Tech Inquiry Week 10: Reviewing Video Editing for Education

Until college I never used videos for my own education aside from the odd Bill Nye that was shown in class. Now I use videos to teach me everything! From tutorials on cooking, playing instruments, coding, editing, painting, sewing, math, science, etc. There is a video for EVERYTHING. I just had to use a video tutorial to install new windshield wipers. It is amazing how much information YouTube has to offer!

When I endeavoured on this Tech inquiry I wondered to myself, ” How can I make use of these editing skills that I am using to shape my future pedagogy?”. I instantly thought: Well I love KhanAcademy and would recommend the channel to any learner. What do the creators of KhanAcademy do? They edit and create their videos for educational purposes (and probably make a lofty income from YouTube whilst doing it with over 4 million subscribers…)

So today I wanted to sort of dissect a low grade KhanAcademy video and really look at how they presented their content, and what I could borrow for my future classroom.

KhanAcademy offers videos on concepts from basic multiplication to advanced college level science! The reason I love it is all of the different visual used. I think it is so effective because of the multimedia learning design that I discussed in another blog.

This is the video I watched in order to come to a conclusion.

The first thing I noticed was the different colours used on a black background. I am assuming that the contrast of colours helps you focus on the writing at hand, rather than the typical black and white of a whiteboard. I secondly noticed that he reinforces concepts through review of simpler concepts like the number line. He physicalizes the concepts by using movements of his pen like bouncing or using the line tool. When the screen becomes too busy, he wipes it clear which helps with the cognitive overload of visuals. I also notice that the audio quality is very crisp and easy to focus on. Another aspect is that he does not include a face cam which I notice some other educational creators choose to include. I feel like this aspect is unnecessary as it can actually distract from the main message or learning.  He cuts the video up so that the transitions are smooth, he does not include distracting animations and makes sure to make it as clear and crisp as possible.

In conclusion I think KhanAcademy is so successful because they edit/ create their videos in such a way that it is clean, has no distractions, stands out and really gets the concept across. I think students could benefit by watching videos over Face to Face classes in that videos are pausible, are less distracting than your average classroom and the transitions are seamless.

Week 9 Technology Inquiry: Audio Editing & Video Editing my Final Music Video

This week, I decided to finish my video for music. You can see it in my last post. I had to us the pan and zoom features of Adobe Premiere. I am becoming very comfortable using these features in the software. I used Audacity again to record the audio. Last video that I made, I had a hard time syncing the audio so for this round, I clapped in both recordings. I chose to keep the title beside the video due to the panning. I chose to pan the video in order to remove some of the video that I did not want public such as posters and personal items like photographs that were in the background.

I used transitions for the audio like “Constant gain”. I also played around with some audio effects like “decrackler” and “dehummer” which improved the quality of the audio without compromising the integrity of my showing my Saxophone skills for my music teacher to grade.

Protected: EDCI 306 Musical Evidence #2

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Week 8 Technology Inquiry: More Editing

This week, I edited another video.

I used visual effects like texturing and roughening to give the clip the desired effect.

I am very used to editing using Adobe Premiere now. I am interested in trying out Adobe After Effects to see what else I can do to manipulate my video.

For the video I edited this week, I used a new method for syncing my audio that I recorded using Audicity with my video that I recorded using my iPhone. I clapped, so that there would be a distinct sound wave in each recording, then I muted the audio from my iPhone recording.

Next week I intend on reviewing some education videos like KhanAcademy.

Week 7 Technology Inquiry: Trying Out Other Video Editing Software

For This week, I decided not to use my typically used software (Adobe Premiere). I instead used iMovie. I used it twice. Once in class to add slo-mo, green screen, music, and other effects and then I used it again for a drama project I completed with classmates.

All in all, I found iMovie to be more user friendly but it did not offer as many features as Adobe Premiere. The reason I found it to be so user friendly is that it has little menus, it features many point-and-click options that do most of the work for you, it has so many royalty-free/fair-use features such as images, music and sound effects, etc. I did miss having the ability to change very precise aspects of the clips. From my exploration, I saw limited usability of panning, mixing audio, and the text features seemed hard to use.

In conclusion, I think I will keep using Adobe in the future. Mostly because I am not partial to Apple products but also because I am not extremely familiar with iMovie.

In order to protect my classmate’s and my privacy, I had blurred our faces. I had recently learned about FIPPA which is “BC’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act”. This act allows those in a public body to keep their information undisclosed and private. “Personal information is any recorded information that uniquely identifies you, such as your name, address, telephone number, age, sex, race, religion, sexual orientation, disability, fingerprints, or blood type”. “Under FIPPA, a “record” includes books, documents, maps, drawings, photographs, letters, vouchers, papers and any other thing on which information is recorded or stored
by graphic, electronic, mechanical or other means. ” I Most likely could have gotten my classmate’s consent as she is over 18 and most likely wouldn’t mind. For the purposes of this, I chose not to in order to show what other alternative can be taken.

