Week 5: Media Sharing

Well here we are at week 5 and I've definetly seen things I hadn't before. I'd never explored youtube - and that was an education in itself. I searched on McNeil High School and found some of the things our media tech kids had done. And there are an amazing number of videos that deal on the theme of "math sucks" or "why I hate my math class".

Now to the questions:

Definition of shared media:

Shared media refers to audios and videos that are stored on the web and may be viewed, copies, and modified by others. In order to allow the originators of the work control, but still allow wider distribution and use than a standard copyright, Creative Commons, a non-profit corporation allows originators to exercise control over their work through creative common licenses. In this way videos and audios can be used freely viewed and copied – and modified as needed – without violating the fair use provisions for standard copyright, which allows for only minimal copies on a spontaneous basis and does really take into account new video and audio technology.

Create a photo sharing account - I've done that on photobucket (and I've used that one because it supports both stills and video. I'll be adding images to it later and will figure out how to get them to work with a blog. Next week I'm going up to Grand Rapids, Michigan so I may just wait until I get up there and post some images from some place interesting (and yes there are interesting places in Grand Rapids. )

Embedding Videos

This didn't seem difficult at all for the wiki At least from you tube it gives you the embedding html right on the page and it is just a copy and paste into the widget sort of thing.

Blog About a Video

There are so many videos out there – and I am really impressed by what kids have done (although I’d get creative too if it would get me out of a precal midterm). I was looking for things with a little humor and also decided to look for some things dealing with trigonometry and the unit circle. That's one place I think the kids could use a pointer to a good off-line tutorial. To be fair, there are also lots of seriuous videos out there done by teachers, but they get that in class from me - I wanted something different.

This one maybe not the best instructional video, but it really is a good example of what kids can do – amazingly so. Ok, so maybe I need to give them extra credit for making a video on something. I’m not sure about alternative assessments, but this is kind of neat



Alex and Brittany explain the unit circle: This is amazing – actually the best thing I’ve seen on how to memorize the unit circle – which is not one of our most popular activities. Maybe this will help – and it has a good visuals – which is what I need.


Four Man Math Band – so they wouldn’t have to take a midterm in precal, but another good explanation of trig.

Embedding is easier on the wiki since it has the embed widget button, but I'm going to see if this works.

Five Song Playlist

Well actually I did seven songs, but it is now embedded in my wiki http://mrsrice-mcneil.wikispaces.com/

I tried embedding it here by copying in the html code, but that didn't work, so check out my wiki.

What did you learn?
I learned that there is more to filing sharing than just silly videos – ok, that’s part of it, but there is some neat stuff out there. I know so many people who are just to scared to try anything new – obviously the folks who use youtube didn’t get that memo. There were a fair number of grown-up videos for math – and some of the kid ones were not that good, but it is good to see people who aren’t afraid to just do something. Also I learned about the concept of backing up your photos online – I never thought of that use. Most of my photos are paper copies, but I finally snagged a digital camera of my own and will definetly use this technology. I also like the idea that photos would be accessible at home or at school. I learned that there is more music out there than vapid rap and rock. I found some good concert band music on playlist – so maybe I will have to see about an ipod some day.

How will you use what you have learned?
I’d like to use some of the videos I’ve seen in class as a way to engage my students. What I don’t know is whether a youtube video will play on a school computer. I’ve heard that we’ve blocked that site. And there are some good tutorial videos out there I’m wondering if there is a way to keep a good playlist of those that I can embed in my teacherweb page – or I just use a links page. If I can set up a student blog, that would be one thing I’d ask the kids to post – find a good one, post the link for others to use. That way it would be more than just me hunting for interesting things. And after seeing what some of the kids can do, I’d be tempted to allow them to use video for assignments where they would be doing a presentation anyway. Actually I wonder if kids who are shy about standing up in class would do better with video productions?

How did you feel about this tool?
Media sharing does have some uses I can see (aside from the obvious one of amusement value). Yes, I can see how some of this could be used even in a traditional math class

What do you not want to forget about this tool?
How to find videos I want and how to embed them or link to them. Also, just how much material is out there and continues to be created.

How can this be used in the classroom or in your educational role?
I can see using media sharing in the classroom for both an attention getting and for visual lectures. I can see using it as reference material for out of school tutorials and I can maybe seeing letting my kids do a dual project with a media tech class or something to make their own tutorials and lectures.

Would you use a shared media like playlist.com?
Yes, I’d use something like playlist.com. I could see having different playlists by topic – or letting kids set up their own playlists on a topic of my choice.

Should you use this in the classroom or your educational role?
Yes I’d say media sharing is something that should be used. We are to some extent finding the kids where they already are. Media sharing is not news to the kids. I do worry about parental controls and I worry about distribution of media, but there have to be ways around those questions.

What questions do you still have about these tools?
I need to do some exploration with video playlists and I need to find out what will play on the school computers. Those are the two main ones. Mainly I want to look for ways where I can get the kids to do the work with these techniques – they all know youtube and its ilk – let them go find the resources.