Convert Video Inside Google Drive for iPad Viewing

Ever need to reduce the file size or viewing size of a video?  Ever needed to convert a video into a specific format for your mobile device? Finding a free and powerful video converter can sometimes be tricky.  You no longer need to search for such a tool.  Convert-video-online.com  (from 123apps.com) is already connected to your Google Drive.

First login to your Google Drive and then upload your video or drag it on top of your Google Drive window in your web browser.  (This works best with Google Chrome!)  After your video has fully uploaded, double click the video file in Drive to open it.

Once your video is open, click the Open selection window just above your video. Select Video Converter in the Suggested Apps list and that website will open up.

The website will open with your selected video already entered for conversion. In the second section, you can select the converted file format, resolution quality and desired file size for the end product.  The third section requires nothing more than clicking the Convert button. 

The video will start being converted and you'll see a progress bar slide towards completion.  Once done, you'll be given an option to download your converted video.  Unfortunately, the 'Save to Google Drive' option didn't work in several different browsers we tried.  The Download button worked flawlessly, however.  Once downloaded, you can upload it back to Google Drive or YouTube for easy streaming.

Classroom application? Creating classroom videos using some devices will create video files that will not stream or play on a mobile device easily.   Now, use your Google Drive to convert the video to the .mp4 format and then upload it back to your Google Drive.  From your iPad's Google Drive app, search for your new video file and click on the 'i' icon for Details. Clicking the 'Open In' icon will let you 'Save Video' to your iPad.  Now students can watch your video on the classroom iPad from the Photos app.

What are some other reasons for converting videos in Google Drive?  Share your ideas in the comments below!

iPad Support and Tips

Every time I turn around, seems that I see another website out there with lists of iPad apps that you just can't live without. As an educator, those are sometimes nice because you just don't have the extra time it could take to window shop in the iTunes store looking for useful apps.  We are putting out hat into the ring in order to address that request from teachers.

The AISD iPad User's Group has been started as a place for educators to find resources online, share lists of apps, and join into a discussion about using iApps in the classroom.  This resources has been divided into two segments, 1) a website that you can view and add your ideas to a growing list, and 2) an email group that users can use to ask questions, seek support, or share successes from like-minded educators.

iPad User's Group Lists/Resources: https://sites.google.com/a/austinisd.org/ipad_users_group/  This website has a small group of links in the left margin for viewing and adding to lists.  The lists are all Google Forms that allow any user to add their useful ideas to the collection.   Each page has a link to the form and then a link to the list.

iPad User's Group Email Group: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ipads-in-education  At the bottom of the iPad User's Group website, there is an embedded view of the email group found at this link. Either way, anyone can view the comments being shared by the group.  You are encouraged to join the group by visiting the Google Groups page and registering. Membership allows you to reply to a post, start a new post for discussion, and get the discussions email to you automatically.  (Your email addresses will not be shared, sold, or made into holiday crafts. This list is just for creating a dialogue among teachers about iPad use in the classroom.)

Subscribe to iPads in Education

Email:

Visit this group

So join the iPad User's Group (IUG) here in Austin and help us all benefit from the collective experiences of many teachers.   We can learn from each other.  For example, in the IUG is a tip on how to make iOS 5's keyboard split into two pieces.  By holding down the keyboard icon in the lower right, you can select 'Split Keyboard' and have two small keyboards on each side of the screen, right where your thumbs are is you are holding it with two hands!  Nice!!  

Taking Pictures in the Classroom! pt 3

In this last part of the series, I wanted to share some different avenues and alternatives for sharing instructional photography with students in the classroom. There is no way to cover every option, so this will hopefully open the door for greater discussion and sharing.

First off, we've discussed taking photos and getting them onto a local network. What can we do with those photos? One uniform tool that all Macs and Windows computers have in AISD is MS Powerpoint. Students can access the teacher's folder containing the photos and insert a photo onto a Powerpoint slide.  A simple criteria could be to point out 4 concepts from the lesson by drawing a line arrow to them, adding text that describes them, and saving it back to the server. Slides could be combined into one class presentation or students can take turns adding a new slide to the teacher's presentation.  Either way, the software is already on the computer, the draw tools are simple, and the students have a quick and easy way to demonstrate comprehension of the instructional goals that day.

