So far, between the Wiki, Voice Thread, iMovie, and Inspiration my favorite would have to be the latter. Inspiration, unlike all the rest, is intuitive. You just drag things around. Even if you get confused, less than two minutes later you'll figure it out. If not, your neighbor will know what to do. This time-friendliness is priceless in a classroom. Teenagers have far less patience than we do. I could only imagine the chaos that would ensue if iMovie were used. Half the class would be spent on entering subtitles for slides.
In iMovies defense, the program is probably easy once you use it more often. So, as a teacher with technology charging forward everyday, should I force myself to become a proficient user? The answer of course is yes. Students do not respond to a lecture you rehearsed over the weekend nearly as well as an iMovie you created (or VoiceThread for that matter). The Inspiration software is amazing, but I feel I'm going to have to mix it up to keep their attention. After begging and pleading with iMovie for hours, I've learned that iMovie is best left to teacher creation and hopefully student enjoyment.
Adventures with iMovie
14 years ago
Courtney, Even with my previous experience using iMovie, I had a lot to learn about how it "behaves" with still photos versus video clips. In the process of facilitating this assignment, I learned much just by getting hands on with it, listening to you guys, collaborating with the other instructors, and feeling comfortable asking questions, searching the help forums, and so on.
ReplyDeleteWhat I am saying is, it's OK if it gets a little "messy" at times. You might try multimedia production with just one class at a time. You might start with a small, advanced class and experiment with those students. Let them teach *you*! Once you have worked out the kinks and have gained a little confidence, you will find that you now have a collection of student-produced artifacts that you can share with future students as models to inspire their multimedia production. And you don't have to use iMovie. Digital storytelling can be done in many ways. Check out this 50+ Ways wiki site by Alan Levine. And don't forget good, old PowerPoint can make a mean slide show with transitions, effects, and audio (used thoughtfully and effectively, of course)!