuba-diver-hi.png

Lessig, L. (2008). Remix: Making art and commerce thrive in the hybrid economy. Penguin Press. http://www.scribd.com/doc/47089238/Remix (pages 1-22)