Reading Challenge Post

The choice of Animoto for this week’s notes seemed a perfect fit, as the topic of this week’s Brain Rule chapter is “Vision.” The take-away lesson from this reading is that visual representations are more powerful than text alone as our brains have evolved from a visual environment (survival mode). After reviewing a classmate’s notes from last week, I wanted to try a longer video, so I registered for an Education free-trial, which allows me to build a nearly 7 minute video and work on it for 12 days. At this point, I’m not sure what will happen at the end of 12 days (I suspect it will be inaccessible), but because of the emphasis of the chapter on how our brain processes visual inputs and the power of movement, I really wanted to embed a series of video clips if possible.

The interface itself was fairly simple, although limited. The amount of text possible in each “track” is quite limited, so I had to work hard to try to really drill down to the central terms of the chapter I wanted to incorporate into each video frame. (The term “track” is borrowed from Medina, who writes that our neural network “interpret[s] the patterns” delivered by the retina, then “assembles the patterns into a collection of ‘movies’…called tracks” (185). ) While difficult, this really seemed to serve the intent of the chapter, given Medina is promoting the visual in how well we process information and learn.

In terms of adding these visual elements, I had a choice between video clips and images built into the interface, or I had to save and upload my own collection. This was not as difficult when dealing with images, and the interface offered links to open source sites like Instagram, Picasa, Flickr, SmugMug, and even Facebook. However, if I wanted to add a video clip from YouTube or Vimeo, I would first need to download that video using an external program I have called KeepVid, then edit and save it…an extra, complex series of steps that might persuade me against adding this as an in-class activity for my freshmen writers. Even then, Animoto only lets me play 10 seconds of these saved videos. Also frustrating was the lack of editing features that would allow me to scale some images that did not import well.

Instead, I opted to take screen shots of Medina’s online chapter found at brainrules.net instead of relying on animation. This choice reminded me of creating a PowerPoint, however, and I often found myself thinking, “This would be much more accessible in Prezi.” In short, I decided that this media might work best as a background overview visual, rather than one designed to deliver significant amounts of major points. An alternative might be to have a voice over feature to fill in the missing elements (available with a paid subscription).

The overall template was cool, and fit the idea of the chapter. At the end of it all, I can see its usefulness, but probably not for a freshman writing student, and unless the teacher is willing to purchase the full Pro version, I think there are easier animation-based programs that might actually be more display friendly.

This week I reviewed Mike's NL9 post, in which he applied the program Quizlet. What a cool program! I especially like the "race" element in the end. I wondered whether the program distills these activities from the quiz questions FOR the instructure, or if we would have to create them ourselves? I'll have to give this a try. A few week's ago, Heather (I think) used Socratic to create a quiz. I'll have to give both a try, but the multi-approach elements of this quiz look especially useful for some of my concepts in ENGL 1020 (Research and Argument)!

I also looked over Heather's use of Weebly. I've heard a lot about that, and after reading about it in the 3D GameLab, I was excited to see someone in our group applied it. I've been considering paying for a WordPress.org site, and understand it must be hosted; Heather is the 2nd colleague who has had good things to say about it. Looks like it's time to put up or shut up! :D