Simple video explanations of modern Internet technologies

Via a blog dedicated to technology for education, LearnTech News, I found out about some videos that give good, simple explanations of some modern Internet technologies can help you in your daily work.

The videos show how things like RSS feeds, social bookmarking and wikis can help teachers (or anyone).

If you don't know (or aren't exactly sure) what those are, then just watch the videos :)
(They're lower down this page)

The videos are produced by a group called Common Craft, a group of educators producing simple video explanations of many things (not just technology). You can watch the videos on their site, but they are also available on TeacherTube (online videos for education) and dotSUB (a site that includes subtitles in various languages).

Because I work with Spanish speakers, I've embedded versions on dotSUB: there you can choose subtitles (Spanish: Castillian) from the menu at the bottom of the video.

After you watch the videos, why not try out these technologies yourself? After all, I found about these videos because I'm subscribed to an RSS feed. And I can always find these useful sites (like LearnTech News) again because I use social bookmarking.

Social Bookmarking in Plain English

I haven't experimented much with the "social" aspect of social bookmarking; the main reasons I use it are that I can save and access bookmarks on any computer anywhere, instead of these bookmarks being divided up across many computers.
Also I find that doing a search on delicious can sometimes be more productive than just doing a plain web search.
And if you find a useful site searching on delicious, you can click on the user who bookmarked it and see what other useful sites they have found.

RSS in Plain English

I found out about these videos because I subscribe to LearnTech News using Google Reader. Here's a Common Craft video specifically about that.

Flash video in Moodle; Flash video with subtitles

Here's a tutorial on how to embed a Flash video (like the kind on YouTube) in a page in Moodle, using the small free JW FLV Media Player.

• Embedding Flash into Moodle (or whatever)

And here's another on using JWPlayer with subtitles that you can turn on & off, and are high quality.

• High quality video with clear subtitles: JW Mediaplayer

Moodle seems to have JWPlayer already built in; when I linked to a Flash video ( ending in ".flv") in a Moodle web page, it was automatically embedded and played when I viewed the page. But it appears to use an older version of JW player (called "JeroenWijeringPlayer").

I haven't yet tried these techniques on Moodle but hopefully will soon. Please post any experiences/ideas you've had in the comments.

High Quality Video Tutorials about Moodle

I previously posted a link to a video tutorial on YouTube about how to embed a video in a Moodle page.

While useful, the video quality on YouTube is rather low, making it difficult to see exactly what text/links etc are on the screen in the tutorial.

So I began looking for videos about Moodle of a higher quality than YouTube. Some video websites (that sometimes have higher quality videos than YouTube) are blip.tv, Veoh, Vimeo and Viddler. Although the number of videos is much smaller than Youtube, it's often much easier to see what's on the screen.

And then I found this: Treadwell.cce.cornell.edu > Moodle documentation. This is a great resource, with a variety of very high quality screencasts showing how to do fundamental things in Moodle, both for students and for teachers.

For example, I've already learnt some useful things about Reports (of student activity) from this video/screencast: Who's Doing What, When.

(NB: some of the videos there have a huge screen size, with an option to see them in a smaller size {640x480}. I recommend the smaller-screen-size videos for most users.)

There are probably many more examples of videos like these: not hosted on a general video site like YouTube or blip.tv but on the websites of individuals or educational institutions. If you know of any more, please post them in the comments.
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Antes escribí sobre un tutorial en forma video (YouTube) sobre encrustar un video en una página de Moodle.

Aunque es útil, la calidad de video en YouTube es baja, lo que hace difícil ver bien el texto/los enlaces en el video/screencast.

Entonces empezé a buscar a videos sobre Moodle de más alta calidad que YouTube. Algunos sitios (que de vez en cuando tienen videos de más alta calidad que YouTube) son blip.tv, Vimeo, Veoh y Viddler. Aunque el número de videos es mucho menos que YouTube, muchas veces es más fácil ver lo que hay en el video.

Y despues encontré esta página: Treadwell.cce.cornell.edu > Moodle documentation. Este es un recurso fantástico con una variedad de screencasts de alta calidad sobre hacer cosas importantes en Moodle, también para los estudiantes como los maestros.

Por ejemplo, ya aprendí algunas cosas útiles con respeto a los reportes (de la actividad de los estudiantes) de este video: Who's Doing What, When.

(Nota que muchas de estes video tienen un tamaño enorme de la imágen, con la opción de verlo en tamaño más chico {640x480}. Recomiendo los video más chicos por la mayoría de utilzadores.)

Probablemente hay muchos más ejemplos de videos como estos: no alojados en sitios generales de video como YouTube or blip.tv, pero en sitios de individuos o de instituciones educativas. Si conocen algunos, favor de ponerlos en los comentos.

Video tutorial showing how to embed a Youtube video in a Moodle page

Here's a video tutorial showing how to embed a YouTube video in a Moodle page.
Un video que enseña como encrustar un video de YouTube en una página de Moodle.



There are a lot of videos on YouTube about Moodle, I recommend checking some out.

• YouTube - Moodle