Editing an audio or video file is easier than you might think...

Trim audio

Not a lot of people know this but if you need to trim a video or an audio file, like an MP4 (video) or an MP3 (audio), it's easier than you think. Just open the file in Quicktime Player, and use the editing features to trim the track.

Audio trimming in Quicktime

Edited audio can be saved it to iTunes as AAC (Apple's version of an MP3) using the Export option, if you really need it to be an MP3, iTunes can convert audio files to MP3 if you need it to.

Now you can do more complex editing, but not as an audio file, so one way round this is to record the audio as a video, then edit as described below, then at the end discard the video and export as audio only. The same works in iMovie.

Edit video

If you're not bothered about transitions, and picture in picture, then the editing option in Quicktime are all you need. You can trim the video just as you a would audio, (which incidentally is exactly the same on any iOS device, same conventions). But where it really rocketh is in it's accuracy with splitting and deleting bits of video, or moving them around.

Just choose View > Show Clips to reveal a simple editing timeline at the bottom, click to select it (it will have a yellow outline) then move to the section of the video you want to split, you can even nudge the split point frame by frame using the arrow keys.

Once you've found the split point just choose Edit > Split Clip (or command Y) and you will see the video split into two (or more, if you split more than once) lozenges. Those bits can be deleted, or even moved about, simple.

You can even view the audio waveform to make editing easier, see where the quiet parts are...

Combine multiple clips

Just drag a video onto a video you have open and see the magic unfold before your very eyes! Now you can trim, move, split and of the clips. 

When you're finished Export and choose the kind of video you want.

Convert video/audio file formats

For a final phenomenal feature, got video that is to big? No problem just right/secondary click, choose Encode Selected Video Files. The in the dialog window that pops up choose a size, 480p will create a smaller, web friendly version of your video.*

* You can make video files smaller, but you cannot make them bigger! 

EdPuzzle: video questions for formative assessment

Like all teachers, we see our face-to-face time with my classes as incredibly valuable and precious. I want to spend as much of this time as possible checking for understanding, exploring key questions and helping student grapple with complex ideas where I can coach, probe and support.

When introducing a new concept we often default to a mini lecture and some slides and ask a couple of questions to keep the students on track. With laptops and online tools such as EdPuzzle there are some really effective ways for students to work through a tutorial at their own pace and for you as a teacher to collate answers from all students.  Developing an online flipped instruction resource is a skill that teachers should have in their repertoire thereby being able to use the data to check for understanding and then plan how we might adapt our plans for the next lesson.

 

When other school activities, trips, or absences mean that weeks disrupted and we struggle to maintain the flow with our students an EdPuzzle can help you make the most of your precious time in class.

The following slides help you how to set up with EdPuzzle and how to add questions to a video. Signup with your Google Apps account here.

The essential steps are...

1. You can add any video from YouTube or other platforms
2. Just copy the URL and paste into the EdPuzzle search tool
3. Trim the video to highlight a certain passage of a longer clip
4. Click to add either open response, multiple choice questions or your comment on video
5. Save and publish to your students and then sharing the link via your online class.
6. Check your teacher dashboard to see summary of student responses, either by student or by question.

Hard Drive Full? Stressed about Storage?

Now we have switched to MacBook Airs with 'only' 250 Gigabytes of hard drive space (as opposed to the 500 Gigabytes in a MacBook Pro), some teachers are finding that they are running out of storage space, this post is to help you deal with it.

Before you do anything, do the easiest things first:

• delete the contents of the download folder
• empty the trash (including the trash in apps like iPhoto)
• in iMovie, delete the projects, and the related events from projects you have finished with, and don't let them build up...

First and foremost you need to understand that 250 Gigabytes is a LOT of space, the problem is that many, if not most teachers still fundamentally do not really understand how big a gig is.

How big is a Gig?

A kilobyte is about one page of text, a megabyte is a 1000 times bigger, about one digital photograph, and a gigabyte is a 1000 times bigger than that, like one high definition full length movie.

