Category: Presentation

Kaltura and Chrome icons
Distance Ed, Google, Presentation, Video

Important News Regarding Kaltura and Chrome

Mendi Benigni

Google Chrome has been making some updates recently that will directly effect your use of Kaltura in that browser.  Per Kaltura,

As of the latest version of Chrome (42), released last week, Google has decided to block Java by default, as described here: https://java.com/en/download/faq/chrome.xml
This means that the Kaltura Screen Recorder will not function in instances of Chrome that have recently been installed or which have auto-updated to the latest version. The Kaltura Screen Recorder continues to function properly in all other major browsers.
In order to ensure that your Screen Recorder continues to work properly in Chrome (42), please authorize Chrome to use Java, at this link: chrome://flags/#enable-npapi – and click “Enable” (as shown below).
…Please note that Google plans to cease allowing Java functionality in Chrome in September 2015. We will keep you updated regarding our plans for this, later this year.
If you use the Kaltura Screen Recorder you may want to consider using another browser such as Firefox.  If you have any questions or concerns please contact your instructional technologist.
Assessment, Faculty Technology Institute, instructional technology, Presentation, TLT, Web 2.0

Assess Student Presentations with Acclaim

Jessica Smith

What is Acclaim?

Acclaim is a web platform which facilitates asynchronous discussion around video content. Students and instructors can add time-stamped comments that link to moments in each video. Each comment is clickable, and once clicked, the video will jump to the relevant moment in the video.  Students can see and respond to comments at any time.

Users add videos to Acclaim in one of three different ways:

  1. By embedding YouTube or Vimeo videos;
  2. By uploading video files stored on a hard drive or mobile device; and
  3. By using the built-in webcam feature to create and upload a video in real time.

Screen Shot 2015-03-16 at 5.09.19 PM

 

How could I use Acclaim?

  1. Assessing student presentations.
  2. Peer evaluations of presentations.
  3. Self-evaluations of presentations.
  4. In flipped classrooms during which students watch video lectures outside of class.

Acclaim would be an ideal tool in courses that involve any type of oral presentations, demonstrations, or performances.

Screen Shot 2015-03-16 at 5.09.48 PM

Why should I use Acclaim?

Watching one’s own recorded presentation and reading evaluations from peers and instructors can be an excellent way to identify strengths and weaknesses, and thus improve one’s future performances.  Self-assessment encourages critical reflection, increased awareness of skills, and goal setting while peer-assessment develops empathy and encourages students to reflect on their own work while evaluating others.

Acclaim provides a free and simple platform that facilitates such self, peer, and instructor assessment.

Cost:  Free

Application:  Web-based; http://getacclaim.com

three people talking about iPads and Airsketch
1-1-1, Collaboration, Faculty Technology Institute, iPad, Mobile, Presentation, TLT

Guest Post: Using the iPad and AirSketch for In-class Activities and to Facilitate Discussions

Mendi Benigni

Our guest blogger is Faye Hicks-Townes, a faculty member in Teacher Education.

I was a participant in the Summer 2013 Summer FIT.  Initially I was overwhelmed with the sheer number of available apps. Although I must admit I was impressed with AirSketch when I first saw it.  I wasn’t certain how I would use it in class, but I was attracted to the freedom it provided.  I could present, discuss, and highlight material without being tethered to the computer. I have used AirSketch in two types of assignments, a primary source analysis paper and in-class assignments requiring visual representations.

I am teaching a class that requires the use of primary documents for a writing assignment. Students are required to read and interpret primary source materials to respond to questions on the history of education in Charleston and the Lowcountry.  To help introduce my students to this type of material and I wanted to work with them as a group to facilitate discussion.  AirSketch fit this role perfectly.  The primary documents the students are using are located at the Avery Center and available on line in digital format.  I was able to download some of the material to use in class.  The material includes diaries, interviews, and minutes.  Many are handwritten. After downloaded examples, I was able to take pictures of the documents to share with students by using AirSketch.  To use AirSketch, I just had to open the app and type in the displayed URL into the computer in the classroom.  It was very easy and quick.  I then chose the document that I wanted to use.  Once I had the document up on the screen, I could walk through it with my students.  It was also easy to select a writing tool to highlight or circle specific information for discussion.  As the students asked questions or responded, I was able to give them my tablet so that they could also highlight or circle information.  The students did not have to get up from their seats and go to the front of the class.  They could respond, ask questions, or discuss while highlighting or even writing on the material on the screen.  I liked being able to focus on sections of documents by highlighting and circling.  The students and I had clarity throughout the discussion and were able to easily address areas of concern.

