Friday July 13

This is the last day of class and we had to finish editing. I went over the titling with the groups that wanted to use it and it worked out. There were many different little problems that were just bugs in the program that we had to work out. The good thing is that the students never gave up. They were really excited to work with video it was new to them. All five groups finished their projects and were happy with what they learned. One of the workers at the CRP, Geny, asked if we had time to teach it another week to a different group. Unfortunately, we leave on Thursday and the class was as condensed as it was.

Geny told us that most of the teachers work three shifts; 7-11am, 1-4pm, and 7-10pm. Right now they are having their break between school years. To have teachers willing to take these courses and be excited about them during their break is fortunate.

All in all the class went well. I created a CD with all the course material with the editing software and other software reviews for them to copy. Geny said the content will add to other exsisting courses such as working a still camera and Photoshop.

If I could do it over again I would have done more in-class examples. The day I used the camera connected to the projector they came more alive. I would have also given them more home assignments composing pictures. I didn't realize that all of them had cameras. The class worked in the week time frame, but most of the students said they were afraid they would forget how to use Cinelerra. I told them to focus more on the video techniques because software changes, composition will stay the same. Also, more time would be beneficial to help them understand and retain the knowledge they acquired. Not being familiar with Linux or its programs took some time. Also trying to figure out how to create projects using digital cameras and not video cameras was challenging. Digital cameras come out in all different file formats. I also didn't have a situation where I could demonstrate the program using a projector. I think being able to do that first would make the transition easier.

I felt the class went well. Only three students didn't receive their endorsement and that was because they missed more than one class period. Lindsay and I sat with Geny and we reviewed how the class went and she was very positive about the results. I feel that this would be a good place to implement instructional design and create courses to help public education teachers learn technology. It is really needed.

Thursday July 12

Editing is always hard to teach, I was a little nervous teaching it to adults in another language, with a program that I knew very little of. One plus side is that Cinelerra has an installation option to change the language to Portuguese. The students were impressed. It helped them feel more comfortable.

The class was in an open lab with other courses, so it wasn't the most ideal environment. It was loud and I have an accent. The first problem was converting file extensions. In my limited experience with Cinelerra I have noticed that it only works well with raw DV files or MPEG1. Two of the digital cameras had different extensions, .mov and .avi. I told them to use the media-convert.com to convert their files. I had used the connection at the university, so in my experience it didn't take as long. The connection here was incredibly slow so it didn't work as well. I ended up putting their files into iMove and converted them into raw DV.

The students worked in their groups and took turns working the controls. I was going to have them work on their own, but I noticed their confidence level was higher working with partners. Cinelerra has many bugs and many times their projects did funny things or they lost their files. I had to explain to them that this occurs not only in Linux, but with many professional editing packages. It was sort of good for them, because they had to go over the tools and processes several times.

Some unexpected errors I ran into were creating titles and exporting. After the class I played with it and got it to work. It doesn't work like Adobe or final cut. The exporting I had to set the project as either PAL or NTSC and it had to have audio. Otherwise, it kept giving me an error.

Wednesday July 11

Before I let all the groups out to film their projects, I reviewed their storyboards to make sure they understood the requirements and had something realistic to film. That was a concern I had coming into today and I have seen that in other classes I have taught.

The projects were fine and were mostly about the center we were at. One group decided to do one of the flee market. All the groups except for one used digital cameras with the video option. It is amazing how many people have digital cameras with how expensive they are here. Basically all their technology is expensive. The other group had a miniDV camera one teacher got from his school. Fortunately I had brought a firewire cord (don't ask me why I brought one, just did) and we could capture his footage onto my laptop. None of the computers had firewire ports. I was also able to teach him how to use it because he didn't have a clue. He seemed pretty determined to do video at his school and was excited to learn how to use it. From there we transfered the footage to the computer using a 1GB pen drive several times.

The groups spent the whole period filming. One group finished within a half an hour and I reviewed their footage with them. They didn't take time to do any composition so I asked them to think of other ways they could film what they did and also some ideas to add more interest with different angles. They were receptive and filmed some more.

We didn't get Cinelerra installed in the classroom that I wanted, but we were able to get it on some other computers in another lab. Linux has so many different versions that it makes things complicated. Free software is a blessing, but can also create headaches.

