eZedia World e-Newsletter

1. Changes to eZedia World
Our new html e-mail format makes it not only easier to read, but enables you to find the information you are looking for more quickly. Coming soon eZedia will be offering extras such as weekly tips and tricks and e-mail announcements.

In addition we'll be offering subscribers easier ways to provide feedback on what you like, don't like and what you'd like to see more of in the future. So stay tuned for these extras and more exciting changes coming to you from eZedia.

2. Focus On: Apple Distinguished Educator - Don Henderson, San Diego, California
Last month, eZedia conducted a teacher workshop at Grossmont High School in San Diego, California. The event was hosted by one of Apple Computer's Apple Distinguished Educators (ADE's) - Don Henderson. Don is Director, Educational & Library Technology and an avid fan of eZediaMX.

An Apple Distinguished Educator (ADE) is an educator from Pre-K through Post Graduate School established in their respective field as an outstanding pioneer. The competitive program recognizes over 240 educators throughout the world to promote excellence in education through technology. As mentors, they teach, demonstrate, and share their expertise with others. Apple evangelists who are early adopters of new technology, they have a high commitment to teaching and learning with technology. As such, they are a key group of educators to target as they exemplify best practices. When new technologies are developed, they are first to make use of it to support learning objectives in the classroom. As mentors, they influence other educators by presenting their successes at key conferences and events, leading hands-on workshops, and getting actively involved at local, state and national levels.

This year's Smithsonian Award winning program was held at their brand new high tech school, Steele Canyon High School, in El Cajon. One hundred teachers, supported by twenty staff and coaches, attend a two week institute from August 13-24th to learn how to best incorporate multimedia technology into the classroom.

The workshop, conducted by Rusty Merriman and assisted by Stefan Embleton, was attended by 36 teachers using a combination of Macs and Windows machines. Over an hour and a half, they learned how to create a simple presentation in eZediaMX and then enhance it with a range of multimedia tips and tricks.

We learned that many of the teachers create multimedia materials in PowerPoint or HyperStudio (requiring use of scripting languages). Often, they spend 50% of their time on tasks related to learning/using authoring tools, 25% being creative with presentation, and just 25% on content. In learning to utilize eZediaMX, they thought that they would be able to save as much as 75% of their time during all phases of building a multimedia project.

Usages for multimedia in their classrooms and curriculum included: Teacher/student multimedia portfolios, interactive yearbooks, electronic reports and projects, media content development, collaborative learning, interactive media delivery, web media integration, progress tracking, training module development, and special needs curriculum development.

If any of our readers would be interested in having a similar teacher workshop on eZediaMX conducted in their area, contact :
Fred Whitehouse, Director Education Sales
e-mail at fred.whitehouse@ezedia.com
or phone 204-984-9762.

3. Look Before You Leap: A Guide to Multimedia Planning
by Mike Berg
Manager, Multimedia Development
eZedia Inc.

To help you plan your eZediaMX project, we reprint an article by Mike Berg of eZedia which outlines four steps to help make your project a success!

When starting a new multimedia project, the key to efficiency and success is good planning. If you start with a clear outline for what you want your project to be, your job of creating the project itself will be much easier. I'm going to outline a few important steps involved in good project planning.

1) The first thing to do is draw a rough flowchart. This should be a basic sketch of how your project will be arranged. Draw links to sub-sections and links between sections. Give each section a basic name and include brief notes of what will be in each section. This provides an at-a-glance outline of your project and is an excellent starting point.

2) The next stage of planning should include a detailed storyboard. To help you with this, the standard eZediaMX storyboard is available for download on our web site.

eZediaMX Storyboard

Our storyboard has a number of components for you to fill in about each frame to help you navigate through your project:
- A thumbnail sketch of the frame.
- The objects you plan to use in the frame.
- A description of the frame.
- GoTo links on that frame to other frames.

Sketch out interface ideas, such as buttons, title bars, or fonts, or use our Interface Object Wells. Try to keep a consistent look and feel across all the frames with the interface elements that you use.

