Skype for Mac 2.0 has been released after successful beta testing.
What’s new in Skype 2.0 for Mac
▪ Make video calls to anyone on Skype, no matter what kind of computer they are using.
▪ Say hello, smile, or even wave with anyone, anywhere in the world on Skype.
▪ Great quality video that just works.
▪ All for free of course.
Free to download and use
▪ Make free calls to anyone else on Skype, anywhere in the world.
▪ Chat with one person or have a group chat with up to 100 people at a time.
▪ Conference call with up to four people for free.
▪ Easily send files and photos to each other.
Find out more here:
http://share.skype.com/sites/mac/2006/10/video_goes_gold.html

DJ-1800 is a complete, self-contained professional DJ system for the Mac - all you need is some amplification!
www.dj1800.com/index.php
$60 (£32)
Mac OS 10.3.9+

Flip4Mac WMV Player Pro allows you to import Windows Media video and audio for editing or conversion to other QuickTime formats.  You can import directly into applications like Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express HD, QuickTime Pro and iMovie. You can also convert files from Windows Media to other QuickTime formats using applications like QuickTime Pro, Cleaner 6 and Sorenson Media Squeeze 4.1
$29 (£16)
www.flip4mac.com/wmv_playerpro.htm

The free player plugin for QuickTime is available from the Microsoft website:
www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcomponents.mspx

Seashore is an open source image editor for OS X. It features gradients, textures and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes. It supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing. It is based around the GIMP's technology and uses the same native file format.
Importantly it is FREE.
http://seashore.sourceforge.net/

iView Multimedia has released a free update to its flagship digital asset management program iView MediaPro. The first comprehensive update since iView’s acquisition by Microsoft this summer, iView MediaPro 3.1.2 delivers significantly more robust performance, including clearer error reporting and improved memory handling for both Mac and Windows customers, as well as a number of minor feature enhancements.

Amazing Title Graphics for iPhoto Slideshows

Here's a great graphics trick that many people don't know. You can easily build fantastic slideshow titles right within iPhoto 6.
Find out how HERE.

Compatible with both Macintosh OS X and Windows XP/2000, Photo Mechanic is a cross-platform solution for digital photographers who need to manage large quantities of photos under tight deadlines.
$150 (£80)
www.camerabits.com

Although not free, you can use the music from these stock music sites legally in Podcasts and your movies:

www.stockmusic.net

www.productiontrax.com

www.royaltyfreemusic.com

The prices reflect the fact that you will be broadcasting / sharing your finished work.

Their website descibes it as "Ridiculously simple storytelling".... and goes on to say: "Soundslides is a rapid production tool for still image and audio web presentations."

Having downloaded it to try it, it seems rather clunky and alien in the way that it works. The interface is neither Mac like nor Windows like.
It may be worth a try if you have a Windows PC. If you have a mac, you are better off sticking with iPhoto or iMovie for your slide shows.

It runs on OS X and Windows XP.
$39.95 (£21)
www.soundslides.com

iStopMotion in Education
Creating Flipbooks

Flipbook printing is a very cool feature added to iStopMotion with version 1.9. Why is it so cool? It allows students to take their work with them and show it to friends and family in a very low tech way. They can take possession of their work and proudly share it with others.


Find out how at www.istopmotion.com/articles/flipbooks/

Darcy Prendergast is a 21 year old clay animator from Melbourne Australia. At 21, he has already achieved international success with his animated films, and continues to push the boundaries of the medium with the aid of iStopMotion. "iStopMotion is on the same level as sliced bread, or the invention of television…… to an animator at least", he says.
Find out more at: www.istopmotion.com/articles/prendergast/

School Nights give students and schools a chance to showcase the great work they’re doing on the Mac. Invite parents, students, friends and teachers to the Apple Store for an evening presentation. Then watch the place spring to life with historical documentaries, poetry books, digital science reports, original music recordings and more. Sign up now

The latest photos of Morgan can be seen here.

To see the photo gallery from this year's Apple Expo 2006 in Paris, click HERE.

Bitmap graphics in style
Pixen is an innovative graphics editor for the Mac. It's designed from top to bottom for pixel artists—people who make low-resolution raster art like the sprites you see in old video games. But it's great for artists of all arenas: Pixen is like a very powerful MSPaint or a simpler, more agile Photoshop. Allows bitmap animation. And best of all, it's Free!
www.opensword.org/Pixen/

Simple models, simple story lines. Very effective.
Check out Purple and Brown for inspiration:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJdBrpX71l8
'Gum' and 'Halloween' are my favourites.

Movies created by children from Sussex Road School, Woodlands Junior School, Hadlow School, and St Margaret Clitherow School were on display at the ICT Conference for Leading Teachers 27th September 2006.

Dr Helen Smith was impressed by the quality of the videos and intrigued by the diminutive Mac mini.... with the fantastic comment "What is THAT?"

Thanks to Mandy Barrow for the photos.

Display Eater is a piece of software that allows you to screencast.
You can record streaming video to disk or make video tutorials.

Mac OS X
http://reversecode.com/displayEater/displayeater.html
Price: $17 (£9)

iShowU - software to capture and record video from your screen into a Quicktime movie, in realtime.
Create tutorials, make a demo for the web.

