James’ lecture today talked about the use of different file formats in images, video and sound, and the possible implications of these pertaining to education. Some copyright and legal usage of these media were also briefly discussed.
The most common image formats currently include JPEG, TIFF, GIF, and PNG. JPEG is a particularly good format for sharing on the internet, particular because of its ability to be compress images to an extremely small size with reasonable image quality. PNG is also another great image format, as it is not only a compressed image format, but it is also lossless. While the files are often larger than JPEG files, they maintain the detail of the image.
When image size becomes a problem, such as for a web page, or for file size, or emailing an attachment, there are numerous methods that can be used to reduce the size of the image. First is the image format – different image formats offer different amounts of compression. Second, is the image size. Thirdly, resolution (DPI) can be also lowered to decrease the image size. All of these can have some effect on image quality (unless saving in a lossless format), but can help to reduce file size.
For video, the more common formats are MP4, MOV, M4V, AVI, WMV, OGV. Some of these formats require certain software or operating system or codecs to run, but MP4 is generally a safe bet in terms of compatibility.
Sound files also come in a number of common formats. The Windows variant of uncompressed sound is WAV, while the Mac variant is AIFF. The compatible and widely used sound format is MP3. MP3 is a compressed, lossy format – meaning that while the file size is significantly smaller, sound quality also deteriorates. Other compressed audio formats include WMA, OGG, and M4A. The file format and bit rate will determine the end file size.
In today’s lecture, we also used a few programs, exporting the work into one of these file formats, as well as for the purpose of the demonstration of useful education tools.. These included using Sibelius to create an MP3, Preview to edit and save images in different formats, Screenflow for recording computer screen activity and editing videos, as well as iBooks Author.
Copyright and usage rights were also briefly discussed. E.g. What are the implications of finding any image on Google and using it within your classroom? How do we know who owns the work?
We discussed several possible ‘safe’ sources for finding media for a resource. Often these have creative commons licenses, allowing their distribution under certain terms. Some websites include:
Creativecommons.org – searches all these websites at once
youtube.com – some people do make their stuff creative commons
flickr.com
commons.wikimedia.org
Pix4learning.com
google.com – advanced search – usage right – free to use and share
photopin.com –
To sum up what was taught today, the use of different file formats and copyright ownership are two important factors when creating an educational resource. The file format has the impact in which it can determine the accessibility of the resource, and who is able to work with it. It also has an impact on the quality of the end result. And finally, copyright can have major implications on the use of certain resources within a work. It is therefore important to find safe sources of media for use – even if it is for educational purposes.