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Frame October 2024 Update: AI Powered Spatial Meetings - YouTube

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Frame October 2024 Update: AI Powered Spatial Meetings - YouTube

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Frame October 2024 Update: AI Powered Spatial Meetings

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Adobe’s Firefly Generative AI Video Model Finally Releases to Public Beta | No Film School

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Adobe’s Firefly Generative AI Video Model Finally Releases to Public Beta | No Film School

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Partnership between ASU, YouTube, Crash Course expands to offer courses for college credit | ASU News

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Partnership between ASU, YouTube, Crash Course expands to offer courses for college credit | ASU News

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Editor's note: This story is featured in the 2023 year in review.
In its continued effort to make college more accessible through innovative methods, Arizona State University is partnering with YouTube and Crash Course to offer college courses that begin on YouTube.

The first four courses, which will launch on March 7, create a flexible new pathway to higher education that provides up to 12 transferable college credits. The seven-week courses, called College Foundations, are English Composition, College Math, U.S. History and Human Communication - classes typically taken in the first year of college.

Study Hall is available to any learner looking to pursue a college degree, including the 55 million college hopefuls and early college students in the United States.

It works like this: Learners can watch course content on the Study Hall YouTube channel for free. If they like what they see, they can pay $25 to sign up to take the full online course through ASU. All of the courses are led by ASU faculty and involve interaction with other students. After they complete the coursework, learners can pay $400 to receive college credit for the course. They can retake the course as many times as they need and pay for credit once they're satisfied with their grade and level of competency. The credits are transferable to any of the hundreds of institutions that accept ASU credits.

Learners who register before March 7 will get a special scholarship pricing of $350 per course to receive credit.

This is less than one-third of the average course cost at a public four-year university for in-state students and nearly 90% lower than the average course cost of a private four-year university.

"Built around the same faculty-determined learning outcomes as our other online and on-campus courses, Study Hall courses engage learners where they are," said Jeffrey Cohen, dean of humanities in The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. "Offering the same ASU credit as any other ASU classes, Study Hall is the ASU access mission in action. We're proud to be able to welcome more learners into the university community in this way."

College Foundations is an expansion of the existing Study Hall partnership among ASU, YouTube - one of the largest educational platforms in the world - and Crash Course, one of the pioneers of creating engaging educational videos. Study Hall is slated to have 12 courses available by January 2025. This gives learners a chance to receive credit for their entire first year of college from a top public research university at a time and place that is convenient for them.

This is the first time YouTube has partnered on a college-credit initiative, according to Katie Kurtz, managing director and global head of learning for YouTube.

"We're excited because ASU and Crash Course are two of the most compelling partners that we could have chosen to work on this," she said.

"It speaks to the power of their mission to democratize access to educational content, and both partners have a long track of doing that."

Kurtz said that about 2 billion people log on to YouTube every month, and nearly all of them use the platform for learning.

"The thing I think that's so interesting about learning on YouTube is how intrinsically motivated people are," Kurtz said. "They're here learning because they want to.

"What we're hoping to do is take that love of learning that's happening in an informal setting and help channel that into a real-world outcome."

Lowering barriers

Solutions like College Foundations are critical for increasing the number of people who have college degrees. One of the biggest barriers to higher education is wading through the complicated process of deciding to go to college and then applying.

Study Hall is working to simplify this. The channel already provides "How to College" videos , which help learners navigate the application process, and "Fast Guides," which include information about dozens of majors and career prospects. Study Hall videos have more than 3.4 million total views.

"Study Hall is an easily accessible place for learners and families to get a jump-start on college - from planning on how and where to go, to actually earning college credits," ASU President Michael M. Crow said.

"Through the power of partnerships and technology, we continue to find new ways to break down barriers and create new pathways to higher education."

Making the jump to acquiring credit also is easy. Signing up for a College Foundation course is only four steps.

The Study Hall College Foundations initiative is part of ASU's Learning Enterprise, an ecosystem of lifelong learning opportunities.

Maria Anguiano, executive vice president of ASU Learning Enterprise, said that starting an online college program on YouTube lowers the intimidation factor.

"We're meeting learners where they are - and they're on YouTube," she said.

"The transition from YouTube to an online course removes a barrier for a student who is not ready to fill out all the forms for college. This is easier and lower risk.

"By doing it this way, we aim to empower learners to pursue their college aspirations."

Crash Course is part of Complexly educational production company, which was founded by brothers Hank Green, an enormously popular science communicator, and John Green, author of the young adult bestsellers "The Fault in Our Stars" and "Turtles All the Way Down."

Hank Green said that part of lowering barriers is realizing that learning is difficult.

"If this information was easy to get into your head, it would happen when you're 4," he said. "But there are also two other big barriers. One is the knowledge of how to interact with these institutions.

"A lot of people have that built in, with a parent or a sibling or a friend who have gone through the process. But a lot don't, and it's an invisible barrier."

The other barrier is the cost of college.

"Those two barriers interact, and you can make a mistake that ends up costing you more money and you don't graduate," he said.

"We want people to help people make good decisions and to lower the cost, especially in the early portion, so that people can get this info and this knowledge without taking big, dangerous risks."

Green said he's appalled at the number of people who started college, left before earning a degree and are now saddled with debt.

"Everything you can do to lower the barrier, even a millimeter here or a millimeter there, is so valuable because there are so many people trying to better their lives," he said.

Bringing energy

The College Foundations content was created with input from ASU faculty every step of the way. Each course, which contains several modules over the seven-week session, will include a signature learning experience to meet outcomes specified by ASU professors.

For example, in the U.S. History course, learners will practice primary-resource analysis by determining what they can learn from historic photographs, documents and artifacts. Then, they'll create their own virtual museum that provides a perspective on early American history.

Math 142 connects math to real-world experiences, such as the skills needed to build a house. Learners are guided through the content with adaptive learning technology in which the math changes in real time according to the level of skill they've achieved. The learners practice until they've mastered the concept.

Students who sign up for English Composition will learn to write effectively in a course that incorporates the latest artificial intelligence technology as a companion to the writing process - AI that provides feedback and practice.

Keeping the content relevant to learners is an important way to keep them engaged. Danielle Bainbridge, an assistant professor of theater at Northwestern University, is the host for the history course. (The YouTube videos feature a variety of hosts; the full coursework is taught by ASU faculty.) In the course preview , she describes how, in the wrong hands, history can seem boring and useless.

"We'll see history come alive by discussing not just what happened, but how history is made," she says in the video.

Bainbridge, who was the researcher, writer and host of the PBS Digital Studios web series "The Origin of Everything," said that it's important to bring a lot of energy to the set when she's making a video.

"Most people think history is a summation of facts, names and dates, and they think it's dry or they think it's condescending or talking down to them," she said.

"You need to talk as if you're telling a great story to a dear friend."

The Study Hall course on early American history begins with the Indigenous people who lived here before Europeans settled and runs through the end of the Civil War.

"I think often, early American history is taught from 1700 onward or starts in the 1600s with the Pilgrims and moves on from there," Bainbridge said.

"If we're going to understand fully the history of this country, we have to understand Indigenous history, Black history, history, so those issues were engaging for me."

She particularly enjoyed creating an episode about immigration in the early 19 century.

"It tells a story about a time we often don't hear about because people think immigration is a contemporary issue in the U.S. and it's not," she said.

Another way that the Crash Course team keeps its videos engaging is by using empathy, Green said.

"We've done a good job of thinking more broadly about who our audience is. Whenever we're making content, it's an active empathy, and empathy requires understanding and you have to understand your audience ," Green said.

"One thing we did with ASU was create learning profiles - here are three people we made up and their situations and how do we make content that fills their needs without making it boring or bland because we're trying to make it for everybody?"

The minimum is to convey accurate information, he said.

"But ultimately I'm a YouTuber by trade, and that's all about capturing and holding attention and doing what you can to keep people on screen and not looking at texts and whatever is on the side of YouTube," he said.

"Capturing attention is something that comes down to feeling as if you're understood by the person who's making the content."

Anguiano said the Study Hall initiative is an important part of ASU's charter to embrace inclusivity, she said.

"That means not just, 'You can come to us,' but also 'How can we serve you?'

"It means doing things differently, and these partnerships create new opportunities to meet different types of learners."

Learn more on the Study Hall website.

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Partnership between ASU, YouTube, Crash Course expands to offer courses for college credit

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Editor's note: This story is featured in the 2023 year in review. In its continued effort to make college more accessible through innovative methods, Arizona State University is partnering with YouTube and Crash Course to offer college courses that begin on YouTube.

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Stereoscopy: the birth of 3D technology — Google Arts & Culture

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Stereoscopy: the birth of 3D technology — Google Arts & Culture

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Stereoscopy: the birth of 3D technology - Google Arts & Culture

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Discover stereoscopy, pioneered by Professor Charles Wheatstone FRS in 1838 and developed by successive Fellows of the Royal Society.

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Universitätsklinikum Würzburg: InExEn:EVENT (Easy VR Education Tool)

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Universitätsklinikum Würzburg: InExEn:EVENT (Easy VR Education Tool)

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The quantities of information that a medical student needs to know keep expanding every year. New teaching methods are needed in order to overcome this problem and help students use the time they spend studying more effectively.

Virtual reality (VR) represents a computer-generated environment that allows a high degree of immersion, as it provides perception of life-sized objects and an ability to move freely and experience the virtual environment, with 360° head movements. The introduction of commercially available low-cost head-mounted displays (HMDs) in 2014 led to widespread implementation of these techniques in various fields of medical treatment and education.

In this research project, we are examining the role of VR education in improving knowledge about pancreatic cancer.

In collaboration with Niklas Mehlhase, we have developed a tool that can be used to easily generate presentations in VR using voice recordings, 3D objects, tables, images, and videos. It's called EVENT (Easy VR EducatioN Tool). It is open source, works with the HTC VIVE, Oculus Quest 1 and 2 and can be downloaded here:

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The quantities of information that a medical student needs to know keep expanding every year. New teaching methods are needed in order to overcome this problem and help students use the time they spend studying more effectively.

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Fluid Reality introduces its untethered, high-res haptic VR gloves

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Fluid Reality introduces its untethered, high-res haptic VR gloves

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Fluid Reality is offering an alternative to currently available haptic VR gloves, developing a cheaper, more lightweight device that doesn't need to be tethered to bulky backpacks or trail multitudes of tubing. It's designed to provide users with a high-resolution VR experience, direct to their fingertips.

Haptics offers an extra dimension to a virtual reality (VR) or 3D environment and is essential for users to experience the feeling of being truly immersed in those environments.

So far, though, haptic gloves such as those developed by HaptX and Meta are tethered to bulky control units with a bunch of burdensome wires and tubes. Not so Fluid Reality's haptic VR glove, which offers a fully wireless, lightweight, and completely self-contained unit.

Fluid Reality's glove has 160 dynamic haptic feedback actuators designed to give users high-resolution touch delivered directly to each of their fingertips. So, using the glove to play a virtual violin, for example, should enable the user to feel each of the instrument's individual strings.

Here's how it works. Housed in each fingertip haptic array are bubble-like "pixels" containing a fluid that fills and stretches the bubble when activated. Every pixel is a dedicated, electrically controlled pump only hundreds of microns thick. The pumps contain no moving parts and operate on the principle of electroosmosis, directly attracting charge within the fluid to cause it to flow. Fluid Reality's breakthrough design is meant to bring objects of different shapes, sizes, and textures to life.

At 0.2 in (5 mm) thick, the haptic arrays are low-profile and run on a low power of 10 mW/pixel. They're entirely self-contained with no tubing or wiring running to external equipment. The glove has a battery life of around three hours.

Fluid Reality credits its haptic glove's compact, lightweight design to using off-the-shelf, fully integrated components such as a Raspberry Pi. The glove weighs 0.5 lb (207 g), including all drive electronics and the battery, a fraction of the 17-lb (7.7-kg) weight of HaptX's Glove G1. And at under US$1,000, it's cheaper; the Glove G1 will set you back $5,495 for a pair, plus a mandatory service subscription cost of $495 per month.

The Fluid Reality team presented a paper ( PDF) on their haptic glove design at the 2023 User Interface Software and Technology (UIST) symposium, and the video below demonstrates the glove's features.

Source: Fluid Reality

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Fluid Reality introduces its untethered, high-res haptic VR gloves

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Fluid Reality is offering an alternative to currently available haptic VR gloves, developing a cheaper, more lightweight device that doesn't need to be tethered to bulky backpacks or trail multitudes of tubing. It's designed to provide users with a high-resolution VR experience, direct to their...

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Disney unveils HoloTile, an omnidirectional VR treadmill for multiple users

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Disney unveils HoloTile, an omnidirectional VR treadmill for multiple users

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Disney has developed a sliding floor that allows movement in all directions with multiple users at the same time, for VR and other use cases.
Disney engineer and inventor Lanny Smoot unveiled a new project from Disney's R&D department in a YouTube video. The company describes HoloTile as "the world's first multi-person, omnidirectional, modular, expandable, treadmill floor".

HoloTile allows users to walk in any direction, without moving from the spot or colliding with the real world.

"It will automatically do whatever it needs to have me stay on the floor. And what's amazing about this is: Multiple people can be on it and all walking independently. They can walk in virtual reality and so many other things," Smoot says.

The video shows Smoot walking through a virtual environment using a Quest Pro headset. What Smoot sees is projected onto a screen in the background. Disney didn't reveal any details about how the technology works.

Smoot says about the potential use cases:

"Imagine a number of people being in a room being able to be somewhere else collaboratively and moving around doing sightseeing. Imagine theatrical stages that might have these embedded in them so that dancers can do amazing moves. [...] There are so many applications for this type of technology. And we don't know yet where it will be used."

Locomotion is still an unsolved problem in virtual reality. If you move physically, you will eventually hit an obstacle, and if you move artificially, you might run into the risk of getting sick.

Disney's invention is likely to be technically complex and not a practical solution for consumers, but it shows an interesting new implementation of the technology. The HoloTile supports multiple users and looks quite sleek, if noisy. The question, of course, is what is going on under the floor and whether sensors and cameras are being used for motion tracking.

Note: Links to online stores in articles can be so-called affiliate links. If you buy through this link, MIXED receives a commission from the provider. For you the price does not change.

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Disney unveils HoloTile, an omnidirectional VR treadmill for multiple users

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Disney has developed a sliding floor that allows movement in all directions with multiple users at the same time, for VR and other use cases.

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Meta is making it easier to bring Quest headsets into the classroom - The Verge

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Meta is making it easier to bring Quest headsets into the classroom - The Verge

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Meta is launching a new, unnamed product for educators later this year.

Meta is launching a new hub for Quest headsets later this year that should make it easier for educators to use them in schools. In a blog post on Monday, Nick Clegg, Meta's president of global affairs, writes that the hub will let teachers access "education-specific apps and features," along with tools to manage all Quest headsets in the classroom.

Meta still hasn't released the name of the educational product, nor a list of specific features. However, Clegg notes that Meta wants the hub to make it "easier for students to learn, apply and practice new skills" while also seeing places or having experiences that might not be possible outside of virtual reality.

In an interview with Axios, Clegg says Meta's Quest headsets could let students walk the virtual streets of ancient Rome. "And people can giggle and say, 'Oh, look, there's Brutus plunging a knife into the back of Julius Caesar,'" Clegg tells Axios. That sure sounds... lovely.

Even though some schools are experimenting with virtual reality, Meta's program might not be something every institution can afford, depending on how much it costs. The educational hub will only become available to schools serving students 13 years and older and only in markets where Meta's workplace-focused Quest for Business subscription is supported. Meta launched Quest for Business last fall, which comes with user, device, and custom app management and costs $14.99 per device per month.

Over the past year, Meta has been exploring applications for its VR headsets in schools. Last September, Meta provided 15 universities in the US with Quest headsets and said it was experimenting with ways to highlight educational apps in the Quest store. Whether other schools and universities will want to hop on board the Quest train without donations from Meta remains another question.

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Meta is making it easier to bring Quest headsets into the classroom

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Meta is launching a new educational product for teachers later this fall, allowing educators to manage headsets in the classroom.

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DeepMotion - AI Motion Capture & Body Tracking

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DeepMotion - AI Motion Capture & Body Tracking

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Unleash your creativity with Animate 3D - the leading AI motion capture solution for digital creators.
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DeepMotion - AI Motion Capture & Body Tracking

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Generate 3D animations from video in seconds through any web browser. AI powered motion capture and real time body tracking that's easy to use.

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Is the World Ready for a Fully AI-based Complete Editing Suite? | No Film School

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Is the World Ready for a Fully AI-based Complete Editing Suite? | No Film School

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Is the World Ready for a Fully AI-based Complete Editing Suite?

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A look at LTX Studio and the myriad of AI-based editing tools and features.

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Masterpiece X – Generate 3D Models With AI

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Masterpiece X – Generate 3D Models With AI

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Masterpiece X - Generate 3D Models With AI

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Prompt, generate, prototype - 3D modeling made fast and easy! Generate 3D models with AI, starting with 250 FREE credits.

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I'm interested in few use cases. In all of them we are talking about real time video stream.

one person streams via his web cam, another one watches. Both have real static IPs.

one person streams via his web cam, another one watches. One or both of them don't have real static IPs.

one person streams via his web cam, multiple watch. All have real static IPs.

one person streams via his web cam, multiple watch. Some of them don't have real static IPs.

Which cases are possible?

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Is it possible to use IPFS for LIVE video streaming?

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I'm interested in few use cases. In all of them we are talking about real time video stream. one person streams via his web cam, another one watches. Both have real static IPs. one person streams via his web cam, another one watches. One or both of them don't have real static IPs.

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VR requires A LOT of data and speed. Distributed P2P file systems like the Interplanetary Filesystem (IPFS) could provide the infrastructure that the decentralized Metaverse needs to scale. How can we align these two communities together?

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As Facebook Changes Name to Meta, Company Wants to Pull Education Into Its 'Metaverse' | EdSurge News

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As Facebook Changes Name to Meta, Company Wants to Pull Education Into Its 'Metaverse' | EdSurge News

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Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta yesterday, as part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's sweeping vision of creating a next-generation "embodied" internet inspired by science fiction, where users, as he described it, will be "in the experience, not just looking at it." And he is targeting education as one key part of that vision.

What that metaverse will look like is still a bit vague, but the company gave some hints in prepared statements and in an hour-long video it released. And it has committed real dollars to the educational part of its effort, promising that its Facebook Reality Labs will invest $150 million in an education program to assist with tech development and to train people to use augmented and virtual reality tools.

And Facebook (er, I guess now Meta) announced that it would partner with Coursera and edX to help push Meta's curriculum in augmented and virtual reality, which it calls the Spark AR Curriculum. A spokesperson for edX, which started as a nonprofit by Harvard and MIT but is in the process of being sold to for-profit 2U, said the group would share more information about the partnership and its broader shifts in the coming weeks.

The choice to bet the future of Facebook on the word "metaverse" is an interesting one at a time when Facebook is under intense scrutiny for its growing power, and after the recent leak of internal documents that suggest the company has moved forward with features despite internal research showing social harm. As it turns out, the term "metaverse" was coined in a dystopian novel that is highly critical of growing corporate control of society and of internet technologies.

That book that spawned the term is the 1992 science-fiction novel " Snow Crash," an action adventure set in a world where much of everyday life is lived in an immersive digital world that eventually replaces the internet. In the novel, the metaverse has emerged after a worldwide economic collapse, where governments have given up power to private companies and entrepreneurs-leading to a huge divide between haves and have-nots. Basically it is as far from a sales pitch for a visual internet run by a giant company as you can get, though somehow over the years it has become a template in Silicon Valley for what a shared visual cyberspace might look like.

Zuckerberg's interest in virtual reality is nothing new. In 2014 the company bought VR company Oculus for $2 billion. And in his statements yesterday Zuckerberg said the idea for the name change predates recent criticisms of the company.

The version of the metaverse imagined in the hour-long video that Meta released yesterday involves a mix of technology, including what appear to be holograms. That's the case in a scene (at about 31:00 into the video) where a student is getting help on her astrophysics homework by swiping her hands to manipulate a giant picture of the solar system, zooming in on the rings of Saturn by gesturing with her arms.

"If you were taking astrophysics, you could study in the multiverse," said the narrator of this part of the video, Marne Levine, Meta's chief business officer.

But high-end VR headsets also seem part of the Meta metaverse vision for education as well.

The next example shown in the video is a student wandering around ancient Rome, thanks to an immersive VR world where the student is transported as an avatar.

"Imagine standing on the streets hearing the sounds, visiting the markets," said Levine in the video's narration. To get a sense of the rhythm of life more than 2,000 years ago. Imagine learning how the forum was built by actually watching the forum get built right in front of you."

Most of the graphics shown in this part of the video appear to be an artist rendering rather than any demo of actual technology, as the video showcases one possible future rather than any specific products (though one VR documentary by David Attenborough developed for Oculus VR headsets was briefly shown). It seemed at times more like some optimistic ride at a World's Fair or at Disneyworld than a sales pitch.

One challenge for bringing this vision to life is that VR headsets have failed to take off widely, despite years of attempts by Facebook. The company discontinued the Rift headset this year after lackluster sales, though it now sells a VR headset called Oculus Quest 2 that it says is selling better (though the company has not released sales figures). This week that headset was renamed Meta Quest to match the new corporate brand.

VR headsets remain clunky and expensive, and it's also costly to develop materials for them for education-or any other purpose.

And with all the problems and challenges that educators are facing during a global pandemic, adding bells and whistles of more Hollywood-inspired course materials does not feel like the best way to spend time and resources to many educators. Earlier this year, Arizona State University touted a company it is backing to develop educational material for VR headsets at the ASU GSV Summit. The demo attracted curious interest, but also many shrugs from officials that EdSurge talked to, who were more interested in the better use of existing tools than investing in expensive new gear.

New York Times technology columnist Kevin Roose said one reason for Facebook's strategic shift may be concern that it is losing younger (student-aged) users to other social media platforms.

"The metaverse could help with the company's demographic crisis, if it encourages young people to strap on their Oculus headsets and hang out in Horizon-Facebook's social V.R. app-instead of watching TikTok videos on their phones," Roose wrote.
Disclosure: EdSurge has received support from the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative, a philanthropic organization co-owned by Mark Zuckerberg.

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As Facebook Changes Name to Meta, Company Wants to Pull Education Into Its 'Metaverse' - EdSurge News

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Facebook changed its corporate name to Meta yesterday, as part of CEO Mark Zuckerberg's sweeping vision of creating a next-generation "embodied" internet inspired by science fiction, where users, as he described it, will be "in the experience, not just looking at it." And he is targeting education as one key part of that vision.

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Virtual Production Essentials: 10 Things to Know Before You Start Shooting

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Virtual Production Essentials: 10 Things to Know Before You Start Shooting

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Using artificial intelligence to generate 3D holograms in real-time | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Using artificial intelligence to generate 3D holograms in real-time | MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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Despite years of hype, virtual reality headsets have yet to topple TV or computer screens as the go-to devices for video viewing. One reason: VR can make users feel sick. Nausea and eye strain can result because VR creates an illusion of 3D viewing although the user is in fact staring at a fixed-distance 2D display. The solution for better 3D visualization could lie in a 60-year-old technology remade for the digital world: holograms.

Holograms deliver an exceptional representation of 3D world around us. Plus, they're beautiful. (Go ahead - check out the holographic dove on your Visa card.) Holograms offer a shifting perspective based on the viewer's position, and they allow the eye to adjust focal depth to alternately focus on foreground and background.

Researchers have long sought to make computer-generated holograms, but the process has traditionally required a supercomputer to churn through physics simulations, which is time-consuming and can yield less-than-photorealistic results. Now, MIT researchers have developed a new way to produce holograms almost instantly - and the deep learning-based method is so efficient that it can run on a laptop in the blink of an eye, the researchers say.

"People previously thought that with existing consumer-grade hardware, it was impossible to do real-time 3D holography computations," says Liang Shi, the study's lead author and a PhD student in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS). "It's often been said that commercially available holographic displays will be around in 10 years, yet this statement has been around for decades."

Shi believes the new approach, which the team calls "tensor holography," will finally bring that elusive 10-year goal within reach. The advance could fuel a spillover of holography into fields like VR and 3D printing.

Shi worked on the study, published today in Nature, with his advisor and co-author Wojciech Matusik. Other co-authors include Beichen Li of EECS and the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT, as well as former MIT researchers Changil Kim (now at Facebook) and Petr Kellnhofer (now at Stanford University).
The quest for better 3D
A typical lens-based photograph encodes the brightness of each light wave - a photo can faithfully reproduce a scene's colors, but it ultimately yields a flat image.

In contrast, a hologram encodes both the brightness and phase of each light wave. That combination delivers a truer depiction of a scene's parallax and depth. So, while a photograph of Monet's "Water Lilies" can highlight the paintings' color palate, a hologram can bring the work to life, rendering the unique 3D texture of each brush stroke. But despite their realism, holograms are a challenge to make and share.

First developed in the mid-1900s, early holograms were recorded optically. That required splitting a laser beam, with half the beam used to illuminate the subject and the other half used as a reference for the light waves' phase. This reference generates a hologram's unique sense of depth. The resulting images were static, so they couldn't capture motion. And they were hard copy only, making them difficult to reproduce and share.

Computer-generated holography sidesteps these challenges by simulating the optical setup. But the process can be a computational slog. "Because each point in the scene has a different depth, you can't apply the same operations for all of them," says Shi. "That increases the complexity significantly." Directing a clustered supercomputer to run these physics-based simulations could take seconds or minutes for a single holographic image. Plus, existing algorithms don't model occlusion with photorealistic precision. So Shi's team took a different approach: letting the computer teach physics to itself.

They used deep learning to accelerate computer-generated holography, allowing for real-time hologram generation. The team designed a convolutional neural network - a processing technique that uses a chain of trainable tensors to roughly mimic how humans process visual information. Training a neural network typically requires a large, high-quality dataset, which didn't previously exist for 3D holograms.

The team built a custom database of 4,000 pairs of computer-generated images. Each pair matched a picture - including color and depth information for each pixel - with its corresponding hologram. To create the holograms in the new database, the researchers used scenes with complex and variable shapes and colors, with the depth of pixels distributed evenly from the background to the foreground, and with a new set of physics-based calculations to handle occlusion. That approach resulted in photorealistic training data. Next, the algorithm got to work.

By learning from each image pair, the tensor network tweaked the parameters of its own calculations, successively enhancing its ability to create holograms. The fully optimized network operated orders of magnitude faster than physics-based calculations. That efficiency surprised the team themselves.

"We are amazed at how well it performs," says Matusik. In mere milliseconds, tensor holography can craft holograms from images with depth information - which is provided by typical computer-generated images and can be calculated from a multicamera setup or LiDAR sensor (both are standard on some new smartphones). This advance paves the way for real-time 3D holography. What's more, the compact tensor network requires less than 1 MB of memory. "It's negligible, considering the tens and hundreds of gigabytes available on the latest cell phone," he says.

The research "shows that true 3D holographic displays are practical with only moderate computational requirements," says Joel Kollin, a principal optical architect at Microsoft who was not involved with the research. He adds that "this paper shows marked improvement in image quality over previous work," which will "add realism and comfort for the viewer." Kollin also hints at the possibility that holographic displays like this could even be customized to a viewer's ophthalmic prescription. "Holographic displays can correct for aberrations in the eye. This makes it possible for a display image sharper than what the user could see with contacts or glasses, which only correct for low order aberrations like focus and astigmatism."
"A considerable leap"
Real-time 3D holography would enhance a slew of systems, from VR to 3D printing. The team says the new system could help immerse VR viewers in more realistic scenery, while eliminating eye strain and other side effects of long-term VR use. The technology could be easily deployed on displays that modulate the phase of light waves. Currently, most affordable consumer-grade displays modulate only brightness, though the cost of phase-modulating displays would fall if widely adopted.

Three-dimensional holography could also boost the development of volumetric 3D printing, the researchers say. This technology could prove faster and more precise than traditional layer-by-layer 3D printing, since volumetric 3D printing allows for the simultaneous projection of the entire 3D pattern. Other applications include microscopy, visualization of medical data, and the design of surfaces with unique optical properties.

"It's a considerable leap that could completely change people's attitudes toward holography," says Matusik. "We feel like neural networks were born for this task."

The work was supported, in part, by Sony.

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Using artificial intelligence to generate 3D holograms in real-time

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Despite years of hype, virtual reality headsets have yet to topple TV or computer screens as the go-to devices for video viewing. One reason: VR can make users feel sick. Nausea and eye strain can result because VR creates an illusion of 3D viewing although the user is in fact staring at a fixed-distance 2D display.

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Should Video Lectures Be the New Normal in Higher Ed? - By Nicole Barbaro - Behavioral Scientist

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Should Video Lectures Be the New Normal in Higher Ed? - By Nicole Barbaro - Behavioral Scientist

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In the pandemic-era of online learning, professors have had to double as video producers. Hollywood-style lighting, new microphones, and cameras set (or stacked) to just the right height are just a few of the investments many have had to make. That's in addition to time spent converting in-person teaching plans to video recordings. Professors are increasingly using videos to disseminate lectures and other instructional content to their students, and students are now watching hours of recorded videos each week for their courses.

Although this is the new normal, it provokes an important question: Are videos as effective for student learning as in-person instruction? Or has the nearly universal shift to remote, video-based learning resulted in a net learning loss for students?

A new meta-analysis provides insight into the effectiveness of instructional videos in higher education. The primary findings show that when instructional videos fully replace other methods like in-person instruction, videos are marginally more effective for student learning. But when videos are added to in-person instruction, students experience even greater learning gains.

These results are promising and should prompt a sigh of relief from professors who are worried about the effectiveness of their (potentially new) video-based teaching. After reading these results, some may ask: Is YouTube University a sufficient replacement for traditional classes? Are videos the future of higher education? Is higher education about to be ... disrupted?

No. Maybe. And definitely not.

But these findings are still meaningful for online learners now, and for how professors design their online and in-person courses. Let's break down what this meta-analysis tells us.

Michael Noetel and colleagues conducted a formal meta-analysis on 105 published research studies. Meta-analysis is a statistical technique that combines the effects of many studies to provide an overall evaluation of the effectiveness of an intervention, in this case, the use of instructional videos as compared to traditional modes of learning, such as in-person lectures. This meta-analysis is particularly notable because it included only randomized controlled trials, which afford stronger conclusions about the impact of an intervention and are often considered the "gold standard" of intervention research.

Replacing any other learning method, such as assigned readings or in-person lectures, with video had a significant, but small, positive effect on learning outcomes.

The primary result of this research is that replacing any other learning method, such as assigned readings or in-person lectures, with video had a significant, but small, positive effect on learning outcomes. This does not mean that video is always better, however. The effect size, or the magnitude of the difference in learning between the video-only students and the other learning method students was small, meaning that for nearly 80 percent of the students, you wouldn't necessarily be able to tell what type of instruction they received based on their learning outcomes, such as tests or quizzes.

The results of the individual studies included in this analysis were also highly variable. This means that many studies showed that video is actually not better, and were sometimes worse for student learning. Most of the time, videos will be beneficial, but sometimes they will be less effective than other methods. Thus, across groups of students, learning via video was on average a bit better than more traditional forms of learning, but for an individual student, the results are much closer to chance.

Meta-analyses also contain many results that don't make it into the abstract. This meta-analysis conducted additional analyses (not all are covered here) to provide clarity about the specific conditions under which videos may be more effective for student learning than traditional methods.

Let's examine the results a bit more closely.

First, the type of learning activity that the video replaces appears to matter. When a video replaces a static text (e.g., reading an assigned text) the positive effect of the video is moderate, meaning that for about 65 percent of students their learning outcomes (e.g. tests and quizzes) could not distinguish which learning mode group they were in. But, when the video replaced a human professor (e.g., in class lecture) the effect was quite small, with about 85 percent or so of overlap in student learning outcomes between the two groups. Videos are much more helpful when replacing static media but only marginally better when replacing a professor.

Second, interactivity-or how much interaction students have with the learning modality-also matters. Videos are not more effective when compared to live lessons that are more interactive than the video, but if both the video and the other learning activity are equally interactive or the video offers more interactivity, then videos are more effective. In other words, a recorded lecture may not be more effective than a highly engaging and interactive classroom!

These findings have clear applications for professors designing online courses: if you are in the position of providing either static text on a learning management system or recorded videos for an asynchronous course, then videos are probably the way to go.

But should videos replace live learning experiences (at least in an ideal, post-pandemic world)? What if they could enhance such learning experiences?

When the authors compared videos used as a supplement to typical teaching methods, the effects were large, meaning that about half of the students could be clearly distinguished as having received supplementary videos based on their learning outcomes, and that adding videos rarely resulted in negative effects on learning for students. Bottom line: adding videos to your course will nearly always be beneficial for student learning and will rarely have a negative effect.

That the largest effects of videos on student learning were when videos were used as a supplement to the professor's in class instruction, rather than when videos replaced the in-person instruction, affirm the value of the flipped classroom pedagogy for student outcomes.