Using the iPad’s camera and mini scan was easier than making copies for students and it was very useful in facilitating discussion.  The students were more involved and I found it easier to interact with them.

I plan to continue to use the app for classroom presentations.  It is very easy to use and that’s definitely a plus for me.

This spring I have also begun to use AirSketch for classroom activities.  When we discuss philosophies, theories, and perspectives, I often ask students to create a visual representation of their views or their interpretation of others’ views.  For instance, I may ask them to create a visual of behaviorism or progressivism. In the past I have used ELMO to display these visuals.  It was a hit or miss.  Sometimes it worked well, other times, not so well. Now I have begun to use AirSketch.  I can take a picture of the student’s visual and display it.  The student can, from his/her seat, discuss the visual, and even make changes as the discussion continues.  The students do not have to present from a finished product.  They can create as they explain their thoughts.  I have found that some students are more comfortable sharing when they do not have to stand before the class.

I am pleased with AirSketch because it is easy to use and an effective tool for discussion and presentation.  I’m certain I will continue to find uses for it in my classes.  The only drawbacks I have experienced now are not being able to zoom in on sections of the pictures.  At least I haven’t found out how to.  I would also like to be able to use the keyboard instead of the pen.  Overall, AirSketch has been a useful addition to my class.

Screenshot of Playback app
Distance Ed, instructional technology, iPad, Mobile, Presentation, TLT

iPad Screencasting Apps to Create Demonstrations and Lectures

Mendi Benigni

With more people flipping their classrooms and teaching online screencasting has become a popular way to deliver content.  Screencasting is a video recording of what occurs on a computer screen.  Normally, computer screencasting apps will allow you to record anything that you do on the computer.  Screencasting on an iPad is slightly different.  Currently there is no app that records everything that you do on the iPad but there are apps that let you record many of the things that you would use in a lecture or a lesson.  Over the past few days I tested ten different screencasting apps (some paid, some free).  While they all allow for voice recording over a whiteboard many of them offered extra features that set them apart from each other.  I was looking for the ability to add presentations, images and files, a whiteboard, and overall flexibility.  The iPad Screencasting App Matrix is a full matrix of each app’s features, price and restrictions.  Below are the apps that I evaluated and my thoughts of each.  Keep in mind that this is my opinion.  I encourage you to choose a couple and try them yourself.

Playback – Screencast Creator for Dropbox (free)

Screenshot of Playback app
Image 1

Playback is a free screencasting app.  It’s primary focus is as a whiteboard app.  You can create a Playback session from an image or a PDF but you have to do it at the beginning, before you begin the recording.  You can’t add images or PDFs on the fly.  What I don’t like is that you have to open these PDFs and images from Dropbox or your iPad and then send them to Playback.  Playback also has the ability to record the camera on the iPad (see image 1).  It allows you to have the small camera image in the upper corner or you can have it display larger in the middle of the screen, which is a unique feature.  However, on playback, the video in the corner, shot from the camera, was way behind the audio and it was very distracting.

 

Explain Everything ($2.99)

Explain Everything screenshotThis is my personal favorite. It allows the most flexibility of any of the apps I looked at. You can import most any file type (doc(x), ppt(x), xls(x), pdf, jpg) which gives you so much freedom.  You can also insert a web browser that allows you some basic web navigating to allow you to show websites and discuss them.  You can also insert video and audio files.  All of these can be added on fly while recording the session.  Because it has so many features it is not as easy to use as some of the others and zooming and scrolling requires a special tool instead of just allowing you to pinch and stretch like other apps.  It does allow you to add a video recorded with the iPad camera but it’s not a constant recording like in Playback.  Overall, I think it’s worth the time to learn to use it.

ShowMe (free)

ShowMe ScreenshotShowMe is a simple to use app and is good for those who are wanting a whiteboard app for uses such as explaining math problems or diagramming.  You can only use the whiteboard feature and import images from the Camera Roll.  When it comes time to export and share you upload it to ShowMe’s public website.  This makes it easy to share with your students via a web link but it’s also available to anyone who goes to the public site.  I don’t like that you can’t import other formats or from anywhere else but the Camera Roll.  For me, I like an easy upload but I also like to have the option to save it to my Camera Roll so I can edit it if necessary.  One feature that I didn’t like was that the recording paused when I added an image.  I’m assuming this was to save recording time but the problem I encountered was remembering to turn the recording back on after I added the image.  I ended up annotating and speaking over the better part of a slide that didn’t record due to this feature.

