Movie Maker was simple and easy to use for my personal use. For the purpose of this blog post and the big size of the saved file I have just shown some screen shots of the movie. The music used was 'I believe' from Fantasia, which of course you cannot hear because the movie hasn't been uploaded. I had a lot of fun creating this, especially using photos of my own children (and yes I did ask them for permission).
What are the affordances for use in the classroom and what sort of things can Movie Maker do?
I think it would be easy to utilise Movie Maker specifically in the classroom as it is a Windows program and most school computers have windows on them. If students have taken photos (see below) they can use those to create a movie with ease and can add music to it for added effect. There is the added advantage of being able to add text features (see above); for example title, caption, credits and so on. The program also allows for animations, transitions and effects to be added to each slide, which is very similar to Powerpoint.
These photos could have text added to them to explain what they are.
Students could also use voice overs to explain what is happening.
Lily (aged 6) took this photo (above)
All photos used with permission from my children (c)
Potential Problems
The only problem that I can see is that once the file is saved it is quite big so embedding it into websites is time consuming. I have yet to figure out how to make this into a smaller file without losing quality of images. I have even saved it as a smaller version and it still takes a while to load. I am also trying to upload it to youtube to see if I can embed it that way, but it still seems to take a long time to do. I like the youtube access as you can nominate public or private. It means that the whole world wouldn't be able to see the movie of my kids. I just tried to upload it via youtube and it was going to take 7 hrs! Wow! There has to be an easier way! Does anybody have any answers on how to fix the size of the movie?
What learning does this digital tool support?
Movie maker would support any creative writing exercise or to use as a creative report post-excursion or post research project. Movie Maker or programs like Photo story can be effective tool to enhance digital use in the classroom in a fun and engaging way. I do think that it would lend itself more to the upper primary age group if it was to be a more unguided task.
Below is a SWOT analysis for using this tool in the classroom!
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