Stand and Talk 2: Why You'll Love Instagram Video

Upstart platform Vine has had a tremendous impact on the social media landscape with its easy-to-shoot, six-second video format. But Instagram struck back brilliantly this week by introducing video to its uber-popular photo-sharing site. As of July 20, 2013, you can now record and post 15-second videos to your Instagram account.

This isn't simply a great competitive countermove, but a handy new tool for educators for all the reasons I cite in the video above. I know you'll find your own reasons to love Instagram video. If you're a teacher without an IG account yet, consider opening one and start contributing to this tremendously supportive and  creative community. It's a great way to share what the world looks like through your eyes and the eyes of your students (if you have social media releases for them, of course).

Make Your Own RSAnimate Videos with Videoscriber

Ok, so you have seen those RSAnimate videos where a disembodied hand draws and writes to a voice-over of Sir Ken Robinson or another famous TED talker. You can actually do something very close to this with Videoscriber from Sparkol - without even knowing how to draw.

Invest a few minutes in this video and do not be put off by slightly poor sound. What you see once the demo starts will floor you. Check out the second and third tutorial and some of the promotional vids as well.

Imagine the possibilities for yourself or project work for your students. I am not sure if there is a an educational discount, but there is a pricing scale you can check out - and a seven-day free trial.

I owe this one to Steve Snider, formerly of the NEA and now with Integrated Media. Thank you so much, Steve. You can bet I will be checking out Videoscriber this summer.

Stand and Talk 1: Boost Your iPhone Audio

Getting good quality sound - or sound that is simply loud enough - on your iPhone or iPad videos is a real challenge. For anything farther away than your arm, the built-in mic just does not cut it. A good option in some circumstances is the RODE SmartLav mic. This basic lapel mic lets you isolate your voice from the ambient sound around you and substantially boosts the pick up on your voice.

My mistake in this video was to position it about 6 inches from my collar - the recommended distance. After I reviewed the video, I realized that was much too close. You can hear the sound running a bit hot and clipping after I plug the mic in. Because the SmartLav is so sensitive, a better distance would have been perhaps 10 inches down.

Still a good product, though - and one way to deal with the frustration of poor on-camera sound. In a future post I will tell you about the iRig mic - a real premium product, more flexible than this, and at the same price.

Happy recording.

12 Reasons to Love the Boogie Board

Why in the world would you need a Boogie Board?

Okay so you have this brand-new stylus for your iPad – and you're frustrated. The writing experience isn't what you thought it would be. It feels like a big fat crayon. And there's no way you can replicate the feeling of pen on paper - no matter what note-taking app you use. The amount of words you can squeeze onto a Penultimate page is drastically fewer than you can get with paper and your writing is blockish and ugly.

In the vernacular, you're not a happy camper.

So you buy yourself a $30 Jott Pro stylus - you know, the glamorous one with the flat round disc hugging the nib. It's a great conversation piece, but that same disc that used to glide over your glossy pad for the first week or two seems to skip now. And you find out you need to buy thermal compound from the Source and apply it between the nib and the disc to fix the problem. (Can you tell this is autobiographical?)

Enter the Boogie Board - no not the surfing kind. I'm talking about the $49 London Drugs special - the Boogie Board Jot 8.5 - quite simply the dumbest writing tablet in the world. It's single function, feature poor - and absolutely brilliant.

The only thing you can do on this tablet is write and erase. I've had mine for about 2 months and I'm loving it. You cannot save, export, buy apps for it, choose fancy paper or even start a new page.

But it has plenty of features to love:

1. It's perfect for making lists, brainstorming, drawing.
2. Kids love being able to draw, scribble and pass notes. 
3. It's super light-weight and thin.
4. You can quickly scribble down impromptu presentation notes and use as a oversized 3x5 card. 
5. The low-energy screen is always on and it will be for months - power for the earlier versions lasted 10 years.
6. You are always zero clicks away from your note. 
7. It has much better wrist suppression than the Penultimate app. 
8. Viewing is excellent in bright sunlight.
9. Built-in magnets let you slap it onto the fridge or metal filing cabinet.
10. The screen is pressure-sensitive so you can make fat or thin strokes.
11. There's a holder for the stylus, unlike previous versions. 
12. The writing experience is perfect - a pleasure - frustration-free. 

