Movie Maker - My Personal Odyssey in 7464!

Reflection for Movie Maker Project
At the beginning of the Movie Maker project, I was confident that this new technology would be relatively easy to learn. In fact, after attending Dr. Baylen’s meeting on this project, it seemed that this was one technology that I could easily master. I was wrong! A presentation that lasted a little over four minutes took almost two weeks to complete.
My initial project called for students to respond to their literature circles by videotaping themselves and adding information from the novel though pictures and music. After experimenting with my camcorder, it became apparent that taping the students would not be a plausible situation at this time because the Sony camera used to tape the students saves the videos as IFO and VOB files. This might not seem like a problem, but I had to download the software to convert the IFO and VOB files to WMV files. This sounds easy, but a ten minute video takes about two hours and forty-five minutes to convert. Which means if the students taped their responses, it would take many hours to convert the video files before I could even begin using Movie Maker.
The project then evolved into a demonstration of how the students could use Movie Maker as a means of creating the historical background information they research for the literature they read. In this, creativity was needed. First, all of the video clips, photos and music had to be copyright free. This was a good learning experience because I learned that there are free tools and information available to both students and educators; they just need the tools to find them. Once all of the information was collected for the final product, the difficult part began. While Movie maker is user friendly because it uses the “click and drag” style of organizing the information in the storyline, timing the music and narration to match the videos and pictures was quite a task. If I shifted a visual, then my sounds messed up. Editing a music clip messed up the visual clips. In fact, after one editing sessions, none of my sounds worked, so I had to put everything back to its original station. At that point, everything in the project was interrelated. This is was the most difficult part.
The finished project may not have a truly professional look because I did struggle with blending the sounds and narration into a smooth format, but the lesson learned is greater than the project to me. I am glad I finished, but I am more proud that within this one project I have learned how to download music and video files, and use them in Movie Maker (something I can use to spice up presentations and notes). I also discovered sites that provide copyright free sources, which I will share with my colleagues and students. Finally, I have learned how to use a tool that has been on my computer for years, but just seemed too intimidating, which is Window Movie Maker. It was a hard journey, but worth it.