Category: Technology

Screenflow 5+ bug and solution

Introduction

Caveat: I’m working on a Hackintosh, so that may have something to do with this issue, but I am not completely sure. I have yet to test this out on my MBP but would be interested to hear if anyone else is experiencing this issue.

I’ve been working with Screenflow since v. 1, and am pleased with how the software has grown and developed over the past few years. It occupies a nice space that feels more powerful and intuitive than iMovie but less resource-hungry than FCP.

Recently I’ve been making videos for classes and to document my own teaching as part of my pre-certification service, and ran into this quirky little bug that has been driving me crazy for a couple weeks. Thankfully, I found a simple solution that I’m happy to share in case anyone is experiencing the same problem.

The Problem

I first noticed the problem when working with an MP4 scrape of a video from Youtube that I was editing down for time and content for class [Original Video: Lose Yourself Analysis by Unabashedly Reggie]. I thought his way of presenting the rhyme scheme of Eminem’s most famous song was both clear, creative, and adequately detailed for my grade 9 class, but well, not completely class appropriate. So I edited the video and exported it, only to find the image was completely garbled, and barely visible. It was as though the video had been run through an colour inversion filter and a “find edges” filter afterward. The results looked like this:

Completely useless. And strange. I tried every possible combination of export settings, exported to my desktop and published to Youtube, trying to figure out what magic combination would sort me out. In the end, I couldn’t find a solution, and had to go with another song to demonstrate meter instead of rhyme scheme, while still highlighting the relevance and importance of rap to contemporary poetry. 

I set this project aside and moved on to another video in which I inserted some jpg photos as stills. At first, they weren’t appearing at all, but other times, they came out garbled, and I realised: this looks very familiar. Indeed! It was the same sort of rendering error that I was experiencing with the rap analysis video. Aha! This means it’s not merely related to the video encoding that I was working with before, and that it wasn’t necessarily because I was re-encoding the information in a way that was causing the corruption.

I decided to experiment. If the images are being inverted on export, what happens if I invert them on the video? Will they come out right?

Interestingly, they were exported as clear, inverted images with no artifacts. This lead me to wonder if the act of putting a filter on the images was enough to counteract the weird processing glitch that happened on export. I tested by removing the filter on all but one of the photos, which was the only successful output on the next test.

Aha! That seems to be a factor. Next, I looked for a non-destructive filter that I could use, and settled on the exposure filter with no change.

The solution

Through a little analysis and experimentation, I discovered that adding a filter – seemingly any filter – caused the image to be processed differently and render as the filter requested. By using the exposure filter and not actually adjusting the exposure, the images rendered correctly.

Buoyed by my success with the photographs, I tried the same solution on the video that had been giving me headaches for the last two weeks, and sure enough, it rendered correctly, too.

I was thrilled to have worked out a solution, tweeted at Telestream about the issue, and share my experience here with you, in case anyone else is having the same issue, as I could find no other documentation online.

If it helps you out, please let me know by leaving a comment below.

 

Schools: Dump Email and Start Slack-ing

The Problem: Too Much Mail

Teachers and administrators are familiar with email, which makes it a convenient tool for communicating within and across departments. Maybe a little too convenient.

If your inbox is like that of many teachers, there are hundreds of unread messages in your inbox. Things you don’t need to know. Questions you don’t need to answer. Social messages. Mass-mailed jokes. Single-line reply-all messages intended for one person. And, somewhere in the thick of it all, that one email that is actually relevant and important.

How on earth does anyone have the time to get through the backlog, let alone stay current on information they need?

The Solution: Start Slack-ing

Slack is a communication platform that has taken all manner of working teams by storm, and for good reason. Slack helps you filter through the mass of communication you receive and focus only on conversations that matter most. It also allows you to stop by the virtual water cooler and check the social pulse of the organization.

People who use Slack report some pretty remarkable outcomes:

  • 48.6% reduction in emails.
  • 25.1% reduction in meetings.
  • 79% of users agree their team culture has improved. [source]

Slack automatically filters messages into specific topic streams, allowing you to focus on what’s most important to you at the moment. Your supervisor’s jokes stay in an off-topic area, while their time-sensitive messages get your immediate attention.

email slack Comparison
How email and Slack stack up where it matters

As you can see from the chart to the right, Slack does the things email does, but it does them better. Need to share a document? Check. Need to hold a quick conversation to make a decision? Check. Give a situation update? Check.

