This week, take all of the photographs you took for #edtechcca5 and add them to your blog. You can do this by simply embedding the photos or you could use a slideshow such as Slideshare or Animoto. The choice is yours.

Hopefully you’ve found the photography assignments quite creative – it’s something I get my students to do from time to time as it makes them be creative every day and look for inspiration all around them. By sharing your photos you can see how others interpreted the brief. There used to be a site called Dailyshoot that gave you a daily photography brief, but they’ve stopped issuing them. The old assignments are still available on the Daily Shoot Assignment archive.

Video

Hopefully you have all made a video for our Tennis Rally. Please upload them to my Dropbox via the link below. Once the videos start coming in I will post links to the clips so that they can be downloaded and you can start editing them into a tennis rally. Use whatever software you have to hand – iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, WeVideo, etc

Editing video can often be problematic as there is no single standard for video files. Videos may be AVI, Quicktime or MPEG, or a dozen other formats. Sometime editing software isn’t compatible with some formats. This is a real nuisance. One tool I have found indispensable is the FREE version of AVC (Any Video Converter), for Windows. It can convert between most common video files formats.

Once you’ve made your video, share it via a popular video sharing site such as Youtube or Vimeo.

Dropbox link - the password is student

Part One – #edtechcca4

Make a video clip of yourself hitting your tennis ball as if you are playing in a tennis match. You may make more than one clip, however you must hit the ball with a different random object each time (the sillier, the better!). After two weeks we will gather all of the clips together and edit them together to make a long tennis rally video. At the end of the two weeks I’ll post instructions on how to share your videos with the group. The completed tennis rally video is due on 29th February.

Part Two – #edtechcca5

A new photographic assignment will be posted here every two days until February 20th. Make as many of these photographs as you can and share them on our Facebook group. The Kodak website contains some tips on taking better photos.

Photo Assignments

1. 8th - Make a photograph of a plastic object that you’ve used today.
2. 10th – Make a photograph where LIGHT is a main element in the image.
3. 12th – Make a photo of part of an everyday object and let everyone guess what it is.
4. 14th – Make a photograph focussing on nature – animals, plants, landscapes, etc.
5. 16th – Make of photograph of technology that you use often.
6. 18th - What’s the weather like this weekend?
7. 20th – Take a photograph from an unusual angle.

Many thanks to Gareth, Helen and Kimberley, who introduced themselves and talked about their experiences so far on #edtechcc.

There were also a lot of suggestions for future assignments and we discussed the ‘tennis ball’ assignment – watch the recording to find out what that’s all about!

Some of the suggestions for new assignments were -

• Digital photography
• Infographics
• Using Prezi
• Using Google Maps
• A day in 3 pictures

If there are any more suggestions, or if you’d like to write an assignment then please add a comment to this post with your idea. Thanks!

Image by Abby Nichols (aknichols01 on Flickr) used under Creative Commons license.

Make a comic-strip style set of instructions for a practical task. The task you choose is entirely up to you. It could be something that relates to your subject area, or alternatively you can do something more generic like starting up and shutting down a computer, how to set an alarm clock, or how to use the office photocopier.

You could draw your instructions on paper and scan/photograph them or you could use an online comic tool. You could also use photographs and make a photo story with speech bubbles.

Here are some links to online comic tools. Some may be more useful than others so you may want to evaluate them before committing. You may use a different tool if you can find one.

http://chogger.com/
http://mashable.com/2010/10/24/create-your-own-comics/

Photo by Cayusa on Flickr

There will be an online meeting at 8pm UK time on Wednesday 1st February. Just a catch up and some information for future assignments. I’d be keen for a few members to talk for a few minutes about their experiences so far, so I’m looking for volunteers. You’ll need a microphone so you can talk to the group.

Meeting room - http://eduadvisory.adobeconnect.com/edtechcc/ - just log in as a guest, using your name as the username.

Also, have you found a yellow tennis ball yet? Don’t worry, you won’t be asked to juggle, although I’m sure you’re used to juggling life, work and #edtechcc!

Sound is a powerful but often forgotten medium. Play sounds at the start of a class and the students’ chatter will fade; they’ll tune in and try to make sense of what they’re hearing.

For this assignment, combine audio effects into a soundscape to represent a place or an event. This assignment may not be suitable for all educational areas, so please feel free to create a soundscape for a scene from a favourite book or a poem, or come up with another idea.

Ideas (or come up with your own)

• English – the above example could set the scene for a book about WW2 evacuees e.g. War Boy.
• Drama – set the scene with sound as Antonio’s ship is caught in The Tempest
• Geography – recreate the sounds of the Amazon Rainforest
• History – recreate the sounds of a famous battle

Where to get sound effects

• Soundbible – free sound clips
• Freesound – registration required
• Sound FX Now – more free sound clips

Tools

Suggested tools for mixing sound

• Audacity – free audio editor for Windows or Mac (you may need to add the free mp3 plugin). Tutorials
• Myna – Aviary’s free online audio editor. Tutorials
• Other tools – links to other audio tools

Hashtag #edtechcca2

Please also make suggestions for future assignments by using the Suggest An Assignment tab above.

Also – please find a yellow tennis ball which will be used in a future assignment.

Image by Atomic Taco (Flickr) used under CC license

Make two signs or symbols using a graphics tool of your choice. The first sign should be for your own department or course, the second sign should be for another educational department or course. Use only pictures, no words. Use only simple abstracted shapes, no photographs.

Evaluate your signs by asking others to identify the associated course or department.

Post the images on your blog for discussion and suggest how you might use signs and symbols in an educational context or how you could use this exercise with students.

Suggested tools
Raven online vector editor – http://advanced.aviary.com/
Inkscape – http://inkscape.org/

Hashtag #edtechcca1

Choose ‘Enter as Guest’, including your name so we can identify you.

Enthusiastic lurkers (non-participants) are welcome.

All you need to attend the meeting is a web browser with Flash plugin.

There is no need for a webcam or headset – we’ll use text chat for comments, but if anyone has anything they’d like to present or talk about via webcam, then let me know in advance.

During the meeting I’ll explain some of the background to #edtechcc and some of the ideas for forthcoming assignments. It will also be a chance for you to make suggestions, ask questions and chat with fellow participants.

The session will be recorded and the recording will be made public.