Lloyd's Video Analysis Tool, Part 8: Prototype Ready for Some User Testing

I've been working slowly but surely on my video analysis tool. I've now finished the initial programming of all of the essential features, including the transcription tool. I've also spent some time on the graphic design of the project, which, while not great, now makes the tool somewhat more "presentable." I feel I now have a prototype that is ready to be shared and tested by some people who have been expressing interest in the tool. Getting feedback from people who are already analyzing video in their work, but who are also willing to put up with yet-to-be-discovered bugs and problems will be crucial.

I have prepared a short video to explain how the tool works. I intentionally did not mention LiveCode at all because I know the people with whom I'll share this video care deeply about video analysis, but don't care at all about how the tool was made.

Here's a list of the main features of the tool:

• Defining as many video scenes as you wish in the video file you are analyzing (I just call them video entries).
• Tagging the video scenes with as many tags as you wish.
• Creating a list of "quick tags" to more easily add the most common tags or codes to a video scene.
• Adding a comment or description to each video scene.
• Adding a transcription to each video scene, along with a transcription tool inspired by the YouTube transcription tool.
• The option to create reports of a video analysis project, including an "Excel ready" report option.
• A file management system that saves all the projects inside a special folder in the computer's document folder.
• The option to manually save (or export) back-ups of a video project (called "source files").
• The option to import source files; this is meant as a way to share the project with another user of the tool. (However, you also have to share the video file separately.)

I'm particularly proud of the transcription tool. Although it still needs some work, I find it very effective way to create transcriptions because the tool directly controls the video as you type. When the tool is activated, only the space bar plays the video and every other key stops the video. There is also an automatic rewinding effect. I also included a 5 second manual rewind option.

There are still a few features I still would like to add to the tool. The one at the top of the list is a search option, mainly for searching among the tags.

All of my testing so far has been on the Macintosh, but I will also begin testing a Windows version of the tool.

I want to publicly thank a few people who made some very helpful suggestions based on demonstrations of earlier prototypes back in July and August: Dr. AnnaMarie Conner, Dr. TJ Kopcha, and Dr. Mardi Schmeichel. Dr. Conner is on the faculty in the Department of Mathematics and Science Education, Dr. Kopcha is fellow member of the Learning, Design, and Technology faculty, and Dr. Schmeichel is on the faculty in the Department of Educational Theory and Practice.

Special thanks to AnnaMarie and Mardi for taking some extra time to show me the qualitative analysis tools they are using for video. Mardi uses Dedoose and AnnaMarie uses Transana. AnnaMarie's research involves very complex and expansive use of video.

One of the most beneficial things about seeing a tool like Transana, especially within the context of a sophisticated video-based research program, is that it reinforces and clarifies my initial thoughts that my tool is not meant in any way to compete with them. My video analysis tool is meant for small scale, niche applications, only some of which will be research.

Finally, special thanks also go to Daisyane Barreto, a doctoral student in our department who has been testing an earlier prototype of my tool for the past month or so in the analysis of video data she has collected for her dissertation research. She reports that the tool is working well for her and I made some modifications to the current prototype based on my conversations with her.

Lloyd's Video Analysis Tool, Part 2: Some Video Basics

In this post I'll explore a few of the basics of bringing video into a LiveCode project. Here is screen shot of the stack we'll build:

 LiveCode file

[ Get the free LiveCode Community version. ]

 

You'll obviously need your own movie to use in this project.

The first step couldn't be easier. Just drag a player object onto a card:

The player object's name defaults to "Player," but feel free to rename this as you wish. (But, note that we will be referring to the player object's name in the scripting below, so decide on the name now.) I'll leave it named as "Player." A good next step is to explore the properties of the player object by browsing the various pages of the object's inspector window.

Source video files can either be stored on your computer, or you can enter the URL of the source video. There are some limitations on what video file types can be used. According to the LiveCode manual, video is limited to QuickTime, AVI, or MPEG file types. So, unfortunately and much to my disappointment, flash video is not a supported format (and hence, one cannot use YouTube videos.)

For many projects, this is all you need to know! The player object will now play your video and it includes all of the expected video options, such as play, pause, step forward and backward, audio control, and user control of the playhead.

Note: If you choose to resize your video, be sure to check the box beside "lock size and position" inside the size and position properties page. Otherwise, it will appear full size the next time you open the file.

Video-Related Scripting

To create a more sophisticated video application, such as the video analysis tool I have in mind, we need to explore how to script various video functions. Let's explore just a few of the most basic here. A good place to start is scripting our own play and stop buttons. The scripts for each button are very simple:

on mouseUp
   start player "Player"
end mouseUp

on mouseUp
   stop player "Player"
end mouseUp

In my earliest Video Analysis Tool prototype, I've already included the option to move the video playhead forward or back by one second. Let's explore how to do that as our next script. Instead of one second, let's use an increment of 10 seconds in order to really notice the playhead skipping ahead or back.

To do this, we first have to note where the playhead is currently in the video. Then, we'll just add or subtract 10 seconds worth of video and jump to that new spot. Let's say we stopped the video one minute and 15 seconds into the video. LiveCode does not "see" the video in seconds or minutes. Instead, it will play a particular video in a certain number of intervals per second. This interval will vary from video to video. Fortunately, we can use the timeScale property to learn what this interval is. Let's open the Message box (an option under "Tools") and type in this script:

   put the timescale of player "Player"

After you press Return, a number will appear in the message box. For the video I'm using, the number is 90,000. Yours will most likely be different. So, this means that for my video, the time scale of my video is 90,000 intervals per second. (An amazingly large number, in my opinion, and I freely admit I'm not sure why it is not something more standard like 30 or 24. I'm sure I'll learn about this eventually.) Let's use this information to script out a button titled "+10 seconds" that will move the playhead forward 10 seconds:

on mouseUp
   put the timeScale of player "Player" into ts
   put the currentTime of player "Player" into t
   put t+(ts*10) into t
   set the currentTime of player "Player" to t
end mouseUp

I'm using two local variables here: ts (short for timeScale) and t (short for time).

