Finding the right moment and many more YouTube tricks

This guide from Joyce Valenza is a mine of practical information for using YoiuTube better. I love YouTube but can remember more horror stories of its failure to work than I care to admit! (Lining up 5 clips in advance in a huge lectuire theatre at a conference and then having no sound...for instance!)
I need to read this in detail and use the tips. Suggest you do too!

PubChem instruction videos

Cam across this interesting article from Jeffery Loo at University of California Berkeley demonstrating how they created several videos about using PubChem. They used Powerpoint for the slides, GIMP to edit graphics, Audacity to recoird and edit the audio, Screen-cast-o-matic to create the screencasts, Windows Live Movie Maker to edit it, and Youtube to store and distribute.
They last about 6 minutes each. Here is a sample

Best Video creation tools for the classroom

This article from School Library Journal, 1 Nov. 2010, by Richard Bryne looks well worth following up. He says :
"There was a time, not too long ago, that making a video required expensive video equipment and software. That’s no longer true. Now, without spending a dime on cameras or software, your students could craft the next great documentary or YouTube sensation."

All that is needed is creativity and patience...oh and the time to try these out!

Librarians Do Gaga

Been doing too much "inducting" anbd teaching to post lately.Now here is a video to cheer us on a Friday afternoon or anytime!
Thanks to a query on lis-link I have come across this video Librarians Do Gaga. Students and faculty from the University of Washington's Information School get their groove on!!Directed, edited, and produced by Sarah Wachter and lyrics by Sarah Wachter. It's aiming to get students to get to the Ca-ca-ca-catalogue and those databases! Must try it out with a group sometime. Maybe 4 minutes is a bit long??

New students require new librarians

Just found a really interesting video via Dean Giustini's Search Principle blog where four High schoolers discuss how they use technology for communication, problems they have with traditional education, and how they learn best.
They speak of the convenience of texting; e-mail is for corresponding with teachers or your aunt; used to multi-tasking ; bored with lectures ; texting with th ephone that is like an extension of your arm ; you can learn via mobiles, text Google for definitions and social media helps "like to give us independence and freedom to learn".

So much of this we have read in other places but like the thing that stood out to me was like it was WHY do they have keep saying LIKE all the time? There were 78 LIKES in 6 minutes 18 seconds!
There's been a lot said about the Web generation not being able to write (I do n't really accept this - twitter can be a great way of making us succinct) but it's the way that they express themselves which I notice. At that point my grumpiness will cease.
I do- like- recommend the video!

Twitter Tutorials

Pam Dyer has posted about the best 10 Twitter tutorials on YouTube.
Includes Twitter in Plain English, Getting started with Twitter, Twitter lists in a nutshell, How to do a Twitter profile, Best Twitter tools, Finding Twitter followers, Tweeting from any cell phone, and Twitter for business and branding.

Library Channel and Just a Minute Videos

Arizona State University have been trend-setters in providing video support for their students. I knew about their Library Channel on YouTube, but via a Twitter post revisited it and came across their Library Minute series. Anyone considering creating videos should take a look at these. You may not think the style will suite your students, but I would expect you will get some good ideas for titles and content.

Here is the Academic Search Premier one.



I liked the film clip that came up after she sais Academic Search Premier "What??"

I was particularly interested in this series because at University of Bedfordshire had decided that we would do One Minute videos. I am convinced that the short burst is the best hope to reach our users. Therefore we have built up a series (different style for us Brits!?) of Just a Minute videos. View the list here.

Here's our video about self issue of books

Chopping up YouTube videos

Phil Bradley drew attention to this via Twitter.
It's a simple tool that allows you to select a video from YouTube and then chop out the section you want to use. Link can then be sent to Facebook, Twitter, Delicious for sharing, or you could embed it on a web page or as part of a Powerpoint.
For example the "What is Information Literacy" from Otis College has some good general stuff, but you would not want to use all the video as it is specific to Otis. http://www.tubechop.com/chop/yeopJX5jJV8


Pic is my ideal break : coffee and cinnamon roll.

Boolean searching

Boolean searching video from USF Polytechnic may be useful to you. Never been my favourite area to teach.

Goggle vision : using electronic resources

Goggle Vision - using electronic resources from University of Liverpool is a really useful little video for introducing the concept of going beyond Google! Here's the accompanyiong blurb :
Are search engines giving you a headache? The University of Liverpool has a great collection of e-resources. This film from 1925 was eerily accurate in its description of life in the future. Visuals by Clare Dooley, Peter Robinson and Jeff Woods. Music by Nick Botfield

Demonstrates that there is material out there can be shared and used! That's one of the things that this blog is about!