The largest effects of videos on student learning were when videos were used as a supplement to the professor's in class instruction, rather than when videos replaced the in-person instruction.

A flipped-classroom approach typically involves students reading texts or watching recorded lectures outside of class then using the in-person class time to work collaboratively on activities and engage in discussion about the material. The efficacy of this pedagogical approach is strong: there is a continuously growing body of evidence that courses promoting active learning are most effective for student learning overall, and for underrepresented students in particular.

The results of this meta-analysis support the idea that students can gain most from watching recorded instructional content outside of class time on their own. Why is this the case? The authors propose that videos are often more streamlined and edited than in-person lectures, and importantly, students can work through the information at their own pace (rewind, re-watch, etc.) to enhance information retention. During synchronous class time, then, students can ask questions and collaboratively work through the content for a deeper learning experience.

The implications of this new meta-analysis demonstrate a clear benefit of instructional videos in higher education courses. The authors interpret the findings through the lens of multimode learning theory in that teaching in a more dynamic way that includes varied modes of information delivery is more effective than monomodal information delivery. This is a basic principle of learning experience design.

Although these results are informative and promising in the higher education context, we can't make inferences about whether high school and grade school students would respond similarly to video instruction. But the basic principles the meta-analysis supports (e.g., multimodal learning, interactive classes, accessible instruction) remain foundations of good course design.

Videos have been used in higher education for decades, and these results certainly add value to the learning science literature. But these results don't overturn what we already know, rather they confirm it. Unengaging and passive professors can be more easily replaced with technology, static text is boring, and supplemental video material enhances the classroom and learning experience.

Videos won't replace the professor, just as Massive Open Online Courses didn't replace the classroom, but rather this research shows how to best use videos to enhance the professor and classroom learning experience.

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Should Video Lectures Be the New Normal in Higher Ed? - By Nicole Barbaro - Behavioral Scientist

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In the pandemic-era of online learning, professors have had to double as video producers. Hollywood-style lighting, new microphones, and cameras set (or stacked) to just the right height are just a few of the investments many have had to make. That's in addition to time spent converting in-person teaching plans to video recordings.

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ACMI - Preserving Indigenous culture through VR: Brett Leavy's Virtual Songlines

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ACMI - Preserving Indigenous culture through VR: Brett Leavy's Virtual Songlines

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Transcript
Narrator
"While we may no longer be the title holders to this land across which Maiwar meanders, the Jagera, the Turrbal and the Yuggera are still connected in a spiritual way to this country. The land is special as it holds the memories, the traditions, the culture and the hopes of our first peoples. We will remember and not forget that below the bricks the mortar, the concrete, and the asphalt, that this land was, and always will be, the traditional country of the original custodians. The flag of the watch tower pays respect to the Elders, past, present and future. To the Turrbal, Jagera and the Yuggera people. The traditional custodians, they're the couvntry for its values, its resources, for its culturally significant places. And the stories that interweave amongst the obligations to areas and its landscape features."

Vincent Trundle: Welcome Brett

Brett Leavy: Vincent, how are you going, mate?

VT: I'm good.

BL: I don't if you heard, but there was a big Kookaburra going off, so he must be here to welcome me to speak as well; there is one outside the window. Those are pretty amazing.

VT: Excellent. I've got a three Kookaburras here too. They're going off in unison.

I'm gonna introduce Brett Leavy properly now. Brett Leavy created [Bilbie Virtual Labs] a company that makes a range of products called Virtual Songlines and Brett's joining us from up in Brisbane at the moment, where his company is. Let's perhaps first, Brett, talk about where you're originally from. You're a Kooma man. Can you tell me about where you grew up and your land and your people?

BL: Well, I was born in Sydney actually, when my mum was down there, but my traditional country is from Western Queensland. The centre point of my land is actually the town of Bollon, which is just West of St. George and East of Cunnamulla. So that's the centre of our country. Our country's basically mulga. So, if you remember the stories about the old history of that space, Major Mitchell came up our way and he was an explorer. Way back he opened up that space for grazing. Major Mitchell was a big redhead. And I think he actually liked our women because some of our family have got red hair. I'd say it's from Major Mitchell.

VT: All right. Okay. And so going back sort of just a bit more, we'll go talk about last century, what you were doing last century before you really started to the more digital life.

BL: Yeah, well, yeah, I started last century ... Make meet feel old, big fella. But I remember back in the 90s ... I mean, I like playing games, all right? All through uni and you know, booking computer time in 1983 at Griffith University and I used to book it at about 2.30 in the morning and the reason why 2.30 was good because by about 3.30, when I had the off, the next guy would be booked in. And most of the time he didn't turn up, but sometimes didn't. So I got an extra hour on this computer mainframe at Griffith, where I also played this wireframe dungeon crawl. I can't remember the name, but I used to go down and down and down and just be immersed in this experience. Now, that was great. But then after you play games for a long while you're thinking, what can you do? How can you get involved? How can you make a better game? And naturally I'm a strong Aboriginal fella in my culture and I want to see that shared, understood, respect and all. So, the marriage between games and culture began there.

VT: I was definitely gonna ask you what your first videogames were. I thought maybe I might not ask, but yeah, it's important. I think it really sort of suggests where you've come from and where you're gonna go to. And that, 1983, booking 2.30 in the morning in a computer lab is pretty amazing, I think. And so, you sort of hinted at it there, you've talked about being a "digital Aboriginal". You've talked about what digital Aboriginal is. Can you tell us a bit more about what that means to you?

BL: Oh, listen. It's for me, it's pretty straightforward. I mean, it's about knowledge sharing. It's about telling stories; digital storytelling is part of it. It's about really immersing people in the culture. We want to gain better respect, understanding, knowledge about our mob. And I just think this medium is the best. And right from the very start, when we talked about that history, what we just yarned about, the vision hasn't changed. The vision of what I wanted to achieve hasn't changed, but the technology has, and it's become for all of us, anybody in game design, a lot easier to become a storyteller. That's the people that want to become storytellers. Some people might want to just make a game. That's important, but I want to do something that I think not many people are doing this is it. There is something in it.

VT: Yeah. And you mentioned it's like a totem behind your company.

BL: Are you talking about my Bilbie? My Bilbie Songlines ... you got that flashing up?

VT: No, no, not yet. Let me just sort of come back a bit still. I want to find out what the first actual game that you made was.

BL: Well ...

VT: Before Bilbie labs.

BL: Well, I had a company called Cyber Dream, and back then I had a company that was doing lots of digital work, like web design, a little bit of graphic design. We try to make that artistic. We wanted to use arts and ... [sound of Kookaburras calling in the background] there the Kookaburras are again ...

VT: Yeah. Loving it. Yep.

BL: And that is what the design was all about. Making it work. Way back then when we were trying to dabble in this digital space with the design of a website for a city or city council, back in 2000 where we did things with flash that they said couldn't be done. And we did it. So we were always innovative and groundbreaking back then. And then in that sort of documentation of knowledge in a website, which was word-based, it was really boring. But if I come back and step and say, on native title, you might know about cultural heritage, you would know about, cultural heritage is about the land. Is about Indigenous peoples' connection to land. And whenever I go to my meetings with my people, we would sit down and we put a map on the table and people would gather around that map. And there'd be things and stories that will be told about that map, where people are imagining being on their country, where sometimes there might be a cattle property or a farm or a cotton farm. Like you can imagine which cotton farm I'm talking about. But we couldn't get there. We couldn't get to the sites of significance or the objects of significance we could couldn't get to. They might've been taken away or confiscated or things like that. And all I wanted to do was make a statement in these games about that connection to country. And really this is what I see this digital storytelling is about. Another way of describing it is "serious games". It's serious games for some purpose. Now, I love making games like that, but then also gamifying it and then giving people a purpose in that world to walk in the footsteps of their ancestors. That's the nature of the beast in this.

VT: Right, and so you started, Bilbie Labs in turn of the century - 2003, I think you said. There's the logo [logo on screen]. I want to find out what that is, what's the object in that logo. Apart from the Bilbie of course.

BL: The thing in the front is the Virtual Songlines product. So, that's the stone with the water inside the stone with the fire inside the water. So it's all the elements of the earth. That's what that logo means. And behind it is Bilbie, that's my totem.

VT: And it's great. I love it. It's really excellent. And so with Bilbie labs you've started Virtual Songlines. Can you explain us a bit about whatVirtual Songlines is?

BL: Well, Virtual Songlines has been a lot of things. It's been PC games initially. It's been AR type games recently, most recently. And in between that we've been doing a lot of VR type work. And we just try to dabble with those mediums to tell the stories more immersively, more interactively, and just to really wow people, because I think that wow factor was really great to achieve, but then I think the wow factor also makes them look a bit harder at the knowledge or the content. And there's lots of examples I can talk about that as well, but at the moment we're really busy with Virtual Songlines. Now Virtual Songlines is in effect is a toolkit. It's a virtual heritage toolkit for in a sense, serious game design. And so we're trying to build that toolkit better. We've been on that toolkit for a long time. It started, like you said, back in 2003, and that started with the help of the University. When we really weren't knowing what we were doing, a lot of R&D, a lot of mistakes, a lot of learning from our mistakes more to the point, and then iterating slowly as we went. We don't have a lot of investment. We don't have a lot of money. It's a lot of blood, sweat, tears, all nighters - a lot of all nighters. And, and as a result of that, we learned from others. We ride on the shoulders of giants and we look at what they've done and see how we can adapt that in the Virtual Songlines toolkit. And with that toolkit, ultimately now this is the crux of it all, we want to build an interactive multi-user game that relates to every capital city and regional town across Australia.

VT: Well, that's, I might come back to that in just a sec. I wanted to talk about how, when you first start looking at making a particular Songline for a particular area, what do you do? What's the first step in the process?

BL: Well, the first step is the land. So how do you get the landscape right? And it took a while to work it out, but then we found out we could get that landscape from shuttle mission satellite data. It's now a bit different, but that data gives us the proper view of the land. And then we found that companies or government departments like Geoscience Australia, were doing soil maps. That soil maps will help a farmer. Where it might help, some other manager of the land. So we will use those soil maps to determine the vegetation that fell on that landscape. So if we're in an urban centre and we don't know, historically we don't really have accurate data. The geology of the landscape tells you what it could be. And that's what we use to determine what tree would be there.

VT: That's really interesting. That's incredible use of the technology. You mentioned that you get to the heart of the stories of the land and you go and out and speak to people?

BL: Yes.

VT: Actually, we might just play a video that you've made just recently.

Video:

Donald and myself, from the Yuggera people, I'm from the Turrbal clan and Donald's from further West of the bidder.

He's acting out particular scenes that our messenger men used to do via sending the smoke signals from the highest points around in the mountains and ridges and different areas throughout Brisbane. Then the next tribe would send their signals and their signals and all the tribes will come in. And on the 4th of September, we'll have the Corroboree. We're doing it exactly how my grandfather Mooken. He was a messenger man. Last one known of the tribe, he would carry the message sticks for different countries. And it was the host of the ceremony that would actually smoke the area, make sure that it was a clean and ready to go for the mobs. That was their responsibility you see? There's a lot of history that still remains around Brisbane, even though the buildings are up. And even though we're settled in some places, we'll hold it all dear in our heart.

VT: Yes, that's a really interesting, important sort of factor to the stories that you craft, isn't it, Brett?

BL: Yep. Well, see that video there. Many people ask me, like when I have a client that's a council or a government department, say, or anybody who might sponsor our work. They say, "Do I talk to the community?" And am I engaged with the community. And I could say yes, but do you believe me? So what I do is, everybody I talk to, rather than just yarn to them and say, "This is what I'm doing" and getting them onside - they always agree. Don't get me wrong. I've got no centres that I'm aware of ... if they are, come and talk to me because I'll get you onside - I do a video on them, and I produce it like that and I give it to them like a gift, then I pay them to do the video. And that's how I consult. Now, I've got 72 people. I've done videos like that for. You can imagine, I can only do so much with as much as I've got, but that's the type of work we do. Now I think that's a really good way of doing it. I also think that when you look back in a photo album and you imagine your old people long time ago, you know those black and white photographs? So a become a black and white video in a hundred years time. Alright. And then we're talking about those values. And I don't think those values will change. Shannon Rusk is a subject there, and the other fella's Don, he's from the west out toward Bramwell way. And I've done it with so many others. So everywhere I go, I try to get at least a half dozen, I suppose, speakers, and I capture the knowledge and then they help me. They empower and strengthen the work we do in Virtual Songlines.

VT: And so, I think you've mentioned that it's what the Songlines exactly are. So you're telling the stories of the people as opposed to you telling a story, describing what they say. It's, it seems very important part of it. So perhaps in terms of the more technical side, say, and I might just get an image up of the ... the Sydney Harbor bridge overlaid over it, how do you go about getting the overlays of the city? So you've talked about getting the geography and geology there. How do you go about getting those buildings?

BL: Well, the first time we did those buildings, we actually went to an engineering company and we bought them. And at the time ... actually, that's not true. I didn't buy them. I got a client to buy them for me. And that helped because it was a lot of money back then. So they shelled out, I think at the time, $50,000 for that city model of Sydney. And it was a lot of money and it was money for other people to do it. We didn't know how to do it back then, but nowadays, it's become a lot easier as you probably can guess. So, if you remember a while back, would have been 10 years ago, councils were buying city models remember? if you can recall an old paying, I think, with all due respect, I might be off the market, but a million dollars for that type of work. A million dollars. And the city is important. I think that's important for town planning and all those things that go with it. The point for us though, is that we wanted the ghostly forms of the cities. To show what happened after. At the time of first settlement and up to the present. We wanted to say that where your city is below those bricks and mortar is a connection for First Nations people, whoever that might be in Sydney, it's Gadigal, in Brisbane it's the Turrbal, Yuggera people, Melbourne we know who that mob is. In Perth, it's the Wajuk, the Nyoongar people and others. In every town is traditional and the group that we want to honour. And we want to say that, "Hey this city is here," but now don't forget First Nations were there before. And the point of the city models is they were hard to get. We're focused on those urban areas. People think of Indigenous people being out there somewhere. They celebrate Ayer's Rock or Arnhem Land, but I feel like the vast majority of our people, 70-80% you'll find them living and trying to make a go of their lives in the cities and regional towns. And their connection and their identity is just as important as anybody else, which we're all striving to make sense of in this difficult time.

VT: And it's quite striking to say, there's the ghost of the present. And then as they disappear, you actually really get a sense of where you are. And I think it's a really strong point to say it wasn't there all the time and for a hell of a long time before they were there, it's ...

BL: If I could just add, we spent a lot of time doing historical research and of place, of sites, of objects of significance, trying to grab the recipe and put them back in the context of country where they belong. And so the work we do is not Mickey Mouse. It's very carefully thought of, we're trying to, when we talk about a Songline, we're talking about a track that might have been walked. A track that might've been sung. And if we were to play a dozen of those videos that you saw - you just saw one from Shannon - if I show you a dozen, there's a recurring theme that comes out of these speakers, my countrymen, about that connection to country, in all different ways. There's one moving one, which I should have shared with you Vincent, about Aunty Beverly Head who hugs a bunya tree. Now bunya tree is a feasting space. Have you heard about the bunya nut festival up in Queensland, up in the hinterland there, the Great Dividing Range. And it's a wonderful story she told. It is moving and even though we do this work, this serious game work, it's that depth of knowledge, that depth of the story that we want to capture, and that instills a sense of identity in the virtual that we're reconstructing.

VT: Well, I think let's sort of move, into that a bit deeper. We just have, I might play the video for Barani video that depicts the Sydney area now. And we'll talk a bit about that. [Plays video]

I've got, I've got a range of questions coming in, but I want to talk about the production. I want to focus on the tech side here, Brett. I know there's a mixture of in game footage and animation and other images that you put in there, but I want us to look at some of the technical aspects. I know you've included some motion capture in there. Is that right?

BL: Yeah. Well, all the characters that you see moving are all motion captured. You see the second dancer on that dance? With the curly hair? That's me.

VT: I recognised you, sorry.

BL: Well, they're all different dancers and we brought them all in doing the same dance at a different pace and you can notice them out of sync, so they're not the same person. And so they will do different things, it's all good. It's fun. That was so rewarding. If you you'll see there's a shot there. I think I sent you about the motion capture suits. We put all the little dots on our bodies and the guy - I don't know who was singing that one - one of that fellas was singing, but I haven't seen that for a while. It looked pretty good. I think the work about [inaudible], I think is important too. What we did with, those words were planted on site. So that was the surveillance photography of the day, those oil paintings. And then I just took these painting as a guide and then created the work around it. And I think there was a criticism of that. People said, "did I get the rights to do it?" And I said, "Yeah, I should have." The other thing I should have done is got the written releases from the Aboriginal parties as well, who were present, but I didn't get the written releases either.

VT: That would have been tricky. I think if we got images of the MoCap, we can show people. I think they're pretty fascinating. They sort of talk about the production process in game-making quite nicely. We've not? That's okay. We can move on.

BL: It's the MoCap stuff, so....

VT: I think it was quite nice seeing you there working with the performers, actors, I suppose, dancers?

BL: Yeah.

VT: And it speaks a lot to the storytelling process, I think, because you're actually, you're really getting down to the nuts and bolts, if you like in their niche. There's you?

BL: Yeah.

VT: Dancing?

BL: Yeah. [inaudible], I call it "blood in the digital". So it's proper Aboriginal people doing it and then making it work, making it authentic. Literally while we're doing this show, I just got another call from three groups who want to do the motion capture sessions. All right. So that might, I think too, seeing it at the end is really important, but the journey of getting there is also important. There's a real healing. I find if you ever want to get to one of these sessions, Vincent, see it. It's really quite important. And I feel so chuffed when the feedback I get from my own people, when we do this, it is just important. I mean, it's good to do the storytelling and sharing with others, but I just love the process too.

VT: It's great to get the real essence in using the technology to what we go in and play in the end. It's fantastic. I think also you getting that technology use going like crazy. And I think you've also used weather data is that right? You've got live weather data?

BL: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean with the sky, you see the clouds and the blue skies and whatnot, looking at your phone, we all know that you can get weather data on your phone. When you want the whether you can get the weather data. So it was just not very far removed to actually link the sky to the time of day. And then thinking about what weather patterns might have been. So we can actually program the weather, based on previous weather types. And you can go back over the span of it even a year and look at that data. And then it tends to be, it tends to be the same sort of weather, for us here in Brisbane, it tends to get really windy around August. I don't know about you guys down there. It gets really windy. So you know that there's a big wind blowing and you can always ... generally at the Brisbane Ekka, people sell kites because it's always windy. Weather does affect the emotions. But for the work that we're doing, having real weather data does matter. Because you know that we want to see rain falling at a certain time a year, because at a certain period of time, you would go off to the trees where they've had a big soaking, then cut the back away for a canoe. So even though people say, "What are you bothered with the weather now?" Well because it's culture, it reflects the authenticity of our cultural activities at that particular point when the weather's like that.

VT: Right. Yeah. Yeah. I think we've got some images of some of the animals that you've got. You've got quite a lot of animals and with the AI. And I think we saw they've got some great physics as well, I've noticed.

BL: Yeah. Yeah. We're trying to make the snakes in the world attack you if you get too close. We're doing very rudimentary AI for the animals. All right. But what we want to do is we want to look at ... my dream is that each one of the animals actually respond as they might do in the wild. Just with a bit of authenticity. You know how at certain times a year, you're not to walk in the bush because the snakes are a bit more cranky than usual? You know what I'm saying? You get it? So we want to reflect that now that might be good for us in real-time today that we are concerned about when we go bush-walking, to be weary what time of the year it is, as snakes are around. But for First Nations people, we also knew that. That was our own science. We knew when to be wary, or to be more careful to make sure that our Jarjums were carefully on the track and not wandering off where they shouldn't be. There's logic in that. And then once you deal with that animal you can deal with many others. So all our animals are looking pretty good. We're trying to deal with fur shaders, w're trying to look at poly counts as you can guess. We're trying to get as real as we can, within the limit of the technology that we have to manage carefully. Which is like in any game development has the same problem. If anybody's got better ways, I'm all ears as well.

VT: You've mentioned before that you're now moving into VR and AR, which I imagine is a further technical technological leap. Can you tell us what VR and AR that you've been making lately?

BL: Well, that video shot of Barani, that's actually a VR experience. So that video was just something to promote for the event, but the true experience is VR. And that's all those works. You actually walk in there and you actually throw the spear with those two fellas on the rock bed at I think it's a mullet along the Parramatta river. The actual people in the dance who're actually on the outskirts of that dance watching those dancers. And then at that fireplace, when the [inaudible] is coming up, you're actually sitting at the fireplace, watching the [inaudible] come up and then be offered. Every one of those scenes we tried to break down the social order, the cultural social order of those events. And that was in VR. So, we did that show at Australia Day this year at the overseas visitors terminal, back in January, not March if you get my drift. And it was a good event, we had nine tantrums. People didn't have enough time in there - that wasn't the kids, it was the adults.

VT: And so you've got AR now ... you've created Maiwar AR, is that, right?

BL: Yes you did. Yeah. That's been developed. It's looking good. We don't have it really launched yet. It's a bit more work with ... the beauty of this building virtual worlds is that the assets you build within it, the planes or the landscapes that you're building them, can actually be taken out of that extract and then put in another ... or repurposed in a sense. So, it's not really too much more work. It is some work, but not a whole lot of work given that we've got the assets there to be used. So, that dance you saw in the, one of the videos, we've got about 12 of those dances done. So we can pick any number of those dances at the right time of day and then put them into the AR. And then you can see those dancers perform on country, where there might have been like ghosts from the past.

VT: Can I just ask when you talk about AR, so people can grab their phone ... and is that right? And be on land and get the real experience?

BL: Get to a site, put the camera up and that camera will trigger an AR experience.

VT: That's pretty exciting. So I think we've got a video of the, Whadjuk, is that the most recent AR?

BL: Yeah. That's a VR project actually.

VT: Oh yeah. Okay. Yeah. And if people want to visit the website, your website, it's virtualsonglines.org. You can find links to all these works. Can we just see that video that indicates that sort of overview of the experience? [plays video].

BL: Yep. That work actually, Whadjuk, that was on show and it's still on show anywhere in Perth. That's in Perth. That actually is touring in Digi Native, in Canada at the moment. Is in a big VR international film festival. So I think we're up for an award, I'm led to believe.

VT: That's a "serious game" award. Is that right?

BL: It's for cultural games. Yes.

VT: I understand that they do what they called docu-games as well?

BL: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's it. Yeah.

VT: Okay. We haven't got that much more time, Brett, but I've got a bunch of questions that people have asked that I'd like to get to. And definitely let you say your piece too, if you wish. But, so I've got a lot of people are really interested in what's being published and when stuff's being published. You might want to indicate what might be coming up.

BL: Yep. Well, the big push we're going for at the moment is a project with the town of 1770 up at Agnes Waters. Now we're gonna do that showcase at a festival up there. So that's a Queensland thing. You know what I'm saying? That's a good show. The other one that's in Brisbane, if anybody's in Brisbane, there's a showcase at the Cross River Rail Experience Center that's in Albert Street in the city, in the CBD. If you actually want to see one of our videos play out, there's a show down in the Australian National Maritime Museum. And that's a showcase. And there was obviously a video that was on show at William Station as well, that we're working for, knowing that we're in this difficult time, is that we've done this pivot at the very beginning of the year where we're trying to make a multi-user serious cultural heritage game for a number of our regional towns and capital cities. So the very first one of those will be really ready to go I feel in December. So we've been on it for a while. So we've taken all these assets. So if people have got some patience, that'll be when we're gonna have it ready. We'll have it there earlier we're hoping, but we've got to do a bit more work on testing and refinement and you can get the guess how difficult that might be, and as you know, Vincent, we're talking to you about Kulin as well, doing something in Kulin, which is similar with a fella down there called Jayden Williams. So all up, once we get the drop on 1770, you'll see that in a very short amount of time, even though we're gonna do is change the terrain, we'll have 1770, Sunshine coast, Brisbane, Sydney, Lake Macquarie, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide and Perth as multi-user virtual heritage environments. Even Ipswich and Oaky as well. And that's a big suite of landscapes, a whole lot of cultural heritage survival guide activities. And we're really hoping for the first week launch in December.

VT: Right, so we've also got questions: when do you think the cultural survival games will be able to be used in schools? And so they're talking about being implemented in education.

BL: I think around that same time. We are working with schools and we are talking to teachers. The thing about this, the games, we really have to make sure that they align as closely as we can to the ACARA curriculum framework and we're literally working on that as we speak and looking at the alignments. And most people will tell you that they fairly well fit, but we just want to be doubly sure. And in playing the game, it's not as simple like hour or so play. We're making a persistent world that plays out over the span of a month. 28 days. That's a long time and we're going from full moon to full moon. So the learning outcomes in an immersive three-dimensional world where you can walk in any direction and in a sense, follow a hero's quest, there's a real learning in that for any young person. And I think the next question might people ask is, "Which years might I be focusing on?" We're focusing on upper primary and lower secondary, in the first instance. I think those ones, we can easily fit in no time.

VT: That's really valuable and exciting. I've got quite a serious question in relation to that. It's how are you ensuring the knowledge passed on to non-Indigenous audience is one, allowed and two, respected and not performed? And so I'm keen to learn about how you're tracking those things.

BL: Yeah. Well the first thing is that when we take any knowledge, we're taking what might be public domain in the first instance. So the question might be that, "What about sacred, sacred?" That's always ... we want to be careful on that. We don't want to do anything that's not allowed. And secondly, whenever I do a project for any one of the regions that I deal with, I go to the TO's (Traditional Owners) originally. I generally go to land councils and get them onsite. I did a lot of work, setting up a lot of Indigenous media things in the past. So I'd been around for a while. So most people know me as Brett, in Indigenous media. I've worked since the 90s on that. And plus, I'm just an Aboriginal fellow and you gotta be careful on that. I think there's no doubt that we have stories to tell. And this is only one medium. It's not the only medium. If someone wanted to write a book, they can write a book. If someone wanted to write a poem, they could write a poem. If they want to do a play, they can do a play. If they want to do a film, they can do a film. My stuff is just this game's medium. And in effect I'm working with local people is whatever I can and asking them, "Hey, what do you think you want to be involved?" And if anybody's out there who wants to be involved, please tell me. But let me say this. If there's any concern, any problems with me working in an area and people don't want it, I won't do it. I'll just go somewhere else. And eventually as they see that we do it right over time, I hope that they'll come around. I'm not in a rush. There's a lot to do. There's a lot to do. So hopefully I'm doing it proper. With protocol, with respect, with authenticity. I'm trying.

VT: Well, on a less deep note, what platform are you using to create the world?

BL: We're using Unity mostly and we're using Unity and a lot of other tools. So it's 3D Studio Max, Maya, we're using Photoshop on occasions or with the textures naturally. We're using Premiere for video production. We're using a GH5 camera with a very good lens for the video recording. We're doing motion capture. We're using software. There's like a plethora of things we're using. But Unity is a game engine we're using at the moment. It is the fastest way to go forward. And it's a pretty well enhanced Unity with about 30 or 40 different packages. And then once we use Unity, then we code a lot of our own code. So we might put VS in front of a piece of line of C+ or I'll just say C# code. And then we've adapted lots. There's a lot of coding that we use. I've got five people coding as we speak. Yeah.

VT: Right. Someone asked about how you get to capture the music or the audio?

BL: Yeah, this is another yarn if you want one. I've just got a guy called Simon Woods at the moment and I'm really happy to work with him. I don't really want music in there. I've got some music in the videos, but what I want is ambient sound. I'm trying to build a ... the music is a real struggle for me. I'm trying to get an idea of what that might be and it's actually not music. It's more like a sound. I really love Hans Zimmer. And I think that sort of stuff works, but I'm trying to do it where there's no instrument. So try to pick a thing that's taking away those constructions, to a sound that is more spiritual of the land. Now I've been grappling with the sound question for literally longer than I have been with the game design. And so how do you respect not only the sound of the space, but how do you geospatially and temporarily manage the audio at a site over time and space? We're going too far now?

VT: That's a great area. I'd love delve just into that. I don't think we've really got enough time. I've got one more question. Whereabouts are you doing MoCap. Are you doing it around the nation?

BL: I'm doing it at QUT at the moment. That's the easiest way. I did have plans to do it across the nation. We did some over in WA at Perth at Curtin, I believe. And we're looking at other Universities that can collaborate because that's where the kit is. Everyone knows in MoCap that studios can be very expensive. And we certainly don't have the money to set up a MoCap studio. But then again, when you do set up a studio, it's about the authentic dancers from space or place. So when you get the dance, you got to fly someone up from Sydney or Melbourne or Broken Hill, or Columella or South Australia, Port Augusta even. You know what I'm saying? It's very hard. Everybody should realise we're not funded. We're not grant funded. You know that? We don't have a grant for what we do. It's all pulled up by the shoes ... How do they say that? What's the word?

VT: Shoe strings? Shoe laces? Yeah.

BL: It's all sponsored. So we get a bit of money from here and a bit of money from there, and we just slowly interact and live along step-by-step. So you see what you're seeing from the smell of an oily rag. Yeah.

VT: Well, Brett, I've got to say, it's incredibly fascinating seeing what you've done and what you're doing. And it's really exciting to see that the progress you're making with ... well, it's huge progress with the smell of an oily rag, as you say ... but I'd like to thank you very much for telling us all about it tonight. And yeah, I think all of us will wish you all the best for the future and looking forward to seeing your work out there when we can.

BL: Happy to share it, always happy to share, love it. Thanks, Vince. Appreciate it.

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ACMI - Preserving Indigenous culture through VR: Brett Leavy's Virtual Songlines

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Narrator "While we may no longer be the title holders to this land across which Maiwar meanders, the Jagera, the Turrbal and the Yuggera are still connected in a spiritual way to this country. The land is special as it holds the memories, the traditions, the culture and the hopes of our first peoples.

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Welcome to this web-based tutorial on the basics of shooting a video.

A good video production begins with thorough planning, even before you pick up your video camera for the shoot. Have you given your "talent" sufficient time to learn the script? Have you visited the location of the shoot in advance to ensure that external distractions will be at a minimum?

The success of your production also depends on the quality of the shots that you have captured in your video camera. So it is important that before you shoot a video, you know some composition basics.

By following some basic rules, you can create a more professional video. In this tutorial, you will learn about the different types of shot sizes and how to compose your shots. You will also learn how to set-up a simple interview. In addition, there are pointers on how to get steady shots and shoot with editing in mind.

So let's get started and begin with planning the shoot!

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Welcome to this web-based tutorial on the basics of shooting a video. A good video production begins with thorough planning, even before you pick up your video camera for the shoot. Have you given your "talent" sufficient time to learn the script?

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Five ways to increase the effectiveness of instructional video | SpringerLink

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Five ways to increase the effectiveness of instructional video | SpringerLink

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Abstract

This paper reviews five ways to increase the effectiveness of instructional video and one way not to use instructional video. People learn better from an instructional video when the onscreen instructor draws graphics on the board while lecturing (dynamic drawing principle), the onscreen instructor shifts eye gaze between the audience and the board while lecturing (gaze guidance principle), the lesson contains prompts to engage in summarizing or explaining the material (generative activity principle), a demonstration is filmed from a first-person perspective (perspective principle), or subtitles are added to a narrated video that contains speech in the learner's second language (subtitle principle). People do not learn better from a multimedia lesson when interesting but extraneous video is added (seductive details principle). Additional work is needed to determine the conditions under which these principles apply and the underlying learning mechanisms.

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References

Cuban, L. (1986). Teachers and machines: the classroom use of technology since 1920. New York: Teachers College Press.

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Fiorella, L., Stull, A., Kuhlmann, A., & Mayer, R. E. (2019b). Fostering generative learning from video lessons: benefits of instructor-generated drawings and learner-generated explanations. J Educ Psychol 00, 000-000.

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Orgeron, D., Orgeron, M., & Streible, D. (Eds.). (2012). Learning with the lights off: Educational film in the United States. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Robbins, P., & Aydele, M. (2009). A short primer on situated cognition. In P. Robbins & M. Aydede (Eds.), The Cambridge handbook of situated cognition (pp. 3-10). New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Saettler, P. (2004). The evolution of American educational technology. Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.

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Acknowledgements

Preparation of this paper was supported by grant from the Office of Naval Research N000141612046, Grants 1252346 and 1561728 from the National Science Foundation, and Grant 10007432 from the Spencer Foundation.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

University of California, Santa Barbara, USA

Richard E. Mayer & Andrew Stull

University of Georgia, Athens, USA

Logan Fiorella

Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA

Richard E. Mayer

Contributions

All authors have contributed to this original research review paper. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Richard E. Mayer.