Tuesday July 10

The second day was far better than the first. We all arrived on time and I was able to have a little prep time before hand. We started out with a lighting exercise. We reviewed some video clips of lighting I had and read through the content. Then I sent them out with cameras to find interesting lighting in the building. They really enjoyed that and used some of yesterday's principles in the shots.
Next we reviewed editing. We went over the material and did a live practice with a camera connected to a projector. I had them cut between two actors talking.
The last topic was storyboarding. I had them split into groups and start thinking of ideas for a final project and to start storyboarding. I feel that I am a little ahead of schedule and hope I don't end a day early. But I have the feeling when the time comes to edit that they will get stuck and it will take a while.
I spent the evening making the course content into a printable version for them to download for future use.

Monday July 9

This was the first day of class. To my surprise, there were about fifteen students in the class. They are all, with the exception of one or two, public school teachers. It was exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. We started out with some glitches. I was told 9am, Aires was told 8:30am, and the coordinator set it at 8am. Luckily, I got there at 8am to prepare and could get things going a bit, but it got me a little nervous. Not to mention some technology glitches. The internet cord had a short in it so I couldn't bump it. Two of the cameras had dead batteries. There wasn't anytime to charge them. I didn't have access to them so it was out of my control.

We covered the topics of Composition, Focus, and Camera Movement. We went through the material a little faster than I wanted to. Teaching in a different language is really difficult. I am amazed at how some professors are able to do it. It was a very good experience. The students were very receptive and enjoyed the topic. They were all new to video production.

Afterwards the coordinator informed me that it went well and that the students enjoyed it. My brain was fried and I wasn't as optimistic. As the saying goes, "we are our own harshest judges."

The remainder of the day was spent preparing for tomorrow and reviewing words I wasn't familiar with. I will try and to more demonstrations with the students tomorrow. Three hours of class time is a lot, so I need to be prepared.

Saturday July 7

Today was spent in preparation for the video class that starts on Monday. Natasha went through all the text and I had to add it back into the flash module and the site. I also went over my lesson plan for Monday and made sure I have all the resources that I need. I made adjustments to the site in SOLAR and added a course description and a class agenda.

Friday July 6

First, Lindsay I went over to the CRP to see the classroom where we will be teaching the video class. We tried installing the Linux video editor Cinelerra. I am not familiar with Linux so I had to rely on someone there do perform the installation. Unfortunately no one there was capable of installing it either. We spent a while trying to figure it out. I called Prof. Aires and we will get someone from the UFC to come down and install it Monday or Tuesday. I don't need it until Wednesday anyway.
Next we went to the Campus at Pici. I was still having difficulty exporting video from Cinelerra. It would be disappointing to create a project and not be able to export it. It took a while and I figured it out. If I load the .AVI files into media-convert.com and convert them to mpeg1, then they will import to Cinelerra without any problem. Then intead of export, I had to render the project into Raw DV files. This makes them compatible to show in Quicktime. It's a long process, but the best I've seen on Linux. Most of their programs have lots of bugs and crash quite frequently. It's been a challenge to create something with little resources, but that's the way life is usually.

Thursday July 5

I spent the day adding more content to the online course. I finished topics 6 and 7. I also made plans to go to the CRP tomorrow morning to check out the equipment. That is where I will be teaching the course. We will start installing the video editing software on the machines.
I also had Natasha go over the text for the course to correct any grammer problems. To see it go to ncsanders.com/Modelo.

Wednesday July 4

Happy Fourth of July! We worked the whole day. The good side is that is was very productive. I worked on putting the video course online, adding pics, and making small changes. I uploaded it to my site. http://ncsanders.com/Modelo
I tried to make the pictures as diverse as possible. I added some that had Lindsay and myself because I couldn't find any other pictures that demonstrated the principle I needed. I was able to get some of other Brazilians.
PA also showed me a way to access the course on my website to SOLAR. It uses the URL from my site to call it up in SOLAR. I will upload the files before I leave so they will have the course.

Tuesday July 3

Today my wife started her volunteer position at the SRE. I made my way to the SRE campus. Now that I have all the files and CSS, I started to create the online course. I added five different lessons and still need to add two more. They are a little rough and I will need to do some tweaking to make it more aesthetically pleasing.
I had decided to split the video module into sections to go along with each topic and then have a link that has the entire module on another part of the site. The module wasn't fitting correctly. It kept floating off the page every time we scrolled up. We had to add a transparent tag and also make the entire size about 50 pixels smaller. That worked just fine thanks to the help of PA. The problem baffled us for a while.
Like I mentioned above, I had decided to split the module so I had to slice it up in flash. It was fairly straight forward and only required minimal changes to the action script.

Monday July 2

My wife and I went to the SRE for an hour this morning. She is going to start volunteering there until we leave. The SRE is a welfare service for the LDS church. They help people create resumes and prepare for job interviews. She will start tomorrow. They are always looking for volunteers. They have had interns their from BYU before. It might not be a bad idea for possible interns for Instructional Design. They offer many courses and are willing to work with people. It's worth looking into I think.
I spent the rest of the morning gathering more pictures for the course to go along with the content and translated some more text. I also went through the older text I had already translated and made corrections. I've remembered more Portuguese, enough to start understanding what I was saying incorrectly. I will have Natasha proof all the text at a later date.
PA showed me some more things with their code. Apparently there has been a problem with loading .flv files through SOLAR. That was scary because that is what I use. We figured out that if all the .flv files were embedded into a .swf then it could read them. I just couldn't insert them directly in the code. Or I could call the files from a different location. I will have to do both.

Friday June 29

I had to alter the flash file for the video module to insert the new videos. It was a little tricky the way it was set up, but I managed to get it done. In the composition section I added three buttons with their sections: Rule of thirds, Angle, Distance. The other videos will be added to the online course and not in the module.
I also had to translate some text I had for the lighting section for the online portion. I need to get all my content together so I can start building the course. PA (a students name) helped me get all the files and css code for putting the class online. They said I could create it any way I wanted, but I figured doing it their way would help the students be familiar with the environment and I could be sure that all the coding will be compatible with SOLAR, their management system. I don't want any glitches.

Thursday June 28

We returned back to the campus at Pici. I went through all the footage and started to create the example videos. Some of the footage didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it. It is hard to direct someone when they are in control of the camera sometimes. A couple of times I didn't know how to express myself completely, but other times our helper wanted other shots and backgrounds. It still worked out though. I was able to take some still shots that I had taken with my digital camera that turned out nice and use them in the video. It worked out well. I added titles, but I still need someone to record audio. It would make a big difference.

Wednesday June 27

We met Natasha at the Campus Benfica. She introduced us to another student from the communications department that was going to help us. Edne had a fairly nice 3ccd JVC camera and tripod from the department. We discussed what types of shots we needed at locations that we could shoot them. We shot the footage in from of the president's building. We had several student volunteers to help with the example shots. The examples we created were:

1. High Angle
2. Low Angle
3. Rule of thirds
4. Using the zoom to distort distance
5. Creating edits and montages

Afterwards we went back to the school and captured all the clips to my computer. We didn't have enough time to have someone record audio, but that can wait.

Tuesday June 26

I finished the final Math course that Ofelia gave. It was another math history course. It had six topics, so enough to keep me busy for the the day. It is challenging to have to break up chunks of content. I'm not sure if the critical parts of the content are being stressed. For some reason the other students don't seem to feel that way. They correct my mistakes thankfully. It seems as though they could create a job aid for the professors to arrange their content. If they did that then it would eliminate three other student jobs and that probably wouldn't be good.
This is the last of these course content jobs. It has been interesting to say the least. I have learned a broad Portuguese by doing so. I know the designers face a lot of challenges from professors and receiving content.

Monday June 25

Today Ofelia sent me the final online course for me to create until July. I finished the Math course from last week. I did have one issue pertaining to one page of content. I was unsure what the professor intended it for. It was a series of questions, but no identification as to where it should go. I talked with Ofelia and we emailed the professor to clarify.
I also made arrangements to film more examples for the video module. Natasha said we could film Wednesday.

Friday June 22

Today I continued working on the online math course. I finished topics 1-3 by the end of the day. I had to talk with Ofelia about reducing some of the courses I have to create. I have to start creating my own course for the video class. We left the courses I have to create in the second week in July to give me some time.

Thursday June 21

This morning I was handed a bunch of distance ed courses that need to be designed. I was given about seven of them. Fortunately they are math courses, or math history which is easier for me to understand. The course I worked on was extremely long and mostly text. I spent a lot of time finding images that went along with it. I tried creating the images in a more creative way with drop shadows. I wanted to try and explore different designs that they haven't thought about. I almost finished the first course and it is due on Monday.

Wednesday June 20

I spent some time today working with one of the flash experts in the lab. He looked over the module to see how it was created. We talked about the size of the module and how it would be delivered. The module will be posted on the web in SOLAR. The file size is about 3MB. We looked over the project file to see how we could shorten its size. All the videos are loaded externally, but there are two in the focus and exposure activity that are embedded and cannot be loaded outside of the file because of the scripting. Marllon decided that would should add on a loading bar to let students know how long it will take to load it. He gave me a simple loading bar and we added it to the project.

I also worked on adding extra buttons and frames to add some more content. The project documentation for the flash course came in handy. I was able to use it in order to carry the project on a little further. There are more glitches in it and I have to make some more changes, but it can be found here.

Tuesday June 19

Today I spent most of my time translating text for some of the videos we will shoot for the module. To be honest I can't remember a whole lot because one of my best friends past away this morning. Needless to say it was hard to focus.

Monday June 18

This morning I created a list of questions I want to ask in the Multicultural video. So far I have four areas. The first two include interns that have come to Brazil (Lindsay and myself) and Brazilians who went to Georgia. I want to understand experiences from both and compare. Then I hope to gain an understanding of the process of entering the university and its demographics. (I learned the other day that the land for the university was acquired through a card game.) The last part would be to interview two professors Jose Aires and Mauro. I hope to better understand their department and view of education, and their students.

Later, I talked with Jose Aires about the video course. We talked about how to revise the introduction video and more organization. He also gave me the thumbs up for the promotional and multicultural videos.

The final part of the day, Lindsay and myself reviewed the content we have for the video course and went over how to add changes to the module. We want to add more content, so we have to adapt the current module and make sure the navigation stays coherent and easy to use. We also set up a shell for the course on SOLAR.

Friday June 15

Pretty much the whole day was spent gathering photos and organizing and finishing the Sociology class. It was due by 5 pm today. I was able to get it done and I found some good pics. There has got to be more to do with these course materials than just text and pictures. The Math courses had more to animate and be creative with, but that doesn't necessarily mean it is better for learning.

Thursday June 15

Today we were back at UFC Virtual. I created a shot chart of the different examples that I wanted to create for the module. I reviewed the videos I have about composition and took screen shots. We can recreate these examples. This will give us full rights to the content for the class, allowing us to put it up for Opencourse when the time comes. I emailed it to Natasha and she said she would set things up for next week.

I was also given another course to transfer over to Solar. It was a Sociology course. It was really hard to understand and I spent a good time trying to understand the content and how to organize it. The content was given to me in a very rough form. I am going to make a suggestion on getting a specific format from the professors, some type of job aid they can use to help them. I couldn't tell where one topic ended. It all ran into each other.

I also edited the video we made on Wednesday. The sound has some glitches, but I was able to see what it was like. Click here to view it.

Wedndesday June 13

Today we tried to create a video introduction to the video module. The original one is in English. Cris from the Journalism/Comm department volunteered to help. She has been a news anchor for many years. The school has a nice studio to shoot with. They gave us full access to their equipment. At first we couldn't get the teleprompter to work and so we stuck my laptop on top of it. By the end we were able to get it to work. We took several takes and worked on the lighting for a while. That was hard because they only have studio lights and no soft lights. Cris did a great job though, the only problem was the audio. The student that was working the audio didn't have the levels high enough. We might have to do it again.

We also talked with Natasha (the student who has connections with the studio) about some other video ideas that she has which are creating a promotional video about UFC Virtual along with Proativa. We planned on creating more videos for the module next week. We also talked about creating a video about education in Brazil and what it is like to be an intern here and the experiences of those who went to Georgia.

