links for 2009-05-20
May 20, 2009
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links for 2009-05-17
May 17, 2009
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This package contains the video solutions framework, including transcoder and administration interface utilities, written in PHP. The code was developed by Automattic, Inc., and powers WordPress.com video solutions. It supports multiple formats, including HD. It is an open source project, which means you can reuse it, build upon it, and share it with the community.
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Poetry for graduate school
May 15, 2009
Disclaimer: I do not claim to be able to write well, let alone in poetic form. But nonetheless, I had to craft a poem for a graduate class I am taking. The course is called Teaching Reading in the Content area and is designed to teach us how to support efforts to increase literacy in whatever content area we teach.
For an assignment, we had to select a poetic form and craft a poem summarizing three chapters of our textbook.
Here is my discussion board posting, reposted in its entirety for your “enjoyment”.
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Ok so I have to admit this was easily the hardest assignment yet. Having to narrow down three chapters to such a small space was disheartening! There was so much information presented, but I wanted to be creative. After all, brevity is the soul of wit, right? I feel witless as opposed to witty after writing this, since it took *forever*. I erased, I changed, I summarized, etc.
I selected the poetic style of Lanternes. It is in the quintain family. Here are other examples to familiarize you with the genre.
The poem is supposed to form the shape of a Japanese lantern, and each line should stand on its own. A few more examples here.
So here is mine…
time
to read
use a guide?
time – the essence
learn
to read
use a guide?
time – the essence
learn
I hope it’s acceptable.
Chris
Posted in General No Comments »Tagged with: lanterne • poem • poetry
Interview on WLTX
May 11, 2009
I was recently interviewed on WLTX News 19 about our Life Round Here project.
See the interview embedded below or click through to the WLTX site to see it there.
The text story (written like a transcript) is here. Want to leave a comment?
Posted in Life Round Here, my life / my world 2 Comments »Tagged with: christophercraft • interview • liferoundhere09 • wltx
links for 2009-05-11
May 11, 2009
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Users' and Developers' guide to GriP – Growl for iPhone.
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links for 2009-05-08
May 8, 2009
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Makes the browser ignore web site requests to not remember passwords.
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Growl for Windows was just featured on Lifehacker!
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links for 2009-05-06
May 6, 2009
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Pencast Embed
Get code to embed a Livescribe Pencast
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SpanTube
May 5, 2009
If you haven’t caught me announcing this on Twitter, consider this the official announcement!
A few weeks ago, a couple of my students were joking that there was YouTube, and we needed our own video sharing site! We discussed it a bit and SpanTube was born.
Now, before you jump all over me for creating a new site when there are ample good video sharing sites out there, i.e. YouTube/Vimeo/TeacherTube/SchoolTube, etc, I do not claim to replace them nor compete with them. This is different.
The goal of this site is to invite Spanish teachers, Spanish speakers, and anyone else with an interest in teaching Spanish to register and upload videos.
I do not have any ads on the site, and I am paying for this myself. This is (as of right now) not a profitable site, nor is that really the intent. I just wanted to have a space to put all my students’ work in one spot where folks could come.
So please, stop by, register, and comment on some of my student videos. They’d love to hear from you!
And if you know a Spanish teacher, maybe let them know? We welcome new videos.
Posted in Educational Technology No Comments »Tagged with: spantube
Converting Flip Mino HD video files to edit them on a PC
May 1, 2009
I am dearly love my Flip Mino HD. It is convenient, easy to use, and well designed. So much so, that most all of the videos on my newest project – SpanTube – have been recorded on the Flip Mino HD. Typically, I just import them directly into iMovie on my Mac and edit with no problems.
Recently, however, I decided I might like to try a little green screen fun. I do have a copy of Final Cut Express which I suspect does chroma keying, but I was already familiar with how to do it in Pinnacle Studio 10, which I have installed on my Windows XP machine at work. I also have Adobe Premiere 1.5 that I could use for the same purpose.
The trouble came when I tried to import the .mp4 files directly into either program, as the programs did not support the file format, or so they said.
Now bear in mind that yes, I did install the 3ivx codec on this machine. I even reinstalled it, to no avail. After a series of tweets looking for help, most folks responded thinking I had the regular Flip camera, which saves videos as .AVI files. The high definition Flip Mino does not, it saves files as .mp4.
Well, finally, I have figured out a system to convert these files to a format friendly to the two programs I have on this machine (Pinnacle Studio 10 and Adobe Premiere 1.5). And it’s using freeware software, which is even better.
Some time ago, I had downloaded the Quick Media Converter program that Lifehacker mentioned. I didn’t realize it was as good as it is.
First, go download it and install it. I am using version 3.6.5.
Then, export a clip using the FlipShare software.
Then, drag and drop your exported clip onto the Quick Media Converter screen.
Then, choose AVI DivX Custom Resize from the top menu.
Change the dimensions of the file to 1280×720, which are the same dimensions the Flip Mino HD records in.
Press the convert button.
After conversion, the file appears on your desktop with an appended file name.
I hope this helps. I haven’t seen this answered to this degree anywhere else, so I am hoping this serves the larger community well.
When I exported the video from Pinnacle Studio 10, I used the following settings.
Size: 1280×720
30 FPS
I figured out that the native settings when recording with the Flip Mino HD records audio as 64kbps AAC/AAC+. I didn’t know that. It does sample at 44100, though.
Good luck, and enjoy your HD video editing on a Windows machine!
I’ve only tried this on XP, so keep that in mind.
Posted in Web Resources, my life / my world 7 Comments »Tagged with: flip camera • flip mino hd • pinnacle • video editing
links for 2009-05-01
May 1, 2009
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MPEG Streamclip is a powerful high-quality video converter, player, editor for MPEG, QuickTime, transport streams, iPod. And now it is a DivX editor and encoding machine, and even a movie downloader.
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