Posts filed under 'Netguide Webchallenge'

Where Is The Love?

Recently Apple released iLife08. I’ve been a bit slack about searching out the new stuff. What’s wrong with me?! Most of you will know how much I like Mac stuff and iLife06. I’ve expounded the benefits of using such a student/teacher friendly package and yet I just hadn’t been motivated to go search out the new version. Maybe I was just too happy with the status quo?

I’ve finally thought it was time to go and have a look at it… So, what’s new in iLife08?
- iPhoto: organise photos by event, some new editing tools, and some fluffy stuff (more themes for books, calendars etc)
- Garageband: multi-take recording, customisation of the mix, arrangements, and some fluffy stuff (new vocals jam pack, magic garageband)
- iWeb: theme switching (finally!), my album pages, Google AdSense and Maps and some fluffy stuff (widgets, personal domain names with .mac)
- iDVD: new themes, more customisation, better performance and pro-quality encoding
- iMovie: has been completely rebuilt.

The new version of Garageband sounds cool. I really enjoy using Garageband. I am no musician but it’s been great to create movie soundtracks (and integrates so well with iMovie but does anyone else have the problem where new songs don’t always appear in the Garageband list in the Audio window in iMovie? Sometimes I need to save, quit and reopen iMovie before my new song will show up), recording podcasts etc. I’ve also used it to create beats with students and then get them to rap over the top. This is a great way to integrate poetry, music and ICT. Plus, it’s super motivating for those “reluctant” writers.

I’m also interested to get stuck into iWeb a bit more. I had originally found it quite frustrating. I’d been used to using Dreamweaver and being able to flick between design view and the code. The version of Dreamweaver we have is getting on a bit now and by being able to paste in some code it was quite easy to insert movies etc. I know that Apple wanted iWeb to be super easy, drag’n'drop, but that was exactly what I found frustrating. The templates are very easily manipulated but their very existence annoyed me. It was frustrating to see various websites in last year’s Netguide Webchallenge winning using templates provided by the software. It’s also one of the things I didn’t like about FrontPage i.e. it’s not cool when you can tell what students have used it to create their webpage (clipart, ugh!).

However, I am suspending all my hang-ups about iWeb and reassessing it. It’s not frustrating for those people who haven’t made their own websites before. In fact, the teachers that I’ve worked with on iWeb have been really excited about the possibility of producing their own class website. The only tricky part now is organising hosting and FTP access. Neither of those are particularly difficult. So, it’s okay. I might even use it for some personal stuff soon. Maybe a photo album or some video work. We’ll see.

Which brings me to iMovie. It’s been rebuilt from the ground up. I loved the iLife06 version of iMovie. I’ve taught so many people to use it. They’ve all been delighted, especially those ones that have struggled with MovieMaker and come over to the Mac platform. I particularly enjoyed how it integrated the other iLife software so seamlessly, asides from aforementioned Garageband weirdness. I’ve heard two theories about why Apple have rebuilt iMovie:
1. To make it even easier to use for home consumers: there hasn’t yet been an explosion in digital video such as there was with digital photography.
2. To differentiate more from Final Cut Pro i.e. they didn’t want to keep adding more features to iMovie and make it closer to the pro sofware.

I watched the video on the Apple site to see what it looked like. Apparently you can run both the 06 version and the 08 version. The 08 version looks a bit like a mix betwen iPhoto and Garageband. Gone is the brushed metal interface. There’s some neat ideas, like highlighting the selection of video and placing it in sequence but there is no timeline anymore. I don’t know what you’d call the place where you put the video selections anymore. Maybe it’s the Clip Viewer?

Another thing that seems interesting is the inability to mix/add audio like you could in the previous version. Previously you could use two audio tracks, adjust the volume, extract audio, add fade-in and fade-out etc. It certainly was handy being able to manipulate voice-overs and different soundtracks. Now there is only one audio track available. I wonder if maybe the way to get around this is by recording and mixing in Garageband? Maybe that becomes your one audio track?

In conclusion then, it seems to be worth spending the $109 at the Apple Store to upgrade. If iMovie is rubbish, I’m happy running the old version for a bit more. Has anyone out there had any experience with iLife08 and prepared to comment on their experiences?

Add comment August 29th, 2007

Back in My Day We Walked Uphill Both Ways to School

About 11 years ago, when I was first introduced to the (text based!) internet, there were things called newsgroups. These groups were forums where people discussed topics close to their hearts and where quite heated debates sometimes took place. People who disagreed with others “flamed” others and it could all get a bit… unpleasant. You had to find someway to cope if this happened to you i.e. develop a thicker skin or leave the group. But what happens when you can’t do that and you are targeted on your personal website?

Kathy Sierra, a well known blogger, has recently been the target of harassment through her blog and consequently cancelled her appearance at the O’Reilly EdTech Conference. As a part of a larger community response, Tim O’Reilly has posted some ideas about a Bloggers Code of Conduct:

“We celebrate the blogosphere because it embraces frank and open conversation. But frankness does not have to mean lack of civility. We present this Blogger Code of Conduct in hopes that it helps create a culture that encourages both personal expression and constructive conversation.
1. We take responsibility for our own words and for the comments we allow on our blog
2. We won’t say anything online that we wouldn’t say in person.
3. We connect privately before we respond publicly.
4. When we believe someone is unfairly attacking another, we take action.
5. We do not allow anonymous comments.
6. We ignore the trolls.”

These ideas seem noble but unfortunately haven’t been received positively from a number of commentators on his blog - something about freedom of speech seems to be the general gist.

It did get me wondering about blogging in the classroom and think that the guidelines could be a good starting point for discussion amongst students. Eighteen months ago my class worked on a blog as part of the Netguide Webchallenge. We spent quite some time discussing safety on the website, how to manage comments, why we’d use pseudonyms and so on. As we were constructing that website ourselves the comments were easily managed (we uploaded the pages as soon as possible to encourage participation from parents and teachers) by having them emailed to a Hotmail account which I checked regularly. Luckily enough, this method worked very well but involved copying/pasting the text from emails onto a comments page. We weren’t knowledgeable enough to include comment boxes and forms but I think really it (potentially) saved us from having to deal with spam and nasty, inappropriate comments on our blog.

Emotional safety comes under the fifth National Administration Guideline:

“Each Board of Trustees is also required to:
(i) provide a safe physical and emotional environment for students;
(ii) comply in full with any legislation currently in force or that may be developed to ensure the safety of students and employees.”

I constantly wonder about the “emotional safety” aspect of using the Internet with students. Many schools respond to the potential threat of cyberbullying and inappropriate material by locking down as many internet sites as possible, only letting approved websites through or spending hours creating an intranet. I wonder if we are doing the best job as teachers by continuing to do this - how will students learn to search sensibly and avoid pitfalls if we closet them away? I am not arguing to show inappropriate material to students at all, but I can’t help wonder if we’re teaching them how to ride a bike by refusing to take off the training wheels. Surely it would be more worthwhile to teach them (with the training wheels on) skills until they are ready to fly off on their own? How can we do this without risking some nasty bumps and bruises?

By the way, our class did a fantastic job on the blog and won second in the Primary Class category. The Netguide Webchallenge will be coming up again in Term 3. It’s probably a good time to start thinking about what sort of website you could create with a class or a team of students. The students really got so much out of participating and we won some neat prizes for school.

P.S. In other competition news: I completed my duathlon on Sunday in 1 hour 9 minutes. This placed me in the top half of the field (just!), which I was pretty happy with. And for those who count these things, my average heart rate was 180 beats per minute. I’m still recovering!

2 comments April 18th, 2007

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