Editing

Today started - after wake-up duty and breakfast duty - with a brief primer on how to use our editing suite. Once again, we are using Serif Movie Plus software. I showed them on the big screen how to import, cut and generally mess with video clips. 

I told them that there was no "wrong" way to learn this - that they were free to mess liberally with anything we shot over the last dew days. Effects, cuts, overlays - all were there for their enjoyment. The reminder and understanding that no damage to the source clip would occur helped free up the boys from their initial fear.

Within moments the class was silent, except for the occasional giggle (and more frequent "Mr. T., How do I...?) as the boys flung themselves into their task of having fun with this powerful new tool. 

By the end of 20 minutes, we had a "Chipmonk" version, a really slow cross-fade that led to multiple images on the screen, various color enhancements, a silent movie version (accident), and the comment of the day: "I LOVE THIS! THIS IS THE MOST FUN I'VE EVER HAD!"

It's 9:17 AM, and my day could be done on that note... However, I'm on duty tonight!

Before I close, I'd like to give a shout-out to the peeps who made the inaugural #TABSchat last night a success. If you're interested in life in boarding schools, and do the Twitter thing, tune in to #TABSchat, Wednesdays at 8:00 PM EST

Term Two Begins

I appear to be far more sporadic a blogger than I would like. So be it. I will, at this time, endeavor to adequately chronicle the second term, with new students, of my afore mentioned Media Class.

This term we're a little over stuffed. I've got seven kids and five workstations. I'll use this as a team building experience, and make sure that each student gets the opportunity to work on a project with a partner. The only issue I can see with this set up is that you can only use one USB headset in a machine. I'll have to pick up a few 1/8" splitters and use a different set up for the team machines.

Going forward I've dispensed with the thought that I might be able to produce a daily newscast, and am now focusing, from the start, on a bi-monthly news magazine. Here, by the way, is a teaser clip from last term's 30/30.

This term, I'm calling (unilateral decision time) the program 55 Minutes.

We started again with class rules. No rolling around on the chairs, don't play with the equipment when not using it in an official capacity, and most importantly for me, the rule of safe and honest constructive criticism being the only accepted form of criticism. 

We jumped right into two person, one camera news reporting - again using Morning Notes as a prompter template.

This class was extremely quick to feel comfortable behind the desk. We had general confusion and some great blooper fodder of course, but the quickness of this group of boys was astounding. After two days we got everyone behind the desk, and moved on to critique.

The boys generally had interesting things to say about their peers work and the mandate for safety was observed well. We all learned something about our desk presence and will have a much better second reel, as good as the first was.

Today, we got the files onto the editing stations, and will begin the process of learning to edit. Next week, hopefully, we begin the projects! I'm excited.

Media Innovation

One of our themes this year at school is “Innovation”. This past spring, the Headmaster challenged us all to come up with ways to innovate our way forward. I made two suggestions - the first, which has already been discussed on this blog, was the Apple iPad roll-out for the lower school. That’s going on now, and the teachers and students are loving it. We’ve also got a bunch of iPads into other faculty hands. The Science faculty and the Music department are using them regularly. I’ve put in, as discussed, Apple TV’s and a select few AirServer installs. I’m struggling with Streaming Video and Audio - it seems to really bog down, but other than that it’s working great.

My second suggestion was to create a “Media Lab”. My thought was that I’d be able, were I granted the funds and the time, to create a daily news show based on our “Morning Notes” bulletin. We’d discuss the day’s lunch menu, sporting activities and general announcements - filmed by and presented by the students - all in a 50 minute class. Ambitious.

The project was funded, thanks to a generous donation from the D.A.R. and the program was scheduled into the 7th grade language rotation. You take what you can get when trying to get a new program in place. To be honest, I had been hoping for older kids, but so be it...

A room was set aside, and I went nutty buying cameras, editing stations, tripods, lighting, cables, microphones and new furniture. If you’ve figured me out at all by now, you can guess that this is a Windows lab. We’re using Serif Movie Plus X6, which is a robust, low cost editor. I got twelve licenses of the Serif suite for less than the cost of one from Adobe. We’ve got 5 high end Windows workstations, each of which cost half of what an iMac would run. I did not scrimp on the camera, lighting or furniture. There's even a green screen, which I have not busted out. The room looks great.