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Mayer, R.E., Fiorella, L. & Stull, A. Five ways to increase the effectiveness of instructional video. Education Tech Research Dev 68, 837-852 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-020-09749-6
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Keywords

Instructional video

Video lectures

Video demonstrations

Instructional design

Multimedia learning

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Five ways to increase the effectiveness of instructional video - Educational technology research and development

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This paper reviews five ways to increase the effectiveness of instructional video and one way not to use instructional video.

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FlashBack Express - the best free screen recorder

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FlashBack Express - the best free screen recorder

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FlashBack - try the best screen recorder

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FlashBack Express - the best free screen recorder

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FlashBack Express free screen recorder captures your PC screen, webcam and sounds. Upload to Youtube or save as a video file

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7 DIY Filmmaking Hacks for When You're Stuck at Home

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7 DIY Filmmaking Hacks for When You're Stuck at Home

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Being stuck in your house doesn't mean you can't still make cinematic films.

March 2020 will go down as the longest month ever recorded in the history of humankind. Why? Because a third of the world's population is on lockdown due to the novel coronavirus.

We filmmakers are no longer able to go to set, travel the world, or shoot in literally any location other than our own homes, which means that we have to get creative with what we have available around us if we want to make films while on quarantine.

In this video, Yannick from Cinecom has shared 7 DIY hacks that will help you turn everyday household items into nifty filmmaking gear-so, you know-it won't matter that all of your gear is collecting dust in a studio or warehouse somewhere.

Check it out below:

Whether you're stuck at home due to COVID-19, an empty gas tank, or a general sense of malaise or ennui, these hacks will not only get your creative juices flowing but allow you to create some interesting (and pretty stylish) cinematic effects.

Here's a quick list of the hacks used in the video.

Collander Cookie: Use a colander/strainer or any kitchen utensil that has a bunch of holes, as a cucoloris to create interesting shapes with light.

TP Roll Extension Tube: Want to shoot some macro shots? Use an empty toilet paper roll as an extension tube. Just be careful around your camera sensor.

Door Slider: Missing your camera slider? Well, if you have some clamps or mounts (or a lot of gaff tape), you can mount your camera to a door and swing it open to get some sweet shots.

Iron Atmosphere: You probably don't have your haze/smoke machine at home. Use the steam function on your household iron to produce puffs of that sweet, sweet atmosphere.

Chair Dolly: An oldie but a goodie. Plop your camera on your rolling desk chair to get some great dolly shots. (Bonus points if it also swivels!)

DIY Particle Blaster: Need a cool particle effect? Put down some flour, cornstarch, or any other fine-grained material and use a blow dryer to blow the particles into your shot.

Slow-Mo Drop: All you need to capture this sweet slow motion tracking shot is a big, soft place for your precious camera to land. A bed with a fluffed comforter works. Make sure you shoot at a high frame rate to capture it all in slow-mo.

What are some other great DIY hacks that filmmakers can use while stuck in their homes? Let us know down in the comments!

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7 DIY Filmmaking Hacks for When You're Stuck at Home

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Being stuck in your house doesn't mean you can't still make cinematic films. March 2020 will go down as the longest month ever recorded in the history of humankind. Why? Because a third of the world's population is on lockdown due to the novel coronavirus.

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(1) 8 tips for a better Welcome video | LinkedIn

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(1) 8 tips for a better Welcome video | LinkedIn

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With the continued shift from face-to-face to online learning (including blended and/or flipped models of delivery) teachers, facilitators and academics are increasingly asked to face the camera and capture a Welcome video. After capturing approximately 70 welcome videos so far this year (across a r

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Kdenlive is an open source video editor. The project was started around 2003. Kdenlive is built on Qt and the KDE Frameworks libraries. Most of the video processing is done by the MLT Framework, which relies on many other open source projects like FFmpeg, frei0r, movit, ladspa, sox, etc...

Our software was designed to answer most needs, from basic video editing to professional work.

Kdenlive is developed by a small team and new contributors are welcome.
Technologies

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Kdenlive is an open source video editor. The project was started around 2003. Kdenlive is built on Qt and the KDE Frameworks libraries. Most of the video processing is done by the MLT Framework, which relies on many other open source projects like FFmpeg, frei0r, movit, ladspa, sox, etc...

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Using the cARdiac ECG Augmented Reality Application to enhance student understanding – ASCILITE TELall Blog

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Using the cARdiac ECG Augmented Reality Application to enhance student understanding – ASCILITE TELall Blog

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The aim of the cARdiac ECG augmented reality (AR) application was to create a realistic, three-dimensional, technology-enhanced learning environment where students can conceptualise both the underlying physiology of the normal beating heart, and understand the pathology leading to critical heart events. We wanted to use the AR technology to assist students make the cognitive leap linking previously taught two-dimensional textbook content with real world situations via a 3D model.

The cARdiac ECG app has the capacity to enhance teaching and learning in both small and large class sizes, i.e. allowing individuals the opportunity to learn and revise prior to entering small group classes (simulation, tutorial) and large group (lecture) settings. Individuals that need further revision, based on assessment results within the app itself, or as a result of real patient learning encounters such as during clinical placement, can revisit the learning experience anytime, anywhere in a fashion tailored to their specific needs.

Using the cARdiac ECG app students can see what is happening inside the heart where the animated scenarios display animation and traces in real time with overlays and labels. In this way, the AR platform creates authentic learning opportunities through an engaging interactive model. A mobile device app was selected to trigger the AR experience because this facilitates portable, just-in-time learning that students can access in clinical settings and places outside the university classroom. This is recognised in the 2017 Horizon report where it is acknowledged that using mobile devices for learning, "leverages this technology to make learning portable, meaning a learner can have access to materials virtually anywhere" and "continues to gain traction in education because it is particularly useful for learning as it enables people to learn and experience new concepts wherever they are, often across multiple devices" (Adams Becker, et al., p40).

Feedback from students indicates that they greatly value being able to interact with the virtual heart model and visualise this in 3D. These features were instrumental in students having an enhanced and engaging learning experience. Student comments on their use of the cARdiac ECG app included; "It was good because it allowed us to rotate the heart and see it as a moving 3D model" and "Seeing different + changing regions of the heart that are only appreciated in 3D" and "More immersive than a textbook. Would be good support to be able to use at home for revision" and "Showing the actual heart with corresponding ECGs - It is engaging." To evaluate the app, a reference group of medical students were asked to rate whether they felt confident in applying and understanding ECGs on a scale of 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The average score prior to using cARdiac ECG was 2.45, and after using cARdiac ECG this score increased to an average of 4.18, which represents a highly significant increase in student confidence (p=0.001 on paired T testing). We believe these results reflect the positive impact created by the app, which has led to high levels of student engagement and discussion as they talk about their experience and new understandings.

The pedagogy of the cARdiac ECG app features three modules, Explore, Learn, and Assess - the Explore module is free, but most of the content delivered through the Learn and Assess modules require an access code that is currently only available to Deakin University students. In the Explore mode, users can view a 3D heart model and see a cross-section with labels of parts of the heart, the firing of electrical impulses and the blood flow through atria, ventricles and valves. Students can see what is happening inside the heart, as the animated scenario is presented in real time with overlays and labels that can be toggled on and off, according to learning needs. The Learn module provides access to normal and abnormal scenarios of heart function with a 3D model that is animated and labelled, a practical exercise where correct placement of electrodes are positioned on a 3D figure that can be transparent to see rib structure, and a 3D view of which angle through the heart specific leads view. Students can then undertake the Assessment module and complete a multiple-choice twenty question quiz, a task involving labelling parts of the heart and ECG electrode lead placement test. Once completed, users submit their quiz answers and are given feedback as well as their score.

While achieving successful outcomes, there were a number of lessons to be learned from the development of the cARdiac ECG app. After scoping the project and beginning work, the team realised that we'd neglected to include a finer level of feedback in the Assess Module. We realised that students would appreciate knowing which questions they answered incorrectly, rather than just knowing their total score. We realised that another shortcoming was that we have a fixed set of assessment questions and believe a larger number of MCQs would allow us to present a random set of questions. Students have also mentioned that the use of a marker can make using the app more difficult that it has to be. Unfortunately, any changes like this to the app were out of scope for the cARdiac ECG project, but we are incorporating functionality such as marker-less AR, a differential grading system with instant feedback, as well as an editable question database into the new oculAR SIM application we are currently developing.

We will be conducting a webinar called The cARdiac ECG Augmented Reality application: the story and live demonstration, on Thursday 16 August at 12pm in which Colin will provide more details on the cARdiac ECG project, give a demonstration of the functions of the app and provide opportunities for further discussion and questions.

To register, visit the ASCILITE website and select "register" at the bottom of the page so that we can email you a reminder prior to the event and also send you a link to the video recording after the session.
References
Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Davis, A., Freeman, A., Hall Giesinger, C., & Ananthanarayanan, V. (2017). NMC Horizon Report: 2017 Higher Education Edition (pp. 1-60). Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.
Acknowledgements
I wish to acknowledge the other members of the cARdiac ECG team from the School of Medicine:

Dr Karen D'Souza
Mr Peter Bright
Ms Sarah Burgess

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Using the cARdiac ECG Augmented Reality Application to enhance student understanding

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The aim of the cARdiac ECG augmented reality (AR) application was to create a realistic, three-dimensional, technology-enhanced learning environment where students can conceptualise both the underlying physiology of the normal beating heart, and understand the pathology leading to critical heart events.

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Free stock photos, free for commercial use, no attribution required, Creative Commons CC0 licenses.

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25 Basic Camera Terms All Beginner Filmmakers Should Know

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25 Basic Camera Terms All Beginner Filmmakers Should Know

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If you want to use a camera, you're gonna want to know this terminology.

Filmmaking might be a creative art form, but it's also incredibly technical, which can be pretty intimidated for those who are taking their first dive into the process. If you're new to filmmaking, especially if you're inexperienced at working with cameras, a good place to start is boning up on all the essential camera terminology. In this video, the team over at Apalapse goes over 25 key terms that will help you hit the ground running when it comes time to shoot. Check it out below:

Granted, this is super basic stuff, so if you're an experienced filmmaker you can probably skip this article. However, this is going to be an essential lesson for beginners who don't know much, if anything, about important concepts like the "Three Pillars of Photography" (aperture, shutter speed, and ISO), depth of field and bokeh, and dynamic range.

The video was made with photographers in mind, but the vast majority of these terms also apply to filmmakers. For example, you can probably ignore the bit about editing in Lightroom and Photoshop, as well as JPEG image mode, unless 1.) you want to shoot timelapses, or 2.) you just want to be an overachieving rockstar.

Here are the terms and concepts covered in the video, as well as some links to our own coverage in case you want to take a deeper dive:

Now that you know some basic camera terminology, go out an implement what you've learned!

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25 Basic Camera Terms All Beginner Filmmakers Should Know

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If you want to use a camera, you're gonna want to know this terminology. Filmmaking might be a creative art form, but it's also incredibly technical, which can be pretty intimidated for those who are taking their first dive into the process.

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Kaltura acquires interactive video startup Rapt Media | TechCrunch

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Kaltura acquires interactive video startup Rapt Media | TechCrunch

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Kaltura is expanding its enterprise video platform with the acquisition of Rapt Media.

Kaltura already offers support for some interactivity in videos, particularly with quizzes, but co-founder and CEO Ron Yekutiel predicted that this technology is going to become increasingly important: "The bigger play in the world of enterprise and the world of education is a play towards interactivity and personalization."

Kaltura isn't the only interactive video startup - for example, I've been impressed by the branching narratives powered by Eko. But Yekutiel said Rapt stood out because it offers true interactivity (not just adding a few buttons and links to a linear video) for marketing, education and HR. He also praised its "high availability and reliability with zero lag time."

In addition, Yekutiel said Kaltura customers had already expressed interest in integrating with Rapt, and he argued that the biggest benefit comes in bringing the technology into the broader Kaltura platform.

"We consider interactivity as one layer of this layer cake," Yekutiel said. "Nobody wants to connect to 20 technology companies for video ... They want to have one platform for all their video needs."

The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Rapt Media was founded in 2011 and has raised $12 million in funding from investors including Boulder Ventures. Yekutiel said Rapt team members will continue to work out of their office in Boulder, Colorado and bring the total Kaltura headcount to more than 450.

"What an honor it is for our vision and technology to be recognized by a video technology powerhouse like Kaltura," said Rapt Media founder and CEO Erika Trautman in the announcement. "I am excited that Rapt Media customers can now benefit from Kaltura's wide range of video solutions and easily expand their video strategy to support any use case that may arise today and in the future."

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Kaltura acquires interactive video startup Rapt Media

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Kaltura is expanding its enterprise video platform with the acquisition of Rapt Media. Kaltura already offers support for some interactivity in videos, particularly with quizzes, but co-founder and CEO Ron Yekutiel predicted that this technology is going to become increasingly important: "The bigger play in the world of enterprise and the world of education is a play towards interactivity and personalization."

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What makes a popular science video on YouTube

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What makes a popular science video on YouTube

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Hundreds of hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and hundreds of millions of hours are viewed daily, including many that cover areas of science. Despite this, if you want to use YouTube for science communication, reaching an audience is not always guaranteed.

We've analysed nearly 400 science communication videos to understand what the successful YouTube science communicators do - those with numerous subscribers - that less successful communicators do not.

So, here are seven things we found that can help you to communicate science on YouTube.

1. Choose your audience

This seems obvious, but it's not enough to say: "I want to make science communication videos." YouTube viewers watch videos for many reasons, and science communication is not a narrowly defined topic.

Take these four popular "science communication" videos from four very different channels. You only have to watch the first 10 seconds of each to realise these videos are aimed at different audiences.

Veritasium is a video version of a magazine article

How much of each video did you watch?

Once you know your target audience, stick with it. Channels with lots of subscribers generally stick to one version of science communication.

2. Deliver in style

Delivering information on video can take many styles. Generally, these formats fall into:

Each has its own advantages and disadvantages. For instance, vlogs can be done on a relatively low budget, but being in front of the camera may not appeal to you.

Nevertheless, the most important consideration for gaining subscribers is to connect with your audience.

Unless you plan on creating the next TED or Big Think, vlogging or voice-over animation is most effective.

3. Stay focused

Science is a broad topic area that is constantly being updated. Although you will not run out of material any time soon, don't try to cover everything either.

Most of the successful science channels address a relatively narrow subset of science topics. For instance, Numberphile is principally about mathematics, and MinutePhysics is about physics (though very few videos actually run for just a minute, they are short and to the point).

The tough decision for you is: do you cover topics you know well and risk jargonising your audience to death; or, do you cover topics you do not know well, requiring you to conduct more research to create each video?

4. Get to the point

Regardless of your feelings about the waning attention spans of internet users, the simple fact is the YouTube audience is not captive. If your video is not holding the viewer's attention, there are plenty of other videos that will. So, get to the point.

First, ditch the flashy introduction. As a viewer, we don't need you to introduce the video or the channel with some flashy logo or a 30 second preamble.

We know what the video is about, it's right there in the title. Just start talking, it's this simple.

Ditching the introduction becomes especially important if your videos have pre-roll adverts.

Second, talk faster. Speaking 100 to 150 words per minute is fine for a live audience presentation but your YouTube audience is different. You want to aim for conversational paced speech, about 180 words per minute.

Provided you are speaking clearly, if the audience misses something they can simply replay the video.

Lastly, your videos should be as long as necessary. But, your videos do not need to be less than 5 minutes, as is sometimes suggested.

We found no relationship between video length and views. Your video should be short enough to make its point, but long enough to make the point clearly for the target audience.

5. Be part of the community

One of the biggest blunders you can make is to treat YouTube as merely a video hosting platform.

YouTube is a participatory culture, and you need to be part of the community if you want to grow your channel. This means interacting with both the consumers and creators of content.

As you will see in the following video, top science YouTubers appear in each others' videos from time to time, and this benefits everyone involved.

6. Give the audience an anchor

A major driver of a channel's popularity is whether the channel has a consistent presenter from video to video.

Channels with regular communicators, such as SciShow, are significantly more popular than channels with changing presenters, such as RiAus. Even though RiAus features science stars like Brian Cox or Brian Schmidt.

This is because having just one person appearing in your videos makes it is easier for your audience to connect with your channel. They know exactly what they will get each time they watch a video.

7. Be a person not a company

This point amalgamates many issues, and is hugely encouraging for individual creators.

YouTube channels that are extensions of existing brands, for instance universities or TV broadcasters, are significantly less popular than channels such as SmarterEveryDay that are born and grown on YouTube.

There are numerous reasons for why YouTube grown channels are more popular - most reasons simply reduce to connecting with the audience. Channels created by an individual or small group have an authenticity that is difficult to recreate within corporate bureaucracy.

Successful science YouTubers keep their channels human and maintain authenticity by doing "Science Plus". Science plus the video creator's character. Science plus the quirky interest the creator brings to the topic.

Just check out this ViHart video on mathematics.

It's science plus personality.

And finally...

YouTube will continue to be a valuable tool for communicating science. If you want to create science videos but think starting now is pointless because there are too many other channels, then you'd be wrong.

Re-read this article, especially point number 7, then find your science plus angle and give it a go.

Building an audience will take time, but stick with it.

AsapSCIENCE, one of the biggest science channels with 3.5 million subscribers, posted its first video only 2.5 years ago, while BrainCraft has been going for just over a year and has already reached 65,000 subscribers, with one recent video looking at how the brain reacts to seeing movies.

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What makes a popular science video on YouTube

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Hundreds of hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, and hundreds of millions of hours are viewed daily, including many that cover areas of science. Despite this, if you want to use YouTube for science communication, reaching an audience is not always guaranteed.

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The Magic Carpet Carbon Fibre is a versatile, feather-light option for the intrepid time-lapse photographer and filmmaker. Endlessly extendable, and packed away to 60cm/2' sections, the Magic Carpet Carbon Fibre means never having to sacrifice camera gear for suitcase space again.

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Think virtual reality surgery is a thing of the future? Think again… | Jisc

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Think virtual reality surgery is a thing of the future? Think again… | Jisc

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I'm on a mission to merge the world of medicine, global education and immersive technology, and here's why...

Have you ever wondered what it might be like to be a surgeon? For many, working in medicine was a childhood dream. It was certainly one of mine, and now I'm a cancer surgeon at The Royal London and St Bartholomew's Hospital.

I never thought that I'd be the 'most watched surgeon in human history'

I never thought though, that I'd be the 'most watched surgeon in human history', but hey, technology is full of surprises.

"Digital is on our side"

An enormous amount of people worldwide don't have access to safe, affordable surgery. If the outlook is going to improve, we're going to need a lot more medical professionals worldwide, and fast. Luckily though, digital is on our side.

I'm the co-creator of Medical Realities, the world's first interactive surgical training module. Our company mission is to solve big problems in surgical training using immersive technology. We use virtual reality to train surgeons, saving money, and scaling surgical education to make it accessible to everyone.

Sounds pretty exciting right? That's because it is, and you can even try the platform for free to gain an insight into the operating theatre for yourself.

Livestreaming surgery

In 2013, I got my hands on a shiny pair of Google Glass (much earlier than most), and used them to livestream the removal of a liver cancer from a surgeon's point of view to over 13,000 students from all over the world.

The great thing about them being that students can ask questions live, and everyone gets a good sight of what's happening

There have been many more livestreams since then; the great thing about them being that students can ask questions live, and everyone gets a good sight of what's happening. Often in the traditional training operating theatre students end up craning their necks for hours, and bobbing around to try and get the best view.

A future full of potential

The module is only the start of the technology revolution for medical field though, there's a lot more to come.

Imagine a world where surgical students can actually perform computer simulations of operations that look and sound very, very real. There might even be gloves that give students real-time feedback so it truly feels like they're making incisions, or holding a surgical implement.

Imagine a world where surgical students can actually perform computer simulations of operations that look and sound very, very real

Training could become so much easier, and so much more accessible globally, all thanks to technology.

Meet me at Digifest

I'm happy to report that this year I'm a keynote speaker at Digifest, Jisc's annual celebration of digital and technology being used to enhance and transform education - something that as you can tell, I'm enthusiastic about to say the least.

I'm looking forward to hearing from other people on the ground about the latest ways that technology is being used to overcome challenges around the education sector, and trying out the latest edtech too. See you there!

About the author

Professor Shafi Ahmed

Professor Shafi Ahmed is a multi award winning surgeon, teacher, futurist, innovator, entrepreneur and an evangelist in augmented and virtual reality. Read his full biography on our Digifest 2018 pages.

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Think virtual reality surgery is a thing of the future? Think again...

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I'm on a mission to merge the world of medicine, global education and immersive technology, and here's why... Have you ever wondered what it might be like to be a surgeon? For many, working in medicine was a childhood dream. It was certainly one of mine, and now I'm a cancer surgeon at The Royal London and St Bartholomew's Hospital.

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360 storytelling: tips from 5-time Staff Picked company RYOT on Vimeo

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360 storytelling: tips from 5-time Staff Picked company RYOT on Vimeo

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Newsflash: Vimeo 360 is alive and kickin'. Built for 360 filmmakers, our high-quality 360 player allows you to upload up to 8K in immersive videos. Your audience simply clicks play, uses their mouse or arrow keys to explore, and the story unfolds before them. Pretty cool, if we do say so ourselves. And the gang over at RYOT thinks so too!

RYOT, an immersive, human-rights-inclined media company and five-time(!!!) Staff-Picked team dropped their latest 360 gem on us in March. Their incredible short, Bashir's Dream, centers around 14-year-old Qusai Bashir Masaama, a Syrian refugee living in Jordan, who is now confined to a wheelchair after being shot in the back by a sniper at the age of 10. RYOT used a 360 format to tell his story in both live action and animation, and the results are breathtaking and poignant.

RYOT's Head of Post Production, Travis Cook, has long been politically-focused with his work. He previously shot and edited 360 news and documentary videos covering Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign, Fidel Castro's death, and the water protectors of Standing Rock. Most recently, he served as the Head of VR for Hulu's first 360 sketch comedy show, "Virtually Mike and Nora," and he is an Executive Producer on Hulu's first 360 documentary. He's seriously a wealth of 360 video knowledge and wonderfully agreed to answer some of our questions about RYOT's experience and process with 360 video.

What was your first 360 video and how did it go?
Our first ever 360 video captured the immediate aftermath of the 2015 Nepal earthquake. Shot on a six-camera GoPro rig, we ran into every technical problem you could imagine. One of the cameras stopped working, we had a few smudged lenses, some settings were wrong, but, despite all that, audiences reacted so viscerally to the finished product. The experience of standing among the earthquake's devastation was more powerful than we anticipated. We immediately knew we stumbled onto something special.

What are some key differences between standard filmmaking and 360 filmmaking?
When we first started working in the 360 video space, we quickly realized we needed to rethink every part of the filmmaking process. Even the most basic elements of shooting documentaries present new challenges. How do you execute an on-camera interview? How does your sound guy record natural sound during a scene while staying out of the shot? Can you go handheld with your VR rig? How can you move the camera without making the viewer barf?

Where standard filmmaking relies heavily on visual creativity, 360 filmmaking centers more on spatial creativity. Take the time when shooting 360 video to pick the best spot to place your rig so there is something interesting to look at in all directions.

How does it affect pre and post production?
Because the technologies surrounding VR advance so quickly, we change our workflows every 2-3 months. We must constantly adapt to new camera rigs, new stitching techniques, new software, changing audio formats, and evolving delivery specs. It's exciting, but it's also a pain in the ass. We often spend more time troubleshooting than actually creating something.

Anyone working in 360 video will tell you the phrase, "we'll fix it in post," is the scariest thing to hear. So many of the tools a standard filmmaker has at their disposal wont easily translate to 360 filmmaking. And many of the clever fixes for shooting mistakes don't apply, either. You can't hide bad footage behind clever b-roll, you can't edit around an actor's bad performance, and - just like it goes in any creative project - everything is going to take longer than you think.

What equipment or software do you like to work with when creating 360 content?
There is not a one-size-fits-all option for selecting what 360 rig to use. Using a system with a cloud-based or a nodal self-stitching option is a nice perk, especially if you're up against a tight deadline (we have had good experiences with Google's Jump stitching platform).

Thirsting for more 360 video knowledge? Check out Vimeo's Fundamentals of 360, for great tips and tricks!
For post production, we find Adobe Creative Suite has the best tools for working with 360 video. However, editing can still be particularly challenging. As much as you can, watch your cuts in a headset. Pacing and timing feel very different between watching flattened panoramic video on your desktop, versus watching it in a Samsung Gear VR or Oculus.

Any advice for aspiring 360 filmmakers?
Keep experimenting. All of us working in the 360 space are beta testers for this new art form. The storytelling language is being written and rewritten every day, and all of us have the opportunity to chart new ground. Keep reading and researching, and watch a lot of VR. Remember it took 20 years from the first time people watched film in a theater to when the first feature length film was made. It's anyone's guess where these new technologies will lead, but every time a filmmaker pioneers a new technique or style, we get a step closer to fulfilling the potential of 360.

Couldn't have said it any better ourselves, Travis.

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360 storytelling: tips from 5-time Staff Picked company RYOT

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Newsflash: Vimeo 360 is alive and kickin'. Built for 360 filmmakers, our high-quality 360 player allows you to upload up to 8K in immersive videos. Your audience simply clicks play, uses their mouse or arrow keys to explore, and the story unfolds before them. Pretty cool, if we do say so ourselves.

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The world's largest short film competition, My RØDE Reel, is back for 2017!

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8 Lessons Learned from Teaching Online - YouTube

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8 Lessons Learned from Teaching Online - YouTube

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VR can transport you. With it, you don't just get to see a place, you can experience what it's like to be there. And AR brings computing into your world, letting you interact with digital information in your environment. Both technologies enable us to experience computing more like we experience the real world-they make computing work more like we do. That's why we're making investments in the core technologies that enable VR and AR, and in platforms that make them accessible to more people.

At Google I/O, we're sharing some of what we've been up to. Here are the highlights.

Virtual reality

In October, we launched Daydream View, a VR headset that's comfortable and easy to use. Today, there are lots of Daydream-ready phones available to choose from. And there are more coming-including the Galaxy S8 and S8+, which will be Daydream-ready with a software update this summer, and LG's next flagship phone, which will launch later this year.

Daydream will soon also support a new category of VR devices, which we call standalone VR headsets. These devices build on what's already great about smartphone VR, and they make the whole experience even easier and more comfortable. Standalone headsets don't require a phone or PC. Instead, getting into VR is as simple as putting the thing on. The hardware is fully optimized for VR, and features a new headset tracking technology called WorldSense. WorldSense enables positional tracking, meaning the headset tracks your precise movements in space - and it does this all without any external sensors to install.

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VR can transport you. With it, you don't just get to see a place, you can experience what it's like to be there. And AR brings computing into your world, letting you interact with digital information in your environment. Both technologies enable us to experience computing more like we experience the real world-they make computing work more like we do.

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Tips For Getting Started With 360° Photos And Virtual Reality (VR) Content – The Edublogger

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Tips For Getting Started With 360° Photos And Virtual Reality (VR) Content – The Edublogger

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Virtual reality has potential to provide greater student learning experiences but is still in the early stages of adoptions in schools.

Here are our tips and resources to help you get started with 360° Photos and Virtual Reality (VR) content.

What are 360° Photos?

360° photos is a photography technique where you capture the entire surrounding of a location instead of just one angle. Also known as VR (virtual reality photography), 360 panoramic photography, 360 virtual tours and photosphere.

A 360° photo consists of a series of images stitch together. When the photo is uploaded to a site that supports embedding 360° photo the viewer is able to explore the image with the same view as someone that was there when the photo was taken.

Here's an example:

You explore this image on your:

Computer - using click and drag.

Phone - titling to change angles.

Cardboard Viewer - for virtual reality experience.

Take 360° photos

Virtual reality has the potential to provide students with greater learning experiences but is still in the early stages of adoptions in schools.

There are numerous ways to take your own 360° photos. You don't need expensive equipment and complicated software. The easiest way to get started is using Google Street View (available for Android and iOS) on your smartphone. You can also use photo sphere mode in the stock Android camera or surround shot mode on Samsung phones (open your camera app then tap on Mode > Download > and download surround shot).

The apps on the smartphones all work the same. Pick an interesting spot where you want to capture a 360° photo, open the app on your smartphone and move your smartphone around to pass over the circles until all images are taken.
Important tips:
Sharing Online

To share your photos online you need to upload it to a site that supports embedding 360° photo.

Edublogs and CampusPress users can embed 360° photos and videos in posts and pages using the VR Viewer plugin. This embeds the 360° photo in a viewer where your readers can explore the image in their browser, via Google Cardboard or using VR headsets like Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, or Google Daydream. Detailed instructions are here.

Other hosting sites include:

Using With Students

Check out the following resources for ideas on using with students:

Your Tips

Leave a comment to share your tips for creating 360° photos or using with students.

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Tips For Getting Started With 360° Photos And Virtual Reality (VR) Content

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Virtual reality has potential to provide greater student learning experiences but is still in the early stages of adoptions in schools. Here are our tips and resources to help you get started with 360° Photos and Virtual Reality (VR) content. 360° photos is a photography technique where you capture the entire surrounding of a location instead of just one angle.

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Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

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Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

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Internet Archive: Digital Library of Free & Borrowable Books, Movies, Music & Wayback Machine

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MyndPlay are a UK based company with a passion for the Mind and Tech; creators of the revolutionary VR ready MyndBand EEG Brainwave headset and the MyndPlayer interactive mind controlled video platform which allows users to control, influence, and interact with video games, apps and movies using only their mind and emotions.

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Infiniscope is a virtual place to connect teachers and learners of all ages with the cutting edge of space exploration, created by ASU's School of Earth and Space Exploration and NASA's Science Mission Directorate.

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VR: a new dimension in learning? | THE Features

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VR: a new dimension in learning? | THE Features

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I'm in a lecture hall listening to a cartoonish avatar of the American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explain the history of science. Just as he starts speaking about medieval beliefs in demons, a red devil appears out of nowhere. It rushes at my face baring its teeth, making me flinch.

As Tyson moves on to Galileo and the experimental method, he conjures a model of the Leaning Tower of Pisa out of thin air, from which drop the two famous balls of different mass with exactly the same accelerations.

This lecture hall is, of course, not real. I'm wearing a virtual reality (VR) headset, experiencing the virtual spaces created by Immersive VR Education, a company based in a non-descript business park in the Republic of Ireland's oldest city, Waterford. Tyson's conjuring tricks are just a taste of VR's potential to change how students learn, according to Dave Whelan, who quit his web design business to found the company in 2014 after donning a headset for the first time. ("As soon as I put it on my face, I knew I wanted to work in VR," he says.)

Whelan envisages a world where aeronautics students assemble jet engines in VR, engineers build bridges around them using a kind of "virtual Meccano set" and chemistry lecturers take their classes inside models of molecules. "Why even teach in a classroom?" he asks. "If you're teaching marine biology, teach that on the seabed and have a whale swim through the centre of the class. It's a lot more engaging."

Whelan is just one of many people experimenting with the educative potential of VR now that the technology is widely accessible. High-quality headsets that can smoothly track head movements have come on to the consumer market in the past year. You would struggle to mistake the alternative worlds they conjure for real life just yet, but developers are already creating impressively detailed environments that look nearly as good as current computer games.

At the top end, the headsets are not cheap, starting at £350 ($433) each and requiring a powerful computer, or a PlayStation 4, to run on (more affordable systems that do not track movement as comprehensively use smartphones that slot into relatively simple goggles). But despite the cost of equipping classrooms and lecture halls, education is predicted to become a sizeable part of the emerging VR market. A Goldman Sachs report released early last year predicted that there could be a $700 million (£550 million), 15 million-user market in schools and universities by 2025. And in October, Facebook, which bought headset maker Oculus for $2 billion in 2014, promised $10 million to help develop educational VR experiences.

Immersive VR Education is part of this push to extend the benefits of VR - which so far has been geared towards gaming - into education. The application that hosts the Tyson lecture is called Engage, which is in essence a customisable space in which academics can call up 3D models so that students can inspect them from every angle. (Whelan is set to demonstrate the system to the University of Oxford the week after I meet him.) In one demonstration, I assemble a human skeleton with one of Whelan's colleagues. Although my partner is controlling his avatar from the next room, we can throw bones to each other before putting them together. Using the handheld controllers, I can pick up and examine the flattish bone that sits below the shoulder, turning it over and then slotting it into place. Even three weeks later, the memory of its shape is vivid (although I have forgotten what it is called). These virtual spaces "feel like real locations, and they're making real memories", says Whelan.

It is easy enough for a medical student to examine a human skeleton without virtual reality, of course. But Whelan says that the next stage of the project is to create a far more detailed model of human anatomy that can be disassembled and reconstructed in VR. "That's going to be useful for all medical institutes," he says, adding that medicine is the "beachhead" for the use of VR in universities.

Earlier this year, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, released a video showing how it is using Microsoft's HoloLens headset to teach its medical students (below).

Unlike the headsets that Whelan uses, the HoloLens allows users see the environment around them as it projects images on to a visor to create 3D objects that appear, hologram-like, in the room around them (this is known as augmented, or mixed, reality). At $3,000, the HoloLens is particularly expensive, but it is not aimed at consumers.

