My Video

This is a link to the video I created:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3gfC2OEaKM

Since I can't access ETSU's server through my Mac, I posted my movie on youtube. I finished editing this video this morning. It is a compilation of my wife's ultrasounds a couple weeks ago. Here is the process I used to edit this video:

1. I hooked up a digital camcorder to the ultrasound. My wife is an OBgyn Resident, so I was able to dabble a bit more with the ultrasound machine than your average Joe. One the technician began ultrasounding, I started recording - directly into the camcorder's hard drive.

2. When I got home I uploaded the video to my computer.

3. I then opened iMovie and imported the video into the program. (the computer actually did this automatically when I loaded the video feed.

4. Next I used Limewire, a legal free program, to import songs Brooke had selected for the movie. Once the songs were downloaded, they were automatically imported into iTunes.

5. Once the songs were in iTunes, I could simply drag them to iMovie and the video clip I was editing.

6. After I had all the songs in iMovie, I was able to go through and edit them how I wanted, splicing and dicing.

7. I added some features to make the movie flow a little more creatively, through transitions available through the iMovie software.

Easy as that. Raising the kid in the video - that's a different story all together! Here's the link again:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3gfC2OEaKM

I use iMovie for editing lots of simple videos I grab on both my digital camera and camcorder. It makes editing super easy. I've created lots of kayaking videos and music recordings....again, super easy. I know a lot of people toot Mac's horn and speak to how great Mac's are. I have to agree. I've had my Macbook Pro for two years. I was on the waiting list when the first ones were produced. I've had absolutely no problems from the machine, it has never crashed, and it came standard at $2000 with all the hardware and software I would ever need for both music recording and editing (through Garageband), movie editing (through iMovie), DVD creation (through iDVD), iTunes, Keynote, and....you can download all the windows software. It's the best of both worlds.

Concept Mapping

I chose to do a concept map for 5th grade science - elements of a chemical change. Tennessee state standards for 5th grade science that coincide with this concept map are:

13.0 Interactions of Matter
13.1 Describe the types of changes that result from interactions of matter.
5.13.spi.1 Distinguish between physical and chemical changes.
5.13.spi.2 Compare the effect of physical and chemical changes on matter.
5.13.tpi.2 Compare and contrast the characteristics of physical and chemical changes.

Because I already had kidsperation downloaded, I decided to use it for creating my concept map. It is a bit limited in capability as far as inter-activeness and graphic wise, but the program is still a useful tool in helping kids navigate through a concept map. Because I downloaded the image of my concept map as a .gif, it will not be interactive, however - if used in the classroom the students would be able to navigate on the links to find additional information on the topics. You could make this concept map huge - listing several more links, photos, and facts - but for demonstration purposes, I kept mine fairly simple.

If teaching in the classroom I think I would utilize web questing a bit more than concept mapping. I like the idea of concept maps, but I think in some instances they are a bit limited in their capability. In an era where kids are used to X-Box 360's, interactive online gaming, etc... I feel it is important to attempt to keep up with current trends in inter-activeness and attractiveness to capture their attention, and ultimately "map" their imagination.

I left the actual websites full domain as pasted in case someone wishes to view the site - since this map is simply an image and not interactive.

If used in the classroom I would change the links from the "real" site listed to something like "Video of Chemical Change" or "Chemical Change Quiz."