How to get started

Talk to your coworkers about Slack. Install the app on your phone and desktop, and start using it within your department. Set up “channels” (like a chatroom) for whatever projects or conversations you have going on.

The channels all start with the “#” symbol, and #general and #random are set up as defaults. An example list of department channels might look like this:

  • #general (for department-related news)
  • #ad_hoc_committee_A
  • #discipline_issues
  • #late_dismissal_tardies
  • #Materials_and_Resources
  • #meeting_agenda
  • #random (for off-topic discussion)
  • #Social_Events
  • #any_topic_you_like

Okay, that’s great. Next, you can set up some preferences for each channel such as:

These settings allow you to filter out the noise and only pay attention to the conversations that matter most to you. You can stay abreast of what’s going on without mentally processing the content of the message, and whether it needs your immediate attention, dozens of times each day.

You can also send direct messages (DMs) between members when there’s something only they need to know.

At this point, Slack doesn’t cost anything, and that’s great. In fact, your school may only need to upgrade if message archiving or some other features are important (for legal reasons, of course).

Summary: Leave Email to Outsiders

Email still has its place, and that’s for communicating outside your teams. When having conversations with parents, school boards, or other outside stakeholders, email can still be a great tool. It’s a great way to create a written record of communication should you ever need it.

When it comes to conversations, sharing information, and getting work done in a team, however, put your conversations on Slack and start making progress.

Ed Tech Tip: Portable Apps for Labs and the Mobile Teacher

I’ve talked before a little bit about the Portable Apps platform, but I want to talk a little bit more about it today. Specifically, I want to address its use for teachers who move from classroom to classroom, and for students in computer labs. For Mac environments, please check out OS X Portable Applications.

What is Portable Apps?

Portable Apps is a platform for launching Windows-based applications (programs, software) from a USB storage device (thumb drive, memory stick, etc). You choose which open source software suits your needs, install them on your USB drive, and then have access to them on any computer running the Windows operating system. You can use it for:

  • presentations
  • audio/video
  • radio
  • audio recording and editing
  • word processing
  • databases and database management
  • XAMPP
  • touch type training
  • ear training
  • space simulator
  • graphics and photo editing
  • CAD
  • web browsing
  • FTP
  • RSS and podcasts
  • antivirus
  • screen recording
  • timers
  • file syncing

and a host of other things, with more than 300 portable apps available.

Why use portable apps?

If you’re a teacher, you want to have your own files available to you, along with the software to use them, but may be limited in your ability to customize the computers you use.  For example, you may not have administrator rights to computers at your school, especially in the computer lab. Another situation is when you don’t have your own classroom and need to use different computers in different classes. In both situations, portable apps can help.

For the mobile teacher

If you move from class to class, having your files and applications on a single USB can make it possible for you to bring technology into your classroom without relying on the cloud. If your school’s internet service is slow or unreliable, it may be hard to rely on services like Google Drive. Portable Apps allows you to have your files in your pocket for presentation on any computer with a USB drive.

It’s more than presentations, however, as PowerPoint allows you to save files as a self-launching presentation that can be saved to your USB drive. One program I use frequently is the countdown timer. By projecting the image of the timer for the students, they can work on time management skills, know that I am going to move to the next activity when time is up, and it also keeps me on schedule.

Another go-to for me for a long time was having Google Chrome or Firefox on my thumb drive. The computers at school only had Internet Explorer and would reset at night, so any downloaded software wouldn’t be there next time you taught. Because IE was (is?) so awful at displaying websites, having another option was a necessity, and portable apps made it possible.

Take a look at the software available in portable versions. There may be something here that would help you in your classroom.

For the computer lab

If you teach in a lab where you or students are unable to install software, and getting permission or having it done for you is difficult, consider using Portable Apps. Each student can have their own thumb drive quite cheaply; in fact, they probably already do. The wide variety of software available gives you a decent chance of finding something useful for your classroom.

This also may help keep your system administrator a little happier, as you can now manage your own class’ software needs without needing to involve them.

The benefit of portability also means that when a student needs to take their USB drive home with them to complete some work, they have all the needed software in their pocket. Just remember to have students make a backup, such as emailing the file to themselves if they don’t have dropbox or another service.

