SBISD EdTech Blog

On March 31, Educational Technology applied for a $100,000 Best Buy Grant. The grant was written with the help of Roy Brown in the Grants Department and focuses on the High School Technology Applications program in the district.

A summary of the grant is below.

World-wide the art of communication has moved from the written word to digital images in government, business, and in the culture of our daily lives. Education in digital communication technology (DCT) is lagging approximately 10 years behind the current culture. Spring Branch Independent School District (SBISD) is uniquely positioned to close this instructional gap with real-world project-based courses that are exciting and motivating for high school students while preparing them for the work place and higher education. Further, expertise in DCT permits economically disadvantaged students to self-finance their college education. At Spring Woods High School (SWHS) in SBISD a world-class DCT curriculum has been tested and is ready to be replicated at 3 additional SBISD campuses. Proposed in the replication are innovative and engaging programs that use industry-standard hardware and software to replace an instructional program that is outdated, outmoded, and becoming more irrelevant to today’s business and social cultures with each passing year. A long-held goal of the Educational Technology Department in SBISD is to increase the rigor and relevance of the High School Technology Applications curriculum, and provide significant opportunities for students to work with hardware, software on projects they might encounter in the work place and in post-secondary settings. State-of-the-art application software requires state-of-the-art computer hardware and digital imaging equipment.

This DCT project is a natural implementation of SBISD’s 5 Year Educational Plan and the Board of Trustees’ commitment to “graduate well-rounded students, prepared for higher education, the workplace, and active participation in American democracy.” SBISD will augment the amount of the Best Buy Teach Award for computer hardware and digital imaging equipment. SBISD will acquire the application software, license the Web-based applications, provide a Web-hosting site, extend computer-lab access beyond school hours, and underwrite the cost of expert certification for both teachers and economically disadvantaged students. SBISD has the high-speed Internet backbone required for both DCT and the online student community. SBISD’s Instructional Technology department will track, collect, and analyze student achievement data to document the Best Buy Teach Initiative. This data analysis will help define checkpoints for success for other school districts seeking to replicate DCT.

We will find out if we won by May 19, 2008.

I found a site that links to YouTube videos. The really cool thing though, is it provides a way for you to quickly and easily download YouTube videos in multiple formats - FLV (Flash), MOV, WMV, AVI, etc. So…if you’ve ever wanted to download a YouTube video to use in one of your Flipcharts or lessons…now you can! As an example, I did a search for “activboard” and found 40+ videos. I was able to download the file as a .MOV file and embed it in this post. Check out the site when you get the chance. Read More »

I’ve noticed that a few of the podcasting grant winners are creating video podcasts. For most, when they are played, the video plays very slowly in the web browser. I have run some tests and the problem is usually because the file size is so large it takes awhile for it to load into the computer’s cache. The end result is a slow moving, jerky movie with many starts and stops.There are a few things you can do to avoid this.

1. Create a smaller movie (duh). But really. I know none of us are Steven Spielberg (did I spell that correctly?) But even he has to take hours and hours of film and edit it down to 2 hours or less. Sometimes editing the movie to its most essential message will not only make the movie load faster, and play more smoothly…but it usually makes the end result more interesting.
2. Be careful how you publish the movie. M4V isn’t necessarily the best format. It may look the best….but remember, with “looking the best” comes a trade off. It means the file size of the movie is MUCH MUCH larger. All that details adds up to more megabytes in file size. And the more megabytes you have, the slower the movie will “cache”. You need to remember your audience and where you are viewing your movie. Web delivery means you can’t always choose the publish options that will make the best looking movie possible with as much detail as possible. In fact…you should look at quite the opposite when it comes time to publishing your movie for the web. You should look at it from the perspective of - what’s the smallest file size I can get away with and still have a good looking movie.

Take a look at some tests I ran that demonstrates what I am referring to here - http://sbisd-edtech.com/blog/2008/02/01/the-test-and-results/.

In one day, I received two emails from teachers wondering if they could have a ______________(blog or wiki - insert one). With both of these, it was difficult for the teacher to figure out which way to go…they didn’t even know there were other options, and didn’t understand the differences between them. So I decided to write a post that would help guide any teacher in the district in making this decision.

Blogs, wikis and discussion boards are each a Web 2.0 tool that provide for communicating, sharing, and online interaction. They are all similar in that they are easy to use, do not need special software or knowledge of programming languages to setup (teacher) or to use (teacher/students). Also, each of the three can be accessed from almost any browser and any operating system. In this post, I’ll compare each of the three options to help you decide which one would best fit your needs.

On one end of the spectrum is the BLOG. In general, a blog’s focus is controlled by one person or a small group of people. That person(s) controls the content and subject matter of the blog. The primary purpose of a blog is “conversation”, debate, exchange of ideas, journaling. Content is static and viewed chronologically. For the most part, comments are welcome, but not required.

On the other end of the spectrum is a WIKI. In general, a wiki is all about collaboration. Content is not controlled by one person, but the group. Content is never static because all members of the wiki have equal rights to edit, delete and add to the content on the site. The general goal of a wiki is to create a document that is collaborative.

Somewhere in the middle…and with its own unique form, are DISCUSSION BOARDS. The terms “discussion board”, “message board”, and “forum” are generally referring to the same thing. Like a wiki, the control of content and subject matter is controlled by the group. There is not one owner or author. Each member of the DB can post and comment. Unlike a blog, commenting on posts by the group is essential for the success of the board. A DB is similar to a blog in that each post is static. One cannot edit or delete the content written by another (like with a wiki). Similar to a blog, on a DB someone posts a question or opinion, and others either answer the question or provide their comments and/or opinions relating to the original post. Content is usually not viewed chronologically, but grouped via themes or subjects. Content (posts and subsequent comments) are usually threaded in that they are attached to one another like in a long thread.

Obviously, the end result of your blog, wiki or discussion board might look a little different than the ideas suggested above. So which do you choose and why? Below is a side-by-side comparison to help.

These videos were downloaded from United Streaming, imported into iMovie and then exported using several different compression settings. The goal was to see the different buffering rates versus the quality of video.

MV4 Format

File size = 7mb

MPEG-4 @H.264

File size = 2.2mb

MPEG-4 @intermediate

File size = 2.5mb

MPEG-4 @basic

File size = 684kb

I think in general, the MV4 took the longest to buffer. With a larger video, I can see where this will run into problems. At 7mb verus 2.2 (for H.264) it is more than 3x the file size. However, the clarity of the MV4 video versus the H.264 is not that much more remarkable.

The intermediate level degrades a bit more from the H.264 compression, but oddly is larger in size. However, it seemed to load a bit faster in my computer’s cache.

The basic settings degrade the file too much. It is the smallest file size and loads almost instantly in the computer’s cache. However, I think the tradeoff is just too great.

My recommendations: for the type of videos produced by the district, I believe exporting the file as an MPEG-4 using the H.264 compression rate seems to be the most optimal format.