I'm about a month into the class now, and I'm sorry to report that 50 minutes is not anywhere near enough time to shoot, edit and render a daily newscast. Certainly not with four novice 7th graders. Probably not with anyone. Here's how it's gone:

Stage 1:

We did an intro to the class. I explained what we'd be doing, and began to set up single camera one person news shots. I assigned them to go home (or to the dorm) and watch a news show, which many of them had never really done with any interest, and try to mimic the broadcaster. I used Jon Stewart for my in-class example. So, we had one student behind the desk, and one behind the camera. We had the Morning Notes on a computer off to the side of the desk. And we had fun. We didn't get a lot of good footage, but we practiced. We learned to set a good framing in a shot. We learned to sit still and face the camera. Most importantly, we learned to be quiet and not roll around on the chairs when a shot was taking place.

Stage 2:

We spent a lot of time editing. Just for fun. I had them put together different clips and use some of the built in effects. Just learning their ways around the software. I remain convinced that hands on is the best way to learn this stuff. There need be no goal at first, but just using and exploring with no fear of "wrong" will establish a long term comfort. 

Stage 3:

We also tried some two-shot interviews. Again using the Daily Show as an example of a well shot interview. I tried to stage a good shoot using only one camera. Not a good idea. We got some hilarious blooper footage out of this exercise as the boys tried to make up things to interview each-other on on the fly.

Stage 4:

A second camera was brought in. So was a teleprompter. I found a nifty free on-line prompter called Easy Prompter. I brought in an old 32 inch TV we had lying around and hooked it up to my laptop. Thanks to parent Josh Binswanger for the suggestion. Mr. Binswanger was gracious enough to come to class and give some tips and pointers. He also helped show the boys how to apply theatrical make-up.

Stage 5:

The two camera, two person shot, with a teleprompter. By this point we've naturally split into two distinct teams of two. It seems to work. The boys are playing nicely off of each-other and are genuinely liking the class. So each day, we set a goal of doing our morning notes with two presenters. "Now over to Timmy with the days lunch menu.". We've got the main camera and audio set on the "anchor" and the secondary (which is a FlipCam) on the "guest". The secondary cameraman is also the prompter operator. 

The hardest part of this process is the editing. The sound on the Flip is not nearly as good, obviously, as the direct sound to the main Sony camera, 

So when we are in edit, we have to match the audio from camera 1 to the lip movements of camera 2. It's a challenge that only one student has mastered. It appears we have a chief editor. However...

Stage 6:

It's still taking us two days to shoot, and another to edit. There's no way we'll ever get a daily show done. I've re-evaluated the process, and decided to do a weekly news-magazine. The boys have decided to call it 30/30. That might have to change, because, really, it does not mean anything. However, it's their title, their show. As of right now, they're all working on individual 5 minute stories, ranging from "The life of a day student" to "Herding of Llamas". This looks like it's going to be a blast, and I enjoy every day of teaching. We're having so much fun learning this stuff. First period. What a great way to start the day. 

Tentative Happiness

Greetings. It’s been a long time. Again. Somehow work got in the way of regular blogging. Go figure. But... School’s open now, and the cherubs are back and all is going well. And that’s today’s story. Because it didn’t start that way. And I can’t even blame Apple. Oh wait... I can! At least in part.

Over the summer I drastically increased our bandwidth. We went from 8/2 to 50/10. Still Comcast, but that’s a pretty significant increase. We had minor issues last year, but with the increased reliance on web based apps - including our migration to an off campus hosted SIS solution - and the addition of the previously mentioned iPads (not the blame) and the ridiculously low cost (Dating myself here... At one of my previous schools, we paid over a grand a month for a single T1 link.) this was an easy choice. So Comcast brings in a new router, and we are good to go. We have such light usage over the summer that we didn’t even really notice any increase in speed. But it was there.

We use Meraki as our Wireless system. Generally I like it just fine. It’s a cloud managed system that allows us to track user activity and force them to log in each session. It’s pretty fast and has helped us isolate trouble users in the past. Within reason, I can pinpoint the location of a computer in our main building by using Meraki’s triangulation. My maps aren’t to scale, so it’s not perfect. I mention this because we also disable all student access until they register their computers with us. We also changed the WPA2 password and do not give that out. (Pet beef: Why can’t you hide that from users? There is almost no point in a secret password if it’s readily accessible to all the users, is there?) (Another thing I learned: A weird @1Ph@NuM3r!c password might be easy on a keyboard, but it’s a pain in the butt on a mobile device. And Apple TV? Don’t get me started.)

