Some of our most popular blog posts have to do with video, so for this week’s Friday Five I thought I’d share some new trends in video, from both a technical and practical standpoint.
1. vixy.net
vixy.net is another utility to save online video from the likes of YouTube to your computer. To use it, copy the web address (URL) of the page with video, then go to vixy.net, paste the address into the form, and let the conversion begin. Note it doesn’t work with Hulu, so it may not work with other sites either. There’s also a downloadable converter for Windows and Mac computers.
2. Evom
Evom has become my new preferred way to convert large video files to more manageable formats. It’s helped make gigantic high definition files more suitable for streaming over iChat–but I’ll get to that in a minute. Evom is Mac-only and currently in beta. It’s free, though don’t be surprised it it’ll set you back a couple of bucks once a final version is released.
3. FlipShare TV
Earlier this week, Cisco announced a new device to connect Flip cameras to a computer screen for easy viewing. Will this be useful or not? You tell me. I theorize that it could make quick review of video more convenient by making it available on a larger screen. Some pundits had speculated that Flip cameras would soon come with built-in wifi–maybe this is the next best thing.
4. Video feedback
Last week CRL Director Don Deshler shared a Harvard Business piece with several of us entitled “Give Feedback with Video.” It’s interesting that feedback techniques that have long held a place in sports coaching–check out Tim Gallwey’s The Inner Game of Tennis sometime. Anyway, the article notes as I have here in the past that with today’s proliferation of video cameras, video phones, laptops and iPods with built-in cameras, and so on, that video is becoming a powerful and affordable tool for staff improvement and self improvement.
5. Stratepedia’s work with distance coaching
Last–and maybe least, but hopefully not–I’d like to give you a small glimpse of some work we’ve been doing at the CRL involving iChat (Apple’s built-in collaboration tool), video, and instructional coaching. Imagine being a teacher and being able to work with a perfect coach–someone who has the right experience and temperament to help you excel in your classroom. What if that coach lives 1,000 miles away? That’s the challenge we’re working to solve by developing a model for recording teaching sessions and then watching them together, either one-on-one or in a small group, using basic desktop video conferencing technology. It’s very new–and very rough–but we hope to have something to share with you at next summer’s SIM conference in Lawrence.
Do you have a new favorite video tool? Please share it with us and others in the comments below. Have a great weekend!
Photo: theogeo on Flickr
Related posts:
Tags: video
