By: Tony DePrato | Follow me on Twitter @tdeprato
Category: Video
Weekly Rant: Island of Garbage
Weekly Rant: Requirements, A Catch 22
QuickTime Trimming Feature: Take a Section of Video or Audio from Anywhere in the Clip
From Chrome to Phone App with a QR Code
Predictions and FabLabs with Neil Gershenfeld
Anyone interested in STEM/STEAM spaces and equipment should watch this video. It is older, but worth a revisit. He says we need 20 years to make this feasible and affordable. I think we might be moving a bit faster. He compares the evolution of Fablabs (and personal fabrication) to the original development of UNIX which was done on a PDP-7.
I think the most interesting aspect is we can “go back in time” with his prediction, look at the current state of development, and confirm what direction the technology and pricing are heading.
By: Tony DePrato | Follow me on Twitter @tdeprato
Live In the Now with OneDrive for Business
By Tony DePrato | Follow me on Twitter @tdeprato
A year ago, many people using Office 365 for Education were really angry at OneDrive for Business. When Microsoft made the official switch from the public OneDrive to the Business Version, things were not good.
People forget the development most products follow. They forget the limits of the original Google Apps for Education. They forget the features that Facebook 1.0 did not have. Because people easily forgot, they are prone to become neophobes. Neophobia is the extreme or irrational fear or dislike of anything new or unfamiliar. Irrational being the keyword.
New technology is rarely given a fair chance. This is why many products stay in beta or in small user circles for years. OneDrive for Business did have a rough start, but even in the early stages it was a decent cloud storage client. In Asia, one of the main issues was speed. This has been remedied.
I felt compelled to write this post, because I feel like I have a track record for doing unbiased comparisons on cloud services. Office 365 is gaining ground in some very big areas. The video below, very unprofessional and horribly narrated, clearly illustrates the speed of OneDrive for Business. Please note, I have been using Groups in Office 365 as a video sharing platform, and they are working great. The use OneDrive storage as well. The speed for adding video is excellent, and the MP4s seem to playback quickly in Chrome and IE 11.
Technology changes. Basing decisions off of a single bad experience more than 180 days in the past is a mistake. If something looks promising, keep it on your radar.
Check out the now, past and future
I saw this video on Gizmodo and thought Wow! That’s pretty awesome. So I thought I’d drop it here on my blog. The video is made by Kurzegesagt. They make short videos that explain some complex stuff like the history of time. It won’t replace your history teacher but it sure does lead to some pretty awesome discussions. Check out the video below.
Patrick Cauley
www.thetechjonsey.com
A fun trick using simple math
I’ve never heard of Richard Wiseman before this, but apparently he is a very well known and respected psychologists from the UK. The video is a fun way to use simple math to “predict” what square you end up on. Can you or your students figure it out? Even if you can it’s still a fun little trick that will get your students thinking and that’s not a bad thing.
Youtube Trickery
Youtube has become a part of almost every teacher’s repertoire. It is a massive digital library with loads of great stuff.
What I want to highlight in a short post is a couple cool little tricks/options when you right click on video.
Copying the video URL is self explanatory but there is a similar option…
Copy video URL at current time
This is perfect for those videos that you want to show at a certain point. You dont want to waste class time watching the first several minutes of a video and you simply want to show a 2 minute clip somewhere in the middle or even at the end. Rather than pausing and waiting for it load so you can find your spot while your kids are getting antsy, simply use the this feature to start your video loading from the exact point you want to show.
Pop Out
This is a very handy option as it pops the video up in a pop-up with no other distractions. This is particularly handy if you have a projector and or a dual screen setup – you can simply drag the popup over to the projected area. This way, you are not dragging the entire browser to the screen and the video is separate from all your other tabs (assuming you are ADHD like me and always have 17 tabs open)
You then have a couple other options like showing the video info, copying the embed code to place on your blog or website and a handy speed test that will basically evaluate your Youtube download speeds compared to your ISP, region and country.
Well, that is it folks.
Technology in the Classroom 