Max OS X
http://shinywhitebox.com/index.html
Very inexpensive £11. Sounds useful. In its early stages of development and is not altogether stable.

If you visit http://iscreensaver.com/ you will be able to find out how you could convert your quicktime movie creations into a screensaver to work under Mac OS X or Windows.

From $29 (£16)

Mac OS X Tip of the Week: Instant Slide Shows

Say you have a bunch of photos in a particular folder — did you know that you can view them as a slide show with just a few clicks
Find out how HERE.

Note: This technique needs OS X 10.4 or above.

Perian is a free plugin that enables QuickTime to play almost every popular video format.

With Perian installed, any OS X application that uses QuickTime can now use these additional media types:
• Divx, XviD, FLV, AVI
• MS-MPEG4 v1, MS-MPEG4 v2, MS-MPEG4 v3, DivX 3.11 alpha, 3ivX, Sorenson H.263, Flash Screen Video, Truemotion VP6
• These formats when they are inside an AVI:
h.264, mpeg4, AAC, AC3 Audio, and VBR MP3.

Note: Perian requires 10.4.7

http://perian.org/

The inclusion of this software link is not a recommendation.
I have no personal experience of this software.
It appears to bring useful features.

Cinematrix 3, enables pupils and teachers to mix music and video in real time. It can bring together many multi-media tools already being used in schools such as cameras, music software etc. This produces impressive results instantly and easily. Cinematrix 3.0 can mix twenty channels of audio and video in real time, using pre-installed files. A pupil can also easily capture and load in their videos, photos and music to create documentaries, presentations and music videos.Teachers have found that Cinematrix has helped pupils to explore, develop, share and exhange idea as well as evaluate and develop their work.
www.taglearning.com
Price: from £49.00 (excl. VAT)

Take a look at Simpleviewer in action with some recent photos of my son Morgan.

Click HERE

Find out how to set up a Podcast in my step-by-step guide:

Click HERE

PostcardViewer is a free Flash image viewer. The interface is based on the real world metaphor of a set of postcards shuffled onto a surface.

www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/postcardviewer/

AutoViewer is a free Flash image viewer. AutoViewer is designed to display a linear sequence of images and caption.
It's really slick.
www.airtightinteractive.com/projects/autoviewer/

Simple viewer is a great photo gallery generator for web sites. iPhoto Export 1.7 allows you to easily make SimpleViewer galleries from iPhoto. www.hagus.net

Screen Capture

Use Adobe Captivate 2 to record any application quickly and easily. Adobe Captivate 2 automatically includes text captions, editable mouse movements, and highlights.
|(Windows)
http://www.adobe.com/products/captivate/

Ambrosia Software, Inc. announced today the release of Snapz Pro X 2.0.3, an Intel-compatible update to the popular video capture product Snapz Pro X. This updated version, which is free to registered users of Snapz Pro X 2.0.x, may be downloaded here:


http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/

Update your version of iStop Motion.
This version adds compatibility to include Intel Macs.
www.istopmotion.com

Stop Motion Pro is a software tool for making stop motion and other animated films. It requires a video camera, webcam or digital still camera and is compatible with Win XP.

iSquint is an iPod video conversion app for Mac OS X.
It's many times faster than QuickTime Pro, works with almost all popular video formats, and it's infinitely free-er.
It's also really easy.
Just drag in your file, and click Start.
You can also choose "TV" or "iPod" size, set your quality, or even go all-out by playing in the Advanced drawer.
On a 1GHz G4, iSquint can convert most video files to iPod-screen-sized videos in realtime.

You can of course play the converted movies back on the computer
FREE
www.isquint.org/

VR Movies are excellent!
With SimplyVR, you get two software tools that let you turn digital images into exciting interactive virtual reality. Using SimplyVR, you can show someone the places you have visited or the environments you have created. Create a virtual tour of your school and its grounds. The Mac version seems very out dated and only runs in OS 9 not OS X. This would mean that it would not work on the current Intel based Macs. It needs Quicktime 7 on Windows and apparently runs happily on Windows XP.

$30 (£20)

www.tech4learning.com/simplyvr/index.html
The site also links to examples of VR, quite literally, in motion.

Whether used for training, education, or translation purposes, Slick Caption is the easy and affordable solution for adding captions to your digital video.

The software imports a DV movie created in iMovie, Final Cut Express/Pro or other video editing software. Text files can be imported, or the text can be typed in the program. There are various formatting options for displaying the captions.

Matching the text to the dialog in the video is a simple as pressing a key while watching the video. There are simple controls to change the timing of the captions by dragging markers in the timeline or “nudging” with the keyboard arrow keys.

When you are finished, just export the movie as a DV clip which can be output to tape or DVD.

Cost $49.99 (£27)

Visit www.gee3.com

Look at these web sites for more great ideas for using clay animation in your classroom! 

General Information:
  Youth Media International
  KLICK - Getting Started with Clay Animation
  Stop-Motion Animation
  Student Corner at Animation World Magazine
  Animate Clay

Teaching Animation:
  Library of Congress - History of Animation
  Making Flipsticks 
  Simple Animation Techniques

Professional Examples:
  Aardman Animations
  Aardman's Creature Comforts
  Aardman's Wallace and Gromit
  Vinton Studios
  Fun House Films
  John Lemmon Films

Samples:
  Animation and Effects
  STLP Summer Camp