ED-Media 2009 World Conference

I recently had the pleasure of attending ED-Media 2009 World Conference on Educational Media, Hypermedia, and Telecommunications held at the Sheraton Waikiki. There was over 700 presentations throughout the week. This included virtual presentations as well.

The first day was pre-conference workshops and tutorials. I was able to attend two tutorials. The one that I learned from and had things we could possible use was titled “Putting the Media in ED-Media: The ‘How Do I Do It?’” The presenter was Anthony Klejna from Daemen College in Amherst, New York. He talked about the following media: Video/Audio, Rich Media, Streaming, Progressive download, Flash, Podcasts, IPTV, iTV, Media Servers, HTTP “streaming” and more. One of the things that was of interest was the Podcasting and Vlogs portion of his presentation. One of the myths he dispelled was that iPods were needed for podcasting. I never thought about it but he was correct. He went through the process of creating a podcast and steps for receiving a podcast. You can also learn how to video blogs through Vlog it, and Adobe software for only $29. He demonstrated how easy it was to do during the presentation. This software allows you to create, narrate, and share your blog just with the camera you have. It has the teleprompter built in and even allows you to edit with news style graphics. Check it out at http://www.adobe.com/products/vlogit/

The great thing about this conference was their excellent choice of key note speakers. As we all know, this could make or break a conference. There were two key notes who spoke each day. The one that really stuck out for me was Alan Levine. The title of his presentation is “It’s the Craft, Not the Tools: 50 Web 2.0 ways to Tell a Story”. All 50 ways are categorized and can be found at http://cogdogroo.wikispaces.com/50+ways He had some great ways to use the tools to tell his story. Because we have so many powerpoint presentation assignments in HPL1A, I’d like to have the students tell their story differently through one of the tools he provides. It would be a nice way to see my students’ creativity in their work as they tell their stories.

One presentation that I really enjoyed was by Nona Muldoon called “Second Life Machinima: Creating new Opportunities for Curriculum and instruction.” What was really impressive about this presentation was that they had ran into some obstacles with just sending their students out there in the Second Life world. So instead of doing that they created simulations in Machinima. Machinima is a place where they can create a second life simulation but part of a story board. So essentially an animation of the story they’d like to tell. This project was aimed at increasing student success in an accounting program. The course was an audit course. Because it’s difficult to get practicum experience to do audits, they created them on Machinima. Students were able to see the scenarios and decide and make decisions on how to approach them to problem solve. This particular method resulted in decreasing the failure rate of their students from 50% to 8.4% over six terms of implementing Machinima. An example of Machinima in action can be found here:

As you can see using Machinima cand drastically reduce costs especially when considering production time in studio with real people. If these types of products still achieve the same purpose, why not utilize the technology.

Overall, I enjoyed this conference and the connections that were made. I hope to integrate some of the tools I’ve learned in my instruction as well and maybe teach my colleagues a few tools as we come across opportunities to use them. And although my presentation was the last one of the day it allowed me to "talk story" with the people that attended and possible may result in some participating in A`o Makua.