Making Multimedia happen
in your classroom can be very inexpensive if you know where to
look.
Here are some basic tools
that you will need. You may already have some of these in your
school or home. You can also get an excellent introduction to
Multimedia in
the Classroom at Jeff Peach's website.
Projecting your multimedia
You should have a presentation
device that gets your computer screen to show up on your classroom
video monitor. It's called a scan converter.
An AverKey
300 is what I use. AverKey 300 costs about $150, but a less
expensive one can be found for under $100. It's plug-and-play.
That means that you plug one end of a cable into your VCR and
the other into your computer. It requires only that you know
how to follow simple instructions in setting it up.
You do need to know how
to set your VCR to receive an input (line in or auxiliary) signal.
The instructions for doing this are in the same menu where you
set the clock which ought to strike fear into most people.
Audio Input
You need a mixer that
will take all your sound inputs and output them to your VCR.
The mixer can be purchased
at Radio Shack for $50.
The main thing you want
to do with the mixer is to hook up a microphone, the computer
sound, and a CD player and control (mix) the sound levels. This
outputs to the VCR. See Jeff
Peach's site for a very good diagram of this configuration.
You could do without the
CD player, but it's nice to have one when a student wants a particular
piece of music at the start of his or her project. A portable
CD player hooks up nicely to the mixer.
You need a microphone.
Inexpensive microphones can be purchased at Radio Shack or CompUSA
for under $10. The microphone plugs directly into the mixer.
You could skip the mixer
and go straight from your computer line out to the audio in
on your VCR, but the sound is not amplified as nicely as you
will want.
Alternatively, you can
add an amplifier and some speakers to this system which gives
you a little nicer sound in the classroom. Plug the mic into
the amplifier and then go from the amp to the VCR.
You can see that there
are lots of audio options that work. Try some of these options.
Before long you will have a reasonable multimedia recording system
set up in your classroom or lab.
Video Input
A simple video solution
to adding video to a multimedia stack is the QuickCam
from Logitech or an Intel
Camera Pack. They're both about $150. Less expensive computer
camera products from these companies can be found as well. This
option allows you to make, save, and add brief videos to your
stacks and to add a live video on a particular card. You would
not videotape an entire student video using a QuickCam. The conventional
video camera is used for that purpose.
I use the QuickCam because
my Compaq notebook recognizes the capture device (camera). The
Intel camera just didn't work easily on the Compaq, but it's
an excellent product for a PC (like an IBM) that's not so proprietary
as the Compaq.
You may also get an A/V
card for your desktop-style computer. This allows you to plug
in a video camera and capture live video provided you have the
software and camera. This is certainly more expensive, however,
than the options outlined above.
Cables and connections
There are a several things
to know about cables.
Cables have ends on them
called jacks. There are male and female ends on jacks. Microphone
cables have a different kind of jack than RCA cables, and it's
important to see the difference. I will show these cables in
class. For now, know that a mic jack has either one or two little
bands around the prong, and RCA jacks don't.
Cables take audio or video
signals from somewhere (out) to somewhere else (in). If you plug
a cable into an audio out, you need to plug the other end into
an audio in. The same thing is true with video out and video
in.
Adapters are available
that allow you to switch from microphone jacks to RCA and back.
All of this could be confusing.
That's why Radio Shack exists! Get to know the place.
Here are the components described above. Click
and drag the image. There are four views in QuickTime VR.