Monday, March 26, 2012

Introduction to Machinima and Virtual World TV


 This is a draft script for a new video class. I am sharing it here to solicit peer review feedback.  Please send feedback to CarlIcann (at) gmail.com. Thank You.

Introduction to Machinima and Virtual World TV
This is a quick introduction to video broadcasting and machinima for new people interested in making their first videos and Internet TV in virtual worlds.
In the next few minutes we’ll get you up and running, and producing live on-line broadcasts from virtual worlds, playing them back on your own Internet TV station, then taking multiple videos and editing them with titles, transitions, and music into finished machinima productions.
The first step is to set up free accounts on Livestream and YouTube.
From the Livestream.com home page, click the Join Livestream button, and you can login with your Facebook account.
From the home page, click Learn More, then on the left click Encoder (Procaster).
Download and install Procaster from this page.
Procaster is great video capture software, which runs on Windows and Macs.
Then click Sign up now on the left, and the big Sign up now button.
After you fill out the form, and email verify your account, go to the My Account > Channels page.
From here you can Launch New Channels and control existing channels.
Login to your virtual world, such as Second Life, and get ready to make a live broadcast recording.
Launch livestream procaster on your computer and login to livestream using it.
Before you GO LIVE, click Preferences.
On the VIDEO tab, notice that our default output resolution is 512 by 288 pixels,
And near the top is a settings button to adjust frame rates, set the compression slider to low or least, it’s less crashy.
Go to the DESKTOP tab. Uncheck the boxes: Show mouse and Highlight mouse.
In the middle is the Choose Location button, which determines where video files will be stored on your computer.
Click SAVE.
Now bring your virtual world to the foreground and click GO LIVE.
First let’s set up procaster so that it won’t be crashy.
Close the procaster chat window, if it’s in the way.
Along the bottom are Procaster buttons.
Click SCREEN instead of CAMERA. Now we can capture video from the virtual world.
Click the ZOOM IN button several times, until you see a green rectangle.
Point your mouse near the corner of the green rectangle; click drag to resize the box.
Set the vertical resolution at, for example, 288 pixels, and the horizontal resolution at 512 pixels.
Now click drag where it says 288 or 512 and move the green rectangle where you want it.
You can use the MIXER button next to STOP,
to control your Built-in Microphone, and the virtual world sounds using the Speaker’s audio controls.
Most of us want to mute our built-in microphone by default, but you can enable it to do voice over narration.
To finish this setup, click STOP then DELETE RECORDING and Yes.
Now you are ready to broadcast and capture virtual world videos.
Keep your video clips modest… to start… 3 or 4 minutes maximum.
Teleport to an event on a Machinima Friendly region such as the SL Botanical Gardens or any Governor Linden land, and start making videos.
In other regions, check the Covenant in About Land for any limitations on machinima, but that’s very rare.
According to Linden Labs policy, you should ask the permission of all plainly recognizable avatars in your machinima productions.
For that reason, I recommend that you disable all avatar name tags in your SL viewer Preferences, on the General tab.
Now, I’ll show you a few more tricks using livestream from your Internet Browser.
On the My Account > Channels page, you will find the controls for your Internet TV channel.
Click the STUDIO button for your channel.
On the Broadcast Live tab, click Pick Storyboard under Sources.
Click the arrow by Recordings, now you see a list of your videos.
Click one of the Open buttons on a listed video.
Click Cue… wait a few seconds… then click Transition to cued clip.
Click the Back button, bottom left, to cue another video.
Along the bottom, you will see the Overlays tab to add titles and images to your broadcast.
Final point about livestream, is the Control Autopilot tab along the top.
You can use Autopilot to play your videos automatically.
Now that we’ve captured some videos, you can edit them into a machinima productions.
You have many video editor options such as the free Windows Movie Maker.
But if you are brand new to video editing, l recommend that you start with the YouTube editor.
Use your Internet browser to go to youtube.com/editor and you are ready to edit.
There you can Upload videos, including the ones we just created with Procaster on your computer hard disk.
YouTube’s editor is nice because it is easy to learn and has built-in libraries of free music and stock video clips.
Use your video editor to add text titles, mix music, insert video clips, crop your clips, and insert video transitions.
If you need more help, search google for “youtube editor tutorial” to find numerous lessons.
So let’s wrap this learning experience up.
In a few minutes, I’ve shown you how to capture virtual world videos, broadcast them, add titles, and start using a video editor to produce machinima.
We did this with only 1 avatar and 2 easy-to-use tools, livestream and YouTube.
Livestream and YouTube are a great way to get started making virtual world broadcasts and machinima.
Now that you are up and running as the world’s newest machinima director, you may want to add more tools to your bag of tricks… over time.
In fact, there are a numerous free and commercial tools supporting video production.
Check the Second Life wiki at wiki.secondlife.com for the topic “machinima” and you will find them.
It’s easy to get lost in this sea of standalone tools, so take it easy.
I tried and failed several times to get started making machinima with those tools, until I stumbled upon what I’m telling you now about livestream and youtube.
So take care… I’ll post links to useful tutorials and other resources on my blog.
Enjoy your machinima and virtual life!