Frankly, there are many situations where pulling out your tablet is a much better choice than using the Boogie Board. But that's why you have a tablet, right? And for about $100 you can buy the Boogie Board Rip which does let you save notes and export them to Evernote. 

But this inexpensive little writing tablet wins hands down in certain situations. I attend plenty of pressers and special events where the Boogie Board is perfect. When working my way around a venue taking pictures - indoors or out - it's so easy for me to ask kids and adults to write their names down on the board, then keep shooting and use that information in tweets or Facebook posts later.

If I need a second page, I just snap a pic of the board with my iPhone, erase and reuse. 

Awkward? I've become quite used to it. And, horror of horrors, if I were ever to leave the board behind at an event, I'm out $50, not $700 as would be the case with my iPad. 

Drawbacks? Plenty. Besides those mentioned already, the low-contrast screen takes getting used to - you certainly can't use it in the dark - but is good enough for most applications. There are plenty of other limitations. Again, all you can do is write and erase.

But I'll put this cheap little tablet up against any other electronic "analogue" writing experience. 

Because of the subtle drag on the stylus, it feels like the closest thing to pen and paper you'll find. My handwriting is not big and blockish, but fine and well-formed and I can fit more words length-wise than on many note-taking apps. I throw this pad in the case with my other equipment wherever I'm shooting or live tweeting. 

I mulled buying this Boogie Board for a half hour in the store before I sprung for it because it seemed like such a redundant purchase. Such a dumb idea for an iPad owner. 

Then again, the tech world is full of brilliant dumb ideas. 

Just ask Jack Dorsey.

Happy Camping - A Personal Look at #EdCampWPG

How much social exhaust do you generate?

How much exhaust should you be generating in your social media interactions? Is it an inevitable part of building a Personal Learning Network or should you be looking at paring down some of the unnecessary banter in your online relationships. Watch this two-minute "walk and talk" I captured with the Socialcam app on my iPhone. It's not meant to be pretty, just to convey some quick thoughts and ask for feedback.

More bloggers who are pressed for time are opting turning to Socialcam as a short-form way of getting their thoughts out, rather than meticulously crafting a blog post. A master of the thinking person's walk and talk is Winnipeg teacher Darren Kuropatwa. Always thought-provoking, Darren has produced 80-plus short videos for his #whilewalking series - all while walking between his home and the bus stop.

Want to challenge your thinking? Check out Darren's insights and questions. I'm pretty sure you'll find some new ideas to love.

Simple slide creation with Haiku Deck

Haiku Deck is the best application for creating presentations on iPad
Not sure why I hadn't heard of Haiku Deck before, but I've been playing with it for a few days now and quite like it. I was going to say it's a great app for quick and dirty presentation builds, but I've learned it's not so quick (I tend to tinker quite a bit) and it's not that dirty (limited functionality compared to Keynote, but fairly decent results).

I loved putting together this little biographical deck above. It's something I can adapt to kick off a workshop. All but one of the pictures are mine, and I found being able to pull down a Creative Commons image right from within the app itself very handy. Take the time to explore Haiku Deck. You're bound to find a use for it somewhere.
 

Authentic voice: Is there enough you in your blog?

Catherine Connors rocked MBlog 2012. Her Bad Mother, Connors' much-fêted mom blog, was one of TIME magazine's 25 best. Here she is on break during Winnipeg's first dedicated blogging conference at the University of Winnipeg.

Ok, it's New Year's Eve day and the big question on my mind is "what does authentic voice really mean?" Yeah, seriously. I had the chance to mull this over in relation to this blog on the last Saturday of November, and I've been thinking of it ever since.

See, the good folks at New Media Manitoba scoured the 'Peg for bloggers who knew their stuff plus brought in some special guests for MBlog 2012: Blogging in the Big Time. Chief among those guests was Catherine Connors, editor of Babble (Disney Interactive) and author of HerBadMother.com - one of TIME’s Top 25 Blogs of 2012.

Catherine was a delight. And there were a few ideas she clearly unpacked during her preso and the subsequent Q&A. 

1) You're not going to get rich from your precious blog. Live with that.

2) If you don't occasionally feel fear after you post, you're not doing it right.