So a Gigabyte (Gb) is a 1000 times bigger than a Megabyte (Mb), and a 1000 times smaller than a Terabyte (Tb). What? I have explained this in more detail in another post, but maybe one of these analogies will help, trying to represent everyday sizes that are 1000 times bigger as you move up the scale:

How many rice sack sized files do you need? [Click to enlarge]

How many elephantine sized files do you need? [Click to enlarge]

How many suitcase sized files do you need? [Click to enlarge]

So with 250 sacks of rice/elephants/suitcases worth of storage (250 Gigabytes) on your MacBook Air to use, how can you be low on space? A few reasons:

• You transferred everything from your previous computer, chances are you need about 20% of that.
• You have loads of video hiding in your iPhoto library.
• You have load of video clogging up your iTunes Library.
• You have a load of video files languishing in folders on your Mac, maybe on your desktop, or somewhere else... 

By now you may have noticed a pattern forming, the main culprit is video. If you have a recent model of smartphone it is likely (whether you realise this or not) that you are recording in 'high def', tech speak for very high quality, and there is no easy way to change this. All you need to know is that just 1 minute of video can easily be 200 Megabytes, that's 200 bags of rice, or 200 cats, or 200 carry on cases of storage space. That's insane, and yes, this will eat up your hard drive capacity faster than a Panamanian termite mandible strike.

Solutions?

Get rid of most/all of your video, if you don't want to delete it, then move it to an external hard drive* how? Well it's most likely buried in the following locations:

There's probably loads of video in your iPhoto library, but how do you collate it all in one place? To view all of the video in iPhoto, create a 'smart album', instructions here, where you create an album which only shows 'photos' that are movies—yes, you're right, that does not make much sense, but it works. This will allow you to view all the video you have in iPhoto in one album, then you can either select the lot and drag it to a folder on an external hard drive, or delete it (hold down option + command, then hit the delete key).

If you're keen on buying/renting video via iTunes, or even importing video into iTunes so you can play it on an Apple TV*, get in the habit of removing it when you've watched it. My advice is not to use video in iTunes at all. Anther storage hog in iTunes are all apps stored in the iTunes folder if you sync an iOS device with your laptop, you can remove these as they're all stored in the App Store for you anyway.

Use your Time Machine back up drive (You do have one, right?) for extra storage, this can be used as a normal harddrive, just don't put anything in the database folder called 'backups.backupdb', the rest can be used as you like. In Time Machine preferences you should exclude non-essential folders from the backup process, such as Google Drive, Dropbox and the Downloads folder.

Search & Destroy

In the Finder (if you're confused by this just click on your desktop—assuming you can still see it), press Command and F to bring up a custom search, which you can tweak to focus only on file size, this is a great way to find massive files lurking in obscure parts of your hard drive:

Choose 'This Mac', change 'Kind' to 'Other', then pick File Size from the menu. Now tweak the parameters, I'd start with greater than 50 MB, right click the menu bar and choose Size from the list, click on this to sort all your files with the biggest at the top. Now start deleting. Command+delete keys are a easy way to quickly delete things, you'll still need to empty the bin when you're finished.

Use 'cloud' (online) storage instead... 

Now we have more cloud storage than you can throw a thumbstick at, you can store more online—but remember that one day you will leave UWC, and when that happens you're back to 'normal' cloud storage space—'unlimited storage is only for educational (gapps) domains, not private Google accounts.

If you are going to store loads of content in the cloud, eg Dropbox, Google Drive et al, you can easily find yourself with more content in the cloud than you have space for on your computer (Google Drive is 1 Terabyte now, that's a LOT of elephants) which means you won't be able to simply sync it all with your hard drive, instead you can use selective sync, to only sync the folders you choose, here's how it looks in Google Drive, similar options are available in Dropbox as well:

Files you don't have permission to edit will not be 'syncable'.