So the students start streaming into the IT office, and we start diligently logging serial numbers, entering passwords and turning on accounts. It’s a slow process but not near as bad as the summer of 2003, when several major viruses hit in August, and Microsoft (see, I’m an equal opportunity blaster) released about a billion patches for XP. That year it took us about 3 weeks to get all kids working - this year it only took three days. But then... (cue ominous music)

The network died. Irregularly. After three and before 8, it was generally fine (except during study hall). According to all my monitoring tools, I was not even approaching the bandwidth limits. So I started the process. Generally I love the process. It went something like this:

Part 1: Blame the vendor:

• Call Comcast. Is something wrong with the router? The line? Answer: No. Resoundingly.
• Call firewall company. Three long time. Lots of tweaking and poking and prodding. Often the network has to be disconnected in order for the connection to be able to happen from outside. I can always connect from within. My internal connection speeds are excellent.
• Without going into long boring detail, the answer at the end of these long phone calls is: “Sir, the firewall is fine. Have a nice day. Sir.”

Part 2: Blame the Students:

• Start sniffing traffic. Wait! I really have no idea how to read this stuff. Generally, but not with the precision I need, so off to the phones. Lots of messages, few call backs. Why? Is no-one interested in a one shot case, with no hope of a long term network management contract?
• Start pulling plugs. Yep! Into the closet I go. Continuous ping running on the laptop, watching for change.
• Sequestering computers.
• The entire 7th grade leaves for a trip. Things work better. Not perfectly, but a bit.

Part 3: Blame the 7th grade.

• Sequester all 7th grade computers. Look at all of them. Find little issues, lots of malware, but nothing that will bring down the network.
• Oh yeah... The most chronically infected machines? MacBook Pro laptops. There it is. We can add a small subset Part 3A: Blame Apple marketing for continuing to push the religion of “No Virus Can Infect the MAC OS”

Part 4: Blame Self:

• My mood began to turn. I love this process, as I mentioned before, but only for a week or so. I was becoming frustrated and short. I’m generally a pretty nice guy. I think. I probably wasn’t by now. However,
• Throughout this mess, before, during and after, I had nothing but support from the faculty and staff. Even the students were less complainey than I might have expected. That made life a lot easier.
• Still... Every “Do you have ANY IDEA when you’ll get this fixed?” cut deep.

Part 5: Soldier on, casting blame everywhere.

• Over the course of the next week I finally spoke with a local network engineer who agreed to look at my Wireshark Data. I also spoke with another large company who set up a con-call, agreed to look at the data and never got back to me.
• I continued to hunt and peck at the user base. Shut down a classroom here and there.
• Study hall, I do the same. There were at least 5 times I was convinced I had it. Clearly I was wrong.
• My Network engineer says we have an issue in the logs, and can she come by to show me.

Part 6: The last night and day:

• Study hall duty. I open the Wireshark log. Again, I start looking. After a while I notice a computer -  an old one we use for printing in the library - being extremely chatty. This is a computer that should do absolutely nothing but load google docs and print.
• I walk over to the library,shut it down and put a big “Do not use” sign on it.
• Bah. No change to the network. Still down. At wits end, I shut my computer off, and decide I need to pay big guns to come in and fix this for me.
• The next morning, in desperation I call Comcast again. The conversation goes something like this:

Me: Blah blah can’t get steady traffic. Can you test the line please?

Them: The line looks fine.

Me: Well, I’m really having trouble. Can you look a little deeper?

Them: Let me just connect to your router... Hmmmm.... I can’t connect to your router. Let me.... Hmmmm. This is weird. Um.... Can I schedule a service call for you. Replace the router?

Me: Yes please.

• And it’s been working perfectly ever since.

Part 7: After:

• The network engineer comes by with a list of possible infected machines. I test them all, and while they all have an issue or two, none of them break the network.
• I began an education initiative which goes something like this:
• At a succession of Faculty meetings, I explained the entire process I went through. I talked about how, while not necessarily breaking things, streaming music and video all day for non academic purposes was now no longer going to be allowed. (I might turn some of those firewall blocks off now that it’s been a while, but then again, I might not.)
• I did a lunch presentation. One of the really neat things about our school is that we, at the start of each lunch, have what we call “The Program”. Each day a different faculty member or student will present on something. I used my session to present on how the basics of networking apply to shared community use. I whipped off a quick presentation in Google Docs. It’s right over here if you’re interested. I bolstered the slide show with extremely witty and informative chatter. By the way, I presented it using my iPad over the Apple TV connected to the 3 large flat screens in our dining hall. It worked well. (Two years ago, I did a very similar presentation. But live action. It was awesome. I really wish I had it on tape. Perhaps next year.) The main point of the discussion is that we, as a community, need to be aware of what we’re doing on the school network. It’s a shared resource. I was amazed, during the troubles of the previous weeks, how many people did not even attempt to limit their use. YouTube, Pandora, iTunes, even Netflix. Not just by students either. So the lesson of the day was this: Doing stuff takes space up. Really.

