EDAD660 (Summer 2010)

Here’s an interesting video from CNN that talks about why various governments are blocking access to portions of the Internet in their countries:

Today we discussed a number of topics, including:

1. We went up to the roof and created our own Photosynth of the area around Bellver.

2. We reviewed Photoshop and talked about how to get started using the program to create your own customized collages and images
3. We went through a hands-on Excel tutorial (click on the Spreadsheets category to the right to access the walk-through) – in addition, here’s an Excel Cheat Sheet that covers keyboard shortcuts and formulas.

Scratch is a great tool to develop small, interactive multimedia projects that can easily be embedded into your blog or website. To get started using Scratch, visit the Scratch website at http://scratch.mit.edu . Once there go ahead and download a copy of the software – Scratch is available for both Macs and PCs. You should also sign up for a free Scratch account – this will let you easily publish your creations to the online Scratch repository. Scratch lets you “embed” your games (just like Youtube and the other Web 2.0 tools we covered) so you can easily incorporate your project into your blog when you’re done.

Scratch Basics

When you first start up Scratch you’ll be presented with the following window. I’ve labeled each part of the window – I’ll be referring to these names throughout the tutorial.

In the stage you should see a small orange cat. His name is Scratch, and this is his world. Unfortunately he doesn’t do anything yet. We’re going to start off by giving Scratch some actions, also known as a “script.”

You should notice that the left side of the screen is filled with colored puzzle pieces. These are actions -we can snap together multiple actions in order to write a “script” that Scratch will follow. Let’s write a script to tell Scratch to move to the right when we hit the right arrow key.

1. Click on the Control button in the Action Library. A new set of puzzle pieces will appear
2. Drag the second puzzle piece (”When space key is pressed”) and drag it into the Scripts panel

   

   figure 1

3. Use the dropdown in this puzzle piece and change it’s value to “right arrow”
4. Next we need to tell Scratch what to do when the right arrow is pressed. Click on the Motion button in the Action Library and find “change x by 10″. Snap this puzzle piece onto the bottom of the “when right arrow key pressed”

   

   figure 2

5. Hit the right arrow key on your keyboard. Scratch should move to the right!
6. Repeat this process for the left arrow key. You can drag more puzzle pieces into the window – pieces don’t necessarily need to be connected to one another. Make sure that Scratch moves by -10 instead of +10 when going left! Here’s what the screen should look like.

   

   figure 3

7. If you want Scratch to be able to move up and down you can repeat the process with one important difference – you need to change Scratch’s Y position instead of his X position when moving up and down.

   

   figure 4

8. You might notice that Scratch doesn’t face in the right direction when moving around the screen. We can fix this by creating different “costumes” for Scratch. Click on the Costume tab – you should see a panel like this:

   

   figure 5

9. Let’s create a costume for each of Scratch’s directions. We already have one in which he is facing to the right so we need 3 more. Click Copy 3 times next to costume1. Rename each costume so that it reflects the direction we will be working with.

   

   figure 6

10. Click Edit next to the “Left” Costume. Click the “Flip Horizontal” button to flip Scratch around.

    

    figure 7

11. Click OK to go back to the costume view. Now Click the Script tab to go back to our script view. We need to tell Scratch to change his costume when he moves in a particular direction. Click on the Looks button in the Action Library and drag out the “switch to costume” puzzle piece onto the script that makes Scratch move to the right. Set the puzzle piece so that it changes to the “Right” costume.

    

    figure 8

12. Congratulations! Scratch should now change direction!

Next we’re going to give Scratch a friend to play with. Every character that exists in your game is considered a Sprite – you can add new sprites by clicking the tools beneath the stage. Let’s go ahead and create our second sprite.

