Posts Tagged ‘multimedia’

SketchUp has incredible educational potential.  Using free tools available from Google, Disney has added a 3D layer over the entire Disney World property.  Every building, sidewalk and tree has been drawn in detail.  Above is a picture of the haunted house.  This is a must-see attraction at the Magic Kingdom.  As you enter the building, there are tombstones with funny names and one with a picture of a face with eyes that move.  Zoom in on Google Earth and you can see it below.  Click either picture for higher resolution images.

Think of the geography, mapping, history, architecture, engineering (the list is huge) projects that students could do with these free tools.  Students could recreate a 3D version of the local school, post office, court house and other significant government buildings.  Historical locations could also be added.

These locations would have to be researched.  Community officials would be interviewed.  Measurements would be taken.  Students would learn to use the construction tools available from Google and collaboratively place objects in correct locations.

Layers representing different time periods could be constructed.  Students could see what occupies spaces once used by historical buildings.  This could be a lot of fun… and a learning experience too.

Today Google announced that the ever popular Google Earth program can now be incorporated into a browser.  You will need a plugin, but you will not have to install the heavy application.

I captured the inserted picture from my browser.  I think that’s one of my college buddies getting out of his car.  Either that, or someone is stealing the stereo.

Google has developed an API (complete with sample code) so that developers can use Google Earth in web projects.  All I need to do is find that map key from a couple of years ago.  I know I got one.

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Update: Found the key.  Got it to work.

http://www.trustyetc.com/map/

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Here is a handy tool for anyone interested in finding a podcast about a specific topic.  Everyzing is a service that scans through an assortment of podcasts and converts all that speech into text that is searchable.  You can search for generic topics like “educational technology” or broad topics like “politics.”   Search results can be sorted by date or relevance.  By clicking on a hit, you can listen to the audio in the built-in player.

A link to your specific search term is also available so you can jump right to the part of the podcast talking about your topic.  In this way, you can quickly hear a phrase in the context it was recorded.

The site also searches online video clips and other multimedia.  The goal is to make all digital content searchable.  Imagine being able to find a video clip of someone giving a speech by searching for a few key terms from the speech.  You wouldn’t even have to know the speaker’s name.

EveryZing also sells a product that will convert multimedia content to printed pages.  This has potential for hearing impaired students.

I can even find someone I know in a podcast.  Here’s John… fifty times.

Jing is a free screen capture tool from TechSmith, the makers of Snag and Camtasia.  Jing runs on Windows or OS X and can be linked to your own server or to a free streaming service called ScreenCast.com.

Jing will capture a single screen shot or a movie that includes your audio input.  After starting the program, simply drag to create a box to define the capture area.  If you are using OS X, there is nothing this good that is also free.

There are some limitations on the free version.  It can only capture a five minute movie.  WYDIWYG - What you do is what you get.  There are no tools for editing your movie.  It’s designed for quick and dirty projects.

Limitations aside, this is a great free product.  The resolution of the movies is incredible.  Try watching the above movie in full screen mode.

For the last few years, I have used a classic media player that I downloaded from freshmeat.  Since I switched to Vista last summer, the media player has been quirky.  Last week I heard someone mention GOM Player on one of the podcasts I listen to and I decided to give it a try.

http://www.gomplayer.com

To me, there are two important components to a good media player.

1 - it plays everything (audio, video, whatever)

2 - there must be simple keyboard controls (preferably configurable)

There are many players that will handle that first requirement.  With a little work, you can even get Windows Media Player to do everything.  But the second requirement isn’t always available.  For example, if you want to pause the Windows Media Player the keyboard command is Control-P.  That’s crazy. 

I want it to be the space bar because every media player I have ever used has been that way.  Besides, why should I ever need to press two keys (Control-P) to perform a basic function of a media player?

GOM Player plays everything right out of the box.  I installed it on a fresh system and it brought all the necessary codecs in automatically.  If you don’t like the default keyboard shortcuts (which are good), you can change any or all of them in the preferences menu.

I like this media player so much I have switched all my machines to GOM for both audio and video.