Today's input was almost on a par with Monday's in terms of frustration levels! We had to convert our movie clips into a different format in order to edit them using Window's Movie Maker. For this, we used a website called zamzar.com which is quite simple to use, as you simply select the files you want to convert, the format you are converting them to and then supply an email address for the website to send you instructions for downloading your new files. Easy.
Or perhaps not... after spending the best part of an hour converting and downloading files, we opened up our new movie clips only to find that most of them were corrupted. Thus resulting in lots of frustration! Although I think movie making would be a very beneficial and engaging activity, the problems arising from our task would make me very apprehensive about doing it in the classroom. It has shown me that you always need to be prepared with a back up plan when using technology and plan well in advance. Although a very useful program, Sharon warned us that at peak times, zamzar.com can take a while to convert your files and may take a few hours to complete - not to be relied upon the day before a lesson anyway!
More information on movie making can be found in the texts that Sharon directed us to today:
Bazalgette, C. (2010) Teaching Media in Primary Schools. London: Sage Publications Ltd.
Solomon, G. & Schrum, L. (2007) Web 2.0 New Tools, New Schools. Washington: ISTE.
Yes movie making is the most intricate and skilled aspect of ICT that most give up and don't do. Instead they capture on video and watch but never do the editing process.
ReplyDeleteDon't give up and learn form the experience. I have written a post on my blog about it.
REgarding writing your posts, they are very good and here are some additional tips:
What I would like you now to do when you are writing a blog post that looks back a a process is to use the following methods:
1. Describe - this is where you tell the readers what you did. A simple description of the task. Why were you doing this task? What was the learning outcome? Where did it fit into CfE?
2. Reflect - this is where you look at what you did and tell us what happened or did not happen. What were the problems? What were the successes?
3. Evaluate - this is where you will reflect on the process from your own personal development and how you could use with children.
In the above you should provide links to websites and have at least ONE reading reference to support your reflections.
I have written a post on my blog related to the above process that might help.