Video & Me

There are many web sites and software available to edit, publish and share video – some are readily accessible on your own computer. Mac users have iMovie and PC users have Windows Movie Maker. Both software are easy to use and have editing and publishing features. There are a lot of web sites that allow you to edit, store and share your movies. Most are free with an opportunity to upgrade your features for a price. Sites like Kaltura allow you to upload your video, store it on their site and embed a movie player on your web site or blog but do not provide an editing function. MotionBox, Shwup and JayCut are sites that allow you to edit your video, customize transitions or provide special effects in addition to storage and publishing options. 

I created a video about my granddaughter using Movie Maker and published it with Kaltura. I found Movie Maker to be very user-friendly and easy to use. The software allows you to be really creative by editing clips and being able to apply cool transitions and/or slide effects. Kaltura provides step-by-step instruction for uploading videos and publishing to your web site or blog. You can also send e-mail with a link to your video. I enjoyed the process and look forward to creating and sharing more videos!

What’s Out There?

Wikipedia defines Web 2.0 as “the changing trends in the use of World Wide Web technology and web design that aim to enhance creativity, communications, secure information sharing, collaboration and functionality of the web.” I found a great site that houses links to many sites that provide tools, services, software and information related to Web 2.0. The site is Go 2 Web 2.0 and is very visual and user-friendly. It can seem overwhelming at first because by default it displays every site out there and there are a gazillion of them! You can focus your search by topic using the search dialog box or selecting from the tag cloud which is my preference. When you move your cursor over a site you get a brief description of the site, but if you click on it you get a more detailed description and link to the site below. Check it out!!

Ken Robinson, TED & Creativity

As an educator and grandmother, I found the premises and concepts presented by Sir Ken very enlightening and thought-provoking. His ideas regarding creativity and our children’s capacity to learn emphasized how integral creativity is to impactful education. Intelligence is diverse, distinct and dynamic – our education system needs to recognize our children’s creative capacity.