Choose what you use, and change these to reflect your changing priorities.

*Finally, if you're someone who absolutely NEEDS to have massive amounts of storage handy, all the time, everywhere, then maybe it's time for you to move into true nerd territory, and go for a Laptop Hard Drive Backback solution, yes, there is one, in fact there is more than one.

*Importing video into iTunes just so you can watch it on your Apple TV? No need, just download Beamer, and bypass iTunes completely,  just drag and drop from anywhere, including an external hard drive; even better it plays any video file, not just the video files iTunes likes.

Say NO to Vertical Video!

VVS (Vertical Video Syndrome) caused by vertically recorded video seems to be becoming an epidemic, you can make a difference, just say NO to vertical video!

I frequently encounter video editing catastrophes where students and teachers attempt to successfully edit vertical video, it doesn't go well, generally the only solution is to reshoot the video. Think about it, the most likely situation where your audience will view your video is on a laptop, a desktop computer or or a television—none of these can be rotated to a vertical (portrait) orientation to aid viewing. So it make no sense at all to record video that does not work for the majority of contexts where it will be viewed.

It's important to always hold your smartphone/tablet horizontally (landscape) when recording video.

iPads, Video & Frustration

Not all video codecs are equal, and many of the most common formats that play fine on a desktop operating system like that on a Mac or a PC, often will not play on an iPad which is, shall we say, very fussy about what it will, or will not play.

So this means that just because that video you've inserted from Google Drive into a Google Site, may play beautifully on your Mac/PC, but that does not mean your iPad will play it.

Simple solution? Anything on YouTube is iPad friendly, so uploading your videos to YouTube (or Vimeo) and then inserting them into your Google Site will work, on any device; and as we're an educational domain, no dodgy mosaic or ads, unless you are using Blogger, in which case, you will see a 'video mosaic' at the end.

Like this one:

So you could have two videos, one inserted into a Google Site, and one from YouTube, and the first one will not play, even though it is the exact same video, before it was uploaded (and converted) it to YouTube.

To see this phenomenon demonstrated on a Google Site, click here.

The good news is that sharing a video straight to your YouTube account straight from QuickTime is very easy, and will do all the converting for you:

ICT Enhanced Backdrops & Tech Enthusiasts

We have a fantastic system in place for encouraging the authentic, effective integration of digital technologies in classrooms across the college with our Tech Mentors, but maybe what is less well known, is that increasingly (and this is a great problem to have), we have more and more teachers who are not 'Tech Mentors', who would be if they could be, but they can't, because there are no available spaces. Teachers in this category are teachers who are what I like to call 'Tech Enthusiasts', and this post is a case in point; som of our 'tech enthusiasts' in Grade 1, who put their enthusiasm for all things tech to great effect as multimedia backdrops for their class Arts Festival performance.

Keynote - Sonia Magnus & Susanne Khalek 

"Using ICT for the backdrop meant a great deal of pre-planning, but relieved the need for building, storing and cumbersome shifting of large pieces of scenery for a one-off performance, as there were several scenes where the story took place. It was also more environmentally responsible, avoiding the need to create and dispose of large props, like boats and trees.

The soundtracks for the presentation were worked on in music lessons with Susanne Khalek, and she ably interpreted Sonia's ideas so that the children selected appropriate instruments, composed short pieces and developed chants and rhythms for the movement on stage. The children were involved in listening to their recordings, evaluating the performances, suggesting improvements and re-recording. All recordings were made in Garageband so that the soundtrack could be edited, and additional sound effects could be easily included."

iMovie - Alice Whitehead 

Alice chose to use iMovie because she wanted a powerful way to visually represent the concept of the children's 'dreams' moving from thought to action. iMovie allowed her to do this by merging each child's drawing of a picture with an image they had chosen, then Alice filmed the children performing in front of a make shift green screen in the corner of her classroom, to create the 'special effect' of the children see themselves in their dreams for the future. The novelty of using a green screen definitely increased the students engagement and also helped them to understand the big idea behind their Arts Festival piece.

