Yes my Flip camera arrived. Here is a test video of one of the little pets we share our lives with:

Not too bad at all as far as video quality goes. I expected a bit more grain to it. I think if I uploaded it to google video myself and then linked to it, it would look better.

The only thing that would improve the camera as a whole would be a USB extention cable, which I happen to have but I don’t know where it is right now.

I hope to use this camera to make this blog a bit more A/V. Maybe some debate tournament reports or some interviews or something like that would be nice.

As far as the classroom goes, I’m cooking up some ideas. One of my experiments will be some before and after debate interviews. Could be good material for reflection and self-evaluation for students. Capture the initial reaction, and then use that as fuel for the more reflective reaction later on, after some time to digest the debate has passed.

The other, and much more obvious use, is near-instant video feedback on student speeches. The downside is the time investment this requires on the part of the instructor. However, linking inline video clips with a typed-up commentary sheet would be an amazing evaluation experience for the student as they can see right in front of them what you are talking about in your comments. Additionally, building a useful teaching video library wouldn’t be as cumbersome and time consuming as it has been for me with DV tapes.