So now it’s been about three weeks. We haven’t (knock wood) had any issues (besides the Apple TV’s and streaming video -  but that’s another post). Was it just the router? I don’t think so. Did all the things I tried earlier - the machines cleaned up, the tweaks to the firewall, etc help - but not help because the router was jammed up? Possible. Was the infected machine removed from campus? Doubtful. Will I ever really know? No. Never.

Am I happy about that?

Discoveries volume 1

It's been a couple of weeks now... I've been playing with my new toy and today, at lunch time, I will attend the required web conference on the Apple Volume Licensing Agreement. (I might add, that according to the web site, I cannot watch this on my 24" monitor, because I have a <gasp> Windows computer and the overlords at Apple have made it possible for only Safari users on a Genuine Apple Product to participate. So, I will be watching this on my little iPad screen. On Safari). Because...

One of my first beefs: You cannot change the default browser. Chrome for iPad is out, and it seems really good. I want it to be my browser of choice. Nope. Not unless I jail break. Hey Apple: Chrome is the number one download in the Apple Store. Clearly your users are saying something. About Safari. Help us. Please!!!

OK, so... I went to New York this weekend. I took only my iPad with me. No computer at all. Here are my immediate thoughts:

Nice and light. It was a pleasure not hauling around my laptop and power supply.
Great battery life. Didn't have to plug it in one time.
WiFi worked great at the hotel.
Easy to hide when I went out.
Watched a movie. Excellent picture. Sound was OK. Didn't try headphones.
Every site I went to worked great. Zero problems on the web.
Too big to be an e-reader. I like the smaller set up of my little Kindle. It's a one hand device. I can't see myself using the iPad in bed.

I'm sure any of these comments would be exactly the same were I testing out an Android tablet. (Except, with the Android, I'd probably be using Chrome full time. Just a guess).

Other discoveries. The best one thus far is the software mentioned briefly last update: Air Server. Because of this, we will have wireless projection capabilities in every classroom and conference room at the school. I'm going to look into returning my Apple TV units (except for a few). Really cool!

I ordered some styli on the cheap. These ones. They're cool for writing on My Script Notes. The first app I've paid for. The character recognition is pretty good. My handwriting is not the "clearest" and there's been only one major translation issue, which, to be fair, everyone who even looked at the sample made.

So check plus for My Script and for Air Server. A general "Meh" for the stylus - makes you feel like you're using a pen, which might facilitate note taking, but my bet is they're an easy loss. And the overall grade for the iPad experience thus far is a B+. I'm still generally happy.

But it's still not a replacement for a computer.

Air Server

Just discovered Air Server: A super inexpensive application for PC/MAC that will allow you to mirror your IOS device to your computer. For less than 1/10th the cost of an Apple TV. Sound too.

This will greatly ease deployment in the classrooms. It will allegedly work for Android devices as well. Not tested yet.

Well All Right!

So here I am. Blogging on my spanking new iPad 3. A plethora of goodies arrived from Cupertino yesterday. Timely. I helped myself first. Why not? Yesterday I played around a bit. Kindle, Skype etc.

Fun.

This morning Phil and I busted out a projector and opened an Apple TV unit. A few minor cable connections later (our projectors do not support HDMI so I had to use a converter http://www.amazon.com/SANOXY-Audio-Converter-Support-Output/dp/B0057UNQ18/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343139799&sr=8-1&keywords=HDMI+VGA+converter) and some slight fumbling around as two confirmed Windows geeks tried to find the Air Stream icon (Thanks to Monica for the assist) and we were successfully mirroring music and video content.

Color me impressed.

Next up... Figuring out how to manage multiple Apple TV units and keep kids from hijacking air time. Beyond that we've got to set up the sync cart and figure out exactly how we're going to use these!

 But it's been a good start.

Edit (from my PC) - Looking at the post, none of the paragraph breaks made it though iPad Safari. Confused...