To YouTube or not to YouTube that is the question...

Video, ViewTube, Viewoogle & Vimeo

At UWCSEA Picasa and Google Doc/Drive Videos are the preferred medium for video use and the sharing of video. However we all have access to YouTube for a few reasons, and what are those? Well there are some times when utilsing your YouTube account is handy, for teachers as well as students. When? I’ll tell you when ... Firstly though—


Why is YouTube a problem? Mainly because of its exposure - as the number one video sharing tool on the planet it is the best way to get your work seen by as many eyeballs as possible - which, in theory at least,  could be a good thing, if that is what you want (see later note on this) but for most educational purposes there is a distinct discomfort with that kind of exposure when kids are learning, and wrestling with learning - YouTube can be a cruel place, and you are in danger of being exposed to a LOT of undesirables if you just put it out there - especially if you allow viewers to leave comments, and likes and dislikes, this can be potentially destructive for anyone, never mind our students.

Unwanted/inappropriate advertising

One of the major drawbacks of using YouTube is working against Google’s determination to make money out of it - namely pushing advertising at the eyeballs that are so interested in your video. Usually the ‘mosaic’ viewers will see at the end is harmless, but the problem is that you have no control over this (You do with Vimeo though). Nor do you have control over the ‘recommended’ videos that appear in the panel at the end. So you have to ask yourself - are you prepared to take that risk? This will very much depend on the age of the kids you are directing to watch the video. These adverts are becoming increasingly more invasive. There are ways around this which I will outline below, but the fact is most of our kids are inclined to just upload and not to think even once, never mind twice about the settings that are necessary to mitigate these problems. If you want your kids to use YouTube, you need to make sure you consider how to use it properly.

Via a Google Site

Inserting a YouTube video into a Google Site effectively bypasses the advertising - at the end of the video there is no mosaic, there is a tiny YouTube logo, which will take them to YouTube with a click, but lets face it, they can do that by just typing ‘YouTube’ into the browser anyway.

ViewPure

www.viewpure.com allows you to remove all the clutter around the sides, but you still get a ‘mosaic’ at the end...

So why would you use YouTube?

Exposure

If you want maximum exposure, you WANT the publicity - YouTube is the way to achieve this. Maybe your students have put together a stunning short film designed to move as many people as possible to action - well YouTube is the place to put it if you hope to get as many eyeballs as possible, and the motivation of ‘views’ and ‘likes’ is undeniable - BUT and it’s a big but, kids need to be aware of the measures they have to take to protect their fragile egos. My advice? Maybe disable comments (although this means they won't get an positive feedback either). Certainly look very closely at the options before (or after - it’s never too late to change!) publishing, and make sure they have considered the implications of the various options - there aren’t that many.

Google Presentations

Uploading via YouTube is the only avenue currently available to students (and staff) who want to use their own videos in a Google Presentation.

Video for viewing on an iOS Device (iPad etc)

If you’re creating a ‘web log’ (blog) with blogger, using video other than YouTube is annoyingly fiddly - something that will no doubt improve - but for now ... Even if you do manage to get it to work without YouTube it won’t display on an iOS device. You can use Vimeo to get around this but it’s a little complicated (can anything BE a ‘little’ complicated? It involves ‘embedding’ using HTML code - se what I mean?). Using YouTube for Blogger is relatively easy - BUT, and this leads to my next point..

