Edit Your Images Online- Free!

There are many times when an image or photo could benefit from a little editing - cropping, rotation or just touching up red eye. Editor from pixlr.com [http://pixlr.com/editor/] is a great tool that mimics many of the high order features of robust applications like Photoshop® .

Editor features a generous toolset including clone stamp, spot healing, shape distortion, magic wand and lasso selection tools, a text tool and much more. Upload files from your computer, edit visually then download back to your computer.

An effective PowerPoint presentation, for example, can benefit from well cropped and edited images, leaving distracting backgrounds and extraneous material out to focus on the images's subject. Images can also be created with Editor for inclusion in presentations and documents.

Some of the more Photoshop-esque features include the layers pane, navigation pane and the history pane. Save options include jpeg, png, tiff and the pxd format, pixlr's layer-saving format.

Visit http://pixlr.com/editor/ to test drive this free, feature rich editing tool.

Google Drive at Colgate

Google Drive is now available at Colgate! Google Drive is a cloud storage solution a lot like DropBox and it will be taking over what is currently Google Docs. Don't be alarmed when you transition because your documents will all be in Google Drive. You start with 5GB and we are looking into ways of provisioning more storage as necessary.

Some Cool Features:

• Upload anything as long as you have space
• Google Drive Viewer can view multiple file types such as word, photoshop, autocad.....many more
• Accessible from mobile devices
• Desktop client for syncing files across multiple computers and devices

Here is an example of how it could work for you: You have an Adobe Photoshop file you want to present but the computer you will be presenting on doesn't have photoshop. You could either export the file as a picture and then email it to yourself or you could save the file to your Google Drive and use the viewer to show the file anywhere you have access to the Internet, including your mobile phone. And as a bonus Google will keep a revision history for you just in case you want to revert to a previous version.

As of this date Google Drive is available but requires you to take a few steps to upgrade Documents to Drive. If you would like to try Google Drive go to drive.google.com and click on "Get started with 5GB free". The link will take you through a series of prompts that will set up your drive and also provide you with a link to download the client for your computer. For more information on how to use Google Drive click here. If you would like additional help using Google Drive email itshelp@colgate.edu with your request. Also don't forget to tune into our webinar on Google drive August 29.

Digitizing Videos

One of the things that we have discussed regarding classroom workflow, is the amount of time spent preparing a video for class especially, if only showing clips and not full titles. Something that we recommended to a few faculty and which has worked well in these instances is digitizing the necessary video clips so they are ready to go for class. This saves having to queue up the DVD before class or spending time looking for it. This would also work with those youtube video clips that you saved after reading Zlatko's post on keepvid. A great tool for this is HandBrake.

With HandBrake you can digitize clips from dvd's and blu-ray disks into modern video formats. Handbrake is not limited to digitizing physical media such as DVD's and blu-rays, it can also convert existing files from older formats to newer formats that are compatible across more devices. With HandBrake you have a couple of options for selecting clips. The two easier ones are chapters and seconds. You can specify which chapters you want to digitize or a time range of the desired segment. HandBrake can also bring over subtitles if those are needed. If you would like to try it you can download a copy from handbrake.fr. If you would like additonal information and help using please contact itshelp@colgate.edu.

Summer Workshops for Faculty

Video Narrative

June 6 - 8 
560 Case-Geyer Library
Lead by Sarah Kunze and Debbie Krahmer

The Library and ITS staff are once again offering a three-day video narrative workshop in
June. Many faculty participants from lasts year's workshop went on to assign video
narrative projects in their classes this academic year. With our new Digital Learning &
Media Center on level 5 of Case library slated to open in the Fall of 2012, we now have
dedicated learning spaces for new media, allowing us to offer even better support for
students and faculty.

In order to feel comfortable assigning a video project in a class, our experience has
shown that a faculty member must first create their own video project to get a sense of
what is involved. This workshop offers an opportunity for this to happen. Learn how to
construct a simple video narrative using photos, text, voice recordings, and music.
During the three-day, hands-on workshop we will cover both the aspects of writing a
narrative for video and the technical steps to editing video.

The goal of the workshop is not to make you a video expert, but rather to give you an
appreciation of the process so that you can extend the option to your students as a part
of your course assignments.

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Wikipedia Editing

June 12 - 13 
345 Case-Geyer Library
Lead by Sarah Kunze and Debbie Krahmer

Why should you include an exercise in Wikipedia editing in your course? Hear from Prof.
Noor Khan, along with her Senior Seminar students who completed a project doing just
that for their HIST459 project. Learn how these types of projects improve student engagement
and leave your students with 21st century skills that most will use in their careers and
personal lives. Learn how Campus Ambassadors can assist you with sample syllabi, course
handouts, and help in mapping out a project to address your specific learning goals for
your course.

