It was great to begin this first ever SBL in New Zealand in a culturally appropriate way with the visitors being welcomed to the University Marae, to the University and to the country. As so often though my delight in powwhiri was tinged with saddness, of only Māori custom could unbend enough to produce a geniuinely bicultural powhiri one for example in which the speeches were tailored to the presence of 90% of the participants who are not fluent in Te Reo (the Māori language) so shorter and accompanied by brief summary statements in English (like subtitles) so that the 90% could understand and appreciate the ceremony. Such a powhiri if regularly adopted for bicultural occasions, would I suspect take NZ by storm and become the only appropriate way to formally welcome visitors. Instead too often what we have is a mere cultural show - which ends up turning Māori into museum exhibits, rather than partners in a bicultural society.
Labels: culture, nz, sbl, video
¶ 7:57 AM
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Yes, Tim. I was right up the front of the crowd waiting to go through the arch onto the marae, so I heard the two Maori explaining to the SBL president what was going to happen and what his role was in it all, so I had some idea what was happening. There are also some similarities between the function of the powhiri and the function of an Aboriginal Australian message stick, which is carried by visitors into the country of other peoples, so I had some 'hooks' to hang the experience on, but it was still a bit odd not hearing what had happened until after it had happened. I do hope our hosts were right about the ability of the powhiri to improve the standard of our conference presentations!! :-)
By 
Judy Redman, at
July 7, 2008 9:35 PM
Do you have any suggestions?
Thanks!
Labels: narrative, teaching, video
¶ 10:10 AM
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Labels: children, internet, video
¶ 8:26 PM
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- Genesis 22 (Powerpoint)
- Genesis 1 (as a pyramid):
Labels: biblical.studies, gen 1, gen 22, teaching, video
¶ 6:59 AM
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Now he's trying to convince us that this format could be a good way to spread the Bible.He convinced me to spend a while playing with 3GP, if I cut the frame rate to slideshow proportions (just 1fps) and keep the audio low (but not too low) I can fit a whole short Psalm with pictures into less than 400KB. Judge for yourselves if it is worth it (just remember I spent more effort on the technical side than choosing photos - so there are lots of cute kids ;-)
Here is the 3gp version of Psalm 67 at only 368KB, and the WMV Psalm 67 at 1.97MB with much better picture quality to demonstrate what you lose in making it quite that small for a phone. (and a Flash version of Psalm 67 for Maccies at "only" 2.57MB!)
Labels: bible, mobile, psalms, video
¶ 2:27 PM
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Bravo Tim - your are a mobile wizard !!!
By Bob MacDonald, at
May 2, 2008 4:20 PM
Really cool. Welcome to the 21st century.
By David Ker, at
May 6, 2008 8:52 PM
BTW Ker not Kerr.
By David Ker, at
May 6, 2008 8:54 PM
Aaagh, I must NOT rely on my memory, especially not for names!
By Tim, at
May 7, 2008 6:29 AM
If you like it you can now buy the DVD here.
Labels: leadership, video
¶ 3:52 PM
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Tim, this is the wrong place to comment but I don't see an e-mail address. I noticed on my Technorati thingumy that you linked to me, saying something nice-sounding but I couldn't read all of it. I also can't find where you linked to me, so could you let me know where that was? Thanks!
By Phil Sumpter, at
April 13, 2008 7:12 AM
Lack of contact addresses on blogs is a pain, maybe I'll start to put mine up, I get so much spam anyway...
I suspect the post was from February before I went off to strange places (see Teaching OT in faraway places) if so it was to tag you with the book meme: in the post HERE.
By Tim, at
April 13, 2008 1:20 PM
If it looks blurred, blame Flash compression, if it looks jerky I had no tripod (or whatever) and was using full optical (10x) AND digital (3x more giving 30x) zoom!
BTW over the next few weeks posting to this blog will stop, and probably hardly resume till mid-April, so please do subscribe to Teaching OT in faraway places we know we will find the experience interesting, fun and that we will learn a lot - we hope we (Barbara and Sarah will probably share writing the posts and taking the video/photos) can share that with you.
Labels: video
¶ 7:47 AM
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Cathy Gunn (U of A) has posted a video of extracts from Mark Nichols presentation on e-portfolios (see also my post below) so now you can see what I meant, his "A movie or a snapshot?" really does explain why this matters. Unfortunately it was posted to an Apple site, so I can't embed it here (or at least I can't see how to...) sometimes Mac people are just SO proprietary - I wonder when a shareable YouTube pirate version will appear!?
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In the please-pray-for-Myanma video a few news clips, and in the Korean missionaries video some shots of the people being talked about could have enlivened the presentation. If many people watch these then perhaps the use of the medium will get more sophisticated - though hopefully still with the occasional and therefore low(ish) tech approach of these...