Week 6 Technology Inquiry: Creating a Narrative Through Videos

This week, I edited the majority of my video. Navigating Adobe Premiere became easier as I spent more time with the program. It is a tedious task to add transitions, titles and effects to almost every clip. I am estimating that my project will be done in about a week, in time for my Music class due date.

For this project, I wanted to create a story. I wanted there to be an introduction, foreshadow, rising action, conflict, falling action, climax and conclusion. I believe I have almost achieved that. I succeeded in doing this by arranging my clips in a way that they show what actually happened during my journey of playing the saxophone. I included me buying the saxophone, my first attempt at playing it, the frustrations that came along with playing it, the small successes, and finally the contrast between my playing when I first played to now.

By next week, I will have the finished project on my blog.

Below, I have included what my project looks like. It includes audio and video transitions, title cards, imported audio, and clipped videos. 

Protected: EDCI 306 Musicianship Growth Midterm Evidence

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Week 5 Technology Inquiry: Editing a Video Legally

Yesterday, I though maybe an hour had passed while I was editing my “Saxophone Progress” video, but really it was four hours. I enjoyed the problem solving and process of making something.

I worked with key-frames, which I was not too familiar with. They are basically little signals in a video or clip that make the video do something, either gradually by adding another key-frame, or instantly. You can slowly pan into a part of the video, change the position of where your focus is, speed-up or slow-down segments and many other additional processes I have not yet experimented with.

The little diamonds under the time-stamps are key-frames that I added to change the position and scale of the video,

I used audacity to record my final saxophone audio. To be quite honest, I did not find the quality to be much higher than my iPhone’s microphone capabilities. My Blue Snowball microphone may have done less compression of the higher notes. This microphone is highly reviewed by the gaming community, but I am not sure how well it holds up in the music community.

I also explored what images, music, and sound effects I can and cannot use that I find on the internet. I originally wanted to include the song “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty in my video but it is not my original work or public domain, therefore I did not include it. I am still trying to figure out the rules of copyright as it seems to have a lot of grey areas.

I instead opted for royalty-free music provided by a trusted source: YouTube’s Audio Library, which has details on whether you can use a song or not without giving credit.

If I were to make a commentary video in which I transformed Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street”, that would be considered fair use. But that is not what I am trying to accomplish with my video.

For the photos that I used in my video, I looked for photos that had a Creative Commons license. Which means, the photographer or owner has already given the public permission to use their image, therefore I do not have a risk to steal somebody’s intellectual property.

Another concern with intellectual property is educational resources. Open Scholarships encompass open access, open data, open educational resources, etc in research environments (like University!). Things like literature and journal articles under this umbrella allow users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search or link full texts of these sources.

Weeks 3-4: As Busy as a Bee & as Sick as a Dog

These past two weeks I have found myself in quite a predicament.

I have not made any progress on either of my inquiries. I hate to use excuses but this slow down is due to falling ill, having a driving test coming up and university assignment due dates chasing me and it is hard to keep a steady pace. My priorities have not been aligned so that I work on video editing nor drawing.

In life, things like this will always happen, especially in the education environment, whether that be catching a cold during report card time or having to leave town for serious matter when a crucial part of the curriculum must be covered.

Rather than a set-back I am going to take this time to explore my resilience, time-management and problem solving skills. I will make a schedule in which I fit my inquiry to-do’s into.

Here’s to a fresh week and the beginning of October.

Photo by Public Domain Pictures on Pexels.com

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Week 2 Technology Inquiry: Organising Files

This week I have been recording videos of myself playing the saxophone for my EDCI 306 Musicianship Inquiry.

I have also been going through all of the footage, dating it, labelling it and putting it into a folder. This tedious task will make it much easier for my future self to find the footage I need to edit into the video project.

I have also been thinking about how I would like to structure my video when I begin to edit it in Adobe Premier.

Some of the content I would like to include into my video includes:

• A narrative that shows me first purchasing my saxophone and playing it that day to the progression to the skill level I am at nearest to finalising the video
• I would like to make the video informative for my Music teacher so that she can grade me on progress but also make it entertaining for the purposes of easy viewing and creativity using technology

My goal for next week is to start becoming familiar with the editing software I will be using. I’d like to produce the introduction that presents the beginning of my journey and the struggles that were included. An asset I have going into editing using Adobe Premiere is that my partner has a lot of experience with the software and is willing to help me along the way.

One aspect of this inquiry I am worried about is keeping my video short enough for my music professor to grade my progression but also long enough to showcase my ability to edit videos proficiently.

I have included a photo of the folder I use to organise my video clips and also a bonus photo of my cat thinking my saxophone case is her bed.