The other computer-based idea that is often over-looked is the use of the Comic Life application available on all Mac and Windows computers. (Granted, you have have to install it, but both students and teachers have the ability to do that through district network-install tools. Ask your campus technology leadership for more information about that.)  Comic Life will access your network-saved photos and let you create graphic documents that use text, engaging graphics, and your photos to tell a story or demonstrate a point. Comic Life also can access your webcam and take the pictures directly from the camera into your Comic.

The internet includes many sites that allow you to upload something to it, edit the media, and then either save it back to your computer or publish it for public viewing.  These interactive sites make up much of the Web2.0 environment. (Web1.0 was considered the mostly access-and-view web and less interactive.) The benefit to most Web2.0 sites is that they are platform independent. I should be able to do the same thing on that site regardless of the type of computer I am using. (The recent exceptions are mobile devices that don't have Adobe Flash capabilities.)

One such Web2.0 site that works well for classroom photography is Picnik.com. Students can simply go to the site, upload a picture from their computer, edit it with filters/stickers/text/etc, and then save it back to their computer.  The great thing about Picnik is that it requires no login or account to be created. Simply upload, edit, and save back to your computer.  The graphic tools are easy to use and the creative aspects are truly engaging.

A great site for sharing photos is Posterous.com, now called Posterous Spaces. This site is great for sharing and discussing photos, docs, or other media with a class. The recent update to their services gives you a greater ability to share only with certain people, even people who don't have a Posterous Spaces account. Cell phone users can share a photo to the class site by emailing the photo and a thought-provoking comment to your Posterous email account and it's instantly up for classroom discussion.

Mobile devices also present some interesting options for using photography during instruction. There are apps for both Android and iOS that allow you to take a picture, edit and then share it with others.  I presented one such app, PhotoPad for iOS, during a recent Intel Webinar on Mobile Apps in the Classroom. (The teacher discussion can be found online!) PhotoPad gets extra credit from me because it uses the photos on the iPad, lets you draw on them, and then I could email the photo out to be shared. Combining that with Posterous makes graphic representations of classroom instruction easily shared with others for discussion. (Here's a silly example.)

This list could go on for days!  I know there will be future posts about the classroom webcam used with instruction, but this just gets us started.

Do you have experience using the camera during classroom instruction? What camera did you use? What software or website did you find helpful?

Taking Pictures in the Classroom! pt 1

One of my favorite tools in the classroom is the camera.  Whether it is a document camera, digital camera or camera phone, the ability to capture learning as it happens makes it possible to draw on that experience any number of times afterward.  In AISD, most classrooms have multiple avenues to take advantage of cameras during instruction.

Dude, Where's My Camera? For starters, nearly every classroom has a digital camera since every classroom has a teacher with a laptop. District-issued teacher laptops all have webcams above the monitor. Every campus also has quite a large number of student netbooks that also have webcams installed.

One of my favorite classroom instruments is the normal digital camera. I'm a fan of the Canon Elph Powershots because of the connecting to almost any computer without adding drivers and because of the high quality still and video shots you can get for not too much money.  Many teachers in AISD have access to a Canon digital camera, but forget that it also takes video!

While we are covering small and relatively inexpensive devices, there has been a growth in the desire for smart-devices in the classroom. More classrooms have camera-enabled iPod Touches, iPads, and a few Android tablets as well.

Don't forget the other camera in almost every room, the cell phone camera! It's easy to whip that out and take a quick photo or video of an instructional sample that you wish to share. More schools across the country are starting to relax the 'no cell phone' rules for students (a , b). Instead of banning them because they could be misused, they are putting them into instructional practice and modeling appropriate phone behavior for students.  Students are using phones to complete quick online quizzes, post questions to the class website, perform quick internet research, or even share photographed examples of the curricular concept that day.

The use of document cameras in the classroom is finally starting to mature from the 'digital overhead' use to being a live demonstration and media capture tool. Almost two-thirds of classrooms in all of our schools have doc cams already attached to a projector.  Many other schools have realized the instructional use and purchased more with their own budgets. The Lumens D265C has been the district standard since the creation of the Innovation Stations, but just about every document camera on the market now provides you with the ability to capture still or video images.