Easy Export

The way YouTube is integrated into the actual operating system of the Mac and all iOS devices really makes it an option for sharing that you have to consider - you know your students will. It’s there, it’s obvious - so why would you not use it? Well the reasons above for a start - but also, increasingly our students will need to store exported video in a format that is owned by them, that is not stuck in YouTube, or technically owned by YouTube. An actual video file sitting safe and sound in their own drive, where it can be uploaded, edited, repurposed however, and whenever they want is far more preferable. Downloading video from YouTube is a far from a straightforward exercise*,


But ... isn't sharing video direct to YouTube an easy option? - yes, as long as it is short. Is it easy? Yes. But I would advise you to use it for more adhoc use, ie less ‘essential’ more temporal video - maybe sharing a work in progress, a simple observation, an interesting but not pivotal moment. Or as a backup plan of other methods fail - you can download it from YouTube later, albeit at a less than stellar quality.





So, only use YouTube when you are convinced that you have exhausted all your other options, these are, specifically, in order of preference:

1. Google Drive/Docs Video
2. Picasa
3. YouTube
4. Vimeo**

* Use a site like www.dirpy.com or even better the FireFox Add-on ‘Easy YouTube Video Downloader’.


**See your friendly neighbourhood DLC for access to the college Vimeo account.

SonicPics in Grade 1

Objective: Research, plan, make and present an endangered animal project for the "Extinction is Forever" unit.

As part of the Grade 1 endangered animal research project the children were given options for ways to present their research to the class. Some children chose to use the SonicPics App on the iPad.

First they researched certain facts about their animal.

Then they had to find photos/pictures that would match their information for each slide. They used Google images, books, drew pictures and used objects.

They worked independently to take pictures, add captions and plan their speech for each slide.

When they were happy with their slides they could then record the information using their plan to complete their presentation. They then presented it to the class using the IWB.

As it turned out, Ms Foster and Ms Putt need not have spent hours diligently attending drop in sessions after school, and during their holiday to work out how to use it, as the kids investigated it themselves and worked it out and could even trouble shoot problems along the way!

Mr McHugh disagrees ... these remarkable teachers very wisely worked through a plethora of potential Apps, before whittling the choice down to one App they knew would be ideal for their students to use.

This is another excellent example of teachers providing the pedagogical and content expertise of years of teaching, and creatively finding way to make this even more effective by facilitating the effective use of digital technologies with their students. The teachers focus on the pedagogy and content, and their students take care of the technology. Marvellous!

Picasa Email Uploads

Picasa is an awesome image sharing tool which just gets better and better.

Upload by email is a great feature, which is perfect if you want to allow an undetermined audience/group to submit images to you simply and easily.

First lets look at two ways to manage this.

If you haven't yet activated your Picasa account you'll need to that first, just Google 'picasa web', or click here, picasaweb.google.com/home to activate it with your school password.

Once in there you have 2 options...

Option 1

This is great if you want to ask a class of students to contribute an image/s to one album, or maybe parents to contribute photos they took on a school trip etc.

Create  an album with a sample image in it, and share that with the students/parents who are participating, and tick the 'Let people I share with contribute photos' box, here:

Now they can just add images to that album themselves. This works better for a specific class, or grade or email group like Parents, not so much for a larger or undetermined audience, for that - you need option 2:

Option 2

This works well if the you don't know who the contributors are, or how many there are.

You can adjust the settings in your Picasa account to enable upload via email, this link explains it well, and I've included the text below to save you the stress of clicking:

Email upload

Use email upload to upload photos to Picasa Web Albums by sending them to a secret email address, especially useful from your mobile device. This allows you to stream and caption photos on-the-go. To get started, follow these steps:

1. Sign in to your acount at http://picasaweb.google.com/.
2. Click the gear icon in the top-right corner and choose Photos settings.
3. On the General tab, in the "Upload photos by email" section, select the "Allow me to upload photos by email." checkbox.
4. Enter a "secret word," 6-15 characters long. As you enter this word, an email address appears.
5. Click the Save changes button.
6. To email upload your photos, just attach them to an email message and send it to the newly-created address.

Use the email "Subject" line to add captions or to include the photos in a specific album. If the email "Subject" line matches an existing online album title, your photos will be uploaded to that album. Otherwise the 'Subject' line will instead be added as a caption and the photos will be placed in the Drop Box album.

