Web 2.0 edu

photo © 2006 Michael Surran | more info (via: Wylio)Over the past few weeks, I have been working with a computer teacher in a 5th and 6th grade elementary. In this district, this is the last place where all students in the school go through a computer class. When students move on to middle and high school, computer classes become an elective. We wanted to take advantage of this and make sure every student in the school has the proper skills to make a video. Our hope is that in the future, teachers may be more willing to do video projects if students have the skills to make the videos.  Often times, teachers want to do a video project, but the time involved in showing students how to make the videos is not easily justified.

We are about half way through the project right now, and it has been interesting. One of the things that really surprised me was how quickly the students picked up Movie Maker. Remember, these are 5th and 6th graders, but they didn’t have any problem at all.

To show them the ropes of Movie Maker, we split the instruction into two class periods, which are 35 minutes long. That means that with about an hours worth of time, the students are ready to start making videos. We are, of course, now shooting film and working through the whole process, but the initial training was only an hour long. I thought it would be helpful to share our lesson plan for these two half hour periods.

Day 1:

• Open Movie Maker
• Timeline VS Storyboard mode
• Import Video
• Play Video
• Zoom Tools
• Cut/Split a clip
• Delete a clip
• CTRL Z/Undo
• Cut Clips by dragging
• Repeat a clip
• Effects/Transitions

Day 2:

• Import video (review)
• Add Title to Movie
• Text, Font, Color, Animation for Title
• Add Credits to movie
• Practice splitting clips
• Put a title on selected clip

That’s pretty much it. These are the basics needed to get started with Movie Maker, or any similar editor. I was quite surprised at how well the students picked it up. Yesterday, the students imported some of their own video and almost all of them started cutting and clipping on their own without any prompting from the teachers. They were playing with the effects and putting a movie together.

My point is that it doesn’t take long to train a student to make a movie (or teachers for that matter, though they may take a little longer than the students). Video is going to be a part of the future of education and we need to make sure that students are at least introduced to this technology at a young age. Then they can use it. They can use all through middle school, high school and college. All students really need is a basic start. After that, they need opportunities to use it. They will undoubtedly surprise you with what they produce.