Streaming A to Z

This is a fun and easy trick that that will allow you and your students to add callouts and balloons to your Movie Maker movies. Once you install the files, they are ready to use each time you use Movie Maker.  Click here to see how…

Man oh man - have I been out and about! My suitcase and I have become best friends as I have had the pleasure of traveling to meet one-on-one with teachers, administrators, and everyone in-between from School Districts up and down the East Coast.

I feel like that Johnny Cash song (or is it the Comfort Inn commercial?), “I’ve Been Everywhere” in fact…

Well, I’ve been to
Long Island, New York,
Arlington, Virginia,
Boston, Massachusetts (that’s where I learned about Google Lit Trips)
Nashua, New Hampshire,
Philly, Pennsylvania,
Bradenton, Florida (and I could name more-in the…)
But I’ve been everywhere man - you get the idea

My most recent trip had me in Broward County and Manatee County school districts delivering training sessions on things like 50 Ways to use Discovery Education streaming

And Differentiated Instruction and DE Streaming (click on link to download presentation)

Finally, a million thanks to Super Star, Carole Gooden from St. Lucie County and Karen Seddon, Super Star from Osceola County, FL for sharing their time and expertise with me and our good friends in Manatee County, FL!

They say that imitation is the purest form of flattery.  Well this posting and the ideas attached in it aren’t so much imitation as much as they are blatant "borrowing" from our very own DEN Manager Extraordinare, Lance Rougeux.

Recently I had the opportunity to present to a group of educators attending WHRO’s Tech Trek 2007 in Norfolk, VA.

Before I traveled to Norfolk, I had the chance to see Lance’s presentation, Summer Streamin’ Great Tips To Get You Ready For The New School Year and asked him if I could borrow it for my presentation.

I made a few modifications so that I could highlight the Discovery Atlas feature as well as a couple other things, and of course not feel so guilty to attach my name to it.

I encourage you to check out the attachment so that you too can borrow, modify, and make these great tips your own.

Download back_to_school1.ppt

Talk to you soon,
Matt Monjan
Discovery Educator Network!

My best friend and I share a common love for April Fools Day.  Every year we excitedly plan our ruse.  Every year they seem to be more elaborate.  And every year they produce the same result - our wives roll their eyes as we fall to the floor laughing…and then I sleep on the couch that night.

April Fools falls on Sunday this year.  With that in mind I thought I’d share:

Matt’s Five Ways Technology Has Made Me Feel Foolish.

1. One day a teacher called me to tell me that her unitedstreaming video had no sound.  We rebooted her computer, verified that the video was working on my end, accessed the control panel and adjusted her speaker volume - nothing.  I Googled her computer model, operating system, and sound settings in a valiant effort to solve the problem - nothing.
   Then after 30 minutes of trouble shooting, a beam of light descended upon my frazzled brain and a heavenly choir song a melodious chord, and I said…wait a minute are your speakers turned on?  They were not (sigh).
2. Early in my Implementation career a teacher called and franticly exclaimed, "I need access to unitedstreaming but I can’t play any of my videos.  Please help!"
   Again much time was spent systematically ruling out the issues to no avail. 
   It turns out the the school was blocking streaming and downloading during school hours…"Ohhhh that’s right, I forgot about that" explained the teacher.  This is now the first thing I check.
3. When you are replying to a person’s e-mail, and multiple people are copied, be very careful to reply to sender and not reply to all - I’ll let your imaginations run with that one.
4. It is www.unitedstreaming.com NOT www.unitedstreamign.com - for the life of me I once spent ten minutes typing in the address wrong! I was this close to sounding "The Site Is Down!" alert.
5. Is it just me or have you sent a fax only to find out later that all you really sent were blank pages? I still have trouble identifying which way to insert the paper in the fax machine

So that you don’t get fooled in the future, here are a few links to past postings.  Check them out and access answers to the most frequently asked questions/issues.

Hauntingly Good Tips and Tricks

Puzzled over PowerPoint? Not any more

Crazy Cool Close Caption Tips and These Too

I hope that you have enjoyed these experiences and that they brought you a chuckle or two.

Now if I could only find that darn "Any key" on my computer.  You know the "Press Any Key to continue…" APRIL FOOLS!

Talk to you soon,
Matt Monjan
Discovery Education, unitedstreaming

Have you ever wondered how to increase the size of the close captioning text when viewing it full screen? 

