If a picture's worth a thousand words, then a video's worth . . .

I was due for a cell phone upgrade a few months ago, and purchased the Google Pixel.  I'm always fascinated by the videos it pieces together automatically, using photographs that I take in rapid succession.  There's just something about video that's different, and as much as I try to shun many types of social media, I'm a sucker for Snapchat because of the ability to share a quick video with my family, friends or husband.  Granted, usually my Snaps are goofy videos of my dog or cats - but still.  I love seeing my best friend's daily videos of her son, and my sister's videos of life in Queens never disappoint.  

I began this week's adventure by viewing Garr Reynold's TedTalk, Story, Imagery, and the Art of 21st Century Presentation.  Was anyone else surprised by how amusing it was?  It's always interesting to compare our interpretation of an author's voice with his actual one.  Although I enjoy Reynold's writing style, I didn't picture him as having much of a sense of humor.  I loved Reynold's use of storytelling during the final minutes to really drive his point home.  That's the part of the presentation that stuck with me most.  

I don't have much (read "any") experience with creating my own videos using the tools from this week's sandbox, so this week's exploration was an eye-opener for me.

I started with PowToon.  I've used other people's PowToon's for mini-lessons in the past, and was always curious about the platform.  First, I checked out the tutorial, which was helpful and, blessedly, brief.  I decided I wasn't quite ready to dive in without a safety net, so I started by modifying an existing template - the Syllabus one.  I entered in some information that I tend to include on my course syllabus, changed the character to a female, played around with the way in which text appears and changed the music.  I think that with additional time and modifications, this is something I might actually use.  I love the idea of posting it in Google Classroom so that students always have access.  

Here's what I came up with:

Next,  I played with Adobe Spark.  Adobe Spark was my favorite tool, hands down.  I'm working on something on there now, but haven't quite finished it up yet.  Basically, I chose an image that I thought would be a great start to a story and went from there.  I recorded myself telling the story over top of the images.  There's music in there as well.  Adobe Spark is super intuitive, and I love that their images come from the creative commons.  It's a thing of beauty.  I would love to use this in my English classes exactly the way I'm trying to use it right now.  Each day my students begin class with a writing prompt, and I love the idea of incorporating video.  This tool could be used in any content area for research projects, step-by-step explanations for solving an equation, discussion of a science experiment, book talks, etc.

Finally, I tried PixiClip.  There were some features of PixiClip that I really enjoyed.  For example, I liked being able to use either just audio, or video.  I also liked that you could utilize the whiteboard features as you were recording.  One thing I struggled with, though, was not being able to preview the recording.  There's no way I'd publish anything without being able to see it first (maybe you guys had more success with that part?)  I would definitely use this tool to communicate important information with my students if I wasn't in the classroom.  For example, you could use this to go over directions if there was a substitute teacher in for the day.  You could also use it in conjunction with something like Google Classroom to go over instructions for an assignment.  Students could use this in art/graphic design classes.  I'd also be alright with students using this platform in lieu of completing a presentation in front of the class.  That being said, I'm not sure that I liked it better than PowToon - and I definitely liked it less than Adobe Spark.

I did take a look at some of the apps that were included in this week's sandbox, but the one's I really wanted to try aren't supported by Android (sock puppets?!? it's almost enough to make me want to convert to Apple).  I did take a look at the Google video function that's available through Google Photos.  If you're a Google/Android user, give it a shot! It does most of the work for you.