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Infusing Standard Curricula with Humane Education


Excerpt From: “The Power and Promise of Humane Education” by Zoe Weil
Shared for the purposes of educational research. Annotated with links to online lesson plans. More Humane EDU resources at: http://carlicann.wordpress.com and http://humaneeducation.org/sections/view/humane_ed_activities

Infusing Standard Curricula with Humane Education

ENGLISH / LANGUAGE ARTS
·      Choose literature that explores humane themes (that is, themes like “compassion,” “courage,” “kindness,” “integrity,” “honesty,” “perseverance).
·      Provide writing assignments that ask students to explore how individuals can live with respect for other people. Animals, and the Earth.
·      Analyze and compare written materials for bias, distortions, assumptions, and stereotypes.
·      Offer themes such as “justice,” “compassion,” “kindness,” or “integrity” for writing assignments.
·      Ask students to respond in writing and orally to questions offering moral dilemmas and to suggest solutions to ethical quagmires.
·      Have students write about the humane education activities described in …
Social Justice and Language Arts article: http://humaneeducation.org/documents/view/87

SOCIAL STUDIES
·      Study movements for social change and their effects on society, government, and culture, such as the civil rights movement, the suffragist movement, or the current movements to end human slaver and protect animals.
·      Analyze themes of justice, fairness, rights, and responsibilities as they pertain to human cultures, animals, and the environment.
·      Explore global issues such as the population explosion, the destruction of resources and wealth, sustainable living, and poverty.
·      Examine prejudices such as racism, sexism, heterosexism, specie-ism, classism, and jingoism.
·      Plan class/student visualizations to build empathy and appreciation for others.
·      Show social change videos and analyze their messages and content… http://zinnedproject.org/posts/category/list_resources/film
·      Analyze advertising for cultural messages… http://humaneeducation.org/documents/view/10
·      Use the Choices, True Price, Greatest Impact, Behind the Scenes, and Which to Pick? Activities… to analyze and assess the effects of personal choices on oneself and others.  http://humaneeducation.org/sections/view/humane_ed_activities
·      Offer the activity “What Is a Humane Life?” for students to explore positive social impacts of behavior. http://humaneeducation.org/documents/view/110
·      Use activities such as Cast Your Vote and Executive Commission to promote citizenship. http://humaneeducation.org/documents/view/13 and http://humaneeducation.org/documents/view/21
·      Compare historical accounts of human slavery to current practices of animal slavery (see Kevin Bale’s “Disposable People”).
·      Watch films that explore a range of historical atrocities (e.g. the Holocaust, genocide in Rwanda) and discuss how these atrocities could have been prevented.
·      Read historical accounts of different cultures and compare the philosophies and ideologies of different societies to answer the question, “How can people live sustainably and peace-ably?”
Numerous Social Justice Lesson Plans are cataloged at: http://www.edliberation.org/resources/edsearch_form

SCIENCE
·      Analyze the effects of, and explore solutions t, various ecological threats (e.g. global warming, resource depletion, growing ozone holes, pollution).
·      Teach principles of ecology through analyzing lifestyle choices in relation to sustainability.
·      Study life through nonviolent ethology (the study of animal behavior) rather than dissection of purposefully killed animals, and use computer programs, models, and photographs to learn anatomy.
·      Study the chemistry of pollution and assess clean-up needs, including measurement of water and air pollution in the neighborhood of your school.
·      Read texts that explore animal behavior (through nonviolent ethological methods), such as those of Jane Goodall or Dr. Mark Beckoff.
·      Create an organic school garden and composting system.
·      Use web-of-life activities that demonstrate the impact on the entire web of seemingly individual stresses.
·      Analyze the effects of personal product, food, and transportation choices on water, air, land, and resources through activities such as True Price and Behind the Scenes. http://humaneeducation.org/documents/view/300 and http://humaneeducation.org/documents/view/12
·      Analyze the impact of trash, using the Trash Investigators activity. http://humaneeducation.org/documents/view/46
·      After completing a Council of All Beings, ask students to do a report on the being of whom they spoke. http://humaneeducation.org/documents/view/16