This tip comes to us via Jeff Smith at the Erie County Technical School in Pennsylvania.

Increasing the Close Caption Text Size
When using closed captioning, the text may not be as large as you would like it to be. To increase the size of the text follow these steps:

1. Download both the video/video segment and close caption (cc) file
2. Open the cc file in a text editing program like WordPad or Notepad. 
3. Locate the line of code that indicates “font size.”  This is usually about the sixth line of code. 
4. Increase the font size to at least 20 pts, or even larger. 
5. Save and close your file in your folder with the video file. 
6. The next time you view the video, the size of the text should be increased

Is that way too cool for school or what?  Thanks Jeff!

Here are the step by step instructions for downloading and projecting cc videos full screen:Download closed_caption_full_screen_viewing_steps.doc

This tip is brought to you by the letter Queue
Are you a Network Administrator or Technology Coordinator responsible for managing your school/district’s bandwidth?  Then this little tip may be right up your alley.
unitedstreaming has a tool called Network Manager.  When activated, teachers find video/video segments and queue them to download later.  That night (or at a time set by the Administrator) all of the queued videos are downloaded onto a local computer or server.  The next day teachers are able to stream and/or download these videos onto their own personal computers.  And here’s the bandwidth management piece; since the videos are now locally saved, teachers stream/download information from a local source and not the Internet.  To see how it works or to demonstrate to your teachers, check out this PowerPoint:Download undestanding_network_manager.ppt 

Details, Details, Details
Here’s a great little tip when you are talking about Primary Sources.  Find an image, any image, and open its large version (click on the Preview link underneath "Large").

Then, on a PC, follow these steps:

• Hover over lower right-hand corner until you see an icon with arrows pointing out from each of its four corners
  
• Click on the expand icon
  
• Click and drag the gray left-right and up-down buttons to zero in on the image detail

On a Mac:

• Open image in iPhoto
• Frame the part of the image that you want to enlarge
• Use your zoom function to enlarge that piece of the image.

To find some really great imagery, click on the Advanced Search and scroll down until you see the Publishers drop down box.  Choose any of the Library of Congress, NASA, or U.S.D.A. Forest Service images and watch as your students imagination take over.

For more great tips and tricks - click on the Tips and Tricks! link located underneath the word Categories.  See it?  Right there…scroll back up and look in the gray bar on the left-hand side of your screen… 

I hope that these tips are helpful. If you have any neat tips, tricks, comments, etc. please feel free to share!

Talk to you soon,
Matt Monjan
Discovery Education, Implementation.

As the implementation representative for schools in North Carolina and Texas, I often hear from English Language Learning (ELL) teachers about how they are using unitedstreaming to reach their students in more diversified and creative ways.  Recently, I had the opportunity to speak with Sashi Rayasam, the ELL Director of Durham County Schools in North Carolina, about how she incorporates unitedstreaming materials into her instruction.

For Ms. Rayasam, much of her ELL instruction takes place within the general classroom; accordingly, projecting full-length videos for ELL students specifically is not always an option.  In addition, she has found that some of the narrations that coincide with the videos can be too quick for students to comprehend.

As a result, Ms. Rayasam has turned to the extensive library of static images, clip art, and video segments available to her through unitedstreaming.  She has found that these thousands of visual tools help her to provide ELL students with a more thorough comprehension of discussion topics.   

For example, Ms. Rayasam realized that, while many of her students were familiar with the images associated with Thanksgiving, they did not have the cultural context necessary to help them connect these images, thereby limiting their level of discussion.  By embedding images and video segments of the Native Americans, Pilgrims and their meal together in a PowerPoint presentation, Ms. Rayasam was able to reinforce the text she prepared, while allowing her the flexibility to narrate the presentation at a pace understandable to her students.  She commented, “My students are of a TV generation but are often so far removed from things that are very culturally American.  unitedstreaming resources give the students some context and cultural knowledge.  Right after watching the videos and presentations, the students discussed them.  They really seemed to enjoy it.” 

Did You Know? 

