Week 8: Sharing videos

This video has been taken here by embedding from YouTube. This is my own first researce into YouTube and blip.tv uploading world. YES I have been useing YouTube before but I haven't uploaded my own videos before this one.BUT I noticed that there is one more duty to do. I have to also try to add subtitles with dotSUB. So I'm working with it....and see you later!

Week 7: Sound garden

Here is the picture and the story goes HERE
When I read this week subject I didn't know if I'm going to gry or laugh. Here is one of those terrible wieves from my windows. And if you listen to my story you might understand me more... : ) : (

I had many brilliant ideas how to do interesting podcast but then I noticed some problems with technical things. My microphones are not very good quality and I did not like that sound. Then I recorded my story with my web camera and now it sounds little pit better but then there was problems with that data. Audacity did not like it. So I have some music mixing program in my computer and save take that data there and save it mb3. Then I was so tired with those problems that I didn't mix there any bird songs or children sounds I had first planned. I am sorry about that poring sound garden...only my voice.

In this week we were supposed to read about podcasting, open audio formats and Creative Commons licensed audio. We installed free audio editor Audacity, trying to record our own podcast and publish it in some online service such Odeo or Switchpod. I decided to publish my podcast in Switchpod after I have joined in both of them. I didn’t found out how I can publish my own podcast in Odeo. I was lost there….so I change to Switchpod and there was really detailed directions.

I have been joined in some Creative Commons licensed audio pages before (exm. Free Sound) and I was there to listen bird songs and different wheatear sounds. I have downloaded some sounds to computer but I haven’t used them yet. But I like to! I like to take them to my wiki page with some photos and I like to mix sounds with pictures and I want to learn how you can do that kind of picture that you can touch and then there is going to start sound…can you do that with podcast? Maybe someone can teach me : ) please!

I’m now very interested in this audio world but I recognised that I have to have more practise with this things. I didn’t learn Audacity very well but I going to make more researches.

Week 6. A picture says a thousand words

Starting explore…

With new subject in Course blog for a Wikiversity

Photography has been one of those main subjects to organise as it new way in art teaching among two last years. Digital techniques movement has risen up a new strong interest to photography among students. I have been using Flickr account to share photos with students in primary and secondary school since last autumn (2007). I have been very contented with it. It’s easy account to collect courses, subjects and photos together. And we are there together with thousands of photographers. I have found that large community very important surround to novice photographers to get influence and inspiration. There are thousands of groups to join freely and share photos in same interest.

I was really happy to have my own explore to my home city Kotka area. I started with Flickr searching photos tagged Kotka. I noticed people found interesting views(there is also a group pool Kotka). There was a picture about old railway bridge taken by dumell. I decided to get there to the same place and have my own impression about that place.

Hallan sillan alla

That bridge is Halla called areas old railway bridge. Hallan sillan alla (Finnish) means under the Halla bridge. I think that Finnish sentence sounds grate! : ) That place was really interesting! There was lot of signs about history of that Halla area. There were old wooden wharf and lot of interesting stuff at beach and railway bridge area. I tagged photos as hallansillanalla. I located photos into the map at first time. It looks very good tool for traveller to show his ways and other explorers can find those exiting places also. I´m going to use that with my students next week! Last autumn we have that our home town Kotka as first subject in photography courses at primary and secondary school. We have themes beautiful ( tag kauniskotka) and ugly (tag rumakotka) Kotka.

In my opinion travelling around is one of the main things in studying art and photography also. You have ideas and then you go after that and you find something else. In this time in Halla it was so! I found one piece of iron from the beach beside the Halla bridge. It looks like iron face and decided to take some photos about people with this “mask”. Hmmm…

Free softwares for editing photography

Paint.net (have to download) and Adobe Photoshop Express (web-based software) are very good tools for students because those are free. When we are working with photos in school it is important that students can use same tools at home in spite of having money to by expensive software. I have only tried those a little. Those both looks very useful and they have every basic tools. I have my next networking photography course next autumn and then I have to have good experience of those softwares. I have been using Picasa with my own photos. It´s so easy tool to keep photos in order. It is also very easy to upload photos to web gallery descript either private or public. If you download Picasa to your computer there is also basic tools to edit photos. I have found collage tools very useful

there. Here is one example.

At least I add Creative Commons license to my Flickr account and I chose

“Noncommercial means:You let others copy, distribute, display, and perform your work - and derivative works based upon it - but for noncommercial purposes only. “

and I loaded one photo to LeMill.

