

Tablo: A new tool for teachers to create and share lessons - boazsender
http://teachontablo.com

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yequalsx
I've been creating videos for my mathematics students for a long time. I've
used Camtasia and Captivate. The problem is that I exported all these videos
to Flash and didn't worry about the dimensions of the videos.

Now it appears that Flash is dying. I'm now using Youtube. Youtube will make
sure that its videos will be playable on every device. My hesitation in using
your site is what happens if the site gets shutdown? Do I lose the videos?
Will they be in a format that can be exported to another service? Is there a
self hosting option? I couldn't tell from the main page and didn't sign up for
an account.

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nicklovescode
Export to video will be released soon.

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ivan_ah
Very cool.

Feature idea: The Stanford ML class videos ( <http://www.ml-
class.org/course/video/preview_list> ) had a really cool feature -- superspeed
viewing, which allows you to watch the video lesson at 1.2x or 1.5x speed.
This is great if you want to quickly skim through the content.

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jimrandomh
I second this. Video time dilation is a very important and underused feature.
Students can make it work themselves if they can download the videos to play
in VLC player, but it'd be better if it was built in. I had a hard time
staying engaged with Khan Academy at 1x - he goes too slowly for me - but 1.8x
was perfect. High speeds are also good for review and for checking over videos
after they're made. Depending on the speaker, the student and the subject, the
ideal speed can be anywhere from 0.5x-2.5x, so allowing continuous adjustment
is important.

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drostie
Same here. One of the core reasons that I still download the Daily Show with
BitTorrent, even though the episodes are freely available on the Daily Show's
web site, is that I've gotten used to getting Jon Stewart's jokes at 1.25x
speed, and the web site doesn't let me speed it up.

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dylanpyle
Congrats Nick and David, I'm thoroughly amazed by how much progress you guys
have made. For those who didn't realize, this is the Thiel-funded team behind
OPEN (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2582803>), who have done a huge
amount of work since their initial splash page launched on HN.

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hartleybrody
Looks great. One comment on your marketing copy:

"Students can watch Tablo lessons at home. No need to lecture in the
classroom."

I'm not a teacher, but I imagine some portion of them would be offended by the
"no need to lecture" bit. I know exactly what you mean, having watched the
Khan Academy TED talk, but it might not come off the way you meant it to.

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nicklovescode
You're right. Do you have any other suggestions?

Unilateral information exchange doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

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jimrandomh
Teachers don't want to hear that their classroom teaching time is or could be
made unnecessary. Instead, emphasize good things they can do with classroom
time that's freed up: More time for discussion, activities, and individual
attention.

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yarone
Hi guys, Congrats!

I co-founded Academy123 (2003). We licensed our product to AOL and we were
acquired by Discovery Education (2006).

We did the very same thing: an online education platform for the rapid
development and delivery of multimedia content.

In about 18 months, we enabled hundreds of math teachers to work from home and
record 50,000 mini-videos (2-3 minutes in length) aligned with the most
commonly-used textbooks in the U.S.

See demo content and screenshots, here: [http://home.nutshellmath.com/en-
us/applications_homework_hel...](http://home.nutshellmath.com/en-
us/applications_homework_help.htm)

I've got a lot of ideas in the space - would love to chat if you're
interested.

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Johnyma22
Lessons are defined as one object. Lessons are often bite size bits of
customized content to meet the needs of your audience. These are not really
lessons, they are preached pieces of content with a static audience in mind..

There are various video creating, editing and sharing websites already
available for teachers. Most content of much value ends up on youtube
exclusively.

Disclaimer: I work in this field (tech in edu)

Wish them the best though :) Integrate Etherpad for more real time collabo ;)
Would be great to have a time slider running along side the video to give more
context / detail =)

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malkia
Tablo is the bulgarian word for panel, board or plate, desk

[http://search.dir.bg/search.php?textfield=%F2%E0%E1%EB%EE+&#...</a>

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aymeric
It also has the same pronunciation as 'tableau' in French which means
blackboard.

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lowglow
The audio quality on the video could be better. I'd also lazy load the video
after all the other assets have loaded. Just give it an image of the video
before it loads.

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nicklovescode
We're working on finding an appropriate level of compression for the audio.

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54mf
Before even digging in to the site, love the name.

Looks like a fantastic idea, would love to see how educators take advantage of
it. A word of advice: I have FlashBlock on, and I had no idea how to use the
interactive lesson. Plus, a giant Flash element appeared at the bottom of the
page. Might want to add some kind of info for users without Flash so they
understand what they need to use the site.

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nicklovescode
Good idea. Until HTML5 Device steps up it's game, Flash is the only way to
record audio, leading to some very strange bugs and that annoying dialog box.

Nick, Cofounder

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boazsender
[http://www.webrtc.org/blog/webrtcnowavailableinthechromedevc...](http://www.webrtc.org/blog/webrtcnowavailableinthechromedevchannel)

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baltcode
I actually had trouble watching the terminal velocity video on the front page.
On an OSX 10.7.2. The video won't start. Could be something on the video
though.

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docgnome
It's also loud as hell. Bad idea to post a video with out a way to adjust the
volume. Nearly blew my head off.

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sycren
I'm wondering why they didn't try and buy tablo.com?

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jeffdechambeau
This is an outstanding product. I can easily see it letting non-technical
teachers have their own Kahn Academy.

Any plans to let teachers share or sell lessons/lectures with one another?

I experienced some bugginess submitting forms with the unit name clearing my
entry.

Is it possible to embed videos on external sites?

Only thing I dislike is how dull and drab the sample lesson is. I'd actually
use it to teach (or re-teach) some concept that the audience is likely to
remember.

Fantastic job.

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nicklovescode
We're working on both public(Youtube-esque) and embeddable(for blogs) lessons.
Should be pushed later this week.

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sumukh1
What's the best way to find out when you do that? Twitter?

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dmerfield
Follow Tablo on Twitter here:

<http://twitter.com/teachontablo>