The first line puts the timeScale property of the movie into ts. In my case, it will be 90,000. So, each second will last for 90,000 intervals. The second line notes what is the current position of the playhead in the video using the "currentTime" property and puts that value into t. Line 3 does a little bit of arithmetic. First, it multiplies ts by 10, so that we will have an interval of 10 seconds. Next, it adds that interval to t. Finally, we set the currentTime of the player to t, which of course is 10 seconds ahead.

To create a button that will skip backwards 10 seconds, let's start by copying and pasting the "+10 seconds" button and title it "-10 seconds," and then change the plus sign in line 3 to a minus sign:

   put t-(ts*10) into t

This is a good start to learning how to control video with LiveCode scripts. Don't worry, much more is to come.

If you are ready to learn more about working with video in LiveCode, here is a good LiveCode tutorial to check out. I found it very helpful to begin to learn how to script video options and techniques for me, even though I didn't actually built the project shown in the tutorial. Basically, it helped push me in the right direction.

Lloyd's Video Analysis Tool, Part 1

One of my favorite sayings these days when I talk about teaching and technology is "video is the new PowerPoint." That is, the ability to create and use video for teaching is about as easy as it was to first start using PowerPoint when it became available back in 1990. In fact, given how long PowerPoint has been around, it's hard to remember that it too had a learning curve like any other software tool. Similarly, the ability to create, edit, and -- most important -- distribute video has become very routine for many teachers. I do think that the ease of distribution, thanks mostly to YouTube, has been the true game changer. After all, we've had the ability to easily create and edit homemade videos for many years, but the tough nut to crack was how to share the video with others.

Video has also become an increasingly popular tool and approach over the past 20 years or so for educational researchers. It's very difficult to observe and notice the rich and complex information within a classroom or other learning environment in real time. Recording the event to review later when there is enough time -- and the opportunity to rewind -- makes a lot of sense. Video has also become an excellent way for teachers to reflect and get feedback on ways to improve their teaching. Video recordings of one's teaching are also becoming a requirement or condition for certification in many states, especially with the advent of edTPA. These teacher certification requirements have been the source of many conversations between myself and teacher education faculty at the University of Georgia. Many of these faculty not only want to learn how to meet the requirements of edTPA, but also how to use video as the means of providing formative feedback to pre-service teachers. These conversations inevitably end with the question "Is there a video analysis tool out there we can use to give our candidates quick and useful feedback on their teaching?"

Fortunately, there is a commercial tool available that is also very affordable. The product is called VideoWurks and it is produced by a company named Instructive Insight. The tool was originally created at the University of Georgia under the leadership of Dr. Art Recesso. I highly recommend taking a look at this tool. I think many teacher educators will find it meets their needs quite well. I also just learned from the Chronicle of Higher Education's Profhacker blog of a new online tool called VidBolt that allows you to annotate videos on the fly with some very cool community features.

But, I have found few other video analysis tools for educational purposes available (my google search did find some for analyzing sports-related activities, such as baseball and golf swing analyzers). So, I have begun to create my own video analysis tool with LiveCode. Before starting this project, I had only explored a minimal amount of LiveCode's ability to work with video. So, I think this is a perfect project for learning more.

I have invested about seven hours in the prototype so far, with -- believe it or not -- three of these devoted to graphic design and interface design. (Despite what the design literature says and my own experience, it always surprises me how much time is devoted to user design issues.) Here is a YouTube demonstration of the current prototype:

I'm sure you are thinking, "Man, this prototype has a long way to go!" Well yes, yes it does! You might also doubt that I've spent three hours on its graphic/interface design. So, for comparison purposes,  here is a screen shot of the very first version of this prototype:

See what I mean?

I'm particularly interested in designing this tool to be very simple to use, to the point of using technologies or strategies that might be considered out-of-date. For example, I have this idea that it would be great to have the output of the video analysis be a simple text file that could be easily shared between candidate and professor, something each could even send to the other within the body of an email. (I don't know about you, but I have found myself organizing and archiving my professional "life" with email, particularly in my ability to search for past emails of important events and activities.) If you've read any of my other posts, you know I'm also very fond of off-loading difficult tasks to other applications whenever possible, such as Excel. So, my design here is again based on creating a comma-delimited text field with all of the time code, tags, and comments for each of the video log entries for each sharing and importing within tools like Excel.

I hope this post gave you a good overview of the project at its earliest point. I'm deliberately not giving any attention to LiveCode here, but instead I will be writing many more posts, each with a focus on some interesting LiveCode programming detail, all in the spirit of helping others begin their own video projects.

Postscript: People have asked me to explain a bit about the video I used in my prototype. This video is a short "mash-up" of video snippets from my MOOC "Statistics in Education for Mere Mortals" offered by Canvas.net. The current course section is about to end, but I plan to offer it again with a starting date tentatively set for July 7, 2014. And, you can access all of the course videos on YouTube - here is a link to the playlist (the mash-up is the first in the list).