Animated videos and presentations

If you want to add some "pizazz" to videos or presentations, PowToon seems a very easy to use and not costly tool to do that. The free version will allow for a 5 minute video. Please check it out, and be ready to spend  some time playing with it, it will be time well spent though...

Sizes for images and visuals in social media and other places

When we have to embed a video or post an image in Compass 2g (AKA Blackboard Learn) or in a website, we try to follow the 640x480 or lower.
This website provides sizing for those types of embeds that can be used in social media but in course embeds as well. I am happy to have this information, i will be using it a lot!

http://www.lunametrics.com/blog/2012/11/12/final-social-media-sizing-cheat-sheet/?goback=.gde_4640982_member_204443721

Using Popcorn Maker to Edit Online Videos

Popcorn Maker is an online video editing tool that allows users to edit online videos and add multimedia-rich content.The following video provides a demonstration of what is possible:


I've attempted to create a test video in Popcorn maker using a video I already own and share on YouTube. A few observations:

• It's important that the video is already publicly online, because that's the only way to import it into the editor; there is no Upload option.
• There is a bit of a learning curve for users who don't do a lot of editing. I found that I could add text, but I couldn't change the color from the default black -- there is a box to enter a number code to change the font color, but no color wheel or swatch sampler to let me pick a different color. I was able to add a shadow behind the black letters, but even so they aren't always visible against the background.
• Some prior knowledge of video editing is also helpful to understanding the timeline and how to arrange layers of text and images on top of videos. This resource may not be for beginners, unless they are willing to spend some time self-instructing by experimentation.
• Once I added something that I wanted to remove, the only way I could find to do this was to move the item to a new layer and then delete the layer. 
• Twitter option: This seems to give the option of posting a person's feed or search terms, but I couldn't get it to display either. It's possible that it displays differently after the work is saved, but I also wished that I could embed a single specific tweet rather than a feed or ticker of multiple tweets.
• There doesn't seem to be a way to trim the length of videos. I was able to pause this one and then skip to the very end, but I couldn't cut the section I wanted to remove.

My Popcorn maker video:



All in all, it's a fun resource, but not as robust as software like Camtasia (my current favorite). It does, however, get points for adding social media content like Google Maps and Wikipedia (though Twitter is not yet as functional as the other two).

Camtasia automatic captioning?

The issue of creating captions is something that comes up very frequently and we would like to have all videos captioned but it will take a huge amount of time. Now Camtasia offers the possibility of automatic captioning bu using the Speech-to-text feature, which automatically creates captions from voice narration or audio on the timeline. It has to be trained, and can only be used in the PC, but i think it is a good solution, if the instructor uses his / her own PC to create the mini lectures with Camtasia.
Here a tutorial on how to do it:

Customizing embedded YouTube videos with EmbedPlus

EmbedPlus is a service that promises to enhance the way that YouTube videos display when they are embedded on a page. For users who intend to embed videos in WordPress, there is a WordPress-specific plugin that can be installed onto the blog's dashboard. For all other uses, the application on the EmbedPlus website itself walks users through the process of customizing the embedded content.

I tested this out with the following video from The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a YouTube-based vlog adaptation of Pride and Prejudice:

Since our eLearning Team blog is hosted by Blogspot, I used the web application of EmbedPlus. First, it asked me to enter in the video's URL. Then, I had to check whether I intended to post the code on a WordPress blog (if "yes", the page gives instructions for installing the WordPress plugin).

The next step involves selecting customizable options for the embedded video: 

• video size
• start/stop time -- which would be handy if you want viewers to skip ahead to a specific timestamp rather that viewing the entire video
• scene markers -- perhaps more useful for longer videos, or important points within a lecture
• real-time reactions -- which displays pop-up comments on the video from YouTube, Digg, Twitter, and Reddit
• annotations -- this adds annotated notes at specific points within the video

Screenshot of the EmbedPlus Options window

Of any of these functions, the scene markers and annotations might be the most useful to embedded video lectures in online courses. I doubt the usefulness of the real-time reactions option, but left it checked in the above video for curiosity's sake.

At this time I still have not tested the WordPress plugin version of this service, and depending on how the video displays on this blog, it may or may not be worth further investigation for use in eLearning. Still, the customizable display options seem to be potentially useful. I'm looking forward to testing its functionality with real lecture recordings.

EmbedPlus online service

Explanatory blog post by 404 Tech Support

Editing or clipping YouTube Videos

I found that the following sites may be of good help for an instructor trying to clip or use part of a youTube video. The first three provide similar functionality: clipping and providing embed code for a clip in an existing youtube video. They are:
1) TubeChop:  http://www.tubechop.com/
2)Splicd: http://www.splicd.com/
The last one offers more options for editing and interacting with videos. It is called "embed.plus" http://www.embedplus.com and it promises more functions than the other three....

I tested them with this "Milonga"
ORIGINAL POST IN YOUTUBE:

1) One minute edit with Tubechop
Example: http://www.tubechop.com/watch/318894
Tutorial: 

2) One minute edit with Splicd
Example: http://splicd.com/vzPQS5xbTe4/150/210

Submit your comments if you try them... or if you know of others.

Quietube

Have you seen Quietube? It’s a tool that lets you watch YouTube videos without all of the ads. You add a button to your browser that, when you click it, opens the YouTube video you are watching on a page with a blank background. You can also create a TinyURL for the Quietube version of the video.

Jill

YouTube Annotation tool

If instructors were to have students do assignments as videos delivered in YouTube, then it might be useful to give feedback on specific parts of the video.  The Annotations tool, currently in beta has the capability where the video owner can give annotation privileges to other users by sending a link.  That seems pretty nice.  Likewise teams of students could use the annotations tool on early versions of the video as they are trying to make improvements in what they have.  It is an interesting idea. 

On the other hand, I’m still not understand the duration that the annotation stays up on the screen and it seemed the one I made appears at a time slightly different from the time where I stopped the video.

Lanny