The Takeaway

Portable Apps allow you to customize any computer in terms of its software for your own use in the classroom, or for your students’ needs. Nothing is installed on the computer itself, so you don’t need to involve your system administrator to get permission to install and run these programs. They also allow you and your students to have the same software at school and at home if you take your USB with you. USBs are cheap and easily replaced, so as long as your working files are backed up, if you lose your portable apps, it’s easy to set up a new drive with the same programs you had before.

Technology Plan for Basic English courses at Korean Universities

Overview

The following general assessment is a modified version of Thirteen Ed’s (n.d.) Technology Plan Template. It provides a general overview of the current situation and future goals for technology integration in the basic English Conversation classes.

Vision Statement:

To create a holistic learning environment with student-centered learning approaches in which multiple learning styles are both recognized and accommodated. This holistic environment will address academic, mental, and physical growth and development. Students will be prepared for employment, citizenship and life-long health and wellness. This will be realized through partnerships with parents and the larger community employing appropriate technology, internships and other resources to benefit and enhance student outcomes.

Mission Statement:

Basic English courses at the tertiary level will align with the Korean Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology’s (Major Tasks, n.d.) goals of developing a STEAM- based education system, serving to enhance and grow students’ communication skills with the enhancement of appropriate technologies.

Goals and Objectives:

Through technology, students will learn to employ tools that enhance communication, interact with global citizens and their perspectives, and gain preparation for the future through collaborative problem solving.

Download the Complete Plan:

HOGG Technology Plan for University

Teaching: Iteration and Innovation

Iteration is at the core of teaching. Try, fail, rethink, revisit, reevaluate, retry: this is the heart of teaching the same courses year after year. It’s constantly necessary to innovate. The thing that worked this year isn’t going to work forever; the students I have today are not the students I will have next semester, regardless of how similar they may seem on the surface. The product development cycle is akin to how curriculum, classes and teaching develops over time.

While I reject the notion of the digital native, the reality is that our students need to be able to use and understand the technologies they are immersed in. Many of my students (and those of the teachers I talk to) don’t know half of what I do about using technology. Their smart phones are merely an entertainment device with a texting tool and a calling system attached. It is my duty as a teacher to make them think about these tools in a new way.

To do this, I need to move my curriculum in a new direction. Sure, I teach students how to write better paragraphs and speak with greater fluency. Any driven student can do this on their own, and any unmotivated student can hire a taskmaster to drive them through the process. This is not my role.

My role is to have my students think and consider themselves and their world in a new way. Yes, I’ll help you improve your grammar and pronunciation, but what I truly want is to empower you to use your tools to create change in your own corner of the world. Through learning how to use their tools, make connections between their experiences, and view things in a new way, I help them start to develop into game-changers. English and technology are just two tools on the path to change.

Knowledge Management, the EPSS and Badges

I had to make a podcast for class, and I chose to talk about badges to drive development and participation in an EPSS for Knowledge Management.

Here’s the podcast:

The podcast is the fourth in an imaginary series dealing with Knowledge Management for Education environments, the EPSS, tools with which to do it, and so on.

Here’s a link to the accompanying website, and I decided to make a Twitter account as well just for kicks.

Update: [March 29, 2014] My opinion on gamification has certainly evolved. While gamification provides some great external motivation, mere use of badges, leaderboards and points has its drawbacks. Next week I’m releasing my literature review on gamification and academic performance. Stay tuned!

Perch and distance ed?

I’m listening to the CBC Spark podcast (Episode 225) where they introduce Perch, an always-on portal to help bridge the physical space for remote workers.

I have questions about how this might work for families with members living away, and even more how they might help students avoid feeling the “distance” in distance education. I wonder if this would allow students to have a workspace where they could set up such a system and be online to meet with other students for more of the discussion and unplanned conversation that happens in regular programs. The idea of a portal where you could see who was around and could instantly “drop in for a chat” opens the potential for synchronous conversations that are not place-dependent. I think there are a lot of advantages here over Skype, in which there are several barriers to success. With Perch and it’s set-it-and-forget-it approach, there are interesting options for ad hoc group formation that I find intriguing.

I also envision this “portal” as an opportunity to hold distance office hours for students. It’s not always possible for my students to get in to meet me at my designated office hours, but if they were able to hop on to a virtual chat and get help, or see I’m around at other times on the portal, I could potentially increase access for my students. It’s currently only available on iOS, but they’re looking for an Android developer, so that’s obviously not too far down the road (which is essential for me here in Korea, where Samsung dominates).

Here’s the promo video from Perch: