Putting It All Together

I've seen Smart boards, or interactive white boards in the classroom for years, but up until this year I had never used one before, not to mention even touched one.  This year in my M.A.T. program I finally got to touch a Smart Board, and more...  My first experience was touching my name imprinted on a pink balloon on the white board.  It was as an attendance tracking activity - when you touched the balloon, it popped on screen.  I was amazed.  Not so much for the on screen balloon "popping", but amazed at how in the world the teacher did it.  How did she get the balloons with our names on them on the white board to go "pop"?  I couldn't imagine the complicated algorithms she had to learn to achieve this feat.

Well after a week or so immersed in the software and use of interactive white boards, I'm realizing that they are really not that difficult to work with and at they same time very difficult to work with.  They are so much easier to use than I had previously thought.  And they are so much harder to use in a much different way than I imagined.  

My assignment to "plan, implement, video record, & edit a lesson in which an interactive whiteboard is used" has allowed me to go from touching the board to manipulating, writing and editing a SMART Notebook lesson.  First I became familiar with the software for the board, designed a lesson, and then had the opportunity to teach the lesson using the IWB to my peers.  I'd love to say this went smoothly, but of course technology never plays by your rules, and the experience was trying and exhausting.  

Not only was the interactive white board a challenge to manipulate, but video recording the lesson and my peer's lessons was a giant hurdle to climb with lots of starts and stops.  I recorded my lesson on an iPad using the iMovie app.  Some of my peers used a video camera, others recorded using Movie Maker on their PC.  Even with the best intentions we had to re-shoot some of our presentations.  Having never used iMovie and having had limited experience with an iPad, I failed to record a peer's lesson.  This set our group back considerably.  I decided I was going to try to learn how to use iMovie and not let this happen again.

I found iMovie hard to work with at first.  Unfortunately I'm usually not intimated enough by technology and have "button mashed" myself, often unbeknownst to me, into deleting major projects!  So I approached the iMovie on the iPad with sweaty palms! (I had no time to retape my lesson.) "Oh, please," I thought, "don't delete your video!'  So my usual method of learning technology, by trial and error was considerably halted.  Every button I pressed, every "pinch" on screen I tried, I worried I would delete my project.  Fortunately I found a class peer who was kind enough, using her Mac Book to copy the video from my iPad to a "stick".  Did I mention that I don't have a Mac Book?  This was another problem.  I'm only familiar with the Apple interface from my iPhone.  So I decided to purchase the iMovie app on my phone and fiddle around with it on a "junk" video using my phone.  This gave me lots of confidence and although not everything I was learning transferred from the iPhone app to the iPad app, I was able to begin using the iMovie app on the iPad with a little more confidence.

And what fun!  Once I got the hang of it, I loved it, adding music, splicing and editing the video, creating fades.  My video was coming together.  And then I read the project directions.  I needed to have a title page, credit page and reference screen.  My iPad app for iMovie didn't have the features to add pages and text screens, (like the app for the computer).  So I decided to make a title page on my PC by taking a picture of it using the iPad camera.  My idea I thought would be to transfer the picture I took of my PC screen of my "title page" and use it in iMovie.  I knew how to do that.  Well it looked pretty bad, like a picture of a PC from a few feet away, all fuzzy and kind of blurry and crooked.  SO as we all know today, if you don't know how to do something you YouTube it.  Turns out there is an app called Extras4iMovie that allows you to pick out videos from their library and anywhere on the internet to use pictures or screens that you can add text, scroll text on, or use as title pages, transitions or concluding screens, etc..  It's really a great little app to use with the iPad iMovie app for $1.99.  That was the only way I found to add a title screen and transition screens (pictures) to iMovie.  It worked really very well and made my whole video look more professional. 

 https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/extras-for-imovie/id386595265?mt=8

Here is a YouTube video explaining Extras4iMovie:

Of course that wasn't the end of my adventure with technology and all kinds of learning.  I had to try to find a way to transfer my project once it was completed from the iPad to my non-Apple PC to my instructor.  The DropBox app I just got yesterday proved handy.  I'm not sure how I would have done without it.  First I had to transfer my video from iMovie to my camera roll.  Then I had to transfer my video from the camera roll to Drop Box.  Then I had to transfer my video from Drop Box to my pictures folder on my PC.  Then I had to download my video from my PC to Google Drive, from which I emailed my video to my instructor.  This took a considerably lot of time each time I transferred my video which was just shy of 15 minutes.  But I did it!  (At least I hope so.)

I definitely don't feel like an expert on any of the technology I used this week, but I went from never even hearing of such apps as Drop Box and Extras4iMovie to actually being able to use these technology tools to make a decent first video.  I'm hoping someday to have some time to use all of these tools just for fun.  I think it's going to be important to continue working with these tools to retain my just learned knowledge of how to effectively use these apps. If only I had the time.......