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.
The End of AIDS?
World AIDS Day is almost upon us again: 1st December. This video was tweeted by @StephenFry today – give it a look over to see how ARV drugs may be used in prevention as well as treatment.
[vimeo 32317889]To find out more, visit the End to AIDS website, where you can also read a history of World AIDS Day.
Atoms & Bonding Resources
Resources for our G9 unit on our short unit on Atoms & Bonding are posted on the main page here. MrT’s class, our work is all on the GoogleSite. This will run right into our next unit on Reactions & Formulas.
Here is a BBC Documentary on Atoms, with Jim Al-Khalili:
Science Stunts for Parties
Richard Wiseman is a psychologist and author of Quirkology, the Curious Science of Everyday Lives. He also has a YouTube channel loaded with illusions and tricks. As dinner-party season approaches, here are some collections of little science tricks to impress your granny. Be careful with flames.
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.
Robin Ince and the Infinite Monkey Cage
Robin Ince, rationalist and science-minded comic, give a short TED Talk on Science vs Wonder:
He also has a radio show/ podcast called The Infinite Monkey Cage, hosted with Brian Cox on the BBC. In this episode, Six Degrees of Separation, they discuss the connections of humans with Stephen Fry, Simon Singh and Alex Krotoski.
Movember 2011 – sponsorship links
It’s Mo-vember again and the facial foliage is taking shape. It also just happens to be mid-way through right after the November 2011 session Biology exams. A perfect time to launch an appeal for sponsorship from teachers and students who have used this site in their studies.
My MoVember page
Movember is simple – grow a mo’ for the month of Movember to raise money and awareness of oft-ignored men’s health issues, such as testicular cancer, prostate cancer and depression.
November sessioners (and others), here is a chance to pay it forwards by giving to something seasonal and topical: please make a donation at my MoSpace page! Please get on board or show your support for all the free resources posted here by making a small donation.
In other appeals so far, i-Biology has raised around GBP300 for various charities through my Biology4Good donations page.
Here’s a curriculum link for good measure: 2.5 Cell Division (tumours and cancer).
Mo yeah.
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Movember videos:
First up – some of the real impacts made by Movember fundraising – with real science.
And here are the rules of Movember:
The Biggest Wave Ever Surfed
Garret McNamara, a Hawaiian surfer who looks suspiciously like the dad from Modern Family, has broken the world record for the largest wave ever surfed. At an estimated 90 feet (30 metres), the wave is off Nazaré, Portugal. Here it is:
This video clip from the Guardian has his board-cam and a short interview with him.
To find out more about the science of riding big waves, this is a good ten-minute clip from KQED Quest explains how giant waves are formed at Mavericks.
Riding Giants, about the history of big wave surfing and Laird Hamilton, is great too.
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.
i-Biology 