EDpuzzle for Editing Video

EDPUZZLE for Listening Comprehension

          Hi, guys! I appear again, hahaha. So, this is my first post after the mid-term test, and just for your information that this post has been counted for my UAS score later. The UAS date of this subject is on 21^st of December 2017 (if I am not mistaken). Okay, here, I would like to write about edpuzzle which is an application to make an online listening comprehension. Let’s check it out together!

          To be honest, in my life, maybe I experienced flipped classroom just about 3 times. Yeah, my elementary and junior high school was in Madiun. As you know that Madiun is a small city where there were incomplete tools for doing flipped classroom. The internet connection was also very bad (not as good as Surabaya). Finally, I just experienced the direct method of teaching (using book, not gadget).

          In my opinion, flipped classroom cannot be applied in Indonesia. If you ask “why”, it is because there are still a lot of people and students in Indonesia who do not know about technology such as gadget, internet, etc. The internet connection is still very slow. So, besides the people, the internet connection also takes a role in doing flipped classroom, and both of them still do not fit to Indonesia as well.

          For the technique, as I mentioned before that there are still many people in Indonesia who do not know about technology. So, the technique can be very easy and simple for the teacher to carry out if the teacher knows about technology, especially internet, and (s)he can operate it well. Meanwhile, for those who do not know how to operate and use internet, the technique might be very difficult to carry out.

          The affecting factors in the success of flipped classroom, in my opinion, is the internet connection, and the knowledge the teacher has about the tool(s) (s)he is using. For this trial, I used edpuzzle for making my listening comprehension. Why I chose to use edpuzzle is because I think edpuzzle is easier than TedEd in making listening comprehension. The advantages in using edpuzzle are that we can choose the video from lots of sources (not limited by the edpuzzle itself). The way to make the question is also very easy to follow. In each step, there is a tutorial video for us to know how to do the steps. The video is very simple, so we will not get bored and confused on it. We can also edit, or even delete our question based on our thought or materials. For the weakness, I do not find any weakness of this application so far. So, I can say that this application is very good and simple application to make an online listening comprehension. For those who have never done this kind of thing, they can use this application and feel that making an online listening comprehension is not as hard as they think before.

          The topic of the lesson that I have made is about music. On that video, you can learn about the part of a song. The objective is to make students know and understand more about the parts of the song, so when they are listening to a song, they do not only listen and enjoy the song and the music, but they also know which lyrics belong to which part. The target students are for those who are joining CALL class, especially those who like listening to music (if in a school, the target students are for 11 graders).

          Okay, I think that’s all I can share about edpuzzle. Here is the link of my lesson (you have to sign up first or directly sign in if you have had an account):

https://edpuzzle.com/assignments/59f4060fa7a0a940f14045d8/watch

You can also do by the box below:

Digital Story Telling

Adobe Spark for Digital Story Telling

          Hi, guys! To be honest, I am very happy since this post will be my last post on this first half of the semester. On this last post, I would like to share about Adobe Spark which is usually used for making a digital story telling.

          Before go straight to Adobe Spark, do you know what digital story telling is? So, digital story telling is a short form of digital media production that allows everyday people to share aspects of their story. The media used may include the digital equivalent of film techniques (full-motion video with sound), stills, audio only, or any of the other forms of non-physical media (material that exists only as electronic files as opposed to actual paintings or photographs on paper, sounds stored on tape or disc, movies stored on film) which individuals can use to tell a story or present an idea.

          Then, what is Adobe Spark? Adobe Spark is an integrated suite of storytelling applications for the iPad, iPhone, and web developed by Adobe Systems. It comprises three separate design apps: Spark Page, Spark Post, and Spark Video. Its apps became the company's first to be named by Apple as an App Store Best App of the Year and have been downloaded over 3.5 million times.

          Maybe some of you wonder how to make an account on Adobe Spark, so that finally, you can make your own digital story telling. Here are the steps to make an account on Adobe Spark:

1.   Open your internet application (Mozilla, Chrome, Flock, etc.).

2.  Open www.google.com.

3.  Or simply open https://spark.adobe.com/

4.  Choose “login”.

5.  Choose “continue using google”.

6.  Choose 1 google account you will use for your Adobe Spark account.

7.  Enter your password.

8.  Input your day, month, and year of birth.

9.  Tick “I have read and agreed with the term …”

10. Choose “OK”.

11.  Choose “video”.

12. Type your title for the video.

13. Choose one purpose of making the video (promoting an idea, tell what happened, etc).

14. Or simply choose “start from scratch”.

15. Choose to play the tutorial video.

16. Create your own video.

17. After you have done making, preview or even share it.

For the benefit I found when making my digital story telling using Adobe Sparks is that the tutorial video is very easy to understand. The tools are so many. You can include your own photos, videos, icons, and you also can choose your own music track as the back sound. Since the tutorial video can be easily understood, all people can make their own without any guidance.

For the weakness from using Adobe Spark is that Adobe Spark is a quite big application. Sometimes, it works slowly and we “must” be patient when it is happening. The next weakness is each slide can just load 30 seconds length of a video. So, if you have a video with 2 minutes length, you need 4 slides for loading all of them. The last weakness I found is that each slide can also just records 30 seconds audio (our own narrative). Thus, you have to be a bit “smart” in putting which recorder on which slide.

To be honest, I am not really sure I will use this application for teaching my future students. If you ask “why”, the answer is because this application cannot be used in all grades. In my opinion, this application can just be applied to minimally junior high school students. Last thing to say is that it depends on what grade of students I will teach later.

Okay, I think that’s all about Adobe Spark. Here, I have made 1 story of my own. Try to listen to it!

*. Using earphone will be better.

If you have any suggestion and/or comment, just leave your suggestion and/or comment on the box provided below.

Thank you, and see you on the second half of the semester. God bless you abundantly!