Post for class 5

First, let me say that finding quicktime videos was unusually difficult, which makes me suspect I’m either not looking hard enough or looking in the wrong places. They all said use Windows Media and/or flash. Which was weird because when I was in collich, at WSU, most every web site had the annoying little Q while it buffered.

Anyway, the extent of the stretch I went to to look for quicktime videos will be evident once you know which videos I used for my example.

First:

newsroom.depaul.edu/Multimedia/Video.html from the DePaul University multimedia web page

I got here because my search got to a point where I had to Google the phrase “view this video using Quicktime” and that’s where it got me. It turned out to be a video about the plans for improvement of the quality of education at DePaul, from back in 2006.

First of all, to see it, you really have to want to see it. Because it’s kind of hidden. The information in it could serve as a good pitch to students interested in going to DePaul, but no links to it exist on its main page. You have to kind of know about what you’re looking for to get to it. Even when you go to the
main page of the program, vision2012.depaul.edu, nothing shows up.

The video in and of itself is pretty cool. It flows well between audio and video, it doesn’t take forever to buffer, and it’s does a good  job of telling people what they want to do at DePaul by the year 2012. Not very detailed, but then again, it’s only a few minutes long. The images are more clear than grainy, the audio comes through clear as well.

Above all, though, the content of the video shows different aspects of academia at DePaul, from music to law school. One image that kept repeating itself, interestingly, is that of teachers explaining something in more than just a lecture mode. Using gestures and drawings and  meetings and facial movements. I believe this was included to give the idea that DePaul is a place of teachers who are involved and committed to their students.

The message comes across very clearly: Come to DePaul, things are just getting started.

The second video I watched, I came to the same way, through Google.  It’s a 22-minute film on early treatment of schizophrenia and it’s from Canada.

http://www.schizophrenia.ca/reachingout/quicktimelarge.html

The image and audio were rather bad, choppy and grainy. But the content was good, bad acting at the beginning notwithstanding. In between all the bad acting, real people gave what seemed to be firsthand accounts of what it’s like to be schizophrenic.

I am very surprised at tho how hard it was for me to find quicktime videos. What am I doing wrong, Drew?