Wikipedia YouTube and Information Literacy

Been meaning to blog about this presentation on Slideshare by Esther Grassian for some time. It's from Sept. 2008 and I even notice that the Powerpoint background and some of the images are some of the same that I have used! So we have a lot in common. The message that Wikipedia YouTube and Google are not enough is of course a common one for us all to be giving out.There are some ideas on how to leverage Wikipedia so that students realise how it is created and the effort involved in doing this. There are examples of other Tubes and titles for use.
I look forward to "speaking" with Esther if all goes according to plan in the Second Life event on Friday that Sheila Webber blooged about earlier this week.

Wikipedia YouTube & Information Literacy

View more presentations from Esther Grassian.

Use of Wikipedia : and how students procrastinate

Just reading Sheila Webber's latest post about new short videos made by the Project Information Literacy I cannot resist drawing attention to them too. The debate about use of Wikipedia is a non-debate to me, (they will use it anyway and why not - its often a good starting place, but NOT the end place)and the video does make a number of good points which could be useful to show to groups of your students.
The procrastination video could be a good warning to groups of students - information overload, time management, waiting for guidance from academics etc.
Here is the link to these videos.

You Tube - a new tool for Information Literacy

After a long holiday break in Bavaria I am back! Takes a few days to read all those hundreds of e-mails, blog posts and catch up! Ugh!

Just came across a really useful and inspiring presentation from Dana Dukic in Hong Kong about the use of YouTube. After a background summary of YOuTube it highlights how YouTube is being used in some Libraries. In particular it cites University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign; Z Smith Reynolds Library, Wake Forest University;Cornell University ; UCLA ; Bob Baker's Info Literacy Channel, Pima Community College, Tucson ; Paul Robeson Library Channel at Rutgers University ; University of South Florida ; Georgia Tech. "YouTube - a goldmine for library instruction videos". Really glad to see someone else saying that! When and if I get time, one day I will write an article along these lines.

Al and Pete's Search Tips

Finally got round to putting three videos I made here with my friend and colleague Alan Bullimore here at University of Bedfordshire on YouTube, with the help of our Learning Technology department.

They are all short and are intended to get students to contrast journals with magazines ; Google with databases ; and newspaper tabloids with broadsheets. Very happy for anyone to use if they feel the urge!
Maybe we should make some more one day but right now I'm going on vacation very soon!

More student views on searching

There is another video from the Head and Eisenberg (University of Washington) study on US student searching habits. My original post about this is here.
Called the PIL InfoLit Dialog no 3. : Frustrations - the new video covers a number of common problems students have with searching for the right information in the digital age.

The first two videos from the series can be seen here.

Problem-based learning meets Web 2.0

This presentation by Frances May (University of North Texas) at LOEX 2009 Albuquerque caught my eye. As part of a Basic Communication Studies course, groups of 25 students were brought to the library, shown a 3 minute YouTube video which illustrated a problem. e.g. BBC News about China's grime belt air pollution extreme)They had then to list the facts contained in it, develop a problem statement, determine the information they needed, construct a search and then run it against the OPAC and Academic Search Complete.
Student comments "The video was helpful ...from the problem statement students are able to search relevant topics that support their research" and "helped me to realize how to really research".
Guess the point is that the video grabbed them in a way that just suggesting a topic (or getting them to) would not, and then they get engaged in deciding what they wabt to find out, formulate keywords and start the process of searching. Must try this.

Why students like the Library as a place

Thanks to Michael Stephens' Tame the Web I came across a liitle video of student opinions of their library at Western Washington University. It's very 2.0 and important to find out what our users think. Also for making a video about our library - much better to hear them than a librarian! I was amused by some of the comments though : "I like the Harry Potter room" and weirdest of all "I really like the microfilm room". I thought those things went out with the ark! I spent 19 years of my life as a manager trying to get those things put on the scrap heap - tapes and machines. I won too! Anyway it is a good 1 minute 45 sec. promotional video for their library!

More about what students say about researching

Further to my post on 8 April about Head and Eisenbeg's report (University of Washington) about how students study derived from focus groups on 7 US campuses : there are also two YouTube videos called the InfoLit Dialogs :
No 1 is about Presearch and attitudes to Wikipedia (part of this could be used to preface a session on Wikipedia.

No. 2 is about Procrastination and how most students leave everything to the last minute (again could be useful as a discussion prompt)


Thanks to Facebook I spotted a reference to these videos by Susan Ariew, one of the book's contributors - so thank you Susan!

Is the web generation changing your world?

This little video on YouTube by Don Tapscott starts off with all the usual sterotypes that are often mentioned about the web generation (that they're only interested in MySpace and are dumbing things down).Then it leads on to his research, which shows a rather different picture and his book "Grown up digital". The video could be useful as a prompt for discussions.

Digital Literacy in the Google generation

A short video which may be useful to demonstrate to FE or UG level that they need to do more than Google. It's when they want information that is complex, not purely factual, that they can hit trouble. Opening music sounds like Philip Glass ; then it gets a bit more raunchy. Refers to the CIBER Report on the Google generation.