Small Changes; BIG RETURNS

[Image Source: http://www.enviroaction.com.au/your-procedures-etc.html]

First, my Bookmarks Toolbar has been disappearing and the “back” button has been inaccessible. Tonight I had to either find a way to fix this problem or go back to an earlier version or FF that actually worked. Fortunately, I discovered a patch at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/11325. My gratitude goes out to Alice 0775 in Osaka, Japan for her work on this problem.

Second, I have been getting a message that “Firefox is already running …” that will not go away until I either log off or shut down & restart.

I found 3 articles about this common complaint:

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_in_use

• http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Firefox+is+already+running+but+is+not+responding

•  http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Firefox+hangs#Hang_at_exit

Having skimmed through a lot of technical language I didn’t really understand, I picked what seemed to be the easiest fix to try first and installed the newest version of Java. The problem seems to have been fixed for now – but if you’re seeing more typos than usual in this post, it’s because I’m keyboarding with my fingers crossed.

Now I’m wondering why Voicethread doesn’t work very well in Firefox. I find occasionally that I have to switch to IE to get some applications to function properly. A case in point is my Wilkes University Wordpress student blog. When I first set it up, other students could see everything (in FF) but the professor could not. I found I had to access it from IE and then write and edit it from there. Then it could be seen in any browser.

Finally, I my gmail account has been loading either very slowly or not at all. Sending a short gmail with no attachements can take up to a minute  (sending . . . . sending  . . .  sending  . . . ). I thought it was because the inbox was overstuffed, but according to the message at the bottom of the page I’m using only 26 mb (0%) of the 7363 mb available to me.

Tonight I tried it in Internet Explorer. It worked smoothly and fast!!  I don’t want to keep switching browsers,  and Firefox has been my first choice for quite a while, so determined to stick with it, I went back to it and tried another route in. Instead of working my way through the menu,

I tried Googling ‘gmail’ and used the first link. This worked really well, but I have no idea why.

Now  2 more issues are baffling me: 

• I can’t upload most videos to Voicethread in FF, although they go up fine in IE. I’ve followed the VT instructions for formatting (converted to flv files; 600x450; 15 fps; increased the bit rate to get to medium quality), but they just will not load in Firefox. As soon as I switch to Internet Explorer, everything works beautifully and my Voicethread account page seems to be generally more stable. Does anyone know why?
  

• Last of all,  Firefox doesn’t seem to want to keep me signed into my Google account. Is it time to switch to a new browser?

Well, as many Canadians do, I overdid at Christmas and went shopping on Boxing Day (Dec. 26). To paraphrase Herodotus: neither snow nor sleet nor jack-knifed & skidding busses blocking traffic could keep me from my appointed rounds. This was our first White Christmas since 1998. 

Today I spent the day inviting all the Canadian educators and bloggers -- including ex-pats and guests who are working here -- listed in Classroom 2.0 to join a new group I set up there. If you qualify, this invitation is for you:

Come on, fellow Canucks (and I don't mean the hockey team!) -- come in out of the snow. Take off your mukluks and tuques. Fortify yourself with a double-double and a plate of Nanaimo bars. Put the u back in 'neighborhood' and let's see if we can't prove that (with apologies to Frank Zappa) the distance between us is not very far!

Join a group in Classroom 2.0 called Canadians Mashup. I'd love to see the network grow, so feel free to pass on this invitation to other Canadian educators and bloggers. OK, eh?!

One request -- when you add yourself to the Frappr map, please include a name or a photo of some sort. There seem to be a lot of unidentified  people from unidentified places and the map is getting stuck on Kansas for some reason. The problem is that I can't tell from the members’ list which anonymous hits are real people and which were just false starts. The company does not differentiate members unless there is a picture or a name. Location only is not enough to help me know which entries are not real ones. THANKS!!!!

I was determined to try Voicethread this holiday as I have a new microphone I have learned to use and a webcam that I have not yet taken out of the box.  To make myself learn this program, I suggested to my family in BC that we collaborate on a Christmas project to send to my Mum in Australia. It's interesting to see how the project grew and how much fun everyone has had working out their contributions, but the project was not without frutrations and I did haveTECHNICAL ISSUES!!

(A) I left the hardest part until the last few hours before the deadline, and when I wanted to record, I kept getting the infamous "Hold On" message until I found this link: http://ed.voicethread.com/help/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=31

(B) I didn't learn how to upload an mp3 (audio) files in time. Katie from the 'Something's Not Working' forum has since kindly sent me the steps which I'll try out this week.
1) Save the file to your computer so that you can find it/browse to it easily.
2) In the voicethread, click "comment," and the comment-option icons will appear.
3) Click the upload button on the far right. It looks like an upward pointing arrow, and Steve points it out in the first slide of this VoiceThread tutorial: http://ed.voicethread.com/help/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=31 (same link as above)
4) Browse to your audio file on your computer and click "open". VoiceThread will automatically begin uploading the file, and your identity's icon will appear in the comments next to the Voicethread slide.

Note : if you can't get the record function to work, Kristy Graham in Australia says you can record the comments in Audacity, save as mp3 files and upload later.

(C) I learned after a lot of trial and error that for video, flv files are definitely more stable than any other type, but to get the best resolution using Adobe Premier Elements I had to:

1) set the image size at 600 by 450 (as instructed in the forums)

2) leave the fps (frames per second) and key frames at 30

3) pop the bitrate to between 2000 and 4000. I have no idea what that does, but until I changed that I just had pixilated blurs from video I shot on my Finepix digital camera.

Sadly, the webcam is still in the box, but the link for Mum's gift arrived in her email just as she and her husband were popping champagne corks for mimosas and slathering up in sunscreen to avoid sunburn (I refer you back to the cartoon at the top of this page!!!!) on Christmas morning which was 4:30 pm Christmas Eve Pacific time.

Source of this image

Is Voicethread a tool I'd recommend? Undoubtedly --  if you are willing to pay for the subscription that will allow you to upload videos of a reasonable length. One of my brothers, I think, is pondering how he could use it to debrief workshops. It's opened a new world of tools to him.  My 77 year old mum and her 80⁺ husband loved watching their gift.

Is there a learning curve? Yes and it is possible that your district may block Voicethread in such a way that you will not be able to upload video or voice which will severely limit the fun you can have. Test all the functions before you launch a project or ask a student to do that for you so you'll know ahead if you can get it to work. Get the IT people in to advise if you are blocked.

How could I use VT in my school? It has great potential as a collaborative tool for compiling and commenting to files. I like the idea of our students using it as a way to make a record of a field trip -- all contributing their best pictures and video clips and commenting on what they did. We could add the link to our school website and invite parents to add comments.