Labels: evangelical, video
¶ 1:17 PM
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This undated photograph made available by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem shows an archaeologist next to an opening of one of the ancient beehives found in excavations in Tel Rehov in northern Israel. Archaeologists digging in northern Israel have discovered evidence of a 3,000-year-old beekeeping industry, including remnants of ancient honeycombs, beeswax and what they believe are the oldest intact beehives ever found. (AP Photo / Amihai Mazar, Hebrew University of Jerusalem)Image and text from AP
Labels: archaeology, video
¶ 6:59 AM
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This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
By Lapa, at
October 4, 2007 6:05 AM
Labels: video
¶ 9:52 AM
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My text was Matthew 5:17-48. A long, complex, and difficult passage! Basically I focused on the opening: where Jesus affirms unequivocally that he came to "fulfil" the Law and Prophets, and NOT to abolish them. Noticing how Jesus develops this in a series of examples where what he demands of us is stronger and harder than what Old Testament law requires. He closes the section saying: "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Mat 5:48) It's too long (at 30mins plus question time!) for 5 Minute Bible so I am posting it here:
- Matthew 5:17ff. : How to read the Old Testament (download 14MB)
- Matthew 5:17ff. : How to read the Old Testament (stream as you go)
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PS: I am still waiting for all the visitors to come flocking looking for Contrarians ;-)
Labels: bible, open.access.scholarship, video
¶ 6:35 PM
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PS, to any future students reading this, I don't expect this quality of execution for the assignment, though I dream of getting it and astoundingly often do!
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OpenBible.info offers us lists of places mentioned in the Bible with associated with their locations. Or as OB's first post (kind of the opposite of the "Last Post"?) puts it, answering the question "Why this site?":
What this means now is a series of small files you can plugin to Google Earth (the post "How to Add KMLs to Google Earth" explains how) and double click to zoom to places mentioned in the Bible. So I started with Amos 1, and away I went.... I wonder could I record Google Earth animations of swooping from one tro another of the places in the Oracles against the Nations in chs.1-2, that could be fun and interesting... Meanwhile here's one that pictures the phrase "from Dan to Beersheba" ;-)Simple. It’s weird that no one’s ever collected basic biblical data—such as the locations of all the places in the Bible—into an accessible format.
Wow!
[Incidentally for those with Windows, or who are willing to download VLC the great media player for most OS here's a Windows Media version of the file that gives better quality for small file size ;-) Here's the link to view it on YouTube, or get the code to embed it in your blog.]
Now, having got the "wow" out of the way for a few minutes, here's why it is really important. This data, linking place names with locations has been collected, and made available under a Creative Commons licence. Which means that as long as they attribute the data people can correct it, and reuse it in new ways in new applications... Sean explains it well with lots of detail, so if you can't instantly see why this is significant read the post!
Scholars are inveterate examiners of the standards of dentistry in complimentary equines. So, I'll note that on the OpenBible.info front page their goal is expressed like this, to present: "The location of every identifiable place mentioned in the Bible." Now, inevitable there are many judgement calls in such a list. Is Tell es-Seba`the biblical Beersheba? Or Tell es-Safi Gath? The fact that this data has been presented under a CC licence means that someone can produce a more cautious list, or a more adventurous one, depending on their needs and the use they plan for the data.
Data is used to grow knowledge, and knowledge can be used to develop understanding... BUT if the data is held in proprietary formats it can only be used by some privileged people... So, not merely "Wow!" but also grateful thanks for a fine job begun...
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Video formats
Well, serves me right for being impatient ;-) Mea Culpa, I did put up links to the Who is God? video before I made other formats available.In the past I've used Windows Media (15MB for the HQ version) and Real Media (under 10MB!) both of which give nice small files. However, it seems they are a problem for anyone using Mac or Linux. So, how about Apple's MOV format, looks nice, but at 52MB it's a bit on the hefty side (perhaps its the CODEC, but trying to use Apple's proprietary Sorenson CODEC was going to take more than 3 hours to convert, maybe I'll set it to work over lunch, could give me an excuse for a long lunch break!?); or the equally proprietary Flash format (34MB for the SWF)...
[NB I tried the free Riva FLV encoder, but could not get past the opening screen which did not display correctly, despite downloading from two different sites...]
Seriously, any comments on which formats "work" for you, and the quality/size issue would be great, and does anyone know a non-proprietary way to do this, that users can actually watch?
OK, this should please the iPod fans, here's the mp4 iPod format (just 31MB, and not too bad quality ;-)
Labels: video
¶ 12:04 PM
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Sadly not. I use quick time, which is what my mac loves to export to, then use google video to host and playback. Their flash player is OK on most computers.
There is some quality loss, but less than Youtube. I like the share-ability of both sites, but I guess you have to ask if you want people to be able to embed into their sites.
By 
craig (mars-hill), at
December 20, 2006 12:17 PM
Tim, the video played in Quicktime on the iBook. The .m4v extension means that OS X really wants to copy it into iTunes to play it. Maybe change the extention to .mp4.
(BTW - the G3 based iBook struggled a few times with the video)
I'll pop it onto the iPod later and have a look at it there.
Why don't you start get all the biblioblogger people to compile a list of what they use to publish video online?
By Stephen G, at
December 20, 2006 5:43 PM
Hmm. If Craig's having problems playing it in Quicktime then it may be because you used the H.264 encoding which isn't supported by any version of Quicktime apart from version 7 on.
By Stephen G, at
December 20, 2006 5:47 PM
Can I get this right? Every version above, not only the PC native ones :
Windows Media (15MB for the HQ version)
Flash format (34MB so biggish)
Real Media (under 10MB!) though admittedly this needs a player download
But also:
MOV format, (looks nice, but 52MB big)
m4v iPod format (31MB but otherwise good)
But none of them is reliable on a Mac, unless I either fiddle with the filename - which BTW I've done now guys (and it STILL plays OK on a PC), or use ONLY Apple's proprietary encoding, and not the one that gives smaller files for Quicktime on PC. ...and they still claim the Mac as a user-friendly OS!
I think you've nearly succeeded in making me a Microsoft fan ;-)
By Tim, at
December 21, 2006 3:09 PM
Shouting Stones - seminar for churches
I've been giving myself some short breaks from the serious business of preparing next year's new courses (for the first semester 50% of three new ones) by working on a new short "video" introducing the seminar I offer for churches Shouting Stones: geography and archaeology reveal the Missionary God of the Old Testament. The full thing started life as a weekend camp, was cut down to just a few 50min academic hour sessions, and now I've made part one into a quarter of an hour's video called "Who is God?" (there is also a low bandwidth version).I wonder if I've used too many presentation slides and too few pictures, and also whether I should have adapted the material more as well as compressing or summarising... Do let me know what you think, I'm not really thin skinned! ¶ 5:24 PM
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(Insert imprecatory psalm about Windows Media codecs here)
Wouldn't play on the Mac (OS X 10.3.9) with Microsoft Media Player 9, nor with Quicktime with Flip4Mac installed, nor with the latest version of VLC.
Got sound (sort of), but lots of complaints about video.
Perhaps a different format would be more "open".
More info on Flip2Mac:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/wmcomponents.mspx
By Stephen G, at
December 18, 2006 8:12 PM
I'm with Stephen about the codecs. A superb tool is "Riva FLV Encoder" It will convert almost anything to flash (and almost anything to almost anything) another option would be the open source ffmpeg but you need a fairly high powered linux machine to make that work.
As for the video (which being a windows user I could watch) it is a very good (Web 1.0) presentation. I confess I did drift slightly once or twice. I like to put that kid of thing on while I do other stuff. I suspect that it depends upon your intended market. It would definitely make a good introduction to discussion in a conventional house group.
I have been thinking about how we best re imagine Christian learning in our current (western?) context. I think this kind of thing is a great idea if we could intertwine it with (web 2.0) interactivity.
Thanks for sharing it with is. (also thanks for the pod bible bookmarks, I must talk to you about that some time).
By Graham Doel, at
December 19, 2006 1:45 AM
Really liked the video. Anytime we can glorify the name! dt www.davetilma.com
By dt, at
January 14, 2007 2:46 PM
Thanks, Dave!
By Tim, at
January 15, 2007 6:57 AM
Same for me; no video, but some sound. I'd suggest using Flip4Mac: http://www.flip4mac.com/
Studio version. Very inexpensive and guarantees that everyone will be able to view the content. F4M is the most used piece of software on my Mac.
Looking forward to seeing the video.
By Antonio, at
January 24, 2007 5:52 AM
Nice one people, the consensus is none of the multiple formats in the post above works for every Mac user. So I need to buy Flip-4-Mac then the video will play on Macs. Trouble is I'd have to buy a Mac first to run Flipping-4-M. And people say MS uses too many proprietary formats ;-)
By Tim, at
January 24, 2007 9:14 AM
YouTube and shameless self-promotion ::
I mentioned the Carey video clips on YouTube a while back, but Mike has asked us all to draw attention to them, and Paul has blogged about them, so here's another bit of shameless self promotion the list of video clips is here (well, it is not exactly SELF promotion, do NOT watch the one with me in, just look at the others)!Labels: video
¶ 6:00 AM
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