1. Click on the “choose a new sprite from file” button.

   

   figure 9

2. Go into the “Things” folder and select the Banana sprite. You should now see your second sprite on the stage.

   

   figure 10

3. Click on the banana and use the “Sprite Name” text box to rename the sprite – call it ‘Banana’

   

   figure 11

4. Now we’re going to tell Scratch to do something when he comes in contact with the Banana sprite. We’re going to need to write a new script for Scratch that does the following:
   • Continually check to see if Scratch is hitting the banana
   • If so, have Scratch say “Yum!”
   • If not, have Scratch say nothing
5. Click back onto Scratch so that his movement scripts are showing. Click on the Control button and drag out the “When Flag is Pressed” puzzle piece. Also drag out the “forever” and “if / else” puzzle pieces and arrange them like so:

   

   figure 12

6. This script says “When the Flag button (AKA the game’s ‘Start Button’) is pressed I should continually (forever) ask myself a question. If the answer to that question is true, I should do something. If it isn’t true, I should do something else.” Let’s fill in the pieces. Click on the “Sensing” and drag the “touching” puzzle piece out – snap it into the diamond shaped block next to the word “if” and change the drop down so that it says “Banana”

   

   figure 13

7. So now we have our question – “If I’m touching the banana sprite” – next we have to tell Scratch to do something if that is a true statement. Click on the “Looks” menu and drag out the “Say” puzzle piece. Drag it under the word “if” and snap it in place. Change the text to something more appropriate (”Yum!”)

   

   figure 14

8. If Scratch isn’t touching the banana we want him to say nothing. Drag another copy of the “say” puzzle piece out and snap it into the “else” position. Erase the message so that Scratch says nothing when he’s not touching the banana.

   

   figure 15

9. Click on the flag button and try out your game. Scratch should say “Yum!” when he’s touching the banana and nothing when he’s not.

Youtube search stories are a fun way to create a quick video using Google search results as your footage.  Here’s an example:

And here’s where you can create your own (requires a Google account)

Here’s an example of a “private” video that requires a password before it will begin playing.  This kind of protection is available through the Vimeo video sharing site.  Youtube offers a form of protection, but it requires that your users have their own Youtube/Google accounts.  This method is much more adaptable to an open blog situation.

The password for the video is “cairo2010″.

Here’s how you can try this yourself:

1. Obtain a free account on Vimeo, video sharing website that is simliar to Youtube.
2. Once you have signed up and registered, click on the ‘Upload a video’ link.
3. Click ‘choose a file to upload’
4. Find the file on your computer and click ‘Select’
5. Provide information about the video and click the Save button
6. Next, click the ‘Go to Video’ button
7. On this page click on the ‘Settings’ icon – it looks like a gear and is located on the top right side of the page
8. Click on the Privacy tab on the left side of the screen
9. Select that you would like this video to be Password protected. Type in a password in the blank that appears.
10. Click the ‘Go to Video’ button
11. At the top-right side of the video itself there should be an embed link – click on this to copy the HTML code necessary to embed this video.
12. Open up your blog and embed the video as you would any other embeddable widget.

Here’s a great video that covers the basics of using Windows Movie Maker to create your own videos.

• Easy Youtube Video Downloader:  A Firefox extension that captures videos from sites and lets you save them to your computer.  Only allows you to save files in their native formats and doesn’t perform any file conversion.
• Media Converter Firefox Plugin:  A Firefox extension that captures videos from sites and converts them to a desired file format from within your browser.  Limited to 5 captures per day per computer.
• Zamzar:  The “Swiss Army Knife” of the Internet, Zamzar is a web-based file conversion tool that lets you convert files to and from different formats.
• VLC:  A desktop video player that plays every video file imaginable!

Jing is a screencasting tool that lets you capture your voice along with what is happening on your screen.  The result of a Jing screencast is a web-deliverable video that can be shared via e-mail or on your course blog or website.

Here are some ways in which educators are using Jing:

1. Article:  Middle school students use technology to help each other succeed
2. Mathtrain encourages kids explain math concepts to one another
3. Some additional ideas on how to use Jing in the classroom

And here is an example Jing screencast:

Downloading and installing Jing

1. Visit http://www.jingproject.com/
2. Click on your desired platform (Mac or PC) and download the necessary file
3. Install the software on your computer. You may need to restart your computer after the installation finishes.

