Visual Effects and Media Players for Students with Different Abilities
by Gerry Kennedy
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The Coolest Windows and MAC OS Media Visuals For Your Music Experience
(Source: Makeuseof newsletter
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/coolest-windows-media-visuals-music-experience/)
We have undoubtedly used Windows Media Player on our MS Windows computers for many years. Often we have most likely also used the exciting visual effects with students who require stimulation or to gain their attention.
The MakeUseOf Team have found an invaluable resource for downloading Windows Media visuals that react to the music within Windows Media Player.
They look a little something like the image to the right.
Over the years, I have gainfully employed these effects to elicit appropriate responses from students who are vision impaired and used successfully with students who have physical needs who use a switch or alternate input device. Whilst the students are listening to their favourite or preferred music (for fun, leisure, visual stimulation, relaxation or music appreciation) they watch these often mesmerising and entertaining visual effects.
Educators, therapists and parents can observe their visual attention, eye gaze response, tracking and gauge and monitor changes or improvements in head control. Other behaviours that may prove to be difficult or impossible to promote using other means are available using this simple and effective technique.
Students will often engage and respond quite favourably, as they are engrossed in the synchronicity of the music and the visual output on the screen. Younger students will watch and actively respond and enjoy this interplay.
There is no need to purchase expensive software and the students can simply listen to MP3 tracks or music soundtracks created by themselves (in software such as Sibelius 6, Acid Music Studio 7, Super Dooper Music Looper or edited in the free cross-platform music editing software Audacity – http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/.
You can visit a number of different sites provided Microsoft here. When you arrive you will see a list of Windows Media visuals to add to your collection. It looks like this:
Everything to download is free. The first one on the list that says featured visualization (WhiteCap) is a PC or Mac OS visualization application (which is only a trial). The rest seem to be free to download and use at home or at school.
It is very simple to use them – locate the download link next to the visualization you would like to have. This is what will play in the background of your Windows Media Player Console while a music file plays. This will also play if you do not have a video codec installed for a video file. In that instance, it plays as a placeholder.
After downloading and installing the visualization you can activate it from within any version of Windows Media Player by clicking the arrow next to now playing like so:
Then choose visualizations and then continue on to choose a specific visualization as you can see in the image above. As you install more Windows Media visuals they will appear in this list.
Some of the ones available for free download are:
1. Ice and Snow (Download Link)
2. Terminator III (Download Link)
3. Trilogy 1 (Download Link)
There are obviously other media players that people use on their desktops or laptops so here are some other links for visuals as well. On iTunes the arrangement and option is pretty much the same – you can download the one (seen above) called Circle that looks quite stunning. It can be downloaded from here.
There is another one for iTunes called Snow from the same company as the one above (WOW Labs) that can be obtained from here.
Another program that I’ve found to be invaluable is WinAmp.
WinAmp V5.57 offers free:
- Skins
- Plug-ins
- Virtualisations
- And other online services.
It can play a number of different file formats and is a great alternative or backup to Windows Media Player. There are times where certain file types will not play (usually as a particular Codec is missing or not installed). The visualisations offered for WinAmp are also stunning and very appropriate for students of all ages and abilities.
Another excellent Media Player is Songbird: http://www.getsongbird.com/. It is ideal for older and more capable users. Students can control their music, their videos and services they subscribe to as well as organize, search, sort and rate their favourite tracks and tunes. The onboard DJ serves up Flickr pictures, YouTube videos and Last.fm favourites for the current artist.
Students can also sync their handheld devices and take their music with them. Songbird supports the latest generation of new phones.
The other media player that I have found invaluable on the MAC OS platform as well as on Linux/Ubuntu/Red Hat and MS Windows computers is VLC Media Player – http://www.videolan.org/vlc/.
This is a cross-platform open-source multimedia framework, player and server. VLC Media Player V1.05 is a highly portable multimedia player and multimedia framework capable of reading most audio and video formats (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, DivX, MPEG-1, mp3, Ogg Vorbis, AAC formats etc.) as well as playing tracks and media from DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs and various streaming protocols. It is extremely flexible and versatile. A portable version is available from http://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/vlc_portable.
Note: There is a portable version of Audacity that can be run from a USB drive (e.g. EduApps) as well as from http://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/audacity_portable. CoolPlayer+ Portable is very appropriate for older students – http://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/coolplayerp_portable whilst SMPlayer Portable is a fully featured video player http://portableapps.com/node/18796.
Gerry Kennedy IT Consultancy 19 February 2010 E: specmelb@bigpond.net.au M: 0411 569 840 P: 03 9894 4826