MATHEMATICS
·      Use the “ecological footprint” assessment to analyze human impact on the environment (see Mathis Wackernagel and Wiliam Ree’s “Our Ecological Footprint”). Ecological Footprint Quiz http://www.myfootprint.org/
·      Conduct math problems based on real-world data as opposed to fabricated data, for example by calculating the population growth of humans.
·      Calculate energy and/or water use in school or home at determine ways to decrease energy use.
·      Study issues of population by learning key topics such as exponential version geometric growth (see People and the Planet, edited by Pamela Wasserman).
·      Analyze population issues in relation to dogs and cats who are not spayed/neutered.
·      Do the math behind the production of things (see the activity Behind the Scenes).  http://humaneeducation.org/documents/view/12
·      Do a cost/benefit analysis of the choices offered in the activities Choice Cards or Which to Pick? http://humaneeducation.org/documents/view/14 and http://humaneeducation.org/documents/view/55
Note: Also see Radical Math for many lesson plans: http://www.radicalmath.org/

Humane Lesson Plans for COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS WRITING - GRADES 6-12


Humane Lesson Plans for
COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS
WRITING – GRADES 6-12

The Common Core State Standards are the new K-12 student achievement guidelines, currently adopted by 45 states. The cited set of lesson plans are aligned to the Writing Standards (W.1 – W.10) using the Grade 11-12 goals, with W.1, W.2, W.3, and W.9 summarized.

The following lesson plan abstracts are derived from this teaching-resource site: http://humaneeducation.org/sections/view/humane_ed_activities
Please refer to that web site for additional lesson plans at K-12 + college/adult levels.

Note: This list is prepared for the VWBPE.org conference, and is not affiliated with the Institute for Humane Education (IHE), other than through participation in IHE distance learning courses.

W.1. Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.
ACTIVITIES/LESSON PLANS - Written/essay variations of these activities analyzing a subject text:
Participants learn and use the C.R.I.T.I.C. technique to enable them to bring critical thinking skills to any information they receive, whether from industry, non-profits, government or media.
Recommended for grades 6 and up.
Students learn to be ad-savvy by exploring the pervasiveness of ads in their lives and by analyzing what ads are trying to sell…and trying to hide.
Recommended for grades 5 and up.
Unveil the manipulation inherent in marketing and corporate branding and awaken the creativity of your students by having them explore commercials aimed at them and then empowering them to create new commercials with a positive message.
Recommended for grades 8 and up.
This activity explores: How do ads influence us? What strategies do ad designers use to target different groups of people? How can we recognize those strategies and our own triggers?
Recommended for grades 8 and up

W.2. Write informative/explanatory texts to examine and convey complex ideas, concepts, and information clearly and accurately through the effective selection, organization, and analysis of content.
ACTIVITIES/LESSON PLANS - Written/research paper variations these activities:
Many people view the world through a lens of black and white, either/or. In this activity groups of students work together to explore a variety of possible solutions to a global issues conflict.
Recommended for grades 7 and up.
What is compassion? Who and what are in our circles of compassion? This activity offers an exploration of compassion and uses "scenario" stations to inspire participants to think about who's in their circle of compassion and why, and what they can do to make a positive difference for those being oppressed.
Recommended for grades 4 and up.
This lesson plan helps high school students take a closer look at prejudices, the biases that media contain and perpetuate (such as in what they do and don't report on, or how particular genders or ethnicities are portrayed), and the ways we are influenced by those media biases.
Recommended for grades 9 and up.
Is What’s Good for the GDP Good for Me? http://humaneeducation.org/documents/view/28
This activity increases student awareness about the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and what it measures, introduces them to alternative indicators and encourages critical thinking about what factors contribute to a healthy, sustainable, stable economy.
Recommended for grades 8 and up.
This activity familiarizes students with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and inspires them to think about the freedoms they enjoy that others cannot.
Recommended for grades 9 and up

W.3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
ACTIVITIES/LESSON PLANS - Written/narrative variations of:
What does a mountain wish for? A wolf? A cow? A river? Participants “become” a being or part of nature and share the lives, concerns, hopes and wisdoms of their being in a Council.
Recommended for grades 4 and up.
How will students feel spending a moment in the shoes of a battery hen or a child slave? Use this lively and thought- provoking activity to introduce human and animal issues and the connections between them.
Recommended for grades 6 and up.
Alien in an Ethical Universe http://humaneeducation.org/documents/view/7 Participants receive a visit from a traveling alien on a fact-finding mission to learn how beings treat other beings. The alien inspires students to consider the inconsistencies in how our society encourages us to treat others.
Recommended for grades 5 through 8.

