Picasa as a Photo and Video Editing Tool

This weekend I bought my husband and me a new toy - a Toshiba netbook. It has 3 USB ports, a 250Gb hard drive, 3Gb of memory, and a built in webcam and microphone. I recorded a short (28second) video of myself with the web cam. The file saved as a .avi file - about 828Mb in size. I absoulutely did not want to take up that kind of space on my hard drive, so I remembered that I'd read in another educator's blog post -about PICASA - a free picture editing tool from Google that also works to convert video files from one format to another.
I downloaded the application from the web:
http://picasa.google.com/
After I installed it, I saw some movie editing tools. I was just experimenting, so I clicked on a film clip icon, navigated to where that webcam video was stored, and clicked on export. It exported to a .wmv file - a format that plays nice with Windows free Movie Maker software, and it was only 28MB in size. When I played the clip in Windows Media Player, I did not notice any degradation in quality from the .avi clip.
I also played with some of the photo editing tools. Picasa is not PhotoShop, but for a free application, it give you some pretty neat options.
I will be experimenting with how Picasa works with other video file formats. Hopefully, it will be another tool in our arsenal for helping kids to download and work with video.

Oh, I figured out where I got the info about Picasa. It is on the Connecticut Blog for Discover Education Network. The folks who blog on that site offer a wealth of hints and information:
http://blog.discoveryeducation.com/connecticut/

Be sure to check it out!!!!

Bethany Middle School enters the New Haven Register's "Decorate the Box" contest

Sara Frank's art classes have been busy designing the outside of a New Haven Register newspaper vending box. We would like everyone to vote for Bethany's fabulous design. Click on the link below, look through the entries, and vote for Amity Middle School.



If you are not registered with New Haven Register, you will have to register to vote by creating a username and password. Sorry! Sara and her students appreciate you going to the trouble to do this to make us a winning school.

Reading Is Magic!!!

Danny Magic is coming!
 

Mrs. Kazdan challenged Bethany Middle School students and teachers to read 1,000 books between March and April of 2010. As of April 26, we have read 1,308 books. The assemblies with Danny Magic will take place this Thursday, April 29. Congratulations to all. Watch for another post highlighting the presentation.

Here are a few of the "Reading is Magic because...." slogans the homerooms came up with:

Reading is magic because it opens a whole new universe in your head.
Reading is magic because it takes you to a magical place.
Reading is magic because it can take you ANYWHERE!
Reading is magic because it makes you smarter.
Reading is magic because you can live in someone else's footsteps.
Reading is magic because even when there aren't pictures, you can create a film in your imagination.
Reading is magic because it enlivens a dull day.
Reading is magic because it makes the world around you disappear.

Keep Reading, Bethany Students! You Rule!

Blogging From a Live Event

I am not very good at it, I guess, but I did give it a try at the Celebration Of Teaching and Learning in NYC on March 5, 2010. See previous blog post. I did not lug my laptop with me, so the post I entered was from my iPhone, and I find it a bit laborious to type a lengthy entry from that communication tool. In addition, the whole debate on multi-tasking and whether or not we can really do it well was debated in the audience. I know I have a difficult time, when participating in webinars, to really attend to the speaker while I am contributing in the chat. I honestly don’t think kids can attend to a “lecture” from a professor while they are checking email, facebook, etc. as seems to be the practice at MIT.Obviously, I had trouble blogging while attending the live session.

It was a real thrill to see and listen to Rachel Dretzin and Doug Rushkoff in person. I even got to speak with Rachel personally after the session. I want to revisit the video, which can be viewed live, at the following site:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/digitalnation/

I hope to make a video of my own and upload it to the site.

My superintendant asked me how I enjoyed the session, and I will paste some of my response to him here in this post. I would love for others to comment on what they think about the issues raised in the documentary.

I think we need to really evaluate the debate about the need for memorization –and how important it is to today’s students, most of whom have some sort of web-enabled phone at hand. Although some educational technologists dismiss the need to memorize, I feel we short change our students if we do not help them to exercise that ability to memorize (not for rote but for connection purposes).