In the video, students wearing the headsets are shown inspecting a model of the human body from every angle. At one point they are even joined by the floating head of their lecturer (physically located in another city), who explains connections in the brain. Learning is so much faster that "students have commented that a 15-minute session with HoloLens could have saved them dozens of hours in the cadaveric lab", says Pamela Davis, dean of Case Western Reserve's medical school.

All these complex models, be they of parts of the human body, chemical compounds or the solar system, have to be created by somebody before they can be used in a VR classroom. But Whelan says that there are already thousands of educational 3D models in existence, and academics could request ones that do not yet exist from model creators, who could then charge for their work.

VR does not have to mimic the physical lecture room, as I discover in another of Immersive VR Education's simulations. In this one, you stand on a jetty and, after being told how to calculate the flight of a cannonball through the air, do some sums on a virtual whiteboard to work out how to angle a cannon so that it hits a battleship off the shore. This is nothing that students couldn't do on a computer screen, but playing with ballistics in VR feels far more absorbing (not least because you cannot check your mobile phone or get distracted by others in the room).

There are also less obvious applications for VR outside the physical sciences, such as in law. The University of Westminster has built a virtual space for criminal law students, in which they hunt for clues to construct a murder case. Rather than simply reading witness statements, they can walk around a building and judge whether someone would have been able to see the crime, explains Markos Mentzelopoulos, senior lecturer in computer science at Westminster.

The promise of this kind of interactive VR education, according to advocates such as Whelan, is that students remember far more of what they do in such lessons, compared with what they read, hear or see in a traditional lecture theatre. They base this assertion on an educational theory called the cone of learning, invented by the American educationalist Edgar Dale in the 1960s, which ranks types of learning by how much information retention it leads to.

But this simple hierarchy of experiences - according to which students are supposed to retain 10 per cent of what they read but 90 per cent of what they say or do - has been "widely criticised as an over-simplification of the complex process of learning", argues Neil Morris, who has worked on virtual learning environments as director of digital learning at the University of Leeds.

Still, there is good research evidence that students remember and learn better when their experiences are "active", Morris says, and he thinks it "highly likely" that VR will play an increasing role in online courses in particular.

This is another of the great hopes for VR in education: that it will finally fulfil the promise of massive open online courses to deliver high-quality, mass-participation online learning, overcoming the problems of low take-up and completion rates among those who are not already well educated.

Chris Chin, who works on VR experiences for the HTC Vive headset, told delegates at a recent VR conference in London that the technology will have a "transformative" impact on education. At the moment, he argued, the problem with Moocs is that "you don't have that sense of presence: you don't have that level of interaction with fellow students or teachers" when sitting in front of a screen. In a virtual space, however, students can be engaged as they would be in a classroom. "With VR, we can create a realistic enough class, where you feel like you are taking part," agrees Whelan.

Academics could be forgiven for being wearily sceptical about claims that a new wave of technology is about to upend higher education. For his part, Morris is unconvinced that VR will be the making of Moocs: "I don't believe that including innovative activities such as VR within Moocs will have any impact on completion rates," he says. "A whole range of factors influence learner completion in online courses, including course length, learners' goals and prior online learning experience, learners' engagement in discussions, instructor interaction and accreditation opportunities."

The cost of headsets also means that, at least for now, VR will probably remain beyond the means of those who cannot afford mainstream higher education - although Whelan sees VR courses more as a cheaper alternative for would-be international students in countries such as China, who would otherwise pay high fees to study overseas.

If Whelan's completely virtual environments seem like a lot of work to create, there are simpler alternatives for academics wishing to give their students a quick taste of something they cannot experience on campus. For instance, 360-degree cameras are now relatively affordable - in the low hundreds of pounds - and while some struggle to create a 3D effect, they can be used to film a wraparound video that students can view on their phones through inexpensive VR headsets.

In June, Sarah Jones, deputy head of media and performing arts at Coventry University, showed first-year paramedic students a 360-degree video of a person choking in front of them as they were aided by a paramedic. "They felt like it was real," she says. "It helped them realise what it was like to be confronted by that."

She has also helped to create a 360-degree video from inside an anti-austerity march, to prepare journalism students for on-the-ground reporting. "I speak to people across the university and ask: what experiences do your students need?" she says.

But to really propel VR learning along, students need to be able to have conversations in a virtual environment, she believes. "One of the worries is that VR at the moment is quite a singular experience...you need to go deeper than that," she says. But with companies such as Facebook pressing ahead with plans to allow users to socialise in VR, "that will change", and eventually students will get to the point where they can "sit on the Moon talking about physics".

With the world's biggest technology companies betting billions of dollars on VR, the possibilities for it to play a role in education are "endless", according to Shailey Minocha, professor of learning technologies and social computing at the Open University, who has helped Google to create simple VR experiences that allow teachers to show schoolchildren coral reefs or the surface of Mars through their phones.

She reels off a plethora of areas where VR could be used. Among them are virtual mock-ups of battlefields, virtual field trips for physically disabled students and training programmes for careers in which practitioners are likely to confront natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes or hurricanes.

Ultimately, the success or failure of VR in education will depend on whether the wider VR project does indeed take off, but nobody knows how quickly the technology will catch on; the Goldman Sachs report predicts that the overall VR market could be worth anywhere from $23 billion to $182 billion by 2025.

There are, for instance, still plenty of technical issues to be ironed out with the next generation of headsets. My eyes feel dry after a lengthy stint inside the VR lecture hall, and the headset slightly squashes my nose. And then there is the cost. Those hoping for a VR revolution in higher education all assume that the price of the technology will fall significantly for the consumer over the next five years, and there are a few signs that this is beginning to happen - as it did for other new technologies, such as the personal computer. Students may even end up bringing their own headsets to lectures, as they do now with laptops. But, for now, furnishing labs or lecture theatres with headsets remains a big investment.

Then there is the nagging doubt that, used clumsily or simply for its own sake, VR could overwhelm students, distracting them from the need also to learn things that are not visual, and leaving them with the wrong kind of memories. Personally, I remember vividly the things that popped up in the Tyson lecture - the gnashing devil, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the fairies flying above a ring of toadstools - better than much of what has happened to me in real life since. But what did Tyson actually say about the history of science? I don't recall.

Is seeing believing? The potential pitfalls of using VR to teach history

The potential to use virtual reality when teaching students about anything physical and visual - bodies, molecules, archaeological digs and so on - seems clear. But there are also attempts to create historical experiences, loosely based on original sources, which raise a number of questions about if and how history should be taught in VR.

Easter Rising: Voice of a Rebel is one such project from the BBC. This takes the viewer back to the Dublin of 1916 to experience the uprising against British rule. The actual historical content is a narrative from Willie McNeive, who took part in the rebellion aged 19 and set down his memories on tape in the 1970s.

The viewer hears McNeive's recollections while being transported into increasingly perilous situations as the uprising unfolds. The world around the viewer is not designed to appear realistic, and is instead rendered in a stylised way, as though painted with thick, flickering brush strokes. The effect is captivating, but the memories it leaves you with are not those of McNeive's voice - the genuine historical source - but of the parts of the experience that seem most interactive and exciting, like peering through broken glass windows at British troops, or ducking behind a street corner to avoid being shot.

The company Immersive VR Education has also created an award-winning documentary that allows users to experience the Apollo 11 Moon landings. The experience is a mixture of the historical (it opens with footage of John F. Kennedy's famous 1961 speech pledging to put a man on the Moon by the end of the decade), the hyperrealistic (at one point you sit alongside an eerily lifelike Buzz Aldrin in a meticulously recreated rocket cockpit) and the emotional, with soaring music punctuating the virtual effects. "It's an inspirational piece, based on fact," Whelan says. It has reportedly left some viewers in tears of emotion.

But Whelan admits that the experience is so effective and powerful that it may imprint itself on people's memories as the "true" version of what happened on Apollo 11. More generally, with history in VR, "people might take stuff that they see in virtual reality as fact. It might skew their idea of history," he acknowledges.

Much of the study of history is about living with a fragmentary and incomplete picture of the past. But the very nature of virtual reality - in common with recreations of history in films - is that gaps in knowledge get filled in as vividly as possible. The onus, according to Whelan, would be on lecturers themselves to be honest about how much is actually known, and how much of the VR experience is an evidence-informed reconstruction. But whether a viewer's memory would be able to go back over the VR experience and separate the real from the speculative must be open to question.

Video interview: Dave Whelan, CEO of Immersive VR Education

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I'm in a lecture hall listening to a cartoonish avatar of the American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson explain the history of science. Just as he starts speaking about medieval beliefs in demons, a red devil appears out of nowhere. It rushes at my face baring its teeth, making me flinch.

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How Virtual Reality Could Change the Way Students Experience Education | EdTech Magazine

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How Virtual Reality Could Change the Way Students Experience Education | EdTech Magazine

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Technology Solutions That Drive Education

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The headlines for Pokémon GO were initially shocking, but by now they're familiar: as many as 21 million active daily users, 700,000 downloads per day, $5.7 million in-app purchases per day, $200 million earned as of August. Analysts anticipate the game will garner several billion dollars in ad revenue over the next year. By almost any measure, Pokémon GO is huge.

The technologies behind the game, augmented and virtual reality (AVR), are huge too. Many financial analysts expect the technology to generate $150 billion over the next three years, outpacing even smartphones with unprecedented growth, much of it in entertainment. But AVR is not only about entertainment. In August 2015, Teegan Lexcen was born in Florida with only half a heart and needed surgery. With current cardiac imaging software insufficient to assist with such a delicate operation on an infant, surgeons at Nicklaus Children's Hospital in Miami turned to 3D imaging software and a $20 Google Cardboard VR set. They used a cellphone to peer into the baby's heart, saw exactly how to improve her situation and performed the successful surgery in December 2015.

"I could see the whole heart. I could see the chest wall," Dr. Redmond Burke told Today. "I could see all the things I was worried about in creating an operation."

VR's applications are impacting almost every aspect of our lives. Caregivers are using VR to treat dementia, helping patients to regain memories and enriching elderly lives in other ways. Churches are using VR to help shut-ins connect with social groups. VR is letting people virtually scale Mount Everest, tour museums and attend concerts, athletic events and Broadway. VR has been used to solve crimes and influence juries. Training exercises for pilots, soldiers, astronauts, teen drivers, and factory and construction workers utilize VR to permit training without unnecessary risk. The New York Times and other media have released special VR news stories. Google notes that global searches for the term "VR" are up 400 percent since last year.

In many of the ways that VR will enhance other human experiences, so too will VR enhance education. By making remarkable experiences available to students, this new era of affordable VR technology can transform education.

Micro-Experiences Impact Learning and Retention

For some time, educators have known that out-of-classroom experiences can have a profound impact on students, improving both learning and retention. George D. Kuh's 2008 book discussed high-impact educational practices such as learning communities, internships, service learning, undergraduate research and study abroad. Kuh found that these experiences extend beyond the classroom and consistently provide benefits for students of all backgrounds.

Such programs require a great deal of time, personnel and money, which are significant barriers to institutional usage, Kuh notes. Further, not all students have access to such programming, even if it is available on campus.

The ubiquity and affordability of VR technology will make high-impact educational experiences more available to all students. Although not all students can travel abroad, anyone could go to the library, strap on a VR headset such as the Oculus Rift or HTC Vive, and take a short virtual trip.

An anthropology student might observe a group of people in a Mongolian yurt. A language or cultural studies student might take a guided tour of the Great Wall of China or other heritage sites. A marine biology student might familiarize herself with the Great Barrier Reef, seeing evidence of bleaching up close. A museum studies student might examine the collections of the Uffizi Gallery, including pieces not available to the public. And contemporary tours are not the limit; indeed, with VR, a history student could walk through ancient Rome, or an astronomy student might visit Mars.

We call these "micro-experiences" because they are far more limited in time and scope than, say, the above-mentioned study abroad experiences. Indeed, Jeremy Bailenson of Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab notes that a 20-minute experience is a good time limit, given how jarring and visceral VR can be. And yet, those 20 minutes can be transformative, as demonstrated by the body of research coming out of Bailenson's lab.

Such micro-experiences need not be limited to travel. VR also supports training experiences. Virtual labs are already available for chemistry, engineering, biology and biotechnology students. Although these do not replace working alongside a researcher, they nevertheless permit early and safe access to lab equipment and encourage curiosity.

A host of VR programs are already in place for entertainment (video games, sports, movies and other media), journalism, storytelling, maker spaces, lectures, speeches and other performances. With VR, high-impact micro-experiences will become the norm and certainly an attractive feature for prospective students.

Meta-Experience Transforms Critical Thinking

VR pushes the central concept of high-impact educational practices to its furthest potential. The implication here is nothing short of a transformation, a revolution, a paradigmatic recentering in which education does not just include impactful experiences, but it becomes about experience itself. This we call "meta-experience."

As this new instructional landscape opens up, we will need to create and refine a set of best practices that are couched in this new medium and its meta-experiential potential. Such practices, and the research we'll use to build them, will likely address the following:

Students must confront the technical tools of VR, the mediated space itself, the mode of "being" (telepresence) - including the interrelated phenomena of vividness, interactivity and identity - the actual instructional content itself, and the relationship with reality in terms of life and world.

More and more educational research is attending to the emotional, affective, " noncognitive" dimensions of learning and successful educational experiences at all levels. With VR, affect is harnessed up front; the medium is designed to be intense, to bring the user, quasi-literally, into its subject matter and to work by engaging the mind-body through multiple sensory modalities. But how can we both employ and move beyond the "wow" factor to build knowledge? And, given the level of intensity involved with the medium, how can we do so critically and responsibly?

Metacognition, an important part of critical thinking and knowledge building, is foregrounded in VR because of the very fact that one moves into and out of it. In other words, it is in the movement between the physical world and the virtual that powerful opportunities for deep and reflective work for both instructors and students can happen. Imagine the kinds of classroom conversations made possible by that transitory movement.

Even as we explore such practices, VR applications outside of education will continue to evolve too, with a whole array of fascinating questions that will make their way into our classrooms. How do users in the wider world perceive and navigate multiple perspectives on reality itself? How might the human mind be changed in response to such experiences? How does "experience" itself become malleable and differentially conceived? How are new spaces for creating, meaning making, communication and relationships unfolding?

The world of VR in the experience of education points the way to this - an unfolding future in which the viscerality, the "liveness," the embeddedness in the world of the stuff we're teaching does not get a special name. Instead, it is interwoven throughout everything we teach, such that no longer is the classroom over here while "real life" is somewhere over there. The two are of a piece and, as such, are taught - and transformed - together.

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How Virtual Reality Could Change the Way Students Experience Education

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The headlines for Pokémon GO were initially shocking, but by now they're familiar: as many as 21 million active daily users, 700,000 downloads per day, $5.7 million in-app purchases per day, $200 million earned as of August. Analysts anticipate the game will garner several billion dollars in ad revenue over the next year.

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How Augmented Reality Will Change the Way We Live | Pond5

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How Augmented Reality Will Change the Way We Live | Pond5

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Imagine you're walking around Tokyo, looking for a local hidden-gem restaurant you read about in your Lonely Planet guide - except the streets of the Japanese capital are like a maze, and you're a little lost. So, you put on a headset, enter your destination, and suddenly a blue line appearing in front of your eyes guides you to your destination, with the help of arrows that pop up and tell you when to turn left and right. Eventually you're on the street you want, and a translator in your headset reads all the signs and, in milliseconds, translates them into your field of vision so you find the restaurant.

Welcome to the Future of AR

This is just one of the many ways Amitt Mahajan, managing partner of venture fund Presence Capital, believes AR will change the way we live - even more than VR, because of what AR does better. "Virtual reality is about transporting you to places that don't exist in the real world. Augmented reality is about bringing computing into the real world," he says. "It's taking what you're seeing around you, and adding computer information on top of it."

If you're unfamiliar, here's how it will do that. You'll be wearing a headset with a visor display - like the Microsoft HoloLens or mysterious Magic Leap - that has outward facing cameras that will continually scan and map your immediate environment. That information gets processed and interpreted, and in an instant adapts the info and relays it to your display. "It will essentially change what your eyes see in real time," says Mahajan.

What the AR World Will Look Like

What you see will vary based on what you're using augmented reality for. There are the navigation and translation possibilities mentioned above. With gaming, AR will make it possible to seamlessly blend elements into your living room. Education can also be boosted with hands-on tutorials for a variety of professions, or little creatures who can actively teach your child their multiplication tables. Businesses will especially benefit from AR. Mechanics could be guided with AR visuals on how to fix a car, or construction workers could see an AR representation of the blueprint they need to make a reality. The possibilities are endless, says Norbi Kovacs, the Chief Technology Officer at INDE, an augmented-reality company. "Eventually, it will be presenting almost all industries that need to somehow enhance reality with data with visualization, with visual feedback."

None of that is to undersell the social possibilities of the technology and what Kovacs believes to be the real potential of augmented reality. He's seen it firsthand with his work at INDE with mobile AR and broadcast AR. "AR can enhance your life without closing everyone out of your reality," he says. "In VR, you are in your virtual world. That's why I'm betting on AR - because it can create those social experiences. It will bring people together, while VR is drifting people apart."

All those applications mean augmented reality could very well change the fabric of our lives. "Once the technology becomes good enough, and it's getting there pretty quickly, it's going to have as dramatic of an effect on our society, and our lives, as the computer and the smartphone," he says.

So Where's All the Buzz?

If that sounds so amazing that you're wondering why you haven't been hearing more about AR, it's because technology hasn't yet caught up with the potential. Think of how VR has only now edged its way into the mainstream consciousness in 2016. That's because hardware and content is catching up with ambition, and VR is becoming more accessible to everyday consumers. But AR isn't there yet.

"The problem is the ideas, the fiction, and promise of AR are so far ahead of the reality right now," says Mahajan. That's partly because of the need to wear a headset. "There's a lot of visual and style and cultural issues around that," says Mahajan.

It's also a matter of hardware development and affordability. "I think we still need a few more years before AR headsets on the Oculus Rift level will start to surface, and will be available for consumers around the world," says Kovacs. But in those years, AR will have a lot of help. A graphic from a Vision Summit 2016 keynote predicts that by 2019, the market value of AR ($48 billion) will be double that of VR ($24 billion). It will be triple in 2020.

In the meantime, mobile AR (think: Pokémon Go) and others like Kovacs are paving the way with a crucial aspiration that will ensure the medium's future success: make it essential. "The key is to have an AR experience that's not just a gimmick," says Kovacs. "It comes with a certain responsibility, because we have to create experiences and we have to create applications and content that make people want to use AR. And not just want to use it, but have every day of their life enhanced by it."
What do you think? Are you looking forward to an AR revolution, or do you see the future playing out differently? Tell us in the comments! Top Image: Woman Using Headset for Augmented Reality by timofeev

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How Augmented Reality Will Change the Way We Live

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Imagine you're walking around Tokyo, looking for a local hidden-gem restaurant you read about in your Lonely Planet guide - except the streets of the Japanese capital are like a maze, and you're a little lost.

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13 Creative Editing Techniques Every Video Editor Should Know | Pond5

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13 Creative Editing Techniques Every Video Editor Should Know | Pond5

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Picture the quick-cut transitions and comedic editing style of any Edgar Wright movie (the work of editor Chris Dickens, usually), the flash-bulb cuts and freeze frames of Martin Scorcese films (editor Thelma Schoonmaker) or the frantic and fabulous opening scene in City of God (editor Daniel Rezende). These are all different types of edits and cuts that one can make when putting together a story.

Once you master the edit types and learn why each one is important in different circumstances, you can make your projects more entertaining and your editing more efficient, and you can create a whole editing style of your own that reflects your creative side.

But first, you have to learn them. Here are the different types of cuts (and a couple of transitions) you should know.

Standard Cut

This is the basic cut (also known as a hard cut) that puts two clips together, connecting the last frame of one and the beginning frame of the next. This is the most common cut, and doesn't really invoke any meaning or feelings, as others do.

Jump Cut

This is a cut that pushes forward in time. It's normally done within the same frame or composition, and many times it's used within montages (see below). Here's an example of jump cuts in the Pond5 "Create with Us" spot, at :13 and :20 seconds in:

Montage

A montage is an editing technique that, again, signifies the passage of time or helps to give an overall context to the story with quick cuts. You will often see athletes training or preparing for a big match in montages ( Rocky IV has EIGHT!), but it can really be used for almost any transformation by any character(s), and is normally underscored by music.

Cross Dissolve

A cross dissolve can serve several purposes and motivations within the story. It can signify a passage of time or it can use the overlapping "layers" or dissolves to show multiple stories or scenes happening at once, but shot at different times. The most famous example of this is probably Apocalypse Now, but my favorite is from Spaceballs.

*Tip: don't use cross dissolves for standard editing. There needs to be motivation behind the dissolve.

Wipe

A wipe is a transition that uses an animation (mostly digital these days) that "wipes" the first scene away into the next scene. There are basic wipes ( Star Wars), and there are more complex ones (The 90s TV show Home Improvement is coming to mind), but they can be seen as corny or cheesy, depending on whether you're a snob or not. I've used star wipes, but only as a joke. Take this cube wipe from Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job. It works as a funny transition:

Fade In/Out

Pretty self-explanatory. You fade out one clip and fade in the other. This implies a passage of time most often, like a night-to-day switch or someone falling asleep, but can be a bit jarring if not used properly. You don't really want to use this type of cut for standard applications.

J or L Cut

J and L cuts are incredibly common. They get their names for how the clips line up in the editing software. An L cut is used when you want to have audio from clip A continue when clip B comes in. The J cut is the opposite, where the audio from clip B comes in when we're still seeing clip A. Pretty much every documentary interview you've ever seen uses J and L cuts throughout. This video on Brooklyn Brewery is pretty much all J and L cuts.

Cutting on Action

This is what it sounds like. You cut at the point of action, because that's what our eyes and brains are naturally expecting. When someone kicks open a door, we expect to see the change in angle when the door is kicked, not after it's flown open and swaying for a moment. The bathroom scene from Pulp Fiction is an example of pretty much every cut being on the action (other than the cutaways, but more on that next).

Cutaway Shots

Cutaways are shots that take viewers away from the main characters or action. They give extra context to the scene, and can create more tension and foreshadowing.

If you watch that scene from the last step again, you'll see the cutaway shots that bring the whole thing together, and the most important cutaway at the end (which is only a couple of frames), which is the pop tarts popping out of the toaster. Tarantino cuts away to the cabinet to show the pop tarts, then to the gun, then to the bathroom door, all to give us the context and tell us that 'there's a dude in there!' Then we forget about the pop tarts until BAM - they pop out and the shots are fired.

Cross Cut, aka Parallel Editing

This type of editing is when you cut between two different scenes that are happening at the same time in different places. It can be great for adding tension (heist movies use a lot of parallel editing, like showing someone breaking into a safe while a security guard walks toward their location). The quintessential cross-cut example these days is Inception, since there are four levels of (un)consciousness all happening at once - but this scene from Lord of the Rings is a good example as well.

Match Cut

A match cut is an edit that gives a context and continuity to the scene and pushes it in a certain direction, without disorienting the viewer. You use it to either move between scenes or move around a space, while keeping everything coherent. A very basic version is shooting someone opening a door from behind, and then cutting to the opposite side as they walk through it. The most famous examples of match cuts are 2001: A Space Odyssey and Lawrence of Arabia (coincidentally when he blows out a match), but Tree of Life also contains match cuts (and many other types described previously) in the eternity scene.

Smash Cut

If you've got a loud scene that immediately goes to a quiet scene or vice versa, this is where you'd use the smash cut. You want to use it when you're transitioning between two completely different scenes, emotions, or narratives and you need to make an abrupt transition. This is used a ton when people wake up from dreams, and it's also used quite often in comedy - it's also referred to as a "Gilligan Cut," because the television show Gilligan's Island often employed this edit. It's when a character vehemently disagrees or is 100% confident about their stance, and then you cut to them doing exactly the opposite.

Invisible Cut

You can really prove just how creative you are as an editor (or how organized you are in pre-production) by adding some invisible cuts in your video or film. The goal of these types of cuts is to keep the shot looking like one continuous take. Invisible cuts were used to nab Oscar Gold in , and are the main reason Birdman appears to be seamless. You can replicate this by filling the end of one frame entirely with something black or low-lit (or of a similar color in general) and blending it with the beginning of the next clip, or doing something like a whip pan (a staple of Paul Thomas Anderson's films).

Another way to create invisible cuts is by using something like a light leak or lens flare, or by using a foreground object to fill the frame and transition to the next clip or scene. Here's a quick example I did using a couple of Pond5 clips:
Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur clips by fuzzfocus
The last thing I'll say about types of edits is that you can experiment by using multiple cuts at the same time. You can use a match dissolve (someone turning into a monster or creature), a matching cross cut (twins experiencing a feeling at the same time in different places), smash cut j cut (someone wakes up from a dream and their partner off camera asks them if they're okay), etc., etc. A good example of all kinds of cutting techniques is in the film Spring Breakers:

If you want one last example of all the types of cuts, let our friends at Rocket Jump Film School help you out.

Now get to cutting, and don't be afraid to experiment!
Top image: Vintage 8mm Movie Editing Desktop with Reels and Clapper by fabiopagani

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13 Creative Editing Techniques Every Video Editor Should Know

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Picture the quick-cut transitions and comedic editing style of any Edgar Wright movie (the work of editor Chris Dickens, usually), the flash-bulb cuts and freeze frames of Martin Scorcese films (editor Thelma Schoonmaker) or the frantic and fabulous opening scene in City of God (editor Daniel Rezende).

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10 Tips To Shoot Cinematic Smartphone Video

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10 Tips To Shoot Cinematic Smartphone Video

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Achieving cinematic smartphone video results is not just a matter of taking it out of your pocket, point and shoot. Use these 10 tips to extract the best from your phone camera.
Here's a short video I shot recently at Dubai Creek. It was edited and color graded in DaVinci Resolve, and shows what is possible with a professional grade in post if you have well shot footage to begin with. Tutorials will be coming up soon on my YouTube channel.

Everything I'm about to say comes down to one principle when dealing with any camera with limited hardware that doesn't allow you room for error:

When it comes to shooting cinematic smartphone video, make sure you record the absolute best image you can in camera, because you can't really fix it in post.

Now, having established that, let's get down to it:

1. Pro video camera app

If you want to shoot cinematic smartphone video, the first thing to do is buy a video camera app that gives you manual control over your camera and allows recording at maximum bit rate. In addition, the camera has a fixed aperture lens so there's no iris control, which means your exposure will be the result of just your ISO setting and shutter speed. This is important to understand.

Personally, I use Filmic Pro. I like it, but it isn't the only one out there. Mavis is very good also, and gives you a histogram which is very useful for judging your exposure.

Shoot at UHD 4K and at maximum bitrate, which is around 100 - 105Mbps. Save the 1080p high frame rate setting for specific special shots. It's much more important to have the maximum bitrate and maximum resolution for post. I choose to shoot at 24fps for most shots.

These are the most important things you want to learn to use manually.

2. Shoot within the limits of your phone's camera

It is important to be aware of the limitations of your phone's camera. The main one, and one that will affect how you will shoot, is dynamic range. Every camera sensor and camera system as a whole has a limited range of overall scene luminance (brightness) it can handle while still recording useful image data.

This range is pegged at the maximum luminance level, beyond which the camera just records pure white. From there, we count down to the lowest useful luminance limit, below which there is too much noise for the image to be of any use. This range is measured in stops, and every halving, or doubling of light counting as a stop.

The dynamic range limit is mostly determined by how well the sensor performs in low light, and how well it can reduce noise in the shadows.

To recap:

Your useful maximum luminance level is determined by the point at which the sensor's photosites are saturated. In other words, the point where the sensor is physically unable to respond to further increases in light above that point, rendering these pixels are pure white.

The useful minimum luminance level is determined by the lowest (darkest) point at which there is an acceptable (low) amount of noise in the image.

The range in between these extremes is the dynamic range.

As far as i have been able to establish, the iPhone sensor gives you 7-8 stops of dynamic range, or contrast ratio. For the best results, you need to make sure the maximum contrast in your scene falls within this limit.

3. Lighting and time of day

Choose your timings when shooting outdoors carefully to get the best looking image possible from your camera. Also make sure you have enough light when shooting interiors, especially at night.

This ensures you have the best options open to you later in post production to enhance the image. As with any 8-bit 4:2:0 video, you can color grade it if you've recorded a great image to begin with, but fixing exposure problems in post can be impossible. Over exposed (blown out) areas in your image are also impossible to correct, so it's best to avoid over-exposing altogether.

Again, it comes down to making sure you record the absolute best image you can in the first place.

Keeping in mind a maximum contrast ratio (dynamic range) of 7-8 stops, you'll want to always shoot any exterior shots in the early morning or late afternoon/early evening depending on the time of year and your daylight hours.

If the weather is overcast, you can likely shoot outside any time of the day. But if there is sunshine and blue sky, you'll definitely run into problems if you try to shoot under high sun.

4. Exposure

Choosing your exposure with a phone camera is often a trade off. In some cases you can capture all the light and contrast in your scene, but sometimes you have to choose between retaining detail in the highlights or in the shadows, or find some middle ground and compromise.

When you choose to compromise, make sure you are aware of what detail you are going to lose, and know how it may affect you further down the line.

Exposure on a phone camera with a fixed aperture is going to be controlled by setting your ISO, and your shutter speed.
ISO
I rate the iPhone for example at about 50 ISO native, and using Filmic Pro I can fix the ISO to 50 (or 51 in this case), which will give me the cleanest image. I don't bother shooting with the phone at all in low light situations anymore, as that would necessitate rating it very high. For me, the compromises in image quality are not acceptable, so I don't do it.

5. Shutter Speed

This leaves us with only shutter speed, and the compromise here is that often there is too much light for a slow cinematic shutter speed. Ideally you want to mimic a 180 degree shutter angle. When shooting at 24fps, this will be 1/48 th sec, 1/50 th sec at 25fps, or 1/60 th sec at 30fps.

The best solution is to use an ND filter in front of the camera lens. This is easiest if using an external lens system which allows threaded filters. Alternatively, you can literally just shoot through a 4×4 size IRND filter by holding it against the back of the phone, as I did.

I had the cleanest results when using an IRND rather than a straight ND, at least with the iPhone SE. I did experience infrared pollution with a straight ND, but didn't investigate it further. However, the results of an IRND were perfect with very little color shift.

If controlling light with an ND is not possible for you, you've got no choice but to allow a high enough shutter speed to achieve a correct exposure, and this will reduce the desirable motion blur of moving objects.

Once you're happy with these settings, lock them so they don't change during your shot.

6. Keep it steady

This has nothing to do with the camera itself or specific settings, and everything to do with how your audience will perceive your shots. It will drastically improve your results if you make sure you're capturing smooth, steady shots that are perfectly stable when they should be fixed, and in smooth motion when there should be camera movement.

Some stabilization can be achieved in post, but a stabilizer for your phone - such as the DJI Osmo Mobile - is a tool that can have a huge impact on your work. It's a highly recommended tool to step up your mobile filmmaking game.

7. Framing and composition

Keep in mind all the same rules of framing and composition that you would shooting with any other more conventional camera. A phone is compact and lightweight and gives you a lot of flexibility, but a good shot is still a good shot. Choose interesting angles, look for symmetry and reflections. If the shot allows, you can even add a simulated shallow depth of field to your cinematic smartphone video by framing foreground objects close to the lens so the background is thrown out of focus.

8. Focus

Perfect, pin sharp focus is critical. If I feel a shot is even slightly soft I won't use it. Watch out for autofocus in low light: around sunset and dusk which is the lowest light levels I'll bother with, auto focus becomes pretty useless. Rather, switch to manual focus, which a pro-video app will give you. Filmic Pro, for example, allows manual focus control by means of a slider on screen.

9. Shoot 2160p, edit and finish at 1080p

I highly recommend editing and finishing at 1080p with phone originated 2160p media. You don't have to, but I find the downsampled 1080p from a 2160p source gives a superior end result.

This also gives you the opportunity to stabilize and crop into shots when needed for either technical or creative reasons. In my experience, you can easily crop in 150% to 2160p source material in a 1080p timeline. As long as the shot is in focus, it'll look great. At times, I've even punched in 200% and in the end you can't really tell.

10. Color correction

If the shots in your cinematic smartphone video are well exposed, creative and interesting there is no reason you can't approach color in post the same way you would with any other more capable video camera or proper cinema camera.

As long as you don't push the codec too far, you can successfully color correct, shot match and bring a stylized look to your phone camera shots. The key is making sure the image is exactly where it needs to be in-camera first, which allows you to enhance what you've shot correctly, not trying to pull back non-existent highlights or save terribly noisy images. That exposure has to be dead on in-camera when you decide how to expose it, knowing the consequences of your decisions in post.

If you remember and practise these 10 tips, you can create video content that most people won't believe came from a phone camera.

