So What's with HyperStudio 5.0?

So what's in HyperStudio 5.0?

It LOOKS GOOD!!!!

Roger took us on an extensive, albeit sometimes jumbled, tour of his new
release on Tuesday Morning. I had seen a demo of it at the MacKiev booth a NECC the day before and it was wonderful.

For those of you who remember HyperStudio, you will be reacquainted with a long lost friend. HS is designed using the screen-by-screen format (didn't catch if they are still using the Card/Stack metaphor in 5.0.) Anyway, thumbnails of sequential cards can be streamed down the left side of the screen. Floating toolbars are more sophisticated because of the extensive palettes that appear instead of dropdown menus.

A wonderful addition that I saw involved editing drawing and painting efforts. You might remember in the earlier versions of HS, If you wanted to move something that you painted on a background, you had to marquee the object and then you moved the object AND any included background. What a
mess!!!!

HS 5 considers ANY creation as an individual object. This means that you can grab it, move it, rotate it, expand or contract it. It's a whole new world for editing.

The new HyperStudio is strong when considering the video and Web 2.0
opportunities. You can import videos into your project with relative ease.
Your video can include movie files as well as live feeds where you program
is encompassing direct, live video feeds from cameras connected directly to
the computer. This is just like HS 3.0 The NEW addition allows you to link
live webcams into the program. This wasn't completed when I saw it, but
they said that there would be a set of "approved" webcams that would be
allowed to link. Interesting.

On the output side, Roger was amazing us with the Podcasting capability.
This option wasn't ready for demonstration, but it appeared that you could
export your project to a video that could be podcasted. It would include
the RSS code but you would have to find a site where you would post it. I
don't think that this is officially a podcast because those are usually
limited to an audio file, it's more like a vodcast.

Overall, all that I can say is "ROGER'S BACK and I AM excited!!!!"

HyperStudio is Announced!

Why was I getting up at 5:45 AM for 7:00 breakfast at the Omni Hotel sponsored by the KievMac software company? It was because Roger Wagner would be there to unveil HyperStudio 5.0.

You might remember HyperStudio. It was a multimedia authoring tool that Roger Wagner (then a 4th grade teacher in San Diego) developed back in 1986. He wanted a user-friendly system that 9-year-olds could use to create programs that were filled with images, text, sounds and animation.

Roger began the HyperStudio company and matured HyperStudio on the Apple IIgs and then onto the Macintosh and Windows platforms. It was a wonderful programming language that was used in k-12 schools throughout the world. We used it for our Educational Media classes to provide a relatively easy way for students to create multimedia programs.

In 1999, Roger had the good fortune of selling his HyperStudio company to The Learning Company for millions of dollars. This was fortunate for Roger but highly unfortunate for the rest of the world. The Learning Company tried to update HyperStudio to version 4.0 and the program imploded around its faulty code. This was so disastrous that schools, teachers and kids dropped this fallen albatross for the likes of mPOWER and PowerPoint.

Even amidst the shards of HyperStudio, Sunburst Software purchased HyperStudio from The Learning Company - Talk about a Fire Sale . . . They decided to rewrite the program from the ground up. Apparently, they enlisted the services of MacKiev. This is a software programming company in
. . . Russia of course.

Last November, Sunburst flew me over to Chicago for a day to consult on some upgrades that they were considering for their keyboarding software. I found myself in the car with a man who informed me that they were working on HyperStudio but they are just trying to settle some ownership rights issues.

Well, apparently, rights were settled last Friday when Roger Wagner signed on the dotted line to purchase the program and then market it through MacKiev. I don't know what the agreement is, but I DO know that they are promising to release HyperStudio 5.0 by September.

I have spent this entry explaining the background of HyperStudio but didn't say much about the program. Don't want to make this posting too long, so I will continue with this next time.

Z

NECC 2007 - Expanding Your Classroom with the Interactive Web

It's NECC time!

I assume that if you are reading this, you are probably in my NECC workshop entitled "Expanding Your Classroom with the Interactive Web."

Instead of creating CDs or killing a lot of trees to provide you with notes of resource addresses for this workshop, I am providing these links to site here on my blog. It's quicker, it's easier, AND you can access them with the click of your mouse.

We will discuss the basis of the Interactive Web (AKA "Web 2.0" but I can't use that term here - it is copyrighted ;-)) We will then explore the educational possibilities of using blogs, wikis, podcatching, podcasting and social networking software in the classroom. By the end of this workshop, if all goes well, each of the attendees will have their own blog, wiki, podcast and del.icio.us accounts.

Here are the resources that we will be using. I am posting this here to share it with you readers, but also so that my students will be able to link to them from this posting instead of having to create a whole different website. (pretty cool, eh?)

Connectivism Website - George Siemens

Classroom Blogs
University Class Assignments
Blog-bib - Annotated bibliography on blogging
Weekly Teacher Blog - 3rd
Student Blog - 5th Grade
Prepare for Field Trip - 4th grade. Sets stage for trip.
Edu.blogs.com - Evan McIntosh. Comments/reflects on using tech in ed.
www.weblogg-ed.com - Will Richardson
Dr. Z Reflects - Dr. Z's humble attempt at blogging.


Overall Blogging Examples
Captain's Blog - Journal of Captain Mark Bromwich in Afghanistan.
BG Blogging - Creative Writing blogging from Middlebury University
Blogging NECC 2007 - Page full of blogs about NECC 2007
Bloglines - On-line RSS Feed Reader. Get an account.
Technorati - This is the Google for Blogs.

