looking forward

Well – I lasted longer than thought, and nowhere near as long as I would have liked: 1 week out of 4.

I am of course referring to the photo a day for one month theory: 1 month, 1 week (if I say 7 days, does sound longer?).

The problem started on the weekend: its was still hot and uncomfortable outside so we pretty much stayed in all weekend.  I could say that no opportunity arose for a photo, but the reality is that I did’nt even think about it on Saturday and having missed Saturday, didn’t bother on Sunday.

I’ve been thinking about this while I decide what to do – I’m not really that undisciplined and I could come up with any number of reasons for why I didn’t take the photos, but the simple reason was that I lost interest: not in the theory but in the practice. 

I may have rationalised why I was doing it – to increase my use of Flickr, but the reality was it was lazy blogging: a quick way to up my posts: a photo a day with a line or two of text and off I went; seven posts in a week.  Its a new record!

This wasn’t my motivation in the beginning and don’t even think it was my motivation in the middle, but by the end of the week, that was the only value I was seeing.  My heart wasn’t in the taking of the photos – it was an obligation, not a desire. 

So why how did it come to this?  Simple: I have no network on Flickr.  I know people who use it: some as an image repository, others as a networking tool, but I am not active in any networks utilisng Flickr.  This is what I need to do in order to more activly utilise Flickr – I need to be activily involved in utilising Flickr.

So, where to now?

Firstly, I’m going to move more of my images onto Flicker and get involved in the social side.  Thinking about the “30 Day Blog Challenge”  – this could be the sort of thing that I need to do – a number of challenges and activities to increase my productivity: “comment on a stranger’s photo”, I don’t know – something along those lines anyway. 

Let’s see how we go with this one

Originally this post was going to be on graphic editing, but I have just come across what could be a very cool tool.  Post Christmas and New Year, I have been trying to catch up on my RSS feeds while dealing with all the things that the Real World seem to throw in the way.

It was while reading through Scott McCleod’s blog Dangerously Irrelevant that I came across a post on Kwout (apparently pronounced “quote”).  This little tool allows you to take a screen shot of any webpage:

looking forward via kwout

The thing that makes this different to most screen captures is that the hyperlinks remain active within the image.

I’ll be honest here; I haven’t played very much with this (the above image is the only one I have made), but am already seeing any number of uses, especially in “how to” guides.

Time to go play …

edit: hmm.  Defintiely need to play a bit more: the links in the above image are supposed to be active.  Not sure what I did there.

This one seems to be the topic of the moment: screen casting software.  A lot has been said lately on this topic (for some great discussion on the merits of various products and their uses, take a look at Michele Martin’s Bamboo Project and Sue Waters’ Mobile Technology in TAFE). 

If so much is being said, why am I jumping in here?  Simple really – graphic work is something that I am reasonably comfortable with – not so much the video side of things, but I am not totally without experience.  Finally!! I am not the total novice.

The other reason that I am jumping in here is that the aim of this series of posts is to look at products that I hope to implement.  Screen casting is one that I have already used (albeit only in the last two or three days). 

So what am I using?  I started with Auto Screen Recorder, but jumped from there to CamStudio, which I really liked: it is simple to use and produces a quality product (and as an added bonus, it is free).  Last week Leonard Low posted on his mobile learning blog that tech smith were offering Camtasia Studio 3.1.3 for free, so of course I jumped in had a go of that as well.

Now I have to say that I love it!  It is a little more involved than CamStudio, but if you have a passing familiarity with MovieMaker, then the edit feature will present very little issue and a little experimentation will see you well on the way.  This is also where Camtasia has an edge over CamStudio: the ability to edit within the package. 

Using Camtasia for the first time, in under half an hour I had produced a 50 second video, with text annotations that will replace a seven page “how to” document. 

I may have become a little enamoured with this product: over the course of the day, on top of the day-to-day routine, I put together three other quick videos; another “how to” and two for a demonstration next week where I am not sure I will have internet connection.   The following are the demonstartion videos – apologies for the poor quality, but in the interests of download time, they have been saved in .wma format (smaller file size than .avi), but they will give the general idea.

 baccarat interaction example 1

baccarat interaction example 2

If truth be told, I have spent a fair amount of time looking for other videos that I can make.

Definitely having a little too much fun here.

_{edited 4th Dec 2007: video upload.}

“Lead by example”.

 “Do as I say, not as I do”.

We’ve heard these quotes a thousand times and as much as we aspire to the former, how often do we fall into the category of the latter?

A large proportion of people that I have trained have commented on how terrified they were when they had to perform in the role for real: the gap between simulation and reality is vast. The advice given in each case is to remember that fear, not to fall victim to it, but to remember it.

One of the harshest accusations levelled against experienced staff and supervisors is that they cannot empathise with new staff: they have forgotten what new staff are going through. In essence, they have forgotten where they came from.

I make no secret of the fact that I am new to a lot of these ‘new’ social networking tools: up until a few months ago, I had only the vaguest idea of what web 2.0 referred to. I am in the same situation as those trainees: it’s a big world out there and I had no idea just how big it was.

In response to an earlier post, Sue made the comment that “the good aspect of extending ourselves is to remember how confront[ed] we feel when we do this – so that we can relate to how our learners might feel.“

Can we ask that our trainees/students utilise tools that we ourselves are too afraid or self-conscious to use and actively demonstrate?

Now that would be poor practice.

At least for the moment, its easy for me to remember where I came from: right here, right now, and the view is glorious.