MultiMedia Sharing Sites: EVERYONE can get into it!

French conversation group Paris
Originally uploaded to Flickr by LetThemTalk

Is this image a thing of the past? People actually talking and learning about something without technology seems at once refreshing and old school after spending this week using Animoto and Voicethread.

This image is in stark contrast to the Voicethread "classroom of the future?" discussion found here. 

Reflections on the Process of Learning about the Tool

This week I examined two new tools that I had never used before and that I feel may be able to create classrooms without walls as visioned in the introductory voicethread.  I had seen Voicethread used once before in one of our earlier courses but had never even heard of Animoto prior to exploring multimedia sharing sites.

I began with Voicethread and created the usual account that was free and only took a couple of minutes to register for. This part of the process has become quite automatic and is the same pretty much for all of the sites I have explored to date.  Once registered I was encouraged to start my first voicethread. I uploaded and made comments on two pictures. I typed the comments and then recorded further comments on
using a microphone. Setting up a Voicethread was very quick and easy.

I have had two class members add to my Voicethread which is kind of cool! It does give a sense  of community. But for me the best part about learning about Voicethread however is seeing how others are using it. One example is this cool game that plays audio clips from movies and asks people to guess which movies the clips are from. I also liked how people are using it as a presentation tool as in this example where "Monster Cards" are presented and commented on... more on the uses in the next two sections now I need to look at Animoto.

Animoto was a very easily setup account and a really great interface to create a good quality video very quickly. Having said that the free version is quite limiting as the final product is only thirty seconds long. Of course it is interesting to note that televison commercials are packed with information and images and they are the same thirty seconds long. There were three easy steps to create the video.

In the first step I was able to add images and video to the mash-up (they say it is an MTV style video) It took only a few minutes to add sixteen large pictures...had I resampled the pictures (used fewer pixels)  I am certain I could have reduced that time by nearly half. The pictures appear on an array and at this point you are able to move them around.

I next clicked on Step 2 and I chose one of their songs to use as my background music. They had a great selection of genres of music each with many selections to choose from. I f this wasn't your bag you ar were also allowed to upload your own files for music. At his point it is clearly stated that the user must have the rights to use the uploaded file...I suspect that many would upload popular songs that they wouldn't have the rights to and I am not sure this would be actively pursued for enforcement especially if the site is popular. Davies and Merchant (2009) devote some space to their chapter six discussing copyright issues using Napster and the court challenges that it has faced as examples and I think that there is the potential for this type of lawsuit for these mash-up sites as the music is being used perhaps illegally. One way around this was the excellent selection of songs offered right on the site which have been cleared for copyright infringement. This is a good deal for the artists too as they get exposure to a larger audience by letting the site use their music. There were links to the artists' websites as well as a link to buy the track. A real win-win relationship much as described by Cory Doctorow on his website when he discusses his reasoning for releasing his book "Little Brother" for free in many electronic forms.

With the music out of the way it was time to create the video. The third step was called finalize and it rendered the video into a usable form after analyzing the pictures and music choices. The final screen before rendering offered a chance to make a title for the video as well as a description and the name of the producer of the video. After creating the video I found a number of ways to save and share the video. I chose to embed the video and it appears here:
Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

While exploring Animoto I really had the feeling that they are all about selling then upgrades to unlimited video length (remember the free version limits you to 30 seconds) and other "premium" features. This is fine because the potential of the free version is great for school use. Another feature that I want to mention is the link to their pitch for musicians and artists. There is a page dedicated to recruiting these groups by offering to give free exposure to the artists in return of free use of their original work. I think this is a win-win situation!

The Tool in Terms of My Own Personal Learning

I am not sure that I will use these programs so much for learning, but I woulds definitely use them for sharing pictures with family. In this way it overlaps with Flickr, but I like the interface of these tools and to create an occasional video as a different way to share pictures would be refreshing!. As a parent I would encourage my children to present their ideas on these sites, warning them of the potentiel risks outlined in Davies and Merchant (2009) page 78 including exposure to inappropriate contact and breach of copywrite. The Voicethread can also be used much like a wiki. In fact I sort of see it like a wiki with the authors shown in chronological order adding to the conversation.

The Tool in Terms of Teaching and Learning

Any topic that requires discussion could be the subject of a voice thread. Students could share their work as an image or as a video and others could comment on it. Peer reviewing could be done with the whole class instead of just "exchanging papers" The linked examples earlier in this post are examples of a few of the unlimited uses for these tools. Whether the sites are used for sharing learning about |Canadian History (I want to do a Prime Minister video) or sharing a story these sites are a unique way for studetns to express themselves and become part of a meaningful conversation in an asyncronous way at their own convienience.  I can recall having students share work and when one student had to wait for another to share with... here everyonne can be a creator and a critic and these tools are truly social as they let everyone get involved!