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The Cure for Cartophobia – A CEL Web Mapping Workshop

June 18 - 19 
345 Case-Geyer Library
Lead by Zlatko Grozl, Jesse Henderson, Peter Rogers, and Dan Wheeler

This workshop will introduce web-based mapping as a teaching tool that can be used in
the classroom and for student projects. The first day will start with Google Maps, move
on to Google Earth including how one can create and add features to Google Earth,
and conclude with a look at user-friendly sources of digital map data such as the
Google Earth Community, geoportals, and the U.S. government’s National Atlas. The
second day will be optional and provide an opportunity for participants to work on a
personal web mapping project with the CEL members leading the workshop.

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Register Online:

https://sites.google.com/a/colgate.edu/instructional-technology/workshops

Educational Silos

One of the main functions of an LMS (learning management system, AKA Moodle) is the creation of a course silo, or stack. That is, the LMS creates a place where students, faculty, and associated others connect with course materials and participate in classroom activities, a place where only enrolled or invited people can work. The silo exists while the course is in session and usually is deactivated shortly after the semester is ended.

There are some excellent -- even some essential -- reasons for creating this course stack. One obvious requirement is copyright law, which restricts the open posting of some course content, be it text or media. One particular advantage is maintaining the privacy of discussions of potentially controversial or embarrassing topics.  Perhaps less obvious in the privacy arena is maintaining the long-term privacy of even non-controversial topics -- former students may find that old, non-controversial but still-public blog posts are not in keeping with their current views or those of their employers.

The silo fits less well in the overall concept of an ongoing personal educational process, where course content, student submissions, and other materials may be (should be?) relevant to one's growth during a four-year evolution. A seminal paper in the silo for Course I is likely to retain relevance in Course II, and may even have important meaning in unrelated Course B. Yet it is stuck in the Course I silo.


So this course silo which is so convenient in many ways is in other ways antithetical to what we want our students to become; life long learners. What are the alternatives? Open courses in Moodle? Moodle courses need not be restricted to a semester's length.  Other open systems? An environment which is open at least to the Colgate academic community (without some copyright-restricted materials, of course) might be used to facilitate this more open learning. But even these tools can't make students want to participate, and then actually participate, in this more broad, developing learning process.

More reading on the topic...

• Learning Management Systems: Hub or silo? 
• Learning Silos — the biggest barrier to learning in post-secondary
• Course Management Systems: Trapped Content Silos or Sharing Platforms?

...dan wheeler

Enhanced Podcasting 101

Enhanced podcasting is a method for producing course content that is engaging and reusable. There are numerous ways to produce an enhanced podcast but the simplest, perhaps, is to use screen capture software and narrate a PowerPoint presentation. All that is required is a copy of PowerPoint, a laptop and your creativity. 

While you can record audio directly in PowerPoint, this process is not necessarily intuitive. Instead, I recommend checking out the likes of Camtasia, Adobe Captivate or ScreenFlow. These products capture not only the desktop but also any actions you take, such as interacting with the screen, opening and manipulating applications and authoring documents . 

Jing is a free screen capture tool from TechSmith, the maker's of Camtasia and SnagIt. Jing produces .swf (Flash) files that can be posted to Moodle or a website.

To learn more about Jing visit: http://www.techsmith.com/jing-features.html. Jing recordings are limited to five minutes. However, you can record multiple Jing podcasts to cover a topic. Jing also features an embed code generator making it easy to drop in to Moodle, a Google Site or your own web presence. 

Using the on-board laptop microphone in a quiet room, narrate a few PowerPoint slides to get a feel for the transition between slides and topics. In no time, you can create interesting material that can supplement lectures or free up valuable classroom time for detailed discussions. 

Enhanced podcasting is not limited to PowerPoint. Other documents and applications can be narrated and annotated. Anything that you see on the screen can be recorded. For higher quality, consider a USB headset microphone. 

A simple option for Mac users with Snow Leopard or Lion is QuickTime X. QT X features a screen recording capability that produces iPod ready files. The simplicity and quality is unmatched. Open QuickTime X and choose 'File' >> 'New Screen Recording'.

Windows users can capture enhanced podcasts on-line at screenr.com. While it is purported to work with a Mac, our tests have been much more successful on the PC. Screenr captures the screen and creates an embeddable video file. Below is a quick example. Visit screenr.com for more.

Digital Media @ Colgate

                 

During this past semester, 9 classes with 141 students completed digital media projects in eight different subjects. In GERMAN, SOAN, WRITING & RHETORIC, GEOGRAPHY, RUSSIAN, EDUCATION, CLASSICS, & PCON students created podcasts, dubbed foreign language videos, translated and subtitled a full length movie, created video narratives both personal and research-based, collaborated with elders in the community to create life histories for the Hamilton Historical Society, and more.

During the past two years, 32 classes with well over 500 students have completed digital media projects.  With the opening in August 2012 of the new Digital Learning and Media Center, we will be even better positioned to assist faculty in integrating a digital media project into their syllabus. Many of these projects can be viewed on our Academic YouTube channel.

If you are interested in incorporating a digital media assignment into your course in the Fall, please email Sarah Kunze (skunze@colgate.edu)