The 2013-14 academic year flew by and EdTechTurista is way out of date. Sorry about that!  It’s time to showcase a few projects. But before I begin…

iPhone’s iMovie App

One of my favorite “job-related” discoveries this year was the iMovie app for iPhone.  I used my iPhone and the iMovie app to shoot, edit, and post these mini-videos to our school’s Vimeo account.  Many of the videos were later posted on our Middle School’s blog.  Who knew how convenient that could be?

Since I support grades 5 – 8, I am usually in several places at once.  Last year, it was confusing and time consuming to sort through the images and video clips on my camera roll to add to projects on my Mac.  I sometimes didn’t get around to editing a project for days, and when I did I had often forgotten which images and clips pertained to which project.

The iMovie app allowed me to start several projects on the fly.  When I was in different grade level classrooms, I could take pictures or record video spontaneously and immediately bring them into an iMovie project timeline from my camera roll.  The fact that the images and clips were brought in sequentially made it easier to edit later.

I liked the fact the using my phone was less intrusive.  Students frequently use their phones in class for projects.  As long as I told students what I was doing, where the video would be posted, and let them see pictures or clips, most became comfortable with the process. Those who were not comfortable, I respected and stayed away.

Granted, there are negatives.  The microphone has a limited range. Editing drains the battery.  Using the editing tools in the small iPhone display screen is hard on the eyes and requires a special touch.

The editing tools are basic. Music and audio options are limited. No backgrounds are available which make it necessary to overlay titles on images.  Without the ability to import my own audio, I usually opted for silence.

At any rate, this year had some great projects and I loved working alongside students in the classroom.  Teachers appreciated seeing highlights of the projects they worked so hard to implement.    It felt like students and teachers could be themselves in these videos and I was happy to make it happen.