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For my digital project I elected to explain the use of the verbs lay and lie. I intentionally decided to work alone so that I would be forced to work with the movie maker software. I had been part of group movie maker projects before, but spent most of the time watching someone else actually arranged the material. I felt I had a decent grasp on the process, much to my dismay this was not the case.
I wanted to create a movie that I would potentially use in my classroom. Thinking to start simple, I decided to create a grammar lesson. The problem with this is most of the information becomes technical and it is really hard to supplement that with images that will stick out in the minds of the students, in other words it was hard not to be boring.
The movie maker software itself was another issue. There is a big difference between watching someone else and doing it yourself. I consider this process a great lesson in trial and error. Try something and if that doesn’t work figure out something else. The first problem I had was converting the video from youtube into a format movie maker would import. The first Zamzar request did not work, and it took three tries to get it right. I googled movie maker tutorial and found a wonderful site that offered a video with instructions. It is amazing what the right three little letters can do.
I was especially apprehensive about using a voice over. After working with audacity (which is great), I realized right at the end that movie maker has a microphone capacity built right in. The biggest problem with the voice narration was getting the same volume level throughout. After the fact, I realized that was what the graph in the program was for. Arranging the information on the storyline was quite tedious, but I found myself so engrossed in the process that I lost track of the time. I intentionally used as many different kinds of technologies as I could ( pictures, video, music, voice) in order to experiment with all the capabilities of movie maker, this was good and bad. Good – because I had to figure out how to make all of them work, bad because I had to figure out how to make all of them all work.
While at times I was extremely frustrated, I am glad I forced myself to go it alone. The only way you really get competent with technology is to jump right in and work it out. I am not totally pleased with my finished project, but I learned so much about the process that it was well worth the anxiety. I know it will get easier each time I use this technology. I believe this is a format I would use often in the classroom. I just need to keep using it so I won’t lose it.