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10 Tips To Shoot Cinematic Smartphone Video

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Achieving cinematic smartphone video results is not just a matter of taking it out of your pocket, point and shoot. Use these 10 tips to extract the best from your phone camera. Here's a short video I shot recently at Dubai Creek.

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The Future of Creative Cloud: Insights from Adobe Video World 2016

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The Future of Creative Cloud: Insights from Adobe Video World 2016

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Adobe gets it. We talk to the creative team behind the Creative Cloud at Adobe Video World 2016.

We aren't far removed from the decision to combine After Effects World and Premiere Pro World - as the whole industry continues to shift to a single person needing to know how to do everything themselves. That's a struggle Adobe understands.

At the 2016 Adobe Video World , we heard all about the future of Premiere Pro , , After Effects , and even Media Encoder . Not only were there video editors and motion graphics artists on hand teaching courses, the actual programmers who built these programs were there to talk about new workflow solutions.

PremiumBeat had the chance to sit and talk with Steve Forde, Adobe's Group Product Manager of Video and Audio Products. That's a long job title, but it barely scratches the surface of what Forde actually does. He's in charge of Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Media Encoder, and more. Essentially half of the Creative Cloud. Image: Al Mooney on Premiere Pro at Adobe Video World 2016 via Michael Maher / PremiumBeat

We also heard from a variety of Adobe team members. Senior Product Manager of Professional Video Editing) talked about Premiere Pro's 25th anniversary and the future of the NLE. David Simons and Daniel Wilk talked about how they created After Effects and are now hard at work bringing Character Animator to Adobe CC. We also heard from an entire panel of Adobe programmers and directors, including Alissa Johnson - who told us about Adobe Anywhere and the future of Team Projects in the Creative Cloud.
Author's Note: Before continuing into the interview and speeches, I must admit that attendees of Adobe Video World were treated to several future updates and plans for the Creative Cloud. Many of which were quite impressive. As we all signed an NDA, I'm only allowed to talk about things for which I have clearance. So if you're looking for some type of breaking news, you aren't going to get it here. However, you are going to learn much more about updates that have been released and announced, including Team Projects, updates to the Lumetri panel, and some news on Character Animator.
Building a Creative Cloud for the Video Creators of the Future

Image via Shutterstock

It should come as no surprise that we are at a high-point in the world of video production. There is more content produced now than ever before. Film, broadcast television, cable, web, mobile, social media - and plenty of overlap between each.

There's never been a better time to create video. If companies aren't communicating with video, they're not communicating.

That's what Adobe's commercial looks like a Target commercial. It's why local restaurants snap photos and videos of their daily special. Steve Forde told attendees at the 2016 Adobe Video World, and he's absolutely right. From international companies to your local coffee shop, everyone is producing content to get you into their stores. And if they aren't getting you into the stores, they are creating brand recognition that you can't mistake with others. There is reason every Video content drives sales.

Image via Shutterstock

Today, it's not enough to just produce a video. In fact, if you are working on a major campaign - there will be several iterations based on the platform it's delivered. From , nearly every video targets every demographic based on the platform they use. 15 to 60-second commercials to Instagram video campaigns Premiere Pro has built-in publishing tools for social media for this very reason.

That's why Adobe Creative Cloud has constantly redeveloped itself over the years. Forde understands that the video editor of today is a very different person than one just years ago. Today, editors are expected to know how to edit, work with audio, color grade, design their own graphics, and more. That's why you've seen so many new tools introduced into Premiere Pro, like the Lumetri color panel.

The video and audio teams at Adobe know that editors have tighter deadlines and more responsibilities, which is why the company continues to roll out features for the all-in-one editor.

Perhaps your editing is strong, but your motion design is limited. That's why Adobe introduced , giving editors the power to Live Text templates edit After Effects content in Premiere Pro. Have a motion graphics artist that can design great titles and lower thirds, but can't get to revisions as fast as you need? That's exactly why Live Text templates allow you to correct misspellings or job titles on the fly.

The Creative Cloud is seeing a shift toward collaborative workflows, allowing multiple users to work on the same project at once or easily transfer project files between programs.

The Creative Cloud Takes on Hollywood
Image: Assistant Editor Tyler Nelson cutting Gone Girl via Adobe
Many of the latest updates coming to the Creative Cloud were requested and tested while Adobe was partnering with major studios on AAA Hollywood titles. The first major feature fully edited in Premiere Pro was David Fincher 's 2014 drama Gone Girl .

was shot in 6K on RED cameras to be finished in 5K. The studio used proxies to edit the project - even though the proxies were still in 2.5K. Realistically, many of our readers may be fortunate enough to shoot in 4K to edit with proxies in 1080p.
Image: Editing Hail, Caesar! via Adobe / Universal Studios
Premiere Pro was really pushed on , as the NLE had to hold up to the level of perfection Fincher requires in his edits - as he often combines multiple takes to get the best performance from each actor on camera. A majority of the film had some type of VFX in each shot, and the team at Adobe had to create a system that sent live updates from After Effects to Premiere Pro. ( You can read more about the Gone Girl workflow in the piece from Adobe .)

We want to be successful in Hollywood. - Al Mooney, Premiere Pro Senior Product Manager

Following the success of , plenty of other filmmakers turned to Premiere Pro - like legendary director duo, the Coen brothers. ( If you're working on developing a platform for team collaborations, no better way than to put your programs to the test with a real tag team.) The Premiere Pro team had their work cut out for them, having to figure out the best way to share a project between and . One pulled the best footage and the other cut a version of the film Hail, Caesar!

Joel and Ethan are known for their process, which includes not cutting any dailies. The entire film is cut after shooting, something that is very rare in filmmaking. Ethan does the assembly, finds the good takes, then rings a bell when he gets to a point in the scene when you can start editing. Joel then picks up the content and cuts it in. - Editor Katharine McQuerrey

At the same time, Adobe was also working with very CG-heavy films like and the workflow was Pete's Dragon VFX heavy smash-hit covered plenty here on PremiumBeat, including the free presets from the film that were made available to users via Vashi Nedomansky .
Image: The Simpsons via Adobe / Fox Broadcasting Company
These films in particular, as well as the films Adobe is currently collaborating on, have all contributed to the future of the Creative Cloud. It's apparent that Adobe has become more aggressive in creating the ultimate tools for creators. Having beat out the competition with Final Cut Pro after the launch of FCPX, Adobe now has their sights set on competing with Avid. It certainly won't be easy, as most major studios are set with the Avid workflow, but with the continuous added advantages of using the Creative Cloud, we're only going to see more major motion pictures cut on Premiere Pro.
Image: The Simpsons X Keys via Logan Baker / PremiumBeat
It's not just feature films that Adobe is experimenting with. The company's . Originally developed as a post-production tool, Character Animator is changing the future of animated television Character Animator has become a whole new monster tool in no time. Using facial recognition, the program captures a performer's face and immediately renders an animated version of the performance.

Things took a shift when television studios turned to Character Animator to present live characters to an audience - starting with one of the most famous animated characters of all time, Homer Simpson.

I had a chance to chat with David Simons and Daniel Wilk, two of the leads behind Character Animator. (They were also two of the original After Effects programmers.) They talked about their work on this particular episode of The Simpsons , in which anyone could call into the studio to talk to Homer live during the credits. To prove it was in fact live, they answered different questions on the East coast and West coast.

The setup placed Dan Castellaneta (Homer) in a sound booth with a phone, microphone, and camera. The camera tracked his facial expressions and immediately animated Homer's mouth. As far as the rest of Homer's body (and many of the surprise gags) the crew used an X Keys board . I was fortunate enough to get hands on and check out the board during the AVW Character Animator session.

You'll see buttons that trigger eye movement, hand gestures, and facial moods like anger and laughter. Each of the other character buttons triggered gags from those stars showing up on screen.
Image: Team Projects panel via Adobe
Here is a look at Homer in action.
Image: Premiere Pro Lumetri HSL secondaries via Adobe
It wasn't just animated shows that turned to Character Animator. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert introduced a series of animated guests that interact with the live host. Colbert stares off stage at a monitor to see his character's actions and movements, while the voice and facial capture is done backstage. The performer wears headphones to hear Stephen's voice and to keep the audio from spilling over into the microphone. He then responds to questions while another crew member animated gestures.

Take a look at the Late Show's animated characters here.
Image: Character Animator via Adobe
Now you may be curious about how these Hollywood collaborations benefit you as an editor, motion graphics designer, filmmaker, and video producer. Let's talk about the newest features and the creation of Team Projects.

Team Projects, Lumetri Color, Character Animator, VR, and more.

I asked Steve Forde about their struggles keeping Premiere Pro user friendly. He said, "That is one of the biggest challenges," and it's easy to see why. With each iteration of Premiere Pro, a whole slew of new features is introduced. Perhaps most notably in the last update was the introduction of workspaces, specifically creating an entire Lumetri Color tab.

The latest iteration of Premiere Pro features more Lumetri tools and an advanced color picker for HSL secondary controls. It's a huge step for Adobe to bring these tools into Premiere Pro, as it's often the program most editors are comfortable with. This certainly isn't something that only Adobe is working on, as Blackmagic's DaVinci Resolve color grading platform has added its own built-in NLE. Once again, it's recognized industry wide that much more is being asked of editors, and now everyone is competing to create the most practical and effective tools.

Premiere Pro's Senior Product Manager, Al Mooney, had plenty to talk about regarding the advances to Lumetri color - something he is "very proud of." And he really should be. The Lumetri panel makes it so much easier for editors to understand the art of color grading.

We strongly believe in bringing color into the hands of people who aren't pro colorists. There is more coming to Premiere Pro from the team behind SpeedGrade. - Al Mooney

You'll continue to see major advancements made to Lumetri, including advanced compatibility with color grading control surfaces. (You'll see plenty of new Lumetri tutorials from PremiumBeat in the coming weeks.)

In regards to the Character Animator, the Preview 4 (Beta) is currently available to download via After Effects. That's all about to change with the Character Animator CC (Beta), the first version to be included as a standalone download in Adobe CC.

Premiere Pro is also pushing forward with advanced VR workflows, now allowing users to edit VR with proxies - great, given the absolutely massive file sizes of 360-degree content. Premiere Pro will also recognize if your VR project is stereoscopic or monoscopic and offer optimal viewing conditions. There are a variety of new general updates to Premiere Pro as well, including improved captioning and subtitles, enhanced Live Text templates, and more audio effects that were once only available in Audition.

Perhaps the biggest announcement that I'm allowed to talk about is the introduction of Team Projects, which was just previewed at IBC 2016 .

Team Projects allows multiple users to collaborate on a project together. While you will be responsible for maintaining your own media, Team Projects will work in the cloud to keep track of every iteration and change made to a project - giving users the ability to backtrack to previous versions. As of now, Team Projects works best with Premiere Pro, After Effects, and Prelude.

The service allows multiple editors and artists to work in the same project using a series of markers. They will need to use the same version of the programs for it to work correctly. As an added benefit, there is no separate service - Team Projects will be included with the cost of the Creative Cloud.

With the various conversations I had with Adobe programmers, AVW speakers, and attendees themselves - nearly everyone is thrilled about the future of content creation within the Adobe Creative Cloud. I'll certainly admit that I was most impressed by many of the new features, and I can see how it will certainly become harder not to work within the Creative Cloud since it has nearly every tool you will ever need to create content.

Keep up with the blog for many more pieces on tips, tricks, and things we learned at Adobe Video World 2016.

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The Future of Creative Cloud: Insights from Adobe Video World 2016

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We aren't far removed from the decision to combine After Effects World and Premiere Pro World - as the whole industry continues to shift to a single person needing to know how to do everything themselves. That's a struggle Adobe understands.

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Inside Daydream, Google’s New Virtual Reality Ecosystem

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Inside Daydream, Google’s New Virtual Reality Ecosystem

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When Google googl decided to get serious about virtual reality in 2014, it started by convincing its own employees. At the time, the company had dabbled in the technology with the launch of Google Cardboard, a plastic and heavy-duty paper object that turned a smartphone running Google's Android mobile operating system into a makeshift VR headset. Emboldened by the early public response-Google went on to ship 5 million Cardboard viewers-the company's ambitions quickly grew. Soon Google needed its employees to believe that VR was not just an experiment but a big bet worth making.

To make his case, the company's newly appointed VR czar, Clay Bavor, converted a simple conference room at Google's Mountain View, Calif., headquarters into a dedicated virtual reality room complete with speakers, soundproofing, and headsets. With gear from Valve, the gaming company behind the Half-Life series, the room became a place where employees could use a viewer to explore the Pacific Ocean or place themselves in the middle of a music concert.

"People would go in wondering and come out believing," Bavor says. "It was a powerful turning point for Google."

But what about the rest of the world? Today the market for virtual reality is budding at best-just a $6.7 billion business this year, predicts market researcher TrendForce, driven mostly by hardware sales. In the two years since Google launched Cardboard, a rash of rival headsets has appeared. Facebook-owned fb Oculus VR released its long-awaited Rift, compatible with Microsoft's msft Windows and Xbox. Samsung began shipping its Gear VR, which is powered by an Android-based Galaxy device, in partnership with Oculus. HTC released its Vive, which runs on software made by Valve. Sony sne announced a VR system for its popular PlayStation gaming console.

Courtesy of Google

TrendForce believes the VR market will eventually turn a corner and reach $70 billion in sales in 2020-but driven mostly by software, not hardware. And that's where Google hopes to make the biggest impact.

Sitting in a glass-walled conference room in the VR wing of Google headquarters, Bavor explains that he now needs to make his case to those beyond the Googleplex-to the software developers and smartphone manufacturers that will together spark adoption of VR technology beyond the early adopters who are driving today's sales. The goal, he says, is to make sure that top developers see Android as the best return on their time rather than competing operating systems from Oculus, Valve, and Sony.

In May, at Google's I/O conference for software developers, Bavor revealed Daydream, a virtual reality platform that sits atop a new version of Android, as well as a new viewer and a mission to work with partners to make Daydream-ready devices.

Unlike with Cardboard, the goal with Daydream is to design an ecosystem. Says Bavor: "The whole point is to think about the hardware, software, viewers, controllers, and experiences in concert." And not separately, he implies, like some of Google's rivals thus far.

The effort starts with Android. Google's mobile operating system has been rebuilt to accommodate the additional sensors, graphics, and component prioritization that modern VR technology requires. It also better integrates the rest of the phone's operations with the VR experience. (For example, you can now receive a text message in VR while wearing a viewer.)

The effort extends to Google's revamped VR hardware. David Burke, vice president of engineering for Android, recalls walking into Bavor's pop-up lab in Mountain View as his team tinkered with microchips, fabrics, plastics, and sensors to build scores of prototypes-100 in all-for a new viewer and controller. "There were wires and computers hanging everywhere," Burke says.

The result-which took a year and a half to develop, vs. the mere weeks for Cardboard-is a sleek fabric viewer that fits snugly around a user's head and relies on a person's Android smartphone for VR content. It's more garment than "gizmo," Bavor contends, taking a subtle dig at the ski-mask-like Oculus Rift. The new controller mimics a small wand; Bavor first tested it by casting a line in a VR fishing game.

When it comes to hardware, Google is late to the VR party. Still, Bavor insists that its impact could be the most significant. By creating both the software and the hardware for VR (but allowing partners to make their own versions), Google is copying its own playbook for Android, the world's top mobile operating system. Samsung and HTC, two major Android phone manufacturers, will develop Daydream-ready phones. Gaming giants Ubisoft and Electronic Arts ea will create Daydream-ready VR games.

"With Android we created a market for developers," Burke says. "I think VR needs the same thing."

Courtesy of Google

The strategy insulates the search giant from continued criticism that it can't create hardware that appeals to a large consumer base as rivals Apple aapl and Amazon amzn can. Google Glass, the company's early attempt at a wearable, was a flop. Nest, the smart-home device maker it acquired in 2014, has missed sales targets.

"Google hasn't had a breakthrough success on hardware, despite owning the operating system Android," says James Cakmak, an analyst at equity research firm Monness Crespi Hardt & Co.

Bavor says Google has learned from its Glass debacle and applied those lessons to its VR efforts. For starters, a Daydream-ready system will not cost $1,500 (as Glass did) or $600 (as Oculus Rift does). He won't reveal the price for Google's new viewer and controller, saying only that it won't cost a lot of money. The software will be free for developers.

"We're building on what people are comfortable with and what people already have and are familiar with," Bavor says. "People are going to continue to buy smartphones."

And, he adds, those devices will be made by different manufacturers, not just Google. "So you can buy this extra thing, and it turns your phone into a movie theater that you can carry around with you in your bag."

Courtesy of Google

Could virtual reality become a Google experiment that doesn't end up becoming a money pit? Bavor says the company hopes to emulate the Android business model by selling content through its Play store. In-app purchases could be an additional revenue stream, he adds. What he didn't mention is advertising, where Google has earned billions of dollars.

Brian Blau, an analyst at market researcher Gartner, is confident in the company's chances. "Google is the master at creating ecosystems and is much more effective than its competitors," he says. "Creating a platform for VR is their opportunity to lose."

Cakmak, the analyst, agrees. There is potential for Google to display ads within virtual reality content-about as captive as an audience gets. "Google is still an advertising company at its core," he says. "VR could enable Google to gather more data and targeting capabilities for ad opportunities."

For now, Bavor is focusing on the big picture. "I don't pretend that VR will be the same as being in the crowd at a concert," he says. "But it's a whole lot closer to actually being there than watching it on a TV. You could be able to sell the same seat in a Broadway show 10 million times. Everyone wants to see Hamilton on Broadway, but few can see Hamilton. Virtual reality could solve that problem."
A version of this article appears in the June 1, 2016 issue of Fortune with the headline "Inside Google's Next Ecosystem: Virtual Reality."

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Inside Daydream, Google's New VR Ecosystem

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When Google googl decided to get serious about virtual reality in 2014, it started by convincing its own employees. At the time, the company had dabbled in the technology with the launch of Google Cardboard, a plastic and heavy-duty paper object that turned a smartphone running Google's Android mobile operating system into a makeshift VR headset.

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The Sartoris Project Amplifies Virtual Reality – Artificial Reality

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The Sartoris Project Amplifies Virtual Reality – Artificial Reality

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The Secret to Engagement: Lessons from Video | Perimeter Institute

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The Secret to Engagement: Lessons from Video | Perimeter Institute

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The Secret to Engagement: Lessons from Video | Perimeter Institute

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Derek Muller from YouTube's Veritasium will present a webcast on Wednesday November 27, 2013 at 7pm EST from the Mike Lazaridis Theatre of Ideas at Perimeter Institute.Derek will discuss the question: Do videos really improve student learning? Derek's PhD in physics education research suggests the answer may be no!

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Stand At The Edge Of Geologic Time

Transport yourself to Rocky Mountain National Park, with all its sights and sounds, in this immersive geology lesson.

View 360° Story

Six immersive soundscapes from Rocky Mountain National Park

When you enter the soundscape, swipe or click and drag to view the entirety of a scene.

Project Credits

This story was reported and produced by Wes Lindamood and edited by Christopher Joyce. Special thanks to Oregon State University professor of geology Eric Kirby for his time and expertise.

Design and development: Tyler Fisher, Wes Lindamood and Brittany Mayes.

Field recordings and audio production: Bill McQuay, Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Image Credits
All 360° images are composites of multiple images. The "stitching" process includes light photographic manipulation in order to form a clear image.
A view of Hallett Peak from Dream Lake (David Al-Ibrahim for NPR)

A view of Hallett Peak from Emerald Lake (David Al-Ibrahim for NPR)

Standing at the summit of Chiefs Head Peak (pix/360cities.net via Getty Images)

A view of Longs Peak from the Iron Gates of Mount Meeker (William l/360cities.net via Getty Images)

Standing at The Trough of Longs Peak (William l/360cities.net via Getty Images)

Looking up at Longs Peak from Chasm Lake (William l/360cities.net via Getty Images)

A view of Notchtop Mountain, Little Matterhorn and The Gable from Fern Lake (David Al-Ibrahim for NPR)

Looking out over Gem Lake to Estes Park (William l/360cities.net via Getty Images)

The Dawn Chorus at Hollowell Park (David Al-Ibrahim for NPR)

The glacial valley of Moraine Park (David Al-Ibrahim for NPR)

Glacier Gorge, Hallett Peak and Longs Peak from Emerald Lake Trail (David Al-Ibrahim for NPR)

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Transport yourself to Rocky Mountain National Park, with all its sights and sounds, in this immersive geology lesson. View 360° Story Six immersive soundscapes from Rocky Mountain National Park When you enter the soundscape, swipe or click and drag to view the entirety of a scene.

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Build the Virtual Reality Web with A-Frame ★ Mozilla Hacks – the Web developer blog

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Build the Virtual Reality Web with A-Frame ★ Mozilla Hacks – the Web developer blog

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The WebVR team at Mozilla (MozVR) set out over a year ago asking, "what would virtual reality (VR) on the Web look like?" Today we click on links to jump from page to page, one day we will walk through portals to jump from world to world. Unfortunately, there are only a handful of WebGL developers in the world who know how to create highly interactive 3D experiences. But there are potentially millions of web developers, web designers, and 3D artists yearning for a tool to make VR content creation as easy as building a webpage.

We recently released an open-source framework called A-Frame for easily creating 3D and VR experiences on the Web. A-Frame puts VR content creation into our hands by allowing us to create scenes with declarative HTML that just work across desktop, Oculus Rift, and smartphones. We can manipulate scenes with vanilla JavaScript just as we would with ordinary HTML elements, and we can continue using our favorite JavaScript libraries and frameworks (e.g. d3, React). A basic scene in A-Frame looks something like:

In this scene:

We have some basic geometries using <a-cube>, <a-cylinder>, <a-sphere>.

We have an image from the Web using <a-image>.

We have a 360-degree photo using <a-sky> for the background.

We can move around with the WASD keys and look around with mouse-drag.

To enter VR, we click the Goggles icon. This scene can be viewed on an Oculus Rift on desktop or on a smartphone using a Google Cardboard holder. Or, it can also function as a normal 3D scene. Read more about entering VR. The syntax above should seem familiar to most everyone; each element under <a-scene> represents a 3D object, and we can modify these objects using HTML attributes. Underneath this simple markup, however, lies a flexible and extensible 3D framework.

three.js + Entity-Component-System

Under the hood, A-Frame is a three.js framework that brings the entity-component-system (ECS) pattern to the DOM. A-Frame is built as an abstraction layer on top of three.js and is extensible enough to do just about anything that three.js can do.

The ECS pattern is a pattern commonly used in game development that favors composability over inheritance. Since A-Frame aims to bring highly interactive 3D experiences to the Web, it adopts existing patterns from the game industry. In ECS, every object in the scene is an entity, which is a general-purpose container that by itself does nothing. Components are reusable modules that are then plugged into an entity in order to attach appearance, behavior, and/or functionality.

To give a simple abstract example, we might have color, tire, and engine components. We can compose entities by configuring, mixing, and plugging reusable components:

Compose a blue car entity by using the color component set to blue, the tire components with the number set to four, and attaching the engine component.

Compose a red bike entity by using the color component set to red, the tire components with the number set to two, and not attaching the engine component.

Compose a yellow boat entity by using the color component set to yellow, the tire components with the number set to zero, and attaching the engine component.

Abstract representation of the entity-component-system pattern by Ruben Mueller of The VR Jump.
In A-Frame:

An entity is represented by <a-entity>. It is the core building block that comprises everything within a scene.

A component is represented by an HTML attribute (e.g. <a-entity engine>).

A component's properties are passed via a string into a HTML attribute where it will be parsed later.

If a component has only one property to define, then it looks like a normal HTML attribute (e.g. <a-entity visible="false">).

If a component has more than one property to define, then properties are passed in through a syntax similar to inline CSS styles (e.g., <a-entity engine="cylinders: 4; horsepower: 158; mass: 200">).

Take <a-cube> for example, we can break it down into geometry (shape) and material (appearance) components:

<!-- <a-cube>'s actual form. --> <a-entity geometry="primitive: box; depth: 2; height: 10; width: 4" material="color: #FFF; src: url(texture.png)">

Developers can write components to do just about anything and share them with other developers to plug-and-play. Let's configure and attach more components to compose a more complex entity:

In an ECS pattern, nearly all logic and behavior should be encapsulated within components to encourage modularity and reuse.

Building an Interactive Scene

Let's go through an example building a scene where the workflow revolves around writing components. We'll build an interactive scene in which we fire lasers at enemies surrounding us. We can use the standard components that ship with A-Frame, or use components that A-Frame developers have published to the ecosystem. Better yet, we can write our own components to do whatever we want!

If you want to follow along, there are several ways to get coding with A-Frame:

Let's start by adding an enemy target:

This creates a basic static scene where the enemy stares at you even as you move around. We can use A-Frame components from the ecosystem to do some neat things.

Using Components

The awesome-aframe repository is a great place to find components that the community has created to enable new features. Many of these components are started from the Component Boilerplate and should provide builds in the dist/ folders in their repositories. Take the layout component for example. We can grab the build, drop it into our scene, and immediately be able to use a 3D layout system to automatically position entities. Instead of having one enemy, let's have ten enemies positioned in a circle around the player:

It is messy in markup to have the enemy entity duplicated ten times. We can drop in the template component to clean that up. We can also use A-Frame's animation system to have enemies march in a circle around us.

By mixing and matching the layout and template components, we now have ten enemies surrounding us in a circle. Let's enable gameplay by writing our own components.

Writing Components

Developers comfortable with JavaScript and three.js can write components to add appearance, behavior, and functionality to entities. As we've seen, these components can then be reused and shared with the community. Not all components have to be shared; they can be ad-hoc or one-off.

Components consist of data, which are defined by the schema and can be passed in through HTML, and lifecycle methods, which define how the data is used to modify the entity it's attached to. The lifecycle methods usually interact with the three.js, DOM, and A-Frame APIs. My previous blog post on How to Write an A-Frame VR Component goes into more detail on using the component API to register a component.

For the scene, we want to be able to fire lasers at the enemies to make them disappear. We will need components to create lasers on click, to generate clicks, to propel the lasers, and to check for when a laser hits an enemy.

spawner Component

Let's start by being able to create lasers. We want to be able to spawn a laser entity that starts at the player's current position. We'll create a spawner component that listens to an event on the entity, and when that event is emitted, we'll spawn an entity with a predefined mixin of components:

AFRAME.registerComponent('spawner', { schema: { on: { default: 'click' }, mixin: { default: '' } }, /** * Add event listener to entity that when emitted, spawns the entity. */ update: function (oldData) { this.el.addEventListener(this.data.on, this.spawn.bind(this)); }, /** * Spawn new entity with a mixin of componnets at the entity's current position. */ spawn: function () { var el = this.el; var entity = document.createElement('a-entity'); var matrixWorld = el.object3D.matrixWorld; var position = new THREE.Vector3(); var rotation = el.getAttribute('rotation'); var entityRotation; position.setFromMatrixPosition(matrixWorld); entity.setAttribute('position', position); // Have the spawned entity face the same direction as the entity. // Allow the entity to further modify the inherited rotation. position.setFromMatrixPosition(matrixWorld); entity.setAttribute('position', position); entity.setAttribute('mixin', this.data.mixin); entity.addEventListener('loaded', function () { entityRotation = entity.getComputedAttribute('rotation'); entity.setAttribute('rotation', { x: entityRotation.x + rotation.x, y: entityRotation.y + rotation.y, z: entityRotation.z + rotation.z }); }); el.sceneEl.appendChild(entity); } });

click-listener Component

Now we need to a way to generate a click event on the player entity in order to spawn the laser. We could just write a vanilla JavaScript event handler in a content script, but it is more reusable to write a component that can allow any entity to listen for clicks:

AFRAME.registerComponent('click-listener', { // When the window is clicked, emit a click event from the entity. init: function () { var el = this.el; window.addEventListener('click', function () { el.emit('click', null, false); }); } });

From HTML, we define the laser mixin and attach the spawner and click-listener components to the player. When we click, the spawner component will generate a laser starting in front of the camera:

projectile Component

Now lasers will spawn in front of us when we click, but we need them to fire and travel. In the spawner component, we had the laser point in the rotation of the camera, and we rotated it 90-degrees around the X-axis to align it correctly. We can add a projectile component to have the laser travel straight in the direction it's already facing (its local Y-axis in this case):

AFRAME.registerComponent('projectile', { schema: { speed: { default: -0.4 } }, tick: function () { this.el.object3D.translateY(this.data.speed); } });

Then attach the projectile component to the laser mixin:

<a-assets> <!-- Attach projectile behavior. --> <a-mixin id="laser" geometry="primitive: cylinder; radius: 0.05; translate: 0 -2 0" material="color: green; metalness: 0.2; opacity: 0.4; roughness: 0.3" projectile="speed: -0.5"></a-mixin> </a-assets>

The laser will now fire like a projectile on click:

collider Component

The last step is to add a collider component so we can detect when the laser hits an entity. We can do this using the three.js Raycaster, drawing a ray (line) from one end of the laser to the other, then continuously checking if one of the enemies are intersecting the ray. If an enemy is intersecting our ray, then it is touching the laser, and we use an event to tell the enemy that it got hit:

AFRAME.registerComponent('collider', { schema: { target: { default: '' } }, /** * Calculate targets. */ init: function () { var targetEls = this.el.sceneEl.querySelectorAll(this.data.target); this.targets = []; for (var i = 0; i < targetEls.length; i++) { this.targets.push(targetEls[i].object3D); } this.el.object3D.updateMatrixWorld(); }, /** * Check for collisions (for cylinder). */ tick: function (t) { var collisionResults; var directionVector; var el = this.el; var sceneEl = el.sceneEl; var mesh = el.getObject3D('mesh'); var object3D = el.object3D; var raycaster; var vertices = mesh.geometry.vertices; var bottomVertex = vertices[0].clone(); var topVertex = vertices[vertices.length - 1].clone(); // Calculate absolute positions of start and end of entity. bottomVertex.applyMatrix4(object3D.matrixWorld); topVertex.applyMatrix4(object3D.matrixWorld); // Direction vector from start to end of entity. directionVector = topVertex.clone().sub(bottomVertex).normalize(); // Raycast for collision. raycaster = new THREE.Raycaster(bottomVertex, directionVector, 1); collisionResults = raycaster.intersectObjects(this.targets, true); collisionResults.forEach(function (target) { // Tell collided entity about the collision. target.object.el.emit('collider-hit', {target: el}); }); } });

Then we attach a class to the enemies to designate them as targets, attach animations that trigger on collision to make them disappear, and finally attach the collider component to the laser that targets enemies:

<a-assets> <img id="enemy-sprite" src="img/enemy.png"> <script id="enemies" type="text/x-nunjucks-template"> <a-entity layout="type: circle; radius: 5"> <a-animation attribute="rotation" dur="8000" easing="linear" repeat="indefinite" to="0 360 0"></a-animation> {% for x in range(num) %} <!-- Attach enemy class. --> <a-image class="enemy" look-at="#player" src="#enemy-sprite" transparent="true"> <!-- Attach collision handler animations. --> <a-animation attribute="opacity" begin="collider-hit" dur="400" ease="linear" from="1" to="0"></a-animation> <a-animation attribute="scale" begin="collider-hit" dur="400" ease="linear" to="0 0 0"></a-animation> </a-image> {% endfor %} </a-entity> </script> <!-- Attach collider that targets enemies. --> <a-mixin id="laser" geometry="primitive: cylinder; radius: 0.05; translate: 0 -2 0" material="color: green; metalness: 0.2; opacity: 0.4; roughness: 0.3" projectile="speed: -0.5" collider="target: .enemy"></a-mixin> </a-assets>

And there we have a complete basic interactive scene in A-Frame that can be viewed in VR. We package power into components that allow us to declaratively build scenes without losing control or flexibility. The result-a rudimentary FPS game that supports VR in ultimately just 30 lines of HTML:

Community

The community has built some great things with only the initial version of A-Frame. Check out what has been shared on Made With A-Frame and Awesome A-Frame.

We all hang out on the A-Frame Slack which currently has almost 350 people kicking the tires. Play with A-Frame, and come tell us what you think! Virtual reality is coming, and you don't want to miss the train.

Kevin is a virtual reality developer at Mozilla and a core developer on A-Frame, an open-source WebVR framework. He is @ngokevin_ on Twitter.
More articles by Kevin Ngo...

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Build the Virtual Reality Web with A-Frame - Mozilla Hacks - the Web developer blog

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The WebVR team at Mozilla (MozVR) set out over a year ago asking, "what would virtual reality (VR) on the Web look like?" Today we click on links to jump from page to page, one day we will walk through portals to jump from world to world.

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For the Hesitant Teacher: Leveraging the Power of Minecraft | MindShift | KQED News

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For the Hesitant Teacher: Leveraging the Power of Minecraft | MindShift | KQED News

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John Miller has been using Minecraft to teach 7th grade history at Chalone Peaks Middle School in California for the past three years. Designing lessons in Minecraft has reinfused his teaching style with creativity and has helped his students become independent thinkers. "We're not really teaching them to be independent," Miller said. "So that's what got me thinking about putting kids in a virtual world and letting them explore."