Then decide exactly what is going to be on each frame. Which picture goes on this frame, which movie goes on that one? Are you going to use background music? Will there be sound effects on certain frames? How much text will you use? The storyboard is a great place to organize all these decisions.

3) Now that you have everything on paper, it's time to collect your media. I find the best way to do that is to have a folder called "Working Files" in the same directory as my eZediaMX project. I then put all the images, sounds, movies, virtual reality scenes, documents and animations that I'm going to use in my project in that folder. That way, it's all in one place in case I need to change something later. On your storyboard, check off all the media items that you collect until you have everything you need.

4) Now comes the fun part! You've got your storyboard, you've got your media - all that's left to do is put it together! Just launch eZediaMX and start building. All the pieces are there waiting for you.

You'll be amazed at how much easier it is to build a project when you've organized it beforehand. It doesn't take long to realize that planning the project is half the battle.

4. Did you know about the Region Object?
This month in eZedia World we highlight the Region Object. The Region Object is part of the eZediaMX Interactive Tools and is the eighth icon on the Tool Bar.



The Region Object allows you to create a "clickable" hotspot area of any shape in an eZediaMX document. When you click on the Region Object icon you have the option to choose from one of the three pop-up menu shapes available: an ellipse, a rectangle or a free-form shape. Choosing an option from the pop-up menu in the dialog box can set how this region activates. You may choose from Mouse Down, Mouse Over, Frame Open, On Cue or Link Only. There are a variety of things you can use the Region Object for. In its simplest form a Region Object can be placed on top of a graphic object and used to highlight all or a portion of that graphic. An example would be to use the Region Object to highlight areas of a map, such as a city, province/state or country. Since the region can be of any shape, you can highlight any area on the map when you activate the region. The region may be activated in a number of ways including passing the mouse over the region, clicking on the region, upon the frame being opened, on cue or in conjunction with a Link Object.

One of the other uses of a Region Object is to act as a mask for a Movie Object. A mask is like a window through which the movie is visible as it plays. Movie masking is a dramatic but very easy way to provide impact for displaying video as you can literally cut a shape out of the movie and play it in that shape or invert the mask, removing the region, and fill the area with a graphic, text or another movie.

If you want to know more about masking movies, eZedia has created a Movie Object Tutorial available as a download:

Movie Object Tutorial

5. Videometry™ releases 3 new stock footage titles
Digital content producer, creator and eZedia partner, Videometry, has released three new stock footage titles. The three new CDs are Abstracts Volume 1 - Backgrounds & Edit Effects: a collection of shimmering water, swooshes, smears, night skies and clouds; People Volume 10 - Fun After Dark: video clips of people dining, drinking, dancing; and Locations Volume 3 - Anguilla: comprised of sunrises, sunsets, palm trees and of course, beautiful beaches. Each CD title contains 25 images that work on both a Macintosh and PC platform.

And, for the month of September, all eZedia customers will receive $100 off any Videometry product, and if you sign up for a free membership, you'll receive a free Videometry movie clip!

To find out more about Videometry and their royalty-free digital video imagery, or to purchase these or one of the over 500 hours of digital content, go to www.videometry.com.

6. What's News At eZedia
eZedia is out and about! Starting in October, we'll be seen across the U.S. in Orlando, Myrtle Beach, Chicago, Nashville, Atlanta, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Austin, Grand Rapids and San Antonio.

Go to eZedia's Events page to find out more about these new events and how to sign up for our training educator sessions.

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Look for the next issue of eZedia World on October 1, 2001.

eZedia World welcomes subscriber feedback, story ideas as well as editorial contributions to our monthly newsletter. Please e-mail us your ideas at ezediaworld@ezedia.com.

© 2000-2001 eZedia Inc. All rights reserved. eZedia, the eZedia logo, and eZediaMX are registered trademarks or trademarks of eZedia Inc.