Video+Activity+1

=**Video Activity 1 - Create a slide show using //MovieMaker//.**= media type="file" key="cartervideoactivity1.wmv" width="300" height="300"

Instru﻿ctions, Part I: Create a still image slide show using MovieMaker:

 * This is a "commercial" for Wiggio. My principal and I have had several conversations about what this program could offer our school, so I took advantage of the old saying "kill two birds with one stone" by using this assignment to introduce it to him.**

What steps did you follow to create this video?
First, I spent time coming up with my idea. I wanted my product to be useful at school, either for my colleagues or my students. Because this was a "slide show" assignment, I had to use screen captured images from my Wiggio account. I decided to organize my video as a tour through the tabs at the top of the site, and add a short narrative of what each feature has to offer.

I wrote my script and then collected my screen captured images, saving them to jpeg files. From experience, I know that Movie Maker gets a little fussy if you don't put EVERYTHING for the movie (sound, images, etc.) in one folder, so I saved everything to a folder on my desktop. For the narration, I recorded sections of my script using Audacity, saving them as Wiggio 1, Wiggio 2, Wiggio 3, etc. This made it very easy to know the order of the sound files for the timeline in Movie Maker - it saved me from having to preview each clip to make sure I was using the right one. Once I had my images and sound, I opened Movie Maker and started a New Collection, into which I put all my sound and images.

In Movie Maker, I created two title slides first (the purple backgrounds with the white text, because they did not need to have narration. Once I liked the timing of the title slides, I dragged my narration to the timeline, trying to overlay the sound clips a little to disguise the microphone turning on and off. Once the sound was in place, the project became pretty easy. All I had to do was match the timing of the images to the script and then add the credits slide at the end. Each image has a fade in/fade out effect to make the video smoother. I couldn't figure out how to also use a song track with the narration I had added, so I saved the project as a movie, and then opened the saved movie in Movie Maker again, using it as a new project file. I had to convert two songs I had on my iTunes from mp4 to mp3. I imported these into my collections in Movie Maker and then put the music in at the beginning and end. To prevent breaking copyright, I tried to time the clips, using only 30 seconds of each song. (My choices of songs stem from the fact that my principal loves sports, hence the "Michael Jordan theme song," called "Sirius" for the end credits.) I saved this new project as a movie again, and voila! - a video I am quite proud of!

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What challenges did you encounter?

 * Even though I have used Movie Maker before, I can't figure out how to put recorded narration and music into one project timeline. I have always ended up going about this very crudely by saving the narration and images as a movie and then reopening the finised movie as a new project and adding the music soundtrack. There's got to be an easier way to do this...
 * I had to make sure that the volume of my narration and the volume of the music worked together well. That took some time.
 * CAPTIONS!!! - see below

What new things did you learn?
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 * As of my typing this, I am frustrated by trying to add captioning for a hearing impaired audience. If I figure it out, I'll change the video file here to the one with the captions. I read Dr. Smyth's information about video accessiblily and really wanted to learn how to do this, especially since I've used Movie Maker before. Last year, I taught two deaf students and was very surprised at the lack of captioned Internet videos available. So, I decided to give MAGpie a try. Let me say this...it worked. I had to do a LOT of reading and fiddling, but ultimately, I have on my desktop and flashdrive a Quick Time file of this same movie with all the capations along the bottom. The captioned version of my video took me at least five hours to figure out and produce, and it's BEAUTIFUL! I learned how to read and plug in the dimensions of my movie to MAGpie, add each track/caption, time their appearance/disappearance using the function keys, and export the movie as a captioned video. Back to **challenges**: The problem? I absolutely cannot figure out how to get the movie file moved from one source to another. If I drag the file from my flash drive to my documents, the movie "fails to load." But, if I right click on the file and open it from the flash drive to Quick Time, the movie plays with the captions. I wish you guys could see it... What you see attached below the video is a kind of text file (.smi) that I created in the MAGpie software, but it's separate from the actual video file. Basically, it's the text file of my captions in list form. So, I **did learn how to caption the video**; however, I feel like I am just one simple step away from learning how to actually post it here. There's nothing like having your masterpiece locked in the closet...