A Beginner’s Guide to Video Editing in iMovie ‘09
Posted by Seth Battis in Educational Technology, How To on February 6, 2010
In preparation for a class that I’ll be visiting on Monday morning, and because I have found myself explaining these things a bunch of times this year, I have put together a quick series of screencasts that give an introduction to basic video editing in iMovie. I do this not because I think that my students can learn to work in iMovie by following me stuttering and mumbling through a screencast, but because having a visual guide to refer back to after class is helpful.
A quick link to this (and anything else I may have to say about iMovie ‘09) is: http://battis.net/link/imovie09
You may also be interested in more specific tutorials, and Apple has a bunch posted online. (And you can search for more on YouTube).
The basic sequence of these videos is (and here I’ll link directly to the original Screencast-O-Matic videos, which are slightly higher quality than the YouTube playlist above):
- 5 Minute Introduction to iMovie ‘09 – This is a lightning fast orientation to very basic video editing in iMovie ‘09.
- Using Still Images in iMovie ‘09 – Importing and editing still images instead of video clips in iMovie ‘09.
- Adding a Video Transition in iMovie ‘09 – How to add transitions between video clips to make our project look more professional.
- Adding Titles to a Video in iMovie ‘09 – How to add explanatory text (a.k.a. titles) to a video in iMovie ‘09.
- Adding Audio Track(s) to a Video in iMovie ‘09 – How to add music, effect and voiceover soundtracks to a video in iMovie ‘09.
- Sharing Your iMovie ‘09 Masterpiece with Other People – A brief rant about how to export your iMovie ‘09 project as a video file that other people can watch.
2010-02-06: The Week in Tweets
Posted by Seth Battis in Status Updates on February 6, 2010
- has recovered enough from his "shabbaton" to make 360 false dichotomous choices. Mrs. Reifsnyder would be proud. #
- this is not evidence of professionally written software. http://www2.smarttech.com/kbdoc/87713 #smartboardsareaggravatinglydumb #smart #
- really finds it confidence-inspiring when a software updater doesn't get the URL for the new version right. #smartboardsareaggravatinglydumb #
- @sperloff it's all about the excitement and engagement… not so much the content or, y'know, _working_. in reply to sperloff #
- @academicdave although being discerning and critical users of content is not exactly a side issue. in reply to academicdave #
Who are you now?
Posted by Seth Battis in Teaching on February 4, 2010
A couple days ago, iTunes roused itself out of its torpor and suddenly downloaded a podcast episode from Merlin Mann at 43 Folders, that he posted several months ago. Maybe iTunes knows more about my head than I do, because Merlin caught me right where I am right now, thinking about how we learn and how we do…
Take a minute (well, more like 45 minutes) and at least listen to the podcast, if you don’t actually watch the video. It’s worth it. It’s thought-provoking. And it addresses some real issues in professional development and in teaching and learning.
Merlin’s core idea, throughout, is that the situation of the knowledge worker is to be constantly figuring out not just how to do their job, but what role they’re taking on to do that job — “who am I today?” And he takes on the idea that we’re all advanced beginners, suggesting that, in fact, expertise is real and attainable and hard to quantify. And that the difference between an expert and a master is the ability to articulate your expertise to learners.
There are so many ways that this is both scary and inspirational from a teaching and learning perspective, both in the classroom and working with my colleagues on professional development. So many, in fact, that I’m going to need to come back to this in a few days to really unpack what I’m thinking.
But go watch the video.
This looks promising…
Posted by Seth Battis in Teaching on February 1, 2010
The second semester started a few weeks ago here at the school where I teach. One of the real frustrations for me has been watching the enrollment in my second semester classes bottom out — conversations with students suggest that they are making this decision based largely on graduation requirements (they don’t need my courses to graduate). I had one particularly poignant conversation with a student this afternoon who asked, “why would someone sign up for the second semester? What do they get out of it? Are they just taking the class because they like it?”
In any event, sad though this is at a macro level, it has provided me with an opportunity to do what I enjoy most: build a project with my students. The few students remaining in my computer animation class and I are going to write, produce and animate a short film this spring. This is a project with more than a few steps, and no small amount of complexity. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the students can do this, and I’m expecting to have to step in to pull my own weight in this project as well. And I’m kind of looking forward to that. (I’m certainly teaching this class because I like it!)
In doing this, I started to map out the steps of the project in a variety of different tools. I experimented with a bunch of online options (BaseCamp, 5pm, LiquidPlanner, Tom’s Planner) and have ended up with a tool that Adam Seldow introduced me to back when we were working on EdTags: dotProject. It’s a quirky little open source project planner, that has a fairly extensive collection of community-produced add-ons. It runs on a standard PHP/MySQL installation. It lets me map out milestones, tasks (with dependencies on other tasks), and have my students log their work (and progress) in the tool.
…and it generates Gantt charts of the project. Which turned out, to my surprise, to be a shockingly effective visualization for my students this afternoon. They haven’t exactly been coming out swinging — they’ve only been working on this project in class, while I’m there to crack the whip. But when they saw a) the complexity of the project and b) that their progress bars were behind where today’s date line was on the chart and c) that now our projected date of completion is two weeks after our last class. And they got religion.
As I worked with dotProject some more this afternoon, I’m beginning to think that the logging feature are going to provide me with some really spectacular qualitative data for assessing these students, as well as allowing them to visualize their progress in an immediate and understandable way. I’m totally excited about this: it’s authentic learning, with assessment, with intrinsic motivation! Woo hoo!
Let’s hope that this high lasts….
2010-01-30: The Week in Tweets
Posted by Seth Battis in Status Updates on January 30, 2010
- thanks whoever suggested just using a filter that searches for "unsubscribe" to catch all listservs: simple, elegant, 95% effective. #
- @nkogan actually, it would be keen if I could get Twitter Tools not to tweet password-protected posts… :) in reply to nkogan #
- is loving watching a colleague grab @WordPress with both fists and really learn how it works… literally overnight. #teachingthewaywelearn #
- is effing tired of effing listening to effing teachers effing complain about having to — <gasp> — work with students and families. #
- isn't quite sure what happened this week, but now he's mad busy. #
- realizes that feeling physical pain on meeting the (technologically/mathematically/literally) illiterate undermines his ability to help them #
- just looked at this week's twitter feed in the sidebar of his blog and noticed a real resurgence of not suffering fools gladly. #iamwhatiam #
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