You can attach up to 20 MB of photos in JPG, GIF and PNG formats.

IMPORTANT! The participants will need to put their name in the SUBJECT of the email, if you want to know who sent the image... Or if you want the images to automatically go into an existing album.

I've set it up in my account so you can see how it works.

115729468016446857469.smcuwc@picasaweb.com

If you send an image to this email address it will automatically appear inside an album designated for that called 'Drop Box' nothing to do with THAT other web service. Or it will be added to an existing album if the subject matches the name of one of your existing albums.

If you want to move images out of the default 'Drop Box' album to another album, choose 'Organise' then 'Move' to move an image or 10 or so, to another album.

Guidance on Sharing Student Videos

At UWCSEA there will be opportunities where you want to share videos that students in your class have created. As a school we need to think carefully about the intended audience of any video creations and also the content of the video that is shared. These requirements will determine how we share student’s digital work with other students, parents, the wider UWCSEA community and also the general public.

We are in the process of reviewing all the options for sharing video and looking at a long term approach to using public video sharing sites like YouTube, but generally speaking at the moment (Dec 2011) YouTube should not be used by staff for sharing video. The exception to this is for official videos put out by the Communications Department. Alternative methods for sharing video are provided below. Some of the reasons for not using YouTube are provided at the end of this document.

Scenarios	Sharing ideas
A student’s personal video reflection.	Students can upload a video to their personal school Picasa Account and embed this into Mahara. Uploaded as a video file and shared through Google Docs.
A student’s video for a formal assessment	A personal video could be submitted through Studywiz as an assignment to the teacher.
Student’s personal video for peer assessments	Uploaded to a Studywiz Gallery so that other students could comment. Uploaded to a class Picasa Online Album so that others can comment. Linked from Picasa Album into a private class blog. Uploaded and sharing a video file through Google Docs. A Google Doc video inserted into a Google Site page.
Student’s video is shared with parents.	Could upload video to a Picasa Album, and then share a private link via email to parents.
Sharing student work with the UWCSEA community or publicising College events	Some video that are intended for the general public should be embedded within our school website - you can email the Communications Department to discuss how to share the video. Need to check with students and maybe parents informing them on how a video is being shared.
Sharing student work to the general public	Generally student work should not be shared on public forums such as YouTube. We can look at sharing videos for a public guidance through our school Vimeo video account.

Basics of Sharing Video.

Generally you will want to share student work with members of the class and treat the group as a private audience. The easiest way to achieve this is to use a staff Google Account and your online Picasa Album. You can upload any video straight from your iPhoto album on your laptop to your Picasa album. This album is linked to your GApps account. Once you have published the video you can then set the privacy settings and share with students in your class. Here is a short tutorial on sharing video.


Some Issues with YouTube

• Lack of control on comments on videos - many, many comments are inappropriate.
• Links to to inappropriate videos - one or two clicks will get you to inappropriate videos regardless of where you start.
• Lack of general control - we cannot control access or effectively remove videos if necessary
• We have reasonable alternatives available.

Grade 5 Myth Movies

Andrew Finn has been doing some exciting work with his Grade 5 class.

During term one grade 5 were involved in writing myths as part of their Voice unit. A strong recommendation from the Writing Workshop staff development was that children are given the opportunity to publish and celebrate their writing in a range if diverse formats. 

5AnF spent several lessons in the ICT Lab converting their personal myth stories into movies. 

They began the process by speaking the myth into the iPod touch using the Voice Memo App, which then then emailed to their teacher for reviewing. 

Following feedback, and further editing of their myths, the children then recorded their narration a second time and these were then added directly to their story boards using Adobe Premier Elements on PCs.  Students imported the audio track first, and then edited their video to fit the recording. 

A key focus for the children was to select images and music that held significance for their myth, and to ensure the timing of images correlated with the audio. Cooperative learning was also a large aspect of this work as many students we very capable with the selected software while others were not.

