Friday, June 6, 2008

DIL: getting distracted

The latest Digital Information Literacy workshop was a very interesting one. Bronwyn Hegerty has written a very nice summary of the topics we talked about which ranged from the definitions of podcasting to the management of information found on the Internet.

Probably the most interesting aspect of the workshop was looking at Bloglines, which is a RSS Reader similar to Google Reader. I use Google Reader which I find suits my needs, but Bloglines looks like it is worth investigating, especially if you haven't got an established Reader yet.

Aim for next workshop
Whilst the discussion at the workshop was very interesting, I didn't achieve my aims for improving my skills of making videos. So at the next workshop, I must not get distracted but must work to achieve my aims:
  • improve editing skills
  • produce a professional-looking video
  • make a video using photos.
Edupunk videos
Here are a couple of videos I have watched recently about a discussion that is going on in blogging land at the moment about a concept called edupunk. These videos from John Hirst and Martin Wellor are my current inspiration as regards to presentation; the videos will also explain what edupunk is.



http://youtube.com/watch?v=fNTlescIvW0




http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2008/06/one-for-the-edupunkers.html

What would you say was a good example of an educational/midwifery video that is available on YouTube, Google Video or blip. tv that I could use as a framework for development of my video-making skills?


2 comments:

Bronwyn hegarty said...

Sarah You may have seen this amazing video on Youtube - it is such a joyful and happy birth - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aht0HqI7GSw

The things which make it a good video in my opinion are the following:
clarity
an emotional subject - joyful
just the right amount of closeup
nice music
short
progress of the birth is very focussed

you could do a series of similar clips from start to finish

perhaps set yourself some guidelines and search for several videos and evaluate them against the guidelines
that way you will develop your own criteria for what is good and bad in a video
seriously I would do this either before you start editing and playing with the software or in parallell. It is a very important part of digital information literacy.

The other thing you may like to do is search for information about video editing with the software you have in mind, and read about some of the tips and fish hooks. a more general search may help you find video editing software which is more appropriate than what you thought you might use.

Now you have seen bloglines, you may now be even more efficient in your information gathering and storage. I wonder when you demoed your google reader did the differences between that and bloglines become even clearer?

Sarah Stewart said...

Thank you for that guidance, Bron. I hadn't thought about looking for more general information on making videos. I have been very hung up on getting the hang of the software.

Whilst I saw the benefits of Bloglines, I don't think I am going to change how I do things. Currently, I use Google Reader and Del.icio.us and am happy with how I run those two tools together. I did have another look at Google Reader and discovered how I can share information with my friends there, and also look at what else people were looking at. So all in all, I don't think it works out much different to Bloglines. I am comfortable with Google Reader so don't want to change.

Cathy Nelson has been having trouble getting feeds from edublog blogs into Bloglines, so another reason for staying with Google:
http://technotuesday.edublogs.org/2008/06/09/no-more-bloglines

and..of course, I am so integrated into Google these days, why change if I am happy with what works.