I'm learning but I'm late

I have been reading other students blog posts and I have learned a lot! Then I noticed that I cant say anything better than examble Juha Valonen says about wikipedia or how Erkan Yilmaz can ask so good guestions about wikipedias future and he can also introduce those tools so professionally.
I havent done my home works but I really love to be part of this and I am here lurking about everyone elses works...am I unfair?
I have noticed that it is very difficult to me say anything correckt in english. Maybe I have to wait that Anne Rongas or someone else is going to do this in finnish : )
But I'm going to to take this weeks photos about my home town and lets see.....how can I handle those other subjects....

How to get started with LeMill?

I have been visited LeMill few months ago and then I was confused about feeling like being alone there. Now I noticed the same thing. I founded a group called Photography as a networking course and asked my friend to join this group but what else can I do to be BOLD? I though that maybe there can be some other persons interested in this subject also but there was not. So – I’m not so surprised after all. I have been trying to have some conversation about this subject before in different spaces but it has been very frustrated until now. But maybe some day…….Now I have one contact from UK but I haven’t heard about him lately. I don’t know if art teachers are interested in OER or not but I hope some day I have some good debate on this subject! : )

LeMill looks very fresh and easy to get in. There is 13 languages to use and areas for content, methods, tools and community. Your can manage your own group for collaborating there and you can have all your teaching materials published and shared there if you wan to. For me LeMill looks like place to find some interesting directions to different OER tools http://lemill.net/tools/tools/lemill_titlecloud. It’s also very nice to notice that there is users instructions how to use LeMill tools. I haven’t published any materials yet but I get interested in!

I like that way LeMill combine collaborating, publishing, sharing and also introducing OTHER OER projects. To get started…I have to learn more and I have to find some groups to join and collaborate. And maybe I’m going to publish some researches studying art with open spaces like Wikispaces and Ning.

Some research into OER spaces

OU –Open University and Open learning space.

This space looks very professional with every tool for communication (chat, flash meeting and knowledge map) and sharing knowledge. There is an also personal space for studying. This space looks very pale and colourless to me. I don’t know if there can manage spaces after registered but in this way it’s too flat for me. I need to make my own space with my own colours to study with great interest.: ) Art studying needs colours!

CONNEXION

I found out some collaborating tools very interesting. Workgroups as a scratch areas could be authored by many or there could be some hierarchy. Those areas contributors roles can be authored many ways also. You can be author, maintainer or copywriter.

Connexion seems to be a publishing and sharing space for real ready materials. Collaborating is hidden and networking tools are based on texts mainly.

MIT (Massachusets Institute of Technology), OCW Open Course Ware

There is very large space with courses freely to study. I was surprised that its not possible to have any degrees or certificate from MIT or OCW by studying in OCW system. This space has also very professional appearance but the only one which have red DONATE now buttons everywhere.

LE MILL

Le Mill was the only one of these learning spaces I know before. I haven’t yet learning to use it very well. I have been visited and registered there but I have not found anything from there to use in art teaching. LeMill has very fresh outlook and it is easy to manage. But NOW I’m going to learn more with next week lesson.

Some OER points for me...

At first I must say that Ilkka Tuomi’s report Open Educational Resources: What they are and why do they matter was really new for me and it was full of abbreviates (I O.K.I, SIF, ELF) and technical details about OER history. One week was too short time to me to adopt all those things but I decided to bring up only those main points for mine purpose.

“One way to describe open resources is to define them as resources that produce service flows that anyone can enjoy, without reducing the enjoyment of others. This definition is related to the concept of public goods.”

That is the main point one with OER for me and Tuomi described it very thoroughly. He has also studied Knowledge as a public good seeing there some problems with copyrights but also many possibilities that the authors and the society can greatly benefit from free copying. He sees common pools more “public good” for everyone than traditional public goods because we can have that knowledge or good without taking it from someone else – only copying and sharing it. How can that be economically profitable – it’s interesting and needs some completely new business models.

It was also good point to me see those criteria (“communalism,” “universality,” “disinterestedness,” “originality,” and “scepticism”) that are compatible with the norms of academic science as a backround to OER philosophy.

Tuomi has found out OER opening exist as tree levels. He has noticed that many courses seems to be open only level 1 or 2. Level 3 let everyone be contributors too. I’ m very interested in to have some students with me as contributors in same level as I in some courses. But I have not that experience yet. We can already publish our blog posts on the same account and we can comment each others works but I’m the one administer. I see learning very much as a social process nowadays. I don’t have very long history in this case and I feel that this new openness and knowledge sharing is going to change my pedagogic thinking and working methods with the network courses and in the class room too.