Hopping through the online educational videos

I felt that I've done too little for the past 2 weeks' assignments (on podcast and webcast/video). So I went back to the CENL2008 moodle site to check out the list of URLs recommended by the moderators.

All this time I had difficulties in going through the URLs due to network connection inconsistency. Today I hoped it should be better since I chose to be outside the campus LAN firewall.

Here I am, hopping from one site to another, from Ted Talks and MIT OpenCourseware, to Connexions and Open Yale. I opened every site at a same time under different tabs in a web browser. So the following reviews are according to the sequence of which 'came out' first.

Open Yale has a certain type of video file that I could not view after I downloaded it. The file type is *.rm. Real media file? I don't know. No time to hassle through just to check on the player and download it and try it out and... all whole bunch of cycle in getting the things run is not really what I want to waste my time for right now.

Go on to the next...

Connexions... Hhmm... It seems to be in a 'hanging' mode since the past 30 minutes? I just picked a topic from the homepage to view the video. The topic is something regarding "Understanding the Basic in Music", and the hang... urgh! It didn't even show the next page after the button was clicked! Never mind, I think I'll close it now.

Done it. Next...

Ted Talks provides a wide range of videos on interviews regarding certain issues. Not quite what I would find very much related to any of my courses. I tried to search a video under Architecture, thinking "Ground Zero" is something of a "horizontal development" (something I learnt from an Architecture lecturer), but it was actually telling out how an architect came up with a project of a platform construction to ease visitors to view the scene of 9-11 in New York. (Thus, "Ground Zero" is actually the name of that historical place.)

OK, this is not what I wanted. Next...

Last but not least, the one that provides more options for audience - you can have transcript (HTML), audio/podcast (MP3) or videos (2 options: Flash or Quicktime). I tried downloading Quicktime file, it required me to download the application etc, and I was not patient enough for all that. I knew I can view Flash file (I'm a Flash lecturer/tutor, thus I should be having the player updated?) so I chose the Flash version next, ignoring all the prompts the site poked me with, and voila! I got to view the video!

But... (There's always a but, isn't it? ;-) )

The video itself warned me that the materials will not be shown in the video due to copyrights issues. OK... I can live with that. But...

The buffer! Urgh! I hate buffers!! I've been 'listening' to the presentation since the past 30 minutes, and it only covered about 5 minutes plus of the video now... So slow!! And imagine how much staggering information I've been listening to.

Oh, by the way, the video I'm listening to is under the topic of "Introduction to Psychology", a session called "What Is It Like to Be a Baby: The Development of Thought". I chose this topic because of my current student's final year project that relates to this (something to do with educating toddlers using multimedia, so he has to understand how toddlers/babies 'learn').

The recording was very clear and crisp, and the voice and language were easily understood and followed through (only the staggering part is pissing off...). I'm quite amazed with how the video could capture the movement of the speaker, by following his position within the lecture hall. Do they use a cameraman? Hhmm...

Check this out: http://oyc.yale.edu/yale/psychology/introduction-to-psychology/content/sessions/lecture05.html

The tips and tricks in searching for the right video? Hhmmm...,
- Sha @ Teaching and Learning
01 Nov 2008