WeVideo and ILearnUkulele: Learning Project Week 4

Hello!

Welcome back to my ukulele learning project! My weekly ukulele update is below. You may notice something different about this week's video. Take a look!

Did you see what was different? That's right - my hair was in a bun! ..... just kidding. I used WeVideo to create this week's video so I could include different clips to demonstrate my progress and also record some voiceover explanations of my learning!

For EDTC 300, we were challenged to document our learning progress this week by using an online tool or app that we had never used before. I have always wanted to learn how to edit a video, so I chose WeVideo because I heard it was a great website for video creation. To get started, I went to the WeVideo website and logged in with my Office 365 account. I did not choose to upgrade to Premium, though I saw that there were options for using WeVideo in Education, with teacher, student, and classroom choices. Because I did not update, my video has a WeVideo watermark in the top, but I believe you can create un-watermarked videos with Premium. I chose to edit in the simple mode, as it was my first time using WeVideo. An explanation video for how to use WeVideo is below:

Fun fact: Making the explanation video was my first time using Screencastify, too! 

Other things I did not mention in my video include that I was able to adjust the volume of my video and my narration, so I was able to make my ukulele sound very quiet in the first section. Also, I wasn't able to find a way to create a second narration without deleting the first. I would have liked to speak a bit at the end of my video, but didn't want to redo all my previous narration, so I ended up finishing the video with a text screen instead. In the future, I would wait to do my narration until all my video clips are finalized in the right place.

After finishing the video, I was able to upload the video straight to YouTube from WeMovie, which was a nice feature. I then went to YouTube Editor to finish my usual routine (adding my thumbnail I made on Canva, creating a video description that links to this blog post, adding the video to my learning project playlist, and adding a card in the video to link to the playlist). I had also attempted to add subtitles on WeVideo, but wasn't able to figure it out, so I'm not sure if subtitles are available in the free version. Luckily, YouTube has an automatic subtitles feature and I could just edit those to make sure everything was right.

WeVideo is a great resource that can be used in the classroom. Any assignment could be differentiated to allow students to show their knowledge using a video. It would probably be especially helpful in middle years or high school for things like video essays in Social Studies or ELA or for performances in subjects like film studies, drama, or ELA, but there are many other possibilities! This website falls in the Modification or Redefinition section of the SAMR Model, because this technology allows students to create their own videos with ease - something that is not possible without technology in the classroom. I can also see myself continuing to use this resource personally in the future and would definitely consider paying to be able to use more features and to get rid of the watermark. 

Thanks for checking in on my ukulele learning project update, and for reading about my experience using WeVideo. I hope you consider checking out WeVideo if you've never used it before. If you have, please leave me any tips or tricks you've discovered in the comments!

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P.S. Below is the video I followed when learning this chord progression. It was a bit tricky to use when learning new chords, because he didn't really break them down. I don't think I'll continue using this channel when learning new chord progressions in future weeks!