What is your favorite classroom camera resource?
The next post in this series will look at software that can be used to get photos from camera to computer.
Photo credit:  http://www.dvguru.com/media/2005/12/Cell_Phone_Camera.jpg

Free Online Webinar Hosted by Intel - Aug 30th!

Intel provides FREE webinars throughout the year for educators. This Wednesday evening at 7pm CST, they are presenting "Mobile Apps for the Upcoming School Year".  Register to attend and join the discussion on how teachers are using mobile apps in the classroom to enhance teaching and learning.

The webinar is free, but you must register to attend.  7pm , August 30, 2011

For more webinars and free educator resources from Intel, go to the Intel Education : Teachers Engage Community and find people from across the world who are benefiting from sharing their ideas, questions, and answers to technology use in the classroom.

QR Codes at School?

Over the summer, I met a good number of teachers in workshops that have already been preparing to use QR codes in their classroom.  QR codes are the square bar codes that webcams (with certain software) can read and direct the user to a website, send a text, or perform various other functions.  I posted last year, and felt called to post again, about using the small netbooks that are on every campus, to read and use these special codes.

Creating a QR code is pretty easy.  The are various sites that will do this for you; http://goo.gl and http://qrcode.kaywa.com/   are two good starting points.  You simply type the website address (URL) into the box and click the button to generate the square code. (Goo.gl makes you click the details button afterward to see the code.)

What can you do with codes? Akins High School librarian, Bonnie Hauser, shared a Livebinder collection of links all about QR codes.  I saw a couple of middle schools this summer using QRs scavenger hunt or building tour signs to engage the incoming sixth graders during summer camp.  One of my favorite online resources is an Englishman named Tom Barrett, who encourages teachers to share ideas in Google Docs, (his 28 Ways to Use QR Codes is now up to 40!) Students can support the community by posting codes for informative purposes in public places.

Great ideas, but you still have to have a camera device to read them.  I found that teachers can download and install QuickMark for PC onto the small netbooks that each campus received last year. After installing the software, students can turn it on and point their computer at a QR code. The netbook will read it and preform the action stored within the code.

The following video, despite my repeated reference to Q codes ;( , shows how a large projected QR code can be seen across the room and direct student netbooks to a webpage.

QR codes can provide a functional tool that mobile devices and webcams can use to access data and preform some functions without typing complicated web addresses.

How have you used QR codes? What is another way that a QR code could play a unique in the classroom?

Oh, and you can have artistic fun with them as well!  ;)

iPads in Education

Through the years, certain things have made their way into the classroom that have looked really cool, but in reality may not have been the best idea.  One year, a parent donated some prize box rewards for my classroom and I was very grateful. I was, however, taken aback when I realized that some of the rewards were brand new, classroom-targeted, fruit-scented glue sticks.  I was always told from a young age, "Don't sniff glue", and had to rethink that particular reward. Not everything new has a place in our classrooms.

The iPad also provides a reason to have that discussion. The money spent on an iPad just to be a centers-station reward game just isn't worth it to me. However, there are certain populations and innovative teachers in our schools that give great value to iPads and other mobile media devices.  In a July article in The Transforming Education Through Technology Journal, Peter Levy shared experiences from teachers about how their use of iPads made dramatic differences in their classroom instruction.

We don't, however, have to look past our district to find innovative teachers who are using iPads in authentic and powerful ways. I had the honor of assisting Lora Netherland, a Life Skills teacher at Clayton Elementary, as she presented her experiences to a crowd of teachers during the 2011 Texas Computer Educators Association conference.  She uses her iPad in various ways to help non-vocal students communicate and students with limited motor skills show understanding of concepts. Her video records show an amazing growth in skill and confidence in some of her students. The ease of use and multitude of specialized software available for the iPad provided great support for Netherland's already masterful teaching in the classroom.

How have you seen iPads being used in innovated or effective and authentic ways in the classroom?  What other mobile devices have you seen to be effective in ways that computers couldn't do as well?

There will be ongoing posts about the use of mobile technology in our district. Please share your experiences as we take that journey.