"I've gotten the best writing I've ever gotten in 21 years from kids." John Miller

Teachers are finding ways to use Minecraft in every subject, but in some ways the game is best suited to history because it's so easy to download worlds other people have already made in Minecraft. Without much effort or time, a teacher can have a three-dimensional, accurate map of medieval London at his fingertips. Students can then see and experience the time and place in a new way, bringing history to life and giving them a personal stake in it.

Miller's students are generally poor at reading and writing, so it was important for him to inject lots of literacy skills into his content teaching about medieval world history. He collaborated with Robert Walton, a former teacher and current young adult fiction writer, to write vignettes introducing each part of his curriculum. Then he'd set his students loose in Minecraft to explore a "map" that he'd downloaded from the MinecraftEDU website and customized for his purposes.

Each vignettes tells a loose story about some aspect of Dark Ages history. The quests Miller designed take the narrative further and ultimately lead students through the Minecraft map and into the next story and part of history. For example, Walton wrote a story about the first Viking raid in England, told from the Viking viewpoint. Miller had his students close-read and annotate the story to be sure they understood it. Then he set the kids loose in Minecraft to wander around the village post-raid, interacting with various characters who told them a different side of the story.

Miller asked his students to write reflections about what they'd seen and learned about each period of history. "I've gotten the best writing I've ever gotten in 21 years from kids," Miller said. Normally he would dread reading 160 essays about the same moment in history, but because each kid wrote from his or her own perspective, each piece of writing was different. "I enjoyed it so much because every kid wrote from a different perspective, from how they saw it," Miller said. And by the end, kids had written much more than they ever thought they could.

"Kids who were struggling to write a paragraph at the beginning of the year had written 40 pages of amazing storytelling," Miller said.

Like many public schools, Chalone Peaks doesn't have an art or music program. Miller has found that Minecraft has not only helped fuel a passion for history in some of his students, but it also provides a creative outlet for them. When he teaches about medieval Japan, he asks students to write Tanka poems, a precursor to the haiku usually focusing on nature of emotions. Then in Minecraft, students built paths that represented the themes of their poem. As a player moved down the path and stepped on each block a line from the poem would pop up.

"When the kids are creating these things, I'm not only seeing on the screen what they are creating, but in a way I can see their thinking," Miller said. He plays the game with them, interacting with them there, which also allows him the time to build relationships through a medium that they like. Talking with them about what they are making and why is also a great way to assess their learning. The game also allows for differentiation - more advanced students are free to make more detailed and impressive projects.

"The creative aspect was critical to see if they really understood what the words of the poem really meant," Miller said. Even though his students speak English, about half of them come into 7th grade writing and reading at a 3rd grade level. Writing verse is a particularly hard task for them. The middle school textbooks and primary source documents are often inaccessible to them, but Miller has found that Minecraft helps them experience the history and then participate more in constructing new knowledge about it.

Miller understands that some teachers may feel intimidated to get started with Minecraft, but he's never regretted taking the leap. He suggests starting a Minecraft club after school to build interest and give the teacher time to familiarize herself with the game. The MinecraftEDU teacher community is also robust and generous. Most teachers freely allow downloading of worlds and lessons they've created and Miller often copies parts of other worlds and then positions them in his own map for a specific lesson.

"It's surprising how much is out there and the vast majority of it is free," Miller said. And if it doesn't already exist, many Minecraft enthusiasts are happy to build it. That network of educators has also been an inspiration to Miller who likes having a cohort of colleagues with whom he shares ideas and gets feedback. He does note that schools need computers to run the MinecraftEDU software, not iPads or Chromebooks. But MinecraftEDU is affordable ( roughly $18 per seat) and doesn't require that a school have its own server.
MINECRAFT IN FOREIGN LANGUAGE
Minecraft might not be an obvious teaching tool for a Spanish language teacher, but Glen Irvin has found that his high school students are using language more often and in more complex ways since he started using the game. He was worried teenagers would find Minecraft stupid, but was blown away by its success when he gave it a try.

"There's nothing built for second language teachers, so I had to come up with some scenarios myself," Irvin said. For example, in a unit about the language of business, Irvin asked students to collect resources like lumber and iron in Minecraft's "creative mode." Students then set up businesses, bartered with one another and posted prices in Spanish, all the while speaking to each other and conducting business in Spanish.

"It was way better than what we normally what we would have done, which would be a fake skit," Irvin said. "It blew that thing away." Students were so into the project they even started looking up extra vocabulary words and grammatical constructions so they could communicate better with one another. Irvin also always stops the play with enough time for students to write a reflection of what they've done in the game in their online journals. He finds the reflection helps solidify their learning and gives them practice with both oral and written communication skills.

Because none of the pre-built lessons in MinecraftEDU are explicitly for language teachers, Irvin finds himself purusing what's out there and generating lots of creative ways to work his curriculum into what he finds.

For example, in an upper level Spanish course students take for college credit, Irvin assigned a survival world created by MinecraftEDU founder Joel Levin for the unit on environmental conservation. In Levin's scenario, classmates are the last remaining people on earth and there is only one tree still alive. The rest of the human race is waiting for the world to be inhabitable in outer space. To win the challenge the team must repopulate the forest and make earth safe for life again. But the only way the class can alert survivors in space that earth is safe again is to send up a rocket, which they must make by smelting iron. That can only be done by burning trees to make a hot fire. The goals are at cross purposes and students have to decide the best course of action.

"In my class they're discussing all these scenarios and what to do or not do in Spanish, which is awesome because it's super high level thinking," Irvin said. "It's way beyond anything I would have expected them to do." And it was easy for Irvin to set up. He downloaded the pre-built world and then went in and changed all the signs from English to Spanish. It took him ten minutes and he got an engaging lesson that gave students a chance to use new vocabulary and language skills to argue their position.

"A teacher who doesn't really have experience playing a lot can still do awesome things because the kids are going to be so fired up," Irvin said. Experienced players in his classes often offer to be teaching-aids, helping other students hone their basic Minecraft skills. Irvin often records what his students do in the game, both for assessment and to keep a record of the awesome things they've built.

Irvin says it's easy to keep students on task in the game because as a teacher-player in the game he has more powers than other players. He can instantly teleport to wherever a student is working and remind them to stay on task, or freeze a player who has wandered. He can also go into an invisible mode to see what students are doing when they don't know he's there.

Irvin has three tips for teachers looking to get started.

Use MinecraftEDU. It's cheap, easy, and there are a lot of worlds to steal from or use, along with lesson tips.

Get a more experienced player to walk you through the basics and mess around a little in the game to become familiar.

Start with a single project that you'd like to improve, maybe a poster project. Tell the students they will be able to demonstrate their knowledge in three dimensions instead. Set parameters and guidelines for how students should interact within the game.

MINECRAFT WITH MATH AND SCIENCE
Minecraft lends itself well to teaching math because everything is built out of blocks, making it easy to do geometry. Area and volume problems at the bare minimum. Math is also a subject many students find difficult and a different way of engaging them could help spark enthusiasm.

Stephen Elford is a secondary math and science teacher at a rural public school in Victoria, Australia. He played Minecraft for fun at first, but then realized how much math was involved and began experimenting with using it as a classroom tool.

Elford has found Minecraft's "crafting mode" to be an effective way to teach basic algebra because Minecraft players have to craft all the tools they use to build out of raw materials harvested in the world. Different implements like an axe or a torch require different raw material recipes. Elford's students wrote their own recipes (which look a lot like equations) using base materials. For example, one log = 4 planks. If you had 52 logs how many planks would you have and what formula would be used to represent the problem?

Elford doesn't ever force students to use Minecraft for projects, but he likes to offer it as an option because he's noticed that some of his most disengaged learners excel when given an alternative to traditional pen and paper equations.

"The four students who did that project got a very good understanding of how algebra can be used in virtual life situations and how to go about converting and simplifying units," Elford said. In other lessons Elford has used a more straightforward method, asking students to solve problems to earn access to new parts of the world. Elford says one student in particular stands out because he had done almost no work in school for more than three years. But when Minecraft was involved he perked up.

"He showed a depth of understanding that I just didn't think was possible given his participation," Elford said. "It blew my mind." It was that "ah ha" moment many teachers live for, but that doesn't always come easily or often.

Elford has found Minecraft to be powerful in science as well, where he mostly uses the game to simulate scientific experiences that kids wouldn't otherwise get in public school. For example, in his senior biology class, Elford uses Minecraft to give students a tour of an animal cell. Then, they get to watch as a single strand of DNA is transcribed into mRNA, which conveys the instructions to create complex proteins that do most of the work in the body.

"When I've done this lesson in the past it's been a lot more powerful and longer lasting for the students," Elford said. He's also uses Minecraft to start discussions. For example, his rural school doesn't have the tools to measure Earth's gravity, but his students can measure the gravity in Minecraft and then discuss what their findings mean for earth. Or, Elford might let students destroy the world with a plague in Minecraft as a way to discuss evolution.

Elford, like Irvin and Miller, is clear that Minecraft is just one more tool he can use to effectively communicate his content and the skills that accompany it. However, he's encouraged by the staying power of lessons he's taught using Minecraft and by the excitement even poor students often show for projects within the game.

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For the Hesitant Teacher: Leveraging the Power of Minecraft

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John Miller has been using Minecraft to teach 7th grade history at Chalone Peaks Middle School in California for the past three years. Designing lessons in Minecraft has reinfused his teaching style with creativity and has helped his students become independent thinkers. "We're not really teaching them to be independent," Miller said.

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Finally, a Film Contest for Editors and VFX Artists ($100k in Prizes)

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Finally, a Film Contest for Editors and VFX Artists ($100k in Prizes)

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Create a 60-second film using free Filmsupply footage and Musicbed tracks, and you could win up to $100,000 in prizes.

Raising money for a movie can be a chicken and egg scenario: you need to show footage to get funds, but you also need funds to shoot something. Musicbed and Filmsupply know this better than anyone. That's why they're teaming up to give you a chance to show off your vision without shooting a thing. You could win up to $100,000 in prizes, which range from cash to expensive gear to an all-expenses-paid trip to SXSW.

By entering their new Filmsupply Challenge, filmmakers can use the companies' stock footage to create a 60-second (max) short film. The film must fall into one of three categories: ad spec, film trailer, or title sequence.

Though this competition is aimed at filmmakers in general, it is specifically valuable to editors, VFX artists, music supervisors, and colorists, as it targets these skillsets.

To enter, go to their website and download the free starter kit. All competitors get free access to the Musicbed and Filmsupply catalogs and must use at least five Filmsupply clips and two Musicbed tracks.

Prizes will be awarded in the following categories:

The submission deadline is June 28, and you can submit starting today.

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Finally, a Film Contest for Editors and VFX Artists ($100k in Prizes)

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Create a 60-second film using free Filmsupply footage and Musicbed tracks, and you could win up to $100,000 in prizes. Raising money for a movie can be a chicken and egg scenario: you need to show footage to get funds, but you also need funds to shoot something.

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Harvard University Will Teach A MOOC in Virtual Reality | Class Central's MOOC Report

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Harvard University Will Teach A MOOC in Virtual Reality | Class Central's MOOC Report

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One persistent complaint about online learning is that it lacks the feeling and advantages of being physically present among teachers and fellow students. While other fields like entertainment and communication have evolved past exclusive physical presence for content delivery, most of the education sector is just starting its transition.

One possible way to simultaneously achieve the benefits of physical presence and digitalization is by using virtual reality. During the recent Virtually There: Documentary Meets Virtual Reality conference, Harvard announced it will be streaming its most popular class, CS50, in virtual reality this fall on edX. CS50 is the most popular course on-campus at Harvard; it's also the most popular course on edX, with over one million enrollments.
This is CS50 VR, coming in fall 2016.
Virtual reality could also improve the student experience in MOOCs related to medicine, history, game design, psychology, geography, and so on. Virtual reality is now being used to teach all sorts of topics, from football training to ecology. National Geographic has just announced a VR division.

Jeremy Bailenson, who heads the VR lab at Stanford University, gave a terrific talk last year (based on the research that's been done) on how virtual reality will transform online learning. Professor Bailenson gave a number of examples of how virtual reality could improve learning. One example is the virtual reality gaze. Experiments show that students pay more attention to a lecturer if the lecturer looks them in the eye. In a classroom of 50 students, a lecturer can only look at each student one to two percent of the time. With virtual reality, you can increase it to any percentage you want, and for every single student, by programming the virtual imagery of the lecturer that each student sees.

Sign up below and we will keep you updated on the latest news related to VR MOOCs.

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Harvard University Will Teach A MOOC in Virtual Reality - Class Central

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One persistent complaint about online learning is that it lacks the feeling and advantages of being physically present among teachers and fellow students. While other fields like entertainment and communication have evolved past exclusive physical presence for content delivery, most of the education sector is just starting its transition.

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Video Capture Software. Video, Webcam or Screen Recorder

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Video Capture Software. Video, Webcam or Screen Recorder

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Record videos as avi, wmv, flv, mpg, mp4, mov and more video formats

Capture video from a webcam, network IP camera or video input device (e.g., VHS recorder)

Screen capture software records the entire screen, a single window or any selected portion

Mouse highlighting spotlights the location of the cursor when using screen recorder

Ability to show keystrokes in screen recordings

Record audio from your microphone and speakers with your video; ideal for recording video conferences and webinars

Laptop camera recording and video capture

Replace background with image, video or solid color using Green Screen tool

Record video alone or video and audio simultaneously

Add your own text captions or time stamp your video

Add logo or watermark on your video capture

Change color settings and video effects before recording

Adjust the video resolution, size and frame rate for capture

Use video overlay to record your screen and webcam simultaneously

Upload videos directly to YouTube, Vimeo or Flickr

Burn recordings directly to DVD with Express Burn Disc Burner

Time lapse video recording

Create photo snapshots of a video at any time

Create screencast videos easily

Edit your recorded video with VideoPad Video Editor Software

Record anything you want from your computer screen

Debut is great for recording your screen, webcams, live video, streaming games, and plenty more!
Download Now

Webcam overlay

Use video overlay to record your screen and webcam simultaneously. This feature of the webcam software is perfect for YouTube videos where you want to show both your screen and your facial reactions simultaneously.

Handy Video Color Adjustments

When you adjust the color settings and effects of your streaming video, the results can be seen instantly in the main window and captured when you hit record. Adjusting the brightness, contrast and gamma is perfect for lesser quality cameras whose image quality is not quite right.

Flexible Video Output Settings

Choose the size and frame rate used to capture your screencast video. Debut has a list of common output settings for TV and HD that you can select, or enter the width and height yourself for a custom output. This flexibility makes Debut perfect for people creating videos for many different outputs (e.g., YouTube, Facebook, CD or television).

Screen Recording Software Screen Selections

Debut records the entire screen, a single window or any selected portion. Debut also supports multi-screen recording so you can record all your monitors.

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Debut Video Capture Software. Easy Video, Webcam and Screen Recording

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Record videos as avi, wmv, flv, mpg, mp4, mov and more video formats Capture video from a webcam, network IP camera or video input device (e.g., VHS recorder) Screen capture software records the entire screen, a single window or any selected portion Mouse highlighting spotlights the location of the cursor

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Screencasting to Engage Learning | EDUCAUSE

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Screencasting to Engage Learning | EDUCAUSE

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Key Takeaways

Screencasts can provide learners a student-centered and engaging learning experience in both distance and traditional learning settings.

To align screencasts with lesson objectives, goals, assessment practices, and standards, instructors can create their own screencasts rather than searching through the thousands of educational screencast videos on the web.

Good educational screencasts depend not only on thorough planning but also on thoughtful and careful editing to re-sequence lesson elements, eliminate awkward and unnecessary portions, and craft a focused, easy-to-follow presentation that uses students' time efficiently.

Students in both K-12 and higher education will spend all of their personal and professional lives immersed in a digital society. Educators in today's classrooms must be able to use and integrate both current and emerging technologies. One of the keys to effective 21st century teaching is to balance traditional pedagogical methods with the effective use of technology to foster learning.

Many educational technology tools can be used in instruction; however, one fundamentally useful tool in teaching is the screencast. A screencast can provide learners a student-centered and engaging learning experience in both distance and traditional learning settings. Screencasts enable teachers to create a digital recording of any instructional activity performed on a computer screen, 1 and they can be used as learning resources, learning tasks, and learning support. 2

This article focuses on educational screencasts. The topics explored include an overview of screencasting, its benefits, the flipped classroom, screencast software, tools, planning, and teacher-created screencasts. (For specifics on creating screencasts from PowerPoint slides, see my tutorial " Creating a PowerPoint Screencast Using Camtasia Studio.")

Screencasting Overview

A screencast is a digital video and audio recording of what occurs on a presenter's computer screen, and it can be used to create sophisticated, information-rich multimedia presentations. The word "screencast" was first coined by columnist Jon Udell in 200 5. Udell first used the word in an article published in InfoWorld, describing the benefits of using this technique to show his readers how computer applications worked. In a screencast, the presenter records all the screen activity and images continuously to complete a designated task. Audio can be recorded simultaneously or afterwards in postproduction along with sound effects and music tracks. 3

Screencasting can be integrated across the curriculum and into many learning activities. Screencasts are an effective instructional format that can be used for tutorials, demonstrations, digital storytelling, and narrated PowerPoint presentations. During the video editing process a variety of media can be imported into a screencast project, such as video clips, photos, music, and animations. Screencasting is a multimedia alternative to video recording, is easy to use, and helps fill a need for dynamic, engaging content.

Screencasts have many applications, which include:

Training - such as learning new software and orientations to new products.

Teaching - a lesson on a particular topic or showing a step-by-step process, in which students can learn material at their own pace or catch up on missed sessions.

Selling - a product.

Blogging and YouTube - communicating opinions, facts, and ideas, etc.

Screencast Benefits

As computer technology continues to evolve and advance, many teachers from K-12 and higher education use screencasting as an online or stand-alone teaching tool with traditional teaching approaches to enhance and engage the learning experience of their students. Sugar, Brown, and Luterbach noted that screencasting as an instructional strategy may be viewed as a modern descendent of instructional film and video. 4

A screencast can include many multimedia elements - music, sound effects, audio, and graphics - along with text, making any content topic engaging while also appealing to different learning modalities. Mayer's theory of multimedia learning suggests that animated presentations that have a corresponding audio component, essentially moving picture and sound, provide a more effective learning experience than a more traditional alternative (e.g., a sequence of still images accompanied by descriptive text). 5

Screencasting has emerged as a prominent teaching tool on the Internet. There are several advantages for both the instructor and the student. For the teacher a screencast is an efficient and effective means of describing a step-by-step process, explaining a particular concept, or presenting a PowerPoint presentation with narration. Teachers have the ability to craft succinct and concise presentations because each screencast can be edited. The inclusion of video-based instruction in online environments, such as screencasting, can have positive effects on student learning and can be pedagogically equivalent to their face-to-face instruction counterparts. 6

For the student, screencasting allows them to learn by example, seeing for instance a step-by-step sequence in great detail or viewing a screencast video directly related to lesson content. In addition, students can watch a screencast video anytime, anywhere and have complete control of the lesson, which means they review any part of the presentation as needed. Screencasts can be delivered via streaming or downloaded in their entirety for later viewing. 7

The ability to pause or review content also gives students the option to move at their own pace, which is not always feasible in the classroom. Screencasts are excellent for those learners who just need an aural as well as a visual explanation of the content presented. Screencasting is a perfect medium to explain difficult technical concepts to anyone with a non-technical background. Teachers can also use screencasting for a variety of other classroom activates such as reviewing lesson content and presenting online lectures and professional development. 8

The Flipped Classroom

Screencasts as instructional tools can be used in many different instructional modes such as an introduction to a topic, overview of a lesson, in-depth discussions, remediation, etc. The pervasiveness of online instructional videos such as Khan Academy, TeacherTube, YouTube, Lynda.com, neoK12, and many others gives student access to many educational screencast videos on the Internet. Recently there has been a lot of interest generated in the " flipped classroom" teaching model.

The term " flipped" is so named because the classroom and homework paradigm is reversed. What used to be done in the classroom is now done at home, and that which used to be done at home is now done in classroom. Students watch and listen to a teacher's lecture via screencast video for homework, and then use class time for what previously, often, was done in homework: tackling difficult problems, collaborating in groups, and researching.

For example, instead of starting classes with an overview of (a lecture) on the Big Bang theory, the overview and equations are completed at home via a Big Bang theory screencast. The next class could start with questions and discussion on the screencast content about the origins of the universe and transition into a class activity in which students are given the equation used to determine the rate at which the universe is expanding according to the Big Bang theory. As a result students come to class having prior knowledge of the content, more interest in the topic, and lessened cognitive overload. The flipped teaching method - a blending of direct instruction with constructivist learning activities - can be integrated across many curriculum areas.

Benefits of using the flipped classroom methodology include:

Makes class time more productive for both teachers and students

Increases student engagement

Increases student achievement

Combines direct and online learning in a hybrid approach

Provides more time in which students can work collaboratively in groups

Engages students in learning and gives them knowledge of content before class

Gives students access to content if they missed class or need remediation

Flipped Teaching Strategies

Flipped teaching can be a very effective learning technique in learning content. However, students have to watch the screencast video to learn the content. How do you know students have watched the screencast? Here are a few strategies you can employ to track student responses, interaction with the screencast, and reflection using Google forms. (Google forms are a tool in Google Docs.)

A Google form lets you create an easy to use web form to track student results. A Google form is automatically connected to a spreadsheet with the same title. When you send or share a form, recipients' responses will automatically be collected in that spreadsheet. To create a Google form, sign up for a Google Account and follow the Google steps in creating a form. Two form methods (screencast summary and question forms) can validate a student interaction with a screencast as the student writes a screencast summary and goes through questions and answers.

1. Screencast Summary:

Embed a Google form directly below the screencast and have students write a summary response about the screencast content. Students can stop and write every few minutes so that they can "chunk" the information for better understanding and reflect on what they have just learned. Students can interact with the screencast (figure 1).

Figure 1. A screencast video summary form

Paragraph summary guidelines:

a. Sentence 1: General summary. "In this video I learned...."

b. Sentence 2: More details. "Specifically...."

c. Sentence 3: Something you understood well. "I really understood...."

d. Sentence 4: Something you did not understand well. "I am still confused about..."

e. Sentence 5: Real-life connection. "This screencast can be related to...."

Retrieved from http://vimeo.com/27990320.

EXAMPLE:

In this screencast I learned about the Battle of the Bulge. Specifically, we learned where and when the battle took place, the nature of the attack, the German objectives in the battle, strengths of the allied and axis forces, casualties of the American, British and German forces, American Commanders that led the battle and why this battle was important. I really understood how this was such an important battle in World War II. I am still a little confused about the German objectives in planning this battle. This screencast lecture can be related to other battles in World War II.

2. Have questions students answer about the screencast (figure 2).

Figure 2. A screencast video question form

Screencasting Software

Numerous programs create screencasts, and they vary in size, features, ease of use, and cost. There are free (table 1) and commercial (table 2) screencast software programs available for both the PC and Mac platforms. If you are interested in creating screencasts to supplement your lessons without limitations, I recommend a commercial program such as Camtasia Studio, which has a user-friendly interface and functions designed to be easy to use while providing a quality production. (See my tutorial on using Camtasia Studio to convert PowerPoint slides to screencasts.)
Table 1. Popular Free Screencast Programs Table 2. Popular Commercial Screencast Programs
Creating a presentation in Camtasia is similar in many respects to creating a digital movie. Using Camtasia Studio, teachers can record, edit, and share high-quality instructional movies that can be optimized for many popular distribution methods, including blogs, CD, DVD-ready, HD, iPhone, iPod, Screencast.com, web, or YouTube. For a guide to screencasting software, see Five Awesome Screencasting Tools and Screencasting software: Comparison and features.

Screencast Tools

The following guidelines list some tools I have found useful in creating a professional screencast:

A PC running Windows 7 or a Mac with the OSX operating system

Microphone

Webcam

Digital tablet
A Wacom Bamboo Connect Pen Tablet (CTL470) for text and illustrations

Drawing application (optional)

Teacher-Created Screencasts

Many online content-related screencasts can be used to supplement or even replace direct instruction, as in the flipped teaching model. Instructors can choose from thousands of educational screencast videos on the web for a particular lesson. However, searching and prescreening screencasts that align to specific lesson objectives can be a very time-consuming task. Therefore, teacher-created screencasts are the best way to ensure meeting lesson objectives, goals, and alignment to assessment practices and standards.

In designing a screencast, instructional planning is essential in delivering quality instruction, as is a systematic approach to planning. The following eightsteps will help you create a screencast quickly and effectively:

Topic: Give your screencast a specific name related to a content topic from your lesson or unit of instruction. The content is what the screencast is about. Decide if the content format will be a presentation, tutorial, or demonstration.

Objectives: Specify the screencast's learning objectives.

Script/outline: From the objectives write a script and/or outline.

Practice: Read through your script and practice.

Record: Make the screencast recording. Keep the screencast no more than 10-12 minutes. You have the option of recording the narration in postproduction, which is recommended.

Recording size: Decide on a size for your recording. Some common sizes are blog or web page, 640x360; Screencast.com, 800x450; YouTube, 1,280x720.

Edit video: When you have the recorded screencast, edit it to include graphics, special effects, music, audio, and other video clips.

Publish video: You can publish the video into a variety of formats. Camtasia has presets to allow you to render your project to WMV (Windows Media video), MOV (QuickTime Movie), AVI (Audio Video Interleave video file), MP4 (iPod, iPhone), iTunes-compatible video, MP3 (audio only), GIF (animation file), and many other custom settings. From the Production Wizard you can share your video to YouTube and Screencast.com.

The EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative " 7 Things You Should Know about Screencasting" contends that good screencasts depend not only on thorough planning but also on thoughtful and careful editing to re-sequence lesson elements, eliminate awkward and unnecessary portions, and craft a focused, easy-to-follow presentation that uses students' time efficiently. For example, look at the screencast on the Battle of the Bulge.

Screencasts Summary

Screencasts have emerged as a prominent teaching tool on the Internet. Screencasts are an effective way to share ideas, deliver content, and obtain student feedback. Screencasts can be used for describing a step-by-step process, explaining a particular concept, or presenting a PowerPoint presentation with narration and multimedia elements. A screencast can be used in any class as a part of real-time instruction or as the lesson itself as in the flipped teaching model. With the flipped teaching method, instructors use screencast videos to deliver their lectures, assigning them as homework. Then, in class, students can ask questions as they work through problems that they normally would have done at home without teacher help.

Creating an educational screencast that meets content objectives requires a systematic approach to planning. It seems clear that screencasting is a powerful, highly effective, and affordable learning tool that can facilitate learning across any curriculum area. Screencasting is a remarkable instructional tool. Give it a try!

Gary B. Shelly, Glenda A. Gunter, and Randolph E. Gunter, Teachers Discovering Computers: Integrating Technology in a Connected World, 7th Edition (Boston, MA: Course Technology, 2012).

Stuart Garner, "The Use of Screencasting and Audio to Support Student Learning," Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications, J. Luca and E. Weippl (eds.) (Chesapeake, VA: AACE, 2008): 4693-4698.

Joseph Friedman, "Common Elements of Effective Screencasts," Xchanges Issue 8.1 (2011).

William Sugar, Abbie Brown, and Kenneth Luterbach, "Examining the Anatomy of a Screencast: Uncovering Common Elements and Instructional Strategies," International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 11, vol. 3 (October 2010): 1-19.

Richard E. Mayer, Multimedia Learning (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Katherine Pang, "Video-Driven Multimedia, Web-Based Training in the Corporate Sector: Pedagogical Equivalence and Component Effectiveness," The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning 10, no. 3 (2009); and Tomoko Traphagan, John V. Kucsera, and Kyoko Kishi, "Impact of Class Lecture Webcasting on Attendance and Learning," Educational Technology Research & Development 58, no. 1 (February 2010): 19-37.

Mark J. W. Lee, Sunam Pradhan, and Barney Dalgarno, "The Effectiveness of Screencasts and Cognitive Tools as Scaffolding for Novice Object-Oriented Programmers," Journal of Information Technology Education 7 (2008): 61-80.

Paul McGovern, "Screencasts and Education," The Screening Room (July 2010).

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Screencasts can provide learners a student-centered and engaging learning experience in both distance and traditional learning settings. To align screencasts with lesson objectives, goals, assessment practices, and standards, instructors can create their own screencasts rather than searching through the thousands of educational screencast videos on the web.

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How Virtual Reality Will Revolutionize Education | Pond5

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How Virtual Reality Will Revolutionize Education | Pond5

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It all began with the moons of Jupiter. David Whelan, the CEO of Immersive VR Education, was sharing Titans of Space, a virtual-reality tour of the solar system, with one of his daughters. Typically, she had no interest in science, but after removing her VR headset, she came out enthusiastically naming the moons of Saturn and Jupiter. She had absorbed information in ways Whelan had never seen her do through school. That was the moment he realized, "There's definitely something here."

Since then, Whelan and his company have been leading the VR education revolution - one he believes is much needed. "Education hasn't really changed," says Whelan. "For the past 200 or 300 years, students have been given textbooks or photographs, and teachers say, 'Read these texts, look at these photographs. We're going to do a test at the end of the week.'" For Whelan, virtual reality offers not just a chance to free students from the confines of school desks, rote memorization, and exams, but also to help improve how they learn, through experience and active participation. "When you're an active participant in something, that's going to stick with you and you're going to retain that a lot more," he says. Here's how IVRE's future plans are shaping up to help make that happen.

Bringing the Past Alive, Prepping Students for the Future

IVRE has begun living up to its "learn through experience" motto with its award-winning documentary Apollo 11 VR, which allows users to experience the Neil Armstrong mission to the moon. It's one of many historical moments Whelan wants to bring to life. "We plan to cover every type of major historical event," he says while teasing their next project: putting you on the Titanic as it hits the iceberg.

What's even more intriguing about the future of reliving history in VR is that not every experience will be "one size fits all." Take the example of teaching World War I to students: "You can put the students in the trenches. They can walk around and get a feel for what it was like to live in the trenches back in 1916. They can talk to the soldiers and interact," imagines Whelan. From there, they can then customize the experience for different students - younger ones would end things there, while older students could experience following the soldiers onto the battlefield.

VR won't just be able to educate students about the past. It can also prepare them for the future - jobs, in particular. For example, IVRE is working on virtual medical training. One obstacle the medical field faces is that training machines that help students prepare for complex surgeries can be incredibly expensive; not every school can afford them, or, if they can, they can't afford enough machines to meet demand. Enter VR. "What we can do is recreate any machine, and they can use that machine on a virtual reality headset and kit," says Whelan. Training can even be enhanced with real-life stakes to better prepare students for what they will face in the real world. "In virtual reality, we can make it a lot more visceral. Instead of just looking at a machine, we could have a virtual-reality cadaver or a virtual-reality patient on a bed, and you're operating on that patient."

Reinventing the Lecture Hall and Study Group

One of IVRE's biggest projects is Lecture VR, which reimagines the college and university experience with virtual lecture halls that exceed any real world ones you've ever been in. Fully networked, teachers and students from all over the world can come together for enhanced online courses. "If I was talking about marine biology," Whelan offers as an example, "I can give a class in a classroom on the sea bed. Then I can pull in an interactive killer whale and the students can interact with that."

In that way, Lecture VR will work like WordPress on steroids, with a large catalogue of plug-in experiences that teachers can customize for the needs of a course. "We'll have thousands of locations and thousands of assets," says Whelan. "They could be animals, or objects, or they could be medical tools. Our locations could be anywhere. It could be the surface of the moon, or it could be Mars. Teachers pick and choose what they want, and they drag and drop it in," he says.

Lecture VR is also designed to take advantage of an aspect of our virtual future that has yet to gain more attention. "The social aspect of VR is going to be very, very big," Whelan says. That's why IVRE has ensured that it offers facilities for students to meet up in virtual study groups - to compare notes, practice, or experience recordings of past lectures. "We see social as very big in the education space," Whelan says.

The Future of VR Education Is Coming (Eventually)

The breadth of the VR education experiences Whelan and his company are spearheading is impressive, but the CEO knows that just because they're creating new educational experiences now, it doesn't mean they'll be widely adopted right away. "Educators are probably going to be the hardest people to really get on board." he says. "Education, in general, is very slow in adopting new technology. The personal computer came out back in the late '80s, but it wasn't really until the mid-'90s when nearly every school had PCs that children could use." He expects VR education to be adopted at a similar pace. "People are talking 2020 or 2022," says Whelan, "when virtual-reality education will be a massive component of virtual reality in general." But once that day comes, education will never be the same.
You can experience the Apollo 11 mission via Oculus or Steam, and learn more about Lecture VR on Immersive Virtual Reality Education's website.

