November 1, 2015

Making an iMovie:  Frustrating but Rewarding

Wow, what an experience!  At first, I toyed with a more personal subject but thought I should create an educational movie so I wanted to create an iMovie on the book, 10 Things Every Child with Autism Wishes You Knew as it is a simple yet powerful book that I wish every teacher would read.  I found some good video clips that I could use and even a good song.  I made the mistake of googling the title and saw so many iMovies about the book that I decided against it as a project.  Back to the more motivating topic of my mother and her best friend.

I wanted to create a tribute to my mother's best friend for my iMovie assignment and I accomplished my goal after many hours, several tears, and much frustration.  The iMovie program is pretty user friendly and I was able to navigate it fairly well (with the help of a tutorial that Barb M found) and once I figured out the necessary foundational skills I needed.  My frustration stemmed from my lack of knowledge about using iTunes and iPhoto. I've never used iTunes and while it should be easy, it took me way too long to buy the song I wanted. I was very frustrated with myself and the process.  Next, I had trouble with iPhotos as I couldn't get all my photos to download and it took me way too long to figure out how to solve this problem.  By this point, I was very frustrated!  This is an example of how screen casts or tutorials would really help us navigate the world of tech.  I looked up how to do all these steps but the directions were not always helpful and it seems like a waste of time when it would be easy for a more knowledgeable person to gather better tutorials for us.  

In addition,  I needed to dig up old photos that I had stashed away in two bins.  I don't usually look at them as they trigger some difficult emotions from my divorce.  Needless to say, I was in tears as I looked through the photos to find some for the movie.
Once I got through these issues then I was able to begin the iMovie.  I took pictures of my photos as I didn't even think about using a scanner.  Only after I had finished my movie, someone mentioned using a scanner and I felt stupid for not thinking of it.  This is a good example of not having those foundational skills that are necessary for these projects.  It would have been so nice to have a tip sheet that mentioned using a scanner for old photos.

In the end, I am very pleased with my movie and my mother and best friend love it.  It brought them to tears!  It was quite a frustrating experience for me but well worth it on a personal level.  I'm planning on making another one for my mother and brothers as a Christmas present.

I'm not sure how I would use iMovie with my students as they are young and come to me for remediation and the iMovie process is lengthy and time consuming.  They are more tech savvy so maybe it would be much easier for them to use!  I liked how Barb M used the iMovie with student work and if I was a classroom teacher, I would use it to make iMovies of student projects.

Here's my iMovie if you'd like to view it.