Blog Juice for Educational Technology

This is another of those blog posts that may fall under the, “Where has Dave been for the past year!”  But I was mildly intrigued by a conversation I had with one of the attendees of yesterday Science Blogging Conference, a science educator.  He was telling me about his program’s plans to start helping youngsters learn about science by producing podcasts — and he mentioned The Flip camera, a new inexpensive and small video camera.  I’d not heard of it, or if I have, I was obviously worrying over something else at the time.

And then, thumbing through the U.S. Airlines inflight magazine, I found an ad for this very simple yet stylish pocket digital camera-looking device that takes video. 

Flip Video Ultra (60 minutes, black) Digital Camcorder reviews - CNET Reviews:

At the time of this writing, the best selling camcorder at Amazon.com isn’t a model from Sony, Canon, or Panasonic. It happens to be the Flip Video Ultra, the third iteration of Pure Digital Technologies’ simple plug-and-play video camera that features a hideaway USB connector and built-in software that makes viewing and sharing your videos incredibly easy.

It comes in colors, and it ranges in price from $149 to $179*.  The best thing about it is a retractable USB plug, so you simply plug the camera into your Mac or PC, and you’re moving the video file to your machine for further enhancement.

It’s what I like about a sandbox or technology as platform way of thinking about tech in schools, that students are collecting information, either recorded in book, disk, or net, or from in-front-of-you experiences, and then remixing that information to refine skills and build knowledge.  This price could put a pretty interesting information capturing device in most any classroom.  Or a box of them in a school.

Ryan, Philip. “Flip Video Ultra (60 minutes, black).” CNET Reviews. 2 Oct 2007. CNET.com. 20 Jan 2008 <http://reviews.cnet.com/digital-camcorders/flip-video-ultra-60/4505-6500_7-32627442.html?tag=prod.img.1>.
Image Citation:
Werker, Kim Piper. “KPWerker’s Photostream.” Flip Video. We call it Jackson.. 25 Oct 2007. 20 Jan 2008 <http://flickr.com/photos/kpwerker/1748387151/>.