Category Archives: #edtech #scitech
Using YouTube to make quick lab videos
I made these lab videos easily using my iPhone (other smartphones will do the same), and sending the video directly to YouTube. YouTube’s editing tools make it easy to annotate the video, so pop-ups appear to explain what is happening and highlighting areas for students’ focus. This is ideal where you want to record, upload and annotate videos quickly and easily.
There are four great things about producing videos this way:
- With GoogleApps, all students and teachers have a YouTube account, which they can sync with their phone or have ready on their laptop. They could also record the video from their laptop webcam.
- If videos are pretty straightforward there is no need to spend time importing into iMovie or MovieMaker, editing and then uploading to YouTube.
- You can make quick edits and corrections to annotations on the ‘live’ video. You don’t need to re-upload the video.
- YouTube also has an online video editor for making more complete edits and putting clips together.
This next one was made very quickly and uses the YouTube video editor tools to mash two short clips together. By this point I’d got hold of a retort stand and created a super-adjustable iPhone camera triunipod – patent pending and soon to be available at an exaggerated cost from the Apple store ;>
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Applications beyond lab videos:
Students could make their own explainers or video clips for class, such as lab report methods, annotated sports performance clips or notes on a speech or presentation they (or a peer) have given. Teachers can use it (like I have above) to make vodcasts for students who can then repeat or look back at work in class. In this example, students have carried out these reactions in class, but I will be away the following class. This gives them an opportunity to see the reactions again with some annotations to help them through the theory work.
Limitations
- Having a lot of students online uploading at the same time can impact bandwidth.
- Students may need help in setting up their school YouTube accounts and assigning permissions and privacy settings – you would need to be aware of appropriate student-created content.
- Although quick and easy to use, it is unlikely to look polished enough for a publications class or professional piece of work. It will be fine for simple tasks focusing on content or explanation.
If you want even more power to edit on the phone, I like this free app called Splice. It has enough features to get you putting clips and photos together, with transitions and themes, and will upload directly to YouTube (though it can take a while to render).
One Meeelion Views on i-Biology.net – Whoo!
Thanks for the support of the site!
Link to my Movember profile.
It’s exciting to see how i-Biology has grown over the past few years, and to get feedback from students and teachers who are using the resources here from all over the world. As always, constructive comments are welcome and if you spot any errors or have suggestions for resources, please let me know.
If you want to show more support, please make a donation to either my Movember account or Biology4Good. Every little helps! All donations go to the charities.
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EDIT – Thanks to Danny Nicholson at the WhiteBoard Blog for the reminder that today is the 20th anniversary of the death of Freddie Mercury. Now there’s a man who could rock a moustache.
Technical Issues with SlideShare
Some of the SlideShare presentations have been displaying poorly recently, and many of the links have stopped working from within the presentations. This seems to affect the presentations which are more than a couple of years old. I have re-uploaded a couple, which might help. Hopefully SlideShare will fix their issues soon, as with over 90 presentations, 40 documents and lots of links and embeds it is too big a job to start from the beginning.
EDIT – I’ve contacted SlideShare and they say they aware of the problem and are acting to fix it.
Solutions for now:
- Use the images in the presentations as keyword hints for searches
- Follow links on the subject content pages here
- Download the presentation and follow the links (but stick to the acceptable use guidelines and do not re-host on other internet servers).
If anyone knows of other good presentation servers, please let me know. SlideShare works well with WordPress – Prezi, Slidrocket and others cannot be embedded here, due to the WordPress security settings regarding Flash.
Command Terms and Drawing Skills
My class need to review the definitions and the way we approach some of these command terms, so here is the Command Terms presentation as a reminder. November sessioners – your exam is in one week! Maybe these resources will help.
Get practicing with those calculators, too.
Using your IB Bio GoogleSite
This is for my IB Bio SL class: keep the site updated using these tips:
(Go fullscreen and HD)
Excel Graphing Screencasts
These two videos are for my classes, made using the free screencast tool ScreenCast-O-Matic.
The first is for my IB Bio group for setting up a graph for a complex set of data, adding extra datasets, error bars and formatting. The second is a similar video for a simple Physics investigation in Grade 10.
Hopefully they are helpful as you can go back and re-watch important bits as you do the write-ups.
If anyone knows of a decent way to add best-fit curves (lines are easy) to datasets, please let me know!
Three Incorrect Laws of Motion
Veritasium
Get yer brains in gear for the new G10 unit: Forces and Changes in Motion.
Veritasium is an impressive collection of science videos by Derek Muller. They are designed to challenge your misconceptions and make you think – which is why I like them. It’s easy to sit back and listen – but does the understanding really sink in?
See if you can correct the misconceptions presented in this video, then head over to their site for more examples. There are even some answers… somewhere!
Tweetal Lunar Eclipse
NASA
There’s a total lunar eclipse tonight (15-16 June 2011), or very early tomorrow morning for Australia and SE Asia. Click here for a chart from NASA on when and where it will be visible and how much of it you can expect to see.
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I also finally caved in and got Twitter. @iBiologyStephen, if you will. There’s a little Twitter widget up on the top right of the blog that will take you to my profile. Beyond the basics of leaving messages, getting into PD and checking out updates, what novel – and effective – ways are you putting Twitter to work in class? Add your ideas in the comments below or tweet me. That’s how I roll now.
Extreme Biology: Student Blogging
Visit ExtremeBiology!
I’ve posted about this before, and have ExtremeBiology featured as an RSS Feed at the bottom of this page. For those who have yet to visit though, check out Stacy Baker’s Extreme Biology website. Clearly an inspirational Biology teacher, her students have been blogging and podcasting about Biology. Some are now featured bloggers on Nature’s Scitable learning resource. Way to go!
It looks like Stacy is taking a break from teaching (it is an exhausting career!) – but hopefully not the blog. Thank-you for your work and congratulations and good luck to your graduating students.
The $50 SMARTBoard
This is just unbelievable, for two reasons:
1. If it works, you get thousands of dollars of functionality for near nowt.
2. You get an excuse to bring a Wii to school.
Here’s Johnny Lee and his Wii hacks (thanks to Henri Bemelmans for letting me know):
And while you’re at it…
Go and spend some time on the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) website – there are some really top-class talks.
i-Biology 