Knowmia Teach (free)

Knowmia Teach ScreenshotKnowmia offers many of the same features in Explain Everything but with the iPad camera recording like in Playback.  There are several things I really like about this app.  First it is set up in Stages and you can record each stage or slide individually instead of recording straight through like in other apps.  There is also a area at the bottom where you can add additional items that you can bring into the session on the fly.  It’s feature rich and fairly easy to use.  My two complaints are as follows:  First, while free to both instructors and students, videos created with the student account are only kept on their server for 30 days then they disappear.  They are not downloadable so they can’t be kept.   Second, it kept freezing up on my.  I estimate it froze 10 times while trying to create a 5 slide session.

These are just a few of the apps that I tested out.  For a full listing of the features compared check out the iPad Screencasting App Matrix.  If you are interested in incorporating any of these apps into your course contact your Instructional Technologist.  We’re happy to help.

Dr. Kelley Mayer White
1-1-1, Assessment, Collaboration, Faculty Technology Institute, instructional technology, Mobile, Presentation, TLT, Video

Guest Post: Comparison of two video projects in an undergrad and a grad class

Mendi Benigni

Today our guest blogger is Dr. Kelley White, Assistant Professor in Teacher Education.

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to attend the summer 2013 FTI (Faculty Technology Institute).  It was a great experience for many reasons.  I met and collaborated with new colleagues and learned about several new tools that could enhance my teaching and research.  Based on what we learned about video projects, I decided to require students in two different courses to create videos as part of their final projects in the course.  In both classes, students were required to choose a topic of interest, read research on the topic and write an annotated bibliography.  Then, they were to choose an audience (parents, children, elementary school teachers, or community members) and create a video to share what they learned about the topic in a meaningful way.  I used a similar assignment in the past, but often simply required students to present their work using PowerPoint for the final presentation.  After seeing what other colleagues had done with video, I thought using video might challenge my students to present their work in a more creative way. I was particularly interested in how they would create the video with specific consideration of the audience they selected. A majority chose to make videos for parents or teachers, but I had one create a video for young children.

As far as tools go, I gave the students the choice of using iMovie, MovieMaker, VoiceThread or Splice, but a majority of the students chose to use iMovie. Honestly, I did not provide a whole lot of support to them in class in regards to use of technology or in creating the videos beyond providing them with a rubric. I did make myself available for individual meetings if needed, but very few requested them.  The majority of the rubric focused on evaluation of video content, implications and consideration of audience, but I also evaluated creativity, editing and video construction. Looking back though, the rubric needed to be much more specific in differentiating levels of quality in regards to “good editing” and “smooth transitions.” It’s also important to note that this criteria was worth only 15% of the grade on the project so it may have needed to become a more significant portion of the grade in order for students to better understand its importance.

As mentioned previously, I used different versions of this project in both a freshman class and a graduate course. In the freshman course, students worked collaboratively to create the videos.  In the graduate course, it was an individual assignment and the requirements for topic selection, length of video, annotated bibliography and sources were more rigorous.  As you might expect, the projects were fairly different in quality. The freshmen did not seem to be as concerned with quality of the video.  Several had major problems with audio and transitions. Whereas it was obvious that most of the graduate students spent a good deal of time editing and polishing their work.  The graduate students were also much more thoughtful in their consideration of audience and in how they integrated research and theory.

If I were to do this again, I would provide more support across the semester to the freshmen in particular.  I would require them to check in with me at least once prior to the end of the semester with a detailed plan for the video. Perhaps, requiring them to plan their video using a storyboard and incorporate it into their grade. I also would take more time to better review my expectations for quality of the video (beyond what I included on the rubric), show more examples, and spend more time in class teaching them how to appropriately edit.  Finally, I would also consider requiring use of a specific tool (Splice, for example) so we could troubleshoot and discuss video construction and quality together as a class.  Overall, it was a good experience for me and for the students and I would definitely try it again.