3) Use your authentic voice or your blog won't be sustainable.

Motivation is the key on that third point, she said. You simply won't want to blog if there's not enough you in your posts. And that's what I've been wrestling with.

How much of me does come through in these posts? Is the writing process here a catalyst for generating and floating ideas or simply reviewing ed-related apps and the thoughts of others? Add to that the time crunch nearly every blogger feels and other questions surface. Is this space the best vehicle for my own self-expression? Would a short form blog like a Tumblr or Posterous be easier to update? Does every post need to gift wrapped with a bow?

What about the possibility of embedding quick and more frequent Social Cam videos to bypass a sometimes tedious writing process?

My friend Darren Kuropatwa (@dkuropatwa) uses Social Cam vids brilliantly as a way to float his thoughts about his teaching practice. Check out his While Walking series. It looks like Ontario educator Rodd Lucier @thecleversheep is starting down the same road - sharing short thoughts and impressions more frequently.

So, where does that leave me?

Well, I'm grateful to New Media Manitoba for the excellent event this past November. It was great professional development in a sweet venue with some great networking opportunities - plus I got to meet Winnipeg's bona fide social media guru Erica Glasier (@ericaglasier).

While I haven't found any easy answers to the questions of voice and posting convenience yet, the questions themselves are good ones and deserve attention in the new year.

And that's where my head is right now. What questions will you be be asking yourself this year?

Shyness and Self-expression

Been thinking a lot about the need for self-expression lately. What makes people want to create and share?

When in college learning to write for a living, we sometimes talked about why people write in the first place. Having been an introvert for much of my life to that point, my own pet theory went like this.

Shy people are keen observers of human nature. They may not appear to crave attention, but they learn a lot from the sidelines. They also file away plenty of honest detail. Through years of life off the mainstage, their need to create, express and share - kept in abeyance for so long - can become very strong. And if they find a medium that allows them some facility of expression, they have a pretty incredible stockpile of feelings to surface and stories to tell. They begin to risk and share - often with the flair and precision that take even their extroverted peers by surprise.


My son Ryan and I with Kina Grannis in Minneapolis

One of my favourite examples of this is Kina Grannis - one of the most prolific and creative artists on YouTube. Earlier this year, she completed an comprehensive tour of Europe, Australia, Southeast Asia, Japan and North America.

Her concerts are filled with more good vibes than you can imagine, and her "In Your Arms" jelly bean stop motion video is one of the most killer creative vids you've ever seen. The behind-the-scenes video tells the fascinating story of the year-long shoot.

Most importantly, watch the video above as Kina talks about a moment of epiphany when she knew she had to share.

Q: When did you know your need to share was bigger than your fear - or are you just realizing that now?

Gordon's desk - a thoughtful touch of warmth at Selkirk boy's funeral

Seven-year-old Gordon Anderson was killed in a car accident while driving with his mom last week. I went to his funeral yesterday.

He came from a good Mormon family. One that believes that families can be together forever. Hope and faith in Jesus Christ anchor them through tough times. This is their biggest test.

His grandpa gave a moving eulogy of a boy who lighted up a room and filled his world with hugs, questions and energy - tons of energy. His grandma sang "Goin' Home." His four siblings, mom, dad, and 20 other members of his extended family sang "We Can Be Together" and "Love One Another" through their tears. And one of his uncles put together a video tribute that left 450 people wiping their eyes and scrambling for tissues.

While Gordon's death near Lockport, Manitoba, was tragic, his funeral was anything but bleak.

Love filled the chapel. Admiration and anecdotes of the little guy filled the post-service air in the foyer. And gratitude toward Gordon's principal filled our hearts.

Yes, his principal.

He had arranged something none of us had seen before. A moving tribute to the boy, Gordon's desk, signed by his teacher and classmates, was placed discreetly along one of the walls of the foyer. Underneath it, his family had tucked his gym bag and a pair of his runners.

The desk had a powerful effect on the many knots of people who gathered around it. It provoked pictures and questions and somehow made the boy more real - even to those who had never met him.

It was a loving gesture on the part of his school administrator, teacher and classmates - and it left a huge impression on everyone. What a thoughtful touch of warmth it added to the celebration of Gordon's remarkable short life.