• You can search for only Spanish titles by going to the Advanced Search function at the top of every page.
• You can automatically enable closed captioning whenever closed captioning is available by going to Preferences.
• It is possible to play English closed captioning with Spanish videos.  Follow the steps in this attachment. Download using_close_captioning_to_teach_englishspanish.doc
• Writing prompts are great tools to get students thinking and writing and you can write questions in whatever language you choose.  Plus, when you create writing prompts through the Writing Prompt Builder, students and parents can access the writing prompts from home. (The Writing Prompt Builder is located in the Teacher Center.) 
• Lesson 3d of the Interactive Training Lesson – Differentiated Instruction – explores strategies for how to use unitedstreaming to teach English language learners. 
• If you click on the Resources tab of Lesson 3, you’ll also find instructions for how to embed videos in PowerPoint, as well as create WebQuests and use Inspiration.  (Interactive Training lessons are located in the Professional Development section of the site.)

Jessica Corlett
Discovery Education, unitedstreaming

We saw your cry for help when you flashed that big Discovery Education logo in the sky, and faster than a streaming (not buffering) video here we are to save the day!  Please excuse the Batman, Superman, and Mighty Mouse references - this author had previously succumbed to boyhood nostalgia).

OK we’re back and ready to provide you with Close Captioning information - More specifically; how to find the CC videos, what to do with them, and how to get them to play full screen.

Finding CC videos

Whenever you search for videos within unitedstreaming a CC file may appear as one of the video/video segments that match your search criteria.  The catch is that you may have to scroll down and/or page through your search results to find the CC file(s).

However, there is a short cut to yielding only CC files in your search results.  How you ask? The answer, my friend, is the Advanced Search feature.  Click on the Advanced Search feature, type in a key word, scroll down, and place a check in the box next to the phrase, "Include only Closed Captioned Titles."

Now that you’ve found your CC files what can you do with them?  Here are a few recommendations:

• Project the CC videos to assist struggling readers. 
  By projecting the words, students can associate the video’s images and audio with the words on your LCD screen, interactive white board, or television screen.
• Reinforce a vocabulary lesson by projecting CC videos
  Show a CC movie/movie clip to your students and pause it when vocabulary words appear.  Have your students go up to the screen, white board, TV and identify specific vocabulary.
• Reinforce a grammar lesson by projecting CC videos
  Same principle applies here, only this time have your students identify nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc
• Use CC videos to teach English as a Second Language
  For all of the reasons noted above, you can use CC files to help teach ESL students.

How do we play the CC files full-screen?  And, even better, how do we download the CC videos? Great questions - here are the answers:

First a few notes

1. You must have a Windows Media Player (WMP) to play CC files
2. To play the CC files full screen you must have Windows XP and WMP 10 or higher.
3. If you have a Mac you can play (stream) CC files with a Windows Media Player. However, downloaded CC files do not operate on a Mac.

Next you’ll need to make a few adjustments within your WMP.  The adjustments and CC download instructions are listed below or, if you want to print them out, can be downloaded by clicking on this link: Download closed_caption_full_screen_viewing_steps.doc

1. Right-click on the blue download icon next to the CC video or video clip of your choice and select "Save Target As" (Internet Explorer). Navigate to your desired location.  Save the file including extension “.asf” (Tip:  For quick access, save file to desktop.)
2. Return to the unitedstreaming video/video clip page and right-click on the "CC" icon next to the video or video clip that you previously saved.  Select "Save Target As" (Internet Explorer).  Navigate to the same location as the video/video clip.  Save the file including extension “.smi”  (note make sure that you save the .smi CC file with the same title as the video example - Dogs_Playing.asf and Dogs_Playing.smi)
3. When viewing the video, go to your location of the saved files and double-click on the Windows Media Player video file. 
4. Once Windows Media Player has opened, select “Play” on the tool bar at the top of the player.  (Note: You may have to hover your mouse directly above the player to make the menu File, View, Play, Tools, and Help appear.)
5. Scroll down to “Caption and Subtitles” and make sure that “On if Available” has been selected. 
6. Click on the word Tools in your Windows Media Player tool bar
7. Scroll down and click on the word "Options"
8. Click on the "Security" tab
9. Place a check mark next to "Run script commands when present"
10. Place a check mark next to "Run script commands and rich media streams when the Player is in a Web page" (WMP 11)
11. Place a check mark next to "Show local captions when present"
12. Close Windows Media Player and re-open again by click on the Windows Media Player video file.  Your video should play and captions should play across the bottom. 
13. You may resize the Windows Media Player window by clicking and dragging the corner of the player.

I hope that this posting has provided you with some creative ideas. 

Stay tuned for our next episode when our blogeteers tackle the infamous…(The author apologizes once again for using the Super Hero reference)

Talk to you soon,
Matt Monjan
Discover Education, unitedstreaming