Tuesday June 12

I got started on and finished the revisions and translation for the video module. I contacted Natasha after I translated the introduction video. We set up a time to meet tomorrow at the studio they have. It is at a different campus than the normal one we attend. It is located in Benfica. I think that having a native face on the module will add a nice touch.
I also worked on incorporating more video into my lessons. I took a couple of steps back because I think I was crossing the copyright laws with the videos. Digital Juice lets you down load these quicktime segments, but in addition I was chopping them up and was going to add Portuguese voice over. I felt as though I was modifying the videos too much. I feel that it was a good stop though. I can still use the clips when I teach the class, but it might be too cumbersome using them for the online portion. Still images would show the concept just as easy. Sometimes fancier isn't always better. Internet connections aren't that fast here either. I also felt that since we were going to be at the studio tomorrow that I could create some of the examples on my own. That way we would have full copyright.
I also worked on how to divide the class topics. I had previously decided this, but talking with Aires yesterday I felt that I could make some changes in organization, especially for the online version. I split up video techniques into 3 sections of position and movement, composition, and lighting. Those will be followed by storyboarding, capture and editing.

Monday June 11

I dove into the video file format research again. I had more success. I found freeware programs such as Super and TMPEG. Super converted the .avi file into .mov, but Cinelerra didn't seem to like it. TMPEG converted it to an mpeg1 file and neither program liked it. I went to my resource bag and contacted Greg Francom of the Instructional Technology department. I remembered he is very good with video and might know. He gave me the URL http://media-convert.com/converter/.
This site allows you to upload your file and convert it to whatever file type you want. They literally have every kind of format there is and it is free. After the file is converted, you can download it again and also having access to it on the internet for 24 hours. You can upload file sizes of up to 125 MB which is perfect for what we need. I took a small .avi clip and converted it to .mov and tried it in Cinelerra and it worked! That should take care of what we need. The students or teachers wouldn't need to download any program, it is right there on the web and it has a translated page in Portugal Portuguese, which is close enough. This made me grateful for contacts and using outside resources.
I also met with Professor Aires and another student, Natasha. We reviewed the flash video module that I have been working on. Aires gave me some suggestions to improve the presentation of the text and asked me to make the changes. Coray McClellan had created a video as an introduction and they felt it was useful to have, so Natasha suggested that we create one using a Brazilian student. I thought that was a great idea. I now have to get the text and translate it. Aires also decided to push the course back to maybe a week long, more intensive course. He also wanted more time dedicated to making it an online cars.

Saturday June 9

I spent about four hours importing the video segments into iMovie and exporting them. There is a little loss in video quality since the clips were already at a low resolution, but I think they are still good enough to be used.

Friday June 8

I've already mentioned the website digitaljuice.com. I reviewed over twenty training videos of the many that are on that site. They do a really good job explaining basic principles to basic filmmakers. I found about fifteen that I thought could help. The only problem is that they are in English. I went through and marked the segments in the videos that I found useful. I will extract them and make shorter clips that contain the examples I want. Each video runs about 7-10 minutes. That is too much time to just have a link to the video. The examples that I found were lighting, camera angles, creating simple sets, and depth of field.
I had to test out the depth of field to make sure it worked with digital still cameras. I used my wife as an example. If you zoom in the shot the background becomes small. If you zoom out and move closer to your subject the background is larger. It works the same and was something new to me.

Thursday June 7

Today was actually a holiday and the school was closed. I spent half of the day translating and reviewing the first two lesson plans for the video course. I really feel that I need lots of examples on filming techniques since the students will not have access to good equipment. They can still make their shots interesting and add lighting to their shots.

Wednesday June 6

I have come the ends of my rope trying to find a way to import files into these editing programs. I found out that other people have had the same question I have, and that Kino doesn't accept anything but Raw DV files. Later releases might include other formats.
Cinelerra does accept jpeg, and other video files but not .avi. Of course that is the format that most digital cameras use. I learned that in Cinelerra, imported jpegs enter in as one frame so you have to expand the time line. I spent a long time wondering where my jpegs were ending up. It seems as though hair-pulling problems end up with a simple solution. Now I am one step closer. My research came to an abrupt end when the energy went out again, but this time for a couple of hours. The other students joked that someone turned on the coffee maker and there went the power. It was just the outlets and not the lights. It must have overloaded somewhere. This ended everyones work.