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How Virtual Reality Will Revolutionize Education

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It all began with the moons of Jupiter. David Whelan, the CEO of Immersive VR Education, was sharing Titans of Space , a virtual-reality tour of the solar system, with one of his daughters. Typically, she had no interest in science, but after removing her VR headset, she came out enthusiastically naming the moons of Saturn and Jupiter.

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Videorama makes editing mobile video actually fun | TechCrunch

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Videorama makes editing mobile video actually fun | TechCrunch

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Smartphone users shoot a lot of video, but turning those videos into something special still takes a lot of work. A newly launched app called Videorama aims to solve that problem by offering a powerful video editor that's also super simple to use. In other words, you don't need to be a video pro in order to do things like trim videos, add text overlays, music, or special effects.

Aimed at beginners to video editing as well as social media marketers hoping to capitalize on Instagram's new support for 60-second video, Videorama is like the video equivalent to graphic editors like Canva or PicMonkey. While the former two services let you create your own graphics for sharing on social media and elsewhere, Videorama is about taking your video footage, then spicing it up before putting it in front of a wider audience.

The app is fast and straightforward to use. You can combine your photos and video together, if you choose, trim videos, and preview your changes in real-time.

A larger feature set is available via in-app purchase, however. You can pick which features you want to buy individually - for example, while full HD support is free, many overlays cost $0.99 as do special effects and music packs. But the app provides a robust starter kit, so you don't feel like there's nothing to do in the app without forking over money.

That said, there are a tons of these premium packs available, which let you do things like add explosions, electric bursts, magic spells, weather effects like rain or snow, and much more. You can also make your movie look like old black-and-white footage, or make it look like it's burning, among other things. And you can buy music packs or import your own tunes. A movie fonts pack is also available for $0.99.

Removing the watermark costs $2.99, which is the most expensive in-app purchase.

Videorama comes from a two-person indie developer team based in Istanbul, Apperto, who previously created the Typorama app for making typographic art. That app was featured by Apple and saw over a million downloads in a year.

This new app is their big follow-up, they told TechCrunch.

"We're cinema geeks and we always dreamt of an app where you can add Hollywood-style explosions, magic spells, weather FX etc to your home-made movies," explains Apperto co-founder Sarp Erdag. "We combined the idea with the style of a desktop quality video editing suite and the result came out to be Videorama."

The app quietly launched around a month ago, but it has seen 130,000 downloads over the last five days thanks to being featured on the iTunes App Store. The team has not taken investment, but has received acquisition and partnership offers following its release from big brands, we understand.

Videorama seems to be most competitive with apps like Cameo, the video editor Vimeo bought back in 2014 and upgraded last summer. However, where Cameo is largely focused on editing video that's then uploaded to its own network, Videorama isn't associated with a particular brand. Its videos are instead easily shared to Facebook, Instagram, email, messaging, or elsewhere, via iOS's share sheet extension.

The app itself is a free download on the iTunes App Store, with optional in-app purchases.

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Videorama makes editing mobile video actually fun

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Smartphone users shoot a lot of video, but turning those videos into something special still takes a lot of work. A newly launched app called Videorama aims to solve that problem by offering a powerful video editor that's also super simple to use.

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Virtual Reality Education Application Launched by ThingLink - IR.net - Virtual Reality News

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Virtual Reality Education Application Launched by ThingLink - IR.net - Virtual Reality News

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While games may be getting all the attention right now within the virtual reality space, there are so many other verticals in which the technology will likely have an impact over the coming years. Once such vertical is the education space, all the way from kindergarten up until college. Let's face it, the best way to thoroughly educate both children and adults is to make learning fun, interesting and interactive. Virtual reality can do all of that and then some, giving educators the necessary tools to excel within their field.

Before VR education is able to go mainstream, however, interesting, interactive, high-quality content is required, and that's just what one small company called ThingLink is out to do. In fact, this morning they have officially rolled out their VR education app, and I have to say it's quite impressive. The application, currently available on iOS for just $4.99, is targeted towards elementary-aged students, taking them on virtual field trips via 360-degree videos and images. Students can be transported to places like the French Alps, the archipelago of northern Australia, the Jungle and more. When students look around, they are able to spot additional links within their field of vision, which when selected unlock further information about the environment they are within.

"Virtual reality can take students to places they could only dream of visiting, but it is also an open canvas for students to imagine and build new worlds and experiences. We are making it possible for schools to use virtual reality as an engaging learning platform," says ThingLink's founder and CEO Ulla Engestrom.

By combining audio, 360-degree video and images ThingLink is able to create a truly immersive learning environment. While the first lessons are created by the ThingLink team, the company hopes to eventually open up the platform so that others can submit their own VR education content for the entire ThingLink community to explore.

"Audio annotations work wonderfully in a mobile VR environment, adding depth to the overall experience of the space. For example, in VR Lessons we added the sound of the wind in the background of an image from the Norwegian tundra, and an owl howling in the image of a cold winter forest in Finland. In annotations we are using both human and computer voiced files, and students can vote which voice they like the best," says Engestrom.

While the application is not yet available for Android, it seems likely that the company will eventually roll it out for non-iPhone educators. After all, there is already a regular non-VR ThingLink application available at the Google Play store. Also one must note that a VR headset that's compatible with Apple's iPhone is required if one wishes to truly engage in the immersiveness of these VR lessons. We'd recommend the Breett VR Glasses, which are available for just $26.99. Let us know if you have tried out the ThingLink app and what your thoughts were in the VR Education forum on VRTalk.com.

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Virtual Reality Education Application Launched by ThingLink - IR.net

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While games may be getting all the attention right now within the virtual reality space, there are so many other verticals in which the technology will likely have an impact over the coming years. Once such vertical is the education space, all the way from kindergarten up until college.

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Make Your Images Interactive - ThingLink

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Make Your Images Interactive - ThingLink

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ThingLink: Create unique experiences with interactive images, videos & 360° media

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Easily create interactive and immersive visual experiences for online communication and learning. Start a free trial!

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Uncovering student learning profiles with a video annotation tool: Reflective learning with and without instructional norms

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Uncovering student learning profiles with a video annotation tool: Reflective learning with and without instructional norms

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Steeple: Resources: Audio and Video: Podcasting Tutorials

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Steeple: Resources: Audio and Video: Podcasting Tutorials

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Steeple: Resources: Audio and Video: Podcasting Tutorials

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Steeple is a JISC funded UK Higher Education community project investigating Podcasting and Processes, led by Oxford University, the Open University, and Cambridge University.

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JISC - Copyright and Moving Images in Education - Film & Sound Think Tank - YouTube

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JISC - Copyright and Moving Images in Education - Film & Sound Think Tank - YouTube

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Building Film & Sound Resources for Education

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JISC - Copyright and Moving Images in Education - Film & Sound Think Tank

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Copyright and Moving Images in Education: The Open University Case Study

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Best EF Lenses for Filmmaking Under $1000

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Best EF Lenses for Filmmaking Under $1000

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These affordable lenses are fantastic tools for creating cinematic masterpieces. Here are the very best EF lenses available for less than a grand.

Looking for a great filmmaking lens to go with your Canon camera? These lenses won't break the bank. Check out these awesome EF lenses, all under $1,000.

The Rokinon Series

One thing you should know before we get going is that Rokinon, Bower, and Samyang lenses all come from the same manufacturer. So, if you're comparing new lenses from these three companies, they're actually the exact same.

Rokinon 50mm T1.5

Whether you're a photographer, videographer, or filmmaker, owning a 50mm lens is a must. While most photographers may go for a 50mm f/1.2 or f/1.4, filmmakers typically use T-stops to explain the amount of light that actually hits the camera sensor.

One of the best lenses for indie filmmakers is the Rokinon 50mm T1.5. The lens has gear rings for follow focuses and a de-clicked aperture for easily moving between lighting situations.

Rokinon 24mm T1.5

Another solid lens is the 24mm, which is typically great for getting a wide shot in a small space - as long as you have a full-frame camera, of course. The Rokinon 24mm T1.5 is perfect for getting wide shots in low-light environments. One of the perks of using this lens is its surprisingly small minimum-focus distance. This lens can create a really neat distorted (yet up close) effect. If you're shooting an intimate shot (like a SnorriCam or POV shot), this is a great lens to use.

Rokinon 85mm T1.5

Similar to the 50mm Rokinon, an 85mm T1.5 lens is fantastic for making your subject look great. While it all comes down to cinematic preference, I typically like using an 85mm lens instead of a 50mm lens, just because it has a slightly shallower depth of field. Some say that an 85mm lens is also more flattering for your actors.

Rokinon 35mm T1.5

The Rokinon 35mm T1.5 is also a great tool to have in your filmmaking arsenal. Like all the other glass on this list, this lens comes fully loaded with gear rings and a de-clicked aperture. This lens is great for shooting medium shots or any other shooting scenario where slight warping is permissible.

Canon EF 24-105mm f/4

A few years ago, the Canon 24-105mm f/4 lens probably wouldn't have been a good choice for filmmakers, due to its inability to shoot in low light. However, thanks to recent advances in modern camera sensors, filmmakers are no longer feeling restricted when shooting in low-light environments. A new Canon 24-105 is actually a fantastic all-purpose lens if you frequently shoot run-and-gun projects. This lens can also be particularly helpful if you shoot documentary films or weddings.

Nifty Fifty: Canon 50mm f/1.8

For just over $100, there's no better lens deal than the "Nifty Fifty" from Canon. This 50mm 1.8 lens produces fantastic results that rival those of even the most expensive lenses on the market. The thing that makes the Nifty Fifty really unique is its fantastic bokeh. Using this lens, you can very easily create a shallow depth of field and give your video projects a much more cinematic look.

Canon 50mm f/1.4

If you want an image quality that's slightly better than the Nifty Fifty, the 50mm f/1.4 might be the lens for you. This lens, while not as fantastic as the f/1.2, is great for shooting in low light. If you shoot photography on the side, this lens also has really good autofocus capabilities that aren't found in the f/1.8. Keep in mind though, neither the f/1.8 nor the f/1.4 have gear rings or de-clicked apertures.

Vintage Lenses

Image from Better Family Photos
While vintage lenses aren't always the most sharp, they can get excellent low-light results for a very low price tag. A quick eBay search will yield hundreds of vintage lenses that can usually be bought for less than $100 and adapted to virtually any modern camera mount. Filmmakers don't typically use an autofocus features, so a vintage lens will work in most filmmaking scenarios. One set of vintage lenses that I always look to is the Olympus OM series.

If you want to learn more about using vintage lenses for video projects, I recommend checking out the Creating Custom Cine Lenses post here on PremiumBeat.

There are plenty of other Canon EF lenses under $1,000, but the ones found on this list are, in our opinion, the best for filmmaking.

What lenses do you use for your filmmaking projects? Please share in the comments below.

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Best EF Lenses for Filmmaking Under $1000

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Looking for a great filmmaking lens to go with your Canon camera? These lenses won't break the bank. Check out these awesome EF lenses, all under $1,000. One thing you should know before we get going is that Rokinon, Bower, and Samyang lenses all come from the same manufacturer.

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Doc Next Media Collection - Doc Next Network

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Doc Next Media Collection - Doc Next Network

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The Doc Next Media Collection | Doc Next on Vimeo | Media Collection on MediActivism.eu | Curated Playlists

Doc Next sustains an ever-growing collection of 500+ alternative media created by active citizens, artists and civil society groups from across Europe. This archive includes short films, remixes, mixed media, music videos, social commentaries, animations and artworks that document Europe's most pressing social issues.
The Media Collection offers a safe space for activists to share their causes and to discuss how to mutually support each other in achieving their aims. The platform acts as an intermediary between the activist field and mainstream media, and aims to include the activist voices into the public sphere. This aim is supported by expanded media education offered by Doc Next partners, as it equips citizens to become equal contributors to the public sphere.
The Doc Next Media Collection is a unique living archive of socially conscious video making which has been growing steadily since 2007.

600 documentaries, short films, homemade videos, remixes, pieces of mixed media, music videos, animations, artistic films and comic films engaging with life in Europe and at its borders. They include:

Revealing amateur films made by with and for young people

Documentaries illustrating personal and collective memories

Observational portraits of towns, cities and villages

Illustrations of social tensions, protests and upheavals

Personal films looking at experiences of different identity groups

Documentaries showing day-to-day experiences of love, life and work

Artistic videos evoking feelings, emotions and dreamstates.

My Ukrainian
A short film animating sinister attitudes to Ukrainian housekeepers in Poland.

Remembering
A recent video portrait of an elderly woman who can remember the Armenian Genocide.

Faster, Harder, Stronger
A fly-on-the-wall documentary exploring macho-culture and the insecurities which lie behind it on a night out in Istanbul.

Glued
A cut and paste geopolitical history of the last 25 years from David Hasselhoff on the Berlin Wall to Helmand.

To Lapland
A short film showing two well-educated Spanish men forced to move to Lapland to take work shoveling snow.

Rising Prices in the Bride Market
A news report from a market in Romania where young girls are bought and sold.

The videos are organised into seven themes which give an identity to the collection:

Social Struggles - the frontlines and faultlines of politics and power
Watching Places - films documenting places and the people who live in them
Memories - films made of personal and collective memories
Identities & Interests - experiences of individuals and groups with whom they identify
Everyday Life - documenting people at work, at play and in love
Youth - films made by, with and for young people
Moods - videos to feel more than read

The videos are also organised into more specific lists which provide a 'face' for the collection and are a way of making it easier to connect the collection to current affairs, anniversaries and reflect the Doc Next Network's new areas of work.
The collection is a resource for people who want to start different conversations.
It's for teachers who want to bring ideas to life. For organisers who want to animate events and places and researchers who want to discover new perspectives on social issues in Europe. It's also for filmmakers who are looking for content they can appropriate, reanimate and reuse.

At this moment the Media Collection is available on Vimeo, as a public showcase, and on ResourceSpace, a platform for professional distributors and researchers with private use.

We want to take all this valuable material onto a next level, by reorganising the content and improving the tools we have to build an open platform that is both a media archive and a device for telling new stories about Europe.

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Doc Next Media Collection - Doc Next Network

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The Doc Next Media Collection | Doc Next on Vimeo | Media Collection on MediActivism.eu | Curated Playlists Doc Next sustains an ever-growing collection of 500+ alternative media created by active citizens, artists and civil society groups from across Europe.

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Book Creator - create and publish ebooks to the iBooks Store or Google Play Store

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Book Creator - create and publish ebooks to the iBooks Store or Google Play Store

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Book Creator is a simple tool for creating awesome digital books. Create your own teaching resources or have your students take the reins.

Interactive stories

Digital portfolios

Research journals

Poetry books

Science reports

Instruction manuals

'About me' books

Comic adventures

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Book Creator - bring creativity to your classroom - Book Creator app

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Book Creator is a simple tool for creating awesome digital books. Create your own teaching resources or have your students take the reins. Interactive stories Digital portfolios Research journals Poetry books Science reports Instruction manuals 'About me' books Comic adventures

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The Jisc Digital Media service worked with universities, colleges and the public sector to provide training, advice and guidance on creating and using digital media in teaching, learning and research.

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Delve Video Essays | The Long Game: Part 3

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Delve Video Essays | The Long Game: Part 3

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How to Create Screencasts that Don't Suck - Shawn Hesketh

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How to Create Screencasts that Don't Suck - Shawn Hesketh

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Anyone can record a video of their screen and upload it to YouTube. But creating a compelling, high-quality screencast that people will actually watch and share... well, that's a bit more challenging.

As you pay closer attention to the details, it's easy to become overwhelmed with new questions. What screen recording software should I use? Which microphone is best? How do I soundproof my recording area inexpensively?

Over the past eight years, I've created hundreds of screencast videos for my own WordPress tutorial site, as well as many other clients. Along the way, I've continually streamlined and improved my process and workflow.

As a result of my fanatical attention to detail, I've earned a reputation for creating some of the highest-quality tutorial videos and screencasts for clients like WooCommerce, GoDaddy, Liquid Web, Pressable, Namecheap, and many others. In fact, to keep up with growing demand, I recently launched a brand new service called, 101Videos. If you need a custom training video for your product or service, check out: 101Videos.com

Every day, I learn new ways to improve my craft and create even more effective learning videos. In this post, I want to share just a few of the tools and techniques I've picked up along the way, so that you can create even better-quality screencasts and learning videos. Ready to dive in?

Before you begin...

You'll need a few tools in order to create professional-quality screencasts:

1. Screen Recording Software
2. A Professional-Quality Microphone
3. A (Somewhat) Soundproof Recording Area

Screen Recording Software

At a minimum, you'll need software to record your on-screen actions and accompanying narration, then export and share that video with others.

If you use a Mac, you'll find that you can create decent screen recordings using the free QuickTime Player application. Just launch the app, then choose File > New Screen Recording and click the red button to begin recording your screen actions. You can record either your full screen, or just a portion of your screen.

When you're finished recording, simply save your video to your computer, or share it via email, YouTube, Vimeo, or any of the other built-in destinations.

While this method is fine for creating very simple screencasts, you'll soon discover that the editing tools are quite rudimentary, if not downright frustrating. So, when you're ready to begin creating more professional screencasts, you'll want to invest in a proper screen recording program like Camtasia or my personal favorite, ScreenFlow 8.

Camtasia and ScreenFlow cost roughly the same, offer similar features, and function in pretty much the same way. But each application has a slightly different user interface and editing tools. You may find that you simply prefer one over the other. Personally, I prefer the overall experience of ScreenFlow, including the editing interface and the powerful export tools.

My favorite feature in ScreenFlow is the ability to publish directly to YouTube or Vimeo with just a single click. This eliminates the time-consuming process of exporting, then converting the final video into a suitable format, and guessing at a suitable data rate, final size, or frame rate. Best of all, the final video is of noticeably higher quality when exported directly to the video hosting service.
Q: What screen recording software do you use and recommend? A: Hands-down, ScreenFlow. On a PC? Camtasia is your only choice.
Professional-Quality Microphone

Believe it or not, the first thing people will notice about your screencast video is not the video itself. It's actually the quality of your audio.

If you record your narration using the built-in microphone in your laptop or desktop computer, the audio will likely be muffled or unclear, filled with distracting background noises, echo from the surrounding room, or worse... the clatter and thud of your fingers on the keyboard.

So, after the screen recording software itself, the next most important piece of equipment is a high-quality microphone.

USB Microphones

Most podcast and screencast producers these days opt for a USB microphone, which are both affordable and provide decent quality audio. One of the biggest advantages of using a USB microphone is that they require no additional hardware. Simply plug the USB cable directly into your computer, and you're ready to start recording!

A couple of years ago, I purchased and tested six of the top USB microphones on the market. You can listen to the results of that experiment here:

In my test, the Yeti by Blue Microphones was, and continues to be, one of the best-sounding USB mics on the market, second only to the AT2020USB+ by Audio Technica.

Still, most podcasters I know prefer the highly-popular RØDE Podcaster. This is largely a matter of personal preference, and it's a good idea to test several mics to see which one sounds the best with your voice.

Dynamic Microphones

But when you're ready to step up your game, you'll want to move beyond USB microphones and purchase a professional-quality dynamic studio microphone. Why? Simply put, because USB isn't capable of powering a large-diaphragm microphone.

Why does the size of a microphone's diaphragm matter?
The diaphragm in a microphone is a thin piece of material that vibrates when it is struck by sound waves. These vibrations are converted into an electrical current which becomes the audio signal. A small diaphragm, like those used in USB microphones, is easily overpowered, resulting in distortion and 'plosives' - those annoying 'pops' when you pronounce the letter 'p', for example.

Unlike USB microphones, professional studio microphones have large diaphragms, which means they can capture and reproduce your voice more accurately, without the distortion of a USB mic. But, larger diaphragm mics also require amplification, typically from a pre-amp.

But, professional microphones require a standard XLR microphone cable, instead of a USB cable. That means you can't plug the microphone directly into your computer. Instead, you'll plug the microphone into a pre-amp, which in turn, is plugged into an audio converter, which is plugged into your computer via a USB cable.

Microphone → Audio Interface → Computer

Most audio interfaces include a built-in pre-amp, which eliminates the need for a separate pre-amp.

For example, the Apogee Duet is an award-winning audio interface that does two things at once: 1) it amplifies your microphone, AND 2) it converts the audio into a digital signal for your computer and recording software.
As a bonus, you'll notice a dramatic improvement in the overall quality of audio played back from your computer when it's routed through the Duet instead of the built-in headphone jack. The difference when listening to music is night and day, and even if you're not an audiophile, you'll enjoy the improvement!
As for the microphone itself, I recommend you start with the excellent RØDE Procaster microphone (shown on right), which has earned a reputation for being one of the best vocal mics on the market.

The RØDE Procaster is a professional, broadcast-quality dynamic microphone, specifically designed for voice applications in a broadcast environment. The Procaster features an internal pop filter, designed to minimize those plosives sounds that can overload the microphone capsule and distort the audio output.

"Yeah, but what microphone do YOU use, Shawn?"

If you're ready to get even more serious about your audio, you'll want to consider the stellar Roswell RA-VO microphone. It's a purpose-built studio-quality voiceover microphone, developed specifically for delivering the absolute best vocal reproduction.

Roswell is a boutique microphone company that has earned high praise from musicians, home studio owners, and Grammy award-winning producers and engineers. They worked with Jordan Reynolds, a professional voiceover talent and audio producer, to develop the RA-VO microphone. They tested multiple capsule types, circuits, and tunings, over multiple iterations, until they found a microphone that made Jordan put his former go-to voiceover mic back in its box for good.

The RA-VO delivers perfectly accurate voice reproduction that sounds like you're sitting right next to the listener. There's nothing harsh or shrill about this mic. It is easily the most flat and natural-sounding mic I've ever heard on my voice.

For my audio interface, I chose the Universal Audio Arrow, the first Thunderbolt 3-powered desktop recording audio interface for Mac and Windows.

It's different from other audio interfaces, in that it not only offers noise-free audio conversion and TWO Unison mic preamps, but also includes a suite of onboard plug-ins you can use for studio-quality results.

You can record using reproductions of the classic 610 Tube Preamp, LA-2A and 1176 compressors, and the legendary Pultech EQs - with zero latency. In short, it's like getting a whole studio of high-end gear that would otherwise cost thousands of dollars. Your voiceovers will sound like they're recorded in a professional studio!

Here's a quick comparison of the Rode Procaster versus the Roswell RA-VO:
https://shawnhesketh.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Procaster-vs-RA-VO-with-Arrow-Clean.mp3
Q: What microphone do you recommend? Good: If you're just getting started, try the Yeti by Blue Microphones or the popular RØDE Podcaster USB microphones. Just plugin into your computer and you're set! Better: When you're ready to step up your game, you'll want a pro mic like the RØDE Procaster, powered by an audio interface like the Apogee Duet or the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2. Best: If you're serious about your audio, consider the Roswell RA-VO microphone and the Universal Audio Arrow interface.
How to Soundproof for Better Recordings

Unless you have access to a professional recording studio, you're likely recording in your office or perhaps a semi-quiet room in your house. But, as you've probably already noticed, your microphone still picks up distracting background noises and echo from the room itself. Hey, nobody wants to hear your phone ringing or your dog barking in the background of your video.

Professional voiceover artists use expensive, purpose-built vocal booths, which are insulated and completely soundproof. But you don't have to spend a fortune to create a reasonably soundproof environment for recording your own voiceovers.

A well-known hack among beginning voiceover artists is to simply record in a clothes closet. The hanging clothes in the tiny space dampen and absorb the sound of your voice, rather than reflecting it back into the microphone, virtually eliminating echo and creating that intimate, "up close" sound.

But, if you're like me, you prefer to record at your desk. If so, buy two of these inexpensive DeskMAX panels by Auralex, and position one on either side of your computer and microphone. These do an amazing job of eliminating room echo, and may be the only additional soundproofing you require!

I've gone one step further and covered the entire wall behind my workstation with Auralex acoustic panels (as seen in the top photo), which further reduces echo and 'slapback.'

Then, I have two, large MAX-Wall panels, which I position directly behind me while recording. Here's what it looks like in action...

And here's what it looks like inside the booth...

With these panels in place, I have an almost completely soundproof vocal booth. Best of all, these panels are temporary and can be easily stored away when not in use.

Again, you don't need to go this far. Just grab two of the DeskMAX panels and see what a difference they make.
Q: What's the easiest way to cut down on room echo and background noise while recording? A: Purchase two DeskMAX panels, and position one on either side of your computer and or microphone. To go one step further, purchase two MAX-Wall panels and position them directly behind you as well for an excellent temporary vocal recording booth.
Let's Get to Recording!

There are two methods for recording screencasts. Most amateur screencasters simply hit "Record" in their screencasting software and then record their screen actions while narrating at the same time. This often results in awkward pauses - "uhs" and "ums" - because it's quite difficult to concentrate equally on both the on-screen actions and also your narration.

I prefer to create a detailed, word-for-word script first, during a 'dry-run.' Then, I record the voiceover or narration in GarageBand, carefully inserting deliberate pauses where needed.

Next, I import that audio file into ScreenFlow, and then record my on-screen actions while simultaneously playing back the narration audio. This ensures that the narration is as clear and succinct as possible, and that the on-screen actions are perfectly synced to the onscreen instruction being presented.

Here's what my process looks like...

Set up a local demonstration environment.

Write a detailed, word-for-word script during a dry-run. Notate where longer pauses might be needed.

Record the narration/voiceover in an audio recording program. I use GarageBand, with a handful of plugins. But don't simply read your script! Rather, strive for a conversational tone, as if you're talking with your best friend.

Export the final audio file, then import it into ScreenFlow.

Record the on-screen actions while simultaneously playing back the audio.

Add animated intro/outro graphics to beginning/end of the video.

Add appropriate background music, reducing the volume of the music (called, "ducking") so it doesn't drown out the spoken word.

Export the final screencast directly to the video host (Vimeo, YouTube, etc).

Share with the world!

5 Pro Tips for Better Screencasts:

1. Hide that desktop!
You've probably seen countless videos where the author simply recorded their entire desktop, including all the folders on their desktop, menubar, and even windows from other applications in the background. Nobody wants to see all that! Temporarily hide all those files and folders scattered around your desktop, or better yet...

2. Use Full-Screen mode.
If your application supports Full-Screen mode, enter that mode before recording. This will completely hide all those folders and files cluttering your desktop, as well as your menubar.

I use Google Chrome for nearly all my screencasts, so I also hide the address bar, tabs, toolbars, and bookmarks bar - basically everything other than the main browser window, ensuring the entire recording area is available for my content. No distractions.

3. Change your screen resolution.
Newer laptops and monitors support very high screen resolutions up to 5120×2880 or even higher. The problem is, your audience will likely not view your video at that same, gorgeous, full-screen resolution. Many people may watch your video on a mobile device. And when your video is viewed at smaller sizes, text and other items in your video may become too tiny to be legible.

One easy way to handle this is to simply change your screen resolution to 1280×720 before recording your screen actions. This is still HD video resolution, but will ensure legibility when your video is viewed on smaller screens (like mobile devices).

PRO TIP: If you are not using a Retina or QHD monitor, set your resolution to 2560×1440, but then zoom the web browser to 200% to mimic a 1280×720 monitor. This will ensure that everything on screen is still legible, even on a mobile device. And, it has the added benefit of allowing you to zoom in ScreenFlow without pixelation or sacrificing image quality.

4. Increase the size of your cursor.
Even if you record at 1280×720, your mouse cursor can still appear very tiny, which makes it difficult for your viewers to follow your onscreen motions. If you use a Mac, go to: System Preferences > Accessibility > Display and increase the Cursor Size to "Large" before recording. This will make it easier for your viewers to follow your onscreen actions as you move your mouse around the screen.

5. Install the SmoothScroll extension for Chrome.
It's disorienting to watch a video that suddenly jumps up or down the screen. It makes it nearly impossible to follow your onscreen actions. As the presenter, you know that you scrolled down the page, but your viewers are left to wonder what just happened.

The SmoothScroll extension for Chrome slows down your scrolling actions, easing your screen up and down smoothly when you scroll with the mouse wheel or the keyboard. This enables your viewers to more easily follow your onscreen actions, plus it adds a degree of professional polish to your final video.

Animated Intros and Outros

You don't need to invest in expensive software to create simple animations (or, 'bumpers') for the intro and outro of your videos.

Both ScreenFlow and Camtasia include handy editing tools you can use to create simple animation effects like fades and zooms. Sometimes, that's all you need... and simple is always best.

But, you can create more interesting animations including transitions and effects in Apple's Keynote (or PowerPoint, though it doesn't contain the same cinematic-quality transitions and effects).

Then, you can simply export the animation/presentation as a video file, and import that file into your screencast project. Or, for even better results, play the presentation in full-screen mode, while recording the screen in your screencast program.

Export Settings

As I mentioned before, one of the most useful features in ScreenFlow is the ability to publish directly to YouTube or Vimeo with one click. This eliminates the time-consuming process of exporting, then converting the final video into a suitable format, while guessing at a suitable data rate, final size, or frame rate. Best of all, the final video is of noticeably higher quality when exported directly to the video hosting service.

But for years, I exported a 'Lossless' video file at full-resolution, then used HandBrake to convert that video file into a more web-friendly format and size.

When manually exporting video files for use on the web, here are the settings I use: H.264 .mp4 file format at 1440p (2560×1440) @ 60fps (5,000 kb datarate)

A quick note about video hosting...

A while back, I wrote a detailed article outlining " 10 Reasons Why You Should Never Host Your Own Videos. "

Without repeating all those reasons again here, let me just simply share my recommendation for hosting video...

Once you've created your screencast video, the best way to publish and distribute your video is to simply upload it to a video hosting service like YouTube, Wistia, or my personal favorite, Vimeo.

Then, you can easily embed your video into a post or page on your own website and invite folks to watch your video there.

You won't have to fuss with slow web servers or bandwidth issues. No need to create multiple file formats for every type of mobile device. Just upload once, and then share your latest professional-quality screencast!

Stop hosting your videos on your own server! Use Vimeo instead.
Check Out Vimeo PRO

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How to Create Screencasts that Don't Suck

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Anyone can record a video of their screen and upload it to YouTube. But if you want to create screencasts that folks will actually watch and share with their friends, check out these tips and tricks from a professional screencast producer.

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Examples of Perfect Screencasts | I'd Rather Be Writing

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Examples of Perfect Screencasts | I'd Rather Be Writing

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Michael Pick's screencasts on WordPress.tv are, in my opinion, perfect screencasts. They're the best I've seen -- and I'm not just saying this because the video quality is crisp and the audio is rich. Pick blends filmography techniques with screencasting. Instead of the typical screencast that focuses almost entirely on the screen, with a disembodied voice narrating at length around a cursor's boring movement, Pick fills his screencasts with eye candy and motion, moving from visual to visual as he narrates, giving you a conceptual understanding more than a detailed nitty-gritty how-to. His videos are dynamic and engaging. Like a good movie, you forget you're watching a screencast and are entranced by the choreography and motion, the music and narration.

Here's an example.

And another.

For more sample videos, see Michael Pick's portfolio. I emailed Pick to find out more info about the toolset he uses to create the videos. He said,

It's a bit of a grab bag: Screenflow (for capture), Final Cut Pro, Adobe After Effects and Ableton Live are the main apps I use, with occasional Cinema 4D. I think you can get away with using Screenflow (mac) or Camtasia (Windows) for the basics though - the rest are "trimmings."

Some of these applications aren't easy. I downloaded Adobe After Effects today. After about an hour I learned how to do a simple animation using keyframes. Final Cut Pro is a Mac application, as is Screenflow. Ableton Live is an advanced audio manipulation application, what perhaps an audio engineer at a recording house might use. I'm familiar with Camtasia Studio, but it's limited when it comes to dynamic motion. Unless you're recording your screen, you can't make things move in the video. For example, if you have a visual diagram you're using to explain a concept, you're limited to a basic image. You can flip from one image to another, sure, but you can't do what Pick is doing in his videos, with full-blow motion of non-screen objects. I'm hoping this kind of effect is possible in Adobe After Effects. Overall, I've come to the following conclusions about screencasts. Engaging screencasts have the following characteristics:

Brevity. Good screencasts are short -- two minutes or less.

Eye candy. Good screencasts keep you visually entertained, moving from image to image fairly quickly.

Clarity. Good screencasts are visually clear and size well in your browser. The videos zoom in on the parts of the screen being explained. HD may be an option.

Rich audio. The audio is loud enough to listen to comfortably and has a rich, deep sound.

Background music. Good screencasts sometimes have cool background music that adds to the entertainment appeal.

Scripts. The narration isn't off-the-cuff but is scripted. Even though it's scripted, the narrator reads it in a dynamic, upbeat way.

Focus. The video focuses on a specific topic, rather than providing a 10 minute rambling tour of seventeen different features.

Title slide consistency. Good screencasts have consistent title slides that are visually attractive.

For more information on Michael Pick, see this interview by Blog Design Studio.