In addition, the authors of the documentary focused on the segment where a student proclaims that he’s never read a book but gets the overview from Sparks notes online. I think even the most forward-thinking educational technologists would agree that a synopsis is not replacement for experiencing the original piece of literature. Then again, norms are changing! I don’t really know where I sit on this issue. Every school has differing opinions of which “classics” to read. I think student need to experience literature – even if they are forced to read a particular book by the curriculum for their class. Of course, how students discuss the book can be enhanced by technology. A teacher-led discussion should not be the only option. Using book groups, nings, shared reviews on line, fan-fiction blogs, etc. are just a few of many options available.

Finally, on the issue of digital citizenship, the presenters showed the clip of kids in Korea being taught (indoctrinated) in cyber ethics (top down) from the time they are very small. Doug Rushkoff questioned in the documentary whether this “top-down” method would work in the United States. It is clear that we need to teach this from a very early age. I haven’t had time to investigate, but I understand Carnegie Mellon has just made a curriculum aimed at k-12 available. Digital Citizenship most definitely needs to be an essential part of our curriculum from the earliest years of school right through and including higher education.

I have not even touched upon the whole issue of gaming and virtual environments that comprised a significant portion of the documentary, but that will have to wait for another post.

Frontline's digital Nation

I am at the Celebration right now listening to Doug Ruskoff and co-presenter right now. I am having a great time and have already made a lot of new contacts.

Celebration of Teaching and Learning

I'm excited. Well, I'm not really excited about having to get up before 5:00AM in order to get there on time, but I am excited about having received a free admission to attend the 2010 Celebration of Teaching and Learning at the Hilton Hotel in New York City. There are so many featured speakers and workshops, I'm having a hard time trying to pick and choose. I also love to visit the vendors - and maybe get freebies for my classroom.
I participated in the Seedlings webcast this evening on EdTechTalk, and Cheryl Oakes suggested I blog from the conference. I'll have my iPhone with me, so maybe I'll give it a try. I should take my laptop, but I'm just not into lugging it around with me all day. Anyway, I'll try to report out on some of the exciting things I learn.

The Pleasure of Meeting Lihongyan

Today, I had the pleasure of meeting Lihongyan, a teacher of English in China, who has been visiting our school in Connecticut. She is a gracious,lovely lady, and we hope to be able to continue communication with her even after she returns to China.
She says that she has enjoyed her visit here and has learned a lot. She had a very good time and felt the staff helped her a lot. She would like to share her experience with the teachers in China. From here, she will be visiting New York City and then on to Washington D.C. before returning to China. I hope the weather moderates a bit so she does not freeze to death while sightseeing. The picture above is of Lihongyan, Bo Wu, and Sara Frank.

Exciting Video Projects at Bethany Middle School

Here is just one example of a claymation PSA project the students in Mrs. Saisa's classes are producing. I think this one is awesome, and the message is so important.
I hope to feature more great student productions on this blog in the coming weeks.

Google Shared Documents

I had three young ladies in my lab this afternoon. They had come in to work on a script for one of their classes, and I watched as each opened a separate Word document. I suggested that they might like to log on to their amitybethany accounts and share one document. One of the girls had had more experience with using Google docs than the other two, so she initiated the document and shared it with them. They were sitting side by side, each editing the document and were quite pleased to see the document update as each saved a new entry. One of the young ladies asked if they could still work on this at home from their individual computers, and I said, "That's the whole purpose of Google docs." They were all pleased with what they accomplished and are going to let me interview them tomorrow on how it went when they collaborated from their home computers.

Even more exciting is the news that users can upload Word documents from their computers to Google docs - even files larger than 578kb, which was the size limitation previously. Now documents can be uploaded and shared even with a number of pictures embedded in the document.

It seems to get better and better. I hope we will not be disappointed in the future.

Discovery Time Starts Again

After quite a few days away from the computer, I opened my email this evening and started following links. I found my way to a blog by Michael Zimmer, a technology integration specialist at Hopkins Country School District in Madisonville, Kentucky. I followed a link in his blog to PicLits.com which he said English teachers were using with their students.
I created a quick PicLit and then joined in order to embed it here. It's kind of fun playing with pictures and words, and I'm sure the students will come up with much more creative products than mine:

See the full PicLit at PicLits.com

We'll be back to school in a brand new year on Monday. Let's hope our increasing use of technology in the classrooms will engage and inspire our students to produce wonderful work.