Tuesday June 5

The first part of the day I spent finishing the Philosophy section. It consisted of two topics. It wasn't as engaging as the math courses. All the content I was given was text and a link for a forum. I tried to find interesting pictures to go along with the content. I went to photo stock exchange at sxc.hu. The photos there are usually of good quality and most of them don't have an difficult restrictions. The language was definitely a barrier on this project. I spent a lot of time looking up philosophy terms. Some words are close, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't making any errors with the content and matching images.
The second part of the day I spent on the video editing programs. I am having troubles finding a conversion tool since Kino won't except .avi format, nor will Cinelerra. I have done a lot of research on the topic. The energy in the room went out for about an hour. That slowed everyone down.

Monday June 4

I started working on another online course. I was given a course section in Philosophy. This proved more difficult than math. I can see how they say math is the universal language. Having to read through the text in Philosophy and decide how to split the content was difficult. What I tried to do first was to find pictures that went with the content. I also started to design a title image.
I also worked with Cinerrela and Kino. These Linux programs are difficult. Kino is very basic, but I was unaware that it only accepted captured video. I was unable to import any quicktime or jpg files. I didn't have a Linux computer before I arrived and the site didn't say anything about limitations on what you can import. Cinerrela has a high learning curve. It handles like Adobe or Final Cut, but the options aren't very intuitive. I think I will offer the students to use either or. It might prove difficult if we can't import .avi or .mov files.
I translated part of the video module that I will use in the beginning of the course. It was created by Coray McClellan and Kurt Taylor. They gave me permission to adapt it to my class. It has camera principles that are illustrated very well.

Friday June 1

Someone with more Linux knowledge helped me install the two video editing programs. Watching what this person had to do to install made me very grateful for my OS X operating system. I reviewed each program.
Kino is a very basic video editor and reminds me of Mac's iMovie. There aren't a lot of options as far as tracks and visual effects. This might be the better choice for beginning video editors. One downside is that it is all in English. Not too much of a problem seeing Brazilians are used to that.
The other, Cinerrela, is a more complex package. A nice feature was that it converted all text to Portuguese. It has many capabilities such as multiple timelines, text editor, and sound editor. I was slightly confused by all the features, and I'm used to video editors.
My time was cut short when I had to give a presentation on the Instructional Technology program at USU in one of Professor Aires courses. I handed out pamphlets that I had brought with me and created a power point presentation. I have gotten better with my Portuguese, but I got a little nervous giving the presentation and my tongue didn't cooperate as much as I would have liked. But I felt the presentation went well and the students enjoyed it. The presentation was fairly basic and took about a half an hour including questions. The power point can be found at http://www.ncsanders.com/files/inst.ppt. The students were interested in USU, but were very intimidated with the cold weather, especially from the looks of the small pamphlet.

Thursday May 31

This morning I finished course 4 and sent it off to Ofelia. She approved it and sent it to the professor for final approval.
I had to get Linux installed on my computer so I can prepare for my video class. I downloaded the programs Cinerrela and Kino to experiment with. I had a hard time installing the programs and went through some tutorials on how to work in Linux. I wasn't very successful but learned a lot. I have never used the Linux platform.

Wednesday May 30

I met with Ofelia first thing in the morning. I was confused about how to communicate the layout. I find it difficult because I'm used to receiving materials and creating the online portion myself. Ofelia went over course 3 with me and I understood exactly what they were talking about. Course 3 was finished and sent off to the professor. I started course 4 and had Ofelia double check my work and I was on the right track.
Later that afternoon, I met with Henrique. We are working on a videoconferencing project together. Our assignment was to create a topic for a course on video communication. He wrote about the hardware and I wrote about the software. We sat down and combined our parts and make final adjustments before emailing them off to another colleague who is designing the course. I will post the final draft later when I receive it back.

Tuesday May 29

Today I worked on the mathematics courses. I had submitted course number 3 to Ofelia, who I report to for these courses, and I wasn't quite getting what they were looking for. I had misinterpreted some of the directions I was given. Ofelia didn't have time to go over the changes with me, so we planned on Wednesday.
I went through the material trying to understand it better. I think I misunderstand their layout directions. I finished transferring content for the pdf's and called it good for the day.