W.4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
ACTIVITIES/LESSON PLANS - Written/research paper variations of:
Executive Commission http://humaneeducation.org/documents/view/21 Students serve on a commission to advise the President/Prime Minister how to act on an important issue. Dividing into two groups, students explore the pros and cons of different viewpoints and then express their views to elected officials.
Recommended for grades 6 and up.
Participants explore the connections between human and animal oppression and ways that we can choose not to oppress others.
Recommended for grades 7 and up.

W.5. Develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for a specific purpose and audience.
ACTIVITIES/LESSON PLANS - Written/narrative variations, where student is asked to revise with feedback:
At the end of your very long life, a child asks you what you did to help make the world so much better. Guide students through this visualization to help them get in touch with their power to make positive change.
Recommended for grades 5 and up.

W.6. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products in response to ongoing feedback, including new arguments or information.
ACTIVITIES/LESSON PLANS - Individual written/research paper variations of:
Students analyze the impact of behaviors and product choices to determine which choices have the greatest impact on the environment, on human health and well-being, and on other species.
Recommended for grades 9 and up.
Our fossil fuels are gone! How will we survive and thrive without them? Students explore two scenarios and develop plans of action for living successfully and sustainably.
Recommended for grades 7 and up.
Students “shop” for T-shirts to help them make the connection between what they wear and the conditions under which it’s made.
Recommended for grades 9 and up.

W.7. Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
ACTIVITIES/LESSON PLANS - Written/research paper variations (What Price Our Foods? What Price Our Medicines? What Price Our Fill-In-The-Blank?):
This activity encourages students to explore and think critically about the impacts of the ingredients in the personal care products that they use on themselves, other people, animals and the environment, as well as how branding and marketing play into our choices.
Recommended for grades 8 and up.
We make choices every day about what we wear, but how often do we pay attention to the impact of our clothing choices on others? Students explore more and less harmful clothing options from the perspectives of the animals, other people and the environment.
Recommended for grades 6 and up.
This lesson plan helps high school students take a closer look at prejudices, the biases that media contain and perpetuate (such as in what they do and don't report on, or how particular genders or ethnicities are portrayed), and the ways we are influenced by those media biases.
Recommended for grades 9 and up.

W.8. Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the strengths and limitations of each source in terms of the task, purpose, and audience; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and overreliance on any one source and following a standard format for citation.
ACTIVITIES/LESSON PLANS - Written/research paper variations of:
This activity encourages students to explore and think critically about the impacts of the ingredients in the personal care products that they use on themselves, other people, animals and the environment, as well as how branding and marketing play into our choices.
Recommended for grades 8 and up.
How’d That Get on my Plate http://humaneeducation.org/documents/view/163
Everybody eats, but how often do we stop to think about how the food on our plates got there and about the impacts of that food on people, animals and the planet? How'd That Get on My Plate? encourages participants to explore how sample ingredients in our food might affect the environment, people, and animals, and what humane alternatives might exist.
Recommended for grades 6 and up.
Help participants become more conscious in their consuming by analyzing the “true price” of the products we use on themselves, other people, animals & the earth.
Recommended for grades 6 and up.

W.9. Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
ACTIVITIES/LESSON PLANS - Written/research paper variations of:
This activity encourages students to explore and think critically about the impacts of the ingredients in the personal care products that they use on themselves, other people, animals and the environment, as well as how branding and marketing play into our choices.
Recommended for grades 8 and up.
Help participants become more conscious in their consuming by analyzing the “true price” of the products we use on themselves, other people, animals & the earth.
Recommended for grades 6 and up.

W.10. Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.
ACTIVITIES/LESSON PLANS - Written long-term assignments and research paper variations of:
What are the problems of the world? What tools and skills do I have to make a positive impact? This activity can serve as a good icebreaker to allow fellow advocates to know each other better and to focus on important issues, or it can serve as an introduction for exploring what each (and all) of us can do for positive social change.
Recommended for grades 8 and up.
Students become castaways on a remote and pristine island and must determine how to live in a way that is sustainable for all.
Recommended for grades 8 and up.
Everyone has an ecological footprint. Participants use paper footprints to simulate the impact of their choices on the earth. Extension activities allow students to explore their ecological footprints and what choices can be made to reduce them.
Recommended for grades 6 and up.