Filmmaking with online resources and a Webinar

In preparing for presentation of Artifact 2, I was impressed to discover new media tools for filmmaking, available largely free online.

Ning helped me make screen shots of websites so that I could introduce my audience to the delightful and smart Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Website. The service includes a professional access that allows for capturing the movement in a website (ie, videos, pop-open features, etc.) and downloading the captured website into a useful MP3 file. This professional service is available for fifteen dollars, a very fair price, but restrictive password coding through a required intermediary site made it impossible to sign up for.

Gazzump.com, on the other hand was entirely user-friendly. It provides a site that allowed me to take clips of Youtube videos. There I found clips of important films from history that supported my premise, "Children around the world have learned about each other through cinema for decades--acquiring insight as they watch them learn, play, discover and dream."

Voiced over narration was recorded directly into FinalCutPro using a microphone provided by the library when my Sony lavalier mic failed.

I also can't say enough about the lasting benefits of learning through doing, especially when the good staff at the Meyer Library is there to help through the difficult places. They are fonts of information and have introduced me to many ways of finding, often free, means of using the wealth of information available publically on the web. Freeware, is a great place to start.

Finally, I chose Vimeo for delivery. I had used Vimeo (like Youtube doing the very same things)to deliver a d school project and, with five minutes to go, I chose that and the d school codes. Vimeo did not deliver my product in its entirety, sadly, so the video section failed, requiring me to be quick on my feet. I know what to do differently in the future.

On further web learning, I "attended" a webinar presentation, " What Does It Mean to Be Internationally Competitive? How the U.S. Can Learn from Standards/Assessments in High-Achieving Nations" from Linda Darling-Hammond this morning form 8:30 to 9:30 through Edutopia's Gotomeeting.com. I heard the speaker's voice, viewed her powerpoint presentation online, and was able to type in questions afterward. Sadly, my question was not attended to. I asked her to consider the arts, both visual and performance, in preparing students to achieving the goal she presented: allowing students to demonstrate more analytic thinking and "to use their minds."