Using Jing

1. Doublc click on the new Jing icon to start up the program
2. Jing appears as a small sun icon at the top of your screen. Mousing over the sun will cause three bubbles to appear – each of these bubbles performs a different task:

   

   Jing control icons

3. The first icon (target crosshairs) lets you define a region of your screen by drawing a box around it (click and hold your mouse to define one corner of your box – draw your mouse and release it when you are finished defining the shape of your box)
4. Once you have a box defined you are then presented with a series of “capture options” – the first option lets you take a picture of the region you just defined. The second option allows you to record a movie – anything that happens in the region that you defined will be recorded when you click this button. The last button is the cancel button and causes you to exit from Jing.

   

   Jing capture options

Downloading and installing Jing

1. Visit http://www.jingproject.com/
2. Click on your desired platform (Mac or PC) and download the necessary file
3. Install the software on your computer. You may need to restart your computer after the installation finishes.

Using Jing

1. Doublc click on the new Jing icon to start up the program
2. Jing appears as a small sun icon at the top of your screen. Mousing over the sun will cause three bubbles to appear – each of these bubbles performs a different task:

   

   Jing control icons

3. The first icon (target crosshairs) lets you define a region of your screen by drawing a box around it (click and hold your mouse to define one corner of your box – draw your mouse and release it when you are finished defining the shape of your box)
4. Once you have a box defined you are then presented with a series of “capture options” – the first option lets you take a picture of the region you just defined. The second option allows you to record a movie – anything that happens in the region that you defined will be recorded when you click this button. The last button is the cancel button and causes you to exit from Jing.

   

   Jing capture options

5. When capturing an image you will be presented with a formatting palette.  This palette allows you to “mark up” your image using arrows, highlighters and text boxes.  When finished you can save your image to your computer or send it to your “Screencast.com” account – this allows you to embed the image on your blog or website using customized embed code.
6. When capturing a video you will be able

What to look for when purchasing a digital camera

The following items are, in my opinion, the most important characteristics to consider when purchasing a digital camera for personal use or use in your classroom.

Megapixel Rating

In a nutshell, Megapixels = quality. Megapixels are rated in numbers from 1.0 and up, and this value represents the maximum size of the image that the camera can produce. Megapixel ratings around 10.0 are commonplace these days, though most people don’t need nearly that level of quality. Quality is generally important if you are planning on printing your images out – web delivery of images generally requires a much lower level of quality. The actual number is derived by taking the resolution of the maximum size of an image produced and multiplying the two numbers together. For example, if a camera can produce an image that is rated at 640 x 480 pixels, it would have a megapixel rating of 0.3. An image size of 1440 x 960 would have a megapixel rating of 1.3.

Optical Zoom

Digital cameras boast two types of zoom – optical and digital. Optical zoom describes the mechanical act of the lens zooming in on a subject. It produces a very high quality image and is completely dependent of the hardware in your camera. Digital zoom is handled by software and is created by the onboard computer in your camera – it uses complicated algorithms to “guess” what the zoomed in region should look like. It produces a lower quality image than its optical zoom counterpart.

Storage

Cameras are generally dependent on external storage as most cameras don’t come equipped with much onboard memory. Most cameras these days use a standard sized SD chip which is rated in gigabytes, though some older cameras use other chip variations such as XD.

EyeFi has produced a SD chip that has integrated wireless capabilities. This means that your pictures can automatically upload themselves to your blog, website, flickr account or home computer as soon as your camera comes in range of a public wi-fi network.

EyeFi Wireless SD Card

For more information about all of these items, check out this great article from PC World that discusses each of these items in greater detail.

And just for fun, here’s a demo of the new Nikon Coolpix SJ1000pj camera that offers an integrated LCD projector!