Monday May 28

Over the weekend I had tested out the different video conferencing programs. Skype seemed to work the best. Yahoo had problems with the audio. Myself nor my friend could get the audio working on either end. iVisit offered a lot of options and I had never used it before. I didn't have the chance to use Flashmeeting, but was able to use the demo. I remembered having seen it used in a Brown Bag with a guest speaker. Joel Gardner typed in student questions and the speak would read them and respond to them as he went along. I created screen shots and organized my information.
I also found a neat English to Portuguese translator. It is very time consuming trying to use the conversion keys for Portuguese. I type in what I want in the translator and it gives me the Portuguese translation. I go through and correct any errors and copy and paste it. It helps me with my grammar and saves me a lot of time. You can find many other languages there at tanslito.com
I emailed my section to Henrique and we will look over it and correct any grammar issues and add it to his part. He will then email the completed section.

Friday May 25

I spent a good part of the day researching various video conferencing programs. I had difficulty finding programs that worked on linux, since that is the most used platform here. They have one chat program called Pidgin, but it only hosts other chat programs and doesn't support video. I narrowed my research to Skype, Flashmeeting, Yahoo, and iVisit. Henrique and I narrowed down the criteria for evaluating each program.
1. Video Quality
2. Ease of Use
3. Platform
4. Capabilities
5. Scenarios of Use

I need to use each one of these programs and create screen shots to go with my information. I emailed some people to test them out with me.

Thursday May 24

Today was spent finishing section 3 for the Geometry course. It consisted of two topics and exercise questions. I completed this section in the typical form that they create all their sections. I have to submit it for review to two other designers. They will give me feedback on how I did.

Wednesday May 23

The first part of the morning consisted of reviewing the tasks for the video conference course. I was assigned to work with Henrique. We split our portion of the project. I research the software for video conferencing and he researches the hardware necessary. Our research should be ready by Monday.
The rest of the day I spent working on the Geometry courses for Solar. I have been trying to think of new ways to present the course material. I asked the other designers if they have used Cam Studio and they had heard about it. I need to do some more research on what ways instructor interaction using Cam Studio or another program might be used. Even if some students couldn't access the video, others could. Subjects, especially math, benefit from explanations by the instructor. This can be lost with the online aspect.

Tuesday May 22

The first part of the day was spent researching and preparing for the video course I will teach on June 13th. I have 6 class periods that I have to teach. There are a lot of constraints that I have to consider. I have to cater to those who have miniDV cameras and those who still use VHS and even their digital cameras that take video. The first class I worked on was shooting principles. I felt that even though they might not have access to high end video equipment, they still can make their shots more interesting and set up their shots. If you would like to view the rough draft link to http://ncsanders.com/files/VideoProductionDay1.doc

The second half of the day we spent with Professor Aires' class at the Main Campus. We took a tour through a middle school and how they use their technology labs. (Schools here have a different feel with the high barb wired walls and security guard.) Unfortunately many of the tech labs in the state have been closed because of teacher shortages. The lab instructors have been pulled into classrooms to teach other subjects.




This lab facilitates interdisciplinary functions. Students are able to combine projects between courses using technology. They combine Portuguese, science, history into to power point presentations or they do internet research on specific topics. Right now they are working on an Amazon project that involves Portuguese, History, and Physical Ed. We also visited the CRP again and toured with the students.

Monday May 21

The entire day was spent at the UFC Virtual campus. I worked with Ofelia and Sylvania on the Math courses. This is where the language has become a slight barrier. The math course has a lot of words I am not familiar with and to design the course I need to understand the flow of the content. I am also getting the feeling of how they do things and am trying to figure out how I can add to it, or add another perspective.

Friday May 18

Today I started a new project. There is going to be a course on technologies in communication. My roll in creating this course is to research different video conferencing tools that are open source or free. I came up with some basic ones such as yahoo chat, msn messenger, skype, eyeball chat, flashing meeting, and iVisit. The only two that had conferencing capabilities were flash meeting and iVisit (conferencing meaning the ability to host more than two participants). Eyeball chat offers video but also hosts other chats such as AOL, MSN, and Yahoo so you don't have to have them all open.
I now have to prepare a text that shows how they work and their capabilities. My part will be handed over to another student who will then add it to her part and pass it over to Professor Aires.

