video on demand: using video as an educational resource

This is the last assignment that i should have done prior to my last post :) I have been doing amateur video editing from my laptop for about a year but the usage was primarily 'cut and paste' kind of work. Basically what can be done is using windows movie maker we can add, join, delete certain parts of the videos together. We can also insert audio in the same program, thus we can have a voiceover or add background music to it. I did something simple in my blog actually prior to this assignment by 'cutting and joining' parts from Mushu's scenes in Mulan and use it as my catchy intro. Well that is a simple thing to do actually.

Trough the readings that were provided by CENL2008 I found that there are other ways of publishing videos online besides using youtube or bliptv. I am particularly interested with Ustream.tv as it allows interactive chatting during the video casting and we can have RSS onthe particular channels that we are interested. The drawback about using this tech is it requires high speed internet that will be virtually impossible in our campus but maybe this can be done at home as a simple discussion session with my students.

Screencast is easy once we have the storyboard and the available softwares. I downloaded Autoscreenrecorder and tried using it but the free version is limited. I would definitely like to get my hands on those that can add caption and interactive menus as this will make the video more user/learner friendly. Maybe George/anyone in this group can recommend me such software that is cheap and available in Malaysia?

On my experiences searching for videos that can be used for my class via online, generally there is no problem searching for such video content but most of them are copyrighted :( thus I can’t edit them. Most of the videos are also short (probably due to uploading size in the web) thus we would probably use it to explain some simple concepts (that are more suitable using graphics) in the class. Generally most textbooks that we purchase do come together with an interactive CD that may have video recordings or simple flash videos that can be embedded in the PowerPoint. Thus video is actually a very useful tool that can be used in education. Look at how George use it so skillfully :).