A Serving of Mashed .. Mixing it all Together to Make a Fabulous Dish

Recipe for a Great Tool: Reflections on the Process of Learning about Multimedia Sharing sites

9-10 Sources (From Trailfires, Google Searches, Proquest, Books)
15 - 20 hours (Can be modified according to experience and time, usually an increase)
8 - 10 Voice overs
50 - 60 Pictures (to be filtered accordingly)
1 microphone
1 hour of time to figure out if you have a camcorder working
6 heaping tablespoons of patience
5 PD Sessions
1 (minimum) curriculum to keep in mind
0 Children to take up your time

First, take be sure that there are not children around. This tends to create a erratic flow that can impact the final result of the mashup creation. Put them in from of a computer or a netbook and tell them they can't come out until they have an online identity that you can monitor and have created a blog using solely html. That should give you about 3 hours.

Sitting at a quiet desk, consume the 6 tablespoons of patience. Do not consume less. More is often beneficial. Patience for some comes in a 750 oz red bottle. For others it is a small pill. Zen Buddhism works too.

Check that the computer is set on 'cooperation' and not 'crash' mode.

Begin.

Trailfires are such an enlightening beginning. The Common Craft Videos will once again enlighten you on the concept without overwhelming you with the detail. You can begin. Lee LeFever will show you that that Social Networking is like an ice cream store.

Stop. Go eat some ice cream with pickles. It will calm you down or make you believe you are pregnant. If you find it is the latter, you have some content to use in your microphone.

The second trailfire, created by VoiceThread tells you how to do Voice Thread. This is just like the section in my 1964 edition of the Joy of Cooking (Rombauer, pg. 292) that clearly, step by step, tells me how to cook and mash a potato. I needed to see and read it first but found, shortly that it is REALLY simple and self explanatory.

Trailfire 3 is piece of cake (Rombauer, pg 616) and we all like to eat cake. Animto has been a staple like flour and potatoes since 2009. Animoto created this slideshare. I learned that you can embed an Animoto in Facebook or export it to YouTube or embed in a post! I can remix if I don't like it. Over mixing might affect cake or mashed potatoes, but not an Animoto!

Trailfire four (Walking Papers) reminded me that one recipe for library success will be to use Animotowith my library club and create book trailers.

Trailfire five, by Joyce Valenza in School Library Journal reminds me that Animoto is light, like angel food cake (Rombauer pg 619) and does not facilitate as many design and thought processes as other programs (Photo Story 3, which is a downloadable program, leaves design in the hands of the user). Animoto has web connectivity that builds online relationships.

Finally, Trailfire six gets serious. There are 700,000 images shared on VoiceThread from the New York Public Library to use; all of which make fabulous primary source material both for Animoto and Voice Thread. They are all licensed to share. One can also copy a Voicethread, allowing great opportunity for resource growth and online collaboration. Even if I search for a picture through VoiceThreads, creative commons licences will provide a link to the source, allowing credit to be given to the source with ease. No more secret recipes. We need to remember to credit our sources.

Ruth Cullum in 6 + 1 Traits of Writing reminds us that using technology can be an excellent vehicle for building writing skills. Voice Threads is a powerful tool for writing and critical thinking.

Schnell (2007) provided the best explanation of what a mash up is. It repurposes web content by combining third party data sources. This is an equation where 1+1=3... by combining data from different sources, more is created. Shelfari and LibraryThing are two mashups that deal with books. Mashups access data from sites like Amazon, eBay, the Library of Congress, and Google and integrate them to provide enhanced information.

REFLECTIONS ON MULTIMEDIA SHARING FOR PERSONAL

I learned to love Animoto this fall when I could make a multimedia presentation of a friends wedding. She emailed me back and chastized me for taking so much time to make this when I was so busy! Of course I didn't mention that this was just like one of the Joy of Cookings Quick Cakes, put it all together in one pan and "presto'... I had video to make her envious.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

Somewhere along the line I must have tried Voice Threads, because as I logged on, it told me I had used my three free Voice Threads. As so many of the tools we use are free now, I was quickly reminded that there are tools we still have to pay for. Sigh. Just like finding you are out of flour, it was a huge disappointment when I wanted to make a cake (a video). Three is a maximum. Well, I know my spring form pans came in a set of three, and if I wanted another one I had to buy it. On this online world, though, I could just log in using a different email.

I find that Voice Threads allows me to make something I've never done before. I am successful in using my mike and camcorder for the first time on my laptop. Finally areason to have purchased an ingredient I had never used before. I created a video of myself on a voicethread form my class. Well, it did take several times, just like a soufflee, but I finally created something light enought for my class to engage in.

I'm known for storing recipes and pictures that sit on my computer and never get seen again. Multimedia sites open this up for me to find again and for others to share, for the world to view. Although originally falsely quoted, I will use this an an analgoy to my cooking and media sharing, from Marie Antoinette, Let them eat cake... or devour the mashing media. There is nothing better that a plate of mashed potatoes with gravy. For students, a learning tool that allows them to incorporate all that they have seen and heard and, voila, mash it up, and you get a great repast that can be reposted.

There seems to be unlimited ways to use these tools in my personal life. Both these tools are excellent and engaging ways to share family, friends, events. The grad class in my daughters school could share pages on Voice Thread and comment on it, keeping a wonderful record of their grad year. My next vacation could be documented on Animoto. Tonight's birthday party may well become the next platform to create a multimedia presentation!

Reflections on Multimedia Sharing in Teaching and Learning

There seem to be innumerable ways to utilize these tools in education. As an inquiry based project, a Voice Thread can be used to direct learning in a collaborative way. Using pictures from primary sources, students can develop their visual skills. There is increase access to learning as these tools can be utilized at home and at school. As an introduction to a unit, Animoto would make an excellent tool to engage the students. Generative learning will occur when students create the presentation using the tools and have to find and explain their use of pictures and videos. The creation of a VoiceThread by students could be an excellent review of a unit, synthesizing what the students have learned. Both Animoto and VoiceThreads would be excellent tools for book clubs to use, for literature circles to create, for book talks in the library.

In an attempt to test out the educational uses of VoiceThread, I have created one to be used by my class for grade six Social Studies.




The the beauty of having a collection ofpictures ready to use is the ablity to quickly apply them to another funtion. Here, this Animoto will be used to introduce the topic.

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

As the technological world advvaces at exponential sppeds, we can expect that future learners will be far more fluent in all types of technolgical tools. The Student-Teacher Digital Divide and Six New Technology Roller Coaster Rides by Lester Towell., retrieved frm Proquest March 14th, 2008) suggests that students will have shorter attention spans as a result of this.They also will have more digital connections, more personal connections and fewer wired connections. Teachers need to reach these students with a varied technological pedagogy and maintain relevance. Utilizing Multimedia Sharing sites to not only present material but for studnets to generate material moves a great way toward this necesssary change.

Unlinked Resources Used:

Courtney, Nancy (ed), (2007) Library 2.0 and Beyond. Westport, CN: Libraries Unlimited.

Davies, J. & Merchant, G. (2009). Web 2.0 for schools: Learning and social participation. New York, NY: Peter Lang.

DeGroot, Joanne. Podcasting Trailfires.

Callum, Ruth. 6 + 1 Traits of Writing (2003) Ney York : Scholastic.

Christopher Harris. (2006, May). SCHOOL LIBRARY 2.0. School Library Journal, 52(5), 50-53,9. Retrieved March 7, 2010, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1041606431).

Richardson, W. (2009). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. 2nd ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.