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About Tom Johnson

I'm a technical writer based in the California San Francisco Bay area. In this blog, I write about topics related to technical communication - Swagger, agile, trends, learning, plain language, quick reference guides, tech comm careers, academics, and more. I'm interested in , API documentation, visual communication, information architecture and findability, and more. If you're a technical writer of any kind (progressional, transitioning, student), be sure to subscribe to email updates using the form above. You can learn more about me here. You can also contact me with questions.

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Michael Pick's screencasts on WordPress.tv are, in my opinion, perfect screencasts. They're the best I've seen -- and I'm not just saying this because the video quality is crisp and the audio is rich. Pick blends filmography techniques with screencasting.

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Podcasting: A decade outside the mainstream

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Podcasting: A decade outside the mainstream

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Image: Illustration by Bob Al-Greene

Video may have killed the radio star sometime in the 1980s, but the podcast Serial seems to have resurrected him.

A milestone in podcasting came in October 2014, almost 10 years after the birth of the first podcast, on the Tonight Show. This American Life host Ira Glass sat on Jimmy Fallon's couch in October 2014 and, with the help of his elderly neighbor, explained how to download a podcast.

Glass' visit and kitschy video were prompted by the unprecedented success of Serial, the slickly-produced podcast that, over the course of 12 episodes, reported on and continued the investigation into the murder of a high school student in 1999 and her popular ex-boyfriend, who is in jail for the crime.

Serial was both a cultural touchstone and, many I spoke to for this story agreed, a pivotal moment for podcasts.

"I think it was probably Serial that put podcasting on the map for a new order of magnitude for audience reach than any other podcast had before," said Chris Paul VP Media and Acquisition for Squarespace, which sponsors virtually every podcast (they say it's around 150-to-200 properties, depending on the month, right now).

According to Edison Research, podcast listenership has grown steadily every year except 2013 (right before Serial). And Apple told me that there have been over 1.6 billion subscriptions and 20 billion downloads since Apple added podcasts to iTunes.

Image: Illustration by Bob Al-Greene

"Podcasts have always been a successful category for us," Apple told me, and added that, as far as mainstream recognition for the medium, "if there was a starting point, Serial is it."

It has been a breakout year for podcasts, the overnight success that's been a decade in the making. The subscription and RSS-fed audio platform not only enjoyed unprecedented visibility thanks to Serial (a product of Chicago Public Media radio and This American Life), but was in the spotlight again in June when President Barack Obama joined comedian Marc Maron on his popular podcast WTF.

"President Obama is hugely important for the medium," said Adam Sachs, CEO of Midroll a podcast advertising network that also has a stable of owned and operated shows (including Comedy Bang Bang, How Did This Get Made, and The Black List Table Reads).

"You heard his interview, people heard a President Obama they never heard before," said Sachs, who also noted that Obama said "the 'n' word" on the podcast. "What other medium would he have said that word? There is none."

'I made up a bullshit sentence'

British technology journalist Ben Hammersley will go down in history books as the guy who cooked up the name "podcast," but he's casual about their birth, which was inauspicious even down to the creation of the name.

"Basically...I was late on a deadline, was short about 30 words, needed to add in a couple of sentences. [I] made up a bullshit sentence, 'What do we call this?'"

The technocratic name reflected the abiding geekiness of early podcasts, which replaced the lost bulletin board systems (BBS) of the 80s and 90s and served as places for geeks and nerds to chew the technofat.

"At the beginning of podcasting, it was the amateur stuff, two white dudes sat around taking about stuff for 2 hours," Hammersley said, "They were very flabby and not well done."

I labored in that kind of obscurity myself. I worked on one of those podcasts, PCMag Radio, though, in my defense, we only recorded for an hour. (I'm now part of what I like to call the second wave of techcasts and record with cohosts Pete Pachal and Christina Warren a weekly nerdfest called MashTalk).

Even as they've grown, podcasts have kept their outsider identity.

"I don't think there is a mainstream anymore," Hammersley told me, adding, "Mainstream success is really a 20th century artifact."

Image: Illustration by Bob Al-Greene

Podcasts have survived over the last 10 years not because they cater to mainstream tastes, but because they are built for very specific audiences. Edison Research puts podcasts "Share of Ear" (the percentage of American audio consumers who listen to a particular source) at just 2%. AM/FM Radio still has 56%.

Still, there's history there. Podcasts have been around so long that aficionados bristle at the idea that they're newly popular: don't call it a comeback. Veronica Belmont, the doyenne of nerd tech, bristled when I suggested that podcasts are finally enjoying mainstream popularity. Belmont, who has been podcasting and producing podcasts since 2005 and currently hosts, among other shows, Sword and Laser explained, telling me she wasn't aware that podcasts needed to come back from anywhere.

"For me, the understanding and acceptance of podcasting as a medium has only grown throughout the years. What we are seeing now are more established brands and names getting into the game, which obviously draws more attention. Shows like Serial ... have caused a lot of people to sit up and take note," wrote Belmont.

Niche popularity

Belmont told me that the niche quality has been podcasting's strength, "Many of these shows are very niche, and so (when you find one) it feels like you've found a huge group of people who just get you."

Roman Mars, who runs the popular design podcast 99% Invisible is a benefactor of that niche devotion. Like a number of other successful podcasters, Mars comes from a public radio background. He said his success was partially luck.

"I did a show about design and architecture. It was niche enough that groups of people really took to it. The Facebook design team was one of my first sponsors. And Facebook doesn't advertise anywhere," said Mars.

Like other podcasters I spoke to, Mars agrees that even though the growth of podcasts has been slow and steady, this year is different. "It's been a really good year," he told me and said that he's seen a sort of threshold effect, a level of saturation that's led to greater awareness.

On demand, all the time

Another factor fueling the popularity of podcasts: audio, unlike video, doesn't require a high-speed broadband connection and a beautiful screen. A podcast, just like listening to your favorite music on an iPhone, is as low-tech as high-tech gets.

When podcasts launched in 2005 - named in part for Apple's iPod - the typical listener subscribed to podcasts through Web sites, podcast apps and downloaded them through iTunes; Apple's own Podcast app did not arrive until 2012. If you wanted to listen to your favorite podcasts while out for a run, you had to dock and synch your iPod before heading out the door.

"You don't have to worry as much these days about leaving the house without syncing your shows! That used to be a big issue for a lot of people," Belmont says.

Now, here's some irony: The podcast, which launched in 2005 and was named for Apple's music-playing device, no longer needs the iPod to exist.

It's the iPhone that gave the podcasting industry its ticket out of obscurity. "The same now dominant platform in which people consume Internet is also the dominant platform to consume podcasts: the phone," Hammersley says.

While listening to Serial on their iPhones, few consumers know whether they're enjoying a radio show or a podcast. The average consumer now expects all media to be available on demand. With platforms Netflix, "the ground has kind of softened for us," Mars says.

It was basically the iPhone, plus good podcast software, plus 4G, plus cheaper data plans," he says.

Another technology - the good old car, which still gives life to radio - has helped.

In Mars' new car "my phone syncs to my stereo, so without me doing anything, my car starts playing my podcast." Mars figures that as more and more people buy new cars with integrated Bluetooth and content systems like CarPlay and Android Auto, more and more people will bring their own listening tastes - and podcasts - into their cars. "I barely turn on the radio any more," said Mars.

Making money off a niche business

If you are a podcast listener, you've likely heard these sponsors: Squarespace, MailChimp, LegalZoom. These are podcasts go-to guys and are all on Midroll's list of advertisers (they say they have 200).

"We generally get first tap on shoulder when new podcast is launching," admitted Squarespace VP of Media & Acquisition Chris Paul. However, it's always been a symbiotic relationship. "A lot of Squarespace customers were podcasters in and of themselves and it's a way to support some people who were supporting us."

As popular as podcasting is - and will be - it's not an industry where you can follow the money. With the exception of some big names and podcasts with more than a million listeners, no one is getting rich from podcasts. The medium lacks a Jimmy Fallon or Kelly and Michael.

Still, that can be a strength. An influx of interested advertisers are flooding into the space, attracted by the passionate niche following of some podcasts. Loyalty is a quality advertisers seek. "It's not important how many people you reach, it's reaching the right people."

Consider the alternative: advertising on commercial radio has become so devalued that stations regularly run just 28 minutes of content an hour. With podcasts, there is no interrupting every few minutes. Shows have advertiser and sponsor support that they usually address two-to-three times in an hour or they are self-funded.

Podcasts are also building an enviable audience. Edison Research says it's now split evenly between males and females (a stark change from the early days of podcasting) and that the majority of listeners are 25 -to-34 years-old and make at tidy $75,000 a year.

Adam Curry who, a decade ago, worked with developers to create the end-to-end infrastructure of podcasting, said that his twice-weekly podcast, No Agenda, makes enough to sustain "the Curry and [his cohost John C.] Dvorak families for a couple of years now."

Belmont noted that online content creators have more financial support options than ever. And people are making it work. "I make a small profit, but most of that goes to hosting and other business expenses. But for other people, like [fellow podcaster] Tom Merritt, for example, their podcast is their primary source of income. That's a huge difference from a few years ago. We now have the infrastructure to support independent podcasters via Patreon or similar services, and they no longer have to depend on sponsorships, which were often fleeting to begin with."

Curry couldn't tell me how many people subscribe to his podcast, but, like others, noted that you simply do not need huge numbers to sustain your podcast. For podcast advertisers, the key is a proven and devoted audience - and the ability to connect with them.

That's why many podcasts use the personality-heavy style of advertising: the classic sports-radio style of promotion, meant to blend ads into the shows with either custom spots where the host talks about their experience with the products and services.

Image: Illustration by Bob Al-Greene

Still, counting listeners is a challenge. Traditional advertisers appeared to be afraid of podcasts because they couldn't track them like traditional radio shows. Like other online ad companies, Midroll charges by the CPM (costs per 1,000 impressions).

Squarespace often got around that by using trackable promotional codes, instructing listeners to "Use 'WTFObama' when making your purchase."

"It made it easy for Squarespace to be an early podcast supporter," Paul says.

That, however, is changing, as Apple, iTunes, Google and Google Play start to offer more validated download numbers. "TWiT, for the first time, gave us validated download numbers," says Paul.

Media changing

The podcast, its adherents agree, is ready to go big.

"What's happened is, to me, is incredibly obvious, podcasting is taking over broadcasting," said Curry, an original MTV VJay who started in podcasting so he could broadcast on the Internet without having to deliver the news every hour.

Even if podcasts have not "gone mainstream" and the average consumer still doesn't know what they are, there are people watching the industry and, in some cases, making moves. In July, the Scripps Company snapped up Sach's Midroll for an undisclosed sum. In August Hubbard Radio bought a 30% stake in PodcastOne.

Mars told me he expect to see that kind of consolidation, buying and speculating. Still "those things concern me. I'm interested and concerned. I'm in love with independent media," he said.

Independence and relevance to their core audience are things that define modern podcasts. They are community rooms writ large, with real-time engagement (when you listen to streaming shows) and weekly feedback from hosts that makes the shows relevant and real. And here's another advantage: unlike TV, and radio, and traditional broadcasting, podcasting is nimble and flexible, without a lot of baggage from past failures.

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Podcasting: A decade outside the mainstream

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Video may have killed the radio star sometime in the 1980s, but the podcast Serial seems to have resurrected him. A milestone in podcasting came in October 2014, almost 10 years after the birth of the first podcast, on the Tonight Show.

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5 tips for creating inspiring college course trailers - Luminaris

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5 tips for creating inspiring college course trailers - Luminaris

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Like many (all?) universities, we're feeling increasing pressure to fill seats in courses - particularly electives. At the same time, we're trying to more strategically reach out to practicing professionals in the field to attract them to enroll in courses as non-degree seeking students. While some faculty may bristle at this notion of academic entrepreneurship, I'm energized by the opportunity to expand the reach, relevance and impact of my teaching. The challenge is: how do we attract students and those outside our programs to our elective course offerings? One answer may be through the development of course trailers.

How selecting electives is like choosing a movie
For box office films, the trailer is carefully designed to attract an audience. Using various excerpts from scenes of the film and spanning only about two minutes, producers must carefully determine how to pitch or position their film for viewers. This requires them to carefully identify the target audience so that they can construct the trailer using elements that would appeal to that demographic. At the same time, they also try to capture the essence of the film in a way that convinces viewers that they should buy their tickets.

In some ways, selecting elective courses is similar to choosing a movie from the marquee - or, more accurately from Rotten Tomatoes. Students must choose from a range of interesting possibilities with a limited budget. Unfortunately, students don't often have the flexibility in their schedules to take multiple electives, so they think carefully about what they select. When confronted with different possibilities, they will most likely select the option that is most interesting and engaging to them. Just as a written review of a movie in the newspaper only tells you so much about the movie, a written course description only goes so far. A trailer is a powerful way to attract an audience for a movie - or a course.

Examples of course trailers
A number of colleges, universities, departments and individual faculty members have begun to produce course trailers. Some are simple and developed by faculty on their own while others are professionally produced. While production value can be important, just like the courses themselves, the content, organization, and delivery is the key to an effective course trailer.

In many cases, trailers are designed to feature new courses or to highlight professional learning opportunities for non-degree seeking students. For example, the Harvard College Program in General Education offers a number of course trailers. One of my favorites is Dilemmas of Equity and Excellence in American K-12 Education. I like this trailer because it does a great job of piquing the viewer's interest in the topic, highlighting key features of the how the course will be delivered, overviewing key course topics and assignments. I especially like the "testimonial" from a student from the course. While it provides a great deal of information, it still pulls you in and makes you want to sign up.

I also really like this trailer for a new summer course on Design Thinking from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. It has exceptionally good production quality that many of us can only dream of. However, we mortals can at least deconstruct the content elements of the trailer that we could incorporate in our own work.

Finally, for more basic production quality, take a look at this trailer for Francophone Literature and Culture: Americanness in Francophone Literature Course Trailer. While not as "slick" as some others, I think it provides a good vision for what can be easily developed using a video camera and free editing software, or perhaps just on iMovie on an iPad. It still helps to position the course well and encourage students to enroll.

Five tips for developing your own course trailer

Clearly articulate and form your trailer around the key takeaways from your course. What do you hope students will remember from your course five years from now? What do you hope they will talk with their roommates about over coffee? What will surprise and inspire them? These are the ideas you want to put front and center in your trailer.

Keep it short. While video professionals can produce engaging trailers that span three or four minutes, one to two minutes is what you should aim for in terms of run time. It's easier to make a really engaging, inspiring, and interesting one-minute video than a four-minute one.

Vary the visuals. While it's easiest to just set up a camera and go the "talking head" route, it's probably the least engaging form of video. Even in very basic video editors (e.g., iMovie, MovieMaker), it's fairly easy to incorporate still images or other video clips in a project.

Leverage social proof. Like in the example from Harvard above, a student's perspective on the course can be very valuable for other students. If they hear from another student about their takeaways and what they liked about the course, they will be more likely to enroll themselves.

Project Enthusiasm. None of these tips will make much difference if you don't project passion and excitement for your course. Nothing will help sell your course more than your own enthusiasm.

For more tips and ideas, take a look at Duke University's great resource for faculty on best practices for creating course trailers.

I've started to develop a trailer course I'm teaching in the fall. I've realized that this process has helped me clarify my purpose and key aspects of the course. It's also inspired me to raise the level of creativity and commitment to delivering an engaging and student-centered course. I'm sure it won't win any awards, but I hope it will intrigue and inspire my students.
Have you developed a trailer for a course you teach? If so, please share a link in the comments below.

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5 tips for creating inspiring college course trailers

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Like many (all?) universities, we're feeling increasing pressure to fill seats in courses - particularly electives. At the same time, we're trying to more strategically reach out to practicing professionals in the field to attract them to enroll in courses as non-degree seeking students.

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Constant video surveillance, satellite tracking, radio collars... sometimes it's hard to tell where the wired world ends and the wild one begins - Bear 71

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Isaac Physics a project designed to offer support and activities in physics problem solving to teachers and students from GCSE (Y11), through to university.

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Offers tailor-made teaching tools

Twig films and learning materials are easy-to-use, flexible and designed to save you time. Slot them into your existing lessons plans or use them as inspiration for future lessons.

More reasons to choose Twig x
Works with your curriculum

Twig films are created specifically for use in schools and matched national and international curricula. Before any of our films are made we consult with teachers to ensure that the right learning objectives are covered.

More reasons to choose Twig

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Award winning teaching tools and educational resources for the classroom. Try films, experiments and worksheets matched to your curriculum.

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Annual competition to reward excellence and creativity in media in education. Entries from professionals, staff, teachers and students are welcome.

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Professor Richard Mayer talking with Professor John Sweller - Google+

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Professor Richard Mayer talking with Professor John Sweller - Google+

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Professor Richard Mayer talking with Professor John Sweller - Google+

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This virtual connections seminar will be investigating the work of two eminent scholars in the area of cognition and how it relates to learning through multimedia.

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Create Online Video Presentations Easily With Movenote - Hongkiat

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Create Online Video Presentations Easily With Movenote - Hongkiat

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Presentations are a great way to explain things and get important information across to an audience. However, there are times when it's just impossible to conduct a presentation in real-time, be it due to distance or simply lack of time. Sure, you could just email your slides or publish them online, but without the all-important human element, it can be hard to communicate and get your point across. If you've ever wished for an easy way to overcome this problem by combining slides with audio and visual narration, you can stop wishing. Say hello to Movenote.

Movenote is an app and website that lets you create video slidecasts, which the app calls Movenotes. Movenote lets you accompany your slides with a video narration. If giving a presentation in real life is impossible for whatever reason, Movenote might just be the next best thing. If this sounds useful to you, read on to find out more.

Recommended Reading: Create Beautiful Presentations Easily With Slidebean

Getting Started With Movenote

To get started using Movenote, just log on to the website and register a new account if you don't have one. You can also log in using your Google, Facebook or LinkedIn accounts. However, it looks like you'll only have Google Drive integration if you login using a Google account.

Once you've logged in, go through Movenote's terms and conditions. Once you're done with that, you can watch some YouTube videos with tips on getting started with Movenote. Finally, Movenote will ask for your permission to use your webcam.

Using Movenote

This is what the main Movenote interface looks like:

Your slides take up the bulk of the screen, with your webcam's output on the right side of the screen. This is so that you can see yourself while you're recording the Movenote. Press the pencil icon beside the presentation title to edit the Movenote's title. Archive is where you access older Movenotes.

Adding slides is simple as clicking on Add Slides and choosing whether to add files from your computer or from your Google Drive account.

Once you've added your slides, either from your computer or from Google Drive, you can rearrange and delete them however you wish. Just press Re-order at the top of the slide display and a new window will pop up allowing you to re-order and delete slides.

Recording Your Presentation

Once you're satisfied with your slides, you can start recording your Movenote. Just press the red Record button; Movenote will start a countdown and then begin recording. While recording, just narrate as you normally would, and click the arrows above the slide display in order to move through the slides. You can also turn your mouse cursor into a laser pointer by holding your mouse button down; this can be useful for highlighting certain parts of a slide.

Once you're done recording, click Pause. You can then either resume recording, start over if you made a mistake, or press Save & preview if you're satisfied with your recording.

Once you press Save & preview, Movenote will take a few minutes to generate your Movenote. How long Movenote takes depends on the length of the presentation.

You have a number of ways to share your completed Movenote. You can email the link via Gmail, copy the public link, or share it on social networks including Facebook, Twitter and Google+. Movenote also has AddThis integration, letting you share your Movenote on a lot of other social platforms such as Pinterest and Tumblr.

There are a few other controls at the bottom of the screen. The seekbar and the slide counter work in tandem with each other, in that moving through the slides also advances through the Movenote. Viewers also have the option to download the slides in .PDF format.

There's also a settings menu that lets you do a few extra things, including adding a link, editing the slides, generating an embed code as well as deleting the Movenote.

Conclusion

Movenote is an incredibly useful tool if you want to accompany slides and presentations with audio-visual narration and explanations. If you've ever wanted to keep the human element of presentations while sharing information across the Internet, then Movenote is definitely something you'll want to try out.

Movenote is also available for mobile platforms, both Android and iOS. There's also a Movenote Chrome app as well as a Movenote for Gmail extension that lets you create Movenotes directly from Gmail.

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Create Online Video Presentations Easily With Movenote - Hongkiat

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Presentations are a great way to explain things and get important information across to an audience. However, there are times when it's just impossible to conduct a presentation in real-time, be it due to distance or simply lack of time.

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DERN is developed and managed by the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).

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We are constantly adding to our digital library so keep checking back for updates and to browse new collections.

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Following a call in November 2014, we identified almost 50 exemplars of effective practice in support of students' digital experiences in Higher Education. The exemplars have been written up with the support of the staff (and in some cases students) involved. They can be accessed via the seven challenges for institutions, or you can browse the whole set below. They are organised according to the main challenge addressed.

There is a separate page for a new set of FE exemplars added in the summer of 2015 which are part of the updated Jisc guide on Enhancing the student digital experience; a strategic approach.

Prepare and support students to study successfully with digital technologies

Deliver a relevant digital curriculum

Ensure an inclusive student experience, using technology to overcome disadvantage

Provide a robust, flexible digital environment

Develop coherent policies for 'Bring Your Own'

Engage students in dialogue about their digital experience and empower them to make changes

Take a strategic, whole-institution approach to the digital student experience

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Following a call in November 2014, we identified almost 50 exemplars of effective practice in support of students' digital experiences in Higher Education. The exemplars have been written up with the support of the staff (and in some cases students) involved. They can be accessed via the seven challenges for institutions, or you can browse the whole set below.

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YouTube Creator Blog: A new way to see and share your world with 360-degree video

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YouTube Creator Blog: A new way to see and share your world with 360-degree video

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You share incredible videos with your fans every second of the day, but what if you could share even more in that video? Like, sharing the entire moment that you're filming?

You could let viewers see the stage and the crowd of your concert, the sky and the ground as you wingsuit glide, or you could even have a choose-your-own-adventure video where people see a different story depending on where they look. Only you know what's possible. That's why today we are starting to support 360-degree video uploads on YouTube, to continue giving you all the best resources to connect with your viewers.

People can watch your videos on the existing YouTube app for Android , and by moving the phone or tablet around they'll see all the different angles while the video plays. They can do the same on youtube.com or embedded videos on Chrome by using the mouse to drag the point of view around, and we're working to bring this to iPhone, iPad and other devices soon.
Creating and uploading 360-degree videos on YouTube

To make it easy for you to create and upload 360-degree videos to YouTube, we've been working with companies across the industry. , If you're around the Remember when the vantage point of the Giroptic's 360cam , IC Real Tech's Allie , YouTube Space L.A. , our Creator Tech team is also hosting a technology showcase from now through April, where you can try out these new cameras and learn new techniques from our staff. Kodak's SP360 and fisheye lens blew your mind? Now let's see what you can do with every possible angle at your recording fingertips. RICOH THETA are 360-degree video cameras compatible with YouTube that are available today or are coming soon. You can find more technical information on the video format, along with a you need to run on the video file to insert the correct metadata. We're working to make this automatic, but in the meantime, this script will make sure your video uploads to YouTube as a 360-degree video.

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A new way to see and share your world with 360-degree video

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You share incredible videos with your fans every second of the day, but what if you could share even more in that video? Like, sharing the entire moment that you're filming?

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Best practices for attribution - CC Wiki

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Best practices for attribution - CC Wiki

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You can use CC-licensed materials as long as you follow the license conditions. One condition of all CC licenses is attribution. Here are some good (and not so good) examples of attribution. Note: If you want to learn how to mark your own material with a CC license go here.

Examples of attribution

Here is a photo. Following it are some examples of how people might attribute it.

This is an ideal attribution
Because:

Title? "Creative Commons 10th Birthday Celebration San Francisco"

Author? "tvol" - linked to his profile page

Source? "Creative Commons 10th Birthday Celebration San Francisco" - linked to original Flickr page

License? "CC BY 2.0" - linked to license deed

This is a pretty good attribution
Because:

Title? Title is not noted (it should be) but at least the source is linked.

Author? "tvol"

Source? "Photo" - linked to original Flickr page

License? "CC BY" - linked to license deed

This is an incorrect attribution
Because:

Title? Title is not noted.

Author? Creative Commons is not the author of this photo.

Source? No link to original photo.

License? There is no mention of the license, much less a link to the license. "Creative Commons" is an organization.

This is a good attribution for material you modified slightly

Because:

Title, Author, Source, and License are all noted

Modification? "Desaturated from original"

This is a good attribution for material from which you created a derivative work

Because:

Original Title, Author, Source, and License are all noted

Derivative? "This work, "90fied", is a derivative of..."

New author of the derivative work is also noted

Note: If you're at a point where you are licensing derivative works, go to Marking your work with a CC license.

This is a good attribution for material from multiple sources

Because:

Title? Specific works are named, eg. "Box-and-whisker Plots"

Author? Different authors noted for the different works.

Source? Original materials are linked for each work

License? The different licenses (Creative Commons Attribution for Collaborative Statistics and Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike for the Khan Academy video) are spelled out and linked for each work

Lastly, it is clear which attribution belongs to which work.

You can visit the Saylor.org Introduction to Statistics course page to see how they marked it up directly.

Title, Author, Source, License

A good rule of thumb is to use the acronym TASL, which stands for Title, Author, Source, L icense.

Title - What is the name of the material?

If a title was provided for the material, include it. Sometimes a title is not provided; in that case, don't worry about it.

Author - Who owns the material?

Name the author or authors of the material in question. Sometimes, the licensor may want you to give credit to some other entity, like a company or pseudonym. In rare cases, the licensor may not want to be attributed at all. In all of these cases, just do what they request.

Source - Where can I find it?

Since you somehow accessed the material, you know where to find it. Provide the source of the material so others can, too. Since we live in the age of the Internet, this is usually a URL or hyperlink where the material resides.

License - How can I use it?

You are obviously using the material for free thanks to the CC license, so make note of it. Don't just say the material is Creative Commons, because that says nothing about how the material can actually be used. Remember that there are six different CC licenses; which one is the material under? Name and provide a link to it, eg. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ for CC BY.

→ If the licensor included a license notice with more information, include that as well.
Lastly, is there anything else I should know before I use it?
When you accessed the material originally did it come with any copyright notices; a notice that refers to the disclaimer of warranties; or a notice of previous modifications? (That was a mouthful!) Because that kind of legal mumbo jumbo is actually pretty important to potential users of the material. So best practice is to just retain all of that stuff by copying and pasting such notices into your attribution. Don't make it anymore complicated than it is -- just pass on any info you think is important.

→ Regarding modifications: Don't forget to note if you modified the work yourself (example). If you are at the point where you are creating and licensing derivative works (example), see Marking your work with a CC license.

These best practices are based on actual CC license requirements. Noting the title is a requirement of all CC licenses version 3.0 or earlier, optional for 4.0. Noting the author, source, license, and retaining any extra notices is a requirement of all CC licenses. See Devil in the details.

Devil in the details

If you have any doubts or questions, you can read the complete attribution requirements which are spelled out in detail in the legal code of every CC license, eg. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode#s3a. This chart compares the detailed requirements across all versions of CC licenses.

Don't make it too complicated

The license tells you to be reasonable:

You may satisfy the conditions in (1) and (2) above in any reasonable manner based on the medium, means and context in which the Licensed Material is used. For example, it may be reasonable to satisfy some or all of the conditions by retaining a copyright notice, or by providing a URI or hyperlink associated with the Licensed Material, if the copyright notice or webpage includes some or all of the required information.

There is no one right way; just make sure your attribution is reasonable and suited to the medium you're working with. That being said, you still have to include attribution requirements somehow, even if it's just a link to an About page that has that info. (More on different mediums below.)

Attribution in specific media

As stated above, best practices for attribution apply as reasonable to the medium you're working with. For media such as offline materials, video, audio, and images, consider:

1. Publishing a web page with attribution information. For example, on a webpage featuring your audio recording, provide a credit list of material you used that adheres to best practices above. Doing so allows not only your material, but the materials you attribute, to be found by search engines and other web discovery tools. If possible within the medium, make the Author, Source, and License links the user can follow.

2. Mentioning the credits within the media itself. For example, crediting videos can be a simple list of the materials used with their associated licenses in a screen at the end of a video. For audio, it can be a verbal recitation of credits at the end of the recording.

If you want to get Technical

If you really want to go there, we have a document about marking materials so that they are machine-readable.

Also, several groups are exploring ways to make attribution easier and simultaneously machine-readable for the web. Here are some tools that have been developed:

Open Attribute - a browser plugin for Firefox and Chrome that grabs the CC license metadata on a web page and turns it into an attribution for you

Commons Machinery - a suite of plugins for Firefox and open office tools that enables copying and pasting images with the attribution info already attached

Other guides to attribution

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You can use CC-licensed materials as long as you follow the license conditions. One condition of all CC licenses is attribution. Here are some good (and not so good) examples of attribution. Note: If you want to learn how to mark your own material with a CC license go here.

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Teaching in a Digital Age | The Open Textbook Project provides flexible and affordable access to higher education resources

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Teaching in a Digital Age | The Open Textbook Project provides flexible and affordable access to higher education resources

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Teaching in a Digital Age - The Open Textbook Project provides flexible and affordable access to higher education resources

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The book examines the underlying principles that guide effective teaching in an age when all of us, and in particular the students we are teaching, are using technology.

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How do students use video in higher education? | EurekAlert! Science News

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How do students use video in higher education? | EurekAlert! Science News

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How do students use video in higher education?

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A new SAGE white paper out today reveals the types of educational videos that appeal to students and where they go to find them. Titled 'Great Expectations: Students and Video in Higher Education,' the paper includes suggestions for librarians as they connect the video resources found in their libraries with researchers, instructors, and students.

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Solving The Problem Of Scientific Reproducibility With Peer-Reviewed Video - Forbes

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Solving The Problem Of Scientific Reproducibility With Peer-Reviewed Video - Forbes

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In a story published last week in the Boston Globe, Carolyn Johnson covered one of the quiet crises facing scientific research today: the fact that a lot of published experiments simply can't be reproduced by other scientists .

"But talk to a scientist long enough, and you'll probably hear a story like this: An intriguing new discovery was reported in a research journal," wrote Carolyn Johnson in an excellent article on this topic in the Boston Globe. "Maybe it was a biologist describing a new Achilles' heel in cancer cells, a psychologist's profound insight into human behavior, or an astronomer's finding about the first moments of the universe. The scientist read about the finding and tried to confirm it in her own lab, but the experiment just didn't come out the same."

Although in some instances the cause of this is outright fraud, far more often the causes are more proasic and mundane. Not being able to replicate an experiment may just mean there was something wrong with the instruments in the initial experiment. (This quite famously happened to the OPERA collaboration, when they infamously announced that they had measured neutrinos moving faster than light. After attempts to reproduce the experiment failed, it was later revealed that the measurements had been erroneous due to a bad data connection in their instruments.)

Sometimes, though, the reason why an experiment doesn't work is because important steps were left out of the original paper, making it impossible for other scientists to replicate the experiment. Sometimes this is oversight, and sometimes it's just that a particular lab has common practices that don't carryover to the wider community. In these cases, the experimenters didn't find a false result - it's just hard for other people to demonstrate the same thing.

This particular aspect of day to day aspect of scientific research was deeply frustrating to Dr. Moshe Pritsker when he was engaged in research a towards his PhD a little over a decade ago. He would find himself unable to complete experiments working just off papers, but when he was able to meet with an experimenter or visit their lab, he was able to then replicate the experiment. But this experience made him frustrated about the way science was being done in the 21st century.

"Why doesn't it work?" he told me. "It's text. It's not good for transfer of knowledge about complex experiments. When you see people do it, you'll get small details you can't get from text."

Faced with the time consuming process of visiting original labs to see how experiments were performed led Pritsker to thinking that there had to be a better way for scientists to share information than the centuries-old process of publishing papers.

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Solving The Problem Of Scientific Reproducibility With Peer-Reviewed Video

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In a story published last week in the Boston Globe, Carolyn Johnson covered one of the quiet crises facing scientific research today: the fact that a lot of published experiments simply can't be reproduced by other scientists .

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See and hear : the journal on audio-visual learning : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

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See and hear : the journal on audio-visual learning : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

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See and hear : the journal on audio-visual learning : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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Media History Digital Library - Non-Theatrical Film Collection (1918-1973)

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Media History Digital Library - Non-Theatrical Film Collection (1918-1973)

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The development and growth of the educational film movement is well documented in the pages below of Educational Film Magazine and its successor, The Educational Screen. The complementary industry of films for industry, sponsored films and later television commercials is captured in Business Screen (which later absorbed See & Hear).

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Oxford University Press USA publishes scholarly works in all academic disciplines, bibles, music, children's books, business books, dictionaries, reference books, journals, text books and more. Browse our more than 30,000 titles on www.oup.com/us.

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The Educational screen : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

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The Educational screen : Free Download & Streaming : Internet Archive

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The Educational screen : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

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Issues for -summer 1956 called also: -whole no. 343