Create Your Own Blog
Blogger - Quick and easy blogging spot.
WordPress - Takes a little longer, but includes tagging and couple of other treats. It's worth the extra time.

Wikis
Wikipedia - The encyclopedia created and edited by "the masses".
Dr. Z's ITEC Conference 2006 Wiki - Check this out for more . . .

Reality in Second Life at NECC

I am sitting here in the Cedar Rapids airport at 5:40 AM waiting for my aerial coach to whisk me off into NECC-land in Atlanta, GA. This is my annual trek to the NECC(a) MECCA of educational computing.

A new dimension has been added this year with the ISTE Second Life experience. I am not enrolled in any SL activities yet, but learning about SL and the instructional opportunities of the Virtual Worlds will be one of my quests over the next 6 days.

The beginning of the SL integration into the NECC RL experience is the inclusion of SL nametags. An industrious member, Know Clue, has accepted the job of taking member-submitted photos of SL members and turning these into Nametags. http://www.flickr.com/photos/knowclue/page2/

You will see my photo/nametag in this entry. Looks just like me, eh?

Remember the mantra of Second Life, "On the Internet, Nobody knows you're a dog."

Distance Education through Second Life

As I contemplate the opportunities provided by Second Life, I see a number of potential pathways.

Consider SL as an opportunity to provide another dimension to distance education. It can provide another dimension that will enrich the learning experience. Last night I taught one of my distance education courses at the University of Northern Iowa (UNI). It is a face-to-face video course over the Iowa Communications Network (ICN). The ICN is an Iowan resource composed of a state-owned fiberoptic network that connects over 800 broadcast sites throughout the state. These broadcast/reception sites vary in sophistication, but all of them include monitors for reception and cameras for broadcasting. Most of them include teacher computers along with DVD players, VHS players and overhead cameras. It is said that no one in Iowa lives more than 20 from an ICN classroom.

My class last night involved me sitting alone in an ICN classroom at UNI and talking with students at 7 sites across the state. Most of my classes include students in the UNI classroom as well as the satellite classrooms but not this time. I control who and what is seen from my control tower. Some sites have multiple students while other students sit alone in their classrooms. The interaction between the students and between the students and me is somewhat limited. I don't see students communicating much between themselves outside of the classroom unless they are involved in completing a classroom assignment.

Imagine if this course was taught in SL. At it's basic level, it would be a chat room with avatars. Interaction would depend upon students' typing skills as well as their interest in the topic. One of the problems with using a written interface is the extended lag time between questions and answers. This gives us a chance to consider our ideas before we share them but it can also cause frustration. SL will ultimately provide an audio interface (it is in beta format now) which will bring a more satisfying interaction between participants. I have used Skype to interact with others while in SL and it worked well. Unfortunately, there is a limit of 4 participants (I think) in a Skype conference call so it would require limiting the class size.

SL can play audio and video broadcasts that are streaming through the Internet. This means that I could share videos from Edutopia by the George Lucas Education Foundation. I could just post them one of the videos screens in SL in my "classroom" whatever that may look like.

Playing streaming audio feeds also means that we could use the Webcasting technology that the EdTechTalk podcast guys have developed. This means that multiple folks could connect with me through Skype and then broadcast this through the web which could then feed through SL. The best part is that we would see the avatars standing/sitting together. I have found this geographical proximity to be an interesting phenomena which I will discuss in another posting but I think that it improves the interaction experience.

Musical concerts are happening in SL every week so the process of mass communication is already a reality. This interaction is something that will provide great opportunities.

What about panel discussions or group interaction or ??? These are the topics for another post.

Second Life Again

Last night I spent an interesting time in SL (Second Life). I have been honored by a friend of mine to share a virtual house in the virtual life of SL. This friend, Ferdi Serim, has spent his life developing new ideas for making education more relevant and more exciting. Presently, he is living in New Mexico working with students on a nearby Indian reservation.

Anywho, Ferdi invited me to join him in a house on EduIsland in SL. He rented the land and the landlord suggested that he had a house already built so said that he could have it. I must admit that I have been questioning the sense in having a home in a virtual land. Interestingly enough, it gives me a feeling of belonging. It is a place where I can go and talk with people. In fact, I have been meeting people who have been walking by the house and invited them in for a discussion.

Perhaps the best part of the house is the way that Ferdi and his friends have decorated the house. He has installed a huge speaker system and has figured out how to stream music that he has performed and recorded into the surroundings so that you can enjoy it.

Last night, Ferdi suggested that we go to an SL location called Svarga. It is an incredible fantasy land. Ferdi and I found out castle that a music room. We had a jam session on some percussion instruments. What a groove. Another participant in the jam, Rasmussen, videod the session and you can find it here.

The world of Second Life is just now beginning to grow and the possibilities seem endless.

Tell me what you think.

Teachertube is here!!!!!

I have been looking for this for a long time. It is TeacherTube.com

Teachertube.com appears to be a youtube for educators. You will note the note that notes " Keep it SAFE! Flag all Inappropriate Videos"

According to the "About Us" at the bottom of the page, Teachertube opened March 6, 2007 so it isn't even a month old. It was put together by a teacher.

This is where teachers can upload their instructional videos or videos of them instructing. What a WONDERFUL resource for professional development!!!!

Here is a video that shows how technology can help educators dance through the day.

http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=7f89ddbebc2ac9128303



Leigh