Finally students uploaded their videos to share with each other and comment, via a Picasa web album that their teacher shared with them.

Grade 5 Arts Festival & Keynote

What do you get if you combine, 200 students, 9 teachers, 4 art teachers, 24 Macbooks, over 3 weeks with 1 digital literacy coach? 15 minutes of animated video to use as backdrop for the Grade 5 Voices performance.

Students worked independently to import scans of their own artwork into Keynote. Here they used the Alpha tool to remove the background, and then utlised a variety of animation controls (builds and actions) to create their masterpieces. The final collection of videos were stitched together in iMovie, with an edited score from our dance choreographer to create the final video that was used as the backdrop.

Here a few snippets from the three main sections of the performance.

FLIP YOUR VIDEO

Planning a video project? Send your students to Video School! Vimeo, a site created by film makers, has introduced Video School 101.  Video 101 is here to teach you the very basics of making videos and show you how fun it can be.

Vimeo Video School: Video 101

Using movie tools to support students writing development

This was a workshop presentation I gave recently at the Singapore Teach IT conference. It was based on my teaching experience of using the process of making movies in the classroom with students to help them develop their writing skills. The workshop focused on the pedagogy of setting up writing scaffolds, the process of creating a video then a simple tutorial on using Keynote to create a short video.

More information about the workshop is available here - Teach IT Singapore.

Download Videos from YouTube

Youtube is splendiferous

And what an awesome treasure trove of video delights it is, BUT, not if:

• you don't want to be reliant upon an internet connection to play the video... especially if you have more than one to show...

• you have to wait for it to buffer to play, because loads of people just happen to be online right now.

• you go back to show the video the following week/month/year/decade and it's ...  gone, just gone, or.. what was it called again?

• it has a load of highly appropriate comments (and the punctuation!!!!!????) underneath it, I've seen swearing in comments on a 1970s Mr Happy video, people swear about Mr Happy? (Or use ViewPure)

• you want to be able to insert the video into a presentation, or edit it into a video project... OK this one is a bit more geeky, I'll stop now.

Get my point? You can avoid all of the above by downloading the video in question to your computer, also you can then save it somewhere accessible, lie the shared drive, for you beloved colleagues to use as well.

Nerd Alert

It's really great to freeze frame a scene, (space bar to pause/play) and annotate over the image/scene (note facial expressions that indicate mood, scene details, or maybe situational considerations - oooh look the car is falling) using the IWB 'annotate over desktop' feature, (the blue rectangle with squiggle in it...)


So here's my preferred ways to download youtube video, easy and almost as easy:

Use a website...

1. Find your youtube video, copy the URL in the address bar that's the gobbeldy gook that starts with stuff like 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v= ... ' stuff in it, see the image below for an example...
2. Copy it
3. Go to a conversion site like keepvid.com, there are others.
4. Paste it in the field (where it says something like 'Enter The Video's URL'
5. Choose FLV or MP4 (I would choose MP4, it's easier to playback, and edit)
6. Click the helpful 'Download!' button

 

Use a FireFox Add-on

Tip - Add-ons are awesome, they are helpful little modifications to your browser that let it do things it can't normally do... like the bionic man.

1. If you haven't already, download and install Firefox - http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/personal.html
2. Open it
3. Go to Tools > Add-ons
4. Click the 'Get Add-ons' tab
5. Do a search for 'Youtube Download' (there are others, this one I likey) and install it
6. When it's finished you will be prompted to restart your browser.. please do so
7. Go to a youtube video, and Oilah! Now a magical 'Download As' button has appeared below the video, so click it!
8. I would choose MP4 for the aforementioned reasons...
9. That's it, now any time you visit youtube with this browser on this computer you can download with one click.
10. Oh, there's more? Why YES. With this Add-on you can also download the audio ONLY, as an MP3 file, really handy for locating obscure bits of music you need...

You might need to download VLC to play the video with, either way it's well worth it.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/