paul reid • blog

A bit of discussion has been going on around the traps about Internet based file conversion apps. Zamzar and Media Convert allow you to convert files up to 100mb and 150mb respectively. To convert files one simply uploads a file from their hard drive or from a URL. There seems to be more of these tools coming online all the time. My concern is, if teachers are going to use them in the classroom where are these files being stored before and after conversion? With Terms of Service on the Media Convert site that contain grammatical flaws such as……

“Your are the only responsible for the data which it sends to Media-Convert servers. One is reminded that the illicit exchanges of recordings and protected works as well as the hacking harm artistic creation………Media-Convert is a free service, which does not offer any guarantee of any kind as for its use. You can use Media-Convert for any activity, personal or profesionnal. “

…. one doesn’t gain confidence in the service providers. So for me the jury is out on whether the usefulness of these tools is for you or for the convertor.

Has anyone used them with success?

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   ICTs, Video, Web Apps

With Adobe’s announcement last week of it’s intention to produce a scaled down web-version of PhotoShop I thought I’d have a look at a couple of examples of what is out there already. Picnik and Snipshot a couple of web2.0 online image editors I’ve come across. Both of these apps have interfaces that are very intuitive and my gran could probably be left for 5 minutes to work out how to use them.

Does anyone have any other examples of online image editors they’d like to share?

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   ICTs, Software, Web Apps

This online service called FlipClip takes short-video clips and transforms them into small flip books traditionally the domain of quirky gift shops. This is an interesting way to share and preserve short clips your students make in the physical world - great for clay animation made with iStopMotion or for clips with subtitles in iMovie or Windows Movie Maker (NB: WMV files aren’t web2.0 friendly - AVI seems ok). Basically you upload 15 or 30 seconds of video to the website and select a book size. They print out several frames from your video and assemble a book which animates when flipped. Check out a short video clip here. Surprisingly they aren’t very expensive considering they are personalised. Pricing works out to AUD$11 per book, and $13.40 for postage. A bulk order of 25 books can be sent for the postage price of AUD$34. Some technical info from the FlipClip website:

The ideal resolution for a FlipClip is 640×480, and there are some great cameras available now that will record movies at that resolution or higher. Although FlipClips can be printed from any resolution video, short clips (under 30 seconds) at 320×240 or 640×480 are optimal. Frame rates aren’t as important, so you can safely record at 10 or 15 frames per second and still have a great looking FlipClip. FlipClips.com currently restricts the size of file uploads to 25 Megabytes, so you may want to edit your video’s length and, if possible, compress it before uploading. FlipClips are intended to be used for movies, where flipping the pages reveals the motion.

I can imagine they would look amazing with a slow motion clip such as this. As a recent recipient of some nifty cards from moo.com I am finding these web2.0 tools and their real world products a lot of fun.

[This post was cross-posted on AusMacEd]

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   ICTs, Resources, Software, Web Apps

This is the first flash-card style web2.0 application I have seen. Recently West Australian University graduate Kyle McLuckie invited me to test his new app - Rememberize. It is quite a simple tool (in the vein of 37signals web2.0 apps) for creating and learning sets of cards. The site itself is at http://rememberize.com, and the blog post announcing it can be found at http://blog.rememberize.com.

The main occasion I’ve found flashcards of use was in learning Japanese characters. So I went ahead and created a quick test for the first line of hiragana characters - the vowels. The process is engaging in itself. The simplicity by which one can set-up the quizzes is in this sense another level of the memorisation process. Flashcards are wonderfully suited to learning foreign languages but can be applied to learning specific items in many subjects. Students of all ages could use Rememberize. The collaborative aspects built into Rememberize are unique and further this web2.0 social software trend. Kyle says:

If it’s useful enough, I think it also has the potential of being useful social software – facilitating conversations with those interested in the same subjects. If you have the time or interest, please, have a look at it. If you have any comments, I’d love to hear them.

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   Assessment, Australia, Web Apps