Thursday May 17

The first part of the morning was spent in our apartment with Paulo from the university, helping us get our internet set up. This will help in case one of us gets sick again. Turns out my Portuguese isn't up to par to deal with technical issues over the phone. And for some reason Macs are feared down here.
When we arrived I went straight to work on Solar and working with the tutors. We divided up the work for a Geometry course. I have to do lessons 3, 4, and 5. Right off the bat it was difficult. Trying to read a Geometry text book in Portuguese wasn't very easy. I was given a block of text and now have to divide it up in a way to engage the students.
It is good project for communication skills. I have to keep in contact with the tutors and the programmers about the status and design of the project.

Wednesday May 16

Today we went to the central campus and had a little tour. We spent most of our time with Professor Aires and his class. The class dealt with learning objects. The students ranged from computer programming to education. My wife and presented ourselves and fielded questions from the students about education in Utah and what we have experienced. Most of their questions were about distance education and how it compared to Ceara.

Tuesday May 15

I thought that my wife and I had escaped the dreaded illnesses that come with traveling to foreign countries, but no. We spent the day inside our apartment with stomach problems. Lucky for us, Aires mother is a nurse and was able to get us some medicine.

Monday May 14

I met with one of the tutors whose name is Ofelia. She went over the process of how they prepare the raw material for designing the class:

1. Professor gives raw (bruta) material. Generally comes in a huge block of text either in word doc or pdf.

2. The tutor sifts through the material and breaks it into segments

3. The tutor decides in what way to present the material on the web either using animations, static text with picture, or any other way the tutor comes up with.

4. The design is passed back to the professor for approval.

5. Proofed design gets passed onto programmers.

I spent time looking at the different design documents and the classes that have been uploaded to the web.

Friday May 11

Professor Aires picked us up in the morning and took us to the Centro do Recursos dos Professores (CRP) in the center of the city. This building is dedicated to training in public education and helping them integrate technology into their curriculum. The first room had about 30 computers for the classes and workshops offered to public education teachers. Some of these include website, programming, etc. Professor Aires signed me up to teach a video class to 20 participants. This class will meet twice a week for three weeks.
The next room was divided into three computer labs each with about 25-30 computers. One lab was open to university students with one hour slots to use the Internet or to work on whatever they want to. The purpose is to introduce a responsible way to use technology to students without stifling creativity. The next two labs are open to professors for class use. The difficulty with this is that the class has to travel to the location.
On the lower level is a smaller lab maybe 18-20 computers that are for free public use. This lab was sponsored by the K House project. Time slots for these computers are basically filled and users range from kids playing games to lawyers submitting their forms.
On a travelers note, since we were there we stopped by the fortress that was created by the Dutch. It is now a military base.
During the afternoon, we returned to the University and were given a presentation on the goals and materials of ProActiva. We viewed their learning objects and then participated in a class that discussed the objectives and purposes of learning objects and what they need to possess and achieve. The methodology of these objects were briefly presented and discussed by the students.

Thursday May 10th

We went to one of the University branches today and were introduced to the director Mauro. He explained the Distance Education program and explained some of the difficulties that the program has encountered. Students that live out in more remote areas depend on small campus computer labs for internet access. Few of students have a computer in their home. Students also have to have more detail instruction on how to navigate in an online class. Designers have need to make classes simple and direct, enough to be downloaded by students using dial-up. Mauro was very welcoming.
Next, we were introduced to the Solar “tutor” team. They use the term "tutor" for those who create and monitor the pedagogical aspect of design. This team receives the raw subject material from the professors and then creates the distance education course design plan in word documents. This plan includes design instructions for programmers who build the course using html and flash.
The programming team is about eight people. They function very similar to instructional designers except for the fact that part of the pedagogical side is done by the tutors. There are two lead programmers that interact with professors and provide explanation and support.
The ProActiva team creates various learning objects. They are a group of students who have designed various learning objects, three of which have received awards. They are also very familiar with David Wiley's definition of learning objects.
Afterward, we spent time with Henrique the coordinator/administrator of Solar. He explained the program in-depth and explained the programming process of the courses. The main subjects they design are Portuguese, English, Math, Chemistry, and Administration. Since I have experience in both areas of design and actual creation, Henrique suggested I should spend more time with the tutors to experience more of the pedagogical side. He thought I could mediate between programmers and tutors. I could give suggestions as to what is feasible to create and what would be more time consuming. With the constraints that have been mentioned, I have noticed no one really has any ambitious online designs.