Rubric available upon request

Pecha Kucha Night by Chrys Rynearson
instructional technology, Pedagogy, Presentation, Research, Share

Pecha Kucha in the Classroom

Mendi Benigni

Pecha Kucha is a simple presentation format devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham where you show 20 slides or images, each for only 20 second.  The images or slides advance automatically to keep you on time and you can only talk about each slide or image while it’s being displayed.  Designed to keep presentations short and to the point, each presentation is only 6 minutes and 40 seconds long!

Why use it in your classroom

The goal of pecha kucha is to encourage the presenter to be concise but also a bit more creative and informal.  It’s suggested that the presentation consist mainly of images, photos, or graphics with little to no text.  These images should advance your story and emphasize your points. and The absence of bulleted text tends to steer the speaker more toward story telling and conversation than a rehearsed and robotic presentation.  The time constraint is great for student presentations because twenty seconds is long enough to make a solid point but not enough to prattle.  The pecha kucha time and slide constraints prevents the student from mentioning everything they could find on the topic in hopes that they hit upon the point you wanted them to make.  This encourages the presenter to know the topic well enough to distill what is important and needs to be covered in the 20 slides.  Lastly, when the fast-paced presentation is over the speaker(s) then open the floor for questions and dialogue with their audience, further allowing them to demonstrate their understanding of the topic.

How to use it in your classroom

There are some basic rules to pecha kucha.

20 for 20:  I’ve already mentioned that an entire presentation must consist of 20 slides, no more, no less.  Each slide is only allowed to remain on the screen for 20 seconds so it’s important to know how to create an autoplay slideshow.  You can find short video tutorials on how to create pecha kucha style presentations in Keynote, PowerPoint and Prezi at then end of this post.

Images over Text:  Try to use images that advance your story and illustrate your points.  When using words steer clear of bullets and use phrases that have an impact and represent the essence of your point.

No transitions or animation:  Avoid slide transitions and fly-in text.  This eats up time and detracts from the focus of this fast-paced presentation style.

No video or audio:  While you can add audio and video files to your presentations they need to fit into the 20 second time frame and normally don’t work well with this presentation style.

Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse:  While this is meant to be more informal and conversational you must make sure you get your important points across and you won’t be able to do that successfully if you don’t practice.  20 seconds is a short time and every slide where you go over that time forces you to speed up on all subsequent slides to make it up.  Practice is critical.

Jennifer Welsh in History has used pecha kucha with her students and here’s what she says:

It was a very interesting experiment (for me, at least; not sure how the students felt), and one I’d like to do again using what I learned the first time. I think that next time, I would watch some examples with the students in class, and talk more about the structure of a Pecha Kucha-style presentation, as well as what makes a good (or bad) PowerPoint slide. The main problem students had was putting all their text onto their slides and then trying to just read everything on there. That doesn’t work with the format, since Pecha Kucha doesn’t spend that much time on each slide. The best students were very engaging, and extremely creative in their work, incorporating interesting maps and images, and working well with minimal notes.

If you are interested in reading more about pecha kucha in the classroom go to Richard L. Edwards’ blog, Remixing the Humanities.  He wrote a post entitled Pecha Kucha in the Classroom: Tips and Strategies for Better Presentations and it is one of the resources that I used for this post.

If you would like to learn how to create pecha kucha style autoplay presentations I have created some basic video tutorials for you and your students:

PowerPoint – http://youtu.be/l9zxNTpNMLo

Keynote – http://youtu.be/KrYTB3NpNM8

Prezi – http://youtu.be/BSQlsqZWtV0

Resources

Edwards, Richard L. “Pecha Kucha in the Classroom: Tips and Strategies for Better Presentations.” Remixing the Humanities. N.p., 03 Nov. 2012. Web. 28 Aug. 2012. <http://remixhumanities.wordpress.com/2010/11/03/pecha-kucha-in-the-classroom-tips-and-strategies-for-better-presentations/>.

Jones, Jason B. “Challenging the Presentation Paradigm (in 6 Minutes, 40 Seconds): Pecha Kucha.” ProfHacker. The Chronicle of Higher Education, 02 Nov. 2009. Web. 28 Aug. 2012. <http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/challenging-the-presentation-paradigm-in-6-minutes-40-seconds-pecha-kucha/22807>.

“PechaKucha 20×20.” PechaKucha 20×20. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Aug. 2012. <http://www.pecha-kucha.org/>.

Rynearson, Chrys. Pecha Kucha Night Charleston. 2009. Photograph. Charleston. Flickr. Web. 28 Apr. 2012. <http://www.flickr.com/photos/chrys/4035453312/>.