I’ve stumbled upon CoverItLive on a number of occasions but I failed to see it’s true potential until recently. On Monday 20th September I used it to showcase some of the great things that students were involved in on our first Alternative Curriculum Day of the year (normal subject lessons are replaced with topics that incorporate themes). I’d embed it here but I made an irreversible mistake I’m afraid.
Essentially, CoverItLive allows you to send instant messages, photos, videos and 30 second interviews to the cloud and then directly into the application. The key part is that you can embed it into your school website (easier than you think). Its free iphone app makes it incredibly flexible. For example, you are able to wander around your school and showcase what’s going on all from your phone. Consequently, it’s potential is massive!!! (Thats 3 exclamation marks)
On this first occasion it acted as a pilot in order to find out the limitations of the application and to figure out ways in which to send updates beyond the terrible phone signal that I have for the area of the school site. Images often took around 30 seconds to upload but messages took seconds. The poor signal prevented me from using video or interviews but I intend to install a wireless router in order to allow me to upload via the Internet. My tests at home showed that short videos take seconds to upload and appear within the application almost instantaneously.
The example below is from today’s ‘Immersion Day’. The pilot highlighted the need to enable more of our teachers to be able to use it. Consequently, I asked a few colleagues to download the free iphone app and showed others how to use the desktop version. An additional bonus was the fact that they use a different mobile telecoms provider to me and have access to a 3G signal. This allowed the inclusion of video footage. Check out the day below:
(As the event has now finished when loaded – Click on additional entries at the top to view from the beginning)
Not only are you able to highlight the great practice that is going on for teachers, it also shows that you value the learning that students are taking part in. Even further, you are able to highlight this to parents and the local community as its happening. Once your event is over you can close it’s live feed and it’s then saved as closed event – still allowing you to access what happened, as it happened.
After further discussions, I intend to use this for every ‘AC Day’ and other whole school events like our